Awards Pimpage: DayBreak Stories

Following my previous award pimpage on the Shine blog, I would also like to remind people that the DayBreak stories are also eligible for awards. The ones appearing in 2010 are (divided by category, the titles link directly to the full stories, the author names to their websites, and the hits are from when people click through as the posts on the main page only show the first three paragraphs):

Short Stories (up to 7500 words):

• A Thousand Trains Out of Here—Paul Evanby (iPhone App) (577 hits);
• The Notebook of My Favourite Skin-Trees—Alex Dally MacFarlane (a whopping 7331 hits);
• The Rules of Utopia—James Bloomer (652 hits);
• Barcode Babes—Martin McGrath (835 hits);
• Arsonist—Jennifer Linneae (421 hits);
• Hindenburg’s Vimana Joyride—Ernest Hogan (1572 hits);
• The Human Factor—Susanne Martin (262 hits);
• Dropped Packets—Emily Mangan (333 hits);

Novelettes (7500 to 17500 words):

• She’s All Light—LaShawn M. Wanak (1962 hits);
• Dalí’s Clocks—Dave Hutchinson (1259 hits);
• Riding in Mexico—Brenda Cooper (740 hits);
• A Mirror to Life—Jaine Fenn (384 hits);
• No Dominion—Christopher L. Bennett (347 hits);

That’s thirteen more upbeat stories in 2010,and thank you for your consideration!

The ‘Lost’ SHINE Interview: Lavie Tidhar

Again my profound thanks to the indefatiguable Charles A. Tan for interviewing all the SHINE authors. Well, all the SHINE authors? Charles missed one, possibly becuase he’s so close to him (relatively speaking: they both post on the World SF News Blog, but live a considerable distance from each other).

I thought about attenting Charles to this (and I will now), but on second thought decided to interview Lavie myself.

So here is the ‘lost’ SHINE interview with Lavie Tidhar (and as an extra bonus tomorrow I will post the podcast of Lavie’s SHINE story The Solnet Ascendancy, narrated, very vividly, by Ray Sizemore):

Jetse de Vries: Actually, I don’t really see you as an ‘optimistic’ writer (at least: the work that I’m aware of). So why try SHINE? Stretch your wings? The challenge? Or do you just want to be published in every publication available?

Lavie Tidhar: It’s interesting — how do you fit into an ‘optimist?’ label? I’m not sure I’d describe myself that way, but with my science fiction work — I’ve been working on my own sort of future-history in a sequence of short stories and at least one novel — and that assumption, that there is a future, that humanity goes on to the solar system and even out of it, that it develops the tools necessary for its own survival — that’s quite optimistic, isn’t it?

I’m not sure the stories themselves are particularly optimistic — which comes down to an awareness that, even if we do go out into space, even if we do develop alternative energy sources and so on — humanity will still remain the same. You’d still have abuse (of people, of power), greed, violence… which means you can still tell interesting stories. I don’t ever see a utopia emerging, but I also doubt we’ll destroy ourselves in the short term.

So — a realist? But I’m pretty sure realists don’t write science fiction…

Maybe the answer is just wanting to be in every publication going, as you suggested!

SHINE Released!

US:
UK:

ELECTRONIC:

The Shine anthology has been released in the USA March 30, and in the UK April 15, to high critical acclaim. Check out the Table of Contents below. Story titles link to story excerpts, complete with pictures, review quotes, exclusive interviews & interactive maps; author names link to their websites:

• The Earth of Yunhe (podcast!)—Eric Gregory
• The Greenman Watches the Black Bar Go Up, Up, Up—Jacques Barcia
• Overhead—Jason Stoddard
• Summer Ice—Holly Phillips
• Sustainable Development—Paula R. Stiles
• The Church of Accelerated Redemption—Gareth L. Powell & Aliette de Bodard
• The Solnet Ascendancy—Lavie Tidhar
• Twittering the Stars—Mari Ness
• Seeds—Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• At Budokan—Alastair Reynolds
• Sarging Rasmussen: A Report by Organic—Gord Sellar
• Scheherazade Caught in Starlight—Jason Andrew
• Russian Roulette 2020—Eva Maria Chapman
• Castoff World—Kay Kenyon
• Paul Kishosha’s Children—Kenn Edgett
• Ishin—Madeline Ashby

Here are some review quotes:

That’s why Shine is such a significant — dare I say, historic — anthology. And with a rich diversity of settings and thematic speculation, this is a collection most science fiction fans will undoubtedly embrace.

—Explorations: the Barnes & Noble SciFi and Fantasy Blog;

Overall, Shine is utterly worth reading.

—SciFi Wire;

But it would be difficult — some might say doubly impossible — for every entry in an anthology as ambitious as Shine to appeal to every reader. It is to de Vries’ credit that all but the most hard-hearted of sci-fi readers should find their own brand of optimism represented somewhere among Shine’s array of bright futures.

—New Scientist;

But if we are to have some some influence over how that change unfolds, isn’t it important that our stories, whether they be in the news, on television screens or in the pages of science fiction novels, fully explore the optimistic possibilities that technology represents?

—The Guardian;

If another collection of stories as good as this is published this year, it will be an annus mirabilis. Shine is one of the best single anthologies of recent years.

—Suite 101;

There are SF writers who continue to explore non-Singularity earth societies that work without reverting to feudalism: Ursula Le Guin, Jack McDevitt, Alex Jablokow, to name just a few. Shine is a worthy squire to these paladins. Granted, it’s a qualified success; yet the fact that it exists at all and that several of its stories are high quality is reason to hope that SF won’t become a whiny couch potato on Prozac.

—The Huffington Post;

To round off this very long review I’m happy to report that Shine was a truly fascinating and enjoyable read. I’m not the biggest SF fan in the world, but I’ll happily promote this to others who, like me, feel the same way. Here are authors with stories and characters I could relate to. But then, I suspect hardened SF readers out there will devour this with gusto. Jetse de Vries has done a truly remarkable job putting Shine together and I’d like to be signed up to read any follow-up anthology because this one has genuinely broken down some preconceived ideas I’ve had about the genre.

—SF Revu;

For an anthology with a very tight remit — optimistic near-future science fiction — there is a huge variety in the stories themselves. It occurs to me that this book is the perfect introduction to SF for readers who wouldn’t normally venture into the genre.

—Catherine Hughes;

The diversity of the stories and the consistently high quality of this collection is testament to his passion for this project. […] A shining example of what positive thinking can achieve.

—Val’s Random Comments;

[…] it also ably demonstrates the potential of optimistic science fiction to entertain and speculate at the same time.

—Futurismic;

Jetse de Vries did an excellent job in selecting and editing beautiful stories from a group of talented writers. I greatly enjoyed all of Shine’s stories, maybe with one or two exceptions. I would highly recommend Shine.

—Speculative Book Review;

The whole collection has the effect of leaving you in a better frame of mind at the end of each story. It’s not that all of the stories are warm and cosy. On the contrary, some of the narrators are coarse, violent and vulgar. The overall tempo succeeds in meeting the aim of the anthology, demonstrating that mankind, either individually or collectively, socially or technologically, can make a positive difference.

—SF Crowsnest;

Shine left me feeling like a cat lazing in the sunshine, happy and inspired.  It’s vital and relevant, an almost living thing.  If it’s not looked back on as a significant early step on a new path for sci-fi — along with The Apex Book of World SF — I’d be surprised.

—Dylan Fox;

It’s a bold attempt to counter the prevailing doom of much current SF.

—The Guardian;

An interactive map of SHINE story locations:

Independents:

Canada:

Germany:

India:

2009 DayBreak Stories Poll

DayBreak Magazine Reading at WFC!

Hot off the press: Alan Beatts — Borderlands Books owner and this World Fantasy’s man in charge of the program — just confirmed that there is a slot available at the World Fantasy Convention for the DayBreak Magazine reading!

Friday night, October 31, in the Crystal Room, at 9 PM: DayBreak Magazine Reading!

Apart from your editor (who won’t be reading…;-), the following DayBreak authors will be there:

• Jeff Soesbe (“The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram”);
• David D. Levine (“horrorhouse”, which will be published at the very same evening);
• Amanda Clark (“The Branding of Shu Mei Fen”: planned for Friday November 27);
• Brenda Cooper (“Riding in Mexico”: planned for Friday February 5);
• Jennifer Lineae (“Arsonist”: planned for Friday April 16); 

 

In the meantime, I will check if the fickle gods of Schiphol tax free have something interesting on offer to bring along…