Other Worlds

Category: Talking about fiction

  • The Hobbit’s 75th anniversary

    The Hobbit was published on Sept. 21, 1937 — 75 years ago today. Among all the penetrating and insightful tributes that have been written about this masterpiece, what can I add? Well, I am going to address the neglected question of “Do hobbits wear shoes?” They don’t. Our authoritative source says flatly: they “wear no…

  • “Ambidextrose” by Jay Werkheiser

    “Ambidextrose” by Jay Werkheiser is from the October 2012 issue of Analog. It builds its situation from a problem of chemical incompatibility between human settlers of an alien planet and the exobiotic native life, useless to Earth organisms because the organic molecules are chemically wrong-handed. Wrong-handed sugars are nutritionally inert for humans, the amino acids…

  • “Nell” by Karen Hesse

    “Nell” is a new story up on Tor.com this week. Read it here. (It’s reprinted from an anthology, What You Wish For, published by Book Wish Foundation, 2012) The story is told from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl who’s been 12 for about a hundred years, but in different bodies: One winter night in…

  • “Star Soup” by Chris Willrich in Asimov’s

    I’m currently reading the Sept 2012 issue of Asimov’s, and I haven’t gotten through the whole issue yet, but I’ve gone back to read “Star Soup” by Chris Willrich. I find it a highly pleasurable story. I was a little surprised to like it so much, because after the first two pages my expectation was…

  • Hugo Awards winners

    Well, if you were among the 600+ watching the live stream of the Hugos, you already know what happened. After the short clips of several nominees in the short dramatic presentation category, UStream shut down the livecast for “copyright violations.” Presumably done by an automated system rather than a real person. Wittiest comment from Twitter:…

  • Three Things that Are Missing from the Hugo Ballot…

    My thoughts on what is missing, or at least, what there is not enough of, in the fiction categories (excluding Novel). Adventure! Suspense! More adventure and suspense, please! Especially suspense. I’m a Hitchcock lover for the simple reason that, wow, could that man keep me hanging on what was going to happen next. Stories that…

  • Hugo Awards: My pick for the Best Novella

    What story to root for? I think in this category it comes down to a choice between “Silently and Very Fast” and “The Man Who Bridged the Mist.” Catherynne Valente’s story has continued to tug at my imagination, and so at last I acknowledge that “Silently and Very Fast” is my pick, with a respectful…

  • Hugo Awards: Best Novella (6th contender)

    Last in the novella category is Ken Liu’s “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” from Panverse Three. Read it here. This story deals with Japanese atrocities against the occupied Chinese, specifically a region where the Japanese built a complex in which to perform medical experiments on Chinese civilians. Thousands endured hideous tortures and died;…

  • Hugo Awards: Best Novella (5th contender)

    Next we come to Catherynne Valente’s “Silently and Very Fast,” from Clarkesworld. You can read it here. This story is told from the point of view of an artificial intelligence, Elefsis — originally the name of the house for which the software was written as an operating system. Elefsis was created by a programmer, Cassian,…

  • Hugo Awards: Best Novella (4th contender)

    Now we come to Kij Johnson’s “The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” from Asimov’s. You can read it here. This is a lovely story — actually, a love story, and few other things besides. Kit Meinem, of the capital city of Empire, arrives at the small town of Nearside, which is situated on the great…