Talking About Short Fiction

[hatgirl]

I read quite a bit of SF&F short fiction. Not as much as I'd like, of course, but I could say that about everything pleasant in life. But I don't tend to tell people about the short fiction I have enjoyed. I do recommend, and occasionally just hand people, novels that I love. But for some reason it never occurs to me to let people know about the great short stories, novelettes or novellas I've read.

So, I have created a Diigo account! And on it I will post links to short fiction I like (legal links only, obviously). The nice thing about Diigo is that has a tagging system, so I can label whether it's a short story, novelette or novella, if it's eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards, and so on. And I can post comments on the links, which at the moment I am using to list awards nominations or wins.
https://www.diigo.com/user/carol_c

I don't enjoy writing reviews, so I will only be linking to stories I like, rather than discussing those that I don't. But if you like reading reviews, there are some places that review SF&F short fiction. Here are a few:

• http://www.apex-magazine.com/clavis-aurea/
• http://approachingpavonis.blogspot.ie/
• http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/category/short-fiction/
• http://skiffyandfanty.com/tag/short-fiction/
• http://www.tangentonline.com/
• http://www.tor.com/tags/short-fiction-spotlight
• Also, individual anthologies and magazines may be reviewed on Goodreads, like so.

People have had a variety of reactions to the unpleasantness surrounding this year's Hugo Nominations. One that has made me happy has been people vowing to read and discuss short fiction more often. If you are wondering what's eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards, or want to recommend something, the two best places to check/post are:

• http://bit.ly/hugoawardrecs / http://bit.ly/hugoaward2016 (administered by Lady Business)
• http://hugo-recommend.livejournal.com/

Comments

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

Great! I dunno what diigo is, but the more chat about short fiction the better, as far as I'm concerned.

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

Diigo is just a social bookmarking website, like del.icio.us or Google Bookmarks. I'm using it because it has a handy tagging system, and the option to write notes for each bookmark. So if someone just wants to know which Hugo 2016 eligible novellas I liked, they can just select that tag. And later if I feel like it I can add tags like "Irish author", "SF by women", or "Contains Inaccuracies About Growing Potatoes" (I just read The Martian).

[theadydal.livejournal.com]

Excellent will have a look at some of these

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

Hurray! And if you have any particular favourite short stories, written this year or any year, do recommend them to me!

[scorbet.livejournal.com]

Please keep (metaphorically) kicking me to read these (and others). As otherwise I probably won't and then will be all sad next year as I won't know what to nominate...

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

*kick kick kick*
*takes a rest break*
*kick kick kick*

[scorbet.livejournal.com]

It worked - I actually read some! (My short story to novel ratio of 2016 Hugo eligible works is still completely wrong though.)

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

I love Silvia City & Cat Pictures Please. Enjoyed Postcards from Monster Island too, but couldn't get into the Infinite Skies one at all.

[scorbet.livejournal.com]

Yay! Someone else who seems to have similar taste in short stories to me, that I can use as a semi-filter.

(I tend not to like "critically acclaimed" short stories, and get easily discouraged.)

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

Shall we invent our own set of awards? The uh... Awww Awards. For stories that made the us go "awwwww...."
As it is a "juried" award that makes it extra prestigious :-D

[scorbet.livejournal.com]

An *international* "juried" award at that. That makes it so much more prestigious.

However, while making me go "awwwww..." is definitely a plus, it's not entirely necessary. A beginning, a middle and an end, though is a different story :-)

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

The BeMiE awards!

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

"The Garden Beyond Her Infinite Skies" was very odd alright, but I liked the personality of the um... floating ball thing :-D I still can't figure out if it's SF or Fantasy :-D

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked her too. But I couldn't get into the setting.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Montague's Last: http://omenana.com/2015/06/22/montagues-last/

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

I also liked the next one, The Man Who Stole Monday. I didn't like it at first, but changed my mind near the end. It's not brilliant, but satisfying enough.

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

Finally read these!

Wasn't mad about "Montague's Last". The writing style was very 5th-Year-Christmas-Exams-Essay, and the plotting was all over the shop. I enjoyed "The Man Who Stole Monday" more, even though it was a bit thin on plot and logic. That's sort of what I liked about it - it reminded me of old Asimov / Clarke era fiction.

Omenana is an interesting magazine, I'll be adding it to my (ever-expanding) To Read list.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

I think that's what I didn't like about it. It felt dated, like from that time, and I'm not big on pre-80s/90s sf.

I've read one from the first issue. The 4:15 appt, or something like that. It's probably my favourite of all the Omenana ones I've read (which is that one plus issue 3). 2014, so too late to nominate.

I think it's out every 3 months, so shouldn't take up too much of your time :-)

[scorbet.livejournal.com]

Will you be restarting your Retro Hugo women awareness campaign? Apparently the 1941 Retro Hugos are being awarded next year.