Once again, Warren Ellis exposes the falling number of subscriptions in the printed SF&F short story market.
"Cases are always made that in fact these magazines are on strong — or at least survivable — financial ground. Even ignoring the fact that the money they offer for fiction is pitiful, I think that matters less than that they are reaching massively fewer people every year."
There's no flash fiction this week because I've been busy with other things. Beside celebrating the first review of my short story collection over at The Fix, I'm in the process of being interviewed for a forthcoming issue of Interzone, and have just participated in the recording of audio versions of two of my most popular short stories: The Last Reef and Ack-Ack Macaque.
Also today, there's a new press release up at TTA Press, entitled: 'Exciting Times For Interzone Authors', which mentions both the launch of my short story collection in August and the launch of my novel next April, and includes me in the new "generation" of writers to have used the magazine as the launch pad for their careers:
"Over Interzone’s 26 years, several generations of new writers have emerged via its pages... within a few years Geoff Ryman, Kim Newman, Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan, Eric Brown and others were discovered, so I’ll call them the first Interzone generation.This is just a snippet from the release. You can read the whole thing at TTA Press: http://ttapress.com/479/exciting-times-for-interzone-authors/By 1990, a second generation was developing nicely; Charlie Stross, Ian Macleod, Keith Brooke, Alastair Reynolds, Richard Calder, Chris Beckett, Ben Jeapes, John Meaney, and Sarah Ash. The 3rd generation introduced Liz Williams, Tony Ballantyne and (to English language readers at least) Zoran Zivkovic plus, no doubt, others who have yet to produce a novel.
Now, a new generation is starting to come through with Tim Akers and Gareth Lyn Powell, so can Karen Fishler, Jason Stoddard and others be far behind?"
The new issue of Interzone is here, including the results of the 2007 Readers' Poll.
As you already know, my story "Ack-Ack Macaque" came first in the poll, closely followed by stories from Grace Dugan and Alastair Reynolds.
Included with the results in the magazine this year are a selection of comments from the voters. There were a couple of complimentary ones about "Ack-Ack Macaque" - and only one negative one, which made me laugh out loud because it described the characters as "petty and unpleasant hipsters".
Coming first in this poll means a great deal to me, as it was my ambition for many years to sell a story to Interzone, and I'm absolutely delighted that now I've had two featured in the magazine, both have enjoyed an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from the readership.
I'm delighted to see the readers of Interzone have voted "Ack-Ack Macaque" as their favourite short story of 2007.
I'm very pleased and surprised with this accolade for three reasons: 1) because my story was up against some very strong writing from some excellent authors, 2) because Interzone's always been the standard against which I've measured my success, and 3) because this poll was voted for by the readers of the magazine, and shows there's an audience out there for the kind of stuff I'm writing.
This is the second year running I've had a story placed highly in this poll, and I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me.
You can see a list of the full results here: http://ttapress.com/441/2007-interzone-readers-poll-results
Recently, there has been a debate raging in Sf circles around something called "Mundane SF" - a brave experiment by some writers to produce valid SF stories without resorting to the standard SF tropes of artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, alien intelligence, or alternate universes - instead building their stories using only the real world technology available at the time of writing.
On the face of it, this sounds like an interesting exercise. But because the Mundanistas have presented the idea as some sort of manifesto, it has led to a division among SF writers and fans between those who support it as a new movement, and those who see it as an attack on traditional SF.
As Interzone 216 will be a special "Mundane" issue, I thought I'd take this opportunity to state my own position - which is very simple:
Some of the stories I have written could be classed as "mundane", others as "cyberpunk" or "space opera". And that's what "Mundane SF" is - another setting, another background against which to tell stories.
I find writing "Mundane SF" an interesting exercise, and I wish nothing but success to other writers taking up the challenge. But at the same time, there's no way I'm going to limit myself to exclusively writing "mundane" stories. Why would I? SF offers such a vast panorama of ideas and possibilities, it seems perverse to confine yourself to the here-and-now.
I like "Mundane SF" and I applaud its attempt to create a new branch of SF. I have no doubt that I will write some "mundane" stories. But for me, the canvas is wider and I will continue to go wherever my imagination takes me.
Rather than setting up artificial divisions in the SF community, we should be celebrating its diversity.
Matthew Tait has re-posted the review of Interzone 202 that originally appeared on the Horrorscope site back in June 2006. Of my contribution to that issue, he writes:
"Author Gareth Lyn Powell gives us The Last Reef, and manages, via a powerful torrent of invention, to imbue a myriad of ideas more in tune with a novel than a short story. In such a short space, we are treated to a potential future where simple communication nodes in an interplanetary radio network develop into sentience with awesome results. Humans, in their desire to transform, enter this matrix and are utterly altered from the creatures they once were. Some experience physical or mental deformities; others are elevated to a higher level of consciousness. People transformed by the Reef are highly sought after prizes as the Reefs themselves slowly morph into different realms or are terminated by the powers that be. Against this backdrop are three characters trying to reverse the reef’s destructive forces. Powell uses love as a motivation, with clever flashbacks throughout that dovetail inexorably toward the ending. Accompanied by a brilliant illustration, The Last Reef is a fabulous read indeed."
If you missed the printed version, you can read my short story "Ack-Ack Macaque" by purchasing an electronic copy of Interzone 212 from Fictionwise.
TTA Press have posted a scan of my latest newspaper clipping: http://ttapress.com/321/well-done-gareth/#more-321
The pictured article appeared in today's edition of the Portishead Times. It explains how my short story "The Last Reef" came to be broadcast on WRFR FM radio in Rockland, Maine.
Don't forget to vote for my short story "Ack-Ack Macaque" in the Annual Interzone Reader's Poll: You can cast your vote online at: http://ttapress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=456
I would like to remind you that you can vote for my short story "Ack-Ack Macaque" in the Annual Interzone Reader's Poll. Voting starts with the new issue of Interzone, available next week. I came sixth in this poll last year with my story "The Last Reef" - and I hope to do well again this year.
And while we're on the subject, the following stories are all eligible for the Preditors & Editors reader's choice poll, should you feel like nominating any of them.
"Ack-Ack Macaque" gets another mention in Colin Harvey's review of Interzone 213 on Suite101.com.
In his review of Interzone 212, Blue Tyson calls "Ack-Ack Macaque" a "high point" of the issue and sums the plot up in one succinct sentence:
"Everybody loves the monkey until it goes a bit Skynet."
If you missed my story in issue 212 of Interzone, you can now read it electronically by ordering that issue from Fictionwise.
In his review of Interzone 212, Neale Monks writes:
Next up is the delightfully-named 'Ack-Ack Macaque' by Gareth Lyn Powell. The author plays with the idea of what happens when the Fourth Wall between the protagonists of the tale and their fictional creation collapses. The mechanism chosen for this catastrophe is clever enough to be plausible without too much technobabble being required and Powell manages to pull the thing off remarkably well in what is basically a humorous, lightweight tale. There's also a very British (ie gloomy) love story going on in the background, as well as some decent satirical swipes at what happens to characters in comic novels when Hollywood decides to turn them into cash-cows. All in all, a fun story and one of the best in this particular issue of 'Interzone'.
From: http://interzone.blogdrive.com/
Começa com "Feelings of the flesh" de Douglas Elliott Cohen mas confesso que gostei mais da short story de Gareth Lyn Powell com o titulo "Ack-Ack Macaque". Em apenas quatro paginas este conto descreve-nos a historia de Tori e seus namorados Andy e Josh, em que numa animação por computador criada por Tori e postriormente transformada num jogo on-line pela empresa de Josh, sai fora de controlo e tras o caos e o apocalipse perante a impotência e desespero deles.
Following last week's opening episode, the second and final part of my story "The Last Reef" has been broadcast on WRFR and is now available to download as a podcast.
Rich Horton picks out "Ack-Ack Macaque" as one of his favourite Interzone stories of 2007:
My favorite Interzone short story was "Heartstrung", by Rachel Swirsky (June), with its powerful central metaphor of girls removing their hearts and sewing them to their sleeves as part of their passage to adulthood. I also liked Beth Bernobich's "A Handful of Pearls" (October), a dark story about a scientist investigating an isolated island who has a troubled history -- only too disturbingly replicated when his team discovers a girl from a humanlike species on the island. Another good one is Gareth Lyn Powell's "Ack-Ack Macaque" (October), about a man's failed relationship with a woman who writes a successful anime about a monkey airship pilot. (One does wonder, between this story and the Blaschke story and David Mole's "Finisterra" in F&SF, if some stories aimed at the delightful anthology of a couple of years ago, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (co-edited by Moles, actually), didn't get finished in time for that book and are now appearing.) And I enjoyed Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Molly and the Red Hat" (December), a neat tale about a very young girl and her magical hat and how it saved her brother. M. John Harrison's "The Good Detective" (April), about missing persons -- people lost to the pressures or the existential stress of contemporary life. It's quite beautifully written. Other good stories came from Jay Lake, Stephen Francis Murphy, Aliette de Bodard, Tim Akers, and Ahmed A. Khan.
In a review of Interzone 212, SF Signal says:
"...212 is chock full of stories. The standouts being: 'Feelings of the Flesh' by Douglas Elliot Cohen (a unique story with creature who can steal a person's senses), 'Ack-Ack Macaque' by Gareth Lyn Powell (about an underground comic character that becomes very powerful), and 'The Algorithm' by Tim Akers (a clockpunk story where God is of the machine, the best of the issue)."
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