the new voices of science fiction

November 14, 2019

THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION preview: “OUR LADY OF THE OPEN ROAD” by Sarah Pinsker

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized elizabeth story, excerpt, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, matt dixon, our lady of the open road, preview, sarah pinsker, the new voices of science fiction

In celebration of the recently released THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, Tachyon and editors Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman present
glimpses into the future of science fiction from several of the volume’s
magnificent tales.

OUR LADY OF THE OPEN ROAD

Sarah Pinsker

A
middle-aged cowboy wandered over to stare at our van. I pegged him
for a legit rancher from a distance, but as he came closer I noticed
a clerical collar beneath the embroidered shirt. His boots shone and
he had a paunch falling over an old rodeo belt; the incongruous image
of a bull-riding minister made me laugh. He startled when he realized
I was watching him.

He
made a motion for me to lower my window.

“Maryland
plates!” he said. “I used to live in Hagerstown.”

I
smiled, though I’d only ever passed through Hagerstown.

“Used
to drive a church van that looked kinda like yours, too, just out of
high school. Less duct tape, though. Whatcha doing out here?”

“Touring.
Band.”

“No
kidding! You look familiar. Have I heard of you?”

“Cassis
Fire,” I said, taking the question as a prompt for a name. “We
had it painted on the side for a while, but then we figured out
we got pulled over less when we were incognito.”

“Don’t
think I know the name. I used to have a band, back before …”
His voice trailed off, and neither of us needed him to finish his
sentence. There were several “back befores” he could be referring
to, but they all amounted to the same thing. Back before StageHolo
and SportsHolo made it easier to stay home. Back before most people
got scared out of congregating anywhere they didn’t know everybody.

“You’re
not playing around here, are you?”

I
shook my head. “Columbus, Ohio. Tomorrow night.”

“I
figured. Couldn’t think of a place you’d play nearby.”

“Not
our kind of music, anyway,” I agreed. I didn’t know what music he
liked, but this was a safe bet.

“Not
any kind. Oh well. Nice chatting with you. I’ll look you up on
StageHolo.”

He
turned away.

“We’re
not on StageHolo,” I called to his back, though maybe not loud
enough for him to hear. He waved as his Chauffeur drove him off the
lot.

“Luce,
you’re a terrible salesperson,” Silva said to me.

“What?”
I hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention.

“You
know he recognized you. All you had to do was say your name instead
of the band’s. Or ‘Blood and Diamonds.’ He’d have paid for
dinner for all of us, then bought every T-shirt and download code we
have.”

“And
then he’d listen to them and realize the music we make now is
nothing like the music we made then. And even if he liked it, he’d
never go to a show. At best he’d send a message saying how much he
wished we were on StageHolo.”

“Which
we could be …”

“Which
we won’t be.” Silva knew better than to argue with me on that
one. It was our only real source of disagreement.

The
neon “open” sign in the restaurant’s window blinked out, and I
took the cue to put the key back in the ignition. The glowplug light
came on, and I started the van back up.

My
movement roused Jacky again. “Where are we now?”

I
didn’t bother answering.

As I
had guessed, the owner hadn’t quite understood what I was asking
for. I gave him the engine tour, showing him the custom oil filter
and the dual tanks. “We still need regular diesel to start, then
switch to the veggie oil tank. Not too much more to it than that.”

“It’s
legal?”

Legal
enough. There was a gray area wherein perhaps technically we were
skirting the fuel tax. By our reasoning, though, we were also
skirting the reasons for the fuel tax. We’d be the ones who got in
trouble, anyway. Not him.

“Of
course,” I said, then changed the subject. “And the best part is
that it makes the van smell like egg rolls.”

He
smiled. We got a whole tankful out of him, and a bag full of food
he’d have otherwise chucked out, as well.

The
guys were over the moon about the food. Dumpster diving behind a
restaurant or Superwally would have been our next order of business,
so anything that hadn’t made a stop in a garbage can on its way to
us was haute cuisine as far as we were concerned. Silva took the lo
mein—no complimentary bread—screwed together his travel
chopsticks, and handed mine to me from the glove compartment. I
grabbed some kind of moo shu without the pancakes, and Jacky woke
again to snag the third container.

“Can
we go someplace?” Silva asked, waving chopsticks at the window.

“Got
anything in mind on a Tuesday night in the boonies?”

Jacky
was up for something, too. “Laser tag? Laser bowling?”

Sometimes
the age gap was a chasm. I turned in my seat to side-eye the kid.
“One vote for lasers.”

“I
dunno,” said Silva. “Just a bar? If I have to spend another hour
in this van I’m going to scream.”

I
took a few bites while I considered. We wouldn’t be too welcome
anywhere around here, between our odor and our look, not to mention
the simple fact that we were strangers. On the other hand, the more
outlets I gave these guys for legit fun, the less likely they were to
come up with something that would get us in trouble. “If we see a
bar or a bowling joint before someplace to sleep, sure.”

“I
can look it up,” said Jacky.

“Nope,”
I said. “Leave it to fate.”

After
two-thirds of the moo shu, I gave up and closed the container. I
hated wasting food, but it was too big for me to finish. I wiped my
chopsticks on my jeans and put them back in their case.

Two
miles down the road from the restaurant, we came to Starker’s,
which I hoped from the apostrophe was only a bar, not a strip club.
Their expansive parking lot was empty except for eight Chauffeurs,
all lined up like pigs at a trough. At least that meant we didn’t
have to worry about some drunk crashing into our van on his way out.

I
backed into the closest spot to the door. It was the best lit, so I
could worry less about our gear getting lifted. Close was also good
if the locals decided they didn’t like our looks.

We
got the long stare as we walked in, the one from old Westerns, where
all the heads swivel our way and the piano player stops playing.
Except, of course, these days the piano player didn’t stop, because
the piano player had no idea we’d arrived. The part of the pianist
in this scenario was played by Roy Bittan, alongside the whole E
Street Band, loud as a stadium and projected in StageHolo 3D.

“Do
you want to leave?” Jacky whispered to me.

“No,
it’s okay. We’re here now. Might as well have a drink.”

“At
least it’s Bruce. I can get behind Bruce.” Silva edged past me
toward the bar.

A few at leasts: at least it was Bruce, not some cut-rate imitation.
Bruce breathed punk as far as I was concerned, insisting on recording
new music and legit live shows all the way into his eighties. At
least it was StageHolo and not StageHoloLive, in which case there’d
be a cover charge. I was willing to stand in the same room as the
technology that was trying to make me obsolete, but I’d be damned
if I paid them for the privilege. Of course, it wouldn’t be Bruce
on StageHoloLive, either; he’d been gone a couple of years now, and
this Bruce looked to be only in his sixties, anyway. A little flat,
too, which suggested this was a retrofitted older show, not one
recorded using StageHolo’s tech.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

November 13, 2019

THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION preview: “Openness” by Alexander Weinstein

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alexander weinstein, elizabeth story, excerpt, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, matt dixon, openess, preview, the new voices of science fiction

Openness

Alexander Weinstein

Before
I decided to finally give up on New York, I subbed classes at a
junior high in Brooklyn. A sixth grade math teacher suffering from
downloading anxiety was out for the year, and jobs being what they
were, I took any opportunity I could. Subbing math was hardly my
dream job; I had a degree in visual art, for which I’d be in debt
for the rest of my life. All I had to show for it was my senior
collection, a series of paintings of abandoned playgrounds, stored in
a U-Pack shed in Ohio. There was a time when I’d imagined I’d
become famous, give guest lectures at colleges, and have
retrospectives at MoMA. Instead, I found myself standing in front of
a class of apathetic tweens, trying to teach them how to do long
division without accessing their browsers. I handed out pen and
paper, so that for once in their lives they’d have a tactile
experience, and watched as they texted, their eyes glazed from
blinking off message after message. They spent most of the class
killing vampires and orcs inside their heads and humoring me by
lazily filling out my photocopies.

The
city overwhelmed me. Every day I’d walk by hundreds of strangers,
compete for space in crowded coffee shops, and stand shoulder to
shoulder on packed subway cars. I’d scan profiles, learning that
the woman waiting for the N enjoyed thrash-hop, and the barista at my
local coffee shop loved salted caramel. I’d had a couple fleeting
relationships, but mostly I’d spend weekends going to bars and
sleeping with people who knew little more than my username. It all
made me want to turn off my layers, go back to the old days, and stay
disconnected. But you do that and you become another old guy buried
in an e-reader, complaining about how no one sends emails anymore.

So I
stayed open, shared the most superficial info of my outer layer with
the world, and filtered through everyone I passed, hoping to find
some connection. Here was citycat5, jersygirl13, m3love. And then,
one morning, there was Katie, sitting across from me on the N. She
was lakegirl03, and her hair fell from under her knit cap. The only
other info I could access was her hometown and that she was single.

Hi,
I winked, and when I realized she had her tunes on, I sent off an
invite. She raised her eyes.

Hi,
she winked back.

You’re
from Maine? I’m planning a trip there this summer. Any suggestions?

She
leaned forward and warmth spread across my chest from being allowed
into her second layer. I’m Katie, she winked. You should
visit Bar Harbor, I grew up there. She gave me access to an image
of a lake house with tall silvery pines rising high above the
shingled roof. Wish I could help more, but this is my stop. As
she stood waiting for the doors to open, I winked a last message. Can
I invite you for a drink? The train hissed, the
doors opened, and she looked back at me and smiled before
disappearing into the mass of early morning commuters. It was as the
train sped toward work that her contact info appeared in my mind,
along with a photo of her swimming in a lake at dusk.

It
turned out that Katie had been in the city for a couple of years
before she’d found a steady job. She taught senior citizens how to
successfully navigate their layers. She’d helped a retired doctor
upload images of his grandchildren so strangers could congratulate
him, and assisted a ninety-three-year-old widow in sharing her
mourning with the world. Her main challenge, she said, was getting
older folks to understand the value of their layers.

“Every
class they ask me why we can’t just talk instead,” she shared as
we lay in bed. Though Katie and I occasionally spoke, it was always
accompanied by layers. It was tiring to labor through the sentences
needed to explain how you ran into a friend; much easier to share the
memory, the friend’s name and photo appearing organically.

“At
least they still want to speak. My class won’t even say hello.”

“You
remember what it was like before?” she asked.

I
tried to think back to high school, but it was fuzzy. I was sure we
used to talk more, but it seemed like we doled out personal details
in hushed tones.

“Not
really,” I said. “Do you?”

“Sure.
My family’s cabin is completely out of range. Whenever I go back we
can only talk.”

“What’s
that
like?”

She
shared a photo of walking in the woods with her father, the earth
covered in snow, and I felt the sharp edge of jealousy. Back where I
grew up, there hadn’t been any pristine forests to walk through,
just abandoned mini-marts, a highway, and trucks heading past our
town, which was more a pit stop than a community. The only woods were
behind the high school, a small dangerous place where older kids
might drag you if you didn’t run fast enough. And my parents sure
didn’t talk. My mother was a clinical depressive who’d spent my
childhood either behind the closed door of her bedroom or at the
kitchen table, doing crossword puzzles and telling me to be quiet
whenever I asked her something. My father had hit me so hard that
twice I’d blacked out. My history wasn’t the kind of thing I
wanted to unlock for anyone, and since leaving Ohio I’d done my
best to bury those memories within my layers.

So I
spent our first months sharing little of myself. Katie showed me the
memories of her best friends and family while I showed her the
mundane details of substitute teaching and my favorite bands. I knew
Katie could feel the contours of my hidden memories, like stones
beneath a bedsheet, but for a while she let me keep the private pain
of my unlocked layers.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

November 12, 2019

THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION preview: “One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alice sola kim, excerpt, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, one hour every seven years, preview, the new voices of science fiction

One Hour, Every Seven Years

Alice Sola Kim

When Margot is nine, she and her parents live on Venus. The surface
of Venus, at that time, is one enormous sea with a single continent
on its northern pole, perched there like a tiny, ridiculous top hat.
There is sea below, and sea above, rain continually plummeting from
the sky, endlessly self-renewing.

When
I am thirty, I won’t have turned out so hot. No one will know; from
a few feet away, I’ll seem fine. They won’t notice the dandruff,
the opalescent flaking of my chin. They won’t know that I walk hard
and deliberate, like a ’40s starlet in trousers, in order to
compensate for the wobbly heels of my crummy shoes. They won’t see
past my really great job. And it will be a great job, really. I will
be working with time machines.

When
Margot is nine, it has been five years since she has seen the sun. On
Venus, the sun comes out but once every seven years. Margot’s
family moved to Venus from Earth when she was four. This is the main
thing that makes her different from her classmates, who are just a
bunch of trashy Venus kids. Draftees and immigrants. Their parents
work at the desalination plants, the dormitory facilities; they plumb
and bail, they traverse Venus’s vast seas in ships and
submersibles, and sometimes they do not come back.

To
her classmates, Margot will never be Venusian, even though she’s
her palest clammiest self like a Venusian, and walks and talks like a
Venusian—with that lazy, slithering drawl. Why? First finger: she’s
a freak, quiet and standoffish, but given to horrible bursts of loud
friendliness that are so awkward, they make everyone hate her more
for trying. Second finger: her dad is rich and powerful, but she
still isn’t cool. The Venus kids don’t know it, but it isn’t
her wealth they hate. It is the waste of it. The way her boring hair
hangs against her fresh sweatshirts. The way she shuffles along in
her blinding new sneakers. Third finger, fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth fingers, and all the toes too: in her
lifetime, Margot has seen the sun and they haven’t. Venus kids are
strong and mean and easily offended. They know there’s a thing they
should be getting that they’re not getting. And
that the next best thing to getting something is no one in the whole
world getting it.

When
I am thirty, I will have gotten my first boyfriend. He’ll be a
co-worker at the lab and I won’t have noticed him for the longest
time. Big laugh, right? You would think that, as some nobody who
nobody ever notices, I’d at least be the observant one by default,
the one who notices everyone else and forms complex opinions about
them, but, no, I will be a creature spiraled in upon myself, a shrimp
with a tail curled into its mouth.

Late
night at work, a group of people will be playing Jenga in the lounge.
The researchers love Jenga because it has the destructive meathead
glamour of sports but only a fraction of the physical peril. Anders
will ask me if I want to play and I’ll shake my head, hoping it
looks like I’m too cool for Jenga but also bemused and tolerant,
all of this hiding the truth, which is that I am terrified of Jenga.
I’m afraid of being the player who causes all of the blocks to
fall. Because that player is both appreciated and despised: on the
one hand they absorb the burden of causing the Fall, thus relieving
everyone else of said burden, but on the other hand, they are
responsible for ending the game prematurely, killing all the fun and
potential, not to mention the Jenga tower itself—the spindly
edifice that everyone worked so hard together to create and protect.

The
guy who will be my first boyfriend will push a block out without any
hesitation. He won’t poke at it first, he will go straight for the
block, and I will watch as the tower wobbles. It won’t fall. As he
takes the dislodged block and stacks it on his pile, he will make eye
contact with me, a carefully constructed look of surprise on his
face—mouth the shape of an O, eyebrows pushing his forehead
into pleats.

When
Margot is nine, the sun comes out on Venus. Her classmates lock her
inside a closet and run away. They are gone for precisely one hour.
When her classmates finally come back to let Margot out, it will be
too late.

When
I am thirty, I will have been at my great job, the job of working
with time machines, long enough to learn their codes and security
measures (I’ve even come up with a few myself), so I will do the
thing that I didn’t even know I was planning to do all along. I
will enter the time machine, emerging behind a desk in the school I
attended when I was nine. Water droplets will condense on the walls.
There is no way to keep out the damp on Venus. The air in the
classroom will taste like the air in a bedroom where someone has just
had a sweaty nightmare. I will hide during all of the ruckus, but
don’t worry: I will work up the courage. I will stand and open the
closet door and do what needs to be done. And I will return!

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

November 7, 2019

THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION preview: “IN THE SHARING PLACE” by David Erik Nelson

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized david erik nelson, elizabeth story, excerpt, hannu rajaniemi, in the sharing place, jacob weisman, matt dixon, preview, the new voices of science fiction

IN THE SHARING PLACE

David Erik Nelson

Children
are brought to the Sharing Place because a loved one has died.

You
must always use the present perfect tense and passive voice: “A
loved one has died.” Not “A loved one is dead,” and never “this
killed a loved one” or “a loved one was killed by
that”
or even “a loved one died because of the other
thing.”

The
actual circumstances of the death are inconsequential. They have
nothing to do with why children are brought (note the passive voice)
to the Sharing Place, nor when they will leave the Sharing Place.

Children
are brought to the Sharing Place because a loved one has died and,
despite being young, they may very well still suffer Rejection if
they fail to process this grief.

And
just about the only thing we can do for our children now is help them
avoid Rejection.

I. DENIAL

There
are three rules at the Children’s Sharing Place. The first is that
a child may leave at any time, provided they attest that they are
ready to leave on two separate occasions.

The
boy with the long hair that hangs over his eyes does not speak for
his first two sessions in group. On the third session the first thing
he says is that he is ready to leave.

He
shouldn’t even be here, he explains. His father isn’t dead, he
insists.

“Augie,”
you say, “your father has died.”

Augie
does not speak again for the remainder of the session.

The
next day, he repeats that he is ready to leave.

You
say nothing, because that is the therapeutic protocol. This protocol
demands impartiality and discipline: A child who has self-selected to
leave will not progress further if forced to stay in the Sharing
Place. Worse yet, a non-progressing child could derail the others’
progress.

You
remain silent, but the other children attempt to talk sense into him.
They Bargain. This is appropriate.

They
tell Augie he can’t go, because he just got there, because he
hasn’t resolved any of his issues, because he hasn’t Said It
yet, hasn’t even started to Say It. They say that if
he goes into the Waiting Room now, he’s definitely going to get
Rejected. They say that he can go but doesn’t have to: he
can still just go back to the dorms and then have dinner and then go
to bed and then get up and then go to class and then return to their
next session. He doesn’t have to leave, even if he said he
wants to leave. Fifty-seven minutes pass this way.

“Our
time is almost up for today,” you say.

Augie
stands without a word and opens the Waiting Room Door. Beyond the
Waiting Room Door is a small waiting room—just a pair of
upholstered yellow chairs and a side table with a fan of three
magazines. The top magazine is Ranger Rick. You have never
been in the waiting room, and so do not know what the other two
magazines may be. There is also a potted plant. There must be a
draft, because the potted plant nods rhythmically, like the quiet old
lady knitting in the rocking chair in Goodnight Moon.

And,
of course, there is the other door, the EXIT. The word “EXIT”
glows above it in red. It probably isn’t even three long strides
from the Waiting Room Door to the EXIT.

Augie
steps through the Waiting Room Door and gingerly shuts it behind him.
The door latch clicks, then there is the faint sigh of the EXIT
door, followed by a big and sudden sound, like an alligator
roaring and rolling in a swamp. And then silence.

“Our
time is up for today,” you begin to say, but just after you say
“time,” Augie’s scream interrupts you. It is a truly agonized
scream, loud and long and ragged. It doesn’t end, so much as fade.
There is whimpering and crying for a long time after. But this
whimpering is quiet, and the other children in the Sharing Place
understand your words this time. They file out the main door, back to
the dorms and mess hall and everything else down here in their
sheltered world.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

November 6, 2019

THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION preview: “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized elizabeth story, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, matt dixon, the new voices of science fiction, vina jie-min prasad

A Series of Steaks

Vina Jie-Min Prasad

All
known forgeries are tales of failure. The people who get into the
newsfeeds for their brilliant attempts to cheat the system with their
fraudulent Renaissance masterpieces or their stacks of fake checks,
well, they might be successful artists, but they certainly haven’t
been successful at forgery.

The
best forgeries are the ones that disappear from notice—a
second-rate still-life moldering away in gallery storage, a battered
old 50-yuan note at the bottom of a cashier drawer—or even a
printed strip of Matsusaka beef, sliding between someone’s parted
lips.

Forging
beef is similar to printmaking—every step of the process has to be
done with the final print in mind. A red that’s too dark looks
putrid, a white that’s too pure looks artificial. All beef is
supposed to come from a cow, so stipple the red with dots, flecks,
lines of white to fake variance in muscle fiber regions. Cows are
similar, but cows aren’t uniform—use fractals to randomize
marbling after defining the basic look. Cut the sheets of beef
manually to get an authentic ragged edge, don’t get lazy and depend
on the bioprinter for that.

Days
of research and calibration and cursing the printer will all vanish
into someone’s gullet in seconds, if the job’s done right.

Helena
Li Yuanhui of Splendid Beef Enterprises is an expert in doing the job
right.

The
trick is not to get too ambitious. Most forgers are caught out by the
smallest errors—a tiny amount of period-inaccurate pigment, a crack
in the oil paint that looks too artificial, or a misplaced watermark
on a passport. Printing something large increases the chances of a
fatal misstep. Stick with small-scale jobs, stick with a small group
of regular clients, and in time, Splendid Beef Enterprises will turn
enough of a profit for Helena to get a real name change,
leave Nanjing, and forget this whole sorry venture ever happened.

As
Helena’s loading the beef into refrigerated boxes for drone
delivery, a notification pops up on her iKontakt frames. Helena
sighs, turns the volume on her earpiece down, and takes the call.

“Hi,
Mr. Chan, could you switch to a secure line? You just need to tap the
button with a lock icon, it’s very easy.”

“Nonsense!”
Mr. Chan booms. “If the government were going to catch us, they’d
have done so by now! Anyway, I just called to tell you how pleased I
am with the latest batch. Such a shame, though, all that talent, and
your work just gets gobbled up in seconds—tell you what, girl, for
the next beef special, how about I tell everyone that the beef came
from one of those fancy vertical farms? I’m sure they’d have nice
things to say then!”

“Please
don’t,” Helena says, careful not to let her Cantonese accent slip
through. It tends to show after long periods without any human
interaction, which is an apt summary of the past few months. “It’s
best if no one pays attention to it.”

“You
know, Helena, you do good work, but I’m very concerned about your
self-esteem, I know if I printed something like that, I’d want
everyone to appreciate it! Let me tell you about this article my
daughter sent me, you know research says that people without friends
are prone to …” Mr. Chan rambles on as Helena sticks the labels
on the boxes—Grilliam Shakespeare, Gyuuzen Sukiyaki, Fatty Chan’s
Restaurant—and thankfully hangs up before Helena sinks into further
depression. She takes her iKontakt off before heading to the drone
delivery office, giving herself some time to recover from Mr. Chan’s
relentless cheerfulness.

Helena
has five missed calls by the time she gets back. A red phone icon
blares at the corner of her vision before blinking out, replaced by
the incoming-call notification. It’s secured and anonymized, which
is quite a change from usual. She pops the earpiece in.

“Yeah,
Mr. Chan?”

“This
isn’t Mr. Chan,” someone says. “I have a job for Splendid Beef
Enterprises.”

“All right, sir. Could I get your name and what you need? If you
could provide me with the deadline, that would help too.”

“I
prefer to remain anonymous,” the man says.

“Yes,
I understand, secrecy is rather important.” Helena restrains the
urge to roll her eyes at how needlessly cryptic this guy is. “Could
I know about the deadline and brief?”

“I
need two hundred T-bone steaks by the 8th of August. 38.1- to
40.2-millimeter thickness for each one.” A notification to download
t-bone_info.KZIP pops up on her lenses. The most ambitious venture
Helena’s undertaken in the past few months has been Gyuuzen’s
strips of marbled sukiyaki, and even that felt a bit like pushing it.
A whole steak? Hell no.

“I’m
sorry, sir, but I don’t think my business can handle that. Perhaps
you could try—”

“I
think you’ll be interested in this job, Helen Lee Jyun Wai.”

Shit.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

November 5, 2019

Bringing The Pieces Together: Three Interviews with Tachyon creators

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized all worlds are real, arley song, bending the moon, clarkesworld, elizabeth story, Ellen Datlow, hannu rajaniemi, interview, jacob weisman, josh beatman, kirkus, matt dixon, susan palwick, the cutting room, the new voices of science fiction

For CLARKESWORLD, Arley Sorg interviewed the World Fantasy Award winning Tachyon publisher/editor Jacob Weisman about his latest anthology THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION.

You had the successful, World Fantasy Award-winning THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY in 2017, coedited by Peter S. Beagle. Now you have the November 2019 release THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION coedited with Summerland author Hannu Rajaniemi. How did you pick your coeditors for these anthologies?

The New Voices of Fantasy was created with Peter S. Beagle in mind. I’d published several of his story collections and one anthology, The Secret History of Fantasy,
so we had a very good working relationship. I also felt that this was
the perfect book for Peter. He had very much been one of the loudest new
voices himself back in the early 1960s, just as he is now an elder
statesman. Peter had started his career precociously, selling his
classic novel, A Fine and Private Place, at the age of 19 and publishing it by the time he was 20. I couldn’t imagine a better collaborator for this book.

The decision to work with Hannu Rajaniemi was somewhat different. I
enjoyed working with Peter on the fantasy volume and I knew I wanted to
publish a companion volume dedicated to SF. Hannu had been in the
fantasy volume I’d edited with Peter, I’d recently published Hannu’s
short story collection, and he’d just moved to San Francisco. Everything
with Hannu just fell into place.

Sorg also interviews acclaimed author Susan Palwick at CLARKESWORLD.

Your second collection, All Worlds Are Real,
is due out from Fairwood Press in November 2019. How did the collection
come about, and what was the process of putting it together like for
you? Do you see the collection as thematic, or is it more a “Best Of”?

The book came about because I’d published a bunch of
stories since my first collection came out in 2007. A couple had been
reprinted in “Best Of” anthologies, but I wanted them all in one place,
between covers, so they wouldn’t fade into oblivion. So, while there are
certainly themes that wind through the collection, because they’re
perennial preoccupations of mine—community, faith, loss, existence on
the margins—the collection’s neither consciously thematic nor a “Best
Of.” It’s more of an omnibus (a modest one, because my output’s so
small).

Putting it together involved striving for balance. I tried to
alternate different kinds of narration (voice, gender, POV). I’ve
sometimes been described as a “women’s writer,” a label I loathe—I
certainly address feminist concerns, but I see them more generally as
human concerns—but many of the stories in the collection, almost half,
are narrated by men.

The trickiest thing was producing new material. As I’ve mentioned, I
write very slowly, but I wanted three new stories in the book. I managed
to push out three stories in three months, which is something of a
record. They’re all very short, though!

Meanwhile over at KIRKUS, John DeNardo talks with superstar editor Ellen Datlow about her latest book Echoes.

Photo courtesy of Brent N. Clarke/FilmMagic

Echoes is not the first ghost-themed anthology Datlow has
edited. You might say ghost stories have been part of her entire life.
“I’ve enjoyed all kinds of supernatural stories since I was a child,”
says Datlow, “among them ghost stories. But I only started separating
them out, if you will, from the rest of the supernatural, with my
anthology The Dark [Tor Books, 2003]. Some ghost stories not
only play on our fear of death and what’s beyond, but they can be quite
moving, avoiding what we think of as ‘horror.’ I’d read (and loved) a
few heartbreaking ghost stories in the ’90s, and those stories inspired
me to create an anthology of much darker tales. Hence, The Dark. Then, several years later I edited HAUNTINGS [Tachyon Publications, 2013], a reprint anthology of ghost stories/hauntings originally published between 1982 and 2012.”

Echoes is predominantly founded on new original ghost stories.
It includes stories by Pat Cadigan, Aliette de Bodard, Brian Evenson,
Jeffrey Ford, Seanan McGuire, Garth Nix, Joyce Carol Oates, A. C. Wise,
and others. “I’d been wanting to edit another anthology of original
ghost stories for the past five years or so, and I approached Joe Monti
at Saga about the idea,” she says. “He was interested, I solicited
stories from a host of writers, chose two classics and one other
reprint, and voila!” The result is a massive 800-page anthology offering
30 stories designed to leave you unsettled.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman

October 31, 2019

In superb THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION every story is excellent

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized elizabeth story, fairy book mother, hannu rajaniemi, helen marshall, i don't mean to nitpick tom but is this really your plan?, jacob weisman, matt dixon, new scientist, pamela scott, review, the book lover's boudoir, the new voices of science fiction

Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman‘s recently released THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION continues to garner abundant praise.

At NEW SCIENTIST, Helen Marshall enjoys the anthology.

In this superb collection, the radical freedom of the
digital realm typically contrasts the resource-depleted landscape beyond. Space
exploration is limited to resource extraction with the greatest changes
happening at home. Reinventions of the body meet backlashes and resistance as
often as love. Guided by nostalgia, characters tend to look to the past,
fearing the wave of changes the future may bring. Ultimately these new generation
of writers have very human stories to tell, necessarily complicated by
compromises and failures as much as heroics.

FAIRY BOOK MOTHER feels much the same way.

One of the things I loved most about this was that the writers included
in this collection are so diverse, elevating a lot of different
cultures, ideas, ways of looking at the world, and storytelling styles,
and that is exactly what I hope for when I read any anthology, and this one ticked all of the boxes for me.

As does Pamela Scott of THE BOOK LOVER’S BOUDOIR.

I was surprised by the excellent quality of the stories. I enjoyed every
one. I read a lot of anthologies and the trend seems to be that at
least one or two fall short of the mark. That wasn’t the case here.
Every story worked and some a bit more than others.

I DON’T MEAN TO NITPICK, TOM, BUT IS THIS REALLY YOUR PLAN? continues the trend.

Overall, delivers on its promise.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

October 15, 2019

Highly recommended, THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION is a must-read for anyone interested in the latest and most exciting sf writing out there

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized booklist, elizabeth story, gareth d jones, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, library journal, matt dixon, Publishers Weekly, review, sfcrowsnest, the new voices of science fiction

The excitement builds for Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman‘s excellent THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, the bold sequel to World Fantasy Award-winning THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY.

At both PUBLISHERS WEEKLY and BOOKLIST, the anthology garnered starred reviews.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:

All these stories provoke the reader to ponder not only what the future might be but what it should be.

BOOKLIST:

Equally wonderful stories by Jamie Wahls,
Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Suzanne Palmer, and many others make this a
must-read for anyone interested in the latest and most exciting sf
writing out there.

LIBRARY JOURNAL similarly praises the book.

While readers may be familiar with many of the names and individual
works here, having them together in one volume creates a stunning set of
sf shorts. Highly recommended for all collections.

Gareth D Jones for SFCROWSNEST joins in the fun.

This is a wonderful selection of stories highlighting not only some
great writers, but a wealth of fabulous ideas and new twists on old
Science Fiction tropes. It’s just over 400 pages long, giving a decent
amount of stories to enjoy and allowing the editors to indulge
themselves and include a whole host of interesting authors. If you want a
flavour of cutting edge science Fiction today, this is an excellent
choice of reading material.

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

September 24, 2019

Win a copy of the acclaimed THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION from the remarkable duo Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alexander weinstein, alice sola kim, amal el-mohtar, amman sabet, darcie little badger, e lily yu, goodreads, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, jamie wahls, jason sanford, kelly robson, lettie prell, matt dixon, nino cipri, rebecca roanhorse, rich larson, s qiouyi lu, sam j miller, samantha mills, sarah pinsker, the new voices of science fiction, vina jie-min prasad

We’re giving away 1 Advance Reading Copy (ARC) of THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, the bold sequel to World Fantasy Award-winning THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY.

[STARRED REVIEW] “A must-read for anyone interested in the latest and most exciting sf writing out there.”
—Booklist

What would you do if
your tame worker-bots mutinied? Is your 11 second attention span enough
to placate a cranky time-tourist? Would you sell your native language to
send your daughter to college?

The avant-garde of science
fiction have landed in this space-age sequel to the World Fantasy
Award-winner, The New Voices of Fantasy. Here are the rising stars of
the last five years of science fiction, including newcomers as well as
already lauded authors: Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, Alice Sola
Kim, Sam J. Miller, E. Lily Yu, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah
Pinsker, Darcie Little Badger, S. Qiouyi Lu, Kelly Robson, and more.
Their extraordinary stories have been hand-selected by cutting-edge
author Hannu Rajaniemi (The Quantum Thief) and genre expert Jacob
Weisman (Invaders).

So go ahead, join the interstellar revolution. The new kids have hacked the AI.

[STARRED REVIEW] “All these stories provoke the reader to ponder not only what the future might be but what it should be.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“The Shape of My Name” by Nino Cipri
“Madeleine” by Amal El-Mohtar
“One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim
“Ice” by Rich Larson
“Robo-Liopleurodon!” by Darcie Little Badger
“Mother Tongues” by S. Qiouyi Lu
“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
“Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills
“In the Sharing Place” by David Erik Nelson
“The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer
“Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker
“A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“The Need for Air” by Lettie Prell
“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse
“A Study in Oils” by Kelly Robson
“Tender Loving Plastics” by Amman Sabet
“Toppers” by Jason Sanford
“Utopia? LOL!” by Jamie Wahls
“Openness” by Alexander Weinstein
“The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi” by E. Lily Yu

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Cover design by Elizabeth Story

July 31, 2019

Join Rebecca Roanhorse, Joe R. Lansdale, Rick Klaw, and Jacob Weisman at Armadillocon

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized armadillocon, austin, hannu rajaniemi, jacob weisman, Joe R. Lansdale, rebecca roanhorse, Rick Klaw, texas, the new voices of science fiction

Guest of Honor Rebecca Roanhorse, whose short story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” appears in forthcoming THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION, Rick Klaw, Joe R. Lansdale, and Tachyon publisher Jacob Weisman will be among the many attendees at ArmadiloCon 41 (August 2-4) in Austin, TX.

ArmadilloCon is an annual literary convention sponsored by the Fandom Association of Central Texas, Inc. The primary focus of ArmadilloCon is science fiction and fantasy, but we also pay attention to art, animation, science, media, and gaming. Every year, dozens of professional writers, artists and editors attend the convention. We invite you to attend the convention, especially if you are a fan of reading, writing, gaming, and generally having fun.

Jacob Weisman and Rick Klaw having a good time at the Tachyon table during Armadillocon 36 (photo: Brandy Whitten)

Guest of Honor: Rebecca Roanhorse
Toastmaster: Marshall Ryan Maresca
Fan Guest: Dan Tolliver
Editor Guest: Patrice Caldwell
Science Guest: Moriba K. Jah
Special Guest: Martha Wellls

ArmadilloCon offers a large selection of readings, signings, and panels. To find any of these authors, check out the entire schedule on their site.

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the new voices of science fiction

OUR LADY OF THE OPEN ROAD

Openness

One Hour, Every Seven Years

IN THE SHARING PLACE

I. DENIAL

A Series of Steaks

Table of Contents