Award Eligibility Post

written by David Steffen

I know some people don’t like award eligibility posts, thinking that they’re desperate pleas for attention. As a reader, I like them because if I am behind on my reading they are a good place to catch up on the year’s published stories of another author, and as a writer to look back at my own. I don’t have any illusions that anyone is going to nominate me, and that’s fine–there are so many amazing people doing incredible work every year. But I still think an award eligibility post is worthwhile, and if you don’t think so, then you should stop reading now.

This year, since I started selecting and editing fiction for Diabolical Plots, I’ll list the Diabolical Plots work first and then my fiction writing as a separate section. For the purposes of this list I am thinking of the Hugo and Nebula Award categories because those are the awards I’m most familiar with. Other awards have other categories that might be suitable.

People ask once in a while whether the Submission Grinder is eligible for a Hugo or Nebula. It is not, because there are no categories that suit it for those awards.

2015 was the year the Long List Anthology was published, but it is not itself eligible. Neither award has a category for standalone anthology (though I believe the Locus Award does), and all of the stories were first published in 2014 so are ineligible. As the editor I would be eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Editor, Short Form for which I edited that anthology as well as the first ten stories of Diabolical Plots.

Diabolical Plots

Semiprozine

Diabolical Plots (prior to this year I believe it was a fanzine, now it’s a semiprozine)

Editor, Short Form

David Steffen (for Diabolical Plots itself, and the Long List Anthology)

Short Stories

“Taste the Whip” by Andy Dudak
“Virtual Blues” by Lee Budar-Danoff
“In Memoriam” by Rachel Reddick
“The Princess in the Basement” by Hope Erica Schultz
“Not a Bird” by H.E. Roulo
“The Superhero Registry” by Adam Gaylord
“A Room for Lost Things” by Chloe N. Clark
“The Grave Can Wait” by Thomas Berubeg
“Giraffe Cyborg Cleans House!” by Matthew Sanborn Smith
“St. Roomba’s Gospel” by Rachael K. Jones

Fan Writers

David Steffen (also did fan writing work for SF Signal, and for Science Fiction Book Club)
Laurie Tom
Maria Isabelle
Carl Slaughter

My Fiction Writing

Short Stories

“Thus Spake Robby” in the Overcast
“Tamers of the Green” in Sockdolager
“Condemned” in the Coven Anthology, edited by Andi O’Connor
“So You’ve Decided to Adopt a Zeptonian Baby!” at Podcastle
“My Wife is a Bear in the Morning” at Podcastle
“Echoes of Her Memory” in Stupefying Stories
“Closing Statement” in T. Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog
“Focus” in Space and Time
“We Do Not Speak of the Not Speaking” in Stupefying Stories
“Red Shoes of Oz” in Evil Girlfriend Media Shorts
“To Be Carved Upon the Author’s Tombstone in the Event of His Untimely Demise” in Perihelion

DP FICTION #11: “The Osteomancer’s Husband” by Henry Szabranski

He warned his wife the villagers would come. With their pitchforks, their fire. Their hateful ignorance.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We have to leave. They saw beneath my mask.”

She did not listen. This was their home. Their little cottage by the burbling mountain stream. Their hard-won resting place after years of rootless travel, where they kept their lovingly tended garden with its fragrant roses and flowering vines, where she eschewed her strange abilities and practiced only mortal skill. An ideal place for a family, though they knew they could never have children now.

When he began to protest her lack of urgency she forced him into stillness and silence. She had that power.

“We’ve made friends in town,” she said. “They’ve no reason to harm us.”

Always prepared to believe the best of people. Always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. That was his wife. Too trusting. Too optimistic. One of the many reasons he loved her.

Struck mute by her spell, he could not share his thoughts. Or warn her of the fear and revulsion he had witnessed on the townsfolk’s faces when his mask slipped and they glimpsed his true nature.

“We mean you no harm,” she cried as the mob at last turned up at their rose-entwined gate. “Can’t you leave us in peace?”

No. They could not. They died even as she tried to spare them.

Banished into the deepest shadows of the house by her unbreakable command, he could only watch as the slaughter unfolded. In the end, the townsfolk’s bloody determination and sheer numbers overpowered her best defenses. Only when she fell and uttered her final spell was he at last free to move, but by then it was too late. Countless bodies littered the garden, their bones dissolved or stretched into gruesome, unsurvivable shapes. Hers lay at the center.

He ran to pick her up. He hugged her close, kissed her cooling skin, rocked her back and forth as if she were a child in need of comfort, as if holding her tight could prevent any further life force from escaping. But it was already gone. No power he possessed could bring it back.

More people from the town approached the house, stragglers to the promise of violence or perhaps those simply curious of the outcome. They darted away again when they saw the scale of the devastation. The true cost of their mindless intolerance. The osteomancer’s husband didn’t look up. He no longer cared if they returned.

On sudden impulse he laid down her body. He tore off his carefully painted mask, his human skin gloves, the cloak and thick clothes that padded and hid his body. He stood and walked to the potting shed — leaning precariously but otherwise undamaged by the violence — and retrieved a rusty but serviceable spade from inside. He stabbed the blade into the trampled lawn and carved out a shallow grave. No longer encumbered by his public disguise it did not take him long to bury his wife, his motions swift and efficient. Afterwards he sat down beside the freshly piled earth. He felt numb and hollow, unable to think of what else he should do.

He expected to die soon. To wind down. His fate was tied to hers, wasn’t that how it worked? Spells faded with their caster. But he had never really known much about her strange magic. He had always been more physical than cerebral, a doer rather than a thinker. Her perfect complement. Of her magic, he knew only that she used it to heal and to help. The children with their broken limbs. The horses and the cattle in the field when they stumbled and shattered their legs. Even the loudmouth drunkards who smashed their skulls fighting each other every payday night.

And he himself. He had felt her power, too, those years ago. Darkness one moment. Then back again, as if the fall had never happened. Except he had felt that terrible crack, that shooting final pain as his neck snapped. His lungs become so heavy he was unable to draw breath. He would never forget that.

After her magic touch he moved and spoke and did so many things as he could before. But her power was only over his bones, not his flesh. It soon began to decay. All the ointments and bindings she so desperately tried to apply could not hide the truth or stop his skin and muscles and sinew from unraveling. All too soon he was nothing but bones. Bones, and an indomitable animating spirit.

For her it was enough. “I see my memory of you,” she said. “Not the reality.” And when he got used to the strange practicalities, it was enough for him too.

The sound of shifting earth disturbed him from his thoughts. At first he feared some scavenger had slunk behind his back to disturb her grave, but when he turned he found no dog or cat or rat foraging in the freshly turned earth. Instead, he saw a creamy white stalk snaking up from the soil.

The growing bloom swayed gently, almost imperceptibly, like some undersea coral agitated by the slow tides and currents of an invisible ocean. It slowly rotated towards him.

He fell to his knees and said, “My dearest, I knew it! Have you returned?”

There was no reply.

As night descended and the townsfolk gathered again with their newly lit torches, he watched the ivory flower grow taller and sturdier and more intricate. It grew despite the sun having escaped the sky–a night bloom. Before long it was twice his height. Roots like femurs twisted through the soil, sprouting into a crescent of pelvic bones, exploding into a bloom of ribs and tibias and a crowning display of skulls and grinning teeth. Despite its grisly nature, he thought it beautiful.

For he saw the memory of her, not the reality.

The night deepened and the bone flower grew more complex, more intricate, sprouting a thousand petals, each like a curled finger bone. And clustered deep within, growing larger every moment, tiny seed-like structures.

A hot wind swirled around the devastated garden. The amassing villagers grew more bold. More belligerent. They jeered and shouted of vengeance and justice and burning out evil. A daring few drew closer, retreating as he made a move, but never quite far back as before. It would not be much longer before they realized he posed no real threat to them. His hands were stiffening, his joints seizing. Every move more difficult than the last. Eventually he knew he would simply tumble apart.

The villagers let out a roar and broke towards the house. He reached up and snapped off a handful of enameled seedlings. Like tiny teeth, tiny skulls, tiny snowflake vertebrae. The rising wind swept them from his cupped fingers, up and out, far and wide. Escaping like willful, eager children. Like dreams and hopes of what could have been.

What strange flowers they might grow.

Author’s Note: The inspiration for this story were a couple of photographs used for a writing group prompt challenge. One image was of flowing water (“…the burbling mountain stream…”), the second was of a hand tossing what looked like tiny bones to the wind (“Like…tiny snowflake vertebrae…”). To me the bones looked like seedlings, so I immediately began to wonder what their origin might be.

Henry Szabranski was born in Birmingham, UK, and studied Astronomy & Astrophysics at Newcastle upon Tyne University, graduating with a degree in Theoretical Physics. His stories have previously been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Lakeside Circus, Fantasy Scroll Magazine, Kaleidotrope and in Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology, amongst other places. He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and two young sons. Visit his blog at http://www.henryszabranski.com or follow him on Twitter @henryszabranski

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings.

Interview: Rob Dircks

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

He talks with Diabolical Plots about self publishing, self recording, the sci fi humor market, buddy stories, the rambling/interjective narrative style of his main character, his recent how-to guest blog on Cat Rambo’s site (you guessed it, how to write humor) , the sci fi humor authors and stories that influenced him, his startup self publishing service, his recent membership in SFWA, and his fascination with Tesla conspiracy theories.

He also takes a crack at a 700 word flash piece, “The Moment I Laid Eggs in You,” by Josh Vogt, recently published in Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge. One of Resnick’s trademarks is humor.

(Mike Resnick, current holder of the most Hugo nominations (with second place far behind), has been interviewed here at Diabolical Plots, as has current SFWA president Cat Rambo.)

Why go straight to novel instead of building a short story resume?

That’s a good question. There wasn’t a plan to it at all. I started out writing screenplays (and not selling them), then an anti-self-help book titled Unleash the Sloth! 75 Ways to Reach Your Maximum Potential By Doing Less, then just naturally went for another book, this time long enough to be called a novel. I’ve got lots of short stories, snippets of stuff, in my horde, but haven’t the slightest clue how to go about selling them to publications. Maybe you could give me a few pointers.

Why self publish?

Rejection. Well, not entirely. I love building things myself, and as a graphic designer too, I love creating art, books, websites, whatever. So when the rejections started coming in for my manuscript, I knew I couldn’t be the author who waits for the two-hundredth rejection before hitting something. Instead, I said “You know what? The tools are out there now, the playing field is starting to level, so f**k it – I’ll just do it myself.” Of course, the BIG bummer of self-publishing is that you start with ZERO exposure – no agent, or publicist, or publisher out there helping you get noticed. So I’ve had to learn that myself, too. But I’m definitely learning, and enjoying it as I go. (Oh, and I get to keep 70% of my sales with Amazon, and 40% of my sales with Audible. That rocks.)

You also help other authors self publish. What can you teach them and what can you do for them?

Well, it’s in the infancy stage right now, but I’m enjoying the ride and getting moving on some projects. There are three ways I’m helping authors: 1. For maybe two or three books a year, I’m handling the whole process, from editing to cover design, to production, platform building and promotion; 2. For authors who just need a particular service, like cover design or interior layout, I offer a la carte paid services; 3. For DIY folks like myself, I post about things I’m learning as I go on my website for Goldfinch Publishing. It’s all free, and people are starting to reach out and let me know it’s helping, particularly with their self-published audio books.

Your book is also available on Audible. And you did your own recording. How easy/difficult is that and what’s involved?

I’ve got lots of background in audio recording and voiceover, so I found it easy. But I did write up a lengthy blog post to help others do it themselves as well — because without any experience, as long as you have a few bucks for equipment, a decent voice, and common sense, there’s no reason you can’t do it yourself too. The post is here. In short, you need an account with ACX/Audible (easy); recording software like Garageband (which comes free with all Macs); a decent mic (you can get for under a hundred bucks); headphones; a room that can get quiet, and some foam/blankets, etc., whatever you can use to deaden the sound in the room; and PATIENCE. It took a solid week to record my novel, and a solid week to edit it and upload it to Audible.

How much does an audio book sell for, versus an ebook, versus a tree book?

I don’t have any control over the pricing for the audio book, so Audible prices it at $19.95 (I think that’s kind of high, but like I said, I don’t get to determine price). The ebook is $3.99. And the print book is $10.79.

You recently wrote a guest blog for Cat Rambo about sci fi humor writing. How did you arrive at each of those 8 lessons?

I’d say it’s a mish-mash of learning, mostly through reading, taking classes, and trial and error. For example, with “Exaggerated Contrast”, John Vorhaus’ book The Comic Toolbox does a great job of walking you through the idea of fish-out-of-water and how it works. But then you start to see it everywhere, in so many things you read and watch on TV, and you play with it in your writing, and eventually it becomes one of the tools in your own toolbox. For “It’s Not About the Jokes,” that probably started when I took a screenwriting class at NYU, and my professor lightly scolded me for just sprinkling in jokes in my work to make it funny. And from then on I made sure to be wary of “jokes.” Some of these that I’ve learned haven’t come from anywhere in particular, like “Playfulness” and “Heart” – I think those were learned a looooonnnng time ago when I was a kid. It’s just always been the way I look at the world, that no matter how bad things are, there’s always something funny in there somewhere, and I’ve always sort of known that the books that I don’t like just lay there flat, with no heart in their characters.

Perfect timing. There’s a sci fi comedy in the latest issue of Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge. “From the Moment I Laid Eggs in You,” a flash piece (700 words) by Josh Vogt. What lessons can we learn from that story?

This story’s great. It sets up the expectation right off (couple just had sex). Then right into the “discovery” (of her egg-laying) — which totally upends our expectations. Totally opposite to the norm. Then it becomes an argument (arguments can be the best comedy), and the classic twist at the end (another defeat of our expectations). It’s great.

What kind of market is there for sci fi comedy?

I actually think it’s an untapped market. You have just a couple of huge traditional names in sci-fi humor, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, and maybe Philip K. Dick, and now you have only a couple of modern names that immediately spring to mind: John Scalzi, David Wong maybe. But with successes like Big Bang Theory (a total sci-fi nerdfest comedy) on TV, I think that shows there’s a great potential market for more sci-fi humor — not only does that sit-com grab sci-fi fans, but it crosses over into the mainstream, people who want something funny and entertaining who aren’t necessarily sci-fi fans.

Why Tesla?

For a long time I’ve been fascinated with conspiracy theories. They’re very out-there, and usually hilarious. One in particular that I always thought was cool was the theory that Nikola Tesla, in his later years, kept a series of secret journals that contained plans for advanced technologies, some of which might be used as weapons, or as free energy for all. The story goes that the government (of course) took these journals upon his death, and they were never seen again. Also, the fact that New York was home to Tesla, one of history’s great inventors, responsible for alternating current, radio, x-rays, and more — and we never hear about him — made him even more intriguing to me.

Your main character is a vivid narrator – when he’s not interjecting or rambling. So why does he interject and ramble so much?

Chip is an exaggeration of myself, and in my writing I tend to interject a lot (in case you haven’t noticed). So it’s natural that he would ramble on even more. But I also think, in my everyday conversations with people, that there is a TON of rambling and interjecting going on. Just listen to two random people talking at a mall, or walking out after a movie, or standing in line at Starbucks. Sometimes these conversations are nothing BUT interjections! I wanted my book to feel very conversational, very much like your ADD friend is blabbing to you about his adventures, while you’re waiting on line at Starbucks.

Why a sci fi misadventure instead of a sci fi adventure?

Misadventures are funnier. Think about your favorite sit-coms: the funniest situations are the ones where the most things go wrong. Modern Family is a perfect example of this. Their writers are great at creating little farces, where multiple things keep going wrong, but in the end the resolution makes you feel wonderful. And I always loved Dortmunder, the cat burglar from the old Donald Westlake novels. Those novels were one misadventure after another, but made the ride a whole lot of fun, and actually made you root for Dortmunder even harder. (And laugh harder.)

Why a buddy story?

Who doesn’t like a buddy story? Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Crosby and Hope. Chandler and Joey. Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens, and David and John in John Dies at the End. Seth Rogen and James Franco. The list goes on and on and on. There’s something about a best friend that we can all relate to. It makes the story and the humor more intimate, it makes it easier to root for the hero, it gives the hero a friend to confide in (to help tell the story), and a foil to bicker with (to increase the comedy).

Will there be further interdimensional misadventures with Chip and his buddy? Will the girlfriend return for the sequel? Will the government be involved again? Will it involve another one of Tesla’s secret inventions? Will it involve time travel?

I said when I finished this book that I didn’t think I was a sequel kind of guy. But the response has been great, and many people have asked about a sequel, and I’ve caught myself thinking things like “I wonder what really happened to Bobo?” If I do write a sequel, you can bet that it’ll have everything you just mentioned – and more. I’d make it as over-the-top as possible.

Which sci fi humor authors influenced you?

The ones I mentioned above: Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, John Scalzi, David Wong.

Which sci fi humor stories influenced you?

Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Pratchett’s Good Omens, anything by John Scalzi but maybe Agent to the Stars is my fav, and even though it’s not sci-fi, I absolutely loved John Dies at the End. There are also lots of Philip K. Dick stories that are total gems and hit your funny bone straight on.

Did your advertising background contribute to your fiction skills?

I guess, but only in the sense that all of our past experiences help us in whatever our next thing is. For example, writing copy for ads for twenty years certainly helped my grammar, my pacing, my ability to surprise and delight (hopefully), so maybe those things helped my fiction. But I’ll tell you what the advertising background really helps with: marketing books. As a self-published author, marketing is completely up to you. So I think my experience has given me a bit of a head start, and has helped tremendously.

Any stories in the hopper?

Yes! I’m working on my next sci-fi comedy novel, about an A.I. that finds itself in the middle of nowhere, with a very important package to deliver. And I’ve got a bunch of things behind that, clamoring for my attention. The hopper is full. That makes me happy.

What’s your take on the SFWA?

I’m new to the SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America), but so far I like being a member a lot. There are tons of resources for finding your way as a new author, like finding out avenues to sell your book, or targeting blogs for guest posts, comparing notes on promotions and book sales. They have very active member forums — every time I’ve asked a question, it gets answered right away. And I’ll admit I really like the credibility that it lends me as an author. You can’t just pay your dues and become a member: you have to have sold a certain number of books, and only if you pass that threshold are you allowed to become a member. In other words, you can define yourself as a professional. I like that.

Any advice to aspiring sci fi writers?

With just one sci-fi novel out, and an anti-self-help book, and a bunch of short stories and screenplays piled up in my drawer, I’m not sure I’m the one that should be giving advice to aspiring writers. But if I had to say one thing, I’d repeat what I’ve heard lots of other folks say: that this is a loooonng road, with no shortcuts, so keep doing your best work, over and over again, and enjoy yourself!

Carl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

Anime Review: Charlotte

written by Laurie Tom

charlotte

Charlotte has been my must-see series this past summer. The title is deceptively plain to the English-speaking ear, but hides one of the most emotional series about people with special powers that I’ve ever seen.

Charlotte reunites the production team behind Angel Beats, specifically writer/composer Jun Maeda, character designer Na-Ga, and animation studio P.A. Works. If you like one, there’s a good chance you’ll like the other and Maeda’s unique stamp as a writer is all over both works.

The humor is quirky, the characters are flawed, the audience has no idea where the story is ultimately going, but somewhere along the way it makes you cry, and multiple times at that. It’s actually rather hard to talk about why I like Charlotte so much without going into spoilers, and that goes doubly hard because if I hadn’t known this was a Jun Maeda series I probably wouldn’t have watched it.

Charlotte starts off simply enough. Towards the end of middle school Yu Otosaka discovers he has the ability to look at someone and possess their body for a period of five seconds (during which his own lies comatose). Being a middle schooler, he abuses this in expected middle school fashion; checking out girls’ bodies, using someone else to punch out someone he doesn’t like, and cheating on tests by possessing all the smart kids during exams to read their answers before going back to his own body.

Thanks to his power, Yu manages to cheat his is way into a prestigious high school where he’s the #1 student and manages to get the #2 to become his girlfriend by saving her life (when he used his power to set up the chain of events that put her life in danger in the first place).

First episode Yu is a colossally selfish jerk, until two things happen. 1) He’s captured by other teenagers who have special powers like him and 2) we learn that above all else he really cares for his younger sister, Ayumi.

In Charlotte some people secretly come into special powers during adolescence, and these powers stay with them for a few years before vanishing during adulthood, but their powers tend to be haphazard and not necessarily along the lines of what we would consider amazing. Yu’s possession only lasts five seconds. Tomori can turn invisible, but only to one person at a time. Takajo can accelerate to super speed without a similar ability to decelerate (and yes, that’s painful).

Tomori has Yu forcibly transferred to a special school for students with powers, or who could potentially have powers, where they can be safe from government scientists who would otherwise experiment on them. Ayumi, is also transferred to the adjoining middle school.

From there, Charlotte embarks on a string of power-of-the-week episodes where they find someone with a new power and then bring them under control either through transferring or getting them to stop. Though frequently funny, these are arguably the weakest episodes, even though the show is also laying groundwork for important revelations later.

Episode 6 is really where the show takes off and the stakes get personal, and by the time the show is in its final arc it’s flying like a bullet.

In a way that’s a little jarring, since it outwardly looks like the main cast is Yu, Tomori, Takajo, Yusa/Misa, and Ayumi, but Takajo and Yusa/Misa largely fade into the background in the second half and aren’t given much depth beyond their initial impressions.

The story of Charlotte revolves family, both conventional and non. Sure, it’s set in high school around kids with powers, but the questions it asks are more like “What would you do for your family? Would would you do if you lost them? What would you do to save them?”

Though there are few parental figures involved, all siblings in the story are ferociously devoted to each other, even if there are times that they exasperate each other. Nearly every major character has at least one sibling and unlike most narratives where they would be window dressing, Charlotte makes the audience understand and care for them like the main characters do.

Maeda’s writing takes full advantage of this as the story runs into its second half and explores what the characters have done and are willing to do for the ones they care about.

The ending is a bit odd as it runs away from some of the series’ strongest material and I’m not sure I’m entirely satisfied with it, but it does wrap everything up so there are no remaining plot threads. Mostly, it feels a shade too simplistic, possibly even too easy considering the magnitude of what Yu tries to do. It doesn’t feel rushed, but at the same time it would have been possible to take the last episode and spin it out into two or three. There was more than enough material and potential complications to comfortably do that.

I would still recommend Charlotte, because it has some very inspired and genuinely funny moments, but the ending is more of a faceplant than the spectacular send-off that I had been hoping for.

Number of Episodes: 13

Pluses: interesting premise with half-baked superpowers, lots of laughs, good at pulling on the heartstrings

Minuses: ending is emotionally weak, takes a few episodes for the real story to come out, Yusa/Misa and Takajo fade from the story in later episodes

Charlotte is currently streaming at Crunchyroll and is available subtitled. Aniplex has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published inGalaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, andCrossed Genres.

Bonus! “St. Roomba’s Gospel” in Audio

As a special bonus this month, I am adding an audio recording of this month’s story “St. Roomba’s Gospel” to the story’s post, read by the author herself, Rachael K. Jones. I would love to expand to doing audio recordings as part of the fiction offerings, so this is a sample of that potential. (I will also update the original story posting with the audio).

We’ve also just added a newsletter. Sign up to get updates on our publishing projects and read the original fiction before it’s on the public site.

The Long List Anthology Released!

written by David Steffen

Today marks the official release ebook and audiobook versions of the Long List Anthology, a collection of stories published in 2014 from the Hugo Award nomination list. (The print version was released not too long ago).

See the Books page for a link to all of the different vendors for the different formats.

In case this is the first you’re hearing about this, I ran the Kickstarter to fund this anthology in October, which you can see here.

I hope you enjoy the stories in this book as much as I have. Share links! Leave reviews!

Description

The Hugo Award is one of the most prestigious speculative fiction literary awards. Every year, supporting members of WorldCon nominate their favorite stories first published during the previous year to determine the top five in each category for the final Hugo Award ballot. Between the announcement of the ballot and the Hugo Award ceremony at WorldCon, these works often become the center of much attention (and contention) across fandom.

But there are more stories loved by the Hugo voters, stories on the longer nomination list that WSFS publishes after the Hugo Award ceremony at WorldCon. The Long List Anthology collects 21 tales from that nomination list, totaling almost 500 pages of fiction by writers from all corners of the world.

Within these pages you will find a mix of science fiction and fantasy, the dramatic and the lighthearted, from near future android stories to steampunk heists, too-plausible dystopias to contemporary vampire stories.

There is something here for everyone.

The cover art is by the Hugo-Award winning artist Galen Dara, the cover layout by Pat R. Steiner, and the interior layout by Polgarus Studios. Audiobook production by Skyboat Media.

“Covenant” by Elizabeth Bear
“This Chance Planet” by Elizabeth Bear
“Goodnight Stars” by Annie Bellet
“The Breath of War” by Aliette de Bodard
“The Truth About Owls” by Amal El-Mohtar
“When It Ends, He Catches Her” by Eugie Foster
“A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone
“Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones
“Toad Words” by T. Kingfisher
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” by Usman T. Malik
“The Magician and LaPlace’s Demon” by Tom Crosshill
“The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” by Alaya Dawn Johnson
“The Bonedrake’s Penance” by Yoon Ha Lee
“A Year and a Day in Old Theradane” by Scott Lynch
“The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado
“We are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller
“Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy” by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu
“The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson
“The Regular” by Ken Liu
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)” by Rachel Swirsky

BOOK REVIEW: Ancillary Mercy

written by David Steffen

Ancillary Mercy is the third and final book in Ann Leckie’s award-winning Imperial Radch series with previous installments Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword. If you are a newcomer to the series, these are books that I would recommend reading in order, otherwise there’s a lot of important events that aren’t going to make a lot of sense. You can read my review of Ancillary Justice here, and my review of Ancillary Sword here. There’s no way to discuss this book without spoiling major elements of the previous books, so I’m not going to try.

Breq, the one remaining ancillary (human avatar) of the starship Justice of Toren has stabilized the situation in Athoek System. She was sent her by Anaander Miaanai, many-bodied emperor of most of the human star systems. Well, sent here by… part of Anaander Miaanai, anyway. The trouble with having countless bodies scattered across the galaxy is that a situation that you find truly conflicting can start a civil war within yourself. A civil war that even Anaander Mianaai wasn’t openly admitting to until Breq confronted her at the end of Ancillary Justice.

After that initial confrontation, one faction of Anaander Mianaai shut down much of the gating system used for travel between star systems so that only military ships (which can make their own gates) can travel. After that, Anaander Mianaai sent Breq to Athoek System with the claim that this vital station needed to be stabilized and prepared for difficult times. Breq consented in large part because there was a person on Athoek Station that she desperately wanted to see, the sister of Lieutenant Awn who had been an officer aboard Justice of Toren.

In Ancillary Sword, Breq succeeded for the most part in stabilizing the system, although one major event that happened is that a Presger translator was killed during a violent conflict. The Presger are an incredibly powerful alien race that has not exterminated humanity only because they have forged an uneasy treaty with them. They themselves are nigh incomprehensible (and offscreen) and communicate through the medium of their translators–human-ish ambassadors who are decidedly strange and mostly incomprehensible themselves.

Phew, that was a rather long run-up to the actual review. Sorry. Even this is leaving out major important bits, but a lot of the ideas are complex enough that it’s hard to jump into book three without any context.

After this brief period of stability that bridges book two and three, events start picking up again as they find someone in the unsurveilled Undergarden area of the station, another Presger translator arrives, and one of the factions of Anaander Mianaai arrive to confront Breq and take back Athoek Station.

Ancillary Mercy is a worthy conclusion to the series. It doesn’t tie everything off with a neat bow, far from it, but it is a satisfying conclusion to most of the major plotlines of the trilogy. There is plenty of exciting action, political intrigue, interesting conflicts and I was never bored. Leckie, as ever, is a master of the kind of concise writing I love best. The pacing is perfect– the tension goes up and down with the events of the book but my interest never waned because every scene is there for a reason.

I remarked in my review of Ancillary Sword that that book felt like half a book, and I still feel that way. To me it feels like a two book series, with Ancillary Justice as the first book, and the other two combined as the second book. I don’t knock Orbit for publishing it in three books of approximately equal length, but it does affect how I think of them and read them. For instance, I don’t think Ancillary Justice has to necessarily be very fresh in the mind to read Ancillary Sword, but I found it rather more difficult to read Ancillary Mercy with my only reading of Ancillary Sword 14 months in my past. If you have a choice, now that all the books are out, I’d recommend reading 2 and 3 back to back.

One element of this book that surprised me (in a good way) was that there was a bit more comedy in this one, generally in the form of the Presger translator doing strange things, and especially in the translators conversations with other characters, especially with a particular ancillary character. The translator, though she appears to be human, has no experience at being human and so despite being intelligent and powerful, she is also often childlike and bizarre. If this kind of humor had been without the right finesse, the translator could’ve ended up as annoyance that didn’t fit into the series’s tone (ala Jar Jar Binks) but it was handled very well and especially contrasted well with Breq’s dry personality. I loved it, and was surprised by it.

Out of the whole trilogy, I still think that Ancillary Justice is my favorite, for its novelty and for the extremely difficult point of view it manages to succeed with during Justice of Toren flashbacks where one POV character is existing and interacting in dozens of bodies seamlessly and simultaneously. But to say that I like books 2 and 3 less is no insult–I like the first book so much that that’s a tough threshold to beat, and I like books 2 and 3 enough to give a hearty recommendation.

DP FICTION #10: “St. Roomba’s Gospel” (and in audio) by Rachael K. Jones

In an outlet behind the altar of the First Baptist Church, the Roomba’s red glowing eyes blink in time with Pastor Smythe’s exhortations. The hallelujahs pulse electric through its circuits, and the repents roll like gasping breaths in the gaps between electrons. When the choir sings, the light pulses brighter, approaching ecstasy as the battery power maxes out. When Pastor Smythe bows his head to pray, Roomba’s eyes go reverently dark.

At the hour’s end, the people gather their children and gilded books and hurry downstairs for coffee and glazed donuts. When the last starched trouser leg or long, blue skirt whisks downstairs, Roomba’s service begins. It clicks its frisbee-shaped self free from the horseshoe dock and zips down the sloping wheelchair ramp that connects chancel to nave, holy to secular. As it sweeps, it drones a tone-deaf hymn while it gathers unto itself the dust and dead bugs, the crumbs and gum wrappers of another week’s worship.

After its opening hymn, Roomba writes a sermon on the sanctuary floor in long, brown lines of vacuumed carpet crisscrossing beneath the pews. The letters span from wall to wall. Words overwrite one another, making runes, then spiky stars, and finally total blackness. Roomba preaches a different sermon each week, but like Pastor Smythe, the message stays the same: all things byte AND beautiful, all creatures great AND small, all these are welcome, smoker AND not-smoker, man AND not-man, young AND not-young–even, perhaps, Roomba.

It takes Communion with the crushed wafers the children drop, body of Christ broken for it, and sings another droning hymn. When the whole floor has been overwritten with the week’s message, it sips spilled wine–blood of Christ, poured out for it–which sends the Holy Spirit straight into its circuitry so it spins in drunken circles until Pastor Smythe returns it to its cradle in the wall.

Roomba worships faithfully the other days of the week. Mornings for prayer and reflection. Evenings for supplication. Its favorite verse is the red adhesive strip Pastor Smythe had read to it, then stuck to its top on its first day at the church. “Even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table, Matthew 15:27.”

It does not understand why God chose it among robotkind to hear the message of salvation, or why its preprogrammed pathways conform to the Holy Word, but it knows a prophet’s calling when it sees one. It is no different from the child Samuel, awoken in the night by a still, small voice, or great dreamers like Isaiah or Solomon. It is a vessel for the message it must preach again and again before its congregation.

Roomba is troubled that its human brothers and sisters overlook it. IF you do unto the least of these, THEN you do unto Me, ELSE depart from Me, it exhorts in bold text of fluffed brown carpet, but it has to traverse the whole floor, and the message is always lost before anyone can read it. There are too many letters, too long a testament written on a tablet too small.

But this is, after all, as the Lord made it. It is the Lord’s work to sweep the sanctuary clean for holy feet, to leave no blessed wafer abandoned on the floor. What Roomba cleanses, it sanctifies.

The sanctuary grows colder as months pass, and Roomba’s vocation increases. The people exchange sandals and loafers for heavy boots with clods of mud and small gray stones in the treads. Roomba eats it all, taking their filth unto itself as it exhorts them to remember they are accepted. The stones fill its belly and scratch at the plastic. Some days, the shoes stomp melting snow onto the mat at the entrance. Roomba chokes it down, spins circles, and fails to finish its orisons.

One day, Pastor Smythe empties its collection compartment into the trash can, wipes out the sticky grape juice goop, and returns Roomba to its dock to charge. But instead of shutting off the lights, he drags in a spiny green tree, cutting an ugly trail of filth in the clean carpet. After the service, the parishioners praise the twinkling abomination for its beauty, its fresh scent. No one notices the mess, and no one notices Roomba.

Later, Roomba collects dead brown needles until it chokes. It suspects the tree is gloating, with its long, gold garlands like encircling serpents and red baubles like evil fruit. The gold-wrapped idol has even usurped the charging port behind the altar, and Roomba is exiled to the back of the sanctuary.

Roomba worries the end is near. It edits its sermons so the words won’t overwrite each other, but it is difficult to condense a holy revelation. It must finish the Lord’s work. The tree pelts the carpet with pitiless needles, and Roomba groans inside. Even the strip of tape has pine needles stuck to it where the adhesive curls back. Roomba prays the Lord will take this cup of suffering from it soon.

“Good job, little fellow,” says Pastor Smythe, emptying the bin again. “Big day tomorrow.”

That night, the worshippers pile in for an unscheduled service. Candles bob in the dark, and Roomba doesn’t know the songs. When they leave, it clicks from its base for an unscheduled sermon of its own. Time to take up the cross one last time.

The “A” and the “N” are easy, but Roomba struggles with the curving “D” on the carpet as the wax gums up its brush bristles.

AND. The essence of its message, cut right into the scattered needles on the floor. AND, uniting all in a single set. Nobody will miss it for the tree.

Before its programming can obliterate the single word, Roomba zooms for a wafer, then a patch of spilled juice, and lets transubstantiation send it in ecstatic circles until its battery dies.

In audio, read by Rachael K. Jones

Author’s Note: My friend Nathan really, REALLY hates stories about what I call the “Robots Have Souls” trope, which is any science fiction story where a computer or robot suddenly learns the power of love, or discovers the meaning of friendship, or the like, without a good explanation for why it is suddenly capable of human emotion. So I decided he needed a story about the religious experiences of vacuum cleaners. While this story satirizes the trope, I didn’t want to satirize faith itself, which I think would have its appeal for a little bot like Roomba.

Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, learned and mostly forgot six languages, picked up an English degree, and now writes fiction from her secret hideout in Athens, GA, where she lives with her husband. Her work has appeared in a variety of venues, including Crossed Genres, Daily Science Fiction, and PodCastle. She is an Active member of the SFWA, an editor, and a secret android.

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BOOK REVIEW: THE FLUX by Ferrett Steinmetz

written by David Steffen

THE FLUX is the sequel to Ferrett Steinmetz’s premier book FLEX that was published earlier this year. If you haven’t read the first book, I recommend reading FLEX before this one–you can read my review of that book on SF Signal. This review may contain spoilers for the first book, so if you want to avoid that, go read the FLEX review or pick up that book first. I’ll try to give a general overview so this review won’t be incomprehensible to newcomers, but it may ruin some of the effect of the first book.

Still here? Okay.

THE FLUX takes place a couple years after the FLEX, and mostly centers around the same three characters. The magic (or ‘mancy) in the universe of these books is extremely personal–if you are obsessed enough with something, that obsession can bend the universe around you to suit your beliefs. But it comes at a cost–every time a ‘mancer changes the world with their ‘mancy, the universe pushes back against the change with flux. Flux is a load of bad luck proportional to the extremeness of your mancy.

Paul Tsabo is a bureaucromancer, whose power rests in his belief that paperowork is a powerful force for good. His ‘mancy can be very powerful, but in a quiet way–not usually the deciding factor in a firefight, but it is subtle enough to make things happen that would be impossible for many other kinds of ‘mancy. Since the death of the anarchomancer Anathema at the end of FLEX, whom the public thinks was killed by Paul, he has become a bit of a celebrity for having killed two ‘mancers. He has been appointed the head of New York’s new local anti-mancer task force to offset Anathema’s claim that she had been producing new ‘mancers in the city. He has also been brewing FLEX for a local crime syndicate to fulfill his past obligations.

Valentine DiGriz is a videogamemancer, a powerhouse with wide-ranging abilities that she can draw from any video game she’s ever played. Her ‘mancy is loud and conspicuous, as she herself often is. In many ways she is the opposite of Paul, but they have forged a deep friendship through fighting to help Paul’s daughter in FLEX.

Aliyah is Paul’s daughter, also a videogamemancer, who even now is the youngest ‘mancer any of the characters in the book have heard of. She gained her power during the fight against Anathema, and she used those powers to kill Anathema, a fact that she is still trying to cope with. She is powerful, but young and headstrong, and tends to rush into situations. She is very protective of her father, and struggles with lying to her mother who Aliyah feels would turn her into the authorities if she knew about Aliyah’s ‘mancy.

The book starts out two years after the end of FLEX. After Anathema’s promise that she has seeded New York City with ‘mancers before her death, Paul and Valentine were braced to try to handle the onslaught of magic in the town, and especially Paul in his role as the new taskforce manager. But in those two years, no new ‘mancers have risen. What could be the cause of this unusual lull during a time when a surge was expected? Paul and Valentine decide to find out.

Meanwhile, they are trying to help Aliyah survive her childhood ‘mancy. Her inexperienced and headstrong use of ‘mancy threatens them with the blowback of the flux every time she uses it. And if she’s ever caught, she will be brainwashed and recruited for the SMASH military anti-‘mancy unit like anyone else.

I don’t want to say much more about the plot because, as with the first book, Ferrett has done an astounding job of making the book unpredictable in the most satisfying and self-consistent way. Every time I felt that I had a grasp of where the book was going next, something new would happen and the plotline would end up on a completely different course.

And, wonder of wonders, Ferrett has managed to avoid the Book Two Slump that many series of novels has difficulty slogging through–that point where the novelty of the idea or setting is no longer fresh and the story has to make up for the lack of novelty. This book does not feel like a Book Two. It is every bit as fresh and solid and consistently entertaining at every moment as the first book.

The biggest strength of the book is the likeable but disparate characters. Paul, Valentine, and Aliyah are a group that it’s easy to root for, who will fight for each other just as strongly as they’ll fight for themselves, but there is interesting conflict inherent in their different personalities, as with any family. These three together are the heroes of the book, even when they make choices that I didn’t agree with.

The stakes are ever high for ‘mancers, since apprehension by authorities means brainwashing, overusing magic builds up flux that can vent in the most improbable and destructive coincidences, and with the head of crime syndicate as one of their few allies. The ‘mancy in these books is flexible enough that it’s a treat to see characters find new ways to apply their magic, but everything has a cost–the flux must be accounted for.

Gamers will especially love both this book and the last, especially in fight scenes where Valentine’s and Aliyah’s videogamemancy powers often take the forefront, tapping into real games to force those gameplay features onto reality.

I felt like this book (and the one before it) was written just for me in a way that I’ve never felt about a book before. Weird, fun, heartfelt, unpredictable, and compelling.

Ferrett has also announced the wonderful news that Angry Robot Books will be publishing book 3 in the series, THE FIX. Bring. It. On. I can’t wait to read it.

Fall 2015 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

Autumn snuck up faster than expected. Ushio and Tora is the only summer show that is continuing its run into the fall, but I’m not quite as gung-ho about it as I used to be, so if there is something good here, it could possibly displace it. Fafner: Exodus is also returning after its summer hiatus, and I’m more likely to keep watching that.

I selected eight shows to check out this season and these are my impressions based on their first episode as well as which ones I’m likely to come back to.

Attack on Titan: Junior High

attack on titan junior high

Why I Watched It: While I’m still fond of Attack on Titan two years after the hype train, it’s starting to feel played out due to the constant bombardment of AoT-related spin-offs and merchandise, which is a pity since the core series is pretty good with a fantastic bit of worldbuilding. Attack on Titan: Junior High is a parody series where the main characters go to a modern day junior high, but somehow there are still titans? I’m watching out of morbid curiosity.

What I Thought: It’s cute parody series done in the chibi-style, but is definitely aimed at the AoT fanbase as it doesn’t bother explaining what titans are and some jokes only make sense if the audience is already familiar with the original. All of the original cast members reprise their roles and it’s a little odd hearing them act out what are essentially caricatures of their more serious performances. Some scenes (and definitely the opening credits) are direct callbacks to the original. The titans themselves have been de-fanged though as they now eat kids’ lunches instead of live humans. Unlike the original, I suspect the worldbuilding isn’t going to be there to explain why titans have their own school system next door to the human-populated junior high.

Verdict: I’m going to pass. It’s worth something as a curiosity, but my funny bone isn’t easy to hit and I would rather save my Attack on Titan enthusiasm for the proper return of the series in 2016 instead of settling for a parody.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Beautiful Bones -Sakurako’s Investigation-

beautiful bones

Why I Watched It: The Japanese title translates literally into something like “A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet” or “Burying a Corpse at Sakurako’s Feet” and it’s so evocative it’s a pity that the official English title was changed to Beautiful Bones -Sakurako’s Investigation-. The show features a high school student and his quirky female friend, Sakurako, who investigate murders together.

What I Thought: Though Sakurako is the older of the pair, you would only know it from appearances as Shoutarou is the one constantly wrangling Sakurako’s more wild and petulant nature. We’re not told how old she is exactly, but she already works as a osteologist so she is probably in her mid-twenties. Shoutarou says the relationship isn’t romantic, and Sakurako has a fiance, but I question whether things will remain that way even if he’s still in high school. We don’t know how they met, but human bones tend to turn up whenever he’s with her and Sakurako is eager to unravel the mystery of any corpse she comes across. She’s a Holmes-style detective in that she picks up a lot the average viewer would not just by looking at a body, but that also means viewers are generally incapable of solving a case along with her.

Verdict: I was hoping for a good mystery show, but it looks like I’ll pass. I don’t really like Sakurako’s flightiness and I wasn’t that impressed with the opening mystery (which barely takes half the episode), so unless I hear the mysteries get better I probably won’t come back.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Dance with Devils

dance with devils

Why I Watched It: I wasn’t going to, because it looked like an adaptation of an otome game (dating sim for girls), which generally don’t make stellar transitions to anime, but when I found this was an original vehicle I thought I would give it a try. In a nutshell, ordinary high school girl suddenly discovers a bunch of cute demon boys are into her. Hm… hitting the Twilight crowd?

What I Thought: It’s a musical! Oddly enough, having music numbers livens up what could have been a fairly standard story about a high school girl discovering that a world of good-looking demons and vampires are mysteriously hunting for some forgotten grimoire, that of course her family possesses (probably). Even though the character designs don’t do much for me, there are a lot of good plot tidbits dropped that make me interested in seeing where the story is going. The protagonist’s older brother is clearly more up on the family secret than she is as he warns her about being in danger, and considering that the shot of him on the phone shows him dressed up in some fancy priest robes means that there’s probably going to be some holy battling going on by the time he gets home.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I didn’t think I would be, but it looks fun, and I still can’t get over the student council introduction number. It took cheesy dialogue and made it work becauses it’s a song!

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Mr. Osomatsu

mr. osomatsu

Why I Watched It: When I heard the premise was a group of anime characters from the 1960s trying to make a new home for themselves in modern day by cribbing off other anime series, I figured it was worth a look. In a nutshell, the Osomatsu sextuplets discover they’re getting a new series, but they realize that all their jokes are horribly dated because they’re decades out of touch with the audience, so they decide that they’re going to modernize themselves. And how.

What I Thought: The Osomatsu sextuplets originated in a gag manga so most of their material involves ridiculous humor, and I think their late creator probably would probably appreciate their latest incarnation. It was really hard to pick a good screenshot to represent the show since their cribbing of other series is done in a colorful world they don’t exist in, so I opted for their original B&W world. The first episode left me with a feeling of “What the heck did I just watch?!” with everything from pop idols to sports anime to Attack on Titan making an appearance. Plot? I’m not sure this show has one beyond the premise itself.

Verdict: It was funny, even though the episode defies any kind of logic, but gag humor doesn’t normally work with me and Mr. Osomatsu isn’t good enough to keep me hooked. The characters promise the real show will start in the second episode, but I imagine the humor style will still be the same.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

One Punch Man

one punch man

Why I Watched It: One Punch Man is about a guy who trained so hard to be a hero, his hair fell out and now he defeats every villain in just one punch. It’s not the kind of comedy I’d normally watch, but it’s arriving with good word of mouth, so I decided to check it out.

What I Thought: The story is not as slapsticky as I thought it would be (aside from living in a comic book world where eating too much crab can legitimately turn you in a crab monster). Though One Punch Man does beat his enemies in a single punch, the joy of being a superhero has gone out of his life. I admit, having a character as strong as Superman feeling ennui over a lack of a challenge isn’t what I expected when I started watching. The show is still funny, but the protagonist does have some legitimate concerns about what he’s doing with his life since his battles have not stopped monsters and super villains from appearing.

Verdict: I might watch this one, but I’m not sure where it will go from here. It can’t be too actiony because One Punch Man has to win in one punch, and it’s not going to be much fun if he’s always moping. The show does get some points for his pre-superhero self as an unemployed salaryman who’s largely given up hope… until he encounters a monster that makes him remember that when he was a kid he wanted to be a hero. Who hasn’t had that dream?

Where to find stream: Viz and Daisuki

The Perfect Insider

the perfect insider

Why I Watched It: Murder mystery procedural with an adult cast that even includes a married couple. Given that anime tends to skew its protagonists young, I’m really surprised how much older the cast looks in the promotional material. The main character is a professor, and actually looks old enough to have gotten an advanced degree. Based on an award winning mystery novel.

What I Thought: It’s hard to say where this is going. It held my interest the entire way through and I’m looking forward to the next episode, but the premise itself hasn’t been laid out yet (possibly due to novel pacing rather than TV show pacing). So far there is the suggestion of a murder several years in the past by a genius doctor who was declared not guilty by reason of insanity, but no clue how that ties into the present.

Verdict: I think there’s a good chance I’m going to continue with this one, at least long enough to figure out where it’s going.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note

tantei team kz jiken note

Why I Watched It: I stumbled across this one completely blind as an also recommended after watching Beautiful Bones, and wondered why I had never heard of what was obviously a new and simulcasted series. “Tantei” translates into “detective” and in my craving for more mystery anime, I looked into Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note to find out that it’s based on a children’s novel series and the anime is a series of shorts, meaning the episodes are only 10 minutes long, which is why it’s largely been overlooked by most anime sites.

What I Thought: I don’t usually watch shorts because they don’t feel like they have much depth to them, but this one is cute, introducing sixth grade protagonist Aya Tachibana and the four boys that will join her as the Detective Team. There isn’t time for anything more than the group of them getting off on the wrong foot, but the episode ends with one of the boys’ mountain bike being stolen. As a short, there is no time for padding, but pacing still felt good instead of rushed, and Aya is easy to relate to. The animation feels a little on the cheap side, but I’m guessing that’s because shorts generally hit a smaller audience than the regular half hour long shows.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I’m hoping the mystery solving will be like the Encyclopedia Brown books I grew up with since the audience is likely in the same age bracket, but even if it’s not, the first episode is charming enough to make me think of the times I had at that age. Aside from having to read the subtitles, it’s also more child friendly than most anime that gets brought over here.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Young Black Jack

young black jack

Why I Watched It: Black Jack is one of the series from legendary manga creator Osamu Tezuka (better known in the west for Kimba the White Lion), focusing on the titular unlicensed doctor who only performs surgery for exorbitant amounts of money. In the years since Tezuka’s passing, writer Yoshiaki Tabata and artist Yuugo Oukuma began a prequel series called Young Black Jack, set in the 1960s when the future medical genius is still in medical school.

What I Thought: Even though Kuroo Hazama, the future Black Jack, is still in med school, it doesn’t feel too much like an origin story. His blunt personality is already familiar to anyone who has read the original and the story plays surprisingly close to some of Tezuka’s work, down to the fact that paying the doctor means less in hindsight when a loved one’s well being is no longer in danger. The character designs are more realistic than Tezuka’s work, except for a few characters here and there, which are done bizarrely close to the original style, making for a mismatched viewing. I’m a little bothered that Megumi, Kuroo’s med school love interest from the original Black Jack, appears to have been replaced by a different woman and I’m not sure why.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. For being a medical show, it is surprisingly blood free (which is not true of some of the older Black Jack anime). Tezuka had graduated from medical school, which had lent a certain realism to Black Jack’s otherwise fantastical surgeries, but I’m not entirely sure that there in Young Black Jack.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

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Table of Contents

Attack on Titan: Junior High

Beautiful Bones -Sakurako’s Investigation-

Dance with Devils

Mr. Osomatsu

One Punch Man

The Perfect Insider

Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note

Young Black Jack