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Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Summary: "Miscellaneous" sources, 2005
Here I cover stories I saw in "miscellaneous" places: non-SF magazine like the New Yorker and Nature, author's websites, a couple of other off the beaten track online places.
The New Yorker only published two fantastical pieces this year, at least according to my definition. These were George Saunders' "CommComm", (a short novelette by my unreliable estimate, at some 7900 words), which I thought very good, about a comically and tragically messed up set of people at a military installation. It mutates from pretty funny to pretty sad towards the end, quite effectively. The other was Karen Russell's "Haunting Olivia", a ghost story of sorts.
Harper's published three fantastical stories that I saw: another Saunders' piece, "In Persuasion Nation", and two short-shorts from Margaret Atwood, "Chicken Little Goes too Far" and "The Tent". None of these thrilled me.
The Atlantic Monthly dropped regular publication of fiction this year, instead putting out a special all-fiction issue. (To be fair, that issue published about as much new fiction as they typically featured in a year.) One of the stories in that issue was unmistakable no-foolin' SF: "*BD* 11 1 86" by Joyce Carol Oates. It's well enough done, about an 18-year old boy who notices that people are treating him oddly -- not seeming to care about his college plans, etc. The reason is the sort of thing SF readers will figure out instantly, and even mainstream readers might, if they read a certain Man Booker prize nominee this year.
Salon.com also regularly publishes SF, but this year the only story I saw there was a long serial from Cory Doctorow, "Themepunks, Part 1", which is novel length itself and also is apparently part of a longer novel. But it's pretty good.
Nature did another series of 900 word short-shorts this year. I'm not a subscriber, but their website went weirdly in and out of general availability a couple of times. I managed to see 20 of the stories, of which I particularly liked Joe Haldeman's "Heartwired". Ted Chiang's contribution was quite good as well.
The BBC website, in a section called BBC Cult, featured five fantastical Sherlock Holmes pastiches early this year. All were fairly enjoyable shortish things (about 4500 words apiece). The authors were Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Christopher Fowler, Dominic Green, Kim Newman, and Paul Cornell.
Michael Coney, just before his death, made five previously unpublished stories available for free download at his website (<http://www.members.shaw.ca/mconey/>), as well as three new novels. The five stories, three novelettes and two short stories, are all fairly enjoyable. I particularly liked "The Porcupine", a really creepy story about an adopted child and her resentment of the family's new baby; and "Lady Flamingo and the Shapecast Jennies", a clever recasting of "The Gift of the Magi" as an SF story about altering humans to adapt to other planets: I was particularly reminded of Cordwainer Smith (a definite influence on much of Coney's work).
Bruce Holland Rogers makes available three short-shorts a month via his subscription email service, www.shortshortshort.com. Some of these were quite good -- my favorites were "Missy Victoria", in which a Names Judge can force people to change their names, and "My Crimes", in which a man confesses all sorts of past thefts.
Anna Tambour's site featured a short story by Jamie Shanks, "Nobody Does Debris Like Jack Kirby", an enjoyable little piece.
And finally, Tim Pratt, in support of his first novel The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, had a Rangergirl story, "Bluebeard and the White Buffalo", posted online. I thought it a fine fantastical Western.
Totals for all of the above: 6 novelettes, 68 short stories (47 of them short-shorts), for somewhat over 150,000 words of new short fiction.
