This story has been nominated for a Hugo Award.
Please, also remember our friend P.G. Holyfield and donate to his fund if at all possible.
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story.]
Kameron Hurley is the author of the novels God’s War, Infidel, and Rapture a science-fantasy noir series which earned her the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer and the Kitschy Award for Best Debut Novel. She has won the Hugo Award and been a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Nebula Award, the Locus Award, BFS Award, and the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Her latest novel, The Mirror Empire, will be published by Angry Robot Books on August 26th, 2014.
Hero.
Ok, I want you to stop right there.
Think about what image popped into your mind when you read “hero.” The first one.
NO CHEATING.
What’s the first image your mind conjured on reading that word?
Hero.
Who is it?
Who is… he?
These days, when I read “hero” the image that pops up is some superhero, because I’m inundated with Marvel movie images all day. Thor comes to mind. Maybe, if I haven’t been eating movies for awhile, it’s Conan.
Hero: a dude. Muscles. White. Butch.
Hero. First image. Every time.
It takes some additional thought, some re-training, for me to see anything but that archetype when I first think “hero.” I have the same trouble with nearly every term we say is gender-neutral or totally inclusive that… well… turns out isn’t. That’s because when we learned what words meant, we had certain types of images placed in front of us. We learned to associate those images with the word.
We ate what the stories and media fed us, and it’s why, to this day, we conjure them again and again when we see those words in text, when we hear them in conversations. We carry those expectations. It’s why, often, we get so upset or simply surprised when the hero we see on the page doesn’t conform to the image we learned.
Subverting expectations has become a hallmark of the gray, grimdark(er) fantasy tales now, and the even darker obsession in more general media of mythologizing serial killers (Bates Motel, Hannibal), elevating them to, if not heroes, then complex protagonists worthy of having their stories told; it’s cultivating compassion for killers. Yet still, there anti-hero heros are the same sorts of heroes: white, male, butch.
I can think of only two movies with women killers we’re meant to sympathize with, and both because they’d been sexually assaulted – Thelma and Louise and Monster. And to be honest, I don’t imagine anyone would call the women in these films heroes. Red Sonja is, perhaps, a proper hero, but is, once again, motivated by a sexual assault. Male heroes are heroic because of what’s been done to women in their lives, often – the dead child, the dead wife. Women heroes are also heroic for what’s been done to women… to them. (Continue Reading…)
This story has been nominated for a Hugo Award. (Edited to add: Winner of the 2014 Hugo Award for best short story!)
Please, also remember our friend P.G. Holyfield and donate to his fund if at all possible.
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story.]
Announcement: specficmedia.com/2014/08/17/pg-holyfield-announcement
GoFundMe Page: http://www.gofundme.com/pgfund
Want to give people who don’t know PG’s work a chance to donate AND get an audio version of his book at the same time? Point them here: http://podiobooks.com/title/murder-at-avedon-hill/
Music in this episode:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/All_These_Simple_Things/09_-_The_Idea_of_Space
1) It was last year that Lynne and Michael stepped down as editors at Apex. Now, suddenly, Uncanny. Was Uncanny always the plan, or was it just that hard to stop editing having once started?
It was just hard to stop. We took time off for our daughter’s spinal fusion surgery. Her recovery went well, and we felt the need to scratch that editorial itch again. We love this community, and we were anxious to get back in the game!
2) I notice that most of the editing team is spread pretty far out, but also all are members of at least one Whovian club. Would Uncanny exist without Doctor Who?
I think we can safely say that Uncanny would not exist without Doctor Who. Lynne’s editorial career began with co-editing Chicks Dig Time Lords with Tara O’Shea. If it hadn’t won a Hugo, Lynne might not have been offered the editorial position at Apex Magazine. Michael’s editorial career also started at Mad Norwegian Press, the publisher of the “Dig” books like his Queers Dig Time Lords and many other Doctor Who nonfiction books. We met Deborah Stanish (a Chicks Dig Time Lords essayist), Steven Schapansky, and Erika Enisgn through Doctor Who conventions. Erika, Deb, and Lynne are now all members of the Hugo-nominated Verity! Doctor Who podcast. Though we didn’t initially meet Managing Editor Michi Trota at a Doctor Who convention, Michael did meet her on a Doctor Who panel at a general SF/F where he found out that she was a fan of the “Dig” books, and Lynne got to know her better at a local Doctor Who convention, Chicago TARDIS. So yes, Doctor Who had more than a tiny role, if only in bringing us into contact with excellent, intelligent people with whom we enjoy interacting. They get our jokes!
3) Follow up: Which Doctor is best Doctor? Each editor may answer separately and weapons are permitted.
Michael: Sylvester McCoy. All arguments against him are wrong. Lynne: I don’t go with “best” because what’s the metric for that? Splendid chaps, all of them. Sylvester McCoy made me a fan of the series, but I would rather travel with David Tennant to the ends of the universe. I’d travel with Tennant and Ace together, given my druthers. Emo AND explosions!
4) As a better/less stupid follow-up question: What are the challenges of working as a team while separated by physical distance, international borders, and possibly time zones, and how have you (or how will you) overcome them?
Lynne and Michael live in the same house, so that’s easy. Luckily, pretty much everything we do for the magazine is done online. Thanks to email, Skype, Twitter, and Google Docs, we can accomplish everything asynchronously without physically seeing each other. Occasionally we even use this thing called a “telephone” if we have no other choice. Once in a while, we even get together in person when we can manage it. (Continue Reading…)
If you were a dinosaur, my love, then you would be a T-Rex. You’d be a small one, only five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you. You’d be fragile-boned and you’d walk with as delicate and polite a gait as you could manage on massive talons. Your eyes would gaze gently from beneath your bony brow-ridge.
If you were a T-Rex, then I would become a zookeeper so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats. I’d watch the gore shining on your teeth. I’d make my bed on the floor of your cage, in the moist dirt, cushioned by leaves. When you couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies.
If I sang you lullabies, I’d soon notice how quickly you picked up music. You’d harmonize with me, your rough, vibrating voice a strange counterpoint to mine. When you thought I was asleep, you’d cry unrequited love songs into the night.
If you sang unrequited love songs, I’d take you on tour. We’d go to Broadway. You’d stand onstage, talons digging into the floorboards. Audiences would weep at the melancholic beauty of your singing.
Mentioned in this episode: Bobby Lombardi fundraiser
While the harbormaster fidgeted at his desk, Treya checked her pipes. They were, of course, in perfect condition: the leather supple and the drones polished. She’d brought her double-chantered smallpipes today, in case the negotiations grew complex.
The harbormaster snapped shut his pocket watch. “That damned beetle is already ten minutes late.”
Treya walked to the window. On the street below, a fishmonger pushed his wheelbarrow through a group of green-skinned Cantharan peddlers while a Glanite hoverjar floated by. But there was no sign of the beetle. If he didn’t show up, Treya wouldn’t get paid.
She scrutinized the hoverjar as it wafted through an intersection. Inside its murky interior, there must be a Glanite. The squid-like creatures seldom visited Port Raskol. What was it doing here? Might it want to hire a translator?
At last Treya spotted the beetle’s top hat bobbing above the heads of other pedestrians. His fringed leather vest marked him as a servant of the beetle Baroness.
After a few moments, the beetle was ushered into the office. Treya and the harbormaster bowed and the beetle spread his stubby hindwings in greeting. After Treya piped a welcome, he responded with a cacophony of wails, whines, and groans from his spiracles.
She translated in a low voice. “He’s doing the Lamentation on Congestion…apologies for being late…greetings from the Baroness. He’s going off on a tangent. Could be an extended monologue. No…He’s back on track. We’re definitely doing the first scene of A Routine Mercantile Transaction. It’s a one-act, so this shouldn’t take long.”
When the beetle finished his lines, Treya glanced at the harbormaster.
“Ask him why the Baroness is behind on her docking fees,” he said. The Baroness owned a fleet of fishing vessels currently in the harbor.
Treya shook her head. “That will serve no purpose. At best, he’ll give us a discourse on unavoidable delays, and at worst, he’ll push us into a convoluted subplot. No, at this point in A Routine Mercantile Transaction, you need to state your demands.”
“I want those fees paid. Right now.” (Continue Reading…)
When I wake, it is not yet hot. But it will be soon.
I am already thirsty.
I get up from the cot and go to the machine. I put my dick into the intake cup, and when my pee flows into the machine it clicks on automatically. I stretch and reach out to snag my camera by its strap. I review the shots I took yesterday while I finish going. The machine whirs while it does its work. I wait, still looking at photos.
When the machine beeps, it has produced almost eight ounces of clean warm water. I sip some of it, just enough to wet my mouth, and put the rest into a second machine.
When the second machine beeps, it has produced five ounces of hot coffee.
I crouch in the corner of the room, where the rising sun cannot find me. It is still cool here. I inhale deeply, wanting not even the steam of the coffee to go to waste. I sip.
When I look up, the boy is in the doorway, watching. I do not know how long he’s been there.
“He wants you,” the boy says.
Genres: Classic S-F
Pid the Pilot slowed the ship almost to a standstill, and peered anxiously at the green planet below.
Even without instruments, there was no mistaking it. Third from its sun, it was the only planet in this system capable of sustaining life. Peacefully it swam beneath its gauze of clouds.
It looked very innocent. And yet, twenty previous Grom expeditions had set out to prepare this planet for invasion—and vanished utterly, without a word.
Pid hesitated only a moment, before starting irrevocably down. There was no point in hovering and worrying. He and his two crewmen were as ready now as they would ever be. Their compact Displacers were stored in body pouches, inactive but ready.
Pid wanted to say something to his crew, but wasn’t sure how to put it.
The crew waited. Ilg the Radioman had sent the final message to the Grom planet. Ger the Detector read sixteen dials at once, and reported, “No sign of alien activity.” His body surfaces flowed carelessly.
Noticing the flow, Pid knew what to say to his crew. Ever since they had left Grom, shape-discipline had been disgustingly lax. The Invasion Chief had warned him; but still, he had to do something about it. It was his duty, since lower castes such as Radiomen and Detectors were notoriously prone to Shapelessness.
“A lot of hopes are resting on this expedition,” he began slowly. “We’re a long way from home now.”
Ger the Detector nodded. Ilg the Radioman flowed out of his prescribed shape and molded himself comfortably to a wall.
“However,” Pid said sternly, “distance is no excuse for promiscuous Shapelessness.”
Ilg flowed hastily back into proper Radioman’s shape.
“Exotic forms will undoubtedly be called for,” Pid went on. “And for that we have a special dispensation. But remember—anyshape not assumed strictly in the line of duty is a foul, lawless device of The Shapeless One!”
Ger’s body surfaces abruptly stopped flowing.
“That’s all,” Pid said, and flowed into his controls. The ship started down, so smoothly co-ordinated that Pid felt a glow of pride.
They were good workers, he decided. He just couldn’t expect them to be as shape-conscious as a high-caste Pilot. Even the Invasion Chief had told him that.
“Pid,” the Invasion Chief had said at their last interview, “we need this planet desperately.”
“Yes, sir,” Pid had said, standing at full attention, never quivering from Optimum Pilot’s Shape.
“One of you,” the Chief said heavily, “must get through and set up a Displacer near an atomic power source. The army will be standing by at this end, ready to step through.”
“We’ll do it, sir,” Pid said.
“This expedition has to succeed,” the Chief said, and his features blurred momentarily from sheer fatigue. “In strictest confidence, there’s considerable unrest on Grom. The Miner caste is on strike, for instance. They want a new digging shape. Say the old one is inefficient.”
Pid looked properly indignant. The Mining Shape had been set down by the Ancients fifty thousand years ago, together with the rest of the basic shapes. And now these upstarts wanted to change it!
“That’s not all,” the Chief told him. “We’ve uncovered a new Cult of Shapelessness. Picked up almost eight thousand Grom, and I don’t know how many more we missed.”
Pid knew that Shapelessness was a lure of The Shapeless One, the greatest evil that the Grom mind could conceive of. But why, he wondered, did so many Grom fall for His lures?
Lori Meeker pushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned back against the sink. She squeezed the cold porcelain edge to still her trembling hands and focused on the pair of plainclothes cops shoehorned into the women’s can with her.
The space was hardly bigger than a closet but the restrooms were the only private spaces in the bar, and the detectives had insisted on questioning her alone.
“The restrooms always this clean?” Detective Gayle asked.
“Yeah. Augie’s bat-shit crazy about dirt and germs.”
Gayle raised an eyebrow. “Bat-shit crazy, huh? Is that your professional opinion?”
“Pardon my French,” Lori snapped.
Lori had met women just like Gayle. Always judging, always pretending they could do anything a man could do. Always looking down their perfect nose at girls who had to work in joints like Augie’s Bar & Grill.
And Augie was bat-shit crazy about germs. A damned phobia, that’s what she should have said. It was a bar, for god’s sake, not some fancy restaurant. The place was cleaner than it had any need to be.
“Tell us what you saw and heard,” Detective Osbourne said.