Clarkesworld 103 Now on Sale
The newest issue of Clarkesworld, one of the most acclaimed fiction mags on the market, is now on sale. Issue 103 contains six short stories — including one by the source of that other big 2015 Hugo controversy, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, who also writes as the notorious blogger and book reviewer “Requires Hate.”
Sriduangkaew’s long-running campaign of intimidation and death threats against other genre writers was detailed in Laura J. Mixon’s exhaustive “A Report on Damage Done by One Individual Under Several Names,” for which Mixon was nominated for a 2015 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.
Short stories featured this issue are:
“The Empress in Her Glory” by Robert Reed
“Let Baser Things Devise” by Berrien C. Henderson
“The Petals Abide” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
“Postcards from Monster Island” by Emily Devenport
“Noble Mold” by Kage Baker
“Weep for Day” by Indrapramit Das
Non-fiction includes “Small Markets, Big Wonders” by Julie Novakova, a report on a roundtable on Spanish science fiction by Alvaro Zinos Amaro, “Another Word: The Precious Five-Star and the Reviewers of Mount Doom” by Alethea Kontis, and an editorial, “Danger! Radioactive!,” by Neil Clarke. This issue also includes three podcasts.
Clarkesworld is a three-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine. In 2013 Clarkesworld received more Hugo nominations for short fiction than all the leading print magazines (Asimov’s, Analog, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) combined, and last November the magazine was awarded a World Fantasy Award.
If it weren’t for the Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy slate, which pushed aside all other contenders, Clarkesworld would almost certainly have been a heavy contender at this year’s awards as well. However, it was completely locked out of the awards, for the first time in many years.
We last covered Clarkesworld with Issue 102.
Clarkesworld 103 was edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, and published by Wyrm Publishing. The contents are available for free online; individual issues can be purchased for $3.99, and monthly subscriptions are $2.99/month. A 6-month sub is $17.94, and the annual price is $35.88. Learn more and order individual issues at the magazine’s website.
This issue’s cover, “Sleeping Giant,” is by Julie Dillon. See the complete issue here.
See our April Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.
That cover is gorgeous.
I’ve read all the original fiction in this issue. I’ll stay away from plot, but these were my overall reactions to the pieces.
The stand-out for me was “The Empress in Her Glory”. It blends a story operating on a global scale with intimate, understated characterization. It struck me as an unusual and subtle approach to the “alien invasion” genre. I found myself respecting and admiring the protagonist.
“The Petals Abide” — I read it 2x. At first the prose seemed to me like a big step-up from a bunch of recent sci-fi I’ve read. The sentences themselves had clarity, confidence and gravitas. I pieced the plot together after 2 readings– mostly staying happy with the prose, looking up a lot of new words. I did find the initial high expectations I had at the beginning were not entirely met. Some of the sharpness of the writing seemed fuzzier and even florid. However, when I thought of the story the next day, I felt simply irritated– it was if my impression of it had evaporated like dew. It may be one for me to revisit in a few months.
“Let Baser Things Devise” and “Postcards from Monster Island” did not make as strong impressions one me. One is heavy and ponderous; the other is light and happy.
> That cover is gorgeous.
Agreed. I’m constantly jealous of Clarkesworld’s covers. They make me wish I was publishing a magazine again.
That Laura Mixon report is so very important. Check out this post in which she thanks all the people who helped her put it together and talks about how she hopes her Hugo nomination will help the SF/F community heal.
I wonder if some of the Sad Puppies advocates who have worked so hard to communicate in good faith here would consider being part of the dialogue Mixon’s trying to foster.
One of the things they’ve expressed the most concern about is politically inflected online intimidation. (I don’t know that all of it is politically motivated — as the behavior of Requires Hate demonstrates, in some cases trolling seems to be a goal in itself.) The kinds of attacks we’ve come to associate with GamerGate, Requires Hate and company, and some others are wrong, no matter who does them, and no matter who the target is.
Am I crazy to dream that a year from now, our friends on the right might really believe we mean it when we say it shouldn’t happen to them, either?
> I’ve read all the original fiction in this issue. I’ll stay away from plot, but these were my overall reactions to the pieces.
learned,
Thanks for the excellent (and concise) mini-review. We should have you doing magazine reviews for us.
What other magazines do you read?
> That Laura Mixon report is so very important.
I agree completely, Sarah. Laura’s article is a marvel of journalistic research, and I hope she wins.
And thanks for that link!
Lately I read cover-to-cover (at least the original fiction) for Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and F&SF. If i finish these before the month is out, I like to check out one of the others (Asimov’s, Nightmare) and there’s other stuff I’d like to add to my reading docket (Intergalactic Medicine Show). I also read Strange Horizons every week, but that’s a conflict of interest as I just joined the first reader team.
I’d be interested in reviewing short fiction! Would love to discuss further.
@ Sarah –
I don’t know that all of [the online intimidation] is politically motivated — as the behavior of Requires Hate demonstrates, in some cases trolling seems to be a goal in itself.
Sarah, my apologies if you know this, but so many people from outside lj fandom don’t – RH honed her harassment skills on caucasian male fans and writers before shifting over to include women and POC’s. This was going on for 4-5 years before RH (as Winterfox) started in people in the 50 POC books lj. And it didn’t happen in a vaccumn – she had support and encouragement. The only significant fault I have with Mixon’s report is how it whitewashes (heh) this period of misbehavior.
Am I crazy to dream that a year from now, our friends on the right might really believe we mean it when we say it shouldn’t happen to them, either?
I think it would be crazy to *expect* it – because far too many people who were cheering on RH when she went after white guys are still engaging in the same sort of rhetoric today. However, it would nice to think it could happen, wouldn’t it?
In that note…while BS/RH will likely never shake the reputation she built, she’s far from the first person to combine a problematic personality and a significant artistic talent. I think if we shift to focusing more on the work and less on the personality, we might encourage people to spend more of their time writing, and less acting out in loutish and horrific ways.
In that note, I wish her well in her future writing.
> I’d be interested in reviewing short fiction! Would love to discuss further.
Excellent — I sent you a private note.
> Sarah, my apologies if you know this, but so many people from outside lj fandom don’t – RH honed her harassment skills on
> caucasian male fans and writers before shifting over to include women and POC’s. This was going on for 4-5 years before RH
> (as Winterfox) started in people in the 50 POC books lj. And it didn’t happen in a vaccumn – she had support and
> encouragement. The only significant fault I have with Mixon’s report is how it whitewashes (heh) this period of misbehavior.
keranih,
I wasn’t aware of that… but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Thanks for sharing that.
Keranih, I didn’t know. Laura Mixon’s report was the first I heard of RH. Thank you for giving me more of the context, and for doing it so diplomatically.
“… far too many people who were cheering on RH when she went after white guys are still engaging in the same sort of rhetoric today …”
I see accusations like this tossed around, but they never have specifics. If there are people behaving like Requires Hate they should be called out for that, regardless of their choice of target.
John, Sarah, etc -Thanks. I am trying to follow in the good example of politeness set down by others.
@rcade –
I see accusations like this tossed around, but they never have specifics. If there are people behaving like Requires Hate they should be called out for that, regardless of their choice of target.
…I really find this kinda disingenuous, considering I know you and I have talked in many SP places and at File770. So I think you’ve seen the things said by other anti-puppy people.
In some ways, it’s worse right now – I don’t recall RH/WF ever referring to the POC spouse of a caucasian writer as a “human shield”. And surely RH was never given the opportunity to insult and libel people in the global press, as was done in the last three weeks.
(I’m not James May – (and am very glad of it) – he has pages and pages of depressing lists of things people have tweeted and posted.)
To be clear – people should be able to advocate for things they like in fiction and in the world. But IMO writing well doesn’t make a person nice, and being a generous defender of the downtrodden doesn’t mean your prose is worth the lives of the trees that died for your novel to be printed upon. We run the risk of serious errors when we confuse the two skill sets.
“So I think you’ve seen the things said by other anti-puppy people.”
Don’t overestimate how much I’m reading just because I comment here, File 770 and a few other places. When I see someone is spewing a bunch of venom or nonsense I scroll past. I don’t even read the principals’ blog posts that carefully at this point. Anyone reading General Robert E. Torgersen’s self-glorifying posts in full deserves a medal.
I find most of the “we are being unfairly attacked” complaints to be dubious when they don’t cite a single specific attack. So I asked for specifics.