by Clarke, Neil
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Mrs. Drissold sucks
Sent: Wednesday, December 9, 2122 9:27 PM LST
Dear Bigfoot,
Stupid Mrs. Drissold. In class today she tells us that tomorrow is Go to Work with your Parents Day. Tomorrow! She said she told us weeks ago but I don’t remember; maybe I was asleep, but some of the other kids didn’t remember either. I had to tell Dad tonight after he got home, which was real late, and he stunk worse than Melinda and could barely lift his dinner to his mouth. I don’t even know if he heard me, he just nodded his head and crawled into bed. I don’t want to go to the port. Graham’s dad got killed there.
Ace
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: got me a grizzly!
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2122 10:04 PM LST
Dear Bigfoot,
Mrs. Drissold ain’t so bad after all. Dad took me to the port today. I got up extra early and made him powdered eggs like he likes em, with tons of marmite and hot sauce, then when he suited up for work I followed him out the apartment, with the breakfast bowls still in the sink (we got me a new bowl, not as nice but better than waiting every morning). Dad said What the hell you following me for? And I said, Mrs. Drissold said I gotta go to work with you, all the kids are doing it. I didn’t bother telling him I told him last night. Christ, he said. The port ain’t no place for a boy. But when we got there, Dad got me a suit from some little guy who works the night shift and I got to walk in a vacuum!
Dad showed me around, and he introduced me to all his buddies. This is my boy, Ace, he said, and all his buddies said that I was even bigger than the guy whose suit I was wearing. Dad wore these big lifting arms that strapped on to the back of his suit over his own arms, and used them to move these huge boxes of ore and pharma and supplies around. He looked almost as strong as you!
He put all the boxes that were going back to Earth into these cylinder type things that got all sealed up then stuck in the railgun and fired off to Earth. I’ve never seen anything move so fast as those cylinders. It was awesome. The stuff coming in landed in the big magnet pits, which are kinda like the opposite of rail guns. Whenever a shipment came in, all the guys would crowd around to see what was inside.
That’s where Dad got me my present. He tipped one of the boxes and out poured all these stupid little plastic toys, building blocks, teacher’s tools, that sort of thing. Whoops, he said. Broken merchandise. Take something, boy, so you remember.
There was only one thing that was even halfway cool, this plastic robot grizzly. When I got it home, the grizzly walked around and roared until the batteries ran out. So cool! You must see tons of bears. I bet you fight them off every day when they come and try to steal your breakfast berries.
The port got boring after that. Dad just kept doing the same thing, lifting boxes and putting them where the bossman said to put em, but whenever he asked, I’d say, Yeah, it’s an awesome job, Dad. Sometimes you gotta say things like that, even if you don’t really mean em.
Dad cooked up some real bacon that he got from another box of busted merchandise. I never knew anything could taste so good. My belly hurts, but I ain’t complaining. You must eat bacon all the time!
Ace
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: stupid bossman
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2122 9:37 PM LST
Dear Bigfoot,
Looks like I’m never going to eat real bacon again. Dad was home from work when I got back from school. There was an empty screech bottle but it wasn’t like last time, he wasn’t mad, just all weepy and wanting to give me hugs. He kept apologizing and saying how he’d never done me right and I didn’t know what to say. He said the bossman fired him cause they caught him taking broken merchandise home. He took my grizzly and some stuff from the freezer and said he had to bring them back or he’d be in more trouble. He left after that and I ain’t seen him since.
I filled up some water bottles for when they turn off the water next, not that it will do much good. They bill us by the drop, Dad always says, but I’m going to hide some away just in case.
I got an idea, bigfoot. I won’t tell you about it yet, but I think I know a way I can come see you.
Ace
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: don’t tell anyone
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2122 8:24 AM LST
Dear Bigfoot,
They shut the water off, but I don’t care. I’ve got it all sorted out. I’m coming to see you! Know those couple weeks back when I went to work with Dad? Well, last week I snuck into the port and stole the little guy’s suit and checked out the place. Know those cylinders they blast off back to Earth on the rail gun? That’s my ticket! I just gotta slip into one of them before they’re sealed up, then I’ll get a free ride back to Earth. I even checked out where they land, and get this, it’s in the ocean! I won’t even have to worry about gravity.
Here’s the problem though, there are lots of guys there who’d notice if I snuck in a capsule. But not on Friday. The guys at the port were all talking about X-mas, and how a few of them got stuck working and were planning on drinking screech all day to piss off the bossman. Well, if they’re into their screech, there’s no way they’ll notice me. I want to be around for X-mas, but this is my only chance.
I haven’t told anyone else about this, cause I know no one will let me go, but Friday, I’m going to do it.
I can’t wait to see you, and don’t worry, I wont tell anyone that I’m going to teach you how to read. It’s our secret.
Ace
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: sorry - c u soon
Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2122 11:15 PM LST
Dear Dad,
Sorry I had to take off. I know you’re probably mighty sore at me for sneaking away without telling you, but I knew you wouldn’t let me go, and my plan was too good. I should get to Earth in a few days, and then I’ll go find bigfoot. I’m going to take a picture of him that we can sell for millions so you can come live with us too. We’ll live in the forest, with free water and free air, and you can fish if you want and maybe we can even bring Melinda along.
Don’t be too sore. I’ll see you soon. I left some breakfasts in the fridge, just heat em up and you’re good. There’s some water in the back of the cupboard. I took a couple jugs with me, but don’t worry, I’ll pay you back for it.
I’ll see if I can get a chicken. We’ll have real eggs when you get here.
Ace
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject:
Sent: Friday, January 1, 2123 4:33 AM LST
Bigfoot,
I must be crazy to be writing to a fucking Bigfoot. My head’s been on fire for so long. I can’t talk to anyone else about this, the bastards at the shipping company made me sign the non-disclosure after they paid me off. More then I’d ever make working for them too.
‘Course there are a few people in Avalon who know what happened. Melinda, the guys who worked X-mas at the port, but they got their shut-the-fuck-up cash too, so they’re probably happy Ace did what he did.
Still can’t believe it was that bad for the boy. I’ve been reading everything he wrote, and it hurts so much to see what an ass I was, but what hurts worse is hearing his voice in the damn emails he wrote. Don’t know if I’ll ever hear his voice again. Wish he’d written more to you.
The bastards at the shipping company say he must have drowned. They didn’t find a piece of him near the spot the capsule splashed down, and they say they searched for days. But that suit he stole should have kept him afloat. Shit, he can’t be at the bottom of the ocean, he
can’t. My head feels ready to burst just thinking of it. He’s gotta be with you. That suit floated, he wasn’t that far from shore, and he was a strong boy, he could have made it. And he wanted to see you so bad. So you better be taking good care of him, as good care as he took of me.
Melinda and those other pricks are buying new apartments or gold teeth or other useless shit with their shut-the-fuck-up cash, but they should be saving it for the next time the water’s shut off. The moon isn’t getting a cent of Ace’s money from me. I’m spending everything they paid me for a ticket dirtside.
I’m coming for you. I’ll tromp through every forest down there if I have to. On the way, I’m gonna swim in creeks, climb trees, eat bacon and eggs, maybe even stomp on a stupid prairie dog. All the shit my boy should have done. He didn’t deserve this place. I didn’t deserve him. You don’t deserve whatever cave you’re hiding in, and I don’t deserve to find you, but with whatever life I’ve got left in me, you better believe I’m gonna damn well try.
Rick, Ace’s dad
About the Author
Geoff graduated from Simon Fraser University’s Writers Studio in 2007, and since then his work has appeared in Apex Magazine, where he placed second in the Annual Halloween Short Story contest, The Ubyssey, and emerge 2007. Geoff has degrees in biology and engineering, and lives with his wonderful fianc in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he manages the construction of Canada’s largest water filtration plant. An avid telemark skier, surfer, and hiker, what he finds in the mountains and oceans he transposes to the page warped by a vision of the future filtered through polarized sunglasses and a fine single malt.
“Anthologists Discuss Their Craft”
by Jeremy L. C. Jones
Editing anthologies is an unsung art. An anthologist balances story selection, story editing, story arrangement, and central concept (not to mention a variety of clerical and financial concerns).
There are many individual pieces involved in the process, requiring practicality as well as intuition. The anthologist, as Jeff VanderMeer says below, must be “ambitious and grounded.”
In the end, a gathering of stories can be simply a gathering of stories or it can be something much more than the sum of its parts.
This “something more” is accomplished through the choices the anthologist makes in terms of, among other things, pacing, variety, and, as Jonathan Strahan points out below, honesty.
Below, six of the most accomplished and innovative editors working in the fantasy, science fiction and horror fields discuss the art of editing anthologies.
The Anthologists
John Joseph Adams is currently making his final story selections for his fourth themed anthology, Federations, which is due out this spring. Adams followed his definitive post-apocalyptic reprint anthology, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, with the expansive (and no less definitive) zombie reprint The Living Dead. In between these, he continued to work as the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and he edited the original anthology Seeds of Change.
Ellen Datlow is perhaps best known as the co-editor (originally with Terri Windling and then with Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant) of twenty-one annual The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies. She is the former fiction editor of Omni magazine and former editor of SCIFICTION. Alone and with co-editors, Datlow has won or shared numerous awards for her anthologies and for her editing, and was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” Her most recent anthologies are The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy and Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Forthcoming in mid-2009 are The Nebula Awards Showcase: 2009 and Troll’s Eye View (the latter with Windling).
James Lowder won two Origins Awards in 2008, one for Hobby Games: The 100 Best (non-fiction) and one for Astounding Hero Tales (fiction). A few months later, Paizo Publishing released Worlds of Their Own, an anthology of stories told in creator-owned settings written by authors known for their shared world fiction. Lowder has edited anthologies of superhero, Arthurian, and Forgotten Realms fiction. His zombie anthologies for Eden Studios (The Book of All Flesh, The Book of More Flesh, and The Book of Final Flesh) are deserving of every bit of their cult status.
Jonathan Strahan has edited more than a dozen anthologies. His past titles include annual volumes of The Year’s Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Best Short Novels, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, The Starry Rift, and perhaps most gloriously, the recent The New Space Opera (co-edited with Gardner Dozois). His forthcoming and in-progress lists feature titles such as Godlike Machines, Conquering Swords: New Sword and Sorcery, Dreamtime: Legends of Australian Fantasy, and Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier.
As the fiction editor of the legendary Weird Tales magazine, Ann VanderMeer selects and edits some of the strangest and most brilliant fiction being published today. Under her leadership, the fiction content of the magazine is both very much in the tradition of the old weird and perpetually re-defining the new weird. Her anthologies Steampunk and The New Weird (both co-edited with Jeff VanderMeer) help define two sub-genres without narrowing their scope; her Best American Fantasy, though a “year’s best” retrospective, features stories that are innovative and forward-looking. Like Datlow before her, VanderMeer has shaped a new generation of fiction writers. She is currently working on The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals.
Multiple World Fantasy Award winner, Jeff VanderMeer is best known for his fiction set in imaginary world of Ambergris. Works such as City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword will be followed soon by Finch, a noir take on Ambergris. In addition to the anthologies mentioned above, VanderMeer has edited a long list of others, including Fast Ships, Black Sails (co-edited with Ann VanderMeer), Mapping the Beast: the Best of Leviathan, and The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (co-edited with Mark Roberts).
What is at the heart of a great anthology?
Ann VanderMeer: Great stories. If you don’t have that, nothing else matters.
Jeff VanderMeer: That, and the passion of the editors. If you don’t leave anything out on the field, so to speak, it tends to show in the anthology.
Jonathan Strahan: Any great anthology has two things at its heart: a great idea and a bunch of great stories. The hardest thing to do is come up with an idea that is robust enough to support an interesting, varied anthology. If you have a great idea then you either should be able to find a bunch of great reprints, or [the idea] should spark some great new stories.
And for an anthology to be “great,” you need at least three really good stories. Doesn’t matter if they’re by first timers or big names or whomever: you need three top-notch stories. Without that the book won’t stand up.
Ellen Datlow: The writers primarily, but also the editing that goes into making the stories as great as they should/can be.
John Joseph Adams: [In general], I think, a table of contents that demonstrates the range of what a sub-genre or theme is capable of. In the case of a reprint anthology, I think it’s also important to include a large number of stories from disparate sources so that any one reader is unlikely to have read them all and will find many new discoveries, even if they voraciously read short fiction.
I hadn’t thought of it before, but as I formulated my answer to your question, I realized that what I’m saying, really, is that diversity is at the heart of a great anthology.
James Lowder: Terrific stories showcased in the service of a unifying idea — a theme or concept or mood that the anthologist illuminates through the story selection, as well as the book’s structure and pacing.
Where does an anthology start for you, and how does it develop?
Ann VanderMeer: An anthology can start one of two ways for us. First, when a publisher asks us to edit a particular anthology. And second, when we have an idea for an anthology. As soon as those seeds are planted the idea
s flow. Jeff and I will then start brainstorming back and forth about the main goals of the project, which writers would be a good match for the project, etc. We make lots and lots of lists.
Jeff VanderMeer: We go through a long discovery process first, though. To see if it’s a project we really want to do. For example, originally we planned to turn down Tachyon’s offer to edit a New Weird anthology. Then when we did research and debated all of the pros and cons, we found there was a compelling case for doing the anthology. And we’ve been rewarded in that conclusion both from the general critical response and by the fact that it has sold well.
Jonathan Strahan: Usually an anthology starts with an idea, a spark of some kind. I could be reading a story and think “this would make a great starting point for a book,” or have a conversation about some aspect of the field and think what was being discussed could make a good book. It may just simply be me wanting to work in an area that I particularly love or am interested in at that moment.
Once I have the idea, I write a scoping document. It’s usually an 800 to 1,000 word description of the book, perhaps listing stories that I know of that would fit into it, or listing people I think would make interesting contributors. It’s really a personal working tool that lets me work out if the book is viable, if it would be interesting and so on. If I can’t see the finished book in my mind’s eye at this stage, I scrap it. A lot of ideas die at this stage, which is probably a good thing.
