Writers of the Future Volume 28: The Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year

by L. Ron Hubbard

  When L. Ron Hubbard set up the Writers of the Future Contest, he was paying it forward in a big way. The scale is unprecedented. Most authors can help only a few new writers over the course of their career. But that is the sole focus of the Contest. It consistently seeks out and promotes at least twelve writers a year, not counting those just on the edge of breaking out who were encouraged to write more stories just so they would have something to enter.

  That means over the last twenty-eight years, we have published and trained more than four hundred new writers and more than 250 illustrators. Not all of them have gone on to lucrative careers, but an impressive portion has. Even many of those who have not yet become household names are selling regularly and their bylines appear in anthology and magazine tables of contents throughout the year. At least twice a month, I get a note from one of our winners who has just sold a first novel. Kristine Kathyrn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Eric Flint, Robert Reed, Jay Lake, Steve Savile, Sean Williams, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Bruce Holland Rogers, David Farland, Jo Beverley and Patrick Rothfuss are just a few of the wonderful writers who came out of the Contest.

  L. Ron Hubbard knew that by helping new writers he was also helping fans everywhere. He believed that to function properly, society needed a healthy creative life. He said, “A culture is as rich and capable of surviving as it has imaginative artists . . . It was with this in mind that I initiated a means for new and budding writers to have a chance for their creative efforts to be seen and acknowledged.” He knew that, if we do not provide a forum for new writers’ work, many of them will give up and then we will all lose.

  In 1988, the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest was created as a companion to Writers of the Future. Again, the purpose is to find talented artists just on the edge of breaking out, recognize and commend their abilities, publish their creative efforts and instruct them on how to move up to the next level in their career. Their talent must be nurtured and given a chance to grow, like a tiny flame that builds into a full roaring fire. Again, the meme is paying it forward, assisting those who need just a small break at the moment when it can do the most good.

  Quarterly winners are assigned to illustrate one of the anthology’s stories, then transported to the annual illustrators’ workshop taught by seasoned professionals Cliff Nielsen, Ron Lindahn and Val Lakey Lindahn, among others. They dispense invaluable advice about how to develop and manage a career as an artist and keep inspiration coming. Unfortunately, as rare as it is, it is not enough to just have talent. Emerging artists must learn how to develop a portfolio and professional contacts, market their work and make it pay.

  The workshop/anthology/prize money format is a combo that has been working well for an impressive number of years, both for writers and artists. Hubbard knew what he was doing when he set all this in motion. Now, aspiring writers and artists just have to send in their work so that we can give them what they need to rise to the next level.

  That old adage “You can’t win if you don’t enter!” has never been truer. We want to see your story or novel win the Hugo or the Nebula in a few years. We want to see your art win an Oscar as Illustrators’ judge and former winner Shaun Tan did last year.

  So send in those stories and illustrations! The future is just within your grasp.

  Of Woven Wood

  written by

  Marie Croke

  illustrated by

  EMILY GRANDIN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marie Croke was born and raised in southern Maryland. Being the sixth child out of nine, she watched the rest of her family go to bed with books, so she would sit in bed with a miniature dictionary.

  By the time she could read, the basement had been turned into a library, shoved full of books of every genre imaginable on account of the number of people in her family and their very different tastes. Many science fiction and fantasy authors introduced themselves to her in that basement. Eventually, she did start having to buy her own books.

  The two authors she credits with shaping her love of otherworldly stories are L. Frank Baum and Anne McCaffrey. In fact, the only childhood birthday she can remember with any clarity is the one on which she received the entire Oz series. She hopes to one day inspire other children to dream big the way these authors inspired her.

  In 2008, Marie began following her own dreams. Her Writers of the Future win is her first professional sale and she has since sold two more stories, one to Daily Science Fiction and another to Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

  Marie graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in economics and she currently lives in Maryland with her fiancé and their two children.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Emily Grandin was born April 2nd, 1978, in Hong Kong. She first circumvented the earth at nine months old, and has been an avid traveler ever since. Growing up in the Canadian suburbs of Montreal, she was a typical tomboy with a strong distaste for the color pink. When asked what her favorite color was, she would answer that it was a tie between green and black. To this day she still gets annoyed when people point out that black is not technically a color.

  She spent her younger years climbing trees, casing out the local haunted mansion, devouring books and playing by the river. At school her favorite subject was, of course, art class.

  As she got older, she came to terms with the color pink, sort of, stopped climbing trees as much, but her love for the arts endured.

  In her mid-teens she moved with her family to Stockholm, Sweden, where she finished her university-preparatory school in the science program. She proceeded to study geology at the University of Stockholm, where she entertained her classmates with the post-apocalyptic graphic novel she would draw during lectures. She later realized one of her dreams when she was accepted into the architecture program at the Royal Institute of Technology.

  Emily lives with her longtime partner and professional cartoonist, Axl. She aims at doing what she has been told is impossible, to scratch out a living drawing sci-fi themes and bunnies.

  Of Woven Wood

  His head hurt. Now that was odd. His head never hurt. His head never felt much of anything, generally speaking. Well, there was that one time when the top shelf had fallen upon him. Then it’d been more of a . . . flat feeling, but Haigh had fixed him right up. Re-wove him a whole new face, much better than the first. And bigger. Big enough to hold a larger set of shears, among other things.

  This was different.

  He could sense something was completely out of place. No, not out of place, just . . . out. An incredibly empty feeling.

  Lan sat up and felt over the top of his head. Nothing. Oh, no, Haigh would be furious if he’d lost tools. Then a thought occurred to him. What if his other . . .

  He dropped his hands to his chest, checking each opening, his waist, his legs, then dropped his hands in relief. Nothing else seemed missing. Everything was settled firmly in its home. Even the dead rat that Haigh had embalmed was still sitting in its basket, its tail sticking out under the loose lid.

  So it was just his head that was missing its contents. Maybe that’s why it hurt. Lan nodded to himself. Yes, that seemed reasonable. If he’d find everything and put it back, then things would be as they’d been and the pain would fade.

  That seemed to be how Haigh’s body worked. He’d curse, then bleed, then the part would cause him pain until its skin had finally grown back. Although, for him, it’d take days for his body to bother creating such miniscule pieces of himself. And that one time when his side had been burned open, that one had taken weeks.

  At the time, Lan had been less than half the size he was now, his body barely holding a third of what Haigh gave him. He’d figured that the pieces needed to be found and woven back in and that Haigh was just in too much pain to even manage to crawl around looking for his pieces. So Lan had tried to help, searching for them everywhere, but to
no avail.

  He smiled slightly at the memory, then cradled his pounding head for a moment. He wasn’t used to feeling this frustrating pain, and besides, if he didn’t find the tools, then they’d be missing when Haigh needed them. And if he couldn’t even be counted on to hold things for people, what good was he?

  He sighed. Or as good a sigh as he could make with his woven mouth. Then he gathered himself up to start his search. The shears would be large, too large to miss.

  He cast about upon the ground, stopping when he saw Haigh. That was odd. . . .

  No. Not so odd now that Lan thought about it. He pulled himself closer to the Apothecary and leaned over, staring into glassy eyes. There’d been shouts, and the vibrations of many feet. Haigh had been nervous and rushing about, shoving new things into Lan’s parts. He’d been so proud that Haigh was trusting him with such important ingredients. So proud.

  “Haigh, please don’t be angry. I will find the shears and to make up for losing them I’ll gather Night Irises all week while you sleep.” He stopped when Haigh didn’t blink.

  He started to reach out, to touch Haigh’s face, to beg him awake, then froze. His fingers had cracked and shredded. Only two of them, but those two looked awful. Just as his foot had looked after that stray mutt had nibbled on him. He couldn’t touch Haigh with those fingers. He’d be sure to strip skin.

  A sound at the door startled him. Jaddi stood right inside the room, her frock covered in ash and her face streaked with tears. He’d seen her once before like that. The night of the fire that had torn up Haigh’s side. She’d been much younger.

  Jaddi stepped carefully among the shards of broken glass about the room, coming closer and crouching beside Lan.

  “Haigh will have a fit,” said Lan. “You’re not allowed in the workroom, Jaddi.”

  She didn’t look at him. Then, after a moment, she reached out and ran her hand across Haigh’s eyes, closing off the glassy stare he’d been giving Lan. She reached out to Lan and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all right now, Lan. Haigh won’t be needing the room any more.” She paused and sniffled quietly, then threw her hands around Lan’s neck. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  He patted her back, with three fingers since Jaddi’s skin could tear just as easily as Haigh’s. “Is he dead then?” The words felt wooden in his mouth. Most words felt that way, but these ones felt stronger, harder to form. And that had nothing to do with his baskety body.

  She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his woven chest, her ear catching on one of his lids, tilting it, but not removing it. She couldn’t remove it, not even Haigh could remove it, but the lids occasionally shifted, and if not watched carefully could come open if they thought Lan was wanting their contents.

  When she pulled away, he straightened it. That one held tiny frog eggs, the hole enchanted to not leak, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t slip out if the lid wasn’t fastened. Haigh had made it very clear when Lan was only a few baskets old that the enchantments were useless if he didn’t keep the lids in place.

  That thought brought him back to his empty head. He reached up and felt again, hoping maybe he’d just missed the tools. No, his lid was still hanging over the back of his head. Empty.

  He looked up when Jaddi gasped. She’d stood while he’d been searching and now leaned over him, a concerned expression upon her face. “Oh, Lan. This is horrible.”

  Blanching, he bowed his head. “Yes, I know. I lost the tools. He will be so an . . .” He trailed off, staring at Haigh, noting there was nothing wrong. No pieces missing, no torn holes. But he was still dead. Even Jaddi thought so, so it wasn’t his own failure to miss something. “Jaddi, what happened to Haigh?”

  She had her hand in his head, feeling the emptiness, he was sure. She shook her head. “Not now, Lan.”

  Right. She would be angry with him too. He was useless, so useless. He wanted to cry at his failure and began searching the room again. It seemed fruitless though. The room was such a mess. Haigh just could not work in these conditions. Lan would have to help clean it up, and maybe find the shears and the needles and the prongs. He began to brush the glass shards and their dumped contents away from Haigh and into a pile when Jaddi grabbed at his arm.

  “No, not now, Lan.” Her voice was firm, as firm as Haigh’s had always been. “Right now, you need to come with me before they come back.”

  “Before who comes back?” He glanced about the room. Of course, he’d known someone else was responsible for the mess. He’d not done it, and Haigh would never have done such a thing, no matter how much he’d cursed when things went wrong. But it just hadn’t seemed important. They weren’t here right now, after all, and there was a mess to clean. And then there was his empty head. “But I’ve lost some tools, Jaddi. I must find them.”

  “Never mind that; come.”

  Lan took a last look at Haigh laid out upon the floor, then followed Jaddi, wondering if she would help him look later. As she led him out of the house, he noticed the blackened walls and curled books. A sharp scent hung in the air, of fire and . . . herbs. Lan frowned. That meant the herbs must have been burned too. And he’d spent many hours hanging his findings to dry for Haigh. But the fires must have been contained, whether by enchantment or an expert hand, for they had burned what was important, then stopped before burning down any part of the house itself.

  Outside, he looked back. There was no telling that anything had happened inside at all. The burned spots had been localized, the workroom a wreck, Haigh upon the floor, quite dead, but with no obvious wound that could be put back together, and yet the house looked as tranquil as it normally did.

  Jaddi sighed and he turned to see her with her hands upon her hips, waiting. It was never good to keep others waiting, that’s what Haigh had always said. Usually it was about his customers, but he’d told Lan that it was a good practice for all things one day when Lan had fumbled with the latch to one of his baskets. He ran a hand down his back as he caught up with Jaddi, making sure each of those lids was secure. They were.

  All of him was secure, his outside smooth, with only the little latches to show where each new basket had been woven inside of him to make him grow in both size and use. And when he closed his eyes, he could sense that each was full, the fluids sloshing as he walked, the bark shavings and petals rustling, the hummingbird fluttering her wings (chest, center-left column, sixth down). All full—except his head, that was.

  They didn’t walk far, just to Jaddi’s own house down the lane. Haigh lived—had lived—on the outskirts of the little town of Otaor. Far enough away he didn’t feel as if eyes were on him on a constant basis. People had to go at least a little bit out of their way to come see him, which was exactly how he liked it. Lan hadn’t minded either way, but at least that way the forest was closer and he knew he did not frustrate any neighbors when he came and went during his night collections.

  In Jaddi’s kitchen, overly warm from a small fire where she’d been cooking, she made Lan sit. “Now, let’s see if we can fix that gaping hole in your head.”

  He sat up straighter. “Yes, please. I hate having an empty space, especially my head.”

  She laughed, though it came out strangled and did not reach her eyes. “That’s not quite what I had in mind. Somehow you’ve managed to rip a hole in the bottom of your head. You couldn’t hold anything right now if you wanted to.”

  “Really?” Maybe that was why it hurt then? But, no, he looked at his fingers again. They were shredded and they didn’t hurt. Not one bit.

  Jaddi must have noticed his gaze for she grasped his two fingers in her hand. They were bigger than hers, each at least the size of two of her fingers. Haigh had said it was so they could hold something bigger than dried mouse droppings—though one of his fingers had been relegated for that as well.

  “Hmm, I’ll have to soak your hand to fix those; don’t want any more of you breaking
.” She made him sit with his hand soaking until the wood was more easily bent and woven back into shape, while she went about working on his head. She used new sticks, after snipping off the broken ends. It was slow going, each new branch being woven in all the way around his head so that it would be as strong as it’d been before. Lan appreciated that.

  “You take longer than Haigh did fixing me,” he noted.

  “Well.” Jaddi paused and straightened her back. Lan heard a distinct snap as something popped, then she leaned back over to continue working. “Haigh generally didn’t care much what something looked like as long as it got the job done. I take pride in the way my work is presented.”

  Lan turned to look at her, feeling her fingers fumble to hold on to what they were doing. “Haigh took pride in his work as well. He was a great Apothecary, knowledgeable in much more than simple tonics and antibodies.”

  Jaddi laughed again, though this time it seemed she’d actually found something funny in what he’d said. He’d not meant it as funny, though. “That sounds like Haigh.” Then she patted his shoulder once. “I’d not been knocking his knowledge and abilities, but you have to admit, the man was much more interested in what a thing did than how it looked when it did it.”

  “That is what is important.”

  “We each have our priorities, of course, but I’d like to think the package is just as important as what’s in the package.” She gave Lan a kiss upon his head, then her lips froze upon his wooden skin.

  A pounding came upon her door a moment later, followed by a shout. Jaddi grabbed the rest of the branches she’d been using and tossed them on top of her woodpile, then poured the bowl where he’d been soaking his hand into a bucket upon the counter.