Well I’ve got a new review up at The Fix of the CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthology Vol. VI in which I am probably unnecessarily rude about the stories of a bunch of non-professional writers who’ve done nothing more to deserve a kicking than enter a competition and hope their stories were good enough to win.

On the other hand, people as high and mighty as Warren Ellis have been offering their thoughts about how we can “save” the SF short fiction scene. I think Ellis is absolutely right, by the way, about magazines as objects of desire. I lust for well designed magazines. I will buy magazines on subjects I’m not interested in if they look good. I also think he’s right about the dreadful presentation of American magazines being a reflection of their fundamental conservatism.

One of the problems with “the scene” if that’s not too grand a term for it, has been its insularity. Since it doesn’t offer any hope of making real money for publishers or writers, short sf has been bypassed by the outside world and left to fester, the genre equivalent of an ox-bow lake. There’s been no real competition because everything has been locked in a steadily steepening spiral of decline that would require too vast an investment to break. And, in a lesson to the others, those who have launched ambitious attempts to break the mold (Omni, at least in terms of presentation, or the short lived revival of Amazing Stories) have ultimately foundered disastrously leaving behind only the steady-Eddies, who have taken the obvious lesson that there is no incentive to attempt significant reform.

But the problem goes beyond presentation.

We have to be more straightforward about what’s wrong with much short fiction is that it simply isn’t good enough. Some of it is plainly badly written but much of the rest is too often too conservative in conception and delivery. Too safe.

I’ve been reading a lot of short sf recently, catching up with stuff, and while I’ve read a lot that’s very good (did I mention Nina Allan? Or Ted Chiang? Or Zoran Zivkovic?) a lot of it has been poor. Armed with my new Palm TX I’ve been downloadng the US digests and reading them all for the first time in ages. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Asimovs, which has published a lot of stuff I liked, irked by the relative weakness of much of F&SF, which I’ve always felt was the best US mag, and (frankly) appalled by Analog (and yet Analog is the highest seller!), which in the six issues up to November has published a terrifyingly small selection of stories of merit.

I wouldn’t swap my Interzone subscription for any of them. Not only does it look better, it reads better. But even in Interzone there have been stories recently that I didn’t think cut the mustard. I loved Gareth Lyn Powell’s “Ack Ack Macaque”, but (I don’t have the issues in front of me, so I can’t remenber the details) neither the one about the magic deer nor the one about the girl seeing how long people had to live did anything for me whatsoever.

One of the things short sf needs are more places where it is properly read and critiqued and challenged.

I really hope The Fix is going to be the kind of place that will encourage debate, but that also encourage new people to discuss what they’ve read, what they’d like to read and how to get it all published. A place where there’s room to really explore when and why things work and to pick to pieces the things that don’t.

At the minute, in the few places where short sf does get reviewed, too many people are treading lightly, afraid of causing offence. Partly that’s because they’re decent human beings. And partly it’s because it’s a small scene where most people want to encourage others, and partly it’s because too many reviewers are also prospective writers (and yes, I’m aware I fall into this category) and censor themselves because they don’t want to alienate potential markets. Oh, and let’s be honest, occasionally it’s because the reviewer has no more idea about what makes a good story than the writer or editor they’re trying to critique.
But the truth is that if standards are going to be raised, if we’re going to create a more vibrant scene, and if we’re going to get some energy into short fictions sf then we have to be willing to kick the weaklings to death and encourage the stronger to work harder. And if a little slaughter brings in bigger sharks and starts a feeding frenzy, then good. Maybe a little attention, a lot of critical thought about what short sf is good at (and what it isn’t) and some pressure on writers and editors to raise their game and perhaps we could be at the start of something good.

And I know there’s a danger that this sounds like the frustrated rantings of a half-baked amateur writer who can’t crack the big time, but it isn’t. No one is more aware of my writings shortcomings than I am. But there aren’t many people out there who read more short sf and who care more about it than I do.

At it’s best, short sf is the best sf.

The problem (one of the problems) is we don’t demand the best often enough.

(and yes, please, feel free to go out, find one of my pieces (if you can) and tear it to shreds if you think I deserve it, in the words of the surprisingly wise Kanye West, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger)