Sunday, January 1, 2017

2017: The Year in Shorts

Across the eons comes a tale of a time in a galaxy far, far away, when John DeNardo of SF Signal started tracking his short stories read as a way of trying to make a goal of reading one short work for each day of the year. I've managed, more often than not, to match that goal myself. While the tradition has faded at SF Signal, it continues here. The legend continues!

Number of Stories Read: 170 (out of 365) as of December 31, 2017.

(Administrative Note: You'll see in the previous entry for this category that there are a number of anthologies/collections that I did not complete in 2015. Some of them even go back to 2014. I regard these as abandoned. Some will be started again—from the beginning. Others will not be visited again.)

Stories/Collections:

John Joseph Adams (editor): Cosmic Powers. Made up of: Introduction (John Joseph Adams); A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime (Charlie Jane Anders); Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance (Tobias S. Buckell); The Deckhand, the Nova Blade, and the Thrice-Sung Texts (Becky Chambers); The Sighted Watchmaker (Vylar Kaftan); Infinite Love Engine (Joseph Allen Hill); Unfamiliar Gods (Adam-Troy Castro and Judi B. Castro); Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World (Caroline M. Yoachim); Our Specialty Is Xenogeology (Alan Dean Foster); Golden Ring (Karl Schroeder); Tomorrow When We See the Sun (A. Merc Rustad); Bring the Kids and Revisit the Past at the Traveling Retro Funfair! (Seanan McGuire); The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun (Aliette de Bodard); Diamond and the World Breaker (Linda Nagata); The Chameleon's Gloves (Yoon Ha Lee); The Universe, Sung in Stars (Kat Howard); Wakening Ouroboros (Jack Campbell); Warped Passages (Kameron Hurley); The Frost Giant's Data (Dan Abnett) (20 stories, completed).

Gregory Benford: A Hunger for the Infinite (1 story, completed).

Jorge Luis Borges: Collected Fictions. Made up of: A Universal History of Iniquity (1935): Preface to the First Edition; Preface to the 1954 Edition; The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell; The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro; The Widow Ching – Pirate; Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities; The Disinterested Killer Bill Harrigan; The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette Kôtsuké no Suké; Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv; Man on Pink Corner; Et cetera; Index of Sources. Fictions (1944): The Garden of Forking Paths (1941): Foreword; Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim; Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote; The Circular Ruins; The Lottery in Babylon; A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain; The Library of Babel; The Garden of Forking Paths. Artifices (1944): Foreword; Funes, His Memory; The Shape of the Sword; The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero; Death and the Compass; The Secret Miracle; Three Versions of Judas; The End; The Cult of the Phoenix; The South. The Aleph (1949): The Immortal; The Dead Man; The Theologians; Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden; A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874); Emma Zunz; The House of Asterion; The Other Death; Deutsches Requiem; Avveroës’ Search; The Zahir; The Writing of the God; Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth; The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths; The Wait; The Man on the Threshold; The Aleph; Afterword. The Maker (1960): Foreword: For Leopoldo Lugones; The Maker; Dreamtigers; A Dialog About a Dialog; Toenails; Covered Mirrors; Argumentum Ornithologicum; The Captive; The Mountebank; Delia Elena San Marco; A Dialog Between Dead Men; The Plot; A Problem; The Yellow Rose; The Witness; Martin Fierro; Mutations; Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote; Paradiso, XXXI, 108; Parable of the Palace; Everything and Nothing; Ragnarök; Inferno, I, 32; Borges and I. Museum: On Exactitude in Science; In Memoriam, J.F.K.; Afterword. In Praise of Darkness (1969): Foreword; The Ethnographer; Pedro Salvadores; Legend; A Prayer; His End and His Beginning. Brodie’s Report (1970): Foreword; The Interloper; Unworthy; The Story from Rosendo Juárez; The Encounter; Juan Muraña; The Elderly Lady; The Duel; The Other Duel; Guayaquil; The Gospel According to Mark; Brodie’s Report. The Book of Sand (1975): The Other; Ulrikke; The Congress; There Are More Things; The Sect of the Thirty; The Night of the Gifts; The Mirror and the Mask; “Undr”; A Weary Man’s Utopia; The Bribe; Avelino Arredondo; The Disk; The Book of Sand; Afterword. Shakespeare’s Memory (1983): August 25, 1983; Blue Tigers; The Rose of Paracelsus; Shakespeare’s Memory. A Note on the Translation; Acknowledgments; Notes to the Fictions. (Four stories, continuing to read.)

Ted Chiang: Stories of Your Life and Others. Made up of: Tower of Babylon; Understand; Division by Zero; Story of Your life; Seventy-Two Letters; The Evolution of Human Science; Hell is the Absence of God; Liking What you See: A Documentary; Story Notes (Stories of Your Life and Others) (3 stories, continuing to read).

James. S. A. Corey: The Butcher of Anderson Station (1 story, completed).

Paul Cornell: Wild Cards—The Elephant in the Room (1 story, completed).

Len Deighton: James Bond—My Long and Eventful Search for His Father (1 article, completed.).

Gardner Dozois (editor): The Year's Best Science Fiction (First Annual Collection). Made up of: Introduction: Summation: 1983 (Gardner Dozois); Cicada Queen (Bruce Sterling); Beyond the Dead Reef (James Tiptree, Jr.); Slow Birds (Ian Watson); Vulcan's Forge (Poul Anderson); Man-Mountain Gentian (Howard Waldrop); Hardfought (Greg Bear); Manifest Destiny (Joe Haldeman); Full Chicken Richness (Avram Davidson); Multiples (Robert Silverberg); Cryptic (Jack McDevitt); The Sidon in the Mirror (Connie Willis); Golden Gate (R. A. Lafferty); Blind Shemmy (Jack Dann); In the Islands (Pat Murphy); Nunc Dimittis (Tanith Lee); Blood Music (Greg Bear); Her Furry Face (Leigh Kennedy); Knight of Shallows (Rand B. Lee); The Cat (Gene Wolfe); The Monkey Treatment (George R. R. Martin); Nearly Departed (Pat Cadigan); Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine (John Kessel); Carrion Comfort (Dan Simmons); Gemstone (Vernor Vinge); Black Air (Kim Stanley Robinson); Honorable Mentions: 1983 (Gardner Dozois). (2 stories, continuing to read).

Harlan Ellison: Vic and Blood. Made up of: Latest Breaking News—The Kid and the Pooch; Eggsucker; A Boy and His Dog; Run, Spot, Run (4 stories, completed).

Harlan Ellison (author) and Terry Dowling (editor): The Essential Ellison. Made up of: Introduction: Sublime Rebel (Terry Dowling); The Beginnings; The Sword of Parmagon; The Gloconda; The Wilder One; The Saga of Machine Gun Joe; Glowworm; Life Hutch; S.R.O.; Worlds of Terror; Lonelyache; Punky & the Yale Men; A Prayer for No One's Enemy; Worlds of Love; In Lonely Lands; The Time of the Eye; Grail; That New Old-Time Religion; I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream; Corpse; The Whimper of Whipped Dogs; A Stab of Merriment; The Voice in the Garden; Erotophobia; Mom; Ecowareness; The Outpost Undiscovered by Tourists; Dept. of "What Was the Question?" Dept.; Dept. of "Trivial Pursuit" Dept.; Trouble With Women; The Very Last Day of a Good Woman; Valerie: A True Memoir; The Other Eye of Polyphemus; All the Birds Come Home to Roost; To the Mattresses With Mean Demons; The Tombs (Excerpt); "Our Little Miss"; A Love Song to Jerry Falwell; Telltale Tics and Tremors; True Love: Groping for the Holy Grail; Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W; Rococco Technology; The Sky Is Burning; The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World; Along the Scenic Route; The Song the Zombie Sang (with Robert Silverberg); Knox; Heart's Blood; From Alabamy, with Hate; My Father; My Mother; Tired Old Man; Gopher in the Gilly; Nights & Days in Good Old Hollyweird; Strange Wine; The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie; The Man on the Mushroom; Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto; Face-Down in Gloria Swanson's Swimming Pool; Petards & Hangings; Soldier; The Night of Delicate Terrors; Shattered Like a Glass Goblin; At the Mouse Circus; Shadows from the Past; Free With This Box!; Final Shtick; One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty; Jeffty Is Five; Contracts on the Soul; Daniel White for the Greater Good; Neither Your Jenny nor Mine; Alive and Well and on a Friendless Voyage; The Classics; "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman; Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes; A Boy and His Dog; The Deathbird; Dark Liberation; The Thick Red Moment; The Man Who Was Heavily into Revenge; Driving in the Spikes; Afterword (4 entries, continuing to read).

Edward L. Ferman and Robert P. Mills (editors): Twenty Years of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Made up of: F&SF and I (Isaac Asimov); 5,271,009 (Alfred Bester); Free Dirt (Charles Beaumont); Becalmed in Hell (Larry Niven); Private - Keep Out! (Philip MacDonald); Gladys's Gregory (John Anthony West); Feminine Intuition (Isaac Asimov); That Hell-Bound Train (Robert Bloch); A Touch of Strange (Theodore Sturgeon); Gratitude Guaranteed (Kris Neville and Reginald Bretnor); Prime-Time Teaser (Bruce McAllister); As Long as You're Here (Will Stanton); Sweet Helen (Charles W. Runyon); A Final Sceptre, a Lasting Crown (Ray Bradbury); Yes, We Have No Ritchard (Bruce Jay Friedman); We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (Philip K. Dick); 237 Talking Statues, Etc. (Fritz Leiber); M-1 (Gahan Wilson); The Silly Season (C.M. Kornbluth); The Holiday Man (Richard Matheson); Something Else (Robert J. Tilley); Afterword (Edward L. Ferman) (22 entries, completed).

Edward L. Ferman (editor): The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction—A Thirty Year Retrospective. Made up of: Introduction (Edward L. Ferman); F&SF at 30 (Isaac Asimov); Fondly Fahrenheit (Alfred Bester); And Now the News... (Theodore Sturgeon); Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot (Reginald Bretnor); Not With a Bang (Damon Knight); Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes); A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr.); Love Letter from Mars (John Ciardi); One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts (Shirley Jackson); The Women Men Don't See (James Tiptree, Jr.); Born of Man and Woman (Richard Matheson); Jeffty Is Five (Harlan Ellison); Ararat (Zenna Henderson); Me (Hilbert Schenck); Sundance (Robert Silverberg); The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out (Reginald Bretnor); Dreaming Is a Private Thing (Isaac Asimov); Poor Little Warrior! (Brian W. Aldiss); Imaginary Numbers in a Real Garden (Gerald Jonas); We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (Philip K. Dick); Selectra Six-Ten (Avram Davidson); Dance Music for a Gone Planet (Sonya Dorman); Problems of Creativeness (Thomas M. Disch); The Quest for Saint Aquin (Anthony Boucher) (25 entries, completed).

William Gibson: Burning Chrome. Made up of: Preface; Johnny Mnemonic; The Gernsback Continuum; Fragments of a Hologram Rose; The Belonging Kind; Hinterlands; Red Star, Winter Orbit; New Rose Hotel; The Winter Market; Dogfight; Burning Chrome (11 stories, completed).

William Hope Hodgson: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson—The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and Other Nautical Adventures. Made up of: Unreality and the Borderlands of Human Existence (Jeremy Lassen); The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (novel); From the Tideless Sea, Part One; From the Tideless Sea Part Two--Further News of the Homebird; The Mystery of the Derelict; The Thing in the Weeds; The Finding of the Graiken; The Call in the Dawn; Contraband of War; The Diamond Spy; The Red Herring; The Case of the Chinese Curio Dealer; From Information Received; The German Spy; The Problem of the Pearls; The Painted Lady; The Adventure of the Garter; My Lady's Jewels; Trading with the Enemy; The Plans of the Reefing; The Island of the Ud; The Adventure of the Headland; The Bells of the Laughing Sally; The Adventure with the Claim Jumpers; A Note on the Texts (Jeremy Lassen) (1 story, continuing to read).

Douglas Hofstadter: Metamagical Themas. Made up of: Introduction. Section I: Snags and Snarls: On Self-Referential Sentences; Self-Referential Sentences: A Follow-Up; On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures; Nomic: A Self-Modifying Game Based on Reflexivity in Law. Section II: Sense and Society: World Views in Collision: The Skeptical Inquirer versus the National Enquirer; On Number Numbness; Changes in Default Words and Images, Engendered by Rising Consciousness; A Person Paper on Purity in Language. Section III: Sparking and Slipping: Pattern, Poetry, and Power in the Music of Frederic Chopin; Parquet Deformations: A Subtle, Intricate Art Form; Stuff and Nonsense; Variations on a Theme as the Crux of Creativity; Metafont, Metamathematics, and Metaphysics. Section IV: Structure and Strangeness: Magic Cubology; On Crossing the Rubicon; Mathematical Chaos and Strange Attractors; Lisp: Atoms and Lists; Lisp: Lists and Recursion; Lisp: Recursion and Generality; Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Section V: Spirit and Substrate: Review of Alan Turing—The Enigma; A Coffeehouse Conversation on the Turing Test; On the Seeming Paradox of Mechanizing Creativity; Analogies and Roles in Human and Machine Thinking; Who Shoves Whom Around Inside the Careenium?; Waking Up from the Boolean Dream, or, Subcognition as Computation. Section VI: Selection and Stability: The Genetic Code: Arbitrary?; Undercut, Flaunt, Pounce, and Mediocrity: Psychological Games with Numbers; The Prisoner's Dilemma Computer Tournaments and the Evolution of Cooperation. Section VII: Sanity and Survival: Dilemmas for Superrational Thinkers, Leading Up to a Luring Lottery; Irrationality Is the Square Root of All Evil; The Tale of Happiton; The Tumult of Inner Voices, or, What is the Meaning of the Word "I"?; Epilogue (3 essays, continuing to read).

Robert E. Howard: Robert E. Howard's Complete Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-33). Made up of: (read in 2016) Foreword (Mark Schultz); Introduction (Patrice Louinet); CimmeriaThe Phoenix on the SwordThe Frost-Giant's DaughterThe God in the BowlThe Tower of the ElephantThe Scarlet CitadelQueen of the Black Coast; (read in 2017) Black Colossus; Iron Shadows in the Moon (variant of Shadows in the Moonlight); Xuthal of the Dusk (variant of The Slithering Shadow); The Pool of the Black One; Rogues in the House; The Vale of Lost Women; The Devil in Iron; The Phoenix on the Sword (first submitted draft); Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age (Uncredited); The Hyborian Age; Untitled Synopsis ("A squad of Zamorian soldiers..."); The Scarlet Citadel (synopsis); Black Colossus (synopsis); Untitled Fragment ("The battlefield stretched silent..."); Untitled Synopsis ("The setting: The city of Shumballa..."); Untitled Draft ("Amboola awakened slowly..."); Hyborian Names and Countries; Hyborian Age Maps; Hyborian Genesis: Notes on the Creation of the Conan Stories (Patrice Louinet); Notes on the Conan Typescripts and the Chronology (Patrice Louinet); Notes on the Original Howard Texts (Uncredited) (9 stories in 2016, 12 stories in 2017, completed).

T.E. Lawrence: Twenty-Seven Articles (1 essay, complete).

Robin D. Laws: Sharper Adventures in HeroQuest Glorantha (1 essay, completed).

Fritz Leiber: Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser—Swords and Deviltry. Made up of: Induction; The Snow Women; The Unholy Grail; Ill Met in Lankhmar (4 stories read, collection completed). Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser—Swords Against Death. Made up of: Author's Foreword; Bazaar of the Bizarre; Claws from the Night; The Bleak Shore; The Circle Curse; The Howling Tower; The Jewels in the Forest; The Price of Pain-Ease; The Seven Black Priests; The Sunken Land; Thieves' House.

Livy: Hannibal (Penguin Books Little Black Classics) (1 entry, completed).

David Lynch and Mark Frost: Diane (Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper) (1 entry, completed).

Linda Nagata: The Martian Obelisk (1 story, completed).

Larry Niven: Neutron Star. Made up of: Neutron Star; A Relic of the Empire; At the Core; The Soft Weapon; Flatlander; The Ethics of Madness; The Handicapped; Grendel (4 stories, overlapping stories skipped, completed).

Larry Niven: Flatlander. Made up of: Death by Ecstasy; The Defenseless Dead; ARM; Patchwork Girl (full novel); The Woman in Del Rey Crater; Afterword (6 entries, completed).

Jerry Pournelle: High Justice. Made up of: A Matter of Sovereignty; Power to the People; Enforcer; High Justice; Extreme Prejudice; Consort; Tinker (7 stories, completed).

Cherie Priest: Wild Cards—The Button Man and the Murder Tree (1 story, completed).

Alastair Reynolds: Beyond the Aquila Rift—The Best of Alastair Reynolds (Made up of: Great Wall of Mars; Weather; Beyond the Aquila Rift; Minla's Flowers; Zima Blue; Fury; The Star Surgeon's Apprentice; The Sledge-Maker's Daughter; Diamond Dogs; Thousandth Night; Troika; Sleepover; Vainglory; Trauma Pod; The Last Log of the Lachrimosa; The Water Thief; The Old Man and the Martian Sea; In Babelsberg; Story Notes for Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds (2 stories, continuing to read).

Clark Ashton Smith: The Collected Fantasies 01—The End of the Story. Made up of: Introduction (Ramsey Campbell); A Note on the Texts (Scott Connors and Ron Hilger); To the Daemon; The Abominations of Yondo; Sadastor; The Ninth Skeleton; The Last Incantation; The End of the Story; The Phantoms of the Fire; A Night in Malneant; The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake; Thirteen Phantasms; The Venus of Azombeii; The Tale of Satampra Zeiros; The Monster of the Prophecy; The Metamorphosis of the World; The Epiphany of Death; A Murder in the Fourth Dimension; The Devotee of Evil; The Satyr; The Planet of the Dead; The Uncharted Isle; Marooned in Andromeda; The Root of Ampoi; The Necromantic Tale; The Immeasurable Horror; A Voyage to Sfnomoe; Appendix One—Story Notes; Appendix Two—"The Satyr" Alternate Conclusion; Appendix Three—From the Crypts of Memory; Appendix Four—Bibliography; About the Editors (4 stories, continuing to read).

Allen M. Steele: Sex and Violence in Zero-G—The Complete "Near Space" Stories (Expanded Edition). Made up of: (read in 2016) Introduction 01: The Coming of the Space AgeIntroduction 02: Return to Near-SpaceWalking on the MoonFree Beer and the William Casey SocietyThe Return of Weird Frank; Sugar's BluesThe Flying TriangleThe Zoo TeamLive from the Mars HotelThe War MemorialMoreau(2); (read in 2017) The Great Galactic Ghoul; The Emperor of Mars; Zwarte Piet's Tale; The Weight; Kronos; The Death of Captain Future; The Exile of Evening Star; 0.0G Sex—A User's Guide; Working for Mister Chicago; High Roller; Shepherd Moon; Appendix 01: "Near Space" Timeline; Appendix 02: Space Station and Spacecraft Designs (11 stories in 2016, 13 stories in 2017, collection completed). Sanctuary (1 story, completed).

Carrie Vaughn: Wild Cards—Neustra Senora de la Esperanza (1 story, completed).

Periodicals:

None as of yet.

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