Imaging President Barack Obama

First (and most important of all): many, many congratulations with President Barack Obama! To many of my American friends, and the many outside of it as well. Too many to mention, and you know who you are.

(I returned from World Fantasy on November 4, and was so jetlagged I couldn't sleep. Which was good, as I had planned to follow the US elections live anyway, but now I had no problems staying awake [I had those today]. At 05.30 am or so Dutch time McCain gave his concession speech. I feel so happy I nearly cried, and so many in the US must have felt -- probably still feel -- much, much happier than I do.)

Back in May 2005 I received a story from Ed Morris in the IZ slushpile called "Imagine" (Paul Di Filippo had urged him to try Interzone with it, and too good effect, and my belated thanks here). I forwarded the story to my (then) Interzone colleagues and Andy Cox published it in Interzone #200, on September 2005.


The last paragraph of the story is as follows:

"Well, we would have been denied our President Barack Obama, who just allowed me back into the States a week ago Tuesday. About him, at least, I have no room to bitch."

My question to the blogging masses is: does anybody know of fiction (not non-fiction) that imagined a President Barack Obama that was published before September 2005?

As a second query: what might be the first story (or novel) that imagined a black President of the USA?

Typically...

My internet provider decided to have a central breakdown in the last couple of days, so while I posted my resignation from Interzone on Tuesday night, I couldn't react to the comments and all the emails I've been getting about it on the two subsequent days (and I'm way too busy on the day job to do it over there: I'm just typing this quickly during my lunch break).

I did see that I had internet connectivity back this morning, promptly filling my mailbox with 250 emails, which I was unable to answer before breakfast. I will do my damnedest to get back to everybody tonight.

UPDATE: It's past o1.00 AM on the Friday night (or Saturday morning) here, and I hope I managed to answer all emails regarding my departure from IZ. Many thanks for all the kind words that I received: they're highly appreciated.

Now I'm just dead tired, and will get back to the comments to the post below, and those on the TTAboards tomorrow.

Resigning from Interzone

After four-and-a-half years, I am resigning as an Interzone co-editor.

I do not take this decision lightly, but it is what I feel I must do.

The reason is simple: like a rock band where one musician quits because she/he doesn't like the musical direction the band is taking (the well-known 'musical differences'), I am unhappy with the direction and tone the fiction in Interzone will be taking.

Make no mistake, I think that, fiction-wise, Interzone has had a very good year so far. And there are still some very good stories forthcoming (Jason Stoddard's "Monetized", Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Far and Deep", Hannu Rajaniemi's "His Master's Voice", Gord Sellar's "The Country of the Young" and Paul Evanby's "I Love the Smell of the Lotus in the Morning" immediately come to mind).

However, most of the stories the magazine has accepted this year will appear next year. And -- as mentioned above -- the tone and direction of most of those are moving farther and farther away from what I would prefer to publish. So it's time for me to say my thanks and take my leave.

I'd like to thank Andy Cox for having me all this time. I'd like to thank all IZ editors past and present. I'd like to thank everyone who has volunteered for the magazine, or helped out in any way: they've been great years, and would not have been possible without you.

I wish Interzone, and all other TTAPress publications nothing but success and the best of luck in the future. This may sound a bit strange after my statement that I'm unhappy with the direction IZ is taking, but I really do mean it.

May Interzone live long and prosper. It'll just not be my Interzone anymore.

(I wanted to post this yesterday, but was too sick and tired. Now I feel somewhat better.)

Acceptances and Rejections

Coming in.

I'm (obviously) not telling which stories have been rejected. I do hope they will find a good home, as I think that every story I lift off the slushpile that I forward to my colleagues does merit publication. So good luck to those!

Over this weekend, we have decided to accept:

• "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster (quite a mouthful, but the title is very appropriate);
• "Ezekiel's Retreat" by Doug Texter.

Three rejections went out, as well (and two rejections from stories that I somehow overlooked: very sorry about that! So there were 501 rather than 499 stories in that May slushpile, if I counted correctly). Meaning there are still thirteen stories under consideration.

(And in the May gmail inbox -- which I now only check occassionally -- six invites to join Quechup from various submitters whose mailbox has been raided and used for a spam attack. I already know about this, so those people should not worry.)

We also accepted "I Love the Smell of the Lotus in the Morning" by Paul Evanby. His real name is Paul Evenblij, and he's a compatriot. As far as I know -- and I did glance Greg Egan's Interzone index -- Paul is the very first Dutchman to be published in Interzone. Congratulations to Paul, and while I knew, the moment I said yes when Andy Cox asked me to join Interzone more than four years ago, that I immediately lost my chances of being published in its acclaimed pages (we consider it not really ethical if a magazine publishes a story by one of its own editors), I still am a bit jealous.

(Well, what's the point of co-editing a magazine in which you wouldn't want to published yourself?)

More acceptances/rejections to come soonish, as the holiday period is almost over (OK: there is FantasyCon next weekend).

First Acceptance of the May email reading period...

...is a story called "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen from Their Rain" by Jason Sanford.

(The other 17 stories that are held over are still under discussion: both the holiday period and an error during the printing of the premiere Black Static issue slowed things down. Please be patient: we are considering these stories *very* seriously.)

In our correspondence about the story, I mentioned that I thought it would have fitted nicely in Interzone #208: the special sensawunda issue (fiction edited and selected by me). Jason then said he wrote the story inspired by that very issue.


Well, that alone made the issue worthwile, IMHO.

Anyway, more updates on acceptances as we make them.

Another May Email Reading Period Update

First off: I'm tired. Dead dog tired.

Not to put a too fine point to it: I'm not getting paid for this co-editing gig at Interzone. It's a purely for the love thing.

Now don't get me wrong: I absolutely *love* doing it, more than the day job, actually. But it does mean that I'm reading all these submissions in my spare time.

A typical weekday: get up at 7, bike to the day job (on a push-bike: I don't have a car, by choice, as I do have a driver's license) at 7.30, work from about 8.30 to 17.00 (or from 09.00 to 17.30: I'm *not* a morning type of person), get home at about 18.00, quick meal preparation and eating from about 18.00 -- 19.00, then one to one-and-half-hours of sending out replies, then some three to four hours of reading, go to bed around midnight or later, exhausted, and repeat until Friday night.

With the obvious intrusions when the real world really cannot wait (bills, social commitments, Interzone non-slush-reading stuff, and more).

I realise that some will see this as the 'I-suffer-for-my-art' rant. Maybe it is, but I'm also saying it because quite a few of you think I'm doing this as my day job. Well, I'm not: I very strongly suspect that no magazine -- whatever its circulation -- would be willing to pay me what I now make in my day job as a technical specialist.

So if some submitters wonder why I don't respond as fast as -- say -- John Joseph Adams (who is doing a phenomenal job, BTW, no disrespect intended: rather the contrary), then you now know why: it's not my top priority (even if it's a thing I love to do).

So bear with me as I struggle onwards.

As to the actual update: I have caught up with all submissions until May 24 (with three exceptions, and I'm thinking really hard on those).

I still have about 75 stories still to read, and about 110 still to respond to (these include the ones I still need to read).

The plan is to finish it all over the coming weekend, but with a huge party on Saturday July 7, this is unrealistic. So sometime next week.

From July 21 onwards I have a two week holiday. The plan is to do something I haven't done for over half a year: write. One short story. Two if I'm lucky.

Or I might just visit family and friends to show them I'm still alive. It'll probably be a combination of the two.

May email reading period update

The long-awaited update, people!

After a tremendous start (like, 52 submissions on the very first day), May 2007 delivered on its promise and broke records.

Total number of submissions: 499;
Total wordcount: about 2527900;
(Which brings it to about 5060 words per story on average.)

Number of male submitters: 329
Number of female submitters: 150
Meaning I'm not sure about the sex of 20 submitters (who only used letters for their first names, like J. Doe, or have a sex-ambiguous first name, and one who is deliberately ambiguous about it).

I've read somewhat over 200 of these stories so far (more responses to go out tonight), noting that my trip to Australia -- while very enjoyable -- slowed things down. This is unfortunate, but originally it was planned for April, so that I would start the email reading period refreshed. Then it got delayed by a month...

So bear with me while I go through the last 299 submissions.

Interzone #209 -- The 25th Anniversary Issue

Last week, Interzone #209 was mailed out to subscribers and sent to the distributors. It marks the magazine's 25th birthday, and we've tried to do her proud. An all-British fiction line-up in the paper edition (with a 50/50 split between established and upcoming authors), complemented with a free PDF of Ed Morris's "Journey to the Center of the Earth", interviews with Hal Duncan and Kim Stanley Robinson, the usual non-fiction, the Reader's Poll, and a Jim Burns cover.

Throughout the anniversay year there will be two '25' columns: 25 IZ in which various editors and authors comment on the magazine's first twenty-five years, and 25 TV in which a different columnist comments on her/his personal genre highs, starting off with Stephen Volk on 25 years of genre TV.

Personal favourites in this issue are Hal Duncan's "The Whenever at the City's Heart" (which I think is phenomenal, a true tour de force), Al Reynold's "The Sledge-Maker''s Daughter" (with a great Jesse Speak illo) and Ed Morris's "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

"The Whenever at the City's Heart" is part of Al's (yes, his real name is Al) The Book of All Hours, encompassing his novels Vellum and Ink and a four story cycle of which "The Whenever..." is a part.
Those four stories are (in chronological order):

• "The City of Rotted Names" Grendelsong chapbook, illustrated by Gabe Chouinard (slated for May 2007);
• "The Prince of End Times" Solaris Book of New Fantasy (slated for December 2007);
• "The Whenever at the City’s Heart" Interzone #209 (you know you want it...;-);
• "The Tower of Morning's Bones" Moonlit Domes anthology (slated November 2007);

If the other three stories are only half as good as 'WatCH' (you don't think Al would 'code extra meaning into titles', would you?), then you should go out of your way to get them. I already ordered the Grendelsong chapbook, and will buy both the Solaris Book of New Fantasy (I already have the SF counterpart) and the Moonlit Domes anthology.

I actively solicited this story from Al at last year's FantasyCon in Nottingham, and I'm very happy that I did. Should make Year's Best's ToCs, but of course I'm prejudiced.

Ed Morris sent me "Journey to the Center of the Earth" during one of the email reading periods. All 24K of it. I looked at the length of this one (officially we have a 15K cap), shook my weary head, and thought: Ed, this had better be better than sliced bread. Then I read the novella, was completely enchanted, and thought Who needs sliced bread, anyway? I forwarded it to my colleagues, who were just as enthusiastic about it as I was.

Since a 24K story is very difficult to place in a 64-page, A4-sized illustrated magazine we decided to release it as a separate PDF for the special occasion.

So enjoy!

Update: the first review is already posted, thanks to the folks at Tangent Online. So check out the review of IZ #209, and the separate one for the "Journey to the Center of the Earth" PDF, and see that I'm not the only one who's enthusiastic about the Hal Duncan and Ed Morris stories.

Update 2: an article of SciFi Wire on IZ's 25th anniversary, courtesy of John Joseph Adams.

Update 3: an interview with Alastair Reynolds on the same topic on the SFX site.

Interzone #208

OK: so Interzone #209 — the 25th Anniversary issue — has already come out. Nevertheless, since this is my personal blog, I'd like to mention that Interzone #208 (pictured left) was the special 'sense of wonder' issue, for which I selected the stories and did the editorial.

Publication-wise, this was my first big event of 2007. Needless to say, I absolutely adore the issue, and I have fond memories about almost every story. Nevertheless, we did struggle quite a bit to get this 'sensawunda' issue together, as it was not until the issue almost went to print that Jim Burns finally supplied the artwork for the Alexander Marsh Freed story (the artwork fell through with a previous artist).

The stories and artwork, and my personal memories of them:

• Softly Shining in the Forbidden Dark: when I read Jason Stoddard's story, I was swept away. However, the alien life forms on the planet Manoa were originally estera, that is: mats. Problem is, that it reminded me immediately of Greg Egan's story "Wang's Carpets" — a well-known, widely anthologised story. So I discussed this with Jason, and we did a rewrite, where the estera became palos (sticks), and other points were addressed (in the IZ team, I do the majority of the rewrites with the authors). That worked out real well.
• Then Andy (Cox) was wondering which artist would be suitable, and I suggested Kenn Brown. Actually, Mondolithic Studios is Kenn Brown and his partner Chris Wren, and they did a fantastic job. Initially, Jason was a bit lukewarm about it, but eventually he was won over, especially after Ken and Chris gave me two prints of the artwork on LACon IV.
• (NB: on LACON IV I threw an Interzone party, with which I had superb help from Jason and his friends from Centric and the Fictionados. The party was a great success, and Kenn and Chris attended, as well.)

• Empty Clouds: I lifted this one from the email slushpile, and while not everybody in the IZ team liked this one (our decisions are seldom unanimous), I'm happy that it saw the light of day. Funny thing is that Inspector Chen, as pictured in Doug Sirois's artwork has a red uniform, while in the story his uniform is supposedly green. A reader attended us on this mismatch on the TTA Boards, and I improvised by saying that the sand and duststorms around Bejing had coloured the Inspector's uniform. Now Gary Leeming owes me a beer...

• Where the Water Meets the Sky: Jay Lake's tale of a future that makes amends. I remember that Paolo Bacigalupi was looking for optimistic stories for the Summer Reading Issue of High Country — of which he gave a copy to me at LACon IV — and in that they mentioned that there were no convincing utopia stories sent their way. Paolo told me that the reader of High Country News are hyper-critical, and extremely hard to please. Still, I find that a shame, as there is a glut of gloom'n'doom fiction out there (Paolo being a main proponent thereof), and I would like to see more optimistic and realistic fiction (and no: those two words are not an oxymoron). I like to think that this story might have fitted in there.

• Islington Crocodiles: Paul Meloy has always been a TTA mainstay, and in the IZ team we thought that it was high time that he was introduced to a larger audience, and so we did with this story, his first in IZ. Admittedly, the change to the full-on visually spectacular finale after the character-rich, but relatively calm first half comes more naturally if you've read his previous stories in the Quay-Endula milieu (especially Black Static and Dying in the Arms of Jean Harlow). Still, Paul is a hell of a writer and a great guy to boot. And Vinnie Chong's artwrok is a feast for the eyes.
  

• The Star Necromancers: Alexander Marsh Freed sent this my way in the August 2006 email slushpile, and I distinctly remember reading it on a hot sunny day while I was taking a short break from a bicycle trip (I read all slush on a PDA). It was *very* hot, I was sweating like a pig, but when I started reading "The Star Necromancers" I forgot where I was. I like to think of it as Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" on a galaxy-wide scale: an understated sense of awe against the inevitable onrush of entropy. Jim Burns did a great job with the artwork, and saved our arses. Thanks!

Subscribe, or buy the issue at BBR-distribution (UK), or Clarkesworld Books or Shocklines (both in the USA). Of course, you can check out the following reviews first:

• Velcro City Tourist Board;
• Best SF;
• SF Revu;
• Tangent Online;
• SF Crowsnest;
  
• Internet Review of Science Fiction (in Lois Tilton's short fiction column of March: login needed, it's free);
• Whispers of Wickedness (a slightly different review: this one focuses on the artists)

And, finally, the discussion thread on the issue here.