Time’s Chariot by Nina Allan

The writing in this is much better than in Gladwish’s story. No missing punctuation, no errant words, no dangling participles. Allan clearly knows the nuts and bolts of language and how to weave them together.*

But, for an entry to a competition run by a Science Fiction Association, Time’s Chariot is, at best, borderline SF or fantasy and could be read entirely as a mainstream piece (or slipstream if you will.)

It is about the close relationship between a brother and sister in an idiosyncratic but slightly dysfunctional family (wherein I felt that one or two of the familial dynamics depicted did not quite cohere.) To say more would be to give away too much.

I did like Allan’s designation of a watch as time machine. I believe she intends us to take this literally but to my mind the working out of the story does not really lend itself to that. Whatever, it was a good pun. One that made me think for a minute.

The story’s major fault, though, is that too much is told; not shown. However, it is atmospheric, with some fine descriptive writing and a tender sensibility too often missing in the genre. Allan may be one to watch.

*Edited to add:- Except I’ve just read her article in the previous Focus, which I hadn’t got around to till now, and she appears to believe the word “none” is plural. She certainly employed it with the plural form of the accompanying verb.

I blogged a while back about the BSFA’s latest mailing and the inclusion in its magazine for writers, Focus, of the successful stories in its 50th anniversary short story competition.

I have now read all six. My thoughts about them were jotted down before perusing the author biogs at the back of the magazine. A summating comment will appear after all the reviews.

Nestbuster by Roderick Gladwish

Set on a tidally locked moon orbiting a gas giant some time after a war which threatened to wipe humans out completely, a surviving hero of that war, along with his family, is subjected to a medical examination by someone from a central authority.

During the narrative and the two flashbacks to his war experiences we discover the life-changing choice he made. The story explores its ramifications.

Amid agreeable suggestions that beyond the bounds of the story other things are going on (the enemy has mysteriously disappeared but may come back) the central idea is fine. Unfortunately its execution isn’t. The writing is too often marred by lack of punctuation, a blizzard of dangling participles and a few instances of words wrongly used. (Examples: lightening for lightning, lead for led, loose for lose, breath for breathe and “in vivo” where the contrast was not with “in vitro” but to refer to a procedure which itself takes place in vivo later in life.)

These things do matter, as they interfere with comprehension. More than several times I had to go back and reread sentences to make sense of them. If you are trying to communicate to a reader and the concepts are not in themselves inherently difficult then this ought not to be necessary. Writing like this is comparable to the products of a carpenter who does not have full knowledge of his/her tools. The end result may be serviceable but it’s not quite as functional or satisfying as it might be. You might say the drawers don’t fit properly; they stick or squeak as you run them out or in.

I read this story – the overall winner of the competition – first, and began to wonder to what degree the BSFA has printed the six stories as submitted, without any amendment, warts and all.

Gladwish undoubtedly shows promise but his faults need ironing out. A good editor, perhaps, or a writing group that can help him eliminate them. (If someone of a similar standard applied to the group I belong to I would certainly vote for their inclusion.)

On this evidence Gladwish is almost there as a professional standard writer, but not yet quite. In that sense, the competition has succeeded in identifying promise.

The BSFA awards have been voted on and are listed at Science Fiction Awards Watch.

Ted Chiang’s Exhalation won best short story.

It wasn’t my favourite among the nominees.

Still, congratulations to him and to the other winners (and commiserations to the non-winners.)

The BSFA is the British Science Fiction Association, of which I am a member.

Every year the members can nominate works of Science Fiction from the previous year for an award. These nominations are collated and a final ballot paper sent out to members. Attendees at Eastercon (the annual British Science Fiction Convention – this year taking place in Bradford) may also vote for the awards. This year’s BSFA award shortlists are given here. (The award part of the BSFA website was down when I tried to link to it. They’re in the middle of revamping the site.)

Every two months or so BSFA members receive a mailing containing the Association’s review magazine Vector and (less regularly) its mag for writers, Focus. Non-members can buy these separately from the Association.

This month’s mailing dropped through my letter box today. It was conspicuous by its unusual girth.

Along with the normal goodies there was a small chapbook containing the four short-listed stories in the best short fiction category along with the ballot form for all the awards. This was a surprise as it is the first year we have been treated to the actual fiction in this way. Normally, if you hadn’t read any of the stories, you would have to get hold of the magazine or anthology etc. where they were published; and time between ballot paper and Easter is usually quite short. Now all four are in the one package – no excuses for not reading them! Congratulations to the BSFA for getting this together.

And there’s more. There was a handsome sample booklet of Postscripts (PS Publishing) containing ten stories published there over the past few years. (Postscripts – now publishing as a hard back anthology – is where I recently sold my story, Osmotic Pressure.)

In addition this month’s Focus contains the winning entry (plus the runners-up) in the BSFA’s recent short story competition.

Looks like I’ll be reading a lot of short fiction in the next few weeks.

Information on joining the BSFA is here.