GigaNotoSaurus News–new editor
Six years ago, I handed GigaNotoSaurus editorial duties over to Rashida J. Smith. And what an amazing job she did! She published a lot of awesome stories, and GNS was a finalist for the Hugo for best semiprozine.
Archive for GigaNotoSaurus
Three Partitions
I wanted to post these links earlier, but I didn’t want them to get lost in the week’s excitement.
This month’s fiction at GigaNotoSaurus, as I’ve mentioned previously, is “Three Partitions” by Bogi Takács. I’m particularly pleased to have this story close out my editorship.
I could spend some time explaining why that is, but as it happens, Bogi eirself has written some notes on eir blog about the story, which I commend to your attention: “Story Notes: Three Partitions” and “More on Three Partitions”
That second link is responding to/expanding on a very interesting and insightful post by Rose Lemberg, “Bogi Takács’s “Three Partitions,” and the rabbinical approaches to nonbinary gender”
All very interesting and worth reading. Do check them out.
GigaNotoSaurus April Fiction
NOTE: I personally dislike all but the most blantantly obviously silly of April Fools jokes. This post is one hundred percent serious–most of you probably already know that I’ve handed over GNS editorial duties, and will realize this isn’t meant to be an April Fool, but one of the things I so dislike about practical jokes is the way that you can start out thinking it’s of course totally obvious you’re joking and then find that it’s not actually obvious to anyone but you. (Link is to the infamous 1957 “Spaghetti Trees” April Fool) So I’m making that explicit up front.
So, this month’s GigaNotoSaurus story is my last as editor. From here on out, it’ll be Rashida Smith’s picks, with a few from Anna Schwind’s guest editing stint.
I started GNS pretty much on a whim. But I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out. I’ve published a bunch of stories that I love, by wonderful writers, and those stories have sometimes gotten nice comments and reviews. A few have gotten Nebula nominations! Which just goes to show that I was right, that there are awesome, longer stories out there–and people who want to read them.
Editing GNS has been a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. So I’m really, really happy that Rashida has taken that over. I’m looking forward to seeing what she brings us.
In the meantime, here’s my own last pick--“Three Partitions” by Bogi Takács. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
July and August Fiction at GigaNotoSaurus
I’ve been remiss in announcing stories as they go up at GigaNotoSaurus. Sorry about that!
July was “A Man Not of Canaan” by Alex Jeffers.
“The men are afraid,” I said.
“Of course,” said my friend the foreign magician. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Behind us in the belly of the boat, my crew huddled over their oars, muttering, praying. I felt that was not wise. The Mother, it seemed to me, must have fled our island, far beyond the reach of any man’s voice, long before the little people who honored her. Else why had the great bull of fire under the sea grown so restless, so angry? Even as I thought this, he bellowed. I flinched. Murmuring my own vain prayer, I glanced over my shoulder, north across the choppy waters of the gulf. White steam and black smoke billowed from the peak of the new mountain the bull had shouldered out of the sea. It appeared to be taller than when last I saw it, only two months before. Red as bull’s blood, subterranean flame stained the smoke and steam. Lightning flickered within the column of cloud as the bull thundered again. A warm, caustic ash of burnt stone began to fall. One of the rowers coughed violently.
For August, “The Litigatrix” by Ken Liu:
The fifteenth day of the first month in the seventh year of the Huayin Era:
The old man, Hae-wook Lee, had been bedridden for months. He lay on the sleeping mat, wrapped in a blanket. The drugs helped him sleep, and forget about the harsh words of his son.
It was an unseasonably warm winter day, here in this corner of Northeast Asia. Though the fire in the kitchen hearth next door had been extinguished, the gudeul smoke passages below the floor would continue to radiate residual heat for several hours. The room was so warm that the maid, Kyoon, had left the windows open to give the old man some fresh air, dry and invigorating after the new snow of the day before.
He dreamt that he was having a dinner of gogi gui. That pretty girl from years ago served him. He felt a pang of regret.