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I suppose any author could *theoretically* read an unlocked post. But I'm talking about friends/friends-of-friends type people.
I read the rest of the stories in Monstrous Affections and am pleased to be able to say that I really enjoyed the story by Josh Lewis '00, with whom back in the day I spent many hours rolling dice and pretending to be imaginary people. (I think he was our ranger.) His story was both funny and substantial, yay. I also particularly enjoyed stories by Holly Black, Patrick Ness, and Nalo Hopkinson, and thought the whole thing was worth checking out even if you don't have a burning need to read Wings In The Morning. One caveat: I am totally in favor of the inclusion of graphic stories in anthologies but the one here didn't read very well on my phone. It was readable, but I had to squint and I felt like the faces weren't coming across very well. Might do better on a Kindle or tablet or something. (Note to self: this came out in 2014, if I ended up wanting to nominate any stories.)
Mary Anne Mohanraj's novella The Stars Change is also worth reading, although it occupies that uncertain genre-crossing territory of "there is enough erotic content in this that I would have to think about who I recommended it to". ("Genre-crossing" because the sex is explicit and the relationships important in a way I'm more used to seeing in romance than SF, but this is definitely SF, and definitely not romance in the genre sense.) I liked it - I really liked the gimmick ("device"? whatever we're supposed to call it) of having the POV shift from character to character via various interactions, tracing this whole web of connections (that all comes together in the end). I would have liked more time with some of the characters, but, novella. There were a few editing weirdnesses (two of the characters seemed to have moms with the same name and description, which I spent awhile being confused by), and the illustrations looked terrible on my phone, and I had a really hard time picturing what was going on with some of the action in the action plot, but the action plot wasn't really the point, I think it was pretty much there to give the worldbuilding and character stuff something to reveal themselves through, and I would totally read more about these people/this world. (I felt like some of them got more closure than others.) Well, I would consider reading more. This is definitely not meant to be a "I think she shouldn't have written this book/I think she should have written it differently" criticism, but I'm not sure that "community stitched together by their vibrant sex" is a subgenre I want to read. That seems like a weird thing to say given how much fanfic I read about the Avengers all having orgies, etc. But it feels different for me when it's canon, when it's not a fun reimagination of canon. The Avengers always have their sexual and non-sexual versions; in any given story, various strands of their web might be one or the other. The characters in "Stars Change" are only ever sexual (or at least until someone writes desexualised fanfic of it, I guess, which is a weird and sort of icky-feeling idea in a way I'm not sure I can fully unpack right now (but: it feels sort of like the idea of Christianized Harry Potter, taking out "objectionable" material in a limiting, judgmental way)) and I ended up feeling sort of sad and alienated about that. If the "Stars Change" world is a world where sex is what weaves the community, then it's a world where I can't see myself, a world where I wouldn't have a place, and, you know, just because I'm a white middle-class American doesn't *actually* mean I have to "belong" in every single book, god knows enough other people probably have that experience *every time they pick up fucking anything*, I should be able to get through a novella-worth of outsidership. And I was, I did, I mean, I read it and enjoyed it. But I don't feel quite so enthused about it as I might have. (Still better than 3 out of 5 Hugo-nominated novellas, not that that's saying much...)
I read the rest of the stories in Monstrous Affections and am pleased to be able to say that I really enjoyed the story by Josh Lewis '00, with whom back in the day I spent many hours rolling dice and pretending to be imaginary people. (I think he was our ranger.) His story was both funny and substantial, yay. I also particularly enjoyed stories by Holly Black, Patrick Ness, and Nalo Hopkinson, and thought the whole thing was worth checking out even if you don't have a burning need to read Wings In The Morning. One caveat: I am totally in favor of the inclusion of graphic stories in anthologies but the one here didn't read very well on my phone. It was readable, but I had to squint and I felt like the faces weren't coming across very well. Might do better on a Kindle or tablet or something. (Note to self: this came out in 2014, if I ended up wanting to nominate any stories.)
Mary Anne Mohanraj's novella The Stars Change is also worth reading, although it occupies that uncertain genre-crossing territory of "there is enough erotic content in this that I would have to think about who I recommended it to". ("Genre-crossing" because the sex is explicit and the relationships important in a way I'm more used to seeing in romance than SF, but this is definitely SF, and definitely not romance in the genre sense.) I liked it - I really liked the gimmick ("device"? whatever we're supposed to call it) of having the POV shift from character to character via various interactions, tracing this whole web of connections (that all comes together in the end). I would have liked more time with some of the characters, but, novella. There were a few editing weirdnesses (two of the characters seemed to have moms with the same name and description, which I spent awhile being confused by), and the illustrations looked terrible on my phone, and I had a really hard time picturing what was going on with some of the action in the action plot, but the action plot wasn't really the point, I think it was pretty much there to give the worldbuilding and character stuff something to reveal themselves through, and I would totally read more about these people/this world. (I felt like some of them got more closure than others.) Well, I would consider reading more. This is definitely not meant to be a "I think she shouldn't have written this book/I think she should have written it differently" criticism, but I'm not sure that "community stitched together by their vibrant sex" is a subgenre I want to read. That seems like a weird thing to say given how much fanfic I read about the Avengers all having orgies, etc. But it feels different for me when it's canon, when it's not a fun reimagination of canon. The Avengers always have their sexual and non-sexual versions; in any given story, various strands of their web might be one or the other. The characters in "Stars Change" are only ever sexual (or at least until someone writes desexualised fanfic of it, I guess, which is a weird and sort of icky-feeling idea in a way I'm not sure I can fully unpack right now (but: it feels sort of like the idea of Christianized Harry Potter, taking out "objectionable" material in a limiting, judgmental way)) and I ended up feeling sort of sad and alienated about that. If the "Stars Change" world is a world where sex is what weaves the community, then it's a world where I can't see myself, a world where I wouldn't have a place, and, you know, just because I'm a white middle-class American doesn't *actually* mean I have to "belong" in every single book, god knows enough other people probably have that experience *every time they pick up fucking anything*, I should be able to get through a novella-worth of outsidership. And I was, I did, I mean, I read it and enjoyed it. But I don't feel quite so enthused about it as I might have. (Still better than 3 out of 5 Hugo-nominated novellas, not that that's saying much...)
