Summary: Lone Star Stories, 2008
Summary: Lone Star Stories, 2008
Lone Star Stories, is edited by Eric Marin, and features three short stories and some poetry each issue. It has appeared bimonthly since the start of 2004, with admirable regularity, so 30 issues so far, 6 of them in 2008. A selection of the best stories from the site was published in book form this year.
The six issues included a total of 18 stories, one of them the first novellas in the site's history, two more novelettes, and the remaining 15 short stories. Three of the short stories were short-shorts. A total of about 90,000 words of fiction, more than in previous years, mainly because of the two longest stories.
And those two longest stories were perhaps my favorites this year. The novella is by Jeremy Adam Smith, "The Wreck of the Grampus" (April), inspired by Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym". and concerning an android's adventure in the Neptune system, as he develops emotions due to his relationship with a boy. The other long story was "The Behold of the Eye" by Hal Duncan (August), a playful and extravagant story of a faery caught by the a child "beholding" him, and how the child’s growing up is witnessed and abetted by the faery.
Of the short stories I liked another Hal Duncan piece, "The Toymaker’s Grief" (October), about a toymaker who has lost his wife and daughter losing himself -- literally, perhaps -- in finishing a dollhouse intended for his child. From the same issue Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky’s "Needle and Thread" was pretty solid, about a dressmaker charged to make a gown to turn a princess beautiful -- but such magic is illegal. And, perhaps, wasted -- the prince is not so interested in beauty. December featured two very nice stories as well: Stephanie Burgis's "The Andrassii Agreement" is a cute treatment of the diplomatic effect of visiting aliens who can take on human genders -- and, perhaps, fairly extreme characteristics of each gender; while Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Dream Seed" is a sweet story of the gifts a favorite Aunt gives a girl. Other good stories include two contributions from Josh Rountree, and work by Tim Pratt, Ekaterina Sedia, Vylar Kaftan, and Jo Walton.
Eleven of the eighteen stories were by women (61%). (Last year I made it 11 of 19, 58%.) I'd call 7 of the 18 stories SF, 39%.