Geoff Ryman clarifies the motive behind Mundane SF movement

"I believe it was Julian that said that FTL gave the impression it would be easy to find and settle beautiful new Earths… which encouraged us to think we could burn through this planet".
[via Bruce Sterling]

So at least partly it's a social activist's agenda, & not some cranky thing that is supposed to take the fun out of fiction.

* Geoff Ryman's "VAO" (short story)

A harassed computer programmer writes a zombie terrorist creation virus. Well written in a rather light vein. Set in an old age home, with much sympathetic talk about caring for the old.

Collected in.

1. Gardner Dozois (Ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection" (2003).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: ...
Rating: A

Note: Why is this post so short?

Nebula Awards 2007 - novelette nominees & winners: Brief summaries & my rankings

List below is based on the results of preliminary ballot, final ballot, & the official winners announcement. Some remarks on peculiar Nebula conventions are in the opening paras of my post of Nebula 2007 short stories.

My rating in brackets (ABC: A = worth your time; C = don't bother). Where I have posted a separate review of the entry, link on story title takes you there.

Story list (14 stories, best first).

An observation: novelette nominees this year seem to be a lot less gamed than short story nominees. Several good stories here, unlike the short story list. While first 3 entries stand in a class of their own, I found each of the first 6 interesting.

I wonder if Resnick's entry is removed from final ballot on technical grounds? There was some talk that stories published in 2008 are not eligible.

1. [winner, final, prelim] Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (A); download as text, as MP3; as a short book by Subterranean Press, July 2007; fantasy: Four time travel folktales - told in the style of (I think) Arabian Nights. Added to my best of the year 2007 list.
2. [final, prelim] Kij Johnson's "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change" (A); download; Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Ed)'s "Coyote Road, Trickster Tales", July 2007: What if animals could speak? Very moving accounts of man/dog relations - told from the perspective of dogs. Added to my best of the year 2007 list.
3. [prelim] Mike Resnick's "Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders" (A); download; Asimov's, January 2008; fantasy: An enigma is described. Added to my best of the year 2008 list.
   
4. [final, prelim] Nancy Kress' "Safeguard" (B); download; Asimov's, January 2007; science fiction: An earthquake has forced 4 little children, genetically modified to have a poisonous breath & kept in quarantine, to get out of quarantine. Plot is a variation of classic Indian story of "vish kanya".
5. [final, prelim] Geoff Ryman's "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter" (B); download; F&SF, November 2006; non-genre: A love story, in the backdrop of a political story - a girl comes to terms with the ghosts of her dictator dad's victims.
6. [prelim] Peg Robinson's "Tonino & the Incubus" (B); download; Helix #2 (Fall 2006); fantasy: A male prostitute takes his job very seriously.
7. [prelim] Beth Bernobich's "A Flight of Numbers Fantastique Strange" (B); download; Asimov's, June 2006; science fiction: A serial killer is on the lose on a university campus. I found the science fictional ending rather incomprehensible
8. [prelim] William Shunn's "Not of this Fold" (B); download; An Alternate History of the 21st Century, Spilt Milk Press, September 2007; science fiction: A priest on duty aboard a big space habitat to convert locals to his faith becomes a hero when he becomes the main human contact with aliens due to a misunderstanding.
9. [final, prelim] Robin Wayne Bailey's "The Children's Crusade"; Martin H Greenberg and Jim C Hines (Ed)'s Heroes in Training, September 2007 : not read.
10. [prelim] Michael A Burstein and Robert Greenberger's "Things That Aren't"; Analog, April 2007: not read.
11. [prelim] Jim C Hines' "Sister of the Hedge"; Realms of Fantasy, June 2006: not read.
12. [prelim] Andrea Kail's "The Sun God at Down, Rising from a Lotus Blossom"; Algis Budrys (Ed)'s Writers of the Future Volume 23, September 2007: not read.
13. [final, prelim] Delia Sherman's "The Fiddler of Bayou Teche"; Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Ed)'s "Coyote Road, Trickster Tales", July 2007: not read.
14. [final] Terry Bramlett's "Child, Maiden, Mother, Crone"; download; Jim Baen's Universe, #7 (June 2007): Not read. This was not on preliminary ballet (is probably a jury nominee).
    

Related.

1. 2007 Nebula Awards short stories, novellas.
2. 2008 Hugo Awards novelettes.
   

Geoff Ryman's "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter": Love story with a political backdrop

While sold as fantasy, this is primarily a political story. Set in Cambodia - with a love affair, & some ghosts - to make it colorful.

Good thing about the story is its readability. This is single sitting reading material - though I took a couple of coffee breaks.

Bad points are:

1. Love story is pretty mundane.
2. Political story - the main point - is something I cannot quite take seriously. My experience with stories about India by Western authors is that they nearly always trivialize the important, & are based on half-baked knowledge & no understanding. In spite of rare exceptions, & occasional very welcome outsider's perspective. To learn about political situation in Cambodia, I would much rather read something by a Cambodian. Your mileage on this might vary - it's a personal thing - what sources to trust for what kind of information.
   

None of this comes in the way of story's readability. Very good enjoy & forget story.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
Saloth Sar aka Pol Pot was a dictator (or at least an important strong man - I didn't quite catch) of Cambodia, now dead. Sith is his daughter - the heroine of this story. She lives alone in a haunted house in Phnom Penh. Her mother lives with her people in Thailand, & mother/daughter don't get along well.

Sith is living a comfortable secluded life of luxury - thanks to bad money stashed by her dad in a Swiss bank account & a helpful government. She is 18, & the year is 2004. That is when she meets 24 year old Dara, a salesman at a cellphone shop called Hello Phones in a local mall. They fall in love. Fearing she will lose him, she lies to him about her birth. That helps drag love affair a bit to falling-apart & eventually-reuniting kind of happy ending.

Political part of the story is of the ghosts of the victims of her dad's atrocities that haunt her. And of her eventual reconciliation with them.

See also.

1. Apparently, Saloth Sar aka Pol Pot aka Tol Saut aka Pol Porth was a real historical person - roughly in the same role described in this story. And he had a daughter, "born, as she is in the story, in 1986, when her father was 60" & named Sitha. This review of the story by Matthew Cheney is longer, more literary, & contains new information. Here is a more succinct biography of Pol Pot.
   

Fact sheet.
Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter, short story, review
First published: Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct 2006
Rating: B
Nominated for Hugo Awards 2007 in novelette category
Nominated for World Fantasy Award 2007 in Short Fiction category
Passed the preliminary nominations stage of Nebula Awards 2007 in novelette category.

Related: All Hugo Award stories.