Marc Laidlaw's "Dankden" (novelette, fantasy, racism, free)

A swampy town called Dankden, peopled by amphibians called "phibs". Humans come, hunting phibs for their hides. Overtime, there is a group of half-breeds too - partly human, partly phib. And some humans hunt the half-breeds' children too. So we have a conflict, eventually resulting in division among humans & burning of a half-breeds' township.

Not exactly my kind of story, but not boring either.

Fact sheet.

First published: F&SF, October/November 1995.
Download full text from publisher's site (I think this link won't work after a month or so).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories about racism.

F&SF's online reprints

A few days back, I noted that F&SF's occasional reprint posts at their site are now replaced with new fiction posts at Suvudu. Looks like I was wrong.

New fiction posts at Suvudu are in addition to reprint posts at their own site. Bot SF feed picked up the latest reprint at their site today - Marc Laidlaw's "Dankden" (download). If history is any indication, this too will be online only for a couple of months.

Marc Laidlaw's "An Evening's Honest Peril" (novelette, fantasy, free)

Having seen his "Ascent of Wonder", I'm generally a fan of David Hartwell's editorial choice. Finding this piece of trash listed in the ToC of his forthcoming 2008 edition of "Year's Best SF 13" was, therefore, very disappointing.

It's completely senseless babble about honest peril seekers. A young man has enlisted the help of a woman sorceress for a night's swards-and-magic adventure in a Tomb full of a variety of magical creatures - ready to be slayed by our adventurers.

Collected in.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 13" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Flurb #3 (Spring/Summer, 2007).
Rating: C
Download full text.