... cause his stuff's the bomb. (I swear it's not just because his name is the most frequent keyword that brings people here - well, that brings people here who go on to read other posts. "Kiss Me Kate spanking scene" is still my number one draw, but for some reason those folks never stay). I spoke briefly on his novella The Little Goddess way back here. The July issue of Asimov's has another novella of his called The Djinn's Wife which I also liked. The two stories don't connect, it's not a like a sequel, but they are both set in a near-future India. The world-building is very well done; there are so many details and they are all well thought out. But as with The Little Goddess, the world-building is just background to tell a story about a girl. Very highly recommended.
My usual experience with short story magazines of any genre is only liking 1 or 2 per issue; this particular Asimov's hit it out of the ballpark for me with four stories I liked. Two I really enjoyed - The Djinn's Wife and Impossible Dreams by Tim Pratt - and two I liked if not to the same degree: Nano comes to Clifford Falls by Nancy Kress (there just aren't enough sci-fi stories out there where the MC is a mother, in my opinion) and You Will Come to the Moon by William Preston. Preston is the only one of the bunch that I've not read before, but I'll be keeping an eye out for him now.
(EDIT: The name of the story is actually You Will Go to the Moon, which of course makes more sense (if you read the story you'll know what I mean). That's what I get for blogging from memory. Although - yay me! - I didn't mispell anybody's name. Not even "Asimov", which I routinely get wrong. I always feel like there should be two of one of those letters. Aasimov? Assimov? Oh no, not that!)
Tim Pratt, you may or may not recall, I talked about before as well, or rather I talked about his excellent novel The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. That novel I loved in large part for its attention to comic-geek detail. Impossible Dreams I love for its attention to movie-geek detail. Both have very well drawn characters, believeable and real.
At any rate, Ian MacDonald also has a novel out now, also set in near-future India, called River of Gods. I have it on order from Amazon.com, but they aren't going to ship it until July. I think they're playing hardball because I won't sign up for their next-day shipping for $80/year thing. I prefer my shipping free. Free shipping at Amazon.com used to mean 1-2 weeks. Apparently now it means a month or more. I'm not a fan of the hardball. It's still faster than B&N.com, though.
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2 comments:
Kate,
Glad to hear you liked my story, but the title is "You Will *Go* to the Moon." ...though maybe I'll do a sequel called "You Will Come and Go to the Moon, Realize You Left Your Keys, and Come Again."
That was my first published fiction. I will have another one in Asimov's in a few months (they've not told me when).
Best wishes,
Bill Preston
Sorry, I can't believe I gapped that! I've added a little note above. I'm looking forward to reading your next story, whenever they print it. Congrats on the first publication!
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