Coalescent

I've said before that the novella is possibly my favourite length for science fiction; it has space enough for characters and ideas and themes to develop, but is short enough that there is little room for laziness or padding. This year so far, though, has been something of a disappointment. With the exception of Gregory Feeley's magnificently lush 'Arabian Wine' (Asimov's April/May), nothing I've read has really caught my imagination - and two of the other offerings from Asimov's (R Garcia Y Robertson's 'Long Voyage Home' (February) and Allen Steele's 'Incident at Goat Kill Creek' (April/May)) have been distinctly sub-standard.

What else have I seen? Ian McDowell's 'Under The Flag of Night' (Asimov's March) is a fun, but somewhat lightweight, voodoo-pirate-romp; and George Mann's The Human Abstract (Telos) is good, but perhaps owes a few too many debts to its antecedents to be truly notable in its own right. I've still got it in my mind to seek out Gary Greenwood's The Jigsaw Men (PS), and I'll get around to reading 'The Concrete Jungle', the new novella in the Golden Gryphon edition of Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archives, real soon now...but at the moment, the Feeley stands alone.

Or did until just now, at any rate. In June, SCIFICTION published 'Shadow Twin', a novella by Gardner Dozois, George RR Martin and Daniel Abraham. I read it this evening. ( Read more... )