Author: Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek is the author of more than twenty science fiction books, including the Star Wanderers and Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus. He claims Utah as his home.

How SFWA ruined science fiction (and why it needs to die)

There was a time when science fiction was bigger than fantasy. More people read it, more authors wrote it, and more editors demanded it. Would-be fantasy authors were steered toward writing science fiction, because they knew that it would sell better than the stuff they actually wanted to write.

Now, the roles are reversed. More people read fantasy, more authors write it, and more editors are demanding it (except in the short story world, but none of them are in it for the money, which proves my point). For every year of the Goodreads Choice Awards, the fantasy section has gotten more total votes than the science fiction section. And authors like me, who often prefer to write science fiction, are instead veering more toward fantasy, because we can see that it sells better.

I’m not decrying this shift. I enjoy fantasy differently than I enjoy science fiction, but I genuinely enjoy them both. And as science fiction writers have pivoted to writing fantasy, I think it’s improved fantasy considerably, with magic systems that actually have rules and fantasy worlds that are actually realistic, given our understanding of physics, geography, etc. So just to be clear, I’m not complaining about this.

But I have wondered more than once how it got to be this way. What caused science fiction to fall out of favor? What made readers turn toward fantasy instead? Why has science fiction been on a general decline for the better part of half a century?

There was a time when science fiction was fun and inspiring. When scientists, engineers, inventors, and pioneers cited their favorite science fiction stories as major inspiration for their work. These were the people who put satellites in orbit, who put a man on the moon, who invented computers and the internet and in many ways built our modern world. And it worked both ways: not only did the fiction writers inspire the scientists and pioneers, but the new discoveries and inventions inspired the next generation of science fiction writers to write fun and inspiring stories about that.

What broke the cycle? What got us to the point where today’s kids no longer dream about becoming astronauts or paleontologists, but about being YouTube stars and “influencers,” whatever the hell that means? Why is there such a dearth of truly inspiring science fiction nowadays?

To be sure, there are a lot of factors at play, and no one single person or organization bears all of the responsibility. But if I had to point to just one thing as the primary cause, it would be SFWA.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Association, formerly known as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, formerly known as the Science Fiction Writers of America, was started in 1965 by noted author and Futurian member Damon Knight. (Who were the Futurians? We’ll come to that later.) It is a professional organization for writers with a membership requirement of making at least 3 professional short story sales (only from SFWA-approved markets, of course), or a professional novel sale (also only from SFWA-approved markets), or to make something like $5,000 in sales on a single title if you’re self-published (which involves opening the kimono to these sleazeballs), or… frankly, I don’t know what the membership requirements are these days, and I don’t think SFWA does either, because their membership requirements page currently says that they have “a plan to create a comprehensive market matrix or scorecard to better guide creators toward professional publishers,” and that they are just now “starting with short fiction markets on this rollout.” Whatever the hell that means.

In practice, SFWA is a very snobbish club of “important” science fiction (and fantasy?) writers, or rather, a club of snobbish people who consider themselves to be important. Every year, they give us the Nebula Awards, which are supposed to represent the “best of the best” that science fiction (and fantasy?) has to offer.

The reason I’m keeping “fantasy” in parentheses is because the organization was very clearly founded with a focus on science fiction, and to the extent that it later expanded to include fantasy, it did so as a means to stay relevant in a world where fantasy had come to dominate science fiction. At least, that’s what I gather. But even if I’m wrong about that, I’m not wrong that the SF in SFWA originally standed for “science fiction,” and that the addition of fantasy came much later—and not without a ridiculous amount of controversy typical of this toxic and disfunctional organization.

Those of you who have been following the devolution of the genre since the dumpster fire that was the response to the Sad Puppies will no doubt agree that SFWA is a major part of the problem. But the thing that may (or may not) surprise you is that SFWA was toxic from the moment of its inception, and was always the primary factor in science fiction’s decline.

To see why, let’s go back to the Futurians. This was a small but tight-knit community of superfans, kind of like the Inklings, whose members went on to found Worldcon, the Hugos, DAW books, the Nebulas—and yes, SFWA itself. These were all people who grew up with the pulps, were active during the golden age, and became the movers and shakers in the field in the latter half of the 20th century: people like Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, and others.

The key thing to know about the Futurians is that they were left-wing radicals. In the 1930s, when communism was a very dirty word, Pohl was literally a communist. Wollheim was also a believer in communism, and stated that science fiction writers and fans “should actively work for the realization of the scientific world-state as the only genuine justification for their activities and existence.” (Carr, Terry (1979). Classic Science Fiction: The First Golden Age p430) According to Asimov, the Futurians broke off from the Greater New York Science Fiction Club precisely because of their political and ideological differences. In short, the Futurians were all true blue, dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard Marxists of one stripe or another, and they were very overt about bringing their politics into their fiction.

When I first started to get involved in fandom, I heard an apocryphal story that at the very first Worlcon, there was a schism between the group of fans who wanted science fiction to advance the cause of global communism—basically, the Futurians’ view—and the majority of fans, who just wanted to read and talk about fun science fiction stories. That first major schism (or so the story goes) became the root cause of every fannish conflict and controversy that has ever happened since.

Now, if we had to sum up the chaos and insanity of the last ten years in just three words, most of us would probably agree that “politics ruins everything” is a fair assessment. For science fiction, it was no different. The science fiction of the golden age, for all its flaws, was fun, adventurous, inspiring—and not overtly political (for the most part). Then, in the 60s and 70s, science fiction took a strong turn to the political left, glorifying sexual liberation and Marxist utopias, and pounding the idea that the world was going to end very soon in some sort of climate catastrophe, or a nuclear holocaust brought on by politicians like Goldwater and Reagan.

I used to think that science fiction was an inherently political genre, but why should it be? After all, there is nothing inherently political about science. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that the moment science becomes politicized into “The Science,” it becomes toxic and unreliable. And the more I read, the more I’m convinced that this is true of science fiction as well. The difference between art and propaganda, truth and narrative, is the same difference between science and “The Science.”

What happened in the 60s and 70s was science fiction’s version of the long march through the institutions, as the Futurians and their ideological allies came to dominate the professional side of the field. Even though they were outnumbered and their political views put them solidly in the minority, they took their love of science fiction way more seriously than everyone else, and so while a lot of those early fans of the 40s and 50s either grew out of science fiction or moved on to other things, the Futurians and their allies stayed. Science fiction was their life. Science fiction was their passion. And thus they became the next generation of authors, editors, and publishers.

Through SFWA, they were able to leverage their position and influence into real power. With Worldcon and the Hugos, anyone who was willing to shell out the money could vote or join the convention, and a lot of people did. It was much more democratic that way. But with SFWA, you had to sell enough stories to the qualifying markets—and increasingly, all of those qualifying markets came to be run by left-wing political ideologues.

In a recent Project Veritas expose, an engineer at Twitter explained that one of the reasons why Twitter has such a left-wing bias is because the left-wing extremists refuse to compromise on any of their views. According to the engineer, right-wingers tend to say “I disagree with what the other side is saying, but I don’t think they should be silenced for it,” whereas left-wingers tend to say “that’s violence and hate speech, and if you don’t censor it, I won’t use your platform.” Because the left-wingers are the super-users, Twitter is more likely to cater to them, and thus rewards their extremism instead of limiting it.

A similar dynamic emerged in science fiction, where the left-wing editors and publishers—many of whom had always viewed science fiction as a means to achieving their ideological ends—rewarded politically like-minded authors with story sales, publishing contracts, favorable reviews, and the Nebula Award. These left-wing authors went on to join SFWA and vote for other left-wing authors in the Nebulas, feeding the cycle.

Meanwhile, all the other authors and fans—the ones who cared more about telling good stories than conveying a political message—only stuck around so long as the quality of the stories hit a certain minimum threshold. And I’ll be the first to point out that there were many left-wing authors who wrote genuinely good stories: Ursula K. Le Guin, for example. But there were also some real hacks who were awarded the Nebula mainly because of their politics. Since the minimum threshold was different for every reader, as the stories got more political, more and more readers abandoned science fiction.

In other words, the reason why science fiction became so political was because the institutions—most notably, SFWA—rewarded political purity more than they rewarded telling a good story. From the beginning, SFWA had this toxic dynamic, because it was founded by political ideologues who wanted to use science fiction to achieve their ideological ends. And because politics ruins everything, SFWA ruined science fiction.

How does all of this end? With an insanely toxic purity spiral and a collapse into cultural irrelevance. That is what we are witnessing right now, with the recent brouhaha over Mercedes Lackey accidentally saying “colored people” instead of “people of color.” (Both terms are equally racist, by the way: it’s just that the one flavor of racism is more fashionable right now.) The purity spiral has been ongoing for years, perhaps since SFWA’s inception, and the collapse into cultural irrelevance is well underway. The only questions left are 1) how much damage will be done before SFWA fades into much-deserved obscurity, and 2) if science fiction has a comeback from its long decline, who or what will turn it around?

As to the second question, it’s possible that the damage is permanent and nothing will stem the genre’s decline. That’s what ultimately happened to the western, after all. Or maybe it will follow the same path that horror did, with some authors adapting to the changing market and rebranding as something else (ie urban fantasy, paranormal romance), while the genre purists languish, at least in terms of commercial viability.

Or maybe, if SFWA just dies, science fiction will begin to experience a renaissance. Same thing at this point if Worldcon doesn’t survive the pandemic (or gets totally captured by the Chinese, which honestly would be an improvement). With the advent of indie publishing, the field is very different right now, and we’ve already seen some amazing indie authors like Andy Weir and Hugh Howey take the field by storm. Without the toxicity of SFWA holding us back, I think we will see some very good things come out of the genre in the coming years.

But for that to happen, SFWA really does need to die, or at least fade into cultural irrelevance like the Author’s Guild and the Libertarian Party. Starve the beast. Don’t let them have any of your money. Mock the organization relentlessly, both online and offline, or else ignore them entirely. And if a book or a story wins a Nebula, take that as a mark against it. I’ve read all but five of the Hugo and Nebula award winning novels, and now I can say with certainty that the best predictor that I will personally hate a book is if it won a Nebula but not a Hugo. Test that out for yourself. If you haven’t been red-pilled yet, you’ll probably be surprised.

Also, check out this podcast if you haven’t already. Good stuff as always from Steve Diamond and Larry Correia.

Print vs. Ebook vs. Audiobook: Pros and Cons

Print

Pros:

  • A printed book is a hard, physical copy that cannot be altered, edited, deleted, revoked, remotely accessed, or otherwise tampered with by a third party who does not have physical access to the book.
  • The reading experience is totally private. Governments, corporations, and other third parties cannot easily know about what you read or how you read it.
  • Marginalia is easier with a print copy. All you need is a pencil and maybe some tabs or sticky notes.
  • It is easier to flip through a print book than any other book format. Much better for reference.
  • Print books are fantastic for sharing and borrowing. You don’t need any devices, permissions, or anything. Just take it off the shelf and put it into the borrower’s hands.
  • Does not require any sort of power source or electricity to read. Works perfectly fine when the power is down.
  • Print books can be quite collectible, and some are worth quite a lot, depending on first editions, cover art, etc.
  • You can get your copy signed by the author(s), which is always fun. It also makes the book more collectible.
  • When you finish reading the book, you have a totem or artifact to commemorate the reading experience.
  • The books that you choose to put on a public shelf can be a way of expressing yourself: your tastes, opinions, and any fandoms or communities to which you belong.
  • Used copies are typically very cheap, even for bestsellers and signed copies, and with enough patience and resourcefulness they are not too difficult to find.

Cons:

  • Because they exist in the physical world, print books take up space, and can be quite heavy and bulky.
  • Print books are prone to damage from things like water, mold, food, drink, fire, blood, parasites, etc.
  • Even though you don’t need electricity to read a printed book, you do need some kind of light source.
  • Print books are easy to lose, especially if you loan them out. A portion of the people who borrow your books will invariably lose them or forget to return them.
  • Because of their bulkiness, it is difficult to transport books, especially in large quantities. Even a single book has limited portability, especially if it is a hardback.
  • If you want to borror a printed book from the library, you have to go to the library to get it.
  • Print books are not text-searchable.
  • Print book$ can be quite expen$ive to buy new, e$pecially the hardback edition$.

Ebook

Pros:

  • Ebooks are the most portable format, by far.
  • The file size is tiny, typically just a few megabytes.
  • You can read an ebook on almost any digital device.
  • You can read ebooks in the dark, especially with an ereader that has a backlight. This makes it possible to read in bed when your spouse/partner is asleep.
  • Fonts are adjustable, so if you need large print to read, you can do that with any ebook.
  • It is very easy to borrow an ebook from the library. All you need is a library account and an internet connection.
  • Footnotes can be hyperlinked, so they don’t take up space on the bottom of the page (or worse, interrupt the narration).
  • You can easily save comments, highlights, notes, etc, and share them all with your friends.
  • Marginalia is not permanent with ebooks, nor does it mar or deface the book.
  • It’s easy to look up unfamiliar words using the ereader device’s (or app’s) dictionary.
  • If you’re reading something potentially embarassing, people in your immediate vicinity can’t tell.
  • Ebooks are length agnostic, meaning that the reading experience is the same for a short story as it is for a novel. No having to lug around a bulky chihuahua-killing doorstop of a tome. You can read a massive million-plus word box set just as easily as a pamphlet.
  • Indie books are typically very cheap, and you can fill up your ereader with free books quite easily.
  • With enough patience and a keen eye for good deals, you can even buy traditionally published ebooks at a good price.
  • Ebooks are text-searchable.

Cons:

  • Ebooks require a power source. While most ereader batteries hold a charge for quite a while, you do eventually need to recharge them.
  • While you don’t need an internet connection to read an ebook, you do require internet to download it to your device.
  • Legally speaking, when you purchase an ebook, you’re actually just licensing it and don’t technically own it.
  • Ebooks can be changed remotely by third parties, or even deleted and removed from your device.
  • Privacy is a potential issue with ebooks, as third parties can see what you’re reading, and corporate entities can—and often do—gather data on your reading behavior.
  • PDFs and images are clunky and difficult to read, at least on some devices.
  • Bad formatting is much more of an issue ebooks, and can actually make the book unreadable.
  • It is a lot more difficult to flip through an ebook.
  • Traditionally publi$hed ebook$ are ridiculou$ly expen$ive.
  • Sifting through all of the crappy self-published ebooks to find the few good ones can be quite a challenge.

Audiobook

Pros:

  • Unlike print books and ebooks, which require your eyeballs to read, you can listen to an audiobook while your attention is focused elsewhere.
  • Because listening is a more passive activity than reading, you don’t need to concentrate as much to listen to an audiobook as you do to read a print book or ebook.
  • It’s easier to get through (most) longer or more difficult books in audio than it is in print or ebook format.
  • Borrowing audiobooks from the library is easy: all you need is an account and reliable internet.
  • Audiobooks are as portable as your smartphone, tablet, or other device that you use to listen to them.
  • Audiobooks can fit reading into the interstitial spaces of your day, such as when you are commuting or doing chores. Time that would otherwise be spent in mindless activity can now be used to fit in your reading time, making it possible to read a lot more books.

Cons:

  • Audiobook file sizes are enormous. It’s difficult to fit a sizeable library of audiobooks on a single device.
  • It is almost impossible to browse or “flip through” an audiobook, so they aren’t great for reference and good luck if you ever lose your place.
  • Marginalia is difficult with audiobooks. Most apps allow you to take little audio clips, but it’s still quite clunky.
  • Just like ebooks, audiobooks can be altered or deleted by remote third parties.
  • Just like ebooks, privacy is a potential issue, with third parties gathering and selling data on your reading behavior.
  • Just like ebooks, you don’t technically own your audiobook. What you’ve purchased is the license, not the copy itself.
  • Audiobooks are much more temporally constrained. You can listen on 2x speed and higher, but that isn’t the same as skimming or speed-reading.
  • Because the reading experience is more passive, audiobooks tend to be more forgetable than print/ebooks.
  • A bad narrator or performance can kill an audiobook, much more than a bad presentation kills a print/ebook.
  • Because it requires less mental concentration, the reading experience is not as deep with an audiobook as with an ebook, and you may have difficulty recalling details.
  • Mo$$t audiobook$$ are ridiculou$$ly expen$$ive, even more $$o than traditionally publi$$hed ebook$$.

Did I miss any?

Why my pronouns are His Majesty / His Majesty’s

I am 90% certain that the views I am about to share are the reason that I was disinvited as a panelist from LTUE, Utah Valley’s local science fiction convention/symposium. LTUE used to be a fantastic convention, and I still have a lot of friends who are regulars there. But sadly, the convention has become increasingly woke in the past few years, and now appears to be entering the “go broke” phase of that process. It didn’t help that just a few weeks before the 2022 convention, they decided to require proof of vaccination from all attendees, and refused to offer refunds on memberships that had already been purchased.

I recognize that I probably wouldn’t have been disinvited from the convention if I’d just passively gone along with the preferred pronouns thing, staying in my lane and not making waves. But here’s the thing: because of my personal views on the issue, that would have been moral cowardice. And moral cowardice is, I believe, the root cause of much of the insanity happening in the world today. It’s the reason why those 19 kids in Uvalde, Texas are dead: because of the moral cowardice of the police who refused to do their damned jobs and stop the mass shooter. It’s the same moral cowardice that allows evil people in high places to silence their underlings, for fear of losing their pensions, or positions, or jobs, or whatever. It’s the same moral cowardice that allows groomers and radical ideologues to use social media to dominate the culture war, because good and reasonable people are afraid that if they say what they honestly believe, they will incur the wrath of an online mob and be canceled. I don’t agree 100% with Tim Pool on how to put this principle into practice, but I do agree that arguing “I have kids, I can’t afford to be canceled and lose my job” isn’t enough to absolve you of your moral cowardice. The only way to reverse the madness that our world is currently passing through is for a critical mass of us to stand up, be brave, and reject the moral cowardice that has gotten us into this mess in the first place. After all, it’s not like the nature of evil has changed in the last few years.

So I hope you’ll excuse the rant, but the things I’m about to say are things that would qualify me as a moral coward if I refused to say them. I believe them that firmly. And before anyone accuses me of “violence” (as we see so often from those who wrongly conflate speech for violence and violence for speech), I want you to know that there is no hatred or malice in my heart that is driving me to say these things: only a firm and unyielding conviction of the truth, as I understand it.

In the last few years, it has become fashionable for people to post their “preferred pronouns” on their online profiles, or to give their “preferred pronouns” when introducing themselves. The underlying idea is that it is wrong to assume a person’s gender, and that if someone considers themselves to be queer or transgender, we should all affirm their delusions. Indeed, calling transgenderism a delusion is enough to incur the wrath of the online hate mobs and get you canceled for being a “transphobe.” But here’s the thing:

I will not respect your pronouns.

I will never respect your pronouns.

“Preferred pronouns” are a form of controlled speech, and controlling people’s speech is how you control their minds. But I don’t want my mind to be controlled, especially not by people who I believe to be deluded at best, and malicious at worst. People who would like to see my views silenced and my person canceled.

You see, I reject the idea that gender and biological sex are separable. I believe that gender is innate, immutable, and biologically essential. Yes, I recognize that there are nuances to the biology of sex, like people who are born with XXY chromosomes or other intersex conditions. It doesn’t change my personal view that gender and biological sex are inseparably connected.

My views are rooted in my personal faith. In fact, my church’s teachings are very clear about the role of gender in our lives:

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

So for me, the question of gender is not a small issue. It is central to my faith, which makes it a hill that I am absolutely willing to die on.

But here’s the thing: if you don’t share my religious views, I totally understand. I’m not trying to preach to you, or convert you, or force you to accept my views on this issue. We can agree to disagree and still get along just fine with each other, even if you believe in transgenderism and preferred pronouns.

I just want you to return the favor.

When you try to control my speech by insisting that I use your “preferred pronouns”–especially when you get all worked up about it–what I hear is “fuck your religion, fuck your faith, fuck your God, and fuck you. Bend the knee, you transphobic white supremacist, or I will put a target on your back and destroy you.”

No, thank you.

I’m not going to deny a central tenet of my faith. I’m not going to be cowed into affirming something that I believe to be wrong. I hold no malice toward those who disagree with me, but I refuse to live by lies or to bend the knee to the false gods of the woke regime.

And because of how important this issue is to me, I’m not going to be passive about it, either. That is why my “preferred pronouns” are His Majesty / His Majesty’s. I am 100% serious about that. And don’t forget the capitalization, you bigot.

“But Joe! How can you insist that people use your preferred pronouns when you refuse to use theirs? Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite?”

You need to familiarize yourself with Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, my friend. Rule 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” Also, rule 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”

When I started doing this, it was just a harmless joke. Intuitively, though, it just didn’t seem right to answer “what are your preferred pronouns?” with the blandly normal (and thus obviously discouraged) “he/him.” I didn’t go out of my way to make that joke, but in instances where I couldn’t avoid it, such as when the submission guidelines (or convention questionaires) required that I give my preferred pronouns, that was the answer I always gave.

And I sincerely believe that it is the right answer. I didn’t choose this ridiculous regime, but if you’re going to force me to live under it, then I’m going to make you live by your own rules, dammit. That’s what you get for trying to control my mind by controlling my speech. And if you’re going to blacklist me, or disinvite me, or call me a “transphobe,” or otherwise excommunicate me from your society, so be it. I will not bend the knee.

A man is an adult male human. Pronouns: he/him.

A woman is an adult female human. Pronouns: she/her.

They/them is typically used to indicate plural, but can be used in some circumstances to refer to an individual when it is not possible to determine their gender. However, no one’s gender is inherently such that “they/them” pronouns are requisite in all cases.

If that offends you, get over yourself. I say that with all of the love in my icy cold heart. Seriously, you will be happier, healthier, and more fulfilled if you change your life to conform to reality, rather than trying to change reality to conform with yourself.

But I’m not going to force your speech. If you want to post your “preferred pronouns” on your profile, or introduce yourself with them, I’m not going to be offended or try to stop you. I just won’t use them.

As for my “preferred pronouns,” how you respond to those tells me everything I need to know about you.

How I keep my reading journal

I am amazed at how many books I’ve read so far this year. Looking just at my resolution to read all of the Hugo and Nebula winning novels, I started with only 32 out of 110 read, and now I’m nearly at 100. Granted, for a lot of those I only read the first and last chapter, but I also read several dozen of them cover to cover—and I’ve also read a bunch of other books, too.

What was the thing that pushed me over the tipping point? I used to only read two or three books a month, if that. Then my wife and I started taking our reading time more seriously, taking our family to the library once a week and setting aside an hour each night to read before going to bed. She helped me to make a reading log to keep track of everything, and that certainly helped a lot. It also helped to have specific reading goals, like read all of the Hugo and Nebula winning books this year.

But the thing that really kicked my reading into high gear was to start keeping a reading journal. I used to have one back in high school, but all I really used it for was to save quotes, and I lost it sometime before I got married. But I remembered how that helped me to read more back in high school, so a couple of months ago I decided to start a new one.

The reading journal I keep now is handwritten in a composition notebook. I just prefer the feel of pen on paper, especially for something private like this. And it is a private journal, unlike the daily diary that I hope to share with my kids and grandkids someday. Maybe I’ll share it with close family, but for now, I’m keeping it only for myself.

If I weren’t an author, I might cross-post things from my reading journal to Goodreads and other social media sites, but since this is what I do for a living, I think it’s better to keep my reviews to myself. After all, I don’t want to give a book a bad review, only to find that several of my fans consider it their favorite book. I also want to avoid attracting the ire of any online outrage mobs, which is why I don’t post much of anything to Goodreads anymore. That’s also why I decided not to do BookTube. But if writing books wasn’t the main way I make my living, I might share some of this stuff (some of it) with my friends on social media.

So here’s what I include in my reading journal:

Monthly read/DNF lists

At the start of each month, I start a new page with two lists on it: one for all of the books that I read, and another for the ones that I DNF. Throughout the month, I add books to each list as I read/DNF them. This gives me a great way to look back at the end of the month and see, at a glance, how much progress I made.

For the books I’ve read, I also make a note in the margin if I think the book was good enough to acquire a physical copy. My long-term goal is to build a personal library of all the best books that I’ve read, so this is a way to advance that project.

Also, in the list of books I’ve DNFed, I make a note in the margins if it was a soft DNF and I may consider coming back to it at some point. I believe in DNFing early and often, but I also think that it’s good to occasionally revisit those DNFs and try them again.

Quotes that stood out

If a passage of something I’m reading stands out to me as particularly quoteworthy or memorable, I put a little post-it note on the page so that I can find it later, after I’m done reading for the day (or night). Then, I write it down in my reading journal, with the author, book title, and page number.

I’m not all that particular about collecting quotes, but if I’m really loving a book, pulling out a couple of memorable passages can enrich the reading experience and help me to remember what I’ve read. It’s also fun to share those quotes on my blog and social media, with friends who might not have read the book yet.

Books that I’ve loaned

One of the main reasons that I want to build a personal library of physical books is so that I can share them with my friends. Of course, it’s easy to lose track of which books I’ve loaned out already, and friends are prone to lose them if you don’t remind them about it from time to time.

So whenever I loan out a book, I make a note in my reading journal of that, including the name of the person I loaned it out to. And when they return it, I make a note of that too.

Ratings and reviews

I don’t really write “reviews” in my reading journal, because it’s a private journal that isn’t meant for public consumption. But I do include a few notes, generally no more than a page, for every book that I read or DNF. This usually includes my thoughts and impressions of the book, what made me DNF it if that was the case, and anything I liked or didn’t like about it.

In addition to those notes, I also give it a 1-5 star rating in the margin, using the following scale:

  • 1 Star: I thought this book was terrible.
  • 2 Star: I didn’t like this book, but it wasn’t terrible.
  • 3 Star: I thought this book was okay, but not great.
  • 4 Star: I thought this book was really good.
  • 5 Star: This is one of the best books that I’ve ever read.

Of course, it’s all very subjective, but that’s kind of the point. When I want to come back later and see what I thought of a particular book, I can see the star rating and read about what my thoughts and impressions were at the time, which give me a pretty good snapshot. If I decide to reread a book, I do the same thing for the second-read through so that I can judge the two experiences.

Anthologies and collections

If I decide to read a collection or anthology (or magazine issue, for that matter), I first list the title of every story in the book, with room on one side to mark the date that I read it, and on the other side (usually the margin) for what my 1-5 star rating was for that particular story, or whether I skipped or DNFed it.

I don’t bother writing out my thoughts and impressions for every story, but when I’m done with the collection/anthology, I do write down a few notes on it just like any other book.

Other things that I plan to include

At this point, my journal is pretty low-key, and it only takes a few minutes to update it whenever I do. However, as I get more into it, I will probably include things like proper journal entries, my thoughts on reading in general, things that I want to see in the genres that I read, and other ruminations like that. The format is really flexible, which is nice, because I’m sure I’ll be adapting it to all sorts of new things in the future.

Taken together, keeping a reading journal like this has really helped me to track my progress, not just in terms of numbers, but in terms of thoughts, impressions, and experiences. And I think that’s the key right there. Instead of each book being its own separate experience, I feel like it’s all a part of a much bigger whole, where each new book is part of a journey. What is the destination of that journey? I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s helping me to be a better reader, writer, and person overall.

Reading Resolution Update: May

My 2022 reading resolution: Read or DNF every novel that has won a Hugo or a Nebula award, and acquire all the good ones.

When I first got the idea for this new year’s resolution six months ago, I was reading maybe 30-60 pages every other day, with no real goal or direction. My wife and I had already decided to change our routine so we could read in bed for an hour before going to sleep, but we weren’t very good at keeping to that routine.

I set this goal because I knew that I needed to read more books—specifically, books in my genre. So I decided: why not set my sights high and aim for the best of the best? Not that I still believe that the Hugos and Nebulas represent the best of SF&F, but at one point I did genuinely believe that, or acted as if I did, which amounts to the same thing. So why not aim to read them all?

I thought it would take a lot longer to get this far, but here it is, June already, and I’ve almost read them all. When I started, I’d read only 36 out of 110 books. I did find a few new-to-me books that were really fantastic, but most of them were books I didn’t like. However, in a weird sort of way that actually helped me to read more, because it helped me to better understand my own tastes. So when I hit a small reading slump in March-April, I was able to branch out and read some books that I did enjoy, which helped to keep the momentum strong.

Several things have helped me to read a lot more over the course of this challenge:

First, having a reading list really helped. It provided me with a long-term, measurable goal that I could use to keep track of my progress. For me, that was highly motivational.

Second, DNFing early and often, and skipping to the last chapter before marking it as DNF. Often, I would find confirmation in the last chapter that I had indeed made the right choice not to read the rest of it. This taught me to trust my own judgment and to better understand my own tastes, which reaped dividends later.

Third, learning how to read in a way that worked with my own ADHD, not against it. This helped me to turn a great weakness, which had foiled my previous resolutions to read more books, into an advantage. But it required developing a better accountability system, which brings us to…

Fourth, using a reading log to track my progress. I got this idea from my wife, who is very good with spreadsheets. I know it doesn’t work for everyone to track everything down to how many pages per day you need to read of each book you’re currently reading, but for me, it really worked. Finally…

Fifth, starting a reading journal to track my own progress and record my own thoughts and impressions about what I’m reading. This is a topic that deserves its own blog post, but I’ve been doing it for a couple of months now, and I find that it really helps me to get a lot more out of what I read, as well as motivating me to read more. Among other things, I keep track of which books I read and DNF each month, my impressions of each book after reading or DNFing it, and any quotes from what I’m reading that stand out as being particularly memorable.

At the rate that I’m going, I will probably achieve this resolution (or at least the reading part of it) before the end of June. It might take a little more time to finish the Uplift Trilogy if I don’t DNF it, but I’ll certainly have finished before the end of the year. Consequently, I’m already drawing up other reading lists for awards like the Dragons and Goodread’s Choice, but I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I want to proceed. Most likely, I will expand those lists to include nominees, but also pick and choose which ones to read.

In any case, here are all of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning books I read or DNFed in May:

Books that I read and plan to or have already aquired

  • The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon (2004 Nebula)
  • Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin (2009 Nebula)
  • All Clear by Connie Willis (2011 Hugo and Nebula)
  • Blackout by Connie Willis (2011 Hugo and Nebula) (Technically I read this one in April and listed it under “Books that I read and don’t plan to acquire,” but after giving the sequel a chance I’ve decided to move it up here. Really, they should all be one book.)

Books that I read and don’t plan to acquire

  • The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer (1996 Nebula)

Books that I did not finish

  • Timescape by Gregory Benford (1981 Nebula)
  • No Enemy but Time by Michael Bishop (1983 Nebula)
  • The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy (1988 Nebula)
  • Slow River by Nicola Griffith (1997 Nebula)
  • The Quantum Rose by Catherine Asaro (2002 Nebula)
  • Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer (2003 Hugo)
  • Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2004 Hugo and 2005 Nebula)
  • Seeker by Jack McDevitt (2007 Nebula)
  • The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2009 Hugo)
  • Among Others by Jo Walton (2012 Hugo and Nebula)
  • Uprooted by Naomi Novik (2016 Nebula)

Total books remaining: 11 out of 111 (currently reading 5 and listening to 1).

Spring Shorts 2022 #4: The Freedom of Second Chances

I’m really happy with how this short story turned out. It pushes the edge in a lot of interesting ways, with the main character having to choose between duty and honor and doing what is right, and a forced abortion situation that puts the lie to the “women’s right to choose” insanity. It will probably get me blacklisted at a few more magazines, but at this point I really don’t care.

Once again, I used the Mythulu cards to come up with this story. Here are the ones I used:

  • CLONE: Many available forms, including: duplicate, twin, rebirth, alternative life path manifested, time traveler overlap, actor, understudy, etc. Can even mean a second chance or a relapse.
  • ABANDONED: Indicates a severe problem in the environment that prior ihabitants were unable to solve. Draw +1 Habitat.
    • COASTAL: Peaceful threshold where the ocean meets land. Known for caves, karsts, and dunes. Represents unsolvable relationship problems.
  • ERODED: Extensive, exponential deterioration of a foundation due to long-neglected defense.
  • MARRIAGE OF HONOR: A permanent relationship initiated to help someone else avoid shame or discredit.
  • TATTOO: Marked to identify, warn, or remember.
  • GUILTY: Responsible for the worst thing that has happened recently to everyone around them.
  • BODYGUARD: Primary purpose is to protect something else, at any cost.
  • VELVET: Labor-intensive weave of fabric that mimics the soft fur on a young buck’s antlers. Worn to inspire reverence or respect.
  • BLOOD: Represents the energy invested to keep something alive. The only element which affects the soul beyond mortality. Can taint or purify.
  • SLIPPERY: Wants freedom and is hard to hold onto. Often enjoys the chase.
  • BUREAUCRAT: Keeps others in bondage with words. Diverts enemies toward illusions to exhaust them into giving up.
  • CATALYST: Initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected. Gifted at getting things moving.
  • NECRO: Things that were once living, but no longer are. Draw again to decide what died. Draw +1 Habitat or Element.
    • PET: Healthy codependence with a clear heirarchy, usually between members of different species.
  • TORN: Forcibly separated parts, which often continue to exist separately. Indicates a lost privilege or reduction in status. Symbol of anger.
  • SIGIL: Symbols that have power to force or bind. Used in communities to rally groups together.

I’m going to keep going through until I’ve used all of the Mythulu cards in a story at least once. So far, they’ve proven to be an interesting way to not only generate story ideas, but to send my stories off in different and interesting directions. It usually takes me a little while (or sometimes a couple of different draws) to figure out how to fit everything into a coherent story, but I’m getting the hang of it, and the process is actually pretty fun.

As for the spring shorts challenge, it’s Memorial Day today, which means that the challenge is basically over. I only ended up writing four stories, which is a lot less than what I’d hoped to write, but I think these will turn out really well after I rework them a bit, so I’m counting it as a partial success.

For June, I plan to write two more short stories in order to fill up the buffer. My writing group meets once a month, so with two more stories to critique in June, that will give me a buffer of six months by the time July rolls around. I also plan to fix up all four of these spring shorts stories and put them on submission for the next few months, before I publish them as free singles.

I will try to do a new short story each month, in order to keep the buffer at six months, but I may do another short story nanowrimo this year if it turns out that I need more. As far as other WIPs are concerned, though, after I write these next two stories in June, I’m going to go back to novels. My plan right now is to write the first three chapters of The Sword Bearer and Captive of the Falconstar by the fourth of July, then decide whether to go on with one of those or to keep working on Children of the Starry Sea.