KGB: 1/18/06
Just got back from the monthly KGB Fantastic Fiction reading. As usual, I hung with my peeps–Andrea Kail, Doug Cohen, Chris Cevasco, the one we call E., and Amy Goldschlager. New to the crew this month was a paralegal named Evan, who, though not a writer or editor could totally hold his own talking about SF; and Jenny Rae Rappaport (an agent-in-training–so start sucking up now) and her boyfriend Chris. Also present was Tempest, who, while not a part of the regular crew, is always welcome. Nick Mamatas also loitered in our area (there were no chairs to be had). Also met Mary Robinette Kowal, which was cool, since we’d exchanged numerous emails but hadn’t actually met until tonight.
It was a really good event tonight. Marly Youmans and Jeff VanderMeer read. Marly started the night off with a fun story, and then VanderMeer rocked the house with some seriously funny stuff–an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Shriek: an Afterword, and selections from a new book which was spun off from his collection, Secret Lives. The excerpt from Shriek was great, especially for us writerly types–it was about a guy going to visit his editor only to have the publisher tell him how truly terrible and loathesome his latest book is. Although VanderMeer says that that excerpt is not emblematic of the novel–the novel isn’t a comedy throughout–it was a great excerpt to read, and I think it probably sold a few pre-orders.
If this book only contained Finlay’s brilliant Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated reinvention of space opera, “The Political Officer,” it would be worth buying for that story alone. But fortunately, the book’s also got thirteen other compelling and finely-crafted tales, which run the gamut from humor to alternate history to swords-and-sorcery. This variety makes for an interesting reading experience, as if Finlay wanted to take the reader on a tour through all of what science fiction and fantasy has to offer. And Finlay seems equally adept at each of the subgenres he explores, so it’s not a matter of him trying new things until he finds something that works; it’s more like having written a great story in one subgenre, he goes looking for new kingdoms to conquer.