HUGO AWARD-WINNING SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY MAGAZINE
Editor's Desk:
The Voice in the Shadows
Most months, I struggle to find what I want to write about in these editorials. It doesn’t seem to matter whether or not I’ve had time to think or if I feel rushed by a hectic schedule. The anxiety when writing these or an introduction brings everything to a crashing halt. I’ve been trying to work my way through this difficulty and only recently started drawing the parallels to public speaking. I don’t know why it didn’t strike me sooner. Both involve sharing words with a crowd of people. It is that feeling of claustrophobia that wakes up the little bullied kid that lives in the shadows of my mind. “Don’t draw attention.” “It’s safer in the shadows.” “They will hurt you.”
I started my career in academia in the late 80s. As someone in technology, I anticipated being behind-the-scenes most of the time, but within a couple of years, I was the director of a growing department at a time of great change in both technology and education. The price was having to put myself out there. Small meetings were never a problem, but soon I was expected to give talks about our program at admissions events, large lecture halls filled with prospective students and their parents. To get the grants I needed to fulfill our goals, I’d have to make presentations and consult at other universities. Although I was confident in my command of the information I had to share, it was never comfortable or easy for me.
I don’t remember when I was first invited to be a panelist at a science fiction convention, but it was within the last ten years. I know I felt completely unqualified to be there, but the crowds were smaller and I wouldn’t be up there alone. Whatever I said on those panels was sufficient enough to keep receiving program participant invites, but I was convinced that they simply hadn’t caught onto how unqualified I was. Being wrong was never something I was afraid of—I was afraid of the crowd and what they might do.
It would be a few more years and a couple of awards before I’d begin to accept that maybe I did belong. I was able to add to the conversation and at worst, I’d learn something in the process. As I stopped listening to the little voice in the shadows, the audience started feeling less like a potential angry mob—something they had never given me reason to believe. Of course, there was a heart attack in there somewhere and that changed a lot of things for me as well.
In the last few years, I’ve felt a lot more relaxed. It still makes me uncomfortable, but between coping mechanisms and a little faith in my fellow fan, I’m able to look the part. In October, I was a Guest of Honor with Ken Liu at Capclave in Gaithersburg, MD. It’s something I don’t think I could have done even three years ago. Someone there noted that they were in a workshop I had done there a few years earlier and how much more relaxed I appeared to be. That served as a sort of a-ha! moment for me. Nearly thirty years later, I can finally pass as a functioning but exhausted human being while doing three days of panels.
My first Clarkesworld editorial didn’t show up until issue 21 (June 2008)—the same issue that launched our podcast. They didn’t become a regular thing until much later. Even with the increased frequency and the occasional anthology introduction, I figure that I have a good ten to fifteen years of practice to go. I apologize in advance for everything that comes between now and then, but will try to have something really awesome to make up for it on the tail end.
Have a great November and thank you for reading Clarkesworld!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Forever Magazine, and The SFWA Bulletin; owner of Wyrm Publishing; and a seven-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). His anthologies include Upgraded, Galactic Empires, More Human Than Human, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us, and the Best Science Fiction of the Years series. His next anthology, The Eagle has Landed, will be published in July by Night Shade Books. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two sons.
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ISSN 1937-7843 Clarkesworld Magazine © 2006-2019 Wyrm Publishing. Robot illustration by Serj Iulian.
chris wrote on November 3rd, 2017 at 5:31 pm:
Mr Clarke (Neil if I may?)--
We all spend our entire lives practising for whatever it is we think we don't do well enough; I too have those feelings of "they haven't figured it out yet, have they, and I even keep telling them!"
I am a professional musician in the classical world, and I can tell you that audiences don't pay good money to hope I play poorly! The come because the love the music I'm gong to play, and however I play it on that day seems to suit them just fine. How do I know? They come to the next performance!
Why am I here? Because I enjoyed "the last one" so much that I want to hear what you have to say this time! Even if you use bad syntax I will want to hear it. (ok, if it were bad syntax a little red light will go off in my head, but I will not think less of your thoughts for it . And I'm NOT saying your syntax needs work; it was the first thing that came to mind...)
Clearly I should stick to music!-- but I do appreciate your editorials.
--a happy subscriber
Sam wrote on November 17th, 2017 at 3:06 pm:
Well Neil, what you said in your editorial is a very universal feeling, some have called it "the imposter syndrome" others don't need any labels but can recognise the feeling from going into a new field, such as their first Kung Fu or Yoga class. Like a fish out of water until the individual acclimatises.
Anyway, I don't normally make comments but I'd like to make a recommendation. It's really addressed to Gardner Dozios and I was going to make it in the latest reprinted short story but it said that the comment must be related to the story at hand. And I've been meaning to send this comment for ages.
Though I've enjoyed your reprints Gardner, most of them are overly familiar because so many of them I and my friends have already got - by subscribing to the magazines in which they appeared or in the many reprints, such as 'Best New SF of the Year'. They are remarkably easy to get, even if we missed them originally, as they can be brought cheaply in second hand bookshops, online, e-bay, ect, ect.
What I'd love to see are more of the ones that weren't printed in the main SF magazines, collections and anthologies – ones that you yourself have recommened in your yearly and much anticipated 'Honourable Mentions'. And not just yourself but your prestigeous predecessors such as Judith Merrill and James Blish. All seem to be lost to posterity, some maybe forever!
Here's a quote by the great Anthony Boucher that I think still appllies from an introduction to an anthology he edited:
“Older works stay in print, not because some teacher has declared them officially Great, but because people are still reading them and telling their friends that they have to get Asimov’s Foundation or Herbert’s Dune or Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress or Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. We still pass this literature from hand to hand. It is still the passionate reader who drives the genre, and, as a result, the entire history of science fiction is still readily available. We can read our way from beginning to end, and have it whole in our memories....
…..My primary concern was simply to get together a great deal of good reading in modem (1938-58) s.f. which had been overlooked by earlier anthologists; and I was astonished to find that, after the anthological Gold Rush of the 1950’s, there was so much high grade ore still unmined.” - Anthony Boucher, 1959
Some of the Online SF titles you recommended is still avilable, such as 'SciFiction' – which can be accessed via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, othes such as 'Oceans of the Mind' are completely missing, lost to all readers, researchers, students, anthologist and historians of the present and future. Others are in very limited chapbooks and haven't been seen since and still further, there are the ones that appeared in Western magazines and literary journals or slick mainstream magazines. I provided small list of the only a 103 titles that have slipped though the gaps and are missing and I don't have several of Merrill's or your yearly 'Best SF of the Year' books on hand. Many are now so obscure that they don't even have a notation of their existence in the ISFDB. From those books that I had on hand....
Here are a 103 stories
1938 -01-00 Year Nine (ss) – Cyril Connelly - New Statesman, cited as a key influence upon Orwell's '1984', recommended by David Langdon, F&SF review.
1950 -09-00 Danish Gambit short story Carl Gentile • Neurotica, Autumn 1950, • James Blish as by William Atheling, Jr. pleaded for this to anthologised by some enterprising compiler and recommened it as a great SF story about chess, after lambasting review of Poul Anderson's 'The Immortal Game' – recommended in 'The Issue at Hand'.
1950 -09-00 Epizootics (unknown if essay or short story) Neurotica, Autumn 1950 - G. Legman
a "crudely ferocious attack upon L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics" - The Issue at Hand - Blish
1956 -01-00 “A Little Magic” - Shirley Jackson - Woman’s Home Companion, Merril, Never reprinted, not in the ISFDB.
1955 -05-00 “The Electronic Duel” short story Hugo Gernsbeck – Esquire – Merrill, not in ISFDB
1956 -03-00 “To the Wilderness I Wander,” - Frank Butler - Hudson Review, Spring/56., not in the ISFDB - Merril
1956 -07-00 “The Pugilist” - Richard Harper -Nugget, Merril, no in the ISFDB
1956 -08-00 “The Automatic Gentleman” - Robert A. Hart – Dude, Merril, no in ISFDB
1956 -08-00 “The Second Mrs. Gilbert” - Walter Wager – Swank, Merril, not in ISFDB
1956 -09-00 “The Angel and the Sailor” - Calvin Kentfield - Harper’s Bazaar, Merril, not in ISFDB
1956 -10-27 “Next Stop, the Stars,” - Ray Bradbury – Maclean’s, Merril, not in ISFDB
1956 -11-00 “A Heart of Furious Fancies” - Winona McClintic – Atlantic, Merril, not in ISFDB
1958 -02-00 The Red, Singing Sands short story - Koller Ernst, The Red, Singing Sands, Merril, no in the ISFDB
1958 -05-00 “Notes on the Great Change” short story – Robert Arthur – December Magazine, Merril, not in ISFDB
1958 -06-07 Night of Horror • shortstory by Joel Townsley Rogers – Saturday Evening Post
1958 ------ “Tman in the Moon” short story, Atlantic Monthly, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1958 -07-00 “The Iowan's Curse” short story – Charles G. Finney, Harper's, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1958 -----00 “Lady in the Lab” short story – Sam Merwin, Jr. - Adam, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1958 -12-00 “Piggy” short story - Swank, Merril not in the ISFDB
1955 -06-00 “Virus H” short story – John D. MacDonald – Bluebook, recommended by Merril, not in ISFDB
1959 ------00 “The Abyss” short story John Shepley – San Francisco Review, unknown issue, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1959 -08-29 “The Snowflake and the Starfish” - Robert Nathan – Saturday Evening Post, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1959 -08-00 “The Marvellous Black Magic Washing Machine” short story – Frederick Pillsbury – Ladies' Home Journal, , Merril, not in the ISFDB
1959 -10-00 “Mount Bettesville” short story – Tom Pease – Mister Magazine, Merril, not in ISFDB
1959 -11-00 “The Cage” short story Roger Thorne – Rogue, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1959 -10-10 “The Hunter and the Huntress” short story – Harold Mead – The Saturday Evening Post, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1959 -12-05 “The Flying Jeep” short story William Chamberlain – Saturday Evening Post, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -03-00 “The Hermit” short story -William Brandon – Saturday Evening Post, Merril, not in ISFDB
1960 -03-00 “It Was Lovely That Summer” short story Evan Hunter – Dude, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -05-00 “Monkey on My Magazine Rack” short story - Raymond Hartley – Gent, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -07-09 “The Story of an Atomic Age Ordeal” short story – Willima Sambrot, Merril, not in ISFDB
1960 -09-00 “Equity” short story – Jack Sharkey - Dude, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -09-00 “The Lonely Crowd” short story – John Wisdom - Dude, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -08-00 “After the Sirens” short story – Hugh Hood - Esquire, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -11-00 “Her Dearest Wish” short story – Ladies' Home Journal, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -12-00 “Haunted Christmas” short story – Jean Fritz – 17 magazine, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -12-00 “An Executive” short story Howard Nemerov - Esquire, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1960 -11-00 “Room for One More” short story William Lindsay Gresham – Dude, Merril, not in ISFDB
1960 -12-24 “The Owl That Asked Why” short story - Don Tracy – Saturday Evening Post, Merrril, not in ISFDB
1961 -01-00 “Gentlemen, Be Seated” short story – James Garrett – Dude, Merril, not in ISFDB
1961 -01-00 “My Cosmic Valentine” short story – Willard Marsh - Audit 1:8 Winter/Spring 1961, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1961 -01-00 “Astronaut Aweigh” short story – Russell A. Apple – Ladies' Home Journal, Merril, not in ISFDB
1961 -03-04 “The Cat that Vanished” short story - John Reese – Saturday Evening Post, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1961 -04-00 “Baby Was One” short story – George Sumner Albee – McCall's, Merril, not in ISFDB
1961 -08-00 “ 'Come on in, Mrs. Farrick' “ short story Kathleen Davitt - Madamosille, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1961 -08-00 “Buy Now, Die Later” short story – Gary Jennings – Gent, Merril, not in ISFDB
1961 -09-15 “ 'they Think I'm Mad,' Said the Marquise,” short story Herbert Kubly – Vogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1961 -10-00 “The Peacemaker” short story Neal Brookes – Rogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -02-00 “The H. K. Brock” - Michael Fessier – Rogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -03-00 “The Enchanted Room” short story – Davis Grubb – Good Housekeeping, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -03-00 “The Valley of Good News,” - Henry Sleasar – Dude, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1963 -04-00 “Akin to Love” short story – Christanna Brand – Rogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -04-00 “Punch Line” short story - William Lindsay Gresham – Rogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -05-00 “Robert Robot” - Theodore Pratt – Catholic Youth, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1963 -05-00 “The Elephant,” short story – Slawomir Mrozek – Madamosille, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1963 -07-00 “Chance the Prairie Prey” - Frederick Ely - Rogue, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1963 -09-00 “Androcles and the Librarian” short story - Eileen Jensen - Ladies' Home Journal, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -10-00 “Transient” - Jack Sharkey – Rogue, Merril, not in the ISFDB
1963 -11-16 “The Indelible Spot” short story - Juan Bosch – Saturday Evening Post, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -12-00 “Mr. Mateosian and the Chinaman” - David E. Fisher – Gent, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -12-00 “The Shelter in the Jungle,” - Eugene S. Schwartz – New Leader/ Short Story International, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -12-29 “The Word” short story – Alfred Chester – Book Week – Merril, not in the ISFDB
1963 –------ “Alice Grebel and the Doomsday Machine” short story – Frank Bequaert – Cosmopolitan, Merril, not in ISFDB
1963 -09-00 “The Last Three Months” - William F. Nolan - Road and Track, Merril
1964 -03-00 “Abraham Awoke,” - Neal Brooks - Rogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1964 -03-00 “The General” - Larry D. Spence - Michigan’s Quarterly Voices, Merril, Not in ISFDB
1964 -06-00 “The Smallest Woman in the World,” - Clarice Lispector - Kenyon Review, Merril, not in ISFDB
1964 -07-00 The Burning Bush • shortfiction L. W. Michaelson – Short Story International, Merril
1964 -09-00 “The Day the Weapons Worked,” - Ben Irwin - Nugget, Merril, not in ISFDB
1964 ------ “Keeping it Simple” - David R. Bunch – Smith, Merril
1965 ------ “The Casting Couch” - Lewis Kovner – Rogue, Merril, not in ISFDB
1965 ------ “The Watcher's” - Florence Engel Randall – Harper's, Merril, not in ISFDB
1975 -09-00 “Babyzap” short story Suzette Haden Elgin – Playgirl, Best SF 5 edited by Terry Carr, not in ISFDB
1981 -0101 “The Green Road to Quephanda” – Ruth Rendall - EQMM , Dozios
1984 –------ “Party Time,” - Edward Bryant, Westercon 37 Program Book, Dozois, never reprinted
1984 -03-00 “Kelpie,” - C. A. Cador and Marc Laidlaw, Fantasy Book, Dozois, never reprinted.
1985 -01-00 Sherlock Holmes and Basho - A. A. Attanasio – Beastmarks, Dozois, never reprinted
1985 -06-00 “Defender of the Faith,” - Judith Tarr - Moonsinger’s Friends, Dozios, never rerpinted
1985 -12-00 Small Bodies • shortstory by Paul Preuss – The Planets, Dozois, never reprinted
1985 -11-00 “Cycles” - James Stevens - Stardate, Dozios, never reprinted
1986 –------- “A Cup of Worrynot Tea” - John M. Ford - Liavec II, Dozios,
1986 -04-00 “American Folktales,” - John Harris – Atlantic, Dozios, never reprinted, not in the ISFDB
1986 -------- “Cutliffe Starkvogel and the Bears Who Liked TV,” - John Keefauver - The Best of the West, Dozois, never reprinted
1986 -------- “Take a Left at Bertram” shortfiction by Chad Oliver - The Best of the West, Dozois, never reprinted
1986 -10-00 “Someone Is Watching,” - Kate Wilhelm - Redbook, Dozois, never reprinted
1992 -01-00 “Scoring” shortstory Paul Merrick – Aurealis 7, Dozois, never reprinted
1992 -06-00 “Letting Go,” - Kathe Koja - Pulphouse, Dozios, never reprinted
1992 -09-00 “The Weighmaster of Flood,” - Eileen Kernaghan - Ark of Ice, Dozios, never reprinted
1992 -11-00 “Anodyne:’ - Tim Sullivan - Pulphouse, Dozios, never reprinted
1998 -07-00 “White Lies and Alibis” shortstory by John C. Waugh – Terra Incognito 3, Dozios, never reprinted
2000 -03-00 White Phantom • shortstory by Charlee Jacob – Space and Time, Dozios, never reprinted
2000 -07-00 “The Miracle at Kallithéa” novelette by Eric Brown - Spectrum SF, #3, Dozios, never reprinted
2000 -08-00 “Luring the Tiger Out of the Mountain” - Fiona Avery, - Bookface, Dozios, never reprinte, not in the ISFDB
2002 -04-00 “The Sky Tower” - Barrington J. Bayley - Spectrum SF, Dozios, never reprinted,
2002 -08-00 “Luring the Tiger Out of the Mountain” short story Fiona Avery - Bookface – Dozios – not in ISFDB
2002 -09-00 A Better Place short story Richard Paul Russo Oceans of the Mind [# 5, Fall 2002), Dozios, lost fron the web - offline
2002 -09-00 Never Convicted short story Ryck Neube - Oceans of the Mind Fll 200 2– Dozios, lost fron the web into the ether
2002 -06-00 Catalyst short story John Alfred Taylor · Oceans of the Mind [# 4, Summer 2002 – Dozios, lost fron the web - offline
1994 -07-00 “Water” - W. M. Shockley - Louis L'Amour Western Magazine, July 1994 - Dozios, never reprinted,
1994 -05-00 “Two Women of the Prairie” short story Steven Utley- Louis L'Amour Western Magazine - Dozios, never reprinted,
1994 -03-00 "The Lights of Armageddon” short story William Browning Spencer - Argonaut #19, Spring
1994 ------00 Of Fire and Ice • novelette by G. David Nordley - Mindsparks, Vol. II, Issue II, No. 5, - Dozios, never reprinted
2008 -09-00 Plot Device short story James Killus – Helix, Online, “Recommended” by irosf, (“Tragically, author James Killus died on September 23, just a week before this issue came out. I do not know if this was his last story, but if so, it makes a fine capstone to a too-short career”), missing from the web, lost forever.
# NOTE: Plot Device by James Killus
A tale of temptation. Moss discovers an old program disk in a bin of obsolete software.
Hello! Welcome to SCHEMATON! SCHEMATON! is an expert system for the application of the principles of game theory to ordinary life situations. Although the applicable problem set is limited to zero and less-than-zero sum games, many practical problems may be solved by the application of SCHEMATON! software.
The program is highly effective. Using its advice, Moss becomes successful and wealthy. He meets a woman he desires more than any other. She is married. The program tells him how to acquire her by eliminating her husband.
This one reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode, one in which the devil takes some seemingly-innocuous form with which to seduce the susceptible. The story of Moss's slow descent towards damnation is chillingly credible.
RECOMMENDED
Tragically, author James Killus died on September 23, just a week before this issue came out. I do not know if this was his last story, but if so, it makes a fine capstone to a too-short career.
http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10483#helix