Short Stories are Alive and Well in Speculative Fiction - But Who's Reading?

While bookstores are struggling to compete with the likes of Amazon, book sales in general are in rude health, particularly speculative fiction. Fantasy, science fiction and horror have always had a large and loyal following, and there are no shortage of new writers out there to come up with fresh approaches to keep the speculative fiction market alive. Most new writers of sci-fi, fantasy and horror cut their teeth in the short story market. This too is in rude health, judging by the amount of magazines, anthologies and other markets advertised in Duotrope’s Digest, a website dedicated to listing all available markets for writers of fiction.

Literally hundreds of different magazines, anthologies and websites offer an avenue for writers to submit short fiction stories, and in particular speculative fiction, which is by far the largest market. Some of these magazines offer very little in payment, others advertise “pro rates,” so new writers face no shortage of potential markets. However, when you scrape beneath the surface a little, it soon becomes apparent that with a few rare exceptions, these short story markets are self-perpetuating. Many of these markets get almost as many submissions from writers as they do readers. In fact, other than a few long-standing and notable exceptions, the majority of the reading audience to these anthologies and magazines are writers themselves. It’s a case of writers writing to be read by other writers.

Very few general readers buy these short story publications, and even worse for a writer’s perspective is that very few publishers take any interest in them either. No matter how much of a reputation a writer makes in the short story market, they gain very little attention from mainstream publishers and readers. Few people in the average bookstore would have heard of the likes of Jason Sanford or Alison Littlewood, but they are two of the most exciting writers around in the science fiction and dark fantasy genres today. Yet, like other short story writers, their work goes very much unnoticed.

Publishers are of course interested in turning a profit so concentrate their abilities on promoting novels, as that’s where the money is. Very rarely will a mainstream publisher release a new author’s short story collection - arguing there’s just no money in it because people don’t buy short story collections anymore. But why? In today’s age of the e-book reader and iPad, and with an ever-busier population, with an ever-shortening attention span, the short story should be the ideal medium. As Hemingway suggested, a short story is written for consumption in one sitting. What could be better than reading a story when commuting to work in the morning, another on the way home, or rounding the day off by reading one in your comfiest reading seat? Yet few people do, preferring instead to steadily leaf through a novel.

It wasn’t always this way. Many of the greatest literature figures, particularly in science fiction, fantasy and horror, made their name writing short stories. Edgar Allan Poe only ever wrote one novel and is best remembered for his shorts. H P Lovecraft churned out hundreds of short stories, while Arthur C Clark, Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Robert A Heinlein and Philip K Dick, all made their names writing shorts. Many big name writers still regularly write short stories too; Stephen King and Neil Gaiman to name but two. But with such a limited audience, it begs the question as to why they bother. Well it’s certainly not for the money. Even the highest paid short fiction markets rarely pay above 7 cents per word. Sure big names like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman will probably attract a bigger audience for the magazines and probably get a bigger payment too, but it won’t be much, certainly not on the same scale as their novels and other writing earns them.

The reason is probably something to do with the art behind short story writing. The short story is perhaps the purest form of storytelling. Unlike a novel, where an author gets the chance to write page after page of verbose description and characterization, a short story requires a writer to cut things down and include only what matters to the story. The plot, narrative, characterization and description need to provide just enough detail to immerse the reader and serve the story. For this reason, some of the greatest works of fiction are written in the short form. So, next time you are browsing your local bookstore, why not pay a visit to the shelves containing the short story magazines and anthologies. You may find you are in for a pleasant surprise.

- Isabella Woods -

Book Review: Animythical Tales by Sarah Totton

Title: Animythical Tales
Author: Sarah Totton
Trade Paperback: 126 pages
Publisher: Fantastic Books (27 February 2010)
ISBN 10: 1604599324
ISBN 13: 978-1604599329

"In this elegant volume, award-winning author Sarah Totton takes her readers on speculative journeys of the heart and mind that will both challenge and engage you. Within these tales, readers will learn the meaning of darkness and pain and fear. Yet they will also learn about love and happiness and laughter. Sarah Totton explores the full kaleidoscope of the human heart and peels it back, one layer at a time. She offers her readers a full palette of emotions and stories to sift through, never settling, never holding back, and never flinching. Whether she is writing about the loss of innocence through dark revelations, the point to which a human mind can be stretched before succumbing to the magic of faerie, or something as preposterous as cloud-fishing in a world with pink yaks, the stories in Animythical Tales are always told with an eye toward revealing something important about the human condition. If you have ever yearned to fall into fabulous adventures in unforgettable worlds, Animythical Tales is the collection for you."

Please find the rest of the review on Speculative Book Review...

Short Fiction: High Stakes by Sarah A. Hoyt

You can read Sarah A. Hoyt's short story called High Stakes on Darwin's Evolutions.

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But you don’t stay alive very long by giving way to first impulses. Someone was unlocking my door. This meant they probably suspected something. The identity under which I’d come to Babylon was not that interesting. Unskilled, young – thanks to extensive cosmetic surgery – and with an assumed IQ in the high nineties. My coverup identity would mean nothing to them. This meant either that they’d suspected something – that I’d let my guard down somehow – or that the person opening my door had some other intention in mind. 

Read the whole story at: High Stakes by Sarah A. Hoyt

Free Short Fiction: People of Leaf and Branch by Jay Lake

Maribel ran along the top boards. The planks went from roof to roof, along the ridges, with a jumping-space to reach the peaks of the round huts. She didn’t have the skill of a danseuse, nor the grace of the best of the girls from the stone city below her, but among the woodkin, she was often accounted the most lithe and best.

The Tower Wander was ahead, with Shrike House clinging to its neck like a collar. The old wall had long since been swallowed by the spread of the stone city, gone from defense to landmark to landform in the space of a few generations. The Duke of Copper Downs had forbidden the woodkin to enter the abandoned towers, but their exteriors had never been under such a rule.

So the seven surviving towers acquired names, and superstructures, and held the long, narrow village that ran from the Broken Gate to the Tower Harbor. The towers were part of the stone city, but the houses were the woodkin’s memory of another time and place.

She slipped through the roof of Shrike House, dropping to the floor in a shower of dust and straw.

You can read the rest of the story here...

Free Short Fiction: Ghost Technology From the Sun by Paul Jessup

Master told us that the earth was hollow, and that we lived on the inside of it, clinging to the top of the crust. Below us was another world, a world inside the world, a glowing bright sun of a place. What Master called the summerlands. That is where the dead live, he said. That is how we can talk to them, he said. They send us signals across the air, and the mediums pick them up and drink them in.

And when the words came in, we had to speak them. We cannot deny the dead our voices–the dead would be angry if we did. And nobody wanted the angry dead to fly their zeppelins up from the sun and attack us crust dwellers.

That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Master knew this because he is an ambassador to the land of the dead. At night he walked through the door of the dead, and it beamed his body down above us, into the summer sun inside of the earth. That is where he talked to them, worked out trade between our two peoples.

The dead have a lot to offer the living.

He came back with schematics.

Ways of building circuit boards.

Ghost technology from the sun.

You can read the rest of the story here...