Asimov's SF, September 2010

Dell Magazines
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Copyright ©2010 by Dell Magazines

Department: 2010 READERS’ AWARDS by Sheila Williams

Department: REFLECTIONS: CALLING DR. ASIMOV! by Robert Silverberg

Department: THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS: THE VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE: SCIENCE FICTION AND NON-WESTERN/NON-ANGLOPHONE COUNTRIES by Aliette de Bodard

Novelette: BACKLASH by Nancy Fulda

Short Story: THE PALACE IN THE CLOUDS by Eugene Mirabelli

Poetry: THE NOW WE ALMOST INHABIT by Roger Dutcher and Robert Frazier

Novelette: WHEAT RUST by Benjamin Crowell

Poetry: EGG PROTECTION by Ruth Berman

Short Story: FOR WANT OF A NAIL by Mary Robinette Kowal

Department: NEXT ISSUE

Novella: THE SULTAN OF THE CLOUDS by Geoffrey A. Landis

Department: ON BOOKS by Paul Di Filippo

Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss

Asimov's Science Fiction
. ISSN 1065-2698. Vol. 34, No. 9. Whole Nos. 416, September 2010. GST #R123293128. Published monthly except for two combined double issues in April/May and October/November by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One year subscription $55.90 in the United States and U.S. possessions. In all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Address for subscription and all other correspondence about them, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for change of address. Address for all editorial matters:
Asimov's Science Fiction,
267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10007.
Asimov's Science Fiction
is the registered trademark of Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. © 2010 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. All rights reserved, printed in the U.S.A. Protection secured under the Universal and Pan American Copyright Conventions. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. Please visit our website, www.asimovs.com, for information regarding electronic submissions. All manual submissions must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope; the publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER, send change of address to
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Sheila Williams:
Editor
Trevor Quachri:
Managing Editor
Mary Grant:
Editorial Assistant
Jackie Sherbow:
Editorial Administrative Assistant
Victoria Green:
Senior Art Director
Cindi Tiberi:
Production Artist
Laura Tulley:
Senior Production Manager
Jennifer Cone:
Production Associate
Abigail Browning:
Manager Subsidiary Rights and Marketing
Bruce W. Sherbow:
Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Sandy Marlowe:
Circulation Services
Advertising Representative
Robin DiMeglio: Advertising Sales Manager
Phone: (203) 866-6688 ext. 180
Fax: (203) 854-5962
[email protected]
(Display and Classified Advertising)
Peter Kanter:
Publisher
Christine Begley:
Vice President, Editorial and Product Development
Susan Kendrioski:
Vice President, Design and Production
Isaac Asimov:
Editorial Director (1977-1992)

Stories from
Asimov's
have won 50 Hugos and 27 Nebula Awards, and our editors have received 18 Hugo Awards for Best Editor.

Please do not send us your manuscript until you've gotten a copy of our guidelines. Look for them online at www.asimovs.com or send a self-addressed, stamped business-size (#10) envelope, and a note requesting this information. Write “manuscript guidelines” in the bottom left-hand corner of the outside envelope. We prefer electronic submissions, but the address for manual submissions and for all editorial correspondence is
Asimov's Science Fiction
, 267 Broadway, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10007-2352. While we're always looking for new writers, please, in the interest of time-saving, find out what we're loking for, and how to prepare it, before submitting your story.

This year's Readers’ Award ceremony seemed almost like a replay of the Dell Magazines’ Award. Once again, I arrived in spectacularly sunny Orlando, Florida, but this time I took a shuttle bus sixty miles east to Cocoa Beach for the annual Nebula Awards Weekend. On Friday, I had the thrill of a lifetime when I got to accompany many of the Nebula finalists to the Visitor Complex at the Kennedy Space Center and watch the space shuttle Atlantis lift off for it's ultimate voyage to the International Space Station. I'm sure I'll revisit that experience in a future editorial.

Of course, our annual Readers’ Award brunch was a lot of fun, too. While we would have loved it if all of our winners had been in attendance at the ceremony on Saturday morning at the Cocoa Beach Hilton, we were delighted to see that half of our winners could make it. Attendees included Will McIntosh, the exhausted father of sixteen-month-old twins, whose short story “Bridesicle” was a finalist for the Nebula Award and the upcoming Hugo Award, as well as the winner of our Readers’ Award; Ted Kosmatka, whose 2008 novelette, “Divining Light,” was a finalist for the Nebula Award at the same time that his and Michael Poore's wrenching 2009 novelette “Blood Dauber” was picking up the Readers’ Award; and Bryan D. Dietrich, the author of “Edgar Allan Poe,” this year's winning poem.

Alas, perennially favorite author, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, couldn't be there in person to pick up the award for her poignant novella, “Broken Windchimes,” and neither could our artist, John Picacio, or Ted Kosmatka's co-author, Michael Poore. Still, we were graced by the presence of some lovely guests. These included Connie Willis, along with her husband Courtney and her daughter Cordelia, and two of our columnists—James Patrick Kelly and Peter Heck. Since we shared the enormous brunch table with
Analog's
AnLab winners we were also joined by Stan and Joyce Schmidt, Richard A. Lovett, Carl Frederick, Bud Sparhawk, the artist John Allemand, and other distinguished guests.

I had a great time visiting with everyone, but as always, one of the chief pleasures the Readers’ Award poll brings is the chance to peruse the readers’ comments on the award ballots. Once again, many readers bemoaned the difficulty they had reaching a decision. David Lee Oakes summed up the situation nicely when he wrote, “I have enjoyed another year of wonderful stories in
Asimov's
. Fact is, the sci-fi tales of 2009 were so wondrous in the magazine that I found it outright befuddling in selecting which tales I should put on my Readers’ Award ballot. Trust me, it took me a prolonged while to make out this year's ballot. I thank all the science fiction authors of this mag . . . for making
Asimov's
a super-duper read each year.” Steven Harvey found the short story category particularly vexing. “I try to be as stingy with my ratings throughout the year so as to make my awards choices as easy as possible yet even I awarded twelve ‘five star’ ratings in [this] category and six in the novelette category.” Like several other readers, he added “Norman Spinrad's article on the death of Thomas Disch was absolutely fascinating and the clear highlight of this year in the nonfiction area. It was top-quality journalism and as far as I'm concerned, could just as easily been published in the
New Yorker
."

Although his cover came in fifth, a number of readers commented on how deeply moved they were by Duncan Long's December illustration. This cover was a reprint of Duncan's artwork, but it was partly due to these positive comments that I decided to ask the artist for an original piece of art for our April/May issue. I want to thank the voters for putting the idea in my head and for the beautiful piece of art that accompanied Gregory Norman Bossert's “Union of Soil and Sky” as a result.

While not every story was universally beloved, readers did express a wide-range of favorites. Sherry Haub wrote, “Please keep mixing it up among ‘strange’ like ‘As Women Fight’ by Sara Genge and ‘5,000 Light Years from Birdland’ by Robert Chase; gentler ‘humanist’ like ‘The Consciousness Problem’ by Mary Robinette Kowal and ‘The Bird Painter in the Time of War’ by Carol Emshwiller; coming of age stories like ‘In Their Garden’ by Brenda Cooper, ‘Shoes-to-Run’ by Sara Genge, and ‘Angie's Errand’ by Nick Wolven; and magical realism like ‘Away from Here’ by Lisa Goldstein. It was also great to find a mystery-thriller within an SF setting. 2009's stories were way above the average. Keep ‘em coming!” Simon Gasch Trapiella wrote to say, “Even though it didn't make it to my ballot, I enjoyed R. Garcia's stories. I'd like to hear more from the Sand Sailor! Ian McHugh's debut is worth mentioning. His ‘House of Ye’ is very rich in detail, and even though Sara Genge's works are not really my cup of tea, I must admit her stories are pretty sound. ‘Shoes-to-Run,’ for instance, made for a very good read."

The battles for first place in cover art and novelette were extremely close. For all the remarks about difficulties with coming to a decision about the short story, the largest point spread between first and second place occurred in this category. Of course, this was also the category with a four-way tie for third place!

We will be celebrating the twenty-fifth Readers’ Award poll at the end of this year. I look forward to reading all your thoughts on our 2010 stories when it comes time to fill out that momentous ballot.

BEST NOVELLA

1.
BROKEN WINDCHIMES; KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH

2. Act One; Nancy Kress

3. The Spires of Denon; Kristine Kathryn Rusch

4. Earth II; Stephen Baxter

5. Pelago; Judith Berman

BEST NOVELETTE

1.
BLOOD DAUBER; TED KOSMATKA & MICHAEL POORE

2. Soulmates; Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn

3. A Large Bucket and Accidental Mastery of Spacetime;

Benjamin Crowell

4. Lion Walk; Mary Rosenblum

5. SinBad the Sand Sailor; R. Garcia y Robertson