The Long List Anthology: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List (The Long List Anthology Series Book 1) Read online

  The Long List Anthology

  More Stories from the Hugo Award Nomination List

  Edited by David Steffen

  THE LONG LIST ANTHOLOGY

  edited by David Steffen

  www.diabolicalplots.com

  Copyright © 2015 David Steffen

  Stories copyright © 2014 by the authors

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Diabolical Plots, L.L.C.

  “Worldcon,” “World Science Fiction Society,” “WSFS,” “World Science Fiction Society,” “Hugo Award,” the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award trophy rocket are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.

  Cover art: "A City On Its Tentacles" by Galen Dara, first published in Lackington's with a story of the same name by Rose Lemberg in February 2014.

  Cover layout by Pat R. Steiner

  Layout: Polgarus Studio

  ISBN: 1519131194

  ISBN-13: 978-1519131195

  I dedicate this book to my family.

  And to my friends and supporters in writing and fandom.

  Table of Contents

  PERMISSIONS

  FOREWORD

  THE BREATH OF WAR • Aliette de Bodard

  WHEN IT ENDS, HE CATCHES HER • Eugie Foster

  TOAD WORDS • T. Kingfisher

  MAKEISHA IN TIME • Rachael K. Jones

  COVENANT • Elizabeth Bear

  THE TRUTH ABOUT OWLS • Amal El-Mohtar

  A KISS WITH TEETH • Max Gladstone

  THE VAPORIZATION ENTHALPY OF A PECULIAR PAKISTANI FAMILY • Usman T. Malik

  THIS CHANCE PLANET • Elizabeth Bear

  GOODNIGHT STARS • Annie Bellet

  WE ARE THE CLOUD • Sam J. Miller

  THE MAGICIAN AND LAPLACE’S DEMON • Tom Crosshill

  SPRING FESTIVAL: HAPPINESS, ANGER, LOVE, SORROW, JOY • Xia Jia • translated by Ken Liu

  THE HUSBAND STITCH • Carmen Maria Machado

  THE BONEDRAKE’S PENANCE • Yoon Ha Lee

  THE DEVIL IN AMERICA • Kai Ashante Wilson

  THE LITANY OF EARTH • Ruthanna Emrys

  A GUIDE TO THE FRUITS OF HAWAI’I • Alaya Dawn Johnson

  A YEAR AND A DAY IN OLD THERADANE • Scott Lynch

  THE REGULAR • Ken Liu

  GRAND JETÉ (THE GREAT LEAP) • Rachel Swirsky

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BACKER APPRECIATION

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  Permissions

  “The Breath of War” by Aliette de Bodard. Copyright © 2014 by Aliette de Bodard. First published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #142. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “When It Ends, He Catches Her” by Eugie Foster. Copyright © 2014 by Eugie Foster. First published electronically in Daily Science Fiction, September 26. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

  “Toad Words” by T. Kingfisher. Copyright © 2014 by T. Kingfisher. First published electronically on LiveJournal, June 26. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones. Copyright © 2014 by Rachael K. Jones. First published electronically in Crossed Genres 2.0 #20. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Covenant” by Elizabeth Bear. Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Bear. First published in Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Truth About Owls” by Amal El-Mohtar. Copyright © 2014 by Amal El-Mohtar. First published in Kaleidoscope, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone. Copyright © 2014 by Max Gladstone. First published electronically on Tor.com, October 29. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” by Usman T. Malik. Copyright © 2014 by Usman T. Malik. First published in Qualia Nous, edited by Michael Bailey. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “This Chance Planet” by Elizabeth Bear. Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Bear. First published electronically on Tor.com, October 22. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Goodnight Stars” by Annie Bellet. Copyright © 2014 by Annie Bellet. First published in The End is Now, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “We are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller. Copyright © 2014 by Sam J. Miller. First published electronically in Lightspeed Magazine #52 . Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Magician and LaPlace’s Demon” by Tom Crosshill. Copyright © 2014 by Tom Crosshill. First published electronically in Clarkesworld #99. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow” by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu. Copyright of English translation © 2014 by Xia Jia and Ken Liu. First published in Chinese in Science Fiction World in June 2013. First published in English electronically in Clarkesworld #96. Reprinted by permission of the author and translator.

  “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado. Copyright © 2014 by Carmen Maria Machado. First published electronically in Granta, October 27. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Bonedrake’s Penance” by Yoon Ha Lee. Copyright © 2014 by Yoon Ha Lee. First published electronically in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #143. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson. Copyright © 2014 by Kai Ashante Wilson. First published on Tor.com, April 2. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys. Copyright © 2014 by Ruthanna Emrys. First published electronically on Tor.com, May 14. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Copyright © 2014 by Alaya Dawn Johnson. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane” by Scott Lynch. Copyright © 2014 by Scott Lynch. First published in Rogues, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Regular” by Ken Liu. Copyright © 2014 by Ken Liu. First published in Upgraded, edited by Neil Clarke. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)” by Rachel Swirsky. Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Swirsky. First published electronically in Subterranean Press Magazine, Summer 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Foreword

  I’ve followed the Hugo Awards for years, and have found them the most compelling of the science fiction literary awards for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that anyone who pays for a Supporting membership for the year’s WorldCon also has a the right to nominate for and vote for the Hugos. Another reason is the Hugo Packet, which is a package of many of the nominated works to give one place where a voter can catch up on many of the works before they place their final ballots. I pay for a Supporting membership every year for the packet, which makes a great recommended reading list. If that sounds like a great deal, it is, and you might want to consider supporting WSFS and the Hugo Awards with that Supporting membership and by voting.

  Every year, after the Hugo Award Ceremony at WorldCon, WSFS publishes a longer list of works that were nominated by the Hugo voters. I use this list as a recomm
ended reading list. too, but I have mused that it would be nice if that longer list were all in one place like the Hugo packet, for convenient reading.

  I have decided over the years that if I say “Someone ought to do this thing.” enough times, then maybe I also ought to say “And that someone should be me.” It has worked out well for me in the past, and here I am again. I confirmed interest from enough of the authors on that longer list to make an anthology of respectable size. I ran a Kickstarter to gauge interest, and there was enough interest to fund not only the book and the ebook, but an audiobook version professionally produced by Skyboat Media as well.

  I sincerely hope you enjoy these stories as much as I have, and if readers like what I’ve put together here I’d like to repeat the project next year.

  —David Steffen, December 2015—

  The Breath Of War

  By Aliette de Bodard

  Going into the mountains had never been easy. Even in Rechan’s first adult years, when the war was slowly burning itself to smouldering embers, every Spring Festival had been a slow migration in armed vehicles, her aunts and uncles frequently stopping in every roadside shop, taking stock of what ambushes or roadblocks might lie ahead.

  The war might be over—or almost so, the planet largely at peace, the spaceports disgorging a steady stream of Galactic and Rong visitors onto Voc—but the pace was just as frustratingly slow.

  They’d made good time at first: coming out of the city early in the morning and becoming airborne at the first of the authorised takeoff points, the steady stream of soldiers repatriated from the front becoming smaller and smaller as they flew higher, like insects on the intense brown of the road; zigzagging on the trails, laughing with relief as they unpacked the fried dough Rechan had baked for lunch, almost forgetting that they weren’t setting on an adventure but on something with far longer-reaching consequences.

  And then the flyer’s motor made a funny sound, and the entire vehicle lurched downwards with a sickening crunch that jolted Rechan against the wall. And before they knew it, they were stranded on a dusty little road halfway up the mountains, leaving Rechan’s niece Akanlam bartering with a local herder for a repair point.

  By the sounds of it, the bartering was not going well.

  Rechan sat against a large rock outcropping, rubbing the curve of her belly for comfort; feeling the familiar heaviness, the weight of the baby’s body in her womb like a promise. You’ll be fine, she thought, over and over, a saying that had become her lifeline, no matter how much of a lie it might be. You’ll be fine.

  “We should be able to solve this,” Mau said. The stonewoman’s face was as impassive as ever. Her eyes didn’t crinkle as she spoke, her mouth didn’t quirk; there was only the slow, quiet sound of her breath.

  “You think so?” Rechan shook her head, trying not to think of her dreams. It was so many years since she’d carved Sang—so many years since she’d gone into the mountains with little more than rations and carving tools—but, with the particular link that bound a woman to her breath-sibling, she could feel him every night: blurred images of him hovering over the plateaux, never venturing far from the place of his birth. A relief, because he was her only hope.

  On Voc, it took a stoneman’s breath to quicken a baby at birth—and not any stoneman’s, but the mother’s breath-sibling, the one she had carved on accession to adulthood and entrusted with her breath. Without Sang, her baby would be stillborn.

  “We’ll find a vehicle,” Mau said.

  Rechan watched her niece from a distance. The discussion was getting animated and Akanlam’s hand gestures more and more frantic. “Help me up,” she said to Mau.

  The stonewoman winced. “You shouldn’t—”

  “I’ve spent a lifetime doing what I shouldn’t,” Rechan said; and after a while Mau held out a hand, which she used to haul herself up. The stonewoman’s skin was lamsinh— the same almost otherworldly translucency, the same coolness as the stone; the fingers painstakingly carved with an amount of detail that hadn’t been accessible to Rechan’s generation. Mau was Akanlam’s breath-sibling; and Akanlam had put into her carving the same intensity she always put in her art. Unlike most stonemen, nothing in her looked quite human, but there was a power and a flow in the least of Mau’s features that made her seem to radiate energy, even when sitting still.

  “What is going on here?” Rechan asked, as she got closer.

  Akanlam looked up, her face red. “He says the nearest repair point is two days down.”

  Rechan took in the herder: craggy face, a reflection of the worn rocks around them; a spring in his step that told her he wasn’t as old as he looked. “Good day, younger brother,” she said.

  “Good day, elder sister.” The herder nodded to her. “I was telling the younger aunt here—you have to go down.”

  Rechan shook her head. “Going down isn’t an option. We have to get to the plateaux.”

  The herder winced. “It’s been many years since city folks came this way.”

  “I know,” Rechan said, and waited for the herder to discourage her. She’d gotten used to that game. But, to her surprise, he didn’t.

  “Exhalation?” he asked. “There are simpler ways.”

  “I know,” Rechan said. He’d mistaken Mau as her breath-sibling and not Akanlam’s—an easy mistake to make, for in her late stage of pregnancy, having a breath-sibling at hand would be crucial. “But it’s not exhalation. She’s not my breath-sibling; she’s hers.”

  The herder looked from her to Mau and then back to Akanlam. “How far along are you?” he asked.

  Too far along; that was the truth. She’d waited too long, hoping a solution would present itself; that she wouldn’t need to go back into the mountains. A mistake; hope had never gotten her anywhere. “Eight months and a half,” Rechan said, and heard the herder’s sharp intake of breath. “My breath-sibling is in the mountains.” Which was… true, in a way.

  The herder grimaced again, and looked at the bulge of her belly. “I can radio the nearest village,” he said, finally. “They might have an aircar, or something you can borrow, provided you return it.”

  Rechan nodded, forcing her lips upwards into a smile. “Perfect. Thank you, younger brother.”

  • • • •

  The village didn’t have an aircar, or a cart, or any contrivance Rechan could have used. They did have mules and goats, but in her advanced state of pregnancy she dared not risk a ride on an animal. So they radioed the next village, which promised to send their only aircar. Rechan thanked them, and hunkered with Akanlam down in the kitchen to help with the communal cooking. There was a wedding feast that night, and the community would need the travellers’ hands as much, if not more, than their money.

  Mau came by the kitchen later, having spent the afternoon gossiping with the village elders. “They say there’s rebel activity on the plateaux,” she said, handing Rechan a thin cutting knife.

  “Hmm.” Rechan took a critical look at the seafood toasts on the table. Half of them looked slightly crooked; hopefully in the dim light the guests wouldn’t mind too much.

  “Herders don’t take their beasts into the mountains, and especially not on the lamsinh plateaux. They say people go missing there. Crossfire, probably. They say on quiet nights you can hear the sounds of battle.”

  Rechan thought of her dreams—of Sang’s savage thoughts, the thrill of the hunt, the release of the kill, permeating everything until she woke up sweating. What kind of being had he become, left to his own devices on the plateaux? “You’re not trying to discourage me, are you?”

  Mau shifted positions; the light caught her face, frozen into the serene enigmatic smile that had been Akanlam’s as a child. “Ha. I’ve since long learnt how useless that is. No, I just thought you’d like to know exactly what we’re going into.”

  “War,” Akanlam said from her place at the stove, her voice dour. “The last remnants of it, anyway.”

  The Galactic delegation had arrived a
couple of days earlier, to formalise the peace agreement between the government and the rebels; the spaceports were being renovated, the terminals and pagodas painstakingly rebuilt. “I guess,” Rechan said. “It always comes back to the mountains, doesn’t it?” She shifted positions, feeling the baby move within her, a weight as heavy as stone. “Legend says that’s where we all came from.”

  “The prime colony ark?” Akanlam scoffed, chopping vegetables into small pieces. “That was debunked years ago.”

  A cheer went up outside. Rechan shifted, to see onto the plaza. A gathering of people in silk clothes, clustered around the lucky trio. She was young, even younger than Akanlam; wearing a red, tight-fitting tunic with golden embroidery, and beaming; and her groom even younger than her, making it hard to believe he had cleared adolescence. The breath-sibling was a distinguished, elderly gentleman in the robes of a scholar, who reminded Rechan of her own grandfather. He was standing next to the bride, smiling as widely as she was. The sunlight seemed to illuminate his translucent body from within: it had been a beautiful block of stone he’d been carved from, a white shade the colour of Old Earth porcelain; likely, so close to the plateaux they could pick their blocks themselves, rather than rely on what the traders brought them.