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Articles by Ken Poyner
The Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist 2022
Out of the many lines that have escaped the confines of genre and made their way into mainstream cultural consciousness, “Shaka, when the walls fell” is perhaps one of the more memorable ones. Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Darmok” episode has Captain Picard attempting to communicate with the Tamarians, a race whose language is constituted entirely by metaphor.
Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2021: Part Two
This is Part Two of a two-part review of the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction shortlist. Most of the works on this list are strong reads outside the context of this award, with stories extending from the “small” to the “sweeping” in cosmic scope, and covering the spectrum of science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, and folk- and spiritual lore.
Born from the Drowning Forest
Content warning: This page contains: Child abuse Childbirth Death/dying Drug use Everything had changed. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The whole reason we had moved to the Isle of Lewis was because everything everywhere was changing. Here seemed like the best place to face that. Like a dream in the morning sun, I had some vague sense of happiness from childhood memories. Lewis was a magical spot. It was a haven.
Ineffective By Ken Poyner
Content warning: This page contains: No content warnings Tuesday, they broke the light. The next three days they tried to fix it. Staples, paperclips, hairpins, glue; Nothing would hold it together. Finally, they settled on writing a thesis Promoting the better side of constant Dark, finagled the peer review, Hoped to secure a grant before The true effects of the disaster Were widely known. Quickly People were publicly serving Cups of broken light at corner Photon bars.
Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2021: Part One
In a 2021 press release, literary executor Theo Downes-Le Guin noted that his mother had been “suspicious of literary awards and prizes,” so there was perhaps no small irony to the creation of the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction: an award now in its inaugural year, and funded by Le Guin’s literary trust.
17 October 2022 By Strange Horizons
Cups of broken light at corner Photon bars. & i understood that wa(te)r / does not wash the red tint off the scalp of a bleeding ocean. Everything had changed. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The whole reason we had moved to the Isle of Lewis was because everything everywhere was changing. Here seemed like the best place to face that.
Short Fiction Treasures: Quarterly Fiction Roundup
Get ready to feel hungry, because the theme for this quarterly roundup is food. I love reading speculative fiction stories that are about food, prominently feature food, or use food as an integral part of world and character building. Coincidentally, a couple of nights before I put the final touches on this column, I started reading Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes, the third book in her Chilling Effect series.
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Hi! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for visiting! She had gloriously red hair.
Knowledge
There goes the dog, limping with Her death, unaware of it, joyfully Carrying it about as she imagines Compounds of importance, frivolity, Well earned indolence. Nothing is as Important as this dog to this dog. We let her lead us on. She knows the way. Our dog-walking tract Is pitilessly predictable. She runs ahead, Runs back, possibly wondering why We are so slow. We do not carry Our deaths. Only once will We carry our deaths, but are aware, And so our importance dims.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
November/December 2023 It’s probably hard to believe—if you read this in mid-October, when this issue goes on sale—that our next installment is already the November/December seasonal issue, but it is! (And if you think that’s weird: I’m writing this in late May!) So we begin to close-out 2023 with “Apollo in Retrograde,” a follow-up to Rosemary Claire Smith’s popular 2012 novelette, “The Next Frontier.” Time has marched on since we last saw Natalya Orlova, and so has the space race, after the...
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