New Story in Written Word

Hey folks, I have a new story out now in the August 2007 edition of Written Word magazine. It’s the heart-warming tale of how a Japanese man’s robot son crushes his right arm into jelly. Go check it out!

Interzone 211 is out and I am in it!

Note: I’ve edited this entry to clarify what I meant and to remove an inflammatory comment I made.

Interzone is England’s longest-running Science Fiction publication, and this month, besides featuring Michael Moorcock, they have published my story, “Exvisible.” I couldn’t be happier: this is my second time to be published in Interzone, and both times I can’t tell you how pleased I was both with the editorial process and the final look of the publication. I really hope Interzone finds a way to make it to newsstands in the U.S.; we really need this top-notch magazine on this side of the pond.

I’ve read a few reviews of this issue and in particular of my story. I’ve gotten some nice ones — on Suite 101, Colin Harvey says of my story

“just as death has its rites enabling the survivors to cope, so will a process that is in effect a little death, and ‘Exvisible’ may well be the first story to look at the customs needed to cope with it. This is SF at its best — making the reader look at the world anew.”

and at least one unfavorable one (doesn’t say much; just says he couldn’t relate to the main character’s emotions. That’s fine.) It’s always very interesting as a writer to see these reviews and see where people’s own predilections and penchants lead them in their reading. For instance, Jonathan McCalmont says that “Exvisible” is the best story of the issue, but it is only a “good” story, not a “great” one. The reason?

… for all its clever intent, the story never quite delivers the key psychological insight or moment of drama that would take it from a merely good to a great story. Instead Hernandez plays about with an entirely superfluous romantic sub-plot and a bisexual character who exists purely as a mouthpiece for Hernandez’s views on bisexuality.

I know it’s considered declasse for authors to criticize the critics who critically criticize them, especially critics who are trying (ultimately) to compliment them, but I don’t think I can help myself here. The sentence second above could be read as saying that there is a bisexual sub-plot; there is none. There is character development of a bisexual character named Travis, and part of that development involves Travis espousing pro-bisexuality opinions, but that by itself does not constitute a subplot. Like plots, subplots need a beginning, a middle, and an end. This character development might have constituted a beginning to a romantic subplot, but nothing else happens in regards to it — because it isn’t a plot! In fact, if anything, there are hints of a future romantic sub-plot between the female surgeon Dr. Trebuchet and the main character, Juan Otero. And Travis — who hates the term bisexuality, by the way, and self-satirizingly calls himself “stray” [straight + gay] — even encourages the plain old heterosexual romantic sub-plot that, if it happens, happens well after the end of this story.

Unfortunately, it seems that McCalmont, who seems to me an interesting and smart critic from what I read on his blog, made much more of the mention of bisexuality that the text justifies. Hilarious to me how he presumes to know my opinions on bisexuality: I happen to identify as heterosexual and have a lot of very nice things to say about monogamy. The fact that I can imagine very good arguments for being bisexual does not mean I necessarily agree with them. This is right out of Interpreting Literature 101: characters’ opinions do not necessarily agree with the author’s!

Finally, he states that the character exists for no other reason than to be a mouthpiece for my opinions on bisexuality. I would humbly submit this to be patently wrong. If McCalmont hadn’t gotten hung up on the bisexuality stuff, he might have noticed that there are three major, plot-vital conversations that Travis has with Juan. Those conversations are where, in my opinion, the “key insights” of the story were delivered: especially the last one. Glad he liked the story, but I can’t help but think that, if he had correctly classified the relatively brief mention of bisexuality as character enrichment and not a subplot of sexual politics, he might have gotten more out of it.

Mr. McCalmont, if you are reading this, please understand that, just as you were not trying to insult me personally when you wrote your review, neither am I seeking to insult you. But the fact is I think that your mischaracterization of the story may very well keep people from reading it, despite some of the nice things you say about it. I certainly do not think you a “miserable, lonely git” as Jay Rayner does. I enjoyed reading your review of Interzone 211, and even agreed with some of it. :)

And as for the rest of you, what are you waiting for. Go buy Interzone 211! You can do so here.