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Message |
    
Andy Cox
| | Posted on Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 05:49 am: | |
Geoff Ryman writes:
A year from now the May-June issue of Interzone will be devoted to Mundane SF. Guest edited by me with Julian Todd and Trent Walters, it will feature approximately 35,000 words of Mundane SF.
What makes a story Mundane? A few simple rules:
• no FTL travel or communications
• no aliens
• no time travel
• no parallel universes
• no immortality or telepathy
We believe that these SF 'inventions' are powerful myths whose presence may be drowning out some very important ideas. They may be entertaining to write and read about, but could there be something else we are all missing? The time comes when someone has to throw these babies out of the bathwater and see if there is life besides.
No matter how strong your convictions are regarding the inevitability of one, or all, of the above so-far non-existent phenomena, you can still write Mundane SF if you set your story between now and when the first of these becomes possible within your own personal belief system.
Just because we don't want to see any of these usual elements doesn't mean we don't demand the highest standards of quality and sense of wonder expected from all good SF. We promise, however, that if your story so much as hints at the existence of any one of these banned memes it will not be accepted no matter how good it is. A great Mundane story will most likely focus on the future here on Earth. It can be near or far future. But any story that does not violate established facts or simply throw out experimentally supported theory can be Mundane. To see in more detail about what makes a story Mundane, visit the Mundane-SF Blogspot.
If you are struggling for ideas in the absence of spaceships, alternative realities, brain downloads, etc, try checking out some of the shocking developments that have been happening here on this Earth, according to the best scientists.
Stories are likely to be 2,500 to 5,000 words. You can submit by using the forms here.
Submissions must be in by 31st October 2007. |
Spencer Pate
| | Posted on Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 06:28 am: | |
I love the idea for this issue, Andy. |
Roy
New member
Username: Roy
Post Number: 37
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - 10:27 am: | |
Mundane IZ is due May 8th and its fiction is
How to Make Paper Airplanes by Lavie Tidhar
Endra – from Memory by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
The Hour is Getting Late by Billie Aul
Remote Control by R.R. Angell
The Invisibles by Élisabeth Vonarburg
Into the Night by Anil Menon
Talk is Cheap by Geoff Ryman
Interzone 216 is also a showcase for Welsh artist and film producer Chris Nurse
Geoff Ryman introduces the stories |
Roy
New member
Username: Roy
Post Number: 38
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 10:53 am: | |
Geoff Ryman will be talking about Interzone 216, the mundane sf issue, on Radio 4 tonight (Friday 2 May) at 7:30, Front Row, I assume, and you should be able to listen again using the BBC website if you miss it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/frontrow
Damien G Walter has an article in the Guardian Unlimited/Guardian On line. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/05/the_really_exciting_science_fi.html">
“The Mundane manifesto was perfectly pitched to infuriate the SF community. On the one hand it aimed a casual insult at SF readers who enjoyed the powerful myths it criticised. On the other it alienated the science-obsessed "Hard SF" faction who felt directly attacked by the Mundanistas. The attitudes of both sides hardened around a series of wonderfully arrogant statements issuing from the Mundanista camp, claiming ….”
Early review here http://thefix-online.com/reviews/interzone-216/ |
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