Till there's only the tickets and crows here

[sovay]

I see that Pluto has been punted—back to the underworld with you. I wonder how Venetia Burney feels.

It's that time of year again: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror has come out. lesser_celery has already listed the honorable mentions for Not One of Us; time_shark has done the same for Mythic Delirium. I have not yet seen a copy of the latest collection for myself, but I've been reliably informed that I have fourteen honorable mentions:

"A Ceiling of Amber, A Pavement of Pearl," Singing Innocence and Experience
"Asleep at Fortune's Wheel," Zahir #6
"By Sunlight," Clarity
"Doyna for August, and After" (poem), Postcards from the Province of Hyphens
"Etemmu" (poem), The Magazine of Speculative Poetry 7.1
"Gintaras" (poem), Dreams and Nightmares #70
"Growing Season" (poem), The Magazine of Speculative Poetry 7.3
"In Sight of the Seasons" (poem), Not One of Us #34
"Little Fix of Friction," Not One of Us #33
"Psyche" (poem), Not One of Us #33
"Salt and No Wounds" (poem), Postcards from the Province of Hyphens
"Tarot in the Dungeon" (poem), Mythic Delirium #12
"The White Swan," TEL: Stories
"Time May Be," Singing Innocence and Experience

All the editors who accepted and published these pieces, thank you! This sort of makes me need to readjust my head.

And write something for Pluto.

Comments

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Congratulations to you on all the HMs. Richly deserved--I particularly remember liking "Tarot in the Dungeon". *cheers*

[sovay]

Thank you!

[jlundberg.livejournal.com]

Man alive! Fourteen? Wow, Sonya. And me here with one widdle HM.

[sovay]

And me here with one widdle HM.

Hey, still: congratulations! For which piece?

[jlundberg.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was for "Reality, Interrupted" in The Third Alternative (and reprinted at Infinity Plus, and soon to be podcasted at MechMuse).

[sovay]

(and reprinted at Infinity Plus, and soon to be podcasted at MechMuse)

Yay. So I can read it.

[jlundberg.livejournal.com]

Yup!

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Excellent work.

And damn them. Damn them for Pluto, damn them for Indigo.

[sovay]

Damn them for Pluto, damn them for Indigo.

Enlighten me: Indigo?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Used to be considered part of the spectrum, but now isn't. At least, according to my insufferable 9th grade Earth Science Teacher circa 1990, who was also a big fan of eliminating Pluto from the list of planets.

I might have forgiven the bastards if they inducted Ceres, but no.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one to make that connection! I admit I'm on the opposite side of the debate to you: I'd rather be left out than be put in just to make up the numbers. I find it entirely plausible that indigo was inserted into the spectrum by people who felt that there ought to be seven colours, a little harder (but not impossible) to believe that Pluto was claimed as a planet because, after all, eight's no good. Seven was fine, but now we've found Uranus, there must be a ninth...

Hence sovay's fourteen HMs, you see - obviously she couldn't make do with one or two, like a mere mortal, but you might have expected her to go for thirteen. But instead she's landed a double seven...

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, 8 is my favorite number, and a powerful number at that. Indigo has gradually replaced Red as my favorite color due to my congenital lefty love of the underdog, and, really, Red knows I love Red, but Indigo needs me more ;p.
I agree that inclusion for the sake of numbers is a poor reason, and I would resent being included in something solely for that reason.

That said, once included, even for the sake of numbers, to exclude again is an even larger insult.

Actually, dress it up how I want, it's the smug self-righteousness of Mrs. Cordero, who told us with great glee that Pluto wasn't really a planet, and going to be demoted "any day now."

Twice seven is an fine and worthy number of HMs.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Fourteen? Pfeh.

*cackles and runs away*

[sovay]

*cackles and runs away*

You want me to wish your new job well or . . . ?

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

You don't have to wish it well, if you don't think I'd be happier working in the writing and ESL lab of a community college than my current situation. :-P

*hugs* Congratulations on having caught the eye of the editors so many times this year. That said, you'd think with so many honourable mentions they'd have said 'Huh, maybe she's on to something' and put you in the book...

[sovay]

if you don't think I'd be happier working in the writing and ESL lab of a community college than my current situation. :-P

Fingers are crossed and chickens are sacrificed for you. : )

That said, you'd think with so many honourable mentions they'd have said 'Huh, maybe she's on to something' and put you in the book...

I do occasionally wonder. But still, this is pretty damn cool.

[kraada.livejournal.com]

While you're at it you should so check the guts of those chickens; extra information never hurt.

Also: my guess is in another few years the book will just be ALL you and they'll be like "we were going to put her in every year, but the Omnibus Taaffe version struck us as so much more handy" . . .

(Congratulations anyway! :)

[sovay]

Also: my guess is in another few years the book will just be ALL you and they'll be like "we were going to put her in every year, but the Omnibus Taaffe version struck us as so much more handy" . . .

Nah, that's if Prime Books puts out another collection of mine . . .

(Thanks!)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Fourteen? That's amazing. Well done!

[sovay]

Thank you! I'm sort of stunned.

[thewriteratwork.livejournal.com]

Oooh, congrats! Very marvelous!

I look forward to your Pluto piece. It seems very, very odd to think of the planets w/o it!

[sovay]

It seems very, very odd to think of the planets w/o it!

It really is. I am at the moment re-reading Eleanor Cameron's A Mystery for Mr. Bass (1960) and I ran across this passage:

For upon that wall, which was made of numberless blocks of stone fitted carefully together, was a carving. And this carving was so finely and deeply cut, the colors that filled in the picture were so rich and vivid, that there could be no mistaking what it was.

It was a sun, a big flaring sun with rays. And though, in places, large patches of green mold had spread across the wall, it could still be seen that, ranged around the sun in different orbits, were eight planets.

The sun and its rays were gold, as if gold dust had been worked into the very surface of the stone. The smallest sphere, plainly Mercury, in an orbit nearest the sun, was a deep red. Then came a yellow Venus as if to show that this is the brightest of the planets. Next was a lapis-lazuli blue earth with a white moon and a tiny blue-green Basidium; then came an orange Mars; next, a pale, huge, silvery Jupiter with a red jewel of Basidium set into it to indicate the Great Red Spot; then a pale yellow Saturn with green and blue and red rings; and last of all a great green Uranus and a greater green Neptune.

There it was, a magnificent, richly colored, quite accurate picture of the solar system—except for the absence of little Pluto. Then David saw it: still another, outer orbit traced in gold, and, only a bit of it showing beneath a fan of fungus—what must have been the remotest planet. David broke the fungus away and rubbed the stone clear with his hand, and yes, there was Pluto. It could have been nothing else.

Sigh.

[crowgrl.livejournal.com]

Underachiever, eh?

Congratulations!

[sovay]

Heh. Thank you!

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

I've been reliably informed that I have fourteen honorable mentions:

o_0

...whoa.

Deservedly so, I grant you.

And write something for Pluto.

...and, at the last, the god
looks up again from the underworld,
and plots, always plots...

(damn. maybe my muse has finally decided to visit again, for the first time in... let's not worry about that, shall we? I think you were in... high school, or something.)

[sovay]

(damn. maybe my muse has finally decided to visit again, for the first time in... let's not worry about that, shall we? I think you were in... high school, or something.)

Fine; do I still get to see the rest of the poem?

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

Of course, if it ever comes to fruition; that was just something that popped into my head when I was typing the comment. Now if I can build something useful out of it...

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

but I've been reliably informed that I have fourteen honorable mentions:

Congratulations! That's very, very drad.

[sovay]

Yeah: I was really not expecting this. Thanks!

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Mm, also, one must be pleased that Doyna for August, and After was in there.

I kind of want illustrations in my books, have I said? /random

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

....That's the second time this week I've not closed a tag. Oh well.

[sovay]

Mm, also, one must be pleased that Doyna for August, and After was in there.

Yes. Since that one is pretty much entirely your fault.

I kind of want illustrations in my books, have I said?

You haven't said, but I'd support that. Do you have a particular artist in mind?

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I don't, is the trouble. Something with pen and ink. I'd ask Ursula Vernon if I thought she was willing to do something; her Gearworld series of drawings is marvy.

[bondgwendabond.livejournal.com]

Yay you!

[sovay]

Thanks!

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

We all knew the quality; we were just haggling over the number.

Congratulations.

[sovay]

Thanks. : )

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Wow, fourteen--I think the anthology should have given you its only little section. Taaffe in 2005. Maybe next year :)

Congratulations!

[sovay]

Hee. Thank you!

[spectre-general.livejournal.com]

Hey hey,

The Arrogant Worms are playing in New Haven... No, we have no idea why.

[sovay]

No, we have no idea why.

If it means I get to see them in person, I won't complain . . . When?

14

[ombriel.livejournal.com]

Egads--well done!