1st Graphic Fiction imho reviews part 1

i've finally managed to pull myself together enough to read a few of the shortlisted entries to the prose category of the Graphic/Fic awards. i decided to go through them alphabetically. i've read 3 of them, well, 2 and a bit of 1, and have this to say about them (apologies to my fellow writers if my opinions are a bit ruthless. if it's any consolation, hey, you made it to the list and i didn't, so, hey, what do i know, right?):

A Song For Vargas - it was probably a good thing i started with this one, because it boosted my ego no end. no offense to the writer, but this was a horrible story. admittedly, i didn't make it to the end, but the writing was just too awful (both editing-wise and writing-wise) for me to continue. the ideas, the fantastical elements, were trite to say the least. Vargas is King Haggard, and while his dilemma may superficially be more sympathetic than Peter Beagle's creation, i felt no sympathy at all for all his dramatic posing. the lying skull "that keeps Vargas' secrets" cinches the deal in my mind; remember the skeleton guarding the clock-entrance to the Red Bull's lair? i read the first 3 or 4 pages, then skimmed through the rest. this story, imho, does not belong on the shortlist, and i'm a bit embarrassed that something so poorly edited (at the very least) was sent to Mr Gaiman for judging. i'm surprised he found it worthy of being on the shortlist at all, and, it's only redeeming factor, perhaps, is that it presents a fantasy that is solidly rooted in Filipino culture.
i get the feeling the writer would have been better off writing this one in Filipino.

A Strange Map of Time - well-written, with the nods to local culture not as forced as you usually find in local fiction written in English (the "hoverjeepneys," however, i found a bit laughably obvious). however, the story, the premise, the idea behind the "Strange Map" left me cold. this is not a "Strange" map of time. it's painfully linear, a disappointment after the title, and the story has elements that feel almost gratuitous. the bits where the main character goes backward in time are interesting, but felt like the only elements that seemed really worth going through. the author would have served the story better if he'd focused on that rather than the underlying, rather dull explanation for the events in the story.

Atha - when i first skimmed through the entries, i knew i was going to love this story. at the time, i wasn't ready to read any of the stories, and yet i had to stop myself as i had already consumed 2 pages of it. the writer is obviously comfortable with the narrative language, and, except for a few typos, the writing was flawless. the story was simple, but well-handled, the tone consistent, the pace rivetting. there are symbolic elements in the story that were handled beautifully, subtly, and fit into the narrative without beating you over the head with the "hey, look at this little detail here, it's symbolic, it is" some writers end-up saying (in not so many words) when inserting such elements into an otherwise straightforward narrative.
Atha is an amazing story, both the city and the flying beast Atha well-fleshed. the beast is both believable as a threatening element of change and a solid creation. despite the lack of any definite description, she manages to leap into your head full-formed without a completely detailed description telling you what she is exactly.
like Conrad, i can't help but love the city as the author describes it. there are so many fictional cities in lit, i myself find it hard to come up with an original description, much less one that feels absolutely right for the story, without resorting to cliches; the writer here manages beautifully, creating a post-apocalyptic city that is both familiar for dystopian/apocalyptic sf/f readers, and yet, more importantly, wholly his own.
about the only problem i see with this story is that it feels like it was written by China Mieville; not knowing Atha's writer, i'm not quite sure i see him in it. but it's still a good story, and the writing is good enough that it does not feel at all like it was written with the intention of being a Mieville-clone. rather, the similarity feels wholly incidental. and anyway, if you must be compared to another writer, you can do much, much worse than being compared to Mr Mieville.
for the moment, Atha has my vote for People's Choice Award; actually, it's hard to imagine any other entry topping this one in my mind right now.
winner or not, congratulations to Atha's writer for writing this gem of an sf/f short story.

i look forward to meeting Atha's writer, and, oddly enough, to reading the other stories on the shortlist, even while Atha proves that my own self-image as a writer can get smaller than it already is, and any other story even fractionally as good will surely beat it down even further.

more on the other shortlisted stories, and the state of my self-esteem, as they develop.

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this just in... just found out from the horse's mouth (i.e., Neil Gaiman's blog) that Mr Gaiman was not a judge for the Graphic/Fic awards. which is both disappointing and heartening for me at the same time.