Introduction

Hello one and all!

This blog, Specfictionalysis, will be -- as the title suggests -- a blog for analysis speculative fiction. The goal is to read short stories and delve into them from a critical literary analysis perspective, rather than the more traditional "reviewer" perspective. It is a blog meant for novice writers wishing to hone their craft by understanding how published authors achieve certain affects.

Why me? Well I am glad you should ask. I am a writer and editor of speculative fiction: mostly I write futurist science fiction and steampunk, along with magic realist pieces. I have edited both science fiction and fantasy works.

I will not be the only contributor, however. In the future we will be adding other analysts to cover fantasy, horror, new weird, and even mystery. If you feel like you'd be interested in contributing, please feel free to send me a note, and we'll discuss things.

So here is how it will work. Each week we'll read a short story from our list of publications (if you have an addition, please let me know, and I'll check it out and see about adding it to our reading list). We'll then post about 300 words about that story in a traditional critical analysis format: i.e., we'll explore how the story is working, isn't working, how it functions, what goals it achieves, and others aspects of fiction writing. As a disclaimer, though, we're not always right, and we're certainly not too proud to admit it, so we'll leave each post open for comments to have a romping discussion about our thoughts on a story. We only ask you to be nice about it.

Here's our reading list:
365 Tomorrows
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Big Pulp
Clarkesworld
Every Day Fiction
Short-Short Me

So tune in later in the week, and we'll have our first story.