The Greatest Home Run in Baseball History in Strange Horizons, a stray thought about community and writing, &c
Hello everyone! It’s been a while (as predicted, my short story publication rate has slowed a lot while I work on novels). Hope you’re all doing well.
The Greatest Home Run in Baseball History in Strange Horizons
When I was a kid and reading every science fiction anthology that I could find at the used bookstore, there was a wonderful sub-genre of sports science fiction, particularly stories about the future of baseball—stories about cyborg leagues, or aliens learning to play, or things like that. As the demographics of science fiction readers and writers have shifted, this genre has mostly died out, but as a childhood baseball fanatic, I always enjoyed these stories. So I decided to try my hand at writing one.
The result is not really a story about baseball, at least not in the same way as the stories I liked as a kid. But, then again, neither is the baseball of today the baseball I loved as a kid. So, instead, please enjoy this story about love, loss, dysfunctional relationships, time crystals and (yes) the future of baseball.
A side note about time crystals: time crystals are real! They were theorized by Prof. Frank Wilczek in 2012 and created in laboratories in 2016. They are not quite as described in the story, though.
A Stray Thought About Community and Writing
This has been bubbling in my head for a while (nearly a year), and with so many changes happening in the SFF community, it seemed like a good time to post it. Please understand that this is an observation over a long period of time, not in response to any current event.
In the SFF writer world, a lot of people like to praise our community, whether that's a particular social media site, particular conventions, some private industry group, workshop, specific fandom, or anything else. People talk about how great and supportive and kind the community is, which is great. I am extremely happy that they've had positive experiences.
But also, for some people, this is not their experience of community. Sometimes, the SFF community is something frustrating that you have to deal with, sometimes it's something you're better off avoiding, sometimes it's alienating and isolating, sometimes it's actively hostile and something that you have to figure out how to survive.
(Often, it's some of each of these things! Lord knows that's true of me, and I'm far from alone. Most peoples' experiences are complex.)
I don't have much of a point here. I guess I just want to say: if the writing community is something that you're alienated from, or frustrated by, feel shut out from, or that you're just trying desperately to survive, that doesn't mean your writing is any less good, or less important. People who are good at networking or even simply people who are not actively being persecuted will of course have their careers benefit from their proximity to the community, but that doesn't make their fiction any better or more legitimate.
If the writing community helps you and your writing, that's fantastic! If it harms you and your writing, there's nothing wrong with cutting it out as much as possible, or with any steps you take the mitigate the damage from the parts you can't cut out.
And, while it’s absolutely important to try to build an inclusive community, we should recognize that no community is going to include everyone. There will always be writers who are excluded, or alienated, or attacked, or dismissed. And being excluded, alienated, attacked and dismissed will never reflect on them as people, them as writers, or the quality or importance of their work.
If that's you: Your writing matters, both in general and to me personally. Please keep writing, if you can.
&c
Fun fact: The ampersand (&) is a ligature of the letters “e” and “t,” which is why it is used for “and,” via the French “et.” It can also be used in other abbreviations, substituting for the “et” combo, such as in &c—meaning “etc” or “etcetera.”
I continue to not have very much short fiction on the horizon—there are a couple of stories that I expect will be out soon-ish, so you’ll hear from me at least a little more this year. As for the novels, there is no news to share. You’ll know as soon as I do!