Matthew Johnson

Another year older and deeper in mud

2009-07-13T16:59:00.001-05:00

Desire, Kisses and Blurbs

2009-07-07T14:28:00.003-05:00

I was pleased and surprised yesterday to find the eighth anniversary issue of Aoife's Kiss (issue #29, for the record) had arrived in the mail. Pleased because it includes my story "The Ninth Part of Desire." (This now means that every one of my Asimov's stories has been reprinted or translated somewhere, which is kind of interesting -- you'd think it would be the stories that appeared in the little bitty anthologies that got reprinted, since fewer people would have seen them, but no. Of course, it may be that the ones Asimov's bought are better stories.) Surprised because... well, remind me to tell you that story someday.

Meanwhile, Rich Horton has been kind enough to provide a cover blurb for Fall From Earth. There wasn't enough time to get him a review copy before the cover went to print so he contributed an astonishingly generous and flattering overview of my work, which I'm far too weak to resist reprinting here:

"Matthew Johnson's short stories in the past few years have revealed as fresh and original a new voice as any in our field, and a voice with impressive range, as he's produced first-rate alternate history/fantasy, Borgesian intellectual speculation, and near-future SF. I'm enthusiastically looking forward to a novel."

Here it is: the cover design for Fall From Earth

2009-06-29T19:55:00.002-05:00

Reviewers wanted

2009-06-25T10:23:00.002-05:00

The galleys are almost done and we're looking for people to read and review Fall From Earth. Since we're hoping to score some nice juicy blurbs we're currently only looking for people in the SF field or professional reviewers (in other words, there should be some chance readers will have heard of you or your publication/website.)* If you're interested, e-mail me at Matthewj42@hotmail.com.

*There will probably be a promotion a little later for regular readers aimed at garnering Amazon reviews. Stay tuned.

Also

2009-06-04T12:31:00.001-05:00

I forgot to mention, in my last post, that John Rogers wrote what I believe is the first (and so far only) parody of my work, in his review of "The Coldest War." You can see it here (scroll about halfway down the page.) It's meant kindly... I think.

A "Lagos" movie? Well, sort of... Plus, an unexpected form of time travel, and a twit Tweets

2009-05-28T13:07:00.004-05:00

When I first read about the Mexican science fiction film Sleep Dealer last Fall I thought, "That sounds a lot like 'Lagos'" -- an apparently I'm not the only one: John E. Rogers Jr., reviewing that film for (naturally) Asimov's, opens his review with a long paragraph describing my story (the word "superb" does pop up... just sayin'.) I haven't seen the film yet (though I suspect my video store will get it when it comes out on DVD, they carry an impressive number of foreign films) but it's neat to see the same ideas coming up somewhere else.

In other news... I'm currently deep in revisions of Fall to Earth. Cutting the word count is proving to be easier than I thought it would be, but what's weird is working with the sections that have survived from the very first draft, more than ten years ago; it's a bit like having a cross-time conversation with my past overwriting self.

Finally: by order of my boss, I'm now on Twitter. You can follow me by clicking on the button to your right. So far I have two followers at any given time; one of them is admirably loyal, but the #2 spot has been filled by three different people. (I refuse to be one of those "please follow me" people, though I have sent replies to people whom I follow, which seems to be okay. Still figuring out the etiquette of this Twitter thing.)

It's cold in Denmark, it's cold in Russia

2009-04-21T18:33:00.003-05:00

Somewhat to my surprise, "The Coldest War" is now my most-translated story: it will appear in an upcoming issue of Esli, the Russian magazine that previously translated "Another Country." Maybe I should pitch it to next year's Tesseracts so it can complete its circumpolar journey...

Matthew

You Heard It Here First!

2009-04-07T18:18:00.004-05:00

Now that the contracts have been negotiated, signed and returned I'm pleased as punch to announce that my novel Fall From Earth will be published this summer by the good folks at Bundoran Press. They're a Canadian publishing house with three previous books to their credit -- the most recent of which, fellow Ottawan Hayden Trenholm's Defining Diana, just got nominated for an Aurora Award. (No pressure.) The plan is to launch at Worldcon in my old stomping grounds of Montreal this summer.

That's all for now. (Great googly moogly, isn't that enough?)

Matthew

Danes are good sports...

2009-03-06T18:55:00.002-06:00

My story "The Coldest War," about a future war between Canada and Denmark, will be translated for publication in the long-running Danish SF magazine Proxima. What they'll make of references to Tim Horton's and Robertson Davies I don't know. (Make your own damn "Danish" pun here.)

In related news, Gardner Dozois had kind words for "The Coldest War" in the latest Locus. "Matthew Johnson's 'The Coldest War' is a tense story of two soldiers (or are there two?) playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game on an isolated arctic island during a renewed cold war between Canada and Denmark." Damnit, no pull quote, though! Curse these novice reviewers... (Do I really need a smiley here?)

Matthew

From Russia with, um, love, I guess...

2009-02-28T11:15:00.005-06:00

I recently got my copy of Esli, a Russian magazine which reprinted my story "Another Country." Luckily I was able to identify the story by spotting the Roman characters they used to represent Latin words. There must be a bunch of words in it that can't be directly translated into Latin, because the story picked up a bunch of footnotes I don't recall being in the original...

In other news, I just sold my story "Kill Me Again" to the anthology CHICAGO OVERCOAT from Susurrus Press. If you like your hard-boiled detectives served with a dollop of Mahayana Buddhism on a bed of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, this one's for you...

Matthew

Best served cold

2009-01-16T08:58:00.001-06:00

Hey, I forgot to post a preview of "The Coldest War"! Here it is:

"I may be gone for some time," Gord had said.
It was their only joke, Oates' last words as he left Scott's shelter in Antarctica, and like everything else in the base it had been worn smooth with use and re-use: Stan and Gord each said it before leaving the base, every time they went out to walk the inuksuit and fire the flare, their way of laughing at the dark.
The whole island was just over a kilometer square; on a good day, Defence had calculated the whole circuit would take just over three hours. The problem was that Hans Island had no good days. At this time of year there were hardly any days at all: only a little over an hour of grey twilight around noon, the remaining time given over to the endless Arctic dark.
Stan glanced at his watch, put down his book and went to start the Coleman stove. Though it was substantially warmer within Base Hearn than outside, where kerosene turned thick and white as lard, it still took the stove a few minutes to heat up; while he waited Stan unpacked two dozen frozen Tim Hortons doughnuts and a can of coffee. It was a challenge, getting the six thousand calories they needed each day, but the doughnuts and coffee were more than a contribution towards that: the two half-hour overlaps between their shifts were the only time either of them saw another human being each day, and the ritual helped them pretend that they were back in the real world -- not planting a frozen toehold for Canada in a place so remote even the Inuit considered it uninhabitable.
Before long the stove was hissing with a bright blue flame, but Gord had not returned. Stan checked his watch: 14:35, just five minutes late -- six hours was normally enough time to get from base to base, but with the storm he could hear howling outside it might easily take more. He turned the stove low, just hot enough to keep the fuel liquid, picked up the one-volume Deptford Trilogy and started reading, careful not to lose Gord's place.
It was around 14:45 when Stan checked his watch again, and he decided to brew the coffee and fry the first dozen doughnuts. He had to give himself a good ten minutes to suit up, not to mention warming his hands enough that he could stand to insert the catheter, so he unsealed the pack of frozen doughnuts and tossed them in the skillet. The smell quickly filled the small space, the fat surrounding each doughnut melting and starting to sizzle, and when the coffee aroma joined it Stan could almost imagine he was home.
When another ten minutes had passed he began to worry. Gord was now almost a half-hour late, and Stan began to wonder if something had happened to him. Of course, he might just be holed up in Base Franklin; they were under strict radio silence -- anything battery-powered died within a week in this cold, anyway, and their hand-crank radios could receive but not send -- so there was no way to communicate between the two bases, just thirty-five meters apart as the goose flew. No way, for that matter, to send a cry for help.
Stan sighed, drank the last of his coffee; a layer of frost had already begun to creep inwards from the rim of the mug. "Sorry, Gord," he said as he shut off the stove's low flame, hoping the fuel would not have time to thicken again before Gord got back. He pulled his undersuit off the hook, stepped to the middle of the room where he could stand up straight and stepped into it, cotton and Kevlar covering everything but his mouth and eyes. Then he popped a bulb of hydrating gel into his mouth, minty and medicinal, and stepped to the first door of the heatlock.
He reached towards the emergency override before stopping himself. If something had happened to Gord -- if he wasn't just late, hadn't just decided to wait out the weather at Base Franklin -- what if it hadn't been an accident? What if there was a Dane out there?

Hot and cold

2009-01-16T08:41:00.003-06:00

Right in the midst of the coldest cold snap in recent memory (it's actually warmer in Yellowknife today than it is here in Ottawa) the latest issue of Asimov's has hit the stands, containing my story of Arctic paranoia "The Coldest War." Buy two copies so you'll have one to burn for warmth!

A few reviews are in already, ranging from fair to good:

I actually impressed IROSF's Lois Tilton last time, so I think I won't ever get to do it again: she gives the story an OK review but has some plausibility complaints. (She always does an excerpt from my stories, though, so I must be doing something right.) No link, if you're really determined to see it you can find it for yourself.

Quick but positive review from SFRevu's Sam Tomaino, who writes "Matthew Johnson's "The Coldest War" will chill your bones because it takes place in the frozen north, an island in dispute between Canada and Denmark. Stan is one of two Canadians stationed up there and must fire a flare every day to prove they inhabit the island. Johnson's fashions a good little tale of survival."

And the best comes from The Fix's Val Grimm (also a big "Lagos"-booster) who writes "In almost six months of reviewing this magazine, I’ve read some really remarkable work. But this is the first time that what I’ve read in Asimov’s has wriggled its way into my dreams, where I found myself knee-deep in the freezing darkness of “The Coldest War.”"

If I were a better person I'd stop there, but I can't resist quoting some more: "Read this story and you will feel cold and alone in a world where the strategic significance of islands in the once perpetually frozen Northwest Passage causes conflict between historically placid nations (the title is clever too). Honestly, the rationale for his story is unimportant in the final analysis: Johnson shows his craft in the masterful claustrophobia, paranoia, and formless threat with which he surrounds protagonist and reader, alone in the dark trying to survive while assailed by faceless enemies and a hostile environment."

Not bad!

Stuff upcoming

2008-12-12T12:54:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the long hiatus, anyone who's reading this, but it's been a busy time at my paying job -- check out the link to Talk Media Blog to see why. (Plus of course the continuing adventures of a certain Mr. Leo.) For now, here's a reminder that the February issue of Asimov's, which includes my story "The Coldest War," will be on the racks around December 20th, just in time to be the perfect stocking stuffer. Also, some big news likely coming in the new year. Stay tuned...

Matthew

You're the top

2008-10-22T15:07:00.001-05:00

Libertas in Silico, a review of free online fiction, has named the Clonepod podcast of Outside Chance its first Top Pick, saying "In an uncertain world, time-traveling “forecasters” scope out the wonders and terrors of the future, but it’s what they don’t bring back to “now” that makes all the difference. Professional-quality audio SF from a podcast run by kids? You betcha — it’s not just good (for their age), it’s good (period)."

Attack of the clones (or, how to succeed in writing without really trying)

2008-10-11T10:18:00.002-05:00

Despite not doing any non-work-related writing for awhile (see previous post for the reason why) I've managed to keep my name out there through reprints, translations and now... an audio version of my story "Outside Chance," available here at Clonepod.

Meanwhile, "Lagos" has set two new records: for shortest time between initial publishing and sale as a reprint, and quickest-ever response to a submission -- I sent it to Expanded Horizons, a new webzine, and got an acceptance the next day.

Welcome to Earth. Bring a book.

2008-08-26T08:59:00.003-05:00

Welcome to Leo Gillis Johnson, born on August 2, 2008!

I'm on TV

2008-07-21T11:46:00.002-05:00

... talking about whether The Dark Knight is appropriate for kids. (This is a day job thing, not a writing thing.) You can see the segment here if you're reading this within a few days of when I post it.

Matthew

On the racks: "Lagos"

2008-07-06T15:41:00.002-05:00

I just picked up the August issue of Asimov's, containing my story "Lagos." It's gotten good reviews so far, so I hope people enjoy it. Here's a preview:

Safrat liked being a vacuum cleaner. Of all the jobs she might be given, it was her favorite: she liked to see in the rich peoples' homes, even if her point of view was only three inches off the ground. It was light work, too, not like digging earth or handling barrels of toxic waste. That shouldn't have made a difference but it did, at the end of the day when the motor-muscles she didn't have ached beyond words.
The amber warning lit up: only half an hour left in her shift. She switched to light suction and began moving more swiftly around the floor, scanning for any spots she might have missed or where dust might have settled since she started. The foreman, Adegoke, had said that a house could never be clean enough for the rich people. If they were not satisfied then there would be no more demand for workers from Lagos, and the telepresence booths the government had built with World Bank money would sit idle. It was up to workers like her, he had said, to do a good enough job that even the rich white people would be satisfied.
She had just finished her inspection when the red warning lit, and she started to disengage from the vacuum and return to full wakefulness. You could not work the machines, even the very simple ones like vacuum cleaners, when you were entirely awake: you shuddered and jolted and made stupid mistakes, as if you were thinking about every step while you walked. Many of the workers drank palm wine or smoked India hemp before their shifts to get into the proper state of mind, but Safrat found it came naturally to her if she chose one simple task to start with and did it slowly and rhythmically. Like the others, though, she was always muzzy after a shift, and she was glad her brother Paul was able to meet her and guide her home.
It was only five months they had been in Lagos. The city was for the ambitious, and neither of them was that: they had been happy to tend battery trees in the country, up north of Ilorin, until the state energy company had chosen their village as the site of the new transmission station. After that there was no choice for either of them but to go to the city like all the rest, try to find a relation who would help with a job and a place to live. They had found a cousin, an oga named Tinubu, who had quickly gotten Safra the telepresence job -- they preferred to hire women for some reason -- but could only find casual work for Paul, hustling and running for him. This meant that while Safra gave Tinubu only a quarter of her salary Paul had to give half of whatever he made, since he could not be relied on to bring in anything at all.

Matthew

Feedback

2008-07-04T18:00:00.002-05:00

Two new positive reviews today: the first from Nick Gevers in Locus, who makes "Lagos" one of the month's Recommended stories, saying "Johnson deftly evokes the African reality of simultaneous -- abrupt, jarring, yet peculiarly harmonious -- tradition and modernity."

The second review is from Lois Tilton in the Internet Review of Science Fiction (registration required, but it's free) from whom I've finally managed to wring Recommended status. In a very spoiler-heavy review she calls it "a commentary on exported jobs and outsourced labor, and the gap between rich and poor, exploited and victims, in tomorrow's global economy."

Matthew

O Canada

2008-06-30T08:11:00.003-05:00

Okay, Canada Day is tomorrow, but I (like all good Canadians) will be at the cottage, so here's my Canada Day post: I just sold my story "The Coldest War" to Asimov's. Why is that my Canada Day post? Because it's my most Canadian story yet, with references to Tim Hortons, Robertson Davies and the Franklin expedition wrapped up in a near-future story about the front lines in an undeclared war between Canada and Denmark! As well as being the most Canadian story I've ever written, it's also the most hard-SF I've ever gone -- it started out as a parody of military SF, but took its own path to something completely different. Not sure when it'll be out yet -- I'm hoping it'll be in early 2009, because I don't have anything sold for that year yet.

Matthew

Holy moly!

2008-06-26T18:02:00.002-05:00

After complaining (tongue-in-cheek, to be sure) about the lack of pull-quotes in recent reviews, I was amazed to see a review of "Lagos" by Val Grimm in The Fix that consists of almost nothing but pull-quotes. You can read the whole thing here, but here are my favourites:

“'Lagos' is my favorite piece in this issue, an engrossing and unusual cyberpunk yarn."
"Matthew Johnson skillfully imbues his near-future Nigeria with reality; futuristic, telepresently controlled devices and an extensive use of touch screens coexist with more familiar modern institutions like cube-farms, firewalls, and tech offshoring, which have not yet made inroads in equatorial Africa."
"This is exactly the sort of carefully set, tonally unified, globally aware, and downright unique story I’d like to see more often."

It's hard to ask for a better response than that. Thanks, Val!

PS: Big news coming for Canada Day, once eyes are crossed and Ts dotted. Stay tuned.

Matthew

Yard sale finds

2008-06-09T09:34:00.002-05:00

Charles de Lint's yard sale did not disappoint, as I was able to pick up copies of almost every book I've been looking for: Michael Swanwick's Dragons of Babel, Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom, Greg Keyes' The Born Queen (now I can read the series -- I've been saving them 'til I got the last one), Robert Holdstock's The Broken Kings and my fellow Sidewise-nominee Jo Walton's Ha'Penny (I actually took the bus to work today instead of biking in part so I could read more of Farthing). I also picked up a pile of great comics including the collection of Tim Truman's Hawkworld.

Disappointed to see two books with stories of mine -- Tesseracts Ten and Triangulation: End of Time -- being sold. Well, we all have only so much room on our bookshelves.

Matthew

And another

2008-06-06T17:54:00.003-05:00

review of "Another Country," this time is BestSf.net. The reviewer, Mark Watson, is very positive about the whole issue, without any specific pull-quote about my story, but I thought he did a very nice job summing up what the story was about: "Is it better to be a stranger in a safe land, or at home in your own dangerous land?"

Off to Charles de Lint's yard sale tomorrow!

Matthew

Two milestones

2008-06-05T14:27:00.002-05:00

Milestone the first: my very first appearance in the front matter of Locus, among the nominees for the Sidewise Award. (Of course, this being Locus, the front matter is continued on page 67...)

Milestone the second: the very first review of "Lagos" has appeared in SFRevu. The reviewer, Sam Tomaini, gives all of the stories in the issue a Very Good rating, but just gives a plot summary of "Lagos." Doesn't he know we writers need pull quotes?

Matthew

Highly Irregular

2008-05-27T08:47:00.002-05:00

It's easy -- and fun! -- to make fun of Google's automatic translations, but given the theme and content of "Irregular Verbs" I couldn't resist posting the translation of a review of it, originally written in Czech (for the Czech version in Trochu Divne Kusy 3):

"The last representative javorového sheet is Matthew Johnson with povídkou Irregular verbs. Smrt milovaného protějšku je těžké břemeno. Death beloved counterpart, it is difficult burden. Existuje způsob, jak si na něj uchovat stálou vzpomínku, aniž by nedrásala duši, ale působila potěchu z vlastního, společného jazyka? Is there a way to keep him on a permanent memory, without nedrásala soul, but she potěchu own, a common language? Pěkný, originální námět, který autor rozpracoval do přiměřeně dlouhého počtu stran – o to více zapůsobí. Nice, the original idea, which the author developed into an adequate number of parties - the more reasons. "

I think the reviewer liked it, but I'm not sure... any Czech-fluent readers out there who want to clue me in?

Matthew