And that, Oh Best Beloveds, is how I went about the process of sorting the accepted stories for Geek Love into a final running order: torn-up post-its stuck to a board. Very high-tech, hey? I swear I tried doing it in a desktop document first . . . but for some reason I just couldn't wrap my head around things that way.
The main thing with running order is variation. Anyone reading through from front to back should be presented with a kaleidoscopic cavalcade from across the range of themes and styles.
The stories divided roughly into two groups: the "realistic" and the "speculative fiction" (sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, superheroes). So I started by alternating those. Then I had to take account of settings: the several stories with office settings for example, and several about gamers, needed to be spread out. The cluster of f/f stories had to be separated of course (to stop it turning into one giant lesbian orgy, ahem), so I also alternated hetero stories with ones themed around alternate sexualities (And it gets pretty damn alternative in places. I'm talking insects . . . no, not incest! Insects.). And then there are special rules for the beginning and end of the book . . .
I'm amazed it worked out, but somehow it did. Pretty much perfectly, I think.
So this is it:
1. Black Gold - Kristina Lloyd
2. Goodness, Her Tail - Camille Alexa
3. The Journal of Mary Freder - Peter Smalley
4. Raid Night - James Sutter
5. The Hope of Cinnamon - M. Christian
7. The Secret Life of Ramona Lee - Michael M. Jones
8. The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is Extinct - Bill Noble
9. Saving the World - Shanna Germain
10. Downtime - Tanya Korval
11. The Pornographer’s Assistant - A.C. Wise
12. Opening Juicy Lucy - Craig Sorensen
13. A Great Old Time - A. L. Auerbach
14. Binary - Preston Avery
15. Morphosis - Jak Koke
16. Who Am I This Time? - Andrea Trask
17. Voyeuristic Beauty - Elise Hepner
18. Fuck the World - J. A. Shirley
19. At the Faire - Andrea Dale
20. Grinding - Janine Ashbless
21. Command Prompt - Ed Grabianowski
22. Pages and Play Things - Harry Markov
23. Player Characters - Lucia Starkley
24. The Purpose of Tongues - Kirsty Logan
25. Ho Pais Kalos - Molly Tanzer
26. RJ-45 - Alison Winchester
27. F-RPG - Vivienne Ashe
28. Porn Enough at Last - Jesse Bullington
29. Magdelene - Sommer Marsden
And in my not-so-unbiased opinion, they're bloody brilliant.
1 comment:
And I'm so looking forwards being able to confirm your expert opinion!
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