Elemental (story)

Last updated

"Elemental" is a science fantasy novella by Geoffrey A. Landis. It was first published in Analog Science Fiction , in December 1984. [1]

Contents

Premise

In the late 21st century, magic has been systematized and incorporated into technology, two graduate students and their advisors discover the signs of an imminent disaster.

Reception

"Elemental" was a finalist for the 1985 Hugo Award for Best Novella. [2]

SF Site describes it as having a "Connie Willis-rewrites-Heinlein's- Magic, Inc. flavour", but notes that it "doesn't quite work". [3] John Grant, writing at Infinity Plus , judged it to be "a piece of (relative) juvenilia", "clumsy", and "a bit of an embarrassment", [4] and observed that Landis has admitted to having "mixed feelings about" the story. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Bear</span> American writer and illustrator (1951–2022)

Gregory Dale Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict, parallel universes, consciousness and cultural practices, and accelerated evolution. His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey A. Landis</span> American aerospace engineer (born 1955)

Geoffrey Alan Landis is an American aerospace engineer and author, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on planetary exploration, interstellar propulsion, solar power and photovoltaics. He holds nine patents, primarily in the field of improvements to solar cells and photovoltaic devices and has given presentations and commentary on the possibilities for interstellar travel and construction of bases on the Moon, Mars, and Venus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Silverberg</span> American speculative fiction writer and editor (born 1935)

Robert Silverberg is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand Master of SF. He has attended every Hugo Award ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953.

Ian R. MacLeod is a British science fiction and fantasy writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Chiang</span> American science fiction writer (born 1967)

Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards. He has published the short story collections Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) and Exhalation: Stories (2019). His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame in 2020–2021. Chiang is also a frequent non-fiction contributor to the New Yorker Magazine, most recently on topics related to computer technology, such as artificial intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John C. Wright (author)</span> American speculative fiction writer (born 1961)

John C. Wright is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy novels. He was a Nebula Award finalist for his fantasy novel Orphans of Chaos. Publishers Weekly said he "may be this fledgling century's most important new SF talent" when reviewing his debut novel, The Golden Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Stross</span> British author

Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine Computer Shopper and was responsible for its monthly Linux column. He stopped writing for the magazine to devote more time to novels. However, he continues to publish freelance articles on the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connie Willis</span> American science fiction writer

Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis, commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards than any other writer—most recently the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Langford</span> British writer, editor and critic

David Rowland Langford is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science-fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible and holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Wilhelm</span> American science fiction writer (1928–2018)

Kate Wilhelm was an American author. She wrote novels and stories in the science fiction, mystery, and suspense genres, including the Hugo Award–winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. Wilhelm established the Clarion Workshop along with her husband Damon Knight and writer Robin Scott Wilson.

Keith John Kingston Roberts was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of Science Fantasy magazine, "Anita" and "Escapism".

Michael Lawson Bishop was an American author. Over five decades and in more than thirty books, he created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Wells</span> American speculative fiction writer (born 1964)

Martha Wells is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on fantasy and science fiction subjects. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for her science fiction series The Murderbot Diaries. She is also known for her fantasy series Ile-Rien and The Books of the Raksura. Wells is praised for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aliette de Bodard</span> French-American speculative fiction writer

Aliette de Bodard is a French-American speculative fiction writer.

<i>The 1989 Annual Worlds Best SF</i> 1989 anthology edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha

The 1989 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the eighteenth volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in June 1989, followed by a hardcover edition issued in September of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art by Jim Burns was replaced by a new cover painting by Richard M. Powers.

"Magic for Beginners" is a fantasy novella by American writer Kelly Link. It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in September 2005. It was subsequently published in Link's collection of the same name, as well as in her collection Pretty Monsters, in the 2007 Nebula Award Showcase, and in the John Joseph Adams-edited anthology Other Worlds Than These.

A list of works by, or about, the American science fiction author Larry Niven.

<i>Nebula Awards 25</i> 1991 anthology edited by Michael Bishop

Nebula Awards 25 is an anthology of award winning science fiction short works edited by Michael Bishop, the third of three successive volumes published under his editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in April 1991.

A Year in the Linear City is a 2002 weird fiction novella by Paul Di Filippo, published by PS Publishing.

"The Singular Habits of Wasps" is a science fiction/horror story by Geoffrey A. Landis, about Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Analog Science Fiction, in April 1994.

References

  1. "Elemental" at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database; retrieved June 17, 2017
  2. 1985 Hugo Awards (Archived 2011-05-07 at the Wayback Machine ), at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved June 17, 2017
  3. Impact Parameter and Other Quantum Realities, by Geoffrey A. Landis; reviewed by Greg L. Johnson, at SF Site ; published 2001; retrieved June 17, 2017
  4. Impact Parameter, and Other Quantum Realities, by Geoffrey A Landis, reviewed by John Grant, at Infinity Plus; published March 16, 2002; retrieved June 17, 2017
  5. Impact Parameter and Other Quantum Realities , by Geoffrey Landis, published by Golden Gryphon Press in 2001; "Elemental was my first published story. I have mixed feelings about it now. With sixteen years of hindsight, it seems to me that the story is a little crude, the plot a little naive. But then, when I wrote it, I didn't know what I was doing."