The Gristle Cli-Fi Contest is On!

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to say that my earlier post here on the Grist cli-fi contest got an extremely enthusiastic response from my readers. Admittedly, Grist gave the discussion a lot of help. If you set out to dream up an all-out parody of today's woke ideologies, could you do better than a story in which humanity is saved by getting everyone to use different pronouns? 

That's the basic plot of the winning story of the Grist contest. No, I'm not kidding. 

I've mentioned before that being a satirist these days is the hardest job in the world. How in heaven's name can the writers for The Onion and The Babylon Bee keep on struggling to top real life?  You know that right now, if they've read the Grist contest winners, they're sitting in a bar staring into glasses of straight whiskey and gathering their strength for their greatest challenge yet. We cannot leave them to face this alone!  Arise, and let us hasten to their assistance! 

That is to say, it's time to launch a countercontest. 

Since I want to encourage prospective writers to sink their teeth into something a little meatier than the pablum being served up by Grist, I've decided to name this the Gristle Cli-Fi Contest. The rules are as follows:

1. Entries shall be short stories between 3000 and 5000 words, written in English. (By "short story" I mean something that has characters, setting, and a plot that goes somewhere. In "English" I include standard punctuation and spelling.)

2. Entries shall parody, satirize, undercut, or otherwise make merry mock of the premises and presuppositions of the Grist contest, which can be read in all their glory here. (This is not a place to submit straight sci-fi stories just because they're politically incorrect. I am looking for stories that take aim directly at the blossoming silliness of this contest and the belief system that underlies it.)

3. Entries shall not expect readers to believe crass stupidities. (You can introduce all the crass stupidities you want, but don't expect the readers to treat them as anything but crass stupidities.)

4. Entries shall not feature space travel. (Seriously, at this point space travel is the most overused cliché in all of science fiction. The last interesting thing that could be done with it was done before many of you were born. Back in the golden age of science fiction, there was a grand panoply of futures that had nothing to do with space travel, and it's high time to bust the genre out of the rocketship ghetto and go on to less drearily repetitive futures.) Edit: one of my readers has proposed a story that makes fun of the space travel cliché in a lively fashion. I will potentially be willing to include a story or two along these lines. If your story presupposes the geriatric fantasy of Man's Future in Space, on the other hand, spare me.

Those are the rules. Submissions should be in Word format, and should be sent by email to gristleanthology (at) gmail (dot) com. Submissions to this contest will remain open until October 31, 2021. Stories that are accepted will be published in an anthology early next year. The working title is The Flesh Of Your Future Sticks Between My Teeth: Stories from the Gristle Cli-Fi Contest. Let's make it happen!

Comments

Another idea

[ecosophian]

For Halloween you could also do a Grisly Cli-Fi Contest with stories of an indifferent Universe where everyone's hopes and dreams are crushed against the cold cliffs of reality; and then they die. Although that may be too realistic.

Re: Another idea

[ecosophia]

Nah, that's never been a kind of fiction that's interested me. Hopes and dreams are as much a part of nature as we are, and it's by no means true that all of them get crushed. (I dreamed of being a writer...)

That's the thing about an indifferent universe: it doesn't care enough about you to make the effort to crush your dreams!

[(Anonymous)]

I have a friend who always sends me major news outlet headlines that could easily be an Onion headline. It became so common that we created something called Kenny’s Law: as time progresses, news converges on Onion.

[ecosophia]

I like that! Kenny's Law should be immortalized; please ask your friend if he minds if I use it in a forthcoming post.

[ecosophian]

I've used a hyperbole there. Some of my dreams came true too.

I wish you an abundant crop of submissions for this contest.

[ecosophia]

So noted. I tend to be pedantic about that point, though, because there's so much of the "indifferent = hostile" thinking in Lovecraftian fiction; in fact, I used that distinction as a recurring theme in my tentacle novels, especially in The Shoggoth Concerto and The Nyogtha Variations.

[mollari]

Where did you find the image used here?

[ecosophia]

I searched DuckDuckGo with the search string "silly future" and set the thing to find me images. That's how I get a lot of my graphics.

Excellent news!

[(Anonymous)]

Wonderful working title, JMG. Good opportunity for me to review my Grist submission and see if I can fit some more lampooning of the woke ideology/orthodoxy within the 5,000 word limit, which is a huge challenge given that it is such a target-rich environment. :)

Ron M

Re: Excellent news!

[ecosophia]

Oh, I know. Someday somebody's going to write a satiric novel about the whole woke phenomenon, which will ridicule the whole thing out of existence; in the meantime, do your best.

cliche

[(Anonymous)]

A bit off-topic, but judging by the B-list films available on my TV service, time travel is the most over-used cliché in sci-fi. That may be because the production costs are lower for time travel plots than trying to create realistic pictures of space travel.

So how about an additional rule for this cli-fi sci-fi story contest? no time travel.

Christine S

Re: cliche

[ecosophia]

So noted, but for current purposes it has great satiric potentials -- imagine a story where a bunch of woke Portlanders build a time machine and go to the year 2200 to find out how humanity survived climate change et al. -- and found something that was not at all to their taste...

Rudy

[(Anonymous)]

JMG I like the helicopter-dog pic. Did you create it? I didn't know you had "meme game" in addition to your many other talents. Keep the memes coming!

Re: Rudy

[ecosophia]

No, I found it online via DuckDuckGo. I've used meme creation software a few times, but haven't really gotten deep into meme generation -- yet. ;-)

I wish I were a writer

[candace_k]

If I were a writer. I’d submit a story based on your picture. I’m a mad scientist that wants my rocket pack future but my calculations tell me it can’t work for my body size/structure, but happily my genius allows me to move my consciousness into a different body. Currently the only one available at the correct size is a pug…. Like Saturday Night Live sketches it would need to stay short. But being as juvenile as I am, there would need to be a section on the excessive farting I’m now prone to…. Thanks for making an idea that makes me laugh pop into my head. I needed it today.

Re: I wish I were a writer

[ecosophia]

Please, pretty please, give it a try! That would be a great contribution, and the fart jokes would be perfectly in keeping with the tone I'd like to see. I'll even volunteer to help you through the revision process.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't submit to the Grist competition as I knew I couldn't come up with anything fatuous enough to please their judges.

I will try my hand at your competition though.

[ecosophia]

I'll look forward to your story!

[sea_spray]

Hi JMG

What about including space travel as a crass stupidity. E.G. the first colonists to the space X mars colony coughing from radiation sickness as they rant back at earth about people getting their pronouns wrong in the messages of concern about said radiation sickness.

[ecosophia]

I would be willing to consider a space travel story along those lines.

[(Anonymous)]

And no Latinx characters! 😄

[tolkienguy]

If we all start pronouncing that word as "la-TEENKS", do you think it will go away?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, you can have characters whose native language is Spanish, just don’t call them the X-word.

Unless they’re villains. Maybe a criminal gang called the Latinx Royalty.

[ecosophia]

I could definitely see a story in which a wokester lectures a criminal gang about how they all ought to call themselves Latinx...

Hopepunk?

[(Anonymous)]

Good gods! I think I’ll pass... either that or I’ll have to keep a barf bucket by my side while I read:

https://www.wired.com/story/is-becky-chambers-ultimate-hope-science-fiction/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Different strokes for different folks, I guess...

Ron M

Re: Hopepunk?

[ecosophia]

No surprises there at all. People who write cheap feel-good drivel have always been able to make a buck in the writing trade.

[(Anonymous)]

Started playing around with a concept for this yesterday and 3,000 words popped out. Will see if I can fit the idea into 5k words. Otherwise, might write it as a novel. Either way, great fun to write.

Simon S

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear it. If it comes out to more than 5k, talk to me and depending on what else I receive, we'll see if there's wiggle room.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you primarily interested in funny stories? I have an idea that is very satirical but also rather dark.

[ecosophia]

I'm totally on board with that. My story "A Modest Contribution" is also rather grim, in a blackly amusing sort of way. I want to cover the whole spectrum from funny to savage.

It's worth remembering that the word "sarcasm" comes from a Greek word meaning "ripping flesh"...

[(Anonymous)]

I got a new custom keyboard this week and decided to give it a try making a story for your contest. Last night I was up until past 1am until I had finished the first draft. It has been so long since an inspiration hit me like that.

My story is dark with some funny stuff mixed in, which had me a bit worried it would not fit in. Glad to hear in the previous post this is acceptable, so I'm going to go ahead and clean up what I have for the submit.

High quality mechanical keys also make an incredible difference and I lost myself in the work for a bit. So much better than my old sticky chiclets.

[ecosophia]

I'll look forward to seeing your story!

[(Anonymous)]

Off-topic, but I've long enjoyed the commentary on this website:
https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/

"Only the worst Sci-fi/Fantasy book covers"

May it serve as a source of inspiration ;)

[ecosophia]

Oh my. I could spend far too much time there. (And the sad thing is that I read a lot of those books, with those covers...)

[(Anonymous)]

One question, do our entries have to be set in 2200 like the Grist contest, or can we set them whenever we want?

[ecosophia]

The entries in the Grist contest didn't have to be set in 2200 -- they said that in the fine print somewhere. In my contest, you can set them at any point from next Tuesday to three weeks after the end of time itself.

Woke absurdity

[(Anonymous)]

To give people an idea of the absurd reality we're competing against, the president of a board game company was escorted out of the largest board game convention because his current kickstarter features a frog (which was a photo of an actual frog with graphic effects overlaid) giving the "okay" sign, an apparent symbol of white supremacy.

https://www.boardgamequest.com/the-gaming-goat-ceo-jeff-bergren-escorted-out-of-gen-con/

Re: Woke absurdity

[ecosophia]

...and the idea that the "okay" sign is a symbol of white supremacism was invented on the chans and spread by them as a way to mess with people's heads. We are far, far beyond self-parody at this point.

[(Anonymous)]

Would a story about a large group of warbands sacking a city count, given that the city is deeply divided by race, class and so on, while fussing about words used for same, and the warbands are a hodgepodge of ethnicities, genders, former social classes etc that don't care about any of the things the city folk are arguing about? They just want to loot everyone in the city equally.

[ecosophia]

That works! Please write and submit it.

[d_mekel]

A woke version of "I have no mouth and I must scream" by Harlan Ellison would be interesting.

[ecosophia]

"I Have No Mouth And I Must Protest"?

"standard punctuation"

[(Anonymous)]

Am I welcome to make the case for including human-readable program code in the "standard punctuation and spelling" category?

Re: "standard punctuation"

[ecosophia]

You can attempt to make the case, but unless it fills a necessary role in the story -- a role that can't be filled as effectively any other way -- I'm going to look at it with a jaundiced eye.

I am totally annoyed that the Grist premises don't include anything, anything important,

[(Anonymous)]

Like how do human beings measure themselves compared to others in this equitable world? Now, we can just try to become billionaires. And how do people get what they want? For instance, I want your daughter. Can I just buy her? I changed my mind. I want your son. Can I just buy his work and use him? up?
Jeez, looks like I am writing on the rage end of the humor spectrum. And I don't even have a big problem with woke, because I live among the own the liberals folks, who really do not want to do anything but harm.

Re: I am totally annoyed that the Grist premises don't include anything, anything important,

[ecosophia]

You could always write a story for my competition making that point... ;-)

You're triggering me with a microaggression

[(Anonymous)]

The results of that contest made me so nauseated that I don't think I can even parody it. I don't mind being rejected and I don't think there's anything wrong with any subset of humanity publishing collections of their fantasies, but the way they wasted my time (and so many other people's time) by pretending they wanted some sort of actual exploration of a hopeful future...

And then you see what they actually wanted.

(Sorry to vent.)