Hold Those Horses

I just realized that to those of you unfamiliar with the magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction, you may have a different idea about what type of competition I won. I didn't have a story published, it was more of a quip. For competition #77 we had to translate the title of a famous science fiction story into another language and then write a synopsis of that story based on what the new title looked like in English. "Huh?" you ask. Well, as examples, I present the five entries I sent in that didn't win:

Jefty is Five = Jefty è cinque (Italian)
A boy whose best friend is a sink, grows into adulthood and realizes that his best friend is still a sink.

Rendezvous with Rama = Afspraken met Rama (Dutch)
Afspraken, an Amsterdam talk show host, meets a thirty mile extraterrestrial spaceship on a cross-country trip. Afspraken insists they can never be friends because sex always gets in the way. Eventually they have sex and get married because, hey, it's Amsterdam.

Red Mars = Mars Rouge (French)
A cosmetics company sends a group of colonists to the red planet to gather chemicals for their new line. A splinter group goes underground to develop make-up tips based on Martian colors and lighting, decrying all Earth tones.

Anthem = Hymne (German)
Harmony 9-0210, a down-trodden singer in a monotone collectivist state, discovers a hymnal in a forgotten church basement and organizes a Baptist Choir which overthrows the tyrannical government with inspirational songs.

The Demolished Man = El Hombre Demolido (Spanish)
A telepathic sheriff on the trail of a gunslinger with a fistful of dynamite tries to learn the stranger's name. But the outlaw's mind is impenetrable as it endlessly plays the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

So that's what it's about. For my efforts I won a copy of the issue in which my entry ran and a hardcover copy of Project Moonbase and Others by Robert A. Heinlein. Again, if you want to see the winning entry, I encourage you all, NO, I encourage each of you to go out and purchase a copy of the April/May issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. To sweeten it up, there are plenty of other great things in there besides me. This is their first big fat bimonthly issue and it features stuff by Ellen Kushner, Paul Di Filippo, Thomas M. Disch, Jack Skillingstead and John C. Wright. Check it out!