"Open House on Haunted Hill" is a Nebula and Locus Awards Finalist!

"Open House on Haunted Hill" is one of my favorite short stories that I've ever written. It follows a haunted house that has been lonely for years and just wants someone to live in it. It won't harm you. It won't trap you. It wants to keep you warm and safe as your family grows. But can anyone get over its creepy vibe and stay?

It turns out that the world likes this story, too. This week it was announced that it will appear in Paula Guran's Years Best Dark Fantasy & Horror. This handsome collection will be out from Pyr books later this year, and includes works the likes of Caitlin Kiernan, Kelley Armstrong, and Victor LaValle.

The story is also now a finalist for two major industry awards.

On Monday night, the Science Fiction Writers Association announced "Open House on Haunted Hill" is a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. It is in the top six candidates, and will be voted on by members of the association. The winner will be announced later this year.

Earlier, Locus Magazine placed "Open House on Haunted Hill" on their 2020 Recommended Reading List, making it a finalist for the Locus Award for Best Short Story. This award has open voting for anyone who signs up at Locus's site. If you've enjoyed the story, I'd be grateful if you'd give it a vote.

All these accolades are humbling. It's wonderful to see my stories touching so many people - every week I get tweets from new people who've just read it and want to thank me. My best way of showing my gratitude is to write you all many more stories. I'm working at it every day.

Thanks for sending me over the moon, everybody. It's a thrilling time!

The Problem With Prologues

Not a month goes by when some agent or editor doesn’t decry prologues. Allegedly they drive away readers and signal poor quality fiction; they are labeled unnecessary and signs of poor craft, too short or abrupt, useless and dissonant from the main narrative. Last night I talked to an agent who said she tosses any manuscript that features one.

I’ve never been rejected over a prologue. It’s just a pet peeve of mine because not a month goes by when I don’t read a popular novel from traditional publishing that opens with a prologue. When they’re poor, I simply skip to the main body of the novel, as I suspect most audiences actually do.

But if this anti-prologue dogma is going to be preached at all emerging writers, the industry ought to hold their actual employees to it. Below is a very incomplete list of some notable prologue-uses.

1. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (debut novel)

2. Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind (debut novel)

3. Patrick Rothfuss’s Wise Man’s Fear (Locus nominee for Best Fantasy Novel 2012 –1/5)

4. Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris (debut novel)

5. Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Book 1: The Final Empire

6. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight (debut novel)

7. Vernor Vinge’s The Children of the Sky (Locus nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel 2012 – 1/5)

8. Stephen King’s Carrie (debut novel)

9. Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot

10. Stephen King’s The Dead Zone (King’s first #1 Bestseller)

11. Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (Locus nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel 2012 – 2/5)

12. Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Series Book 1: Eragon (debut novel)

13. George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (debut novel)

14. George R.R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings

15. George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords

16. George R.R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows

17. George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons (Hugo nominee for Best Novel 2012 – 1/5; Locus nominee for Best Fantasy Novel 2012 – 2/5)

18. Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (debut novel)

19. Daniel Abraham’s A Shadow in Summer (debut novel)

20. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck’s Leviathan Wakes, as ‘James Corey’ (Hugo nominee for Best Novel 2012 - 2/5; Locus nominee for Best SciFi Novel 3/5)

21. Jo Walton’s The King’s Peace (debut novel)

22. Jo Walton’s Among Others (Hugo nominee for Best Novel 2012 - 3/5; Locus nominee for Best Fantasy Novel 2012 – 3/5; Nebula nominee for Best Novel 1/6)

23. Terry Pratchett’s The Color of Magic (debut novel)

24. Terry Pratchett’s Snuff (Locus nominee for Best Fantasy Novel 2012 – 4/5)

25. Catherynne Valente’s Deathless (Locus nominee for Best Fantasy Novel 2012 – 5/5)

26. Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy Book 1: Sabriel

27. Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy Book 1: Lirael

28. Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy Book 3: Abhorsen

29. Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Book 1: Rosemary and Rue (debut novel)

30. Seanan McGuire’s The Newsflesh Trilogy Book 1: Feed, as ‘Mira Grant’ (debut novel as Mira Grant)

31. Seanan McGuire’s The Newsflesh Trilogy Book 2: Deadline, as ‘Mira Grant’ (Hugo nominee for Best Novel 2012 – 4/5)

32. China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station (debut novel)

33. China Mieville’s The Scar

34. China Mieville’s Embassytown (Hugo nominee for Best Novel 2012 – 5/5; Locus nominee for Best SciFi Novel 4/5; Nebula nominee for Best Novel 2/6)

35. N.K. Jemisin’s The Kingdom of the Gods (Nebula nominee for Best Novel 2012 – 3/6)

36. Jack McDevitt’s Firebird (Nebula nominee for Best Novel 2012 – 4/6)

Just imagine a publisher shunting one of those debut novels over a prologue. Now, remember how many times J.K. Rowling was rejected. And you know what? It's susceptible to all the criticisms lobbed at aspiring authors in workshops, and it's perfectly functional.

Two of the six Nebula nominees for Best Novel lack prologues: Kameron Hurley’s God’s War and Genevieve Valentine’s Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti. God’s War has literary quotes from The Bible and The Quran, but nothing resembling narrative in the way of Mira Grant’s blog excerpt about “The Wall” or Vernor Vinge’s Chapter 00. Meanwhile, the fifth of the five Locus nominees for Best SciFi Novel is Charles Stross’s Rule 34, which I’m told lacks a prologue - I don’t have a copy and couldn’t find a preview online.

So out of all the books nominated for a Nebula, Hugo or Locus this year, either two or three of the twelve open with Chapter 1. None of those books nominated for more than one of the awards lacks a prologue. All of the nominees that hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List have prologues. Of the nine-out-of-twelve majority, guess how many of the prologues are short and dissonant from Chapter 1.