StarShipSofa and a podcast Hugo

When I wrote last year about circulation estimates for online magazines, I was surprised to discover that major podcasts like StarShipSofa and Escape Pod have astounding levels of listenership, with tens of thousands of downloads per month. If there is a resurgence in written SF going on these days, with new readers and fans embracing the genre, then much love for this fact should be thrown the podcast way.

So on this Valentine's Day, why not show our podcasts how much they mean to us by nominating one for the Hugo Award. Ideally, there should be a podcast Hugo, but until that time Amy H. Sturgis suggests nominating StarShipSofa for the Best Fanzine Hugo. I think this is a great idea.

There are many great genre postcasts (in addition to Escape Pod, another of my favorites is the wonderfully produced Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine). But StarShipSofa has been around so long, and has influenced so many others, that I agree it should be the first to get the nod. And when you add in the amazing work they did last year with their fundraiser to help Jeanne and Spider Robinson, well, they proved not only do they deserve to be the first podcast to win a Hugo, they are also the fanzine most deserving of this year's award.

Complete information on nominating for the Hugo Award is available here. Remember, the deadline is March 13.

Samples from Tales of the Unanticipated issue 30

TOTU30Tales of the Unanticipated is a long-running semi-pro magazine, having been published consistently since 1986. Edited by Eric Heideman, the magazine features a range of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and is now an annual trade paperback 7.5 x 9.75 inches in size containing 130 plus pages and a full-color glossy cover. Among the authors they have published over the years include Damon Knight and Neil Gaiman.

TOTU issue 30 will be published April 1st and includes stories by Eleanor Arnason, Stephen Dedman, Martha A. Hood, Patricia S. Bowne, Patricia Russo, and many others, including myself. The issue will be priced at $14.95. But until April 1, you can pre-order your copy for only $12.50.

To entice more people to buy and subscribe, TOTU is offering samples of a number of stories from issue 30. These PDF download samples include:

I should also note that TOTU is very supportive of new writers. Many writers have received their first genre publication in TOTU, including myself. But be aware that TOTU has very specific guidelines. Basically, they open for submissions for about a month each year, then give each story a lot of consideration and feedback. Notice that last word: FEEDBACK! When Eric has rejected my stories, he has included a good bit of dead-on feedback from all of the TOTU editors on exactly why they passed on the story. As any new writer can tell you, this level of feedback from a magazine is almost unheard of these days. So while their response time is slow due to this feedback, the payback is immense.

So consider purchasing issue 30, or a subscription, and help support this great semi-prozine.

Vincent Chong's new blog and art book

If you haven't seen the art of Vincent Chong, you're missing out on one of the best artists currently working in the SF/F/H genres. I totally lucked out by having him illustrate two of my Interzone stories. He's also illustrated highly acclaimed covers for writers ranging from John Scalzi to Stephen King and many more.

Now you can fulfill all your Vincent Chong desires in two ways: through his new blog and his first art book Altered Visions. The book is a 48 page full color hardback edition printed on high quality silk paper, designed byVincent and featuring commentary alongside each image.

One image in the book is The Weather Tower, which Vincent created for the Interzone publication of my story "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain."

The book will be released at the World Horror Convention in March, but you can pre-order signed copies now.

FictionDaily

In my introduction the other day to this year's Million Writers Award, I mentioned how the award brings attention to worthy stories and new writers. With so many online magazines and journals out there, this goal--trying to cut through the clutter, so to speak--is vitally important for readers and writers.

So imagine my excitement when I discovered a new website attempting to do the same thing: FictionDaily. Selecting and aggregating content from the "independent" publishing world, FictionDaily presents three new stories each day--a short, a long, and a genre story. Excerpt of stories in each of these categories are presented without reference to the author's name, the title, or the story's publication. If you're interested, you click over to the original publisher to read the story.

I think this is an exciting way for readers to keep on top of online fiction, and I hope FictionDaily succeeds.

To get a sense of the site's goals, I asked FictionDaily's editor David Backer a few questions.
 

Why did you start FictionDaily?

I started FictionDaily after I read an article in Mother Jones by Ted Genoways, the editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review, called "The Death of Fiction." The entire thing--article and comments--reads like an informal, emergent dissertation on the state of contemporary fiction. In my mind, its grand thesis is that fiction isn't necessarily dead. It's just changing, existing in a myriad electronic formats as opposed to the old university journals.

Genoways's article appeared at a serendipitous moment for me. I've been trying to find a mainstream publisher for my first novel, and I actually found an agent that liked it and an editor at a major house that liked it, but both of them said that they couldn't sell it. They thought it was good literature, but that it wasn't marketable. This seemed incredible to me: that the market would dictate what gets read and what doesn't. Why should the market, that gasping monster, decide what's good literature? So I thought "screw them" and started looking at the world of publishing that exists now outside of Border's Books and the major houses. This is where I found contemporary literature, iterating itself in spite of the market, just as the MJ article had confirmed. But even as an avid reader and writer, I didn't know where to look for literature on the Internet. There's just so much of it--I had no way of knowing where to click or why.

Arts and Letters Daily provides a service for finding good essays and reviews on the Internet. Their set up is wonderful--simple, attractive, organized. I look at it every day and read essays I would've never found otherwise. So, given this content-abundance problem in literature, I thought to make FictionDaily, which is the same kind of resource--but for fiction.

In the end, I made the site to get a better idea of where literature is now, but also to help our culture have the kind of conversation with itself that literature affords. We need to read stories that our contemporaries write. It's a healthy thing, an ancient human thing. It's part of our progress as individuals. But we need to adapt to our own technological advancements if we're going to continue this healthy habit. FictionDaily is trying to make that whole process easier.
 

On your website, you mention that literature’s pulse is changing, and that the old places which once supported this pulse can no longer keep up. How do you see Fiction Daily's role in creating a new place for literature to thrive?

FictionDaily "aggregates" online fiction. This is a word that my great friend Chadwick Matlin at TheBigMoney.com taught me, as it relates to websites: "aggregate" means to collect together into one place. (And it's a groovy word too: the root 'grex' is Latin for "flock," like in "congregate" or "gregarious.") There are a lot of aggregation websites for news, science, business, etc. But there isn't a good, elegant one for fiction. That's where FD comes in.

The wonderful thing about the Internet is its plurality: it's like a huge room with thousands of voices, all talking at the same time. But this plurality presents us with a problem, at least in fiction: If all these voices are talking at once, who do I listen to? When? Why? How do I find someone whose voice I like a lot? And, at the group level, how do we give these voices an opportunity to communicate to people who want to listen? FD tries to provide this kind of service for stories.
 

I like that you provide daily links to compelling examples of short, long, and genre fiction. How do you select the stories you link to?

I surf. I read and let my eyes roam the first sentences of stories. If I like a voice, if I like the images, then I keep reading. The stories that I want to finish I select and put up. It's actually a lot like channel-surfing in that way, only with words. (A weird thing I'm finding: I get turned off by rhetorical questions in stories. Like: "He went to the bathtub. Was it a turtle? Why was he feeling so anxious?" I don't like that for some reason. But that's just me.)
 

What made you decide to highlight excerpts from the stories themselves instead of the author's name, the story title, or the original publication?

That, I'm both proud and embarrassed to say, is ALDaily's idea. I like this approach for two reasons, the first is pretentious and the second isn't. First, pretentiously, I like it because the link is about the words. That's what fiction is supposed to be about, at least primarily. It's about the feeling I get from the words I'm reading. It's not about who is writing it or where it's published. That's secondary. I feel like we get so lost in the ego of our writing: who wrote it, where it's published, etc. I think ego gets in the way of stuff (this comes from some Hindu sympathies I have, philosophically). Ego is a lot of noise. I just want to read something good. Second, and less pretentiously, this approach creates a certain mystery. When I go to ALDaily and I look at a link, I ask "I wonder where that's published? I wonder who wrote it?" By withholding the name of the author and the magazine, it creates more reader-momentum towards the magazines and the writers.
 

Do you accept recommendations from readers and writers?

Absolutely. Editors also. Send me links! I'm trying to compile a more thorough resource of magazines, blogs, journals, etc. david.backer@gmail.com. (The only rub is this: I'm more interested in finding stories myself in the magazines. So I might have a bias against writers who email me saying, "Hey, look at my story. It's real good." Let your writing speak for itself from the magazine where it's been published, or from your blog. If you don't think I'll find you in my surfing, then email me. I really enjoy email correspondence.) I'm also starting to do interviews with editors and writers whose stuff I like. Look for Amber Sparks's new interview underneath the masthead where it says, "Interviews." I'm going to try and update this weekly.

People throwing love all over my stories

Two "wow!" reviews have come in over the last two days. First, Sam Tomaino at SFRevu praised my new Interzone novelette "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas," saying it is the first 2010 story on his Hugo Award short list for next year. And in words that blew me away, he added, "Interzone is really spoiling me when it publishes Jason Sanford so regularly. As far as I'm concerned, they couldn't publish too much of this author if they named it Jason Sanford's Science Fiction Magazine."

And then Rachel Swirsky, in a post on Jeff VanderMeer's site, listed my Interzone novella "Sublimation Angels" as her favorite out of all the novellas she's considering for the Nebula Awards. She called the novella "an engaging read, both intellectually and plot-wise. I will definitely be nominating it."

Many thanks to both Rachel and Sam.

As I mentioned the other day, "Sublimation Angels" has received several nominations for the Nebula Award. If anyone else wants to consider the novella for a possible nomination, I've posted a copy online in a pdf format. I can also provide copies of the file in alternate formats upon request.

Million Writers Award prize money update

The storySouth Million WritersAward is clicking along nicely, with plenty of reader and editor nominations coming in. If you're interested in making a nomination, or simply want to check out the fiction others have nominated, the reader nominations can be found here and the editor nominations here.

The other thing coming along nicely are donations to help fund the award's prize money. We now have $400 in prize money, along with a $100 gift certificate from the great people at ThinkGeek.

At the moment, this means the prize money for the 2010 Million Writers Award will break down as follows:

  • $300 for the first place winner, plus a $100 ThinkGeek gift certificate
  • $100 for the runner-up

As I've mentioned before, last year there were three cash prizes: $500 for the overall winner, $200 for the runner-up, and $100 for the honorable mention/third place. If more donations come in, we'll be further along the road to matching last year's prizes.

So if you'd like to help us reach this goal, please consider a donation!

Please note that since these donations do not go through Spring Garden Press (storySouth's publisher), donations are not tax deductible. But your entire donated amount will be used for prize money, minus the small fee PayPal deducts for transmitting the money.

Thanks to everyone who has already donated. I'm still sorting through which people want to remain anonymous, and which desire to be named. Once that's done, I'll post a preliminary list of donors.

A few updates on Nebula nominations, Czech magazine Ikarie, and my writing

Ikarie235 Thought I'd touch on a few updates this morning.

  • Yesterday I received an entire year's worth of the Czech SF magazine Ikarie. Wow! What a beautiful magazine. They reprinted two of my stories in 2009, "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by Their Rain" and "When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees," and I ordered additional issues to explore what is one of the best SF magazines in Europe. At right is the issue containing my "Ships Like Clouds" story. I plan to do a blog post at some point about this great reprint market, along the lines of what I wrote about for the Russian magazine ESLI.
     
  • Speaking of "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by Their Rain," Rachel Swirsky has selected the story as one of her Nebula Award novelette nominations (while the story was originally published in Interzone in 2008, it is eligible due to first being published in the U.S. in 2009 in Year's Best SF 14). Many thanks! Rachel is posting about her nominations on Jeff Vandermeer's website. Here are her short story picks, and her novelette picks.
     
  • Speaking of Nebula nominations, remember the deadline is Feb. 15. Here are my nominations. Of my selections, the following are doing well but need more love from SFWA members to push them over the top: "Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela" by Saladin Ahmed (in the short story category with 9 nominations); "A Memory of Wind" by Rachel Swirsky (in the novelete category with 11 nominations, "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster (in the same category with 9 nominations); and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (in the novel category with 11 nominations). Remember, the top five six selections in each category make the final ballot, so don't forget to vote!
     
  • In addition to Rachel Swirsky, I also want to thank the people who nominated my other stories ("When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees" and "Sublimations Angels") in the Nebula's short story and novella categories. I don't know who you are, but many thanks. While I'm under no illusion that the stories will make the final ballot, it's nice to know people enjoy my work.
     
  • Finally, for those keeping track--and why would anyone but myself being doing that?--last week I spent 7.5 hours editing and revising short stories, 2 hours submitting stories to markets, 0 hours working on my novel, and way too much time online because I was launching this year's Million Writers Award. But I'm giving myself a pass on that online time because the award is now up and running!

storySouth Million Writers Award now open

The storySouth Million Writers Award is now open. I will be running the reader and editor nominations from this blog; the main award page on storySouth will be where the notable stories and top ten stories are posted.

For background information on the award, please see my introduction to the award and the award rules. In short, the award is for any fictional short story of at least a 1,000 words first published in an online publication during 2009. By "publication," I mean an online magazine or journal with an editorial process (so self-published stories are not eligible).

  • Reader nominations can be made here.
  • Editor nominations can be made here.

The deadline for nominations is February 28, 2010. The list of notable stories of the year will be released by April 1, 2010, with the top ten stories released by the first of May. Voting on the top stories of the year will last for one month after the top ten stories are released.

Donations Needed for Prize Money!

Here's the big thing: We need donations to fund this year's prize money. Last year there were three cash prizes: $500 for the overall winner, $200 for the runner-up, and $100 for the honorable mention/third place. The majority of this prize money was raised through donations from writers, editors and readers. I hope we can reach these amounts again.

Myself and storySouth, together with a few minor donations left over from last year, have already put forth over $100 for this year's prize money. If no additional donations come in, that will be the prize money for the 1st place winner. But I'm optimistic we can quickly raise much more than that.

Please note that since these donations do not go through Spring Garden Press (storySouth's publisher), donations are not tax deductible. However, your entire donated amount will be used for the prize money, minus the small fee PayPal deducts for transmitting the money. All donors will have the option of having their name and donation listed on the Million Writers Award page. Donors may also remain anonymous.

To donate, go here.

Thanks to everyone who has taken part in the award in previous years, and I hope you enjoy it again this year. I will be posting updates on this blog throughout the award process. For more frequent updates, be sure to check out my Twitter account.

Introduction to the 2010 Million Writers Award

In 2001, I helped found storySouth out of the belief that a quality literary journal could exist completely online and still have an impact equal to any print publication. After all, it wasn't the medium people cared about, but the writing.

However, I quickly ran up against a big problem: Many people believed online publications weren't legitimate. The editor of one of the year's best anthologies said that while storySouth looked great, and published (in his words) very good fiction, he couldn't consider anything from our journal. Basically, he didn't consider storySouth to be a real publication.

Of course, that was almost 10 years ago, and my how things have changed. Few people today would dispute that online publications are the equal of print publications. In fact, while print magazines and journals see declining circulations, and are betting their future on electronic distribution via the Kindle and other ebook readers, online magazines are stronger than ever. We even have our own year's best anthologies.

As we start the seventh annual Million Writers Award, you may wonder if the award is still needed. To that, I shout a strong "Hell Yes!" With more online publications than ever, it can be difficult for readers to find the best online fiction out there. The Million Writers Award plays a vital role each year in promoting new and established writers, and bringing attention to worthy stories.

So yes, things have changed in the last 10 years, and I'd like to think both storySouth and the Million Writers Award played a part in creating this change. It'll be interesting to see what the coming decade brings.

Reader nominations for 2010 Million Writers Award

The 2010 Million Writers Award is now open for nominations. This page is for READERS to nominate one short story published in an online magazine during 2009. Editor nominations are here.

Nominations will be accepted through February 28, 2010. As always, there is no fee to nominate a story or to take part in the award process. If a story is already nominated below, there is no need to nominate that story multiple times. Attempts to "stuff" multiple nominations of the same story by one reader or a group of readers will be deleted.

To nominate a story, please first read the rules, then use the following format to place information in the comment box at the bottom of this page. You will enter your nomination into the comment box at the bottom of this page.

Apex Magazine
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online
Story: "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster
Story URL: http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/...gentleman-beast-by-eugie-foster

Please note that the above story--while an amazing piece of fiction--is not eligible for the Million Writers Award since it was first published in a print magazine.

Failure to use the above format when making a nomination can result in nominations not being considered. Be sure to provide your name and a valid e-mail address or your nomination will not be considered.

If you like what we're doing with the Million Writers Award, please consider making a donation to increase the amount of prize money we can offer.

Editor nominations for 2010 Million Writers Award

The 2010 Million Writers Award is now open for nominations. This page is for EDITORS to nominate three short stories published in their online magazine. Individual nominations are here.

Nominations will be accepted through February 28, 2010. As always, there is no fee to nominate a story, and no fee to take part. To nominate stories from your online magazine or journal, please first read the rules, then use the format below to place information in the comment box below. Failure to use this format can result in nominations not being considered. Please also provide a valid e-mail with your story nominations. All editor nominations will be verified.

Correction nomination format (which should be entered into the comment box at the bottom of this page):

storySouth
http://www.storysouth.com
Story 1: "7 Cornish Hens" by Erich Sysak
http://www.storysouth.com/fiction/2006/11/7_cornish_hens_1.html
Story 2: "Letters from Mercury" by Jessica Schneider
http://www.storysouth.com/fiction/2006/01/letters_from_mercury.html
Story 3: "Grappling" by Jacob M. Appel
http://www.storysouth.com/fiction/2006/09/grappling_by_jacob_m_appel.html

If you like what we're doing with the Million Writers Award, please consider making a donation to increase the amount of prize money we can offer.

2010 Million Writers Award Rules

The purpose of the storySouth Million Writers Award is to honor and promote the best fiction published in online literary journals and magazines during 2009. 

To make a nomination, go here.

The Reason

The reason for the Million Writers Award is that most of the major literary prizes for short fiction (such as the Best American Short Stories series and the O. Henry Awards) have traditionally ignored web-published fiction. This award aims to show that world-class fiction is being published online and to promote this fiction to the larger reading and literary community.

How It Works

The Million Writers Award takes its name from the idea that we in the online writing community have the power to promote the great stories we are creating. If only a few hundred writers took the time to tell fifteen of their friends about a great online short story--and if these friends then passed the word about this fiction to their friends (and so on and so on)--this one story would soon have a larger readership than all of the stories in Best American Short Stories.

To help promote online stories, the Million Writers Award accepts nominations from readers, writers, and editors (and the volunteer preliminary judges who assist with the award). There is no entry fee.

Prizes

Last year there were three cash prizes: $500 for the overall winner, $200 for the runner-up, and $100 for the honorable mention/third place. The majority of this prize money was raised through donations from writers, editors and readers.

The 2010 Million Writers Award is starting off with an award base of $100, which has been donated by Jason Sanford and Spring Garden Press (storySouth's publisher), along with a few small donations which came in too late to be given for last year's award. To help raise the amount we can give for prize money, we are seeking additional donations. To donate, go here.

Please note that since these donations do not go through Spring Garden Press (storySouth's publisher), donations are not tax deductible. However, the entire donated amount will be used for prize money, minus the small fee PayPal deducts for transmitting the money.

All donors will have the option of having their name and donation listed on the Million Writers Award page. Donors may also remain anonymous.

Please note that the all prizes will be transferred to the winners by PayPal. In order to receive the prize money, winners must have a PayPal account.

Best Online Publication Award

In addition to the award for best fiction, the online magazine or journal that ends up with the most stories selected as "Notable Stories of the Year" will be honored as the year's best publication for online fiction.

Why Should I Do This?

The general gripe among writers is that no one pays attention to quality writings, while bad or mediocre writings get lots of attention because they are published in prestigious magazines or written by authors who are good at gaining media attention. This award is about countering this trend by promoting the best online writers.

The Rules

1) Only stories first published in online literary journals, magazines, and e-zines that have an editorial process, during the 2009 calendar year, are eligible for nomination. This means that an editor must have selected the story for publication. Self-published stories are not eligible. Stories published in the online versions of print journal or magazines are eligible provided that the online version of the journal or magazine is accessible by the general public, and the story was first published in their online edition. Stories reprinted online, but originally published in a print edition, are not eligible.

2) Anyone may nominate ONE story for the award. This means that readers of magazines can nominate one story and that writers can nominate one their own stories, provided the story was published in 2009 in an online magazine. Editors of online magazines and journals can nominate up to THREE of the stories published in their magazine during 2009.

3) To be eligible for nomination, a story must be longer than 1,000 words.

4) In addition to nominations from writers, readers, and editors, the Million Writers Award also uses preliminary judges to nominate stories for the award and to screen nominations from writers, readers, and editors. The names of the preliminary judges will be released after the award has been announced.

5) From all of the nominees, the judges will select the "Notable Stories of the Year." From this list of notable stories, Jason Sanford, a founding editor of storySouth, will chose the top ten stories of the year. The overall winner of the year's award will be selected by a public vote from among the top ten stories of the year. The public vote will use a secure voting system.

6) The online journal or magazine gaining the most "notable story" selections will be named as the Million Writers Award publication of the year. The editors will also select one publication as the Million Writers Award new magazine or journal of the year. Other awards for excellence may also be given out, if the editors feel there is a reason for doing so (such as highlighting a journal or magazine for doing something new or unusual which added to the overall prestige of online publishing).

7) Nominations of stories will begin January 30, 2010 and end February 28, 2010. The list of notable stories of the year will be released by April 1, 2010, with the top ten stories released by the first of May. Voting on the top story of the year will last for one month 16 days from May 16 through May 31.

8) Any attempt by writers to distort or manipulate the public vote will result in the disqualification of their respected stories. Writers are allowed to promote their own stories during the vote and to ask others to vote for them. Attempts to repeatedly vote for their own story or to compromise the secure voting system will result in disqualification. The editors of storySouth have final authority to determine if any writer is attempting to distort or manipulate the public vote and the editors' decisions regarding disqualification are final and can not be appealed.

To Nominate a Story

To nominate a story, readers and editors will submit their name, a valid e-mail address, the name of the nominated author, the name of the magazine or journal, and a URL hyperlink to the story. The URL must go directly to the story's page in the online magazine or journal that originally published it. Links to author home pages where the story is posted are not eligible. DO NOT e-mail the entire story to any storySouth editor. Doing so will guarantee that a story is not considered for the award.

To nominate a story, go here.

Please make sure that the e-mail you use to nominate a story is the same e-mail the judges can contact you with later on. Your e-mail address will only be used to contact you with information about the award and the winners. It will not be given out to anyone else.

How Can I Help?

If you want to help promote this award and online writers in general, please pass the word about this contest or link to this page. Also, please consider supporting the Million Writers Award by making a donation to help increase the award money we give out.

For more information, please e-mail Jason Sanford at lapthai@yahoo.com.

Interzone Readers' Poll Selections

The Interzone Readers' Poll is running now through March 31. Readers can see all the eligible works, and vote for or against the stories and art, over on the Interzone Readers' Poll page.

Last year I was honored to have my story "When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees" win the Readers' Poll. This year I have two stories eligible: My novella "Sublimation Angels" (available at that link as a PDF download) and the short story "Here We Are, Falling Through Shadows."

Obviously I won't be voting for my own stories in the award. My positive votes for stories are:

  • "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster, which made the BSFA Award shortlist for best short fiction and is doing well in nominations in the Nebula Award's novelette category. (Note to Nebula and BSFA voters: Read this story and vote for it!). This was one of my favorite stories of 2009, for reasons explained in my original review. This is the story I expect to win the Readers' Poll.
  • "No Longer You" by Katherine Sparrow and Rachel Swirsky.
  • "The Festival of Tethselem" by Chris Butler.
  • "The Godfall's Chemsong" by Jeremiah Tolbert.
  • "The Killing Streets" by Colin Harvey.
  • "Memory Dust" by Gareth L. Powell.
  • "By Starlight" by Rebecca J. Payne.

My positive votes for the art are

I could have voted for more stories, but decided to limit myself to seven. I also decided not to cast any negative votes this year because none of the Interzone stories really rubbed me wrong. Interzone remains my favorite SF/F magazine, and 2009 will go down as one of their best years ever.

Free ebook copy of Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl

I've written before about the good that is Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl. Now comes news that the novel is available as a free ebook, tied in with io9's selection of the novel as their book club pick. Go to that link for instructions on how to receive your free ebook version.

Instead of reposting why I think the novel is so good, here's a link to my original review. In short, I feel The Windup Girl reads like a classic dystopian novel with amazingly well-written prose, compelling characters, and a fascinating and believable plot. I'm also pleased to see the novel doing well with the Nebula Award nominations (with 9 nominations so far--don't forget the deadline is Feb. 15). The novel deserves to make both the Nebula and Hugo Award short lists, so if you haven't read it please grab a free ebook copy.

The things that once killed you

Back when I worked as an archeologist, I saw the things that once killed people. Broken bones and wounds which today would be treated on an out-patient basis. Abscesses of teeth which turned to infection until, centuries later, archeologists excavated bones riddled with pain. And that's nothing compared to the deadly diseases like small pox which were once so prevalent.

I don't mean to be so morbid, but I just found out I need a root canal. Despite my best dental hygiene, somehow a bit of decay sneaked in near the bone. Decay beneath the tooth, not through the exposed top as is normal. My dentist says she's never seen a case like this, so maybe I should be perversely honored.

Except that the bone is mildly infected. And the procedure to fix all this will be expensive, more than blowing through my dental insurance. Thank goodness for my family having insurance. Curse goodness that dental insurance is so crappy unless you're rich.

But looking toward the truly good, at least I won't die from this. I remember excavating a skeleton with a gaping hole in the jaw, where an abscessed infection had eaten it's way through that woman's mandible. As I cleared the dirt from the woman's bones, I couldn't help but cry at the suffering she went through before she died.

So while I'm not happy at spending a ton of money to fix this problem, it sure as hell beats the alternative.

A few writing updates

I've been busy with family this weekend--which isn't a complaint, merely an observation--so only minor updates for now. First, here are three new reviews of Interzone 226, which includes my fantasy story "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas":

I've now finished my third week of tracking my writing life. Here are the numbers:

  • Time spent on new short story writing: 6 hours
  • Time spent revising and editing short stories: 2.5 hours
  • Time spent on my novel: 0
  • Time spent on Facebook/Twitter/Blog: 4 hours
  • Time spent reading the news and doing other worthless stuff online: 5 hours

The good news is I cut back on wasting time on the internet. Bad news: I also cut back on my writing. Try to do better next week.

My two favorite anthologies of 2009

I'm late with this. The time to mention the best books of the preceding year is at the star of a new year, and here it is almost February.  Still, I want to plug my two favorite anthologies of 2009:

  • The Apex Book of World SF, edited by Lavie Tidhar.
  • Tesseracts Thirteen: Chilling Tales from the Great White North, edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell.

Now I must admit 2009 was an top-notch year for anthologies, and I didn't have the opportunity to read most of them. I'm also not considering the numerous Year's Best anthologies which came out, many of which were great reads.

The Apex Book of World SF is simply put an amazing and long-overdue anthology. I'm not sure I can add much to the glowing reviews Tidhar's collection has already received, but the proof of the pudding is in actually reading these stories. With works ranging from by S.P. Somtow "The Bird Catcher" to Aliette de Bodard's "The Lost Xuyan Bride," you will not find a better anthology of international speculative fiction. I eagerly await the next volume in this series.

Tesseracts Thirteen, while attracting less attention that the Apex anthology, is another great installment in this ongoing series of Canadian speculative fiction. Where the last volume focused on novellas, this time the focus is on horror and dark fantasy. There are too many good and great stories in this volume to mention them all. Among my favorites were Michael Kelly's cold and chilling "The Woods" and the masterful "Lost in a Field of Paper Flowers" by Gord Rollo. In addition, Robert Knowlton's essay "Out of the Barrens: Two Centuries of Canadian Dark Fantasy and Horror," which closes out the volume, demands to be read by anyone curious about Canada's contributions to these genres.

So if you're interested in great anthologies--and especially anthologies focusing on non-American speculative fiction--check out these two books.

The Politics of What, Me Worry?

So friends on different sides of the political divide in America are up in arms about the Massachusetts Senate results. Democrats are devastated; Republicans triumphant. And me? I think Alfred E. Neuman had the right idea about politics with his famous phrase "What, Me Worry?"

Seriously. If you take politics so personally that you risk a heart attack depending upon each change in the political winds, that says more about your priorities in life than which way the wind blows.

This doesn't mean politics isn't important. Hell, most human endeavors are important in one way or another, and at the extremes deal with many life and death issues. This also doesn't mean you shouldn't inform yourself about the political choices out there, or take a stand. But to internalize politics like so many people do isn't good for anyone.

For example, consider police officers, who in my opinion have one of the toughest jobs around. They continually work with people who are either in rough emotional straights, want to hurt them, or don't want them around. A good percentage of the criminals they arrest are quickly released for different reasons, and their ability to help those in desperate need is rather limited. So how do most police officers avoid going crazy? The wise ones know not to take things personally. They focus on going home safe and sound at the end of the day, and remembering what is important. Life. Family. Friends. Community.

And here's the special trick to that: By focusing on these areas of life where you can truly make a difference, over the long term you will create more change in the world than all the political ranters and screamers combined.

So the next time someone starts going off about politics, remember: Any idiot can talk about politics--and they often do! Any idiot can get upset about politics--and they often do!

Don't be an idiot.

A flash response to a flash fiction rant

There are so many predictable aspects to life. The sun will rise. Taxes will come due. James Cameron will gross another billion dollars with a film.

To such predictability I add the yearly email rants I receive about the Million Writers Award excluding flash fiction.

This time, though, I received a rant before the award cycle even begins. In response to my call for more preliminary judges, said ranter emailed that she wouldn't consider volunteering for an award which so blatantly "discriminates" against flash fiction.

I offer no apologies for the award excluding flash fiction. From the start, the award has focused on longer length stories, which our rules define as 1000 words or longer. My rationalization was thus: Since the ephemeral world of online publishing naturally provides a more supportive environment for flash fiction, I wanted this award to support longer stories. I've often said I'd support anyone who wanted to run a flash fiction contest along the lines of the Million Writers Award. But the Million Writers Award will not throw flash fiction and longer short stories into the same award-consideration pot.

At the risk of receiving more rants, I also point people to Jeff Crook's take on the Mississippi Review's new flash fiction issue. Jeff wasn't impressed with their new issue and quotes an essay I wrote almost six years ago, in which I stated "...there is no evidence that short shorts are being read by anyone outside the 'literary' community."

That made me wonder if what I wrote six years ago is still correct. While I continue to enjoy the better examples of flash fiction (including "Mr Cat" by Paul Lisicki, which Jeff rightly names as the highlight of the MR issue), I still don't see any evidence that many people outside the literary community read flash fiction. At least, not when compared with the millions of readers around the world who devour short stories and novel length fiction.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and am overlooking some sea change in flash fiction readership over recent years. If so, please let me know.