Diabolical Plots

I’m a bit of an odd duck in my reading habits, in that I ready only a small niche of the types of stuff out there, but I read that very deeply. Almost all of my fiction intake comes from fiction podcasts, which are all Short Story categories, but are often reprints from previous years which are not eligible. I do read novels, but have not read any written in 2012 yet, because I am a slow read and because I re-read the entire Wheel of Time series that pretty much took all year, in preparation for the 2013 release of the final book.

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When Alex Shvartsman announced his speculative humor anthology project last summer, and asked for some volunteers to help him out, I jumped at the chance. For three months I received a steady stream of fantasy, science fiction, and every murky definition in between, written with the intention of tickling my funny bone. Some stuff I found to be hilarious, and more than a few very funny stories were left on the cutting room floor. With a small army of associate editors, Alex wanted to be sure that he picked only the best for his collection. But what is funny? That answer proved to be very subjective. Alex told me he didn’t have one story that received a unanimous thumbs up from his associate editors. Everyone had a different opinion of what was funny and what wasn’t, but by the end, a consensus of 29 stories were picked for the upcoming anthology. That still left some wonderful stuff behind, so Alex decided to give his customers a little something to whet their appetite.

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