nIn case people have been wondering, I did do the drawing for the free Flush Fiction book last week as promised. And the name that emerged from the hat was Michael Hanrahan. Michael, if you see this post, could you please let me know what the best way to reach you is?
The day has finally arrived, the publication date of Uncle John’s Flush Fiction anthology. As I mentioned a few months back, I sold a story titled “Mysterious Ways” to the anthology. I am particularly excited about this sale, because I know many more people who are familiar with Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader books than who are familiar with my favorite speculative fiction magazines. So, to celebrate, and to help get the word out about the anthology, I’m hosting a giveaway of a copy of the book.
Variant Frequencies was a fiction podcast that ran from 2006-2010. It was run by Rick Stringer, Ann Stringer, and Matt Wallace, and was originally created as a way to help promote Ann’s and Matt’s writing. Their archives are still up on their website for all to download. First some thoughts on the podcast as a whole. The production is very good quality, often with full cast recordings, and a good group of voice actors. Because of the fact that its original focus was promote the work of the founders, its not too surprising that the quality is sometimes… uneven. One advantage of having an impartial third party for an editor is that their purpose is to select stories of the highest quality. In self-published collections (which this kind of is) you get everything as judged by the author, which isn’t quite the same thing.
And here is the final of my “Best of” lists covering the year 2011. Escape Pod published steadily over the year, publishing 59 short stories. Among their usual fare, they also published winners and runners-up from their 2010 Flash Contest, whose winners were decided by forumite polling.
Well, StarShipSofa is still StarShipSofa. I said what I thought last year, and nothing much has changed, so I’ll just say “ditto”. I do have one thing to add: they’re not great at taking criticism.
Forty-nine episodes this year, with (by my count) 58 stories. On to the list!
And, here’s the list for one of my favorite publications–the Drabblecast. It’s great for my weekly fix of weird. They’ve been of consistently high quality, and I look forward especially to Lovecraft Month in which they solicit original cosmic horror from recent popular authors.
Podcastle’s going strong under the continued editorship of Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind. In 2011, they published 52 feature length episodes (from episodes 138-189), and 9 flash episodes (flash episodes 58-66), as well as 4 special feature stories from the Alphabet Quartet.
Hey everybody, just a quick post to talk about voting eligibility for my work for the Hugo (and John W. Campbell). Now, I am not crazy enough to think I have any real chance at either, but I figure there’s even less chance if I don’t tell people what I’m eligible for. So, here’s a quick breakdown of everything that I might be eligible for. If anyone feels inclined to nominate me, you are my personal hero!
This story takes place in 2027, 25 years before the first game in the series, before nano-augmentation is available, in the age of mechanical augmentations (think hydraulics and dermal plating instead of nanites in your bloodstream). Your character is Adam Jensen, head of security for augmentation designer Sarif Industries. In the opening scenes, Sarif industries is attacked by a team of supersoldiers. Adam is severely injured in the attack, losing several limbs. The only way to save his life is through augmentation. Six months later, while he’s still recovering, Sarif calls him back into duty.
Another year has passed, which brings us to another year’s worth of “Best of” lists. First up, is Pseudopod, the horror branch of the Escape Artists podcast tree. Pseudopod was on hiatus for the first few months of 2011, but they have been publishing stories at a steady rate again since March, and there are plenty of stories to make a list from.
