L. Jagi Lamplighter's Blog, page 23
February 26, 2015
Rabid Puppies Short Fiction Book Bomb
And the slate of Lord Voxdimort:
BEST SHORT STORY
"Goodnight Stars" by Annie Bellet, The Apocalypse Triptych
"Totaled" by Kary English, Galaxy's Edge
"On a Spiritual Plain" by Lou Antonelli, Sci Phi Journal #2
“A Single Samurai” by Steve Diamond, Baen Big Book of Monsters
Both Rabid Puppies recommendations in the Short Story category can be read for free at the following links. I can attest that Sci Phi Journal #2 is quite good and I think the Big Book of Monsters looks particularly interesting.
"Turncoat" by Steve Rzasa, Riding the Red Horse
"The Parliament of Beasts and Birds" by John C. Wright, The Book of Feasts & Seasons
I've also got a short story you can read which is not part of either slate, but I promised to make it available for free reading, so here it is:
"The Logfile" by Vox Day, The Altar of Hate
BEST NOVELETTE
“The Journeyman: In the Stone House”by Michael F. Flynn, Analog, June 2014
“Championship B’tok” by Edward M. Lerner, Analog, Sept 2014
“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium” by Gray Rinehart, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
And the Rabid Puppies recommendation in the Novelette category:
"Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" by John C. Wright, The Book of Feasts & Seasons
The Book of Feasts & Seasons is presently ranked #15,271 54,462 on Amazon and has a 4.9 rating on 18 16 reviews. It's genuinely that good, so I'd highly recommend reading it if you haven't yet, and posting a review if you have.
Sad Puppy Short Story Book Bomb!
Below is yesterday's post from Monster Hunter Nation:
It is time to spread more awareness about Puppy Related Sadness. The following are our suggested nominees for the short fiction categories, novelette and short story.
The way a Book Bomb normally works is that we pick one good book worthy of more attention, which is available on Amazon, and then we get as many people as possible to buy it in the same day in order to boost it up through the ratings. As the the rating climbs, it gets in front of more people, until it ends up on an Amazon bestseller list, where lots of people who aren’t involved in the Book Bomb see it. Success breeds success, the author gets lots of new readers, but more importantly, the author GETS PAID.
This Book Bomb is a little different. Because the ones I’m doing right now are to get more people exposed to the works we nominated for the infamous Sad Puppies slate, we’re bombing a bunch of works at the same time. I don’t like putting this many links, but time is of the essence, and next week I’ll post about the Campbell nominees and Best Related Works.
We did three novellas last week and it was a huge success. They’re still selling well a week later. Overall we sold a couple thousands novellas, which in novellas is freaking huge.
But shorter fiction is tough, because it isn’t always available for sale by itself, but is usually bundled as part of an anthology, or in a magazine which often isn’t available on Amazon.
As you can see from the list below, luckily many of these are available on Amazon, and some are available for FREE, and for the ones that you can only get in magazines the Evil Legion of Evil Blue Care Bear of Flamethrowering (i.e. Brad) contacted them and asked for a work of theirs which was available for us to plug. So those won’t be the nominated work from the current year, but if they sound cool, check them out, that way the author GETS PAID.
Best Novelette
“The Journeyman: In the Stone House”
by Michael F. Flynn
(Analog magazine, June 2014)
Mike doesn’t actually have this novelette available for sale, but he did recommend the following item:
**********
“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”
by Rajnar Vajra
(Analog magazine, July/Aug 2014)
Rajnar came up blank. He literally has nothing original for sale. This is an unfortunate habit with some of the Analog authors who don’t publish much outside of Analog.
**********
“Championship B’tok”
by Edward M. Lerner
(Analog magazine, Sept 2014)
The specific story is not for sale, but Ed says we can go with this one:
A Time Foreclosed [Kindle Edition]
**********
“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium”
by Gray Rinehart
(Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show)
OSC Intergalactic Medicine Show
(Requires a subscription, which costs $15/yr)
Since Gray doesn’t have a novel or other fiction available online, you can support him by checking out his album at:
Truths & Lies & Make-Believe
**********
Best Short Story
“Goodnight Stars”
by Annie Bellet
(The Apocalypse Triptych)
The End is Now (Apocalypse Triptych Book 2) [Kindle Edition]
**********
“Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer”
by Megan Grey
(Fireside Fiction)
Megan apologizes. She is so new she has nothing for sale, but the story is FREE at the following URL:
www.firesidefiction.com/issue19/chapter/tuesdays-with-molakesh-the-destroyer
**********
“Totaled”
by Kary English
(Galaxy’s Edge magazine, July 2014)
Totaled [Kindle Edition]
**********
“On A Spiritual Plain”
by Lou Antonelli
(Sci Phi Journal #2)
Appears in:
Sci Phi Journal: Issue #2, November 2014: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy
**********
“A Single Samurai”
by Steve Diamond
(Baen Big Book of Monsters)
The Baen Big Book of Monsters
**********
So there you go, a whole bunch of short fiction that the Evil Legion of Evil enjoyed and thought you guys might like. Sadly, because we’re not imbeciles, we didn’t check with each author to find out their race, sex, and sexual orientation to see if they’d be okay to read as part of the Social Justice Warrior Racist Reading Challenge. We’ll try to rectify that in the future… if we come down with a case of extreme brain damage.
###
Normally I try to list all the current starting sales rank numbers, and then update them through the day, but we discovered last time that Amazon has started using some massive, like eight hour delay on their hourly tracking system. We basically we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how we did.
There are so darned many of these, that I’ll go ahead and post. Then come back and edit in the starting stats later. I’ve got a deadline, but I’ll do this because I love you guys. :)
EDIT: I forgot to add, please tell your friends! tweet, blog, facebook, graffiti, body art, interpretive dance, whatever works, but the more people who know, the higher the books get, the more attention the authors get.
Here are our opening stats:
Captive Dreams: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,809,985 in Book
Time Foreclosed: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #699,938 Paid in Kindle Store
The End is Now: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,949 Paid in Kindle Store
Totaled: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #298,088 Paid in Kindle Store
Sci Phi Journal: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,635 Paid in Kindle Store
Baen Big Book of Monsters: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,892 in Books
EDIT: Let’s see what we did.
Captive Dreams: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,841 in Books.
The only one to not get on a bestseller list, but we moved it up 1,524,144 spots.
Time Foreclosed:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,470 Paid in Kindle
#17 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Time Travel
#23 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > Two hours or more (65-100 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy
#24 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Hard Science Fiction
.The End is Now:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,212 Paid in Kindle Store.
#4 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Anthologies
#5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Anthologies & Short Stories
#58 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic
Totaled:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,313 Paid in Kindle Store,
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 30 minutes (12-21 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy
#3 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 30 minutes (12-21 pages) > Literature & Fiction
#18 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Hard Science Fiction
Sci Phi Journal:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,598 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) .
#26 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy
Baen Big Book of Monsters:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#14 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Anthologies
#31 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Anthologies
That was an interesting Book Bomb. It was the first time I’ve ever Book Bombed this many items at once, they’re short fiction, we just did this last week, and Amazon isn’t updating the numbers until after most folks are in bed, so I wasn’t expecting to do what we normally do with a single novel, but despite that we still bumped everybody on here up at least a couple hundred thousand spots, and got nearly everyone somewhere onto a list. (Looking at it, again, the only one we didn’t get onto a list was one that isn’t actually on the Sad Puppies slate, but was one of the ones posted so the author could Get Paid). Smallest overall number shift was on the last one that most of my regulars already bought months ago (that’s the one that has my Tokyo Raider story in it).
Overall, an interesting experiment that worked better than I’d hoped. Next week, Campbell and Related Works.
Good work everybody.
More Operation Renfield! Elves, Dwarves, & WWII!
“Atheists,” said Dave. “Cars are atheists. Without thought, they can’t have gods, right?”
He couldn’t read minds. I just had a habit of thinking out loud.
And anyway, “They stop at the darndest times. They get spooked by gremlins and won’t move. Brand new parts rust away overnight. I call that paganism, or rank superstition. They ain’t got no faith,” I said.
In some outfits, the fact that I wear five stripes and Dave has two would have ended the debate right there. But Recon puts a premium on brains, not deference. When I was a corporal, that seemed like a better idea than it did now.
We broke off twigs for our helmet covers. Brenner had a cloth sack for his helmet instead of a mesh of cord like we used. He used his knife to cut slits in it, then ran the branches through the slits. I asked him why the cloth cover, and he turned back one corner. It was white on the inside.
“For snow,” he said. “Half the year is winter, not so?”
Yeah. Just because the Krauts had been fighting old Franz the Austro for five years before America got interested, that was supposed to mean they knew it all. They did, in fact, know just about every trick about modern warfare. But they didn’t have to have the know-it-all attitude to go along with it.
I’d heard some Germans didn’t act like they knew it all. Back when the war started, there had been a lot more of that sort.
I unlimbered a wisecrack, something about New York winter camouflage being a slushy gray. Before I could let it go, though, the ground slid sideways under my boots.
The bang came an instant later.
Everybody froze but me. I was moving toward the sound of the explosion.
Line troops are supposed to scatter when they’re under artillery fire, seeking the nearest cover. But at night in the woods, movement attracts the eye. Recon troops are supposed to freeze until they locate the source of the threat.
Not that everyone who wears the Eye on his collar actually does what he’s supposed to do. I passed a couple of guys who were huddled in a puddle behind a fallen tree, their heads jerking every which way in terror. One of them, I was pretty sure, was Syzmkowiak. I loomed out of the black across their line of sight and headed on – there wasn’t time to deal with them now. At least they didn’t shoot me, thinking I was Franz, or some black monster leaping through the darkness. Well, I wasn't Franz, anyway.
In a little pine-filled swale, the branches were full of trapped smoke. I grabbed at the skinny trees, skidded to a stop.
Corporal Spencer was down at the bottom, minus most of his leg. His buddy, McNeill, was lying on his stomach at the lip, right where the ground started to slope down. He was about thirty yards from Spencer.
“Mines!” McNeill hissed.
My training kicked in and suppressed my urge to swear. Some of the cleanest mouths you’ll find come out of beast barracks.
I saw it all plain as print. Spencer was laboring up the rise, hitting rocks and scared to make noise. A streambed with pines would absorb the noise, feel soft underfoot, and get his head under cover for a little ways. It was the obvious choice.
So obvious, in fact, that the Austros thought of it too.
“Follow me,” I told McNeill. “Walk in my footprints.”
“What if it’s a Bouncing Betty?” he whispered. Those were nasty little devices which popped up about three feet in the air before they exploded, throwing shrapnel at about waist height, or a little lower. Guys were rightly terrified of them.
It was odd, though, for McNeill to be more worried about his privates than his corporal. I’d learned one more thing about one of my men tonight.
“Then you’ll have armor, woncha?” I said, and poked a thumb at my chest.
I added “C’mon,” which I wouldn’t have done a minute ago. I had pegged McNeill as one of the steady ones.
I took big steps, holding onto the pines for balance. Sap made sticky patterns on my hands. My boots crackled the dry needles just a little, but they were so quiet even McNeill, three steps back, probably didn’t hear ‘em.
Three steps, heck – he hadn’t taken more than one step down into the swale.
“Keep up,” I growled, “or you’ll forget where I stepped! There’s no mud to make footprints down here.”
“I can see ‘em,” he responded. “You brought your own mud with you.”
Even in the midnight blur, he was right. My bootprints were outlined with dark mud from further down the mountain.
“Close up anyway,” I said, and the tone was a threat. Are we going to have to do it this way?
He closed up. He didn’t grumble, but he didn’t grovel, either. His honor was preserved. So do men, if they are to stay men, go to war at each other’s side.
It’s still better than trying to make us into robots. That was the other side’s gag.
Spencer was a medic before joining Recon. He had his bandages out, and twisted around his upper leg, but he hadn’t tightened the windlass to make a proper tourniquet. He had his rosary in his hands, and he was whispering.
His hands and face glowed like the full moon when I got there. He’d lost too much blood.
I turned the windlass (a dowel included in the first-aid pack for just this reason) and tightened the bandage around his upper thigh, compressing his artery against his thighbone. I didn’t see that it made a lot of difference.
McNeill was there, and slit Spencer’s pant leg away so we could see what we were doing. I pulled my compass out from inside my shirt and opened the cover, so the saintelmo backing would light up Spencer’s wound. Down here in the trees, it didn’t risk the mission, just us.
“He’s cold,” said McNeill, holding Spencer’s arm. “Spence? You there, buddy?”
Spencer was trying to talk. There was nothing wrong with his throat or chest, but he couldn’t force the words up. He was weakening fast.
“Spencer,” I said, taking hold of his hand. The tourniquet loosened, but we were beyond that now.
“Spencer, listen to me. I’m not gonna let you die. You hear?”
He nodded, then gagged, like he’d swallowed something huge.
“You gotta help me. When you feel it coming, fight back, you hear me? Cuss, yell, spit, anything, just don’t go to sleep,” I said.
McNeill got out a rosary. He got up on his knees.
“McNeill, take two steps back,” I said sharply and clearly. It was the loudest thing we’d heard since the mine went off.
He obeyed automatically, his legs moving even while his face reproached me. Weren’t we going to give Spencer a proper sendoff?
As it happened, no. We weren’t.
Spencer pulled sharply on my hand. I almost lost him then. He let out a long, long breath and groaned. I slapped him.
“Fight, Spence! Fight! Eyes on me!” I barked.
Then he shuddered, and he was dying. He was trying as hard as anyone could ask, but there just wasn’t enough blood left in his body. The End was coming.
Now.
I got one foot under myself and heaved. I grabbed my wrist with my other hand, putting my back, my leg, both arms, even my neck into hauling Spencer back from the Pit.
It felt like he dropped about three feet. His whole weight was on my hand. There was a shocking lot of it, too – how’d he racked up so much guilt so young? Kids these days – but he was helping, pushing along with me. He wasn’t making a lot of difference, because it was his first time dying. He didn’t know what to do.
But me, I’d been around some.
I hauled for all I was worth. I leaned back, getting my weight into it. Yes, I cheated some – my other knee was in his armpit, acting like a pivot to lever him up out of the ground.
From the waist down, he was deep into the Pit. There was still dirt there, under the pine needles, but he was past all that now. Things brushed at his leg – legs! – knocking him this way and that.
He got his other hand up and grabbed hold of mine. He pulled. He was stronger than me – if we’d have been arm-wrestling, I’d have lost. But we were both on the same side tonight.
I dragged him up to his knees and stood up leaning backwards. If I fell now, he might drop right over the Edge. But his weight, and his strength, anchored me. I took a grinding step back, pulling up, and his legs slid up out of the ground, into view. One of them was solid mud and dirt down to his torn combat boot. The other was tan and new and utterly hairless, like the leg of a twenty-two-year-old newborn.
Something tugged at his heel one last time and retreated, beaten.
I panted, with exertion and relief. Spencer came to his senses with a visible click. He grinned.
“Thanks, Sarge,” he said. “Guess I shouldn’ta tried that shortcut, huh?”
“Well, you’ll remember it next time,” I said, too glad to remember my sergeant’s growl. I grinned at McNeill, too, who hadn’t seen it before. He was shocked.
Spencer nodded sideways at me, looking at his buddy.
“The Sarge’s pop was Elvish, straight off the boat,” he explained. “You know how they can’t die? Well, he got some of that from his old man.”
“They can die,” I said, shaking a little with reaction. “They just don’t get old. And when they do die, they don’t go to Heaven, or the other place. Don’t go much of anywhere. They’re air spirits, right? No air up there.”
“How bout you, Sarge? Can you die?” said Spencer, laughing. “Hate to lose you, after all this.”
“Sure I can,” I said. I put a little rasp in it, because Spencer was getting chummy. Much as every decent instinct demands that men get a little weepy when someone’s been pulled back from the brink of death, the Army frowns on it. Can get outta hand.
“Sure I can,” I said again. “I just get better, is all.”
I let go of his hand, but my arm didn’t drop. Our rosaries were entangled.
I had to admit, that was kinda funny.
February 25, 2015
Superversive Blog: The Needs of Drama vs. The Needs of Culture
Sing O' Goddes of the Eternal Tug of War between Hestia and the Muses!
Of the constant struggle between the efforts to entertain and the efforts to spread a message. In particular, today, this manifests as the divide between what people say life should be like and the way life appears in stories and TV shows. The Sad Puppies: the Saddening and Rabid Puppies: the Enfoaming Hugo Slates, which many of us are following, are a volley in this struggle.
One of the great needs in dealing with these matters is: the need for proper terms to discuss what is occurring around us. Without proper terms, it is easy to be bamboozled by folks who want to pretend that their way is the only way. Introducing terminology helps make distinctions and aids in clarifying one's position.
To that end, I would like to introduce the concept of the terms "The needs of culture" and "the needs of drama."
The below is an excerpt from my essay "Dating The Monsters: Why It Takes A Vampire Or A Wereguy To Win The Heart Of The Modern It Girl" which appears in the Benbella anthology Ardeur. (An anthology about the Anita Blake books in which you can see yours truly slammed by Laurell K. Hamilton for being a romantic. ;-)
I offer it as an introduction to the idea of the Needs of Drama and the Needs of Culture, which I hope to return to in later essays.
Anita Blake
A series that went from serving the needs of drama but not of traditional culture–to serving the needs of modern culture, but not of drama.
Throughout history, a tug of war has existed between the desire to use stories to teach and the desire for them to entertain. At times, such the Middle Ages with its passion plays, teaching has won out completely. [Or so I thought when I first wrote this. I recently found out that there was a lot more to passion plays than I had realized!]
Other times, such as in Shakespeare’s age, entertainment triumphed. (It is amusing to look back and recall that Shakespeare’s plays, which so many children dread reading in English Class today, were written as pure entertainment for the masses!)
The desire to use stories to teach, I shall call: “the Needs of Culture.” Proponents of this are hoping to use the medium of entertainment to lead people to make the choices necessary for a moral, law abiding society. Such societies are great to live in – not fearing that you are going to be car jacked or molested really makes a person’s day! And if we could make our children truthful, upright, and brave through examples in literature, that would be a very gratifying indeed!
The problem is that, most of the time, the more wonderful a culture is to live in, the less interesting it is to read about. A really fine writer can make anything interesting, but few writers achieve this pinnacle of brilliance. It takes a superb writer to make the process of painting a landscape interesting to an outsider. It only takes a writer of ordinary skill to bring excitement to a chase scene with a thief and the Company assassin on ski mobiles in the midst of the Winter Olympics.
In TV entertainment today, the needs of drama often outweigh the needs of culture. We would like to teach our children to be peaceful and chaste, but violence and sex sell. They draw readers. But this does not keep those who would be the guardians of culture for criticizing our entertainment for the places where it falls short of the demands of culture.
So What Are These Needs of Culture?
What are the values those favoring improving the culture wish to put across? Currently, they fall into two categories: traditional cultural values and modern cultural values.
Traditional culture covers the kind of thing listed in the Ten Commandments or the Boy Scout’s Law. It wants people to be honest, upright, brave, clean, etc. The needs of traditional culture require that good guys be upright, bad guys always get their comeuppance, and that the line between the two remain crisply defined.
Modern culture, too, has needs, things it wants drama to portray as good and to encourage in its audience. This desire is so prevalent in our society that it has its own name: Political Correctness. Races must get along. All people, regardless of rank or birth, must be treated as equals. The old taboos are to be laid to rest, no one needs them any more. Nobility and grandeur are to be sneered at, and women must be the equal of men—or better.
What About The Needs of Drama?
The needs of drama are quite different from those of culture. They are ruled by the desire to entertain. Whatever enthralls the audience most, that is what drama requires. Unfortunately for those who would use stories to teach cultural mores, what makes a story entertaining is often directly at odds with what is good or virtuous or politically correct.
Drama is about conflict. It is about breaking taboos, the more shocking the better! Thieves, prostitutes, gamblers, alcoholics, adulterers – all the things that traditional culture does not wish to glamorize make for entrancing drama. But it is not just traditional culture that get trampled. Bigots, class struggles, and inequality among the sexes also makes for excellent storytelling!
Are the people who fear the effect of drama on society starting at shadows? Perhaps, not. Shock value is temporary. The moment you have seen a few stories that violate a particular taboo, that tension becomes old hat. Nobody cares any more. There is no sense of surprise. People do not care if they see the same thing in another movie. They start thinking of that particular behavior as normal, or, at least, as a part of reality that must be endured.
So, those who wish they could guard culture by controlling drama do have a strong argument on their side. But they cannot change the facts; a story that explores boundaries, breaks taboos, is often a better story than one that does not.
Of course, these categories are only generalizations. The same story can serve both forces at different times or support some cultural values while chipping away at others.
This is the end of my excerpt. More to come on this topic in later weeks!
February 19, 2015
More Operation Renfield!
Woohoo! More of Steve Johnson's terrific WWII elf and dwarf fantasy!
If you are new to our adventure:
The opening is here:
–
My old man says that in the old days, back before he came over in ’78 with Lafayette, the King was appointed by God. That meant the officers appointed by the King were in God’s chain of command. They didn’t have chaplains back then, so the Colonel, or the Captain, was also the Sky Pilot in Chief of his command. He had to be ready with a sermon whenever it came up.
Well, I’m not an officer. But I was all King had right now. I called the men together.
“Y’all better listen UP, y’hear?” I shouted.
I’m from New York, but that doesn’t matter. Every sergeant in the Army sounds, or at least yells, like a Confederate veteran.
“Take off yer helmets,” I barked. “Now this heah, underNEATH of your helmet, is your BRAIN HOUSING GROUP. Nomenclature: hair … scalp … skull … brain. Your optical SENSING system and OW-ditory sensing system are ATTACHED to the BRAIN HOW-sing group. Your CHOW hole is located BELOW, and FORWARD of, your brain HOUSING group.”
Make that an angry Confederate veteran. You want to keep combat men’s attention, you have to give it some emphasis.
“Maintenance: KEEP your brain HOUSING group clean! When possible, keep it dry. Remove all but one INCH of HAIR as often as necessary. This task CAN be performed by NON specialists!”
It was all an act, at first — the yelling, the not-quite-cussing, the sarcasm, the insults – sergeantry in general. I copied the sergeants who’d trained me, back before I became one.
“Disassembly: do NOT attempt to disasSEMble your BRAIN HOUSING group! Nothing serviceable by non-specialists is contained INSIDE!”
But then about two years into the Army (and only a couple of months into combat) I figured out what was eating me. This was right after a dogface with a very old M1 Garand fired off five shots with one pull of the trigger. Seems the sear was so worn down it didn’t catch properly, turning the M1 into an automatic weapon. Pretty soon lots of the doggies were filing their sears down on purpose, so as to have their very own automatic Garands.
A couple of them wound up with jammed rifles. Which was better than the optimist who didn’t reassemble his action properly, and got the bolt carrier group back in his face.
That’s when I realized the simple truth: the doggie was the enemy. His laziness, his sloppiness, and his aimlessness were the only things that kept him from killing us all through sheer stupid overconfidence. If he pulled the grenade ring with his teeth, and thereby ruined said teeth and made him unfit for service until they were repaired, at least that was one grenade he didn’t drop at his feet, or throw full-armed into a tree ten feet away so it bounced back behind himself, or carry on his belt by the by-our-lady safety ring so it fell off after a thousand up-and-down bounces on the move. Joe Dogface was going to kill us all.
Now my sergeantry isn’t an act any more. I don’t want the guys to die, but they don't make it any easier sometimes.
“InSIDE your brain is your SOUL HOUSING GROUP, one each. Its exact workings are CLASSIFIED. But it keeps BODY an' SOUL toGETHER. If you do not keep your soul housing group in good repair, like for example by NOT wearing a HELMET, your soul WILL escape. That can be GOOD, or it can be BAD. The Army answer is that it is BAD.”
“Yeah, you in the back,” I said. I knew his face, but not his name.
“Sergeant, what if we go to Heaven? That’s good, ain’t it?"
I scowled. But now I remembered the earnest smartass’ name.
“Sure, Trasky. Sure. You get to spend Eternity in the Heavenly Fields with Almighty God and his legion of angels. While MEANWHILE, down here on EARTH, your country, your family, your BUDDIES are suffering under the iron rule of SATAN, because we LOST the WAR! Still sound like a good idea to YOU?”
“But Satan’s the prince of this world, Sarge.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t want him becoming King, too.”
Sad Puppy’s Read!
Boosting the signal. From Monster Hunter Nation:
BOOK BOMB! Novellas from the Sad Puppies Slate!
Posted on February 18, 2015 by correia45
Today we are Book Bombing the three suggested novellas from the Sad Puppies slate. These are novellas that the Evil Legion of Evil thinks are great, and should be considered for fancy awards. No gimmicks, no BS, just awesome stuff.
How a Book Bomb works is that we try to get as many people to buy them off of Amazon in the same day. Because they have a rolling average best seller list that updates hourly, this causes the book to move up the list. The higher it gets, the more people outside the Book Bomb see it, and check it out too. Success breeds success, and best of all, the author GETS PAID.
And all authors should have GET PAID on their mission statement.
Throughout the day I’ll update the sales rankings. This is Very Special Book Bomb because someone accused me and Brad of trying to get people to vote without reading the works. On the contrary, that misses the point. These are good, so we want you to read them, and if you don’t read them, how does the author GET PAID?
First up, John C. Wright, who I think is one of the greatest wordsmiths alive. The man is brilliant.
One Bright Star to Guide Them
[Kindle Edition]by John C Wright
**********
Our next recommendation is Tom Kratman, who makes me look like a big softie. He’s also a bad ass writer, and I think this is one of the best things he’s ever done.
Big Boys Don’t Cry
[Kindle Edition]by Tom Kratman
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On our third Sad Puppies novella nominee we ran into an issue. Our nominated story by Arlan Andrews was originally published in a magazine that we couldn’t sell on Amazon. Brad contacted the author, and he was kind enough to say that he would be willing to email a free copy to anybody who asked him for it.
If you would like a free copy of the Sad Puppies recommended story, send a message to arlan@thingsto.com and he will give it to you.
However nice that is of him, that does not make the author GET PAID, so here is something that he does have available for sale on Amazon that you can try out in addition to the free one.
Other Heads and Other Tales
[Kindle Edition]by Arlan Andrews Sr
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Right now the stories are at the following ranks:
One Bright Star to Guide Them: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,731 Paid in Kindle Store
Big Boys Don’t Cry: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,018 Paid in Kindle Store
Flow: No idea, it is free. Go get it.
And the non-Sad Puppies, but author should get paid entry:
Other Heads: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,337 Paid in Kindle Store
February 13, 2015
Superversive Blog: Interview with Abyss & Apex editor: Wendy S. Delmater
Today we have a delightful treat, an interview with Abyss and Apex editor, Wendy S. Delmater.
Wendy was superversive before the rest of us ever heard of it. She is friends with Tom Simon, the gentleman who uses Superversive as an online name and who wrote our opening post. She brings her superversiveness to bear upon her work as the editor of Abyss & Apex Magazine, a long running semi-pro magazine of speculative fiction. A&A has been in print since 2003. The magazine’s name comes from quote by Friedrich Nietzsche: “And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Wendy says of the stories she publishes: “We look for the unique: stories that stand out in a genre that pushes the envelope of unusual. We take special delight in detailed world-building: we like slipstream, YA, hypertext fiction, dark fantasy, science fiction puzzle stories, magical realism, hard science fiction, soft science fiction, science fantasy, urban fantasy, military science fiction, ghost stories, space opera, cyberpunk, steampunk… there is very little we will not look at, although we have a severe allergy to zombies, elves, retold fairy tales, sports, westerns, vampires, and gratuitous sex and violence. We have no subject/topic preference, beyond a requirement that the work have a speculative element. We are happy to read stories that don’t quite seem to fit elsewhere.”
She also points out: The Urban Dictionary gives the following definition of superversive: Nurturing; supportive, building up — opposite of subversive.
Below is our interview with this perceptive and crusading editrix.
Q. Why do you consider yourself a superversive editor?
A. It's not because our stories are all rainbows and happy endings, although we occasionally run such content. But some of our fiction is quite dark. I suppose it is because I choose to handle themes that are positive, more often than not. For example, even a recent story about horrific, graphic murder stalking a bleak prison asteroid has a surprisingly positive message at the end – a message of family loyalty and cheating death via quick wits and technology.
Other stories ultimately have themes like the importance of loyalty, justice, and honor; conversely, our fiction also talks about the follies of greed, pride, lust for power, or over-reliance on technology – or on magic.
Q. Are you ever criticized for being too positive?
A. Oh, sure. Humor is subjective, so I tend to be less concerned about those who complain about stories with a punch line or gentle sense of amusement, but critics can be quite upset about what they consider to be A&A's general lack of bleak “realism.” I think that there is more than enough grating evil and unhappiness in the world, so there is no need to add to it. If they want bad news, they can read a newspaper or a news site, or watch an actual newscast. Abyss & Apex is meant to be entertainment. We do literary-style stories as a part of the science fiction and fantasy genres, but only if they are also cracking good stories.
As to thinking of genre short stories as primarily entertainment, I'd like to channel Kristine Kathryn Rusch, here.
When literary tropes hit sf in the 1960s, solid characterization, good sentence-by-sentence writing, and dystopian endings became commonplace. “Realism,” both in character actions and in scientific approach, became more important than good storytelling.
Fantasy continued its heroic ways, promising—and usually delivering—those uplifting endings, those fascinating worlds, and those excellent (heroic) characters. But science fiction started resembling the literary mainstream. The novels became angst-filled. The protagonists, demoted from their heroic pedestals, lost more than they won. The worlds became as ugly or uglier than our own.
Suddenly, sf became unreliable. Readers had no idea if they would find uplifting stories or dystopian universes. They didn’t know whether, once they plunged through six hundred pages of nasty, ugly world-building, they would ever emerge into any sort of light. Sometimes, the sf devolved into one long scientific exposition. Or into jargon-filled, hard-to-follow stories that realistically explored situations set up in the bad old days of pre-literary science fiction.
- “Barbarian Confessions” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0612/thoughtexperiments.shtml
I'd like to think a story can be literary as well as entertaining, such as our homage to Bradbury or one of our Islamic fiction offerings, All I know is that Booklist said of our anthology that, “The quality of the contents is consistently extraordinary.”
Q. Can you give me examples of what you consider to be superversive stories that have been published in Abyss & Apex?
A. Sure. It would be a long list if I mentioned them all, so I will pick examples from subgenre categories:
YA fantasy: Hunting Fire, by Lindsey Duncan
Military SF: , by Ken Scholes
Hard SF: The Third Attractor, by Mjke Wood
SF Romance: Bots D'Amor, by Cat Rambo
Secret History: Asleep in Zandalar, by Rachel Acks
Adventure SF: Spider Without a Web, by Daryl Nash
Puzzle stories: Glitch, by Mark Cole
Social SF: A New Bridge Across the Lethe, by Howard V. Hendrix
Feminist Fiction: The Heaviest Dream, by M. Kate Havas
Cyberpunk: The Data Runners Above Our Heads: A Documentary, by Stephen Gaskell
Post-Apocalyptic SF: The Windfarmer's Guest, by Lucas Ahlsen
Steampunk: Night of the Manticore, by Tony Pi
Time Travel: Wikihistory, by Desmond Warzel
Space Opera: Godspeed, Inc., by Vincent Miskell
Spy-fi: Lace Downstairs by Arkady Martine
Science Fantasy: Hatyasin, by Ratti Mehrotra
Sword & Sorcery: The Three, by Travis Daniel Bow
Urban Fantasy: Fade to Gunmetal by Jeremy Sim
Fairy Tale: Unicorn's Rest by Jill Knowles
Dark Fantasy: The Last Tower, by C.J. Cherryh
Gothic fantasy: The Midnight Girls, by Lisa A. Koosis
Gods & Demons fiction: Twice Given, by Lindsey Duncan
Mythic Fiction: Mimosa, by Greg Forshaw
Superhero Fiction: The Last Love of the Infinity Age, by Peter Darbyshire
Ghost Story: Her Long Hair Shining, by Simon Kewin
Do you find that people's definition of what is superversive is pretty similar? Or is there a wide variety?
No one even knows what “superversive” is.
You've given us a wonderful treasure trove of superversive stories to investigate here. Are there any pointers you might want to share with authors who might wish to write a superversive piece?
Let's talk about what “superversive” means; I think it might be a new term to some of your readers. It's a fairly new word. The Urban Dictionary defines Superversive this way: nurturing; supportive, building up — opposite of subversive.
Nurturing also includes tough love. Sometime science fiction and fantasy peels back the gloss of civilization and the everyday to remind us that human nature can be cruel or selfish or flawed–what the Judeo-Christian tradition calls “fallen.” Our story, “Snatch Me Another,” shows the consequences when the world's economy becomes totally dependent on theft from other universes. It's chaos. Tough love always has consequences, and that's why stories of “What if people had this magical power” or 'What if we had a technology that could do “X”?' are so often cautionary tales.
What is the hardest part about your job as a superversive editor?
*Grin* I ditched the hardest part when I decreed we would not look at horror stories. We do not like hopelessness, unless, of course, it is a consequence earned by intentional, unfortunate actions. Even then, stories of redemption are satisfying. Very satisfying. Or why did we all get choked up when Darth Vader chose his son over the Emperor, even though it meant death?
What is the most rewarding part?
I love helping those who paint pictures on the minds of men – with words. There is a rush in finding a story I know will resonate with others, and a real joy in helping the new writer get across the story that is in their head, or showing them where they've made a wrong turning.
Do you have trouble finding enough superversive stories? And, if so, do you ever find yourself under pressure to accept a well-written story you don't really care for to fill the space?
We have trouble finding enough exceptional stories, things worth publishing. This is entirely our fault, since we take unsolicited manuscripts, and that means kissing a lot of frogs before you find a prince! We also do not pay more than $75 per story, so when writers get really good they tend to leave us for better paying gigs. That's okay.
As to pressure? Pfft! I run this mag, I print what I want, end of story. The only times I've ever felt the slightest push to publish something was years ago, when under pressure from a staff member, who simply thought they knew better than me, I published a story I knew would bomb and the critics completely agreed with my warning analysis. That person has since moved on, their lesson learned.
I've noticed certain unnamed genre critics having a propensity toward [not] recommending stories that had happy endings or humor. I'm not there to reinforce their negative world view, though.
You mentioned a Muslim superversive story, which sounds intriguing. Do you get many submissions with a Christian theme, or do SF and Christianity tend to shy away from each other?
We get all religions. That Muslim superversive story would be “Mind-Diver,” by Vylar Kaftan, which tells about a Muslim doctor who enters wounded psyches, to heal. Or would it be , a story about a Muslim man in space coming to grips with his wife's death? We've done some Jewish SF, too: Lavie Tidhar's “Out of the Blue” , a few golem stories (most notably Emmet, Joey and the Beelz) and Joanie Steinwachs' “The Number of Angels in Hell,” which tells a story of a fall and personal redemption in a rather horrific way (consequences, again.) Buddhist SF stories include “Bodhisattva Breath,” and “Incarnation in the Delta.” And we get Christian stories. “The Third Attractor,” for example, has a priest as a major character, and is about AIs and mathematical proof of an eternal soul. Then there's the overtly Christian “God's Guitar” There are even alien theologies in stories like “A Time To Weep” and “Nine Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Four Days.”
When you start avoiding the Big Questions, it get boring. But in all the above cases imperfect humans ran up against their flaws, blind spots, and misconceptions, and grew.
Fantasy is the genre that seems to shy away from Christianity. Unless you're Tolkien writing about Christ-figures like returning kings and faithful servants, or C.S. Lewis writing about Christ, period (Aslan), there seems a tendency for fantasy writers to make up their very own pantheons of Godknowswhat. One of the real challenges in picking fantasy stories out of the slush is to find tales that incorporate anything that is not a made-up religion, or avoids religion altogether. I usually chose things based in on historical religious setting or traditions, such as the druids in “The Fifer of Moments” and the Japanese celestial in “The Heaviest Dream.” A good find was “Affairs of Honor” as it talks about how magic would affect Revolutionary war-time America, a deeply Christian environment. But, A&A fantasy picks just don't talk about their religions as much as in our SF.
In all cases, values like honor and trustworthiness being rewarded and dishonorable behavior being punished seem to resonate with our readers. Call it Karma, if you will.
Do you think superversive stories can help those going through dark times find the light at the end of the tunnel?
You mean, like restoring their faith in humanity? Maybe. All I know is that JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Asimov, Lois McMaster Bujold, Anne McCaffrey. Cj Cherryh, Connie Willis, Phillp K Dick, Kelly Link, Will McIntosh, Nancy Kress, and other writers keep pulling me out of dark times. They graciously let me inhabit the worlds they've created and I am richer as a result.
Tolkien, in his essay “On Fairy Stories” said that the work of fantasy was to, basically, get us outside of this world so we can get a good look at where we are: perspective. When times are tough it's good to rest the mind on favorite books or nibble on new adventures in new lands. Whether it's a trip to Faerie or outer space, A&A hopes to be your travel agent.
In closing, we are very grateful for Wendy’s insights and grateful to know that Abyss & Apex Magazine may hold many yet undiscovered gems to delight the superversive-yearning heart.
Check out Abyss & Apex
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February 7, 2015
February 6, 2015
Superversive Short Fiction — And To The Republic by Rachel Kolar
Hey folks,
A special treat: an alternate history Superversive story by author Rachel Kolar (who explains that early attempts to write this story with a Christian protagonist didn't work.)
And to the Republic
by Rachel Kolar
I tried to keep my face calm as I read the attachment, even though on the inside I was screaming curses to Jupiter. I couldn’t send Antonia an email from work about the problem – centurions had access to the work computers of Republic employees, everyone knew that, and even though I’d been a model employee for my entire life you never knew when they were going to do a random sweep – so I waited until the end of the work day to call her. I didn’t hurry out the door, since that would raise suspicion. Instead, I stopped at the shrines as I always did, lighting my incense to Mercury for a safe commute and to Washington, Lincoln, and the paters patriae for the health of the Republic, before sliding behind the wheel of my car and punching my sister’s number into my cell phone.
“Hello?” Antonia’s voice was cheery. That wouldn’t last long.
“Hey, it’s Lavinia.” I unclipped the badge with the fire of Vesta from my jacket and slipped it into my pocket. “We need to talk.”
“We’re talking now.”
“Toni.” I tried to keep the annoyance from my tone, and the fear. “You’re being inspected next week.”
“What? Why?” There was a jagged edge of panic to her voice.
“I don’t think anyone suspects anything. I’d never have been allowed to see your name on the list if they did. This is a random inspection, and as long as we get your shrine up to date before Monday, everything should be fine.”
“How do you know it’s random? Maybe they’re testing you. Maybe the vestals bugged your phone.”
February 5, 2015
Superversive Blog Guest Post: The Life Cycle of A Manuscript
The below post was written for Superversive SF by author Brian Niemerer, whose manuscript I had the honor of reviewing for him last summer.
The Life Cycle of a Manuscript
On a recent episode of Geek Gab, a listener asked me an excellent question: when is a manuscript ready for an editor? That questions got me thinking about my own writing and editing process, because to my knowledge no two writers follow exactly the same steps.
Honestly, my approach to preparing works for submission has varied depending on the length, market, and even genre of the piece; and my system continues to evolve as I learn more from experience and research. (NB: I highly recommend On Writing by Stephen King, especially for newcomers to the craft.)
Nevertheless, I thought I'd give a rundown of my current favored method for writing and revising manuscripts. Who knows? Someone may find it useful.
Outline: most fiction authors create outlines of their novels before the writing actually starts. There's no set format or length for outlines; they can range in size from scene-by-scene summaries of the book to one or two page sketches. Some authors (like King) don't outline at all. Trial and error have shown me that I am not one of them. My novel outlines generally run 5-10 pages; for short stories it's usually 1 or 2–enough to set the bounds of the story and chart the narrative structure.
By way of explanation, I tend to structure each of my novels as a succession of multiple three act or seven point narratives within an overarching frame. So I make sure to note every hook, complication, climax, and resolution in the outline.
First Draft: when I start writing, I more or less follow the outline, filling in the blanks while giving myself enough flexibility to draw outside the lines if it serves the story. I estimate that I stick to the outline about 60 percent of the time, and about 40 percent is improvised.
Only I ever see my first draft. It's not for anyone else.
Second Draft: after letting the first draft ferment a while–sometimes a few weeks–I'll go back for a second pass. This part always involves trimming tons of unnecessary words; sometimes cutting whole scenes to improve pacing. I'll also double check spelling and grammar.
For the rest: Please follow this link and enjoy the rest of Brian's article at Superversive SF.
Thanks, folks!
