James Pyles's Blog, page 81

The Hugo Award Will Not Be Renamed and Why Are All Conservatives (seemingly) Called Alt-Right?

I recently wrote three related blog posts: Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award Acceptance Speech and Here We Go Again, Science Fiction, Opinions, and Why It’s Okay to Disagree, and especially The Sins of John W. Campbell Revisited. That last one started something of a minor storm in the comments section at File 770, Mike Glyer’s popular […]

The Sins of John W. Campbell Revisited

Just for giggles, I revisited the comments at File 770‘s article Storm Over Campbell Award. As you may recall from my own wee missive Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award Acceptance Speech and Here We Go Again, Ms Ng, a fantasy writer based in the UK, was recently given the John W. Campbell award for best new […]

Review: “Shadows in Zamboula” by Robert E. Howard

  Shadows in Zamboula is a classic Robert E. Howard tale of Conan the Barbarian. I read it to get my head in the right space for crafting a “Sword and Sorcery” short story, and I wasn’t disappointed. Howard’s Conan is the best version of the character ever, even after eighty or so years. The […]

Review: “The Dunwich Horror” by H.P. Lovecraft

I read The Dunwich Horror by H.P Lovecraft as inspiration for a story I have been crafting. I’ve read Lovecraft before, but that was decades ago, so I expected the unexpected from this expedition into his classic horror. Since the story is old (1928) and beyond its copyright, I looked for it at The Gutenberg […]

Science Fiction, Opinions, and Why It’s Okay to Disagree

I just read an article at File 770 called Waukegan Public Library Unveils Ray Bradbury Statue (click the link and read, the story’s pretty short). Waukegan was Bradbury’s hometown and I’m thrilled to see that he is being honored. He is a truly timeless writer, and I can prove it, since my 33-year-old son Michael […]

“The Toilet Zone” is Available Now

I know that sounds terrible, but my short story “Retired” is featured in the Hellbound Books horror anthology The Toilet Bowl, a fanciful send up on “The Twilight Zone.” It’s already got one 5-star review on the American Amazon site. Things are looking up. Please buy, read, and review. Thanks. EDIT: That’s “Zone” not “Bowl.” […]

“The Toilet Bowl” is Available Now

I know that sounds terrible, but my short story “Retired” is featured in the Hellbound Books horror anthology The Toilet Bowl, a fanciful send up on “The Twilight Zone.” It’s already got one 5-star review on the American Amazon site. Things are looking up. Please buy, read, and review. Thanks. Advertisements

Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award Acceptance Speech and Here We Go Again

Here we go again. British fantasy writer Jeannette Ng was presented with the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at Worldcon recently, the 47th winner. Of course, she accepted the award, and then began to rip the late John W. Campbell apart, calling him, among other things, a fascist. An edited copy of […]

The First 500 Words

Something new happened when I tried to submit a short story to a publisher via the platform Submittable. There was no option to upload my Word file. There was only a field to paste in up to the first 500 words of the story. I looked at the publisher’s specifications again and they said they’d […]

The Latest From the Rejection Files

I’ve received three story rejections within a relatively short space of time recently, which is disheartening. The first one was a long shot I sent to Uncanny Magazine. I wasn’t surprised when they sent a very speedy rejection email back to me, but I figured “worth a shot.” Of course that means the short SciFi […]