Marty Halpern's Blog, page 39

Observed in the Wilds of San Francisco

I was hoping for a photograph or two from an indie bookstore, since the only pics I've seen so far of Alien Contact in the wild are at B&N stores....




So a special "thank you" to Jude Feldman at the best genre bookstore on the West Coast (and possibly even points farther):



Borderlands Books , 866 Valencia Street, San Francisco 94110







Note: When I asked Jude (via email) about the brown something in the top right corner of the photograph, she responded: "...the brown/black thing you're seeing in the background is a portion of a steampunk art piece that's mounted on the wall. It's called The Triparator and it was made by Dr. Alan Rorie."

Another Alien Contact Giveaway

If you read my guest blog post yesterday on determining story order, posted on The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review blog, then you hopefully read at the end of the post that there would be a giveaway announced the next day for Alien Contact .




Well, today is that next day, and the giveaway has gone live. Please check out Mad Hatter's Review blog for a chance to win a copy of Alien Contact. The giveaway is open to both US and non-US residents, and the deadline is midnight, December 31st.




Happy New Year everyone! And happy reading!

Story Order (Or, Developing the TOC)

Are you the type of reader who picks a story at random to read in an anthology, or do you always begin at the beginning, and read the stories in the order that they have been presented? If the latter, have you ever thought about the actual order of the stories: Why did the editor begin the anthology with this particular story? Why is the longest story in the middle (or near the beginning, or toward the end)? Why are these other stories back to back, and why does the book end with this other story?

The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf and Book Review blog invited me to write a guest blog post, which I gladly accepted. And for my guest post I wrote about the process I went through to determine the story order -- the table of contents -- for my Alien Contact anthology. I had 26 stories to work with, and I had to place them in an order that would both intrigue and motivate the reader to continue reading, to finish the book, and hopefully result in a positive reading experience.

Here are a couple excerpts from my guest post:

...the readers who begin at the beginning--the introduction--and then read the stories in the order they are presented, these are the readers I must be concerned with. For them, the story order--the overall experience of reading the book in its entirety--is what makes, or breaks, the anthology.

[...]

As a group, these criteria affect the flow of the anthology. Place a lot of dark, depressing, overly long stories together and quite possibly I'll lose a lot of my readers. Each story needs to encourage the reader to want to move on to the next story, and the next, and so on, until the reader reaches the end of the book.

I specify the five criteria I use to assist me in determining story order, and I also provide some thoughts on a few specific stories.

Story order is something I take great pride in....



And check back at Mad Hatter's Review for yet another Alien Contact giveaway.

Observed in the Wilds of Akron

Alien Contact

Barnes & Noble, 4015 Medina Road, Akron, Ohio 44333.









This B&N staffer hamming it up in the pic just happens

to be my cousin, David Halpern.

Alien Contact Gets the Silver Treatment

When I posted the first review of my Alien Contact anthology, I noted the importance of online book reviewers/book bloggers and book review sites such as Goodreads: all critical resources to those who read and purchase books. There will be no shortage of reviews of Stephen King's 11/22/63 this holiday season. I even found copies of King's book at Costco. But what I want to learn more about are the lesser known indie/small press titles, and authors, and so I am especially grateful to those who review and support these types of books.




One such book reviewer is Steven Silver, who publishes his reviews under Silver Reviews, hosted online by SFSite. In Steven's most recent review, for Alien Contact, he writes:

...In 1898, H. G. Wells described that first contact as a Martian invasion of England's Horsell Common resulting in death and mayhem until the aliens are brought low. Murray Leinster wrote about a less dire alien contact in 1945, in which humans and aliens worked to ensure they wouldn't destroy each other. Editor Marty Halpern has now brought together twenty-six stories of alien contact in a book called, appropriately enough, Alien Contact.




[...]




Karen Joy Fowler is responsible for writing one of the strangest first contact stories ever published, the novel Sarah Canary, so the inclusion of her story "Face Value" is quite fitting, and quite different from her famous novel. In this story, as with so many other first contact stories, part of the puzzle that needs to be solved revolves around finding a means of communication between two different species, a theme which dates back to Leinster's "First Contact."




[...]




The stories Halpern has selected not only demonstrate the different slants authors can take on...alien contact, but also explore what it means to be alien in different ways and also depict numerous writing styles, with humor, drama, military, and nostalgia all playing a role. As these stories demonstrate, the science fiction genre provides a playground in which authors cane use the tropes and styles of a wide variety of other genres in crafting entertaining, as well as insightful, stories.

In his review, Steven mentions a number of other stories in the anthology, in addition to the story by Karen Joy Fowler. Please head on over to Silver Reviews for the full review of Alien Contact, which has been published by Night Shade Books.

November Links & Things

I've been rather quiet here of late, as I just completed work on a project for Penguin/Ace Books that I had been anticipating for a couple months. I'll provide a bit of a teaser here by saying that I've just finished "the laundry" -- neatly pressed. So, now that this project is behind me (and I hope to do a blog post about it soon), I plan on being a bit more visible here. Or, at least I hope to be a bit more visible here. One can never tell, especially these days. Regardless, please don't give up on me.




Onward: This is my monthly wrap-up of November's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column. 


Ernest Hogan (@NestoHogan), a contributing author to the Alien Contact anthology ["Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song"], has recently written a blog post on La Bloga, entitled "Chicanonautica: The Lone Sci-Fi Chicano?" in which he wonders if he may just be the only Chicano science fiction writer. If you are a Chicano SF/Fantasy author, or know of an author, please let Ernesto know by posting a comment to his blog post.






Author Andrew Fox has informed me that his novel, The Good Humor Man, or Calorie 3501 (which I edited for Tachyon Publications) has been released in a variety of ebook formats. The link here is to the Kindle edition, but you'll find the ebook at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and other online sellers. The novel was described by Kage Baker as "a Fahrenheit 451 for the post-millennium, told with Fox's magnificent evocation of place and twisted humor..." For more details, here's a link to my blog post from 19 February 2009 on the novel, and Tachyon Publications.






If you are a book reader and/or a book collector, then you undoubtedly are familiar with ABEBooks.com (@AbeBooks), which recently posted a concise history of Amazing Stories magazine. You can find lengthier, more detailed histories elsewhere online, but what makes this article special are the more than 25 full-color covers, including the first Amazing Stories Annual from 1927. The article falls short, however, by not mentioning that the "Amazing Stories" name has recently been acquired by Steve Davidson, who has formed an editorial board and commissioned cover art. Check out my September and October Links & Things posts for details.






Looking for fellow gamers for your game group? NeedGamers.com wants to help by being a registry for all flavors of gamer. (via @ProfBeard)






On November 7 I purchased the new Stephen King novel, 11/22/63. How could I not purchase a book in which time travel is used to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination? The week before the book was released, Wired Magazine featured an interview with King in which he set forth his "Rules for Time Travel." King and Wired discuss the "butterfly effect," alternate timelines, and more. At the end of the interview, when asked if he'll write about time travel again, King responds: "No, this is it. Absolutely not. No, that's done. It's like Apollo Creed says, 'Ain't gonna be no rematch.'" (via @io9)








Did you write your 50,000 words in November as a participant in the annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? In support of NaNoWriMo, Susan J. Morris posted an entry on Amazon's Omnivoracious blog entitled "The Quick and Dirty Outline." Ms. Morris begins: "I have a love-hate relationship with outlines." After a few pros and cons, she writes: "There are as many different methods for outlining as there are authors out there. That being said here is one method I've used and recommend for quickly and efficiently turning your idea into an outline." Step 1: Find the Heart of Your Idea; Step 2: Expand on Your Idea; and Step 3: Put the Pieces In Order. Follow the link for the details behind the steps.






Deborah J. Ross (@DeborahJRoss) tackles "Critiquing Vs. Editing" in a November blog post: "The most useful things I find in critiques are reader reactions, comments like, 'I'm confused,' or 'This doesn't make sense,' or 'I don't believe this character would act this way.' Or, simply, 'Huh? You've got to be kidding!'...such comments tell me where there is a problem. The reader may be right about what the problem is, or what they object to may be the tip of an iceberg and the true problem lies elsewhere. In critique format, I really, really don't want to be told how to fix those problems, and I don't know any writers who do."






"What Inspires Sara Zarr" -- a blog post by, you guessed it, Sara Zarr (@sarazarr) in which she begins: "I'm inspired by failure. Which is a good thing, because right now I've got a first draft of a new book in front of me, and it feels like a massive pile of FAIL. (I should note: this is my book.)" You'll also want to check out the 70 comments. (via Deborah J. Ross's Facebook page)






At Broad Universe, Morgan Dempsey (@geardrops) discusses the subject: "What Makes YA?" If you are writing (or planning to write) a YA novel, you'll want to consider these points that Dempsey covers, in detail: 1) How Old? Old Enough (And then maybe a teensy bit older); 2) Subject Matters (But maybe not in the way you'd think...); 3) The Voice; 4) Take It to the Slushpile; 5) Are You Sure You're Writing YA?; 6) Do You Remember What It's Like to be Fifteen?; and 7) Stories Can, and Should, Be Simple. (via @ScapeZine)






A new blog, ePubSecrets (@ePUBSecrets), has been launched to, as the blog says, "help you with all things ePUB." This new site is the brainchild of David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion, the people behind InDesignSecrets. If you are into DIY ePub, you'll find some worthwhile resources here. (via @ebooknewser)






Speaking of ebooks (and POD): Book buyers must now watch out for bogus, stolen material being sold as ebooks or POD -- this, according to a blog post from noted SF author Jerry Pournelle. The bogus publisher of note is Hephaestus Books (though the publisher could easily change names); what these guys do is scrape together information from, say Wikipedia, on hot or noteworthy authors, and then publish it under some bogus title on Amazon.com, B&N.com, etc. You, the reader, look for some new material by said author, and the next thing you know, you've been scammed, and at a very high price, too. Author John Scalzi (@scalzi) brought this to the attention of his army of followers in a blog post entitled "Beware the Wikipedia Scrapers"; Scalzi includes a link to Pournelle's post as well. (via @Pixelfish)






Unless you've been hiding out in a hobbit hole, you know that the current economy has resulted in a depressed job market. However, if you have the right stuff, there is hope: NASA is accepting applications for astronaut positions. You can apply here. Look for the heading "Astronaut Selection Resources," and then click on the link "Apply to be an Astronaut." And watch the cool one-and-a-half-minute vid. (via @boingboing)

Observed in the Wild

Alien Contact



Barnes & Noble, Eastridge Shopping Center, San Jose, California:

The Guardian Aliens

If you happen to reside in the United Kingdom -- and if you were to read the reviews section in today's issue of The Guardian -- you would have seen Keith Brooke's review of Alien Contact .

Keith Brooke is the mastermind behind infinity plus . Though the site hasn't been active since 2007 (it was launched in August 1997), the archives remain online, and if you are a fan and/or student of science fiction and fantasy, you need to have this site bookmarked for reference. As the website itself states: "more than 2.1 million words of fiction, 1000 book reviews and 100 interviews." And now, under the infinity plus banner, Keith is publishing infinity plus singles -- "science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime ebooks for Kindle, Nook and other e-readers."

Of course, not everyone resides in the U.K, and even those who do don't necessarily subscribe to The Guardian. So, the Alien Contact review can also be found on The Guardian online. Keith's review is short, but sweet, and concludes with: "As with any collection, it's easy to debate the editor's choices, but in most cases the selections are spot on, making this an anthology which, restrictive as the theme might appear, serves as an excellent snapshot of modern SF."

I like that: "serves as an excellent snapshot of modern SF."

"Angel" -- A Visitor of a Different Kind

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo


On July 21, nearly halfway into my 26-week project to blog about each of the 26 stories included in Alien Contact , I introduced Story #12 -- Pat Cadigan's "Angel."

As with Jack Skillingstead's story "What You Are About to See," which was recently posted on the Night Shade Books website (ref: this blog post), when I posted my original blog about Story #12, I had Pat's permission at that time to reprint her story online in its entirety -- and I really wanted to do so, right here on More Red Ink. But io9.com had expressed an interest in a guest blog post from Pat, and, as a follow-up, I suggested they also post her story, "Angel," to which they agreed.

So, after much impatient waiting on my part, Pat Cadigan's very astute, very personal guest blog post -- entitled "Why Science Fiction Writers Love Meeting the Other" -- is now available on io9 for your reading pleasure.

In her guest blog post, Pat writes:

One of the first SF books I ever bought was an anthology called Invaders of Earth, edited by Groff Conklin.... Invaders of Earth was divided into three sections — invaders in the past, the present, and the future. I wish I could lay hands on that old book and name all the stories and authors.1 I do remember Mildred Clingerman's "Minister Without Portfolio," in which a grandmother fails to recognise green-skinned people as aliens because she's colour-blind; there was also a story by Donald Wollheim about an attempted invasion by alien weather, and "The Greatest Tertian," told by Martians who uncover evidence on a dead Earth of its greatest hero, Sherk Oms.



Times sure have changed.



They've changed so much that if you were to put Conklin's Invaders of Earth side by side with Alien Contact, edited by Marty Halpern, you'd be tempted to think they were books from different planets. Which, of course, they are. The past isn't merely a different country — it's a whole different world.

There are nearly 1,500 words to this guest blog post; and if you enjoy reading speculative fiction, and alien contact stories in particular, you'll find much to appreciate in her essay.



And then, much to my delight, a few days later io9 graciously posted the full text of Pat's multi-award-nominated story "Angel." I still wish the story was here, on my blog, but I realize that the io9 website gets thousands (and thousands) of daily hits, which will definitely bring "Angel" -- and Pat Cadigan -- to the attention of a wider audience. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I do!



P.S. One of the commenters to Pat's guest blog post included the following quote, which impressed me enough to include it here, just in case you don't read those blog comments:

Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?



— The Prophecy, 1995, First Look Pictures

---------------

Footnote:

1 Courtesy of the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB.org), here are the contents to Groff Conklin's Invaders of Earth; sadly the listing isn't broken down in the three groups -- past, present, and future -- to which Pat refers. However, the online listing does include four additional uncredited essays having to do with the past and future. One other comment: I'm presenting the stories here as they are listed on ISFDB; you'll note that they are not in any particular order, so I'm assuming this may be the order (the Introduction aside) in which the stories appear in the anthology:

Invaders of Earth, Groff Conklin, editor, Vanguard Press, 1952.

"The Waveries" (1945) by Fredric Brown "Tiny and the Monster" (1947) by Theodore Sturgeon "Castaway" (1941) by Robert Moore Williams "Not Only Dead Men" (1942) by A. E. van Vogt "The Man in the Moon" (1943) by Henry A. Norton "Impulse" (1938) by Eric Frank Russell "Minister Without Portfolio" (1952) by Mildred Clingerman "Crisis" (1951) by Edward Grendon "Angel's Egg" (1951) by Edgar Pangborn "Pen Pal" (1951) by Milton Lesser "Pictures Don't Lie" (1951) by Katherine MacLean "An Eel by the Tail" (1951) by Allen Kim Lang [as by Allen K. Lang ] "Invasion from Mars" (1938) by Howard Koch "The Discord Makers" (1950) by Mack Reynolds "Child of Void" (1949) by Margaret St. Clair "This Star Shall Be Free" (1949) by Murray Leinster "A Date to Remember" (1949) by William F. Temple "Will You Walk a Little Faster?" (1951) by William Tenn "The Greatest Tertian" by Anthony Boucher "Top Secret" (1948) by Donald A. Wollheim [as by David Grinnell ] "Enemies in Space" (1907) by Karl Grunert "Storm Warning" (1942) by Donald A. Wollheim [as by Millard Verne Gordon ] "Introduction" by Groff Conklin

Alien Contact -- Another Giveaway, Another Review

During the past three weeks, speculative fiction blog SF Signal has hosted a series of guest blog posts and interviews with some of the Alien Contact authors. I've been posting the links here on More Red Ink, but if you're just learning about this now, or you think you may have missed one of the guest posts or an interview or two -- SF Signal has graciously posted a recap, with links, of the entire series.




And, for the denouement, SF Signal is currently hosting an Alien Contact giveaway: a signed (by me) copy of the print edition for the winning U.S. resident, and a copy of the ebook edition (MOBI or EPUB) for the winning non-U.S. resident. The giveaway ends on November 22, so readers still have four more days to add their name to the proverbial hat. Details.



* * * *



Here's a recent review of Alien Contact that appeared in Library Journal:

Alien Contact. Night Shade. Dec. 2011. c.500p. ed. by Marty Halpern. ISBN 9781597802819. pap. $15.99. SF




From Paul McAuley's lyrically somber tale of zombielike aliens ("The Thought War") to Stephen Baxter's story of the last alien message to Earth ("Last Contact"), the 26 tales collected here demonstrate both the variety of alien-contact literature and the enduring popularity of this sf subgenre. VERDICT With strong stories from Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Mike Resnick, Pat Murphy, and other sf luminaries, this is a choice volume for sf fans and a good introduction to extraterrestial encounter stories.




— Library Journal Reviews, November 15, 2011

I'm hopeful that, with this positive review, my anthology will find its way to a lot of library shelves throughout the U.S.




Alien Contact was reviewed in LJ with a gaggle of other science fiction and fantasy titles, including two other anthologies also published by Night Shade Books. The reviews can be read in their entirety online on Reviews.LibraryJournal.com.