Early Start for November: Astounding Outpost Takes No Place to Hide
It was one of my first professional sales, by SFWA’s rules at the time, a just under 2000-word outer space tale about humans revived to be wired into spaceships called “No Place to Hide” to the now long defunct SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW. The issue was dated Summer 1991. And the story was good, it had been reprinted once or twice (notably in FANTASTIC STORIES PRESENTS: SCIENCE FICTION SUPER PACK #1, cf. November 30 2014, et al.), and then the call came from ASTOUNDING OUTPOST: We live in an amazing time, technology and humans are coexisting in a way we’ve never seen before. It also ca[image error]n be a terrifying time. What if humans and technology can’t coexist? What if the A.I. take over, or the computer viruses jump off of the net and into our biology? What if we’re just all living in a matrix? These are just some of the questions and ideas that have shaped science fiction and this call. Give us your visions of how it all plays out.
Send us your best 7500 word or less story that relates to Neural Nets, Uplinks, and Wetware. Submission is open until October 28th.
So out it went a week before deadline and yesterday afternoon came the acceptance: Thank you for your submission. We enjoyed your story and have selected it for publication. It will appear on the website during the month of November and also in the anthology that will be released on December.
And so it lies, a first sale for November, to publish some time this month though I don’t know when yet — so watch this space for more news when it comes with appropriate link. Yes, it will be a freebie, a lagniappe if one will. And yes, please read it when the time comes, because payment comes in the form of a contest, readers will be asked to vote for their favorite during the first week of December (at more or less which time the stories will also be published together in an anthology too, I believe to be in Kindle at least and possibly paper), and the high scoring winners get the most money. So look for an announcement and link on this blog as well when the magic time comes.
