This is a long, loooong overdue announcement, my short story "Fated Ink" was featured in PodCastle's Artemis Arising 3. The story isn't fully in print, but you can listen to it for free here. Unfortunately, my last name was misspelled; not sure how I missed it.
The narrator in "Fated Ink" is the gypsy from Ray Bradbury’s "The Illustrated Man," the one who gave the protagonist his tattoos. She didn't have any screen time in the original, but I thought she was fascinating and deserving of her own story. Fun character, might do more with her.
"Fated Ink" also marks my second SFWA sale, which is awesome even if I have no interest in joining SFWA.
Next up, a long time favorite, "The Ungreat Escape" also received a podcast release over at The Way of the Buffalo. It's free to listen to, just click here!
The awesome guys over at Farstrider Magazine have published Of Turnips and Maidens, a sort of sequel to Turnip Farmers Are Heroes Too from On Spec--the style and voice are different, but both star a turnip-whispering farmer and his unruly turnips. This time our protagonist, Turner, helps a nymph while deflecting advances made by a not-so-shiny knight.
And because submitting short stories is itself a story... Originally, Of Turnips and Maidens was rejected by Farstrider Magazine for their first issue, but oh man, was the rejection sincere:
This was a particularly tough call for me. I genuinely enjoyed it, and if I had a bigger budget I would be proud to feature your story. I truly hope that you keep in touch as you continue to write and hope that you will submit again in the future.
Time goes on, submit the story to a few other places--no one else wants it. So when I see Farstrider is open to submissions for their second issue, and since this was the closest place to accepting Of Turnips and Maidens, I queried asking if I could resubmit. I know conventional wisdom says not to resubmit a rejected story, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. The important thing is to ask. Lo and behold it resulted in an acceptance.
So now you can read Of Turnips and Maidensfor free online! Cheers!
"Lessons in Blade and Barrier" is a finalist in previously said contest, and I guess my story would be representing the long undervalued Sword & Sorcery genre; and what better way to represent it with anthropomorphized garden fauna set against feudal Japan background. Why anthropomorphized lizard and mantis? You might as well ask, "Why the Ninja Turtles"? To me it's all supposed to be good actiony fun. Best of all, it's free to read!
The blade
surged forward, more lightning than steel. The very air went dense with static.
Izo tumbled more than dodged, leaped quickly to his feet, but found his balance
off. There on the ground was his right forearm, clawed fingers clenching his
katana.
“No,” he
gasped, throat suddenly dry. This couldn’t be real, just couldn’t. He didn’t feel anything missing. Eyes squeezed
shut, he used his left hand to probe where his right forearm should be. His
hand came away wet. He put two clawtips to his mouth, tasted iron and salt.
Only then
did he cry out.
The winner of the contest goes to have a ten-part serial (and more money), expanding the world/story that the author has established.
However, the contest is a bit broken. After you vote, you can see how many votes each story has, something I think should be hidden, otherwise an author knows how many friends and family to gather to beat the highest number. Last I checked, all I needed was 30+ votes to beat Fly Red Fox. But I don't feel all that compelled to rally 30+ votes, and Fly Red Fox is a pretty decent story.
I do commend Fiction Vortex for trying something new and hope this contest leads to more potential serials, something that I think is quite lacking in most magazines. For me, I don't need a serial to write sequels, though if an editor complains about wanting more characters/world then they should sign me up for a serial! Seriously, there's only so much you can fit in a 3K story.
I've been watching Cinemassacre's Monster Madness of late, and reminded of how many awesome horror movies are out there, the majority I haven't even seen.
PC game: The Cat Lady
Here's my pick of movies that I hope to watch before the month is over. Though no shame if the movie-watching spilleth over into November. And the best thing? All these movies are available on Netflix!
From Beyond - From the same director as Re-Animator--which I've seen, so I already know this is going to be a gory masterpiece. Also another loose adaptation of Lovecraft's work.
Brain Damage - Drugs addiction, parasitic turd-looking worm alien, and nom-nom brains--what's not to love?
Rodger Cormen's Poe films - I've seen many of these before as a youngster and loved them all. Then I'd go read the original stories to compare and contrast. Also you don't need a better reason than Vincent Price. The Body Snatcher - Title says it all. Another film with an iconic horror star Boris Karloff (aka Universal's Frankenstein).
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown - Obviously a classic. Boyfriend hasn't seen it--this needs to be corrected.
Nightbreed - Meant to watch this last year for Halloween but never got to it. I enjoyed Clive Barker's Hellraiser, and even listened to the audio version (as told by Barker himself) of the novella it's based on, The Hellbound Heart.
The Cat Lady - This isn't a movie, but rather a point 'n click adventure game, which are very story-driven, so might as well be a movie (sic). I had downloaded this some summer ago when it was on sale and kinda forgot. The premise: A lonely cat lady commits suicide and in the afterlife, meets the Queen of Maggots. The Cat Lady is denied an end to her suffering unless she eliminate several "parasites" in the living in world.
Seeing as it's Spooky Month--or at least ten more days of it--why not get in the Halloween spirit with a classic documentary? And by classic, I mean 1921, black and white silent film, Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages.
I enjoy documentaries and this one in particular is neat, partly do to its age, but also some great imagery. It's definitely not your typical documentary--think of it as more of a prototype.
The documentary starts off with informative bits, setting up the time and place when witchcraft was widely believed to be real. I'm not sure how historically accurate this part are, but the director does cite his sources, although I don't know if you can find those sources anymore. There's still images straight from books to help illustrate the information. This part feels more like a lecture, even has a pointer!
Next parts are the best, with live action skits reliving the Dark Ages and the supernatural beliefs that existed back then. Often the belief in the supernatural was enough to make it real, with poeple claiming to have seen the devil. Oh, and the devil in this, played by the director, is awesome, always wagging his forked-tongue. One of my favorite depictions. Seemed like the director had a hell of a time playing the devil.
The Black Sabbath scenes are great too. Phantom witches flying through the air, devils cuddling with their witch-mates, kissing the ass of Satan, throwing rubber babies into cauldrons, spreading ointment on a witch's back while the skeleton of a horse walks past, and a devil furiously churning butter. It's pure awesomeness.
Despite the fun, there is a serious tone. An old beggar woman is accused of witchcraft and is totured until she confesses to what the Inquisition wants to hear. The old beggar woman goes on to blame others of witchcraft, and it just snowballs from there.The old and poor were often targeted, likely because they were easy scapegoats.
The final segment links witchcraft to modern day (aka 1921); odd behaviors that were considered signs of witchcraft, now are symptoms of mental illness. Though back in that day, they committed people to asylums, which may not have been much better than torture.
The director poses some interesting questions at the end, how despite taking better care of the old and poor, and better notice of the mentally ill, society still hasn't done enough.
And the little woman whom we call hysterical, alone and unhappy, isn't she still a riddle for us?
Sadly, I think even in today's society, she would still be a riddle for us.
Check it out. it's free on Youtube. I recommend the silent version over the narrated one, due to the narrated version adding jazz music, which is extremely inappropriate when there are scenes of torture. And honestly, it's not that much to read.
Do you like space? Do you like opera? Do you like the two combined? Well you're in luck! Speculative fictioneer Milo James Fowler has rounded up some awesome space opera tales in BEYOND: Space Opera.
In the vein of Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and Guardians of the Galaxy,
this space opera collection includes humorous action and adventure
alongside stories with heart. These tales won’t leave you in the pits of
despair. Instead, they’ll lift your spirits, taking you to places
unknown.
You’ll travel the stars to far-flung
planets, meeting heroic humans and aliens alike — even a mech and a
clone. There may be lions and jet packs, to boot. No pigs in this space,
but otherwise, all bets are off.
Included in this collection:
"Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the Kolarii Kidnappers on Zeta Colony 6" Milo James Fowler
BEYOND: Space Opera is available from Amazon, Smashword, and Barnes & Noblefor free! And if you like the feel of paper between your fingers, there's a print edition too!
If you want to know more, BEYOND: Space Opera has its own website to check out.
Advertising aside, I'm glad to see "The Ungreat Escape" out there again. I was disappointed when Cosmos removed all their short stories from their website, and considering that I didn't have an easy time placing this story... well, yeah, it's nice to see some appreciation for it. As I've said before, I like Lorelei--she's a twit, but she's my twit.
I also said I'd write an eventual sequel ... which never materialized. Humor is such a hard sell, to the point where it's near impossible. And it sucks. As a writer, you want to write more humor, but you also want to sell stories.
Though the future is bright, even if the short story market is not, so maybe they'll yet be another Lorelei misadventure.
Again, I'm behind on announcing short story pubs. I do absolutely want to announce this one since the editor, Sam Bellotto Jr., is an awesome dude and probably deserves more credit than the likes of Lois Tilton give him. (She wants Hard Stuff, huh? I get ya. *wink wink*) "Froggers" is my latest story from Perihelion Science Fiction, and is actually one of my oldest stories too; as in, it's seen A LOT of rejections. Despite what some silly editor said, thinking this was about current events, it's not. This pre-dates current events by a few years. Though I do have this crystal ball...
And step up they did. One frogger—maybe male, but then again, they all
looked the same—faced me on the terminal, its beady obsidian eyes on
either side of its head stared at me. Always gave me the shivers. The
scanner materialized a 3D form of the frogger’s body: bipedal humanoid
with massive gut, thick neck, and wide flat head. The scan revealed
active cultures churning in the frogger’s bowels, crawling on its slick
skin. Froggers were best buds with these microorganisms, couldn’t live
without them. Just watching those yellow dots dance all over the 3D
form made me want to toss up lunch.
So we follow cynical Joen as his day only gets worse--snot rockets, anyone? Eck! Then from worse to weird.
Funny thing: this story, like Neither Heaven Nor Hell, was originally written in 3rd-person, but once again, an editor of another magazine didn't "get" my 3rd-person style (which is written very close to the character's perspective) and asked for a change. That editor of course never got back to me. Go figure.
In other news, "The Ungreat Escape" will be in Milo James Fowler's upcoming space opera collection, called BEYOND. More about that on its release date of August 15th!
