Birkin, Wandrei, Brunner, and Drake: A Belated Birthday Post

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Today is September 25, but this post is for birthdays on September 24. It’s a day late.

My schedule this fall is psot office in t he morning and university afternoons and evenings. I’ve got a lecture every afternoon. On Mondays and Tuesdays, I’ve got two labs back to back as soon as I get out of class. Mondays, i get out at eight. Tuesdays, at nine. Then an hour and fifteen minuted drive home. So as far as any writing in the afternoon or evening goes: It. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

But there were enought birthdays yesterday, that I wanted to address them anyway. Continue reading →

Maybe It’s Not Dead After All: An Update on F&SF

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I am glad to report that Fantasy & Science Fiction may not be dead after all. Locus Online is quoting publisher Gordan Van Gelder as saying, “Ongoing production problems have led us to skip the Spring issue and to switch to a quarterly schedule.” There is a link to the magazine’s page on Weightless Books, but there’s no quote from Van Gelder there.

I’m not sure where Gordan said this. Locus Online didn’t provide a source. Perhaps from an interview in an upcoming issue. He’s further quoted as saying that no subscribers will miss any issues.

This is good news. F&SF has been one of the mainstays of short fantasatic fiction for almost  three quarters of a century. I wish Gordan and the magazine all the best.

However, I have some thoughts.

First, to be nitpickiing,, because it’s been that kind of day, If they skipped the Spring issue, doesn’t that mean they’ve already gone to a quarterly schedule.  And by the way, does going to quarterly drop F&SF out of the professional market category, at least as far as SFWA and awards are concerned? (Not that I really care.)

Also, even though the temperature today was around ninety-four where I am, isn’t summemr over? What about fall?

Now, some more seriouis thoughts.

I’m glad subscriptions will be honored and no subscribers will miss any issues. I renewed my subscription for two years last spring. I should be good for a while.

The table of contents is posted on this issue’s page at Weightless Books. The only two names I recognize are Esther Friesner and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Both are excellent writers. Their contributions are short stories. The remaining ten short stories and three novelettes are by people whose names I don’t recognize.

I’m all for publishing new authors. I’m not against publishing a wide array of writers from different backgrounds who might have unique voices. i get that.

But from a business perspective, in an industry in which margins are getting thinner and survival less of a certainty, shouldn’t there be more recognizable names on the cover, or at least on the table of contents?

I must admit I’ve been idsappointed in the issues I’ve managed to read in the last few years. I’m definitely going to try to read every story in this issue. I’m hoping to discover some new favorite authors (at least one). I’ll let you know what I think.

Writing Update for August and a Reprint Sale

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Yeah, I know, it’s the middle of September. I’m a little late getting this up. I’m now a full time university faculty member, plus I still have my two part-time gigs, at least for a while.

I ended August with a total word count of 67,138 words, which comes out to an average of 2166 words per day. That was my best month so far this year.

I started off a bit ahead for September, since the first two days were a holiday weekend, but I’m a day behind now. That’s because I only hit a little over a thousand words per day this past week. Labs started was one of the main reasons. I have lab until eight or nine two nights a week, which means those days the word count probably won’t be but about a thousand or so.

We’ll see how the month ends. I’m going to have to fit in at least two thousand words somewhere else in the week.

The other news is that my story “When the Cows Come Home”, which appeared in Pulphouse a few months ago, has been reprinted. It’s available in An Afterlife of Really Creepy Stories edited by Dean Wesley Smith. It’s available at the Pulphouse Store. Just click the link.

Remembering Charles L. Grant

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Today, September 12, is the birthday of Charles L. Grant (1942-2006). He passed away on September 15, just three days after sixty-fourth birthday.

I never got the chance to meet him, but he is to my mind one of the central figures of the second half of the Twentieth Century.

Grant left a legacy to the fields of dark fantasy and suspense in two ways. With his writing and with his editing.

Let’s take a look at both, shall we? Continue reading →

I’m in an Autumn Frame of Mind

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I don’t know what the temperatures have been like where you are, but around here (west central Texas), It’s been hot. You know it’s been hot when the highs are in the low to mid nineties and it feels cool. Most of the last month has seen temperatures aourn one hundred four to one hundred six, with some days hitting one ten or more.

What has that to do with autumn? Continue reading →

Thoughts on Jack Vance

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Today, as I’m writiing this, is August 28. There are several notable birthdays today. Joseph Shridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) wrote some excellent ghost stories. Then there’s comic great Jack Kirby (1917-1994). Science fiction author Vonda N. McIntyre (1948-2019).

The the one I want to focus on is Jack Vance (1916-2013).

Vance was a master of both science fiction and fantasy, and much of his work was a blend of both. He also wrote a few mysteries, which Subterranean Press collected in an omnibus about a decade or so back.

Vance’s crowning achievement was The Dying Earth, a sequence of stories set in the far future, where the sun had become a red giant. The physical laws of the universe have changed, and magic works. Continue reading →

Anthology Submissions Update

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Back in the last part of June and into July, I submitted six stories to six anthologies. These were themed anthologies, and to be eligible to submit, you  had to sign up for some writing workshops that focused on these anthologies.

I have gotten responses from the editors of four of them. I haven’t heard from the editors of the toher two yet. One of the anthologies was coedited, and the other was edited solely by one of the coeditors. In other words, that editor was involved in two anthologies.

I also know that editor was been slammed with some things that are taking up most of said editor’s time. This editor is also a writer who is posting daily to a closed group how they are doing in a challenge. The other writers taking part in the challenge, which is can you write as many or more words than this writer in a given period of time, are the ones getting the updates.

So far, I’ve gotten rejections from the editors.

However, I’ve also gotten positive feedback on what I submitted as well as some information ofn what didn’t work for some of the editors. That’s a win, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m not sure where I’m going to send the stories I’ve gotten back. I might put them in a collection myself. We’ll see.

The Versatility of Ray Bradbury

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There were a lot of birthdays yesterday, but I was up late getting things ready for the first day of class today and wasn’t able to get a post up. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that tonight.

And that’s a good thing because today, August 22, is the birthday of Ray Bradbury (1920-2012).

I had seen some of Bradbury’s paperbacks in the children’s section of  the public library in Wichita Falls when I was in fourth grade. They were the editions with a sktech of Bradbury in front of a horzontal illustration of something in the book. They were on a spinner rack  with some Twilight Zone collections, James Blish’s Star Trek novelizations, and other books. I remember that was the rack I found Planet of the Apes on.

But I digress. Continue reading →

The Enduring Legacy of H. P. Lovecraft

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Today is August 20 as I write this. It’s H. P. Lovecraft’s birthday. It’s also my mother-in-law’s, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

Lovecraft (1890-1937) is a legendary figure in the horror and weird fiction fields. I doubt he needs much  introduction here.

It took me a while to warm up to Lovecraft. His brand of fiction didn’t appeal to me when I was a teenager.

Before you pick up stones to stone me, know that he is now one of my favorites. I’ve not read all of his works, but I’ve read quite a few. And the more I read, the more impressed I am with the fictional universe he created. Continue reading →