Today, November 1, is the birthday of Gordon R. Dickson (1923-2001). Dickson wrote both science fiction and fantasy. Sadly, his star, which was once prominent, has faded into near obscurity.
Dickson wrote adventure science ficetion, usually with military overtones. His best-known series was the Dorsai series. From what I can remember about them, these novels featured a future where humanity fractured into different groups. the Dorsai were the soldiers. Continue reading
Today, October 21, marks the birth of Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977). Hamilton isn’t well remembered outside of pulp aficionados, and we aren’t getting any younger, are we guys?
(I’m using the word “guys” in a gender neutral, nonsexist kind of way.)
Hamilton wrote for the pulps, beginning with “The Monster-God of Mamurth” in the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales. Much of Hamilton’s early fiction was published in Weird Tales. Continue reading
This should have been posted two weeks ago, but I’ve been busy with work and trying to sell a house.
I entered September only a day behind on the year for the 2024 words per day in 2024 challenge.
Then classes started.
I have seven straight hours of class and labs on Monday, and seven and a half on Tuesday. I get out at eight on Monday. Tuesday, I get out oat five after nine. That’s assuming the students take the entire lab period ot finish. Until this week, they have.
then I have an nhour and a half drive home. I could make it a little quicker than that, but I go home a different way after dark. The way I come in to work after leaving the post office is too narrow. No shoulder, drop-offs, and too many deer and feral hogs. I prefer not to take a chance on large animals in the road when I have no where to go.
So my class schedule has cut into my writing now that we are in the swing of things.
I finished September with 50,617 words. That’s an average of 1687 words per day.
That’s my worst month yet.
I’m going to have to step things up for the rest of theh year if I’m going to win this challenge.
Of course, even if I don’t, I will have had my most productive year ever. In other words, I will have failed to success.
I finished two short stories and a novella in September. Plus I made progress on what is turningout to be a novel. It’s the current work in pprogress. I have two more short stories that I’ll have to write this month, as well as my zine for REHUPA.
Even if I don’t meet the challenge, the year will have turned out to be a success.
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
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.
Today, September 19, marks the birthday to two writers, Damon Knight (1922-2002) and Tanith Lee (1947-2015). Continue reading
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.
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 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
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