Hear the new OUTER ALLIANCE podcast!

I feel like I've neglected the Outer Alliance lately. This is a terrific association of writers, editors, publishers and other kinds of creators that I was fortunate enough to have had a small role in helping to found and promote about a year and a half ago. Our mission statement: "As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work." We have hundreds of members now, and while our level of activity varies a lot, it's always a great resource. One of the coolest newer things going on is the podcast, hosted by the great Julia Rios (who has also conducted scores of written  interviews with people for posting to the site--most posts anymore are her "Spotlight" interviews).

The fourth installment of the podcast is made of win, featuring in its first half an interview with Nora Olsen, discussing her YA book The End: Five Queer Kids Save the World. And in the second half--this is awesome!--an interview with M-Brane Press's own Brandon Bell discussing his zine Fantastique Unfettered and our antho The Aether Age, and (very informatively) his Creative Commons licensing concept. He is joined by writer Frank Ard, author of "Small Fish in the Deep Blue Sea", his really great story from FU #1. It was very interesting listening to Frank discuss his fiction, and also to hear my collaborator Brandon discuss and promote our various projects (including the Double--coming soon!). Also, I don't recall ever having heard myself mentioned in a group discussion on a podcast before, so that was cool and weird, too, that sense that stuff that I do actually emanates outside of my library somehow.  Check it out, and subscribe it in your iTunes player or however you get your podcasts.

2020 VISIONS released!

The fabulous anthology of near-future sf, edited by Rick Novy, has finally, after a few little production snags, become available to the reading public. It's available as a trade paperback for $13.95 on here on Amazon. Those of you who pre-ordered copies can expect them to ship to you within a few days. Readers who did not pre-order should grab it on Amazon right away and take advantage of "Free Super-Saver Shipping!" on orders of $25.00 or more by also buying this week's other major release, The Aether Age (if I may make a suggestion).

I'm very proud of 2020 Visions and the fine work that editor Rick and all the great authors did for it. It's a very good anthology, and I think people will be duly impressed. Same goes for the amazing Aether Age, so just go ahead and get them both while you're at Amazon!

AETHER AGE goes on sale today!

After a year and a half of anticipation, from the summer of 2009 when we dreamed up the Aether Age universe in online discussions, the book is finally done and available for purchase. We'd love to see some excellent sales of it today--which happens to also be the fifth anniversary of our publisher, Hadley Rille Books. So go to Amazon to buy your copy of The Aether Age, and consider also picking up another of Hadley Rille's many fine titles (just search "Hadley Rille Books" on Amazon, and you'll find a lot of cool books). And consider, also, picking up a copy of the recently-released M-Brane SF Quarterly #1. 

See the Aether Age trailer.

Pre-order THE AETHER AGE

Hadley Rille Books has begun a pre-order special for The Aether Age, our awesome shared-world, alternate history anthology. Eric is offering discounted prices on both the paperback and hardcover editions, with free shipping. Publication date is November 29. When you go to the Hadley Rille site to order your copies (the holidays are coming soon, yo), take time to browse the rest of this fine publisher's great titles and pick up a few more of them. Publication of The Aether Age happens to coincide with Hadley Rille's fifth anniversary, and we hope that they will sell 5000 copies of their various titles (or 5000 copies of The Aether Age..ahem!)

As an added bonus, I will give anyone who pre-orders The Aether Age a free 12-month subscription to the electronic (PDF) edition of M-Brane SF. Just forward a copy of your PayPal e-receipt to mbranesf at gmail dot com, and you're on the subscrips list.

Go here for more info on this book and to see the cool trailer.

Another progress report

Though a period of extreme day-jobbery followed by a period of out-town-travel and a grueling search for our new home put me well behind on all projects, I can report happily that the M-Brane slush-pile is caught up through April 10. Stories have been booked for the May issue, and I will announce the TOC soon. It's a really good one! Also, just today, I completed a sort of rough advance reader copy of The Aether Age for the multi-media crew to look at, and we are getting very, very close to being able to turn the final product over to our publisher, Eric at Hadley Rille Books. That print-out that I'm holding in my hand is something like the way first page of each story will probably be formatted. That element at the top is a segment of a timeline highlighting the main "historical" event of the story along with a couple of events that are thought to have happened before and after. This is a very fancy project!

In other news, I recently actually finished a short story and submitted to a zine. And it was accepted. I'm not sure if I am supposed to talk about it yet because I don't think they have announced their TOC yet, but I am quite pleased about it. I have so many works-in-progress that never get done and I haven't subbed anything to anyone in a long time, so it was very encouraging experience to finally do so and get a great response.

AETHER AGE progress report

If anyone's interested, there's a new post at The Region Between with some my thoughts and reflections at this stage of editing The Aether Age. It contains links to the book's TOC on the AeA blog and links to some of the other creative folks who are working with us on it.

AETHER AGE announcement soon

Yesterday, we settled a few remaining details and finalized the table of contents for The Aether Age. We will be announcing it very soon at the Aether Age blog.

This is a bigger and more complex project than I had imagined it would be be when we started, and, because of the shared-world nature of the book, a lot different than compiling an anthology of unrelated short stories or even a themed collection. The stories selected for The Aether Age will comprise much more than a theme--they will open windows into an astonishing new world. This is going to be a very cool book.

AETHER AGE guidelines posted!

I have posted the most current version of the Aether Age writers guidelines. Click here to visit our Issuu  page where the guidelines document can be downloaded or read online. We'll start looking at submissions on November 15, with the deadline being January 30.

Soon there will be a separate page dedicated to Aether Age affairs, and I will post notice of it here when it's online.

Aether Age update

I have fallen so far behind in recent days on business that I have been wanting to discuss on this blog, that I will need to dispense with some of it as outdated already and then deal with the rest of it in what will probably be a flurry of short posts over today and tomorrow.

I've officially decided that the first Aether Age shared world project will be a stand-alone anthology, produced under a model similar to Things We Are Not, with the biggest emphasis on trying to sell a print book, rather than as a special issue of M-Brane. I was waiting to get a sense of whether Things We Are Not was going to work out at all from a money standpoint. The pre-order period has gone well enough (not great,  but well enough) that I feel good that we won't lose money on it. I think such can be achieved with Aether Age as well.  Soon, probably within a week, I will have a couple of announcements regarding this project, including a revision of the guidelines, dates for a reading period, and some clarification of what we are doing copyright-wise.  This is going to be released under a Creative Commons license, which means that the universe itself will be available for anyone to use with due acknowledgement. It also means that the "furniture" that writers add to the universe with their own stories will be become part of that shared property. I'll explain this in more detail in the next iteration of the guidelines. It's quite different than a traditional copyright situation, but I think the end result will be terrific for everyone.

Some updates on current/pending projects

1. Rick Novy has been making his story selections for his special issue, M-Brane #12. While I have not read most of the stories myself yet, I am certain that it will be a terrific issue. I am considering making a special alternate print version of it available in a trade paperback format, laid out like a regular anthology as opposed to the normal magazine's design, as a format experiment, a possible dry-run for the Aether Age project. Not sure yet. Though incoming submissions were a bit slow during the reading period, it sounds like the selection process became quite competitive due to an overall high-quality pool of submissions.

2. Things We Are Not, the queer antho, is undergoing some editing work still, and it is going a bit more slowly than I had hoped. I think I am still on track for completion and release by 10/1. It is possible that the publication date may technically be 10/1 but it could be more like 10/15 for delivery of print copies to people. I hope it doesn't go that late, but I need to receive a proof copy, make sure it's OK, fix it if it's not, and that can slow me down a bit. I am off from the day job through Monday and am hoping to be to that proof stage by then. Also, I hope to be able to start offering advance purchase of the book in both print and e-editions any day now. Exciting! By the way, we are still not quite to goal on that fund drive. Just saying. I haven't been panhandling too much lately, because it tires me out, but we still need about $75.00

3. See this earlier post if you have interest in The Aether Age (formerly referred to as the Shared World). We're still taking comments and suggestions, but are now basing it on the document that can be downloaded via that post. It would seem to unaided eye that nothing has been going on with this project lately, but it will kick into higher gear after Things We Are Not is done. But now and over the next couple of weeks is probably prime time to make further comments on the first version of the guidelines/bible for it.

Announcing the AETHER AGE

I finally make good on a promise that I have been making for weeks: we are resuscitating the "Shared World" scheme. As regular readers of this page may be aware, this is a plan to create a fictional milieu which will be open to any writer for the creation of new stories. We will be putting together some sort of special issue of M-Brane of such work eventually.

After some consultation with Brandon Bell, who came up with the idea to have a shared world in the first place and who suggested many of its key characteristics, we have decided to call it The Aether Age. I have posted at issuu.com the first draft of what will eventually be formal guidelines for working within this universe. The document can be downloaded or read online there. If you are interested in creating something within this new realm, please check it out. Also, all the past posts related to this project can be called together here using the "shared world" label.