Collective Fallout and the Delfino Prize

I wish to give some attention to Collective Fallout, a print journal of queer-oriented speculative fiction edited by by Eric Crapo, who teaches poetry and playwriting (and directs the library) at Chester College of New England. Pictured to the left is the cover of their first issue from January. The next issue is due in July.

Collective Fallout is also sponsoring a writing contest, the Delfino Prize, so named in memory of Christopher Delfino, a writer who passed away at too young an age earlier this year. Click here for rules and details for the contest. The winner and finalists will be published in the 2010 editions of Collective Fallout.

Print M-BRANE #5 looks great! Some remarks on future editions and funding sources

I've made all the issues of M-Brane from issue #3 to present available for print-on-demand by way of Lulu, and after issue #3 was released, I went back and fixed some problems in the source documents for issues #1 and #2 so that they could be available there as well. I had not until yesterday, however, actually seen one of these print copies with my own eyes. I received a couple copies of the newest issue, M-Brane #5, yesterday and I am delighted with what a nice job Lulu does of printing and binding it. The interior lacks the spot color that PDF version has, and the ads are rendered in black and white, but the print quality is excellent, and much cleaner-looking than one gets by running something off at FedEx like I did for the original print versions of #1 and #2. Also, it is perfect-bound (like a normal paperback book) and the cover is absolutely beautiful, printed in full color on heavy glossy stock.

Writer Robert Keller, who has a story scheduled in a future issue, made a good suggestion to me the other day. While I am happy to have this print version (and the Kindle version) available for people like Robert who like to get it that way, these third-party methods don't net M-Brane a whole lot of income since Lulu and Amazon get nearly the whole take. And that's fine: if we start selling a lot more of them, it will still add up to some extra money over time. But Robert suggested that since the PDF version is still the best source of income for the magazine (at least until ads start selling better), I might want to make that edition somehow different, with some bonus content not present in the other formats. I am considering it but haven't decided what or how yet.  As readers who have followed the zine and this blog from the beginning know, I have been working constantly on finding new ways to generate income and move us along toward the ultimate goal of being a pro publication. The frustrating puzzle that still defies solution, however is this: readers have not yet made the mental shift in large enough numbers to thinking that an electronic publication is something (and therefore worth money), while there seems to still be the persistent sense that something in print carries a lot more intrinsic value. That would be fine with me, but not many people are buying the print version anyway--actually more than I thought would have, but still not in huge numbers yet. Where we are at now seems to be this: enthusiasm for spending a lot of money on print periodicals is well into decline (note all the newspaper and magazine failures that have happened lately or are about to happen), and everyone wants free electronic versions instead. 

Believe me, I would love to make M-Brane free to the world every month, but it's not going to happen until/if it has some kind of other major funding source. I have no means of paying the little bit that I pay to the writers--and certainly no hope of increasing those payments--without income from subscriptions, single-copy sales, ads or donations. It must fund itself. The other option would be to not pay writers at all (thus eliminating a large portion of the zine's direct costs of doing business) but that would be totally counter-productive to my long-term goals and make it impossible for me to get content of the quality that I have had so far. Though I don't pay much, it is something, and that little something gets me stories from a lot of writers who would never consider sending me anything if I were a non-paying market. I think in a few years when there just aren't any more major print periodicals left in the market, this sort of problem will solve itself. I'll navigate as best as I can in the meantime. I am not going to drop my basic insistence, however, that writers' work needs to be compensated somehow and that means ipso facto that readers need to shell out at least a little bit. 

Another possibility that seems increasingly promising is that I may be able prop up the zine's funding by expanding the operation into some other areas such as books. The queer anthology for which I am currently reading, is intended to be a first experiment in creating a product that can generate a profit (even selling by way of third parties) and possibly reach a wider audience than the monthly zine usually does. If this goes according to plan, then I will be devising some other projects, possibly other kinds of anthologies or maybe single-author collections.

Creeping crud update

Today, for me, began rather poorly. Then it improved and seemed fairly decent. Then it went to hell again. No rational explanation for any of these phases, nor the changes from one to the next, presents itself. It's just a symptom of this annoying depressive phase that I have been in lately. I have, however, started a project that I think will have some salutary use: I have decided to start keeping a private journal. I haven't done this on any kind of regular basis since I was in high school when I was a daily journal writer. But even that wasn't really a personal and private venue for my thoughts since those were periodically shown to my English teachers, and there was always the sense that I was writing it for someone else to read. My new journal, begun today, is purely private. I can say whatever I want in it and not even have to make it make sense. The concept is twofold: 1) to document my thoughts and observations (some of which may be usable for fiction writing someday--or not, it doesn't matter) and 2)  to expose myself to myself in a way that might help me dispose of my nonsense more efficiently. 

More musings on Ellison

If you haven't read yesterday's post yet, then read that one first and then come back to this one. Also, consider taking an hour and listening to the Studio 360 interview with Harlan Ellison (link in yesterday's post). 

Today, while toiling at the day job, I was thinking about Ellison and the sheer number of really cool books he has published. I have copies of a fair number of them and I'd like to have more. I'm still kicking myself for not having bought those White Wolf re-issues of a lot of his stuff from a few years ago. When those started coming out, I was still fairly well-to-do job/money-wise and could have afforded them rather than wasting so much of my disposable income on less worthy books as well as CDs, DVDs and other obsolete ephemera.

Among the personal favorites is Shatterday, which I mention in a comment on the previous post as having had an especially great impact on me as a kid. I used my high school-age membership in the Science Fiction Book Club to load up on great Ellison collections like Alone Against Tomorrow and Deathbird Stories. I scored from a library book sale years ago a copy of the spectacular The Essential Ellison edited by Terry Dowling. This is one of those massive, thick tomes that you can't really read in bed: it's so heavy that you need to sit at a desk with it, but it is a terrific retrospective (well, up till about 20 years ago when it was published) that even includes a couple pieces of Ellison's juvenilia as well as his earliest professional stories and many, many of his classics. I also have a copy of The City on the Edge of Forever book which contains his original teleplay for the Star Trek episode (you know, that one). That book is worth the cover price just for the Ellison's lengthy but fascinating introduction where he tells his version of his association with that show.

One that I am missing, however, that I wish I would have bought when I had the chance, is the one pictured here: Medea. I remember seeing it when it was new on the shelves of Waldenbooks, a big thick trade paperback that I was sorely tempted to buy but never did. I was fourteen years old and was spending nearly all my allowance/odd jobs money on Star Trek novels (that was the heyday of the Trek novel actually!), and the dollars that it would have taken to buy Medea was enough to score me four or five mass market paperbacks. I did get a chance to read it thanks to a public library some years later, but I still wish I would see a copy of it at the used shop so I could add it to my Ellison shelf. The book developed out of a seminar that Ellison and some other writers conducted in 1975. It was a remarkable experiment in collaborative world-building. It contained a lot of the "science" of this invented world with articles by Hal Clement, Poul Anderson and others, and also a bunch of short stories set in the shared world. Authors included Larry Niven, Fred Pohl, Tom Disch, Ted Sturgeon, Frank Herbert, Kate Wilhlem, Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson, Hal Clement and Ellison himself with his story "With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole." 

Ellison on STUDIO 360

I was delighted to find that Kurt Anderson interviewed Harlan Ellison, who recently reached seventy-four years of age, for his public radio show Studio 360. This interview coincides with the DVD release of the film about Ellison, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, which I have not seen yet but hope to soon. At the site, you can get the podcast of the radio version of the show, but that one is an abridged version. What you really want to hear is Anderson’s full, hour-long interview with Ellison, which you can also download or stream on the site. They cover a lot of topics, including the film, and Ellison reads some passages from “Paladin of the Lost Hour” and “Jefty is Five.”

I’m glad to see that Ellison is getting some fresh attention. He is one of the all time towering giants of American literature. I can say that to a crowd of spec fic-oriented readers, like the followers of the blog, and you’d all probably say, “Well, yeah. Of course. What else is new?” It’s a strange but true fact, however, that Ellison’s work is widely ignored by academics (could it be because of his association with “genre” fiction? No! Really?). I am, by education, a literature student, and I spent much of my academic life in both high school and college trying to alert English profs as to what they are missing out on when I would select Ellison’s work as the subject of a number of critical essays and research papers. Like Ellison himself states in this interview, I considered him to be the natural kin and heir to writers like Poe and Kafka and Borges. But never once did I see a glimmer of recognition in the eyes of any of my teachers nor a scintilla of respect offered forth after I had alerted them to the abysmal gaps in their knowledge of the American short story. This was particularly disappointing to me during the college years, since I attended an otherwise super-brainy liberal arts school and had high hopes that there’d be some cool lit profs there. I’d heard they existed on some campuses, but apparently not the one I was on. As it happened, I think I might even have been the only student there who knew much about Ellison. Hardly anyone seemed to be into spec fic at all. I was the only one writing it in the fiction writing seminars that I took during my senior year...and I think that was a lot of the reason why my work was generally regarded as the worst of the lot while other writers' tiny tales of thinly veiled campus current events and personal foibles passed muster as fine literary fiction.

A thing perhaps less well know among spec fic readers is the fact that Ellison has also always been a compelling essayist, and he continues with this even now. I highly recommend some of his older collections such as The Harlan Ellison Hornbook and An Edge in My Voice (there are others--I just happen have those two books on my shelf). While the topics are pretty old now—since they deal mostly with events that were current in 1970s and early 1980s and were written mostly as newspaper columns back in the day—they still make for some great, entertaining reading today.

Also of some interest to sf fans would be the 5/23 installment of Studio 360 in which Anderson talks about the Klingon language with linguist Arika Okrent (which I heard, when listening to the podcast, as “Erica Okrand,” virtually the same name as Marc Okrand, the developer of the language). She published a new book about invented languages and has herself a good command of Klingon. They also discuss some other invented languages such as the elf tongue from Tolkien's universe and how it was used in the film, and also Esperanto. One gets to hear a little clip of William Shatner speaking in that language in the bizarre 1965 film Incubus.

Merc's got a story at DUNESTEEF!

Writer Abby "Merc" Rustad, whom all our readers will remember from M- Brane  #2  ("Unpermitted"),  has a story newly live at  The Dunesteef Audio Magazine.  "Hangman" is a highly entertaining little tale, presented in audio form with great flair. I mentioned this recently (because Derek Goodman also has a new item there), but I'll say again that I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of these audio zines, and I like Dunesteef particularly well.

The format of each "show" consists of the presentation of the story followed by a segment of the producers hanging out talking about something for a while. In this new segment that starts with Merc's story, they chat for a while about the new Star Trek movie. Some other examples of this "dudes-talking-about-scifi-stuff" format can be found online, but this one is particularly good because of the lively and witty nature of their banter. Go listen to "Hangman" now!

GUEST POST: Derek J. Goodman..."RETRO READS: THE CACHE by Philip Jose Farmer"

[Derek J. Goodman's short story "Northern Girls With the Way They Kiss" appeared in M-Brane #4. He will appear in M-Brane #6 with "Rental Property," and is live now on Dunesteef Audio Magazine with "In Absence of Mind Wiping Thingies."--CF]

Welcome to what will hopefully be the first in a series of guest blog-posts where I will be looking at obscure sci-fi books. Before I go into my first book, I should probably take a moment to explain how I’m defining “obscure” for this. I decided to write this after reading some similar columns on other blogs that, while incredibly informative, did not go into the kind of stuff I wanted to read as much as I would have liked. In trying to find such a blog, I came to the conclusion that if I couldn’t find other people who would point me in the direction of older, harder-to-find works I might like then I would just have to be that person myself. The problem with this was that A)my access to older works is limited, being that I live in a small town and the nearest used book store is an hour away, and B)my personal knowledge of any sci-fi older than ten years old is somewhat limited. So when I say that I’m going to be looking at obscure sci-fi what I mean is I’m looking at sci-fi that was obscure to me before I started looking into it. So if I go into something that you don’t necessarily find “obscure,” then please bear with me. I’m learning about some of this stuff right along with you.

My first find for this column is The Cache by Philip Jose Farmer. Farmer by himself is a writer who is well-known enough in certain circles, and well he should be. He has two major claims to fame within the spec-fic world. First, he was one of the first science fiction writers to inject a sense of sexuality into his work. Prior to Farmer most sci-fi writers stayed away from the taboo subject of sex, but Farmer explored it as just another part of the human condition. Many of his works that delved into this, especially his short novel The Lovers, are considered tame by modern standards but were revolutionary at the time. Secondly, Farmer is considered by many to be the father of fan fiction. Through his Wold Newton stories he found a way to connect many famous pulp fiction heroes together into one universe, including Tarzan, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, and many others.

While The Cache does not readily fit into either of these two famous Farmer motifs it still showcases his playfulness with existing ideas and his use of sensuality even when it isn’t central to the story. Published in 1981, The Cache is technically a story collection, although it only contains three stories. The two shortest ones, “Rastignac the Devil” and “They Twinkled Like Jewels,” while worth a read, would not by themselves be enough to recommend this book. “They Twinkled Like Jewels,” telling the story of a man who meets the sinister beings that infected him with unexplainable wanderlust as a child, reminded me in some ways of James Tiptree Jr.’s famous story “The Screwfly Solution” (although I think Farmer might have written this story first, as it was originally published in 1965), while “Rastignac the Devil,” about a man trying to start a real revolution on a world where rebellion is mandated and required by the government in order to keep unsavory types satisfied with their lives, is a great idea that unfortunately reads very flat.

So the true treasure in The Cache is the short novel that opens the book up, “The Long Warpath.” Originally published by itself in 1965 under the title The Cache from Outer Space, this story managed to have me fascinated and scratching my head from the opening page. “The Long Warpath” is a rare piece that keeps you engaged from the get-go yet still manages to not even let you know what you are reading for most of the story. Based on both the blurb on the back of the book (which woefully fails to summarize anything about the story) and the first couple pages I at first believed I was reading a fantasy. Then I thought maybe I might be reading an alternate history. By the time I finally realized I was reading post-apocalyptic science fiction I was thoroughly engrossed.

The story starts out focusing on two youths, Joel and Benoni, as they are coming back to their city of Fiiniks after helping the men of their people prepare weapons with which to fight the rival tribes that threaten their land. Joel is brash and tends to get under everyone’s skin while Benoni is quiet and honorable and instantly recognizable as the hero. Both boys are in contest against each other to win the hand of the same young woman, but before either of them can try wooing her they must go on the Warpath, a right of passage among their people that requires young men to go out naked into the desert wilderness and not come back until they have scalped a man from the competing Navaho tribe. This is the point where Farmer really starts to mess with the reader’s expectations, as the people of Fiiniks show many aspects of a Native American tribe but are very clearly described at white.

Before Benoni and Joel can go on the Warpath, however, they are each selected by their elders for an additional task. The land around Fiiniks has become increasingly unstable with earthquakes and volcanoes, and it will not be possible for their people to live there much longer. And so they are instructed to go even further out into the wilderness than the Warpath has ever required before in order to search for possible new places to settle. Although Benoni is not sure that he wants to do this, he ultimately decides to continue on after Joel betrays him and leaves him for dead. Not only does he need to explore the world in the name of his tribe, but he also feels the need to extract his vengeance.

It is as the reader experiences Benoni’s account of his travels that it starts to be understood that all this is taking place in the far future. The names of all the places are bastardizations of names in the real world (I didn’t even realize until Farmer said that the boys’ city is named after a bird that rises from the ashes that it is actually Phoenix, Arizona), and the geography matches that of the United States. Something has happened at some point in the distant past that sent civilization back to the stone age, and Benoni unwittingly finds himself slowly uncovering the secrets of the ancient alien race that almost wiped humanity out. And by the time Benoni finishes, he realizes that he wants more from life than just the hand of simple girl. He has seen the world and the wonders it once had, and he wants to be a part of it.

At times Farmer’s prose can seem a little archaic and stilted, but this is overcome by Farmer’s imagining of an America that has been forcefully returned to the wilderness of the past and civilizations rebuilt on ancient models. While still not on par with Farmer’s better known works, The Cache still has much to offer for anybody who seeks it out. To the best of my knowledge this has not been in print for a long time, though, so you may need to do some hunting to find it.
Do you have any thoughts you wish to share, on either this book or obscure books in general? Do you see any errors I may have made in my research? Do you have other books you would like to suggest for future Retro Reads columns? Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know. Remember, I’m not an expert, here. I’m more than open to anyone who might be more knowledgeable and would love to hear from you.

A day that will long be remembered!

Yesterday was quite remarkable.  First, it saw the release of M-Brane #5, possibly the best issue yet, and the first one to be available simultaneously on Kindle and via MobiPocket as well as in the traditional PDF and POD editions. 

2) Next, Rick Novy released episode 2 of his new video podcast show Novy MIRror. I posted about this here when the first installment was released and have been plugging it on Twitter. It is super cool. Go to his site ASAP to see Rick's interview with writer Aliette de Bodard. It's really interesting. I like it when an author interview has some intellectual heft to it, and this one does for sure. (Note that the image that I am including to promote Novy MIRror is actually a screenshot from my Mac, and if you look very carefully, on the left side of the image you will see Derek J. Goodman about three times in avatar form in TweetDeck which is open behind the web window. Very small images, but there.)

3) Then, the President 

of the United States, using his amazing power of not being a dumbass muthuhfrakker, made an appointment to the Supreme Court of the kind that we will not need to worry about for the next twenty or thirty years.

4) Indeed, the only major setback that I am aware of was the California court's upholding of the scurrilous Proposition 8.  This was, however, expected. Also, it is not the first time their courts have had to uphold these dumb-ass ballot measures. It's part of their tradition--as it is in more and more states in recent decades--to let the drooling masses make laws directly instead of through the representative republic system of government intended by the Founders. That's why their Constitution has been amended some five hundred times so far. But at least Californians considered the concept of marriage equality. Where I live, there is absolutely no discussion of it whatsoever. The idea is totally unheard of. Im not worried, though: progress does get not rolled back in the long run. It takes time and there are setbacks along the way, but reason and liberal-mindedness always prevail given enough time. 

5) Uh, I guess another bad thing about yesterday was that the "creeping crud" that I wrote of a few posts ago had me pretty firmly in its grip, but I stayed focused on the good stuff above (except for paragraph 4), and I feel a bit better today. I think I'll do some Twitter promos for #5 today, since I'm stuck at day job tomorrow.

M-BRANE #5 RELEASED in all formats

The spectacular fifth issue released today in PDF, POD, Kindle and Mobi. Ordering info for PDF subscriptions, and single copies of the the other editions can be found by clicking one of those "subscribe" links over to the right.

I am exceedingly proud of this issue, and I hope everyone will enjoy its 84 pages and over sixty thousand words of amazement.

  

30 years of ALIEN

I just saw on Twitter author Dayton Ward point out that we're at the 30th anniversary of Ridley Scott's Alien. Who remembers this TV spot from 1979? I was terrorized by it as a little kid, while watching syndicated re-runs of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. 

GUEST POST: D.D. TANNENBAUM...Where’s the Joy in Writing?

[D.D. Tannenbaum will appear in a matter of days in M-Brane #5 with his story "The Hole that Max Found." He is a writer and computer technology expert who lives in the Austin area, and he's been a great friend to M-Brane. Here he talks about the thing that charms and obsesses and sometimes frustrates so many of us, whether it's our profession or our pastime, and suggests that it really needs to be for the love.]

I have been writing full time for almost two years and part time for the two years prior. I have read many blogs and websites of other authors, agents and editors and have been struck by their tales of “struggle” and the “sacrifices” they have to make to write and do their jobs. Almost everybody has these stories of how they suffered for their art. My question is this: Why do it if it doesn’t bring you joy? Why do something that takes more out of you than you get out of it? Ask yourself why you write. Is it because you think you should? “Shoulds” are one of the heaviest anchors we wear. If you do it just to make money, try something else, like ditch digging or tending bar. Far more rewarding in those cases and it pays better. Writing should be a rush! Argue with your characters, give them the same emotions you have yourself. Let them take on a life of their own, and let it be a good one. One of my favorite authors, A. Bertram Chandler wrote a series of science fiction stories concerning a spaceman named John Grimes. He must have written at least fifteen novels about his and the Worlds of the Rim. His character became so out of control, Chandler wrote himself into the story to take control back. Sir Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series, tried to kill his character off, but he wouldn’t die. This is what I mean about the joys as opposed to the struggle of writing. Also, don’t lock yourself in a sterile environment and pound away at your keyboard. I spend my days writing in a comfortable room, coffee at hand, with a big window to see the bright sunshine outside. I always have music playing, and have constant contact with friends and peers on the web.

Now, granted I am a novice at this, but my experiences are vastly different. There is a joy, both visceral and spiritual, when I am working on a story a story. There is something mystical about giving form to thought. I’m one of those writers who believes the story writes itself and I am just the instrument of its expression. The creative rush of writing a story is comparable to meeting your first love, or having a precious moment with one of your children.

I intend to support myself with my writing, but I am a realist in how long it takes. I am in no rush, I just keep writing stories. If I worried about getting published, or worried about what I was sacrificing for my art, I wouldn’t get any writing done at all. My stories are written; hopefully they’ll get published. But if not, they were still given form and my friends and family enjoy them.

TREK and SUNSHINE: A rare movie watching day

J and I finally saw the Star Trek movie today. I wasn't sure if we'd make it. Our budget being what it is works against extravagances like movie tickets and the obligatory popcorn. Also, we just don't go to movies much anyway. It takes a lot to get one of us--say nothing of both of us at the same time--ready to slog out to the megaplex and risk placing ourselves in the midst of an annoying throng of humans. But we went to a noon show today, a couple weeks after the movie's premiere, and it worked well: cheaper daytime tickets, not much crowd.

We both liked the movie quite well. It didn't change my whole life in the way I hear it did for some people, but it was quite entertaining and sufficiently "trekkie" to make me accept it as a legit depiction of that universe. It is a total reboot, however. After what happened in this film, the universe of all previous Treks has little connection to it. This is, of course, handled in traditional Star Trek fashion in a scene in which Spock explains how the villain's time-traveling machinations have changed the course of their timeline, creating an (you guessed it before you ever saw it) alternate universe.

I don't know if time's up yet on holding back on "spoilers," but...Spock and Uhura? WTF! We liked the portrayals of all of the characters and thought the movie was a really lovely thing to look at. Of course it's a big summer action blockbuster type film, like I guess it would need to be to have any hope of success. I do think, however, that Trek as a concept was always better suited to TV than feature films. I'm into the "explore strange new worlds" stories that were the mainstay of the original TV series and also TNG to a large extent and don't really need my Trek to be about epic battles with evil Romulans. But I get it that a big movie like this needs something like that, and this one delivered it well.

After we got home, we watched on DVD Danny Boyle's Sunshine, which is about a team traveling to the dying sun with a plan to re-ignite it. I'd heard good things about it, borrowed the disc from Pat and Heather months and months ago, but somehow never got around to it. I thought it was a nice little treat, a little bit of serious sf dessert, a wine and cheese course after the lush banquet of Trek. It is an exceedingly infrequent occurrence to find a thoughtful, serious-minded, rigorously told science fiction story on film in the post-Star Wars era (not that I don't like Star Wars, too; but after that, you can count on too few hands the number of really good sf films). It's not grand, it's not epic, it's not bombastic...and that's something to like about a movie nowadays.

[Images are, of course, of the lovely leads of Star Trek (Chris Pine as Kirk) and Sunshine (Cillian Murphy as Capa)]

It's back! The creeping crud!

I hate to even bring this up here, but it's a comfortable place for me since people can read it or not and it will not be seen by anyone in my immediate vicinity (J has never read one post on this blog ever), which is sometimes for the best. About once every year or so, I find myself way down deep in some kind of morbid depression (as in much much worse than my normal everyday dim view of current circumstances). I've sensed it massing for a few days, and I spent all day today deliberately doing things that normally keep me cheerful in hopes I can push it away. It didn't work. I failed at each thing, even cooking dinner which is normally a guaranteed moment of success for me no matter how frakked up the rest of the day is. I never ruin dinner...but I did tonight. Just one symptom.

It would be so easy to just list objective things that seem to contribute to my foul state. Like the usual shit: I hate my day job, I hate this city that we stupidly moved to, and so on. But that's not it. All of that was just as true yesterday and last week and last month and six months ago and it didn't cause this feeling, this creeping crud that's almost a palpable and visible thing around me right now.

This despair happens, as I said, on a fairly annual basis. But this time, the timing could probably not be better. This is happening within days of the release of M-Brane #5. I am locked into that. It is happening on schedule no matter what. Last time I found myself in the crud was during the pre-M-Brane era. I didn't have the zine, this blog, Twitter, any email correspondence to speak of, no other hobbies or pastimes of any sort really--wasn't even seriously working on any fiction--so I was able to thoroughly wallow in my stupid self for days on end and do nothing else. That option is not available to me this year, and I'm so glad of it.

It's just a temporary (albeit recurring) neuro-chemical fuck-up, a mess of synapses not firing in the right way, the "wiring" between memory and current circumstances all dicked up somehow. It's easy to say (when you're not feeling it), "It's all in your head." But I guess that's literally true, isn't it? There is no palpable, visible crud other than what I imagine. I'm entirely sick of it and myself tonight, but I bet tomorrow will be better. I even think it will lift a bit when I hit "publish post" in a few seconds.

[Accompanying image represents the cleansing fire that I've been thinking I need tonight...not REALLY, but hmmm....]

New Goodman story at The Dunesteef!

Writer Derek J. Goodman ("Northern Girls With the Way They Kiss," M-Brane #4, "Rental Property," forthcoming in #6), has his new story, "In Absence of Mind Wiping Thingies,"  live right now in The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. There are a bunch of cool audio fiction sites nowadays, and Dunesteef is one of the coolest. It stands to reason that I would think so since it appears that its editors and I have at least a fair amount in common as far as the kinds of stories we like. In addition to Derek, I have heard that M-Brane #2 alum Abby "Merc" Rustad ("Unpermitted") has something going up there shortly.  Also, I noticed that S.C. Hayden ("End Day," M-Brane #3) and Joshua Scribner ("Conductors," M-Brane #1, "Tortured Spirit," #5 forthcoming) have been published there as well.

I really need to somehow make more time to actually listen to and pay attention to more audio fiction: I am constantly playing some of it, but get too distracted by trying to write or edit or blog or email or Tweet at the same time and I miss most of the story.  I need to treat myself to some uninterrupted periods of kicking back and just listening. Dunesteef and all "my" cool writers with stories there are inspiring me to do exactly that.

8 MINUTES anthology/contest

If anyone has still not visited writer D.D. Tannenbaum's sector of the interwebs, you need to catch up now for Dan has a fine new project in the works: 8 Minutes, a speculative fiction anthology, the stories for which will be the winners and runners-up of a contest. Click here for general info and click on the "Contest Rules" link for specific details and submission info. I really dig the theme of this antho: "Something has happened to the sun. In 8 minutes, everything changes!" This is the stuff of a really great book. The possibilities are endless. I've been daydreaming about it off and on all day. 

Also, I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: Dan also recently launched Infinite Windows, a genre fiction webzine. Lately it's had some interesting content, including a story by Elliot Richard Dorfman who will also appear in M-Brane #5.

DISCUSSION TOPIC: The Planet of the..WHAT!?

Do any of you people who are writers or some other kind of creative-type person remember (or even harbor) any old ideas for projects that you had earlier in your life, or even as a little kid, that now seem so dumb and embarrassing that you can hardly stand to even think about them...much less admit them to anyone? Due to my own unfortunate lifelong tendency to broadcast publicly most of my silly notions, I have a long catalog of flinch-worthy history. I just remembered this morning, however, a really boneheaded idea for a novel that I had when I was ten years old.  And, in keeping with my practice of sharing, I am now going to tell you about it in hopes that it will inspire people to go to the comments section and reveal their own silliness for us all to consider.

Though I have yet to build any kind of credible writing career, I have been working on it off and on since early childhood. By the time I was ten, I was spending a great deal of time ensconced in my bedroom, seated at my writing desk. I had on my desk the following items: a sturdy old manual typewriter of the sort that Harlan Ellison always brags about as being his only writing tool, a neat stack of paper for the typewriter, a stack of three-subject spiral notebooks that were employed in some kind of arcane system, pens and pencils in a Ziggy pen-holder, and a plastic file storage box to contain my 3x5 index cards on which I would take certain notes. There was also a globe and maybe a few pieces of Star Trek bric-a-brac. (My present-day desk is much like it except all the prehistoric writing junk has been supplanted by a MacBook). 

During this period, about age 10, I had read Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes and David Gerrold's tie-in novel for the film Battle for the Planet of the Apes (not understanding that the two had fuck-all to do with one another) and had become rather taken with the whole apes-ruling-the-world concept. Once while seated at my writing desk during these days, I was struck dumb with inspiration: what if BIRDS ruled the world!? So I set about crafting an elaborate plot--using index cards and my weird notebook system--based on the premise of a troubled civilization where an overlord caste of grungy predatory and carrion-eating birds (hawks, ravens, eagles, ospreys, vultures and the like) ruled over the masses of "nicer" birds (parrots, cockatiels, love birds, canaries, parakeets, finches, etc.). Of course, they were all sentient and could talk like humans. Hmm. Well, it did not cross my young mind that a straight-up rip-off of the apes idea, substituting birds, just wasn't ever going to go anywhere. Fortunately, from a time-waste standpoint, I was much better at dreaming up these ideas than actually writing the stories to go with them. I did, however, plot the thing in some detail using my index cards. Naturally, it was all to culminate in a feathery blood-soaked revolution in which the macaw rebel leader defeated the sinister osprey suzerain.

That's just one example from my imaginative past.  Does anyone else have any?

E-book progress

Rejoice, all ye handheld device users: M-Brane #4 is now available both from Kindle and from MobiPocket. I have added links to get to both sources on Page 2. I expect to be able to offer all future issues like this. Yay!  And thanks again, Dan Tannenbaum ("The Hole That Max Found," M-Brane #5, forthcoming), for helping me with this.

Kindle developments

The blog as been available for a few days now as something that Kindle users may subscribe to by way of Amazon for download to their Kindles. I have to admit that I am not hopeful that a lot of people would pay to get a blog that can be gotten for free on the web, but it appears that some Kindle users do, in fact, go for things like that for the convenience of getting stuff on their device. Anyway, if anyone has a Kindle and a couple bucks (literally) to spare, it's a nice way to make a sort of micro-donation to M-Brane and give me another source of revenue-trickle for the overall operation. (And when I say "micro-donation," it is quite micro as far as what I get since Amazon takes a large chunk of the subscription fee).

Also, it appears that the zine itself will become available on the Kindle starting with issue #4. It may be live as soon as tomorrow. I'll update again with the link to it when it is.  I'd like to thank D.D. Tannenbaum for his generous assistance in achieving the conversion of the zine into a workable format for this purpose. While I don't have one of these devices myself to look at it directly, the Kindle preview that I was able to look at on the Amazon publishing platform looked great. I'm very happy about this progress.

M-BRANE #5 CONTENTS ANNOUNCED

Announcing the grand writers and their stories, due by June 1, in M-Brane #5:

Brandon Bell: "Abraham Discovers an Object Impenetrable to All Harm"

Caren Gussoff: "As They Get Warmer, They Give a Little"

D.D. Tannenbaum: "The Hole that Max Found"

Deborah Walker: "Daughter of Science, Daughter of Magic"

Joshua Scribner: "Tortured Spirit"

Martin Turton: "The Rose of Rehin"

Liana Brooks: "Seventy"

Peter Andrews: "The Charisma Plague"

D.C. Grondo: "Different Shades of People"

Elliot Richard Dorfman: "Carried by the Wind"

Edward W. Robertson: "Steve Kendrick's Disease"

James P. Wagner: "Matchmaker"

Sue Lange: "Zara Gets Laid"

As the only person who has, so far, read them all, I can say with great sincerity that this is a very fancy bunch of stories for the fine fifth issue. Anyone who is not yet a subscriber ought to become one right now. The stories' titles alone should arouse a lot of interest and excitement. Indeed, I predict that there will be foofaraw and hullaballoo on the web and great tumult in the streets when the issue is released.

"Novy MIRror" launches!

So many of the writers that I have met as a result of running M-Brane SF have such interesting projects going on (aside from their writing, their day jobs, their families and everything else). Speculative fiction writer Rick Novy ("Road Rage," M-Brane #1, "Plan R,"  #4, "The Trouble With Truffles," #6, forthcoming), who shows up all over the place nowadays with his fiction, is also a videographer and has started the fascinating Novy MIRror. (click that name) This is an online video-cast featuring interviews with people in the spec fic world and news of genre goings-on. It is super-cool, and episode one, featuring writer and Klingon language expert Lawrence M. Schoen, is online now. I'll shut up now, so you have time to watch it!