Just a few bits and pieces I wanted to mention while I remember...
First up, I finally have my copy of Necrotic Tissue #9 - with my Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams as editor's pick - and am currently wearing my entirely stylish Necrotic Tissue T-shirt, which by the way I fully intend to wear to FantasyCon if I manage to make it this year. Anyway ... I can't recommend these guys enough. NT is gloriously lurid and pulpy in design, and I'm looking forward to digging into it. Also, Caretaker got a fantastic accompanying illustration, and I've mentioned before how excited I get by being fantastically illustrated.
As a tenuous tie-in, NT #9's cover is by the hugely talented Nick Rose, who was recently interviewed on Diabolical Plots, which is fifty-percent the home of David Steffen, who recently commented here at Writing on the Moon and mentioned that he'd listed Stockholm Syndrome in his top ten of Pseudopod. Which is quite an honour, really, given how much great stuff Pseudopod have put out. You can see the full list here.
Last up, I found a review of the Zombonauts anthology, and while it doesn't mention my Fear of a Blue Goo Planet I thought I'd post it to back up my comments from a couple of posts ago. I think Jay's review is spot on, and although I'm only about half way through I'd pick out Amanda C. Davis's Two Things as a favourite too - some lovely, witty writing there, and a slyly understated ending.
Showing posts with label Fear of a Blue Goo Planet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fear of a Blue Goo Planet. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Zombonauts, a Word of Warning
I've always tried to be positive about the publications my work appears in. The reasons why should be obvious, but let's just set a few of them down:
The vast majority of magazines, whether print or online, are put together through the effort and time of talented people working from a genuine desire to showcase good fiction to their readers. On the rare occasions I've thought an editor didn't entirely pull that off, it's usually been clear that it wasn't for lack of trying. I'd much rather focus on the positives than nitpick the negatives when the positives are the product of hard work and the negatives are genuine mistakes.
Truthfully, I don't want to get a reputation for biting the hand that feeds. Editors are always taking a gamble on the writers they publish, however good they feel the writer or the particular story to be. I don't want anyone thinking that the gamble will be an even bigger one because I might turn around and rip their publication to shreds.
And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I've mostly been very happy with the publications I've been in.
With all of that said, there's one other thing that I don't want to be known for, and that's encouraging people to buy things that I know are utterly below par. So, after much thought, I've decided the only thing I can do is to come out and say that I can't recommend anyone to buy the Zombonauts collection out recently from Library of the Living Dead Press. Frankly, it's been thrown together with a lack of care that borders on contempt for writers and readers alike. There are countless spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, in places twenty or thirty a page, to the point where I can't imagine anyone did even a cursory proof read (though bizarrely, a proof reader is actually credited.) It's a mess, and worse, it's a mess with a $15.99 price tag.
It's a shame, because there are some neat stories in amidst all the dumb mistakes, not least of them my own Fear of a Blue Goo Planet. Luckily, that one at least is available here for free, in an excellent podcast from the guys at Chaos Theory: Tales Askew.
The vast majority of magazines, whether print or online, are put together through the effort and time of talented people working from a genuine desire to showcase good fiction to their readers. On the rare occasions I've thought an editor didn't entirely pull that off, it's usually been clear that it wasn't for lack of trying. I'd much rather focus on the positives than nitpick the negatives when the positives are the product of hard work and the negatives are genuine mistakes.
Truthfully, I don't want to get a reputation for biting the hand that feeds. Editors are always taking a gamble on the writers they publish, however good they feel the writer or the particular story to be. I don't want anyone thinking that the gamble will be an even bigger one because I might turn around and rip their publication to shreds.
And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I've mostly been very happy with the publications I've been in.
With all of that said, there's one other thing that I don't want to be known for, and that's encouraging people to buy things that I know are utterly below par. So, after much thought, I've decided the only thing I can do is to come out and say that I can't recommend anyone to buy the Zombonauts collection out recently from Library of the Living Dead Press. Frankly, it's been thrown together with a lack of care that borders on contempt for writers and readers alike. There are countless spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, in places twenty or thirty a page, to the point where I can't imagine anyone did even a cursory proof read (though bizarrely, a proof reader is actually credited.) It's a mess, and worse, it's a mess with a $15.99 price tag.
It's a shame, because there are some neat stories in amidst all the dumb mistakes, not least of them my own Fear of a Blue Goo Planet. Luckily, that one at least is available here for free, in an excellent podcast from the guys at Chaos Theory: Tales Askew.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Zombonauts Lives ... FTA Anthologies, Less So
I discovered a couple of days ago that the Zombonauts anthology from Library of the Dead Press, which includes a reprint of my Fear of a Blue Goo Planet (podcast what seems an eon ago by Chaos Theory: Tales Askew) is now out to buy from Amazon.com. This unquestionably good bit of news was slightly spoiled by the fact that I found out not by my contributor copy turning up, or my payment for that matter, but because I happened to search for it in a moment of boredom. In fact it's been out since the back end of October, although apparently those early copies were plagued with a few (possibly undead-related) problems, hence the delay in contributor copies, etc. And hey, it's a neat-looking book. I realise this fact doesn't really come over from the miniaturised version here, so have a look on Amazon and appreciate it in all its gory glory. And check out the equally neat back cover while you're there. And, y'know, consider buying a copy.
I won't do any more plugging until I've actually seen it myself. But come on ... Zombies. In space. You know it makes sense.
A somewhat less cheering bit of news arrived the day after, when Kate Sanger e-mailed to let me know that the final two From the Asylum anthologies will not be seeing the light of day. Apparently spiralling costs got the better of the projects, and they will never be more than TOCs and a pair of awesome covers. This is particularly sucky news for me because I was in both of them. Still, you win some, you lose some, and what comes around gathers no moss, or some such philosphicalness.
No, it's still really sucky news.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Easier to Pretend in Escape Velocity
Was there ever a time when I resented editors suggesting rewrites? Yeah, I guess there was, and it probably wasn't even that long ago. Still, it's hard to remember the mindset, though I know it's pretty common amongst learning writers. "Who's this editor to tell me what my story should be like," and "what's the point of making changes when I got it right the first time?", and "yeah, that paragraph's a bit weirdly phrased but it's exactly how I meant it to be."
All of which, if we're honest, adds up to "It was enough work writing the bloody thing, you can't seriously expect me to rewrite it?"
A little older, possibly a touch wiser, and I can see that that's not how the world - let alone the publishing industry - works. I want my stories to be as good as possible, right? And editors, unless they're basically psychotic, want my story to work as well as it can before they're going to consider publishing it. It all seems pretty much like common sense.
But I think the reason for that is that the more I've written, the more my perception of what a story is has changed. Once upon a time, I believed that once I wrote THE END that was basically the thing done. These days, I would be hesitant to use the word 'finished' to describe anything I write. As long as I can make it a little bit better, it's still a work in progress. For that reason, both of the reprints I recently had picked up for anthologies (Fear of a Blue Goo Planet in Zombonauts, The Other Ten Thousand in Kings of the Realm) are subtly different from the originals. I saw that there was room for tweakage, and so I tweaked. If they ever get reprinted again, I'll probably tweak some more.
Explanation for ramble? My It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark has been picked up by science-fiction magazine Escape Velocity. I sent it in to co-editor Geoff Nelder knowing in my heart of hearts that it wasn't quite as good as it could be but not knowing how to fix it, and Geoff, bless him, asked for some changes and in so doing pointed me towards some other things that needed sorting out. As such, the version that's been accepted is a hell of a lot better than the one I first sent out. That's got to be a good thing, right?
All of which, if we're honest, adds up to "It was enough work writing the bloody thing, you can't seriously expect me to rewrite it?"
A little older, possibly a touch wiser, and I can see that that's not how the world - let alone the publishing industry - works. I want my stories to be as good as possible, right? And editors, unless they're basically psychotic, want my story to work as well as it can before they're going to consider publishing it. It all seems pretty much like common sense.
But I think the reason for that is that the more I've written, the more my perception of what a story is has changed. Once upon a time, I believed that once I wrote THE END that was basically the thing done. These days, I would be hesitant to use the word 'finished' to describe anything I write. As long as I can make it a little bit better, it's still a work in progress. For that reason, both of the reprints I recently had picked up for anthologies (Fear of a Blue Goo Planet in Zombonauts, The Other Ten Thousand in Kings of the Realm) are subtly different from the originals. I saw that there was room for tweakage, and so I tweaked. If they ever get reprinted again, I'll probably tweak some more.
Explanation for ramble? My It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark has been picked up by science-fiction magazine Escape Velocity. I sent it in to co-editor Geoff Nelder knowing in my heart of hearts that it wasn't quite as good as it could be but not knowing how to fix it, and Geoff, bless him, asked for some changes and in so doing pointed me towards some other things that needed sorting out. As such, the version that's been accepted is a hell of a lot better than the one I first sent out. That's got to be a good thing, right?
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