Passive Resistance in Redstone SF

Have I really hit my two hundredth post?  Two hundred posts!  Bloody hell!  I feel old.

Oh well.  To cheer me up, there's the fact that Redstone Science Fiction have just published my story Passive Resistance.

Passive Resistance sure had a troubled time making its way out into the world.  But since this is post two hundred and all, let's accentuate the positive!  Anyone who's interested can finally experience my high speed cyberpunk-for-the-computer-illiterate sci-fi oddity for themself.  I got to do my first interview that's actually about me, rather than a particular story, and thus managed to warble ill-informedly about such diverse topics as the London riots, the highs and lows of writing in far too many genres at once, and ... well ... me stuff.  On top of that, I got to be published alongside Amanda C. Davis again.  I decided a while back that Amanda was one of the best genre writers working today, pretty much solely on the basic of her story being the undeniable highpoint of that awful Zombonauts anthology we were both in.  What do you know?  Turns out I was right.

So there we are.  Two hundred posts.  A long and bloody road travelled since Monday the 2nd of July 2007.  What will post four hundred be?  I hope I have a cyborg arm by then.  Or at least a condo on Mars.  I'd even settle for one of those hoverboards that got passe before anyone even had time to invent them.  Of course, at the rate I'm going, I should hit four hundred somewhere in 2015, so probably a cure for the common cold is way too much to ask.

Passive Resistance Sold to Redstone ... and Other Excitements

I mentioned a looooong time ago that my cyberpunk-for-people-who-can't-work-computers story Passive Resistance had been picked up for an anthology, the title of which escapes me, by a publisher called Mythica Publishing.  Well, that was one bit of excitingness that fell flat on its face, what with Mythica turning out to be the kind of unscrupulous self-publishing type outfit that couldn't put out an anthology if ten thousand copies of it materialised from nowhere and proceeded to sell themselves to an unsuspecting public.

Which seemed like bad news at the time.  What I obviously couldn't have predicted is that it was in fact completely brilliant - since if Mythica hadn't keeled over like a geriatric donkey, I couldn't have just sold Passive Resistance to Redstone Science Fiction.  Since Mythica were planning to pay me precisely nothing, (and would probably have picked my pockets given half the chance), and Redstone just gained their SFWA professional market pointy magic hat, it's hard to see this as any other than a profoundly lucky escape.  Which, funnily enough, is precisely one of the things that Passive Resistance is about.  At times like this, it almost feels like the universe isn't a big chaotic bubble of meaningless crazy!

In other news ... I knew on a vague intellectual level that there was probably going to be a Lightspeed Year One anthology, including my Jenny's Sick, but the discovery that it was both real and a mere four months away still set me bouncing round the room like a trained seal.  Halfway through the day, it struck me that a significant percentage of that excitement came not from the promise of more exposure for what I consider one of my better stories, but from the prospect that I'd be spending my Christmas holiday reading a year's worth of fiction from Lightspeed.  Of the many 'zines out there, it's high on my list of ones I wish I had the time to follow, so I can't help but look forward to the prospect of catching up on twelve months worth of Lightspeed goodness.

Lastly - and only leastly in that it doesn't directly involve anyone paying me money - I discovered yesterday that Digital Science Fiction's issue #1 anthology First Contact (which included my Black Sun) recently hit the number one sales spot in Amazon's science fiction anthologies kindle list, and is still riding high in the top ten.  Hats off to DSF for not only putting out an excellent first issue but for actually managing to persuade a sizeable number of people to read it.

Resistance to Mythica

After a quiet few months, the news is coming in so fast that I'm going to have to split it into multiple posts. Not that I'm complaining, mind!

First things first - and following hot on the heels of last month's sale to Necrotic Tissue - Mythica Publishing have accepted my story Passive Resistance for their forthcoming Another Time, Another Place anthology, to be edited by award-winning author Brian L Porter. The details are towards the bottom of the page, so scroll down to see the awesome cover art - or watch the promotional video for a sneak peek.

Another Time, Another Place will be a collection of futuristic thrillers, including seven authors besides myself. Passive Resistance is a near-future manhunt tale, and an attempt to do something interesting with cyberpunk; namely, to avoid the hypercompetent protagonists of classics like Neuromancer and to replace them with a middle-aged technophobe. It's a fun story, and Mythica are an immensely promising publisher, so hopefully this should be a good'un.

In addition, I was approached this morning about reprints rights for one of my more well-received tales. I won't say any more until I get definite confirmation, but if it comes off then this could be a great year for anthology sales.