Happy Birthday, David

Yes, it's my birthday. I had a peaceful day not doing much, and I did have some cake. Success.

I was somewhat distracted from writing today because I finally transitioned gNewSense. I was distracted from writing Science Fiction by the even equally geeky task of fiddling around with GNU/Linux. Whatever, it was fun.

Anyways, what with my birthday being in the same general area as Christmas Eve and New Year's Day, I'm all introspected out. My birthday resolution is to become much more annoying, but get paid for it. If I'm going to be a misanthrope I might as well make a living too.

What that means is I'm going to dial down the filter Even More, because repression is no fun and no filter means I can write like the...the...the very fast thing. This is also a test to see if this girl has the mental fortitude to withstand my gale-force babble, techno- and otherwise. Always good to know.

I'm turning into this:


That was, of course, Alan Partridge in one of his rare moments of heroism.

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That doesn't look very comfortable, but whatever gets your Creativity flowing, lady.

I mean, you've got to paint my portrait and all.

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250 words? Yes

Book "Lived Too Long to Die"

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Reading - The Right To Read

(An anvilicious flash fiction)

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I Never Wanted to Be Popular

Now that you know the magazines I read, I can dramatically reveal my banal new blog feature: "Wread This First" (graphic Coming Soon! Oh boy!). The title plays off Wreaders, in which I laid out why Writer/Readers are different from Readers.

The whole point of the exercise will be reviewing short stories that are available so I can link to them in full, almost certainly from that list of magazines. It'll appear on a loose schedule of Whenever, but it's not that hard and there are plenty of stories within clicking distance.

I don't often see short story reviews, and since I really like short stories I'll just do it myself. My scale is (Perfect)/Great/Good/OK/Bad, and is purely based on (1) how much my time was not wasted by reading the story and (2) how much of the story (image, plot, characters, cool new words) I can remember whilst writing the review. If it's Bad, I won't bother to review it. If it's Great, I'll talk about what techniques I would steal more than picking at the plot.

Since this is Wreading, it'd probably be best if you read the stories first before reading the review. Since I won't post "Bad" stories, it can't be too horrible.

As usual, if you disagree, leave a comment. I guess I do want to be popular. Just not "liked".

Not The Protagonist

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Wread This First -
The Summer King (Megan Arkenburg)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #59

Great/Good/OK/Bad

It felt a little too long for me, the middle dragged a bit (especially considering the ending), but the story pulled me along by being the kind of political-maneuvering plot that I like. I rather liked the opening scene: start personal, then grow.

Two things pulled me out of the story: the characters say "shit" a lot, and the transition "By the time the carriage stopped at the Hôtel Camus the bleeding had mostly stopped." had me going back to see what happened.

I liked the setting, something of a Rome meets (mild) Gangs of New York with a monarchy. The balance of characters was good too, with the Bosses running from evil to banal to good (a bit too good, in the case of the heroine), but I would have liked to see some more overt expressions of the Assembly being evil.

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1000 words? Yes

Short Story "Science Up Some Love"

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Reading - ?

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Nothing Happened Today

Everybody seems to be sleeping off their hangover except me, who always wakes up exactly six hours after he goes to sleep regardless of inebriation. So rather than disturb people by writing some crazy blog post, I'll go through the fiction magazines I read, and thus the ones I tend to shoot my submissions toward. 

Asimov's Science Fiction
Sheila Williams
Well, of course.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Scott H. Andrews
Personal favorite!
This is where all my fantastical alternate history and quasi-fantasy goes. I'm just obsessed, now. By the by, Fantastical Alternate History & Quasi-Fantasy would be a good name for a magazine. "FAH&Q-F": I call dibs.

Clarkesworld Magazine
Neil Clarke
Solid, and I like audiofiction.
The only annoyance is that you have to wait seven days before submitting something new. I have a lot of short fiction circulating, and that throws off my schedule. Eh.

Daily Science Fiction
Jonathan Laden

Michele Barasso
It's Fantasy and Science Fiction and it comes every day to my Inbox? Awesome. I regularly read the longer Friday stories, but I'll occasionally breeze through the weekday flash fiction.
The submission system is weird...but it works.

Fantasy Magazine
Lightspeed Magazine
John Joseph Adams
Lightspeed Magazine has a really slick website design and good fiction. Fantasy Magazine? I don't like the layout but I like the stories when I'm in the mood for Fantasy. Which is better than the reverse.
I submit here on those days when I want to get a response really fast. I think I once got a response back before I finished reading one of the front-page stories at Lightspeed Magazine. That's fun.

Strange Horizons
Susan Marie Groppi
Good fiction and a Bonus! The SH "Stories We've Seen Too Often" page, notable for being the only one of its kind that doesn't give me ideas for stories to subvert it. That's a good sign of taste. Example:
#10 Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
a. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
b. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
c. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.

and...

Futurismic
Paul Graham Raven

Christopher East

I mostly read the articles here, but whenever I write a "Near-future, Earth-based science fiction" story (not often) I send it over here. I wouldn't mind being one of their bloggers though. That'd be fun.

These reflect the basic ratio of my fiction writing as well, about 60% SF, 30% parts F, and 10% part Goofy

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That looks kinda fun...

Oh, Mr. Drunky, why do you take all the good times?

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600 words? Yes

Short Story "Science Up Some Love"

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Reading - see above, jeez.

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