Of Flesh and Feathers by L.M. Pierce

Release date: July 14, 2020
Subgenre: Post-apocalytic, Animal stories

About Of Flesh and Feathers: 

 

"A modern Watership Down meets The Walking Dead - but with a lot more feathers."

A foul wind blows through the chicken coop. The flock's caretaker no longer comes to collect Chickory's eggs or bring her feed, and the stench of death is everywhere. Her friend Fayne is haunted by visions of danger, and by a prophecy of safety beyond the farthest horizon a chicken has ever known. With the help of their faithful farm dog, Chickory must convince her flock to follow her into a frightening world of disease and predators, both natural... and unnatural.

Their survival may depend on fateful premonitions, but in order to save the world of humans and birds, Chickory must discover the truth behind the prophecy and the sickness that turned their keepers into killers.

From the mind that brought you Trans Liberty Riot Brigade, L.M. Pierce presents:
Of Flesh and Feathers

 

Excerpt:

 

The Beginning

"We are brought to the light by Piasa's grace;
All creatures of the world begin as small, naked chicks,
And we all face death the moment life begins."

- Tales of Piasa, for Chicks and Hatchlings

The walls of the chicken coop obscured all hint of sunrise, except for the square of light where the ramp led down into the small yard. The caked straw and long accumulated droppings burned Chickory’s eyes, and her wind pouch ached with every breath. Outside, the flock squabbled and fought over early worms.

She had watched them rise, watched as they shoved through the small entrance like a squirming mass of grubs. What they hurried for, she didn’t know. The tender new season grass was gone. Even the spicy ants with sharp angular mouths were gone. The flock had stalked them back to the nest and once the juicy queen had been dug up, no more had appeared.

Every sunrise they hurried into the yard, even though their caretaker wouldn’t be there to greet them with a sprinkle of corn or wheat or knobby vegetables. Their reliable, frizzy-headed Hum, Lady, had gone inside the blue house and never returned. Sometimes that happened—Hums, like all living creatures of Piasa’s world, could die, would die. And Lady wasn’t the only one. Chickory fought against the memory but it dripped through like honey in the sun season. The Hum child from the neighbor’s farm was slumped against the back fence, an arm draped over the lowest rail as his body returned to the soil. His flesh squirmed with flies and squishy white bugs, but an unusually terrible smell emanated from every inch of his decomposed body. The smell of his sickness had deterred most creatures from eating his flesh. Even the sky birds avoided the feast of insects that didn’t fuss over a diseased home.

No, she really didn’t see the point in getting up at all.

“What are you doing in here?” Rosie’s brilliant red feathers looked black as she stood in the shadow of the entryway. 

“Resting.”

“Resting? ‘A bird at rest is an easy meal’ and you’ve been resting for many sunrises,” Rosie hissed. She had returned to her clutch of perfectly domed brown eggs after a brief journey for water and whatever food she might have found. It was time to nest—and hens nested alone.

“I won’t bother you.”

“You’re bothering me now! Get out, get out, your smell makes me sick.” Rosie hopped to where Chickory huddled on the bottom roost and snapped her comb. The wrinkled red flesh nearly tore and Chickory scurried away from her.

“Fine. I’m leaving,” Chickory said and stalked out the entrance and into the full light of the day.

She blinked and squinted. Morning mist cloaked the yard. Dark shapes moved across the muted landscape and the pink of the sky, coupled with the haze, made it feel like a dream or a chickhood memory.

However, beneath the dreamlike appearance, the yard had reverted to wilderness. Lady’s once careful attention to the plants and creatures she cared for had almost faded. The overgrown and lopsided hedges around the house soaked up slabs of sunshine, and tall flourishing field grass spread across the front like misplaced whiskers. The yard around the coop, once lush with green, was now patchy with dry grass and bald spots of soil. Hills of decayed leaves, left over from the cold season, tangled in the fence surrounding the main yard, and knobby twists of nut trees cast long shadows over the pebbled entrance.

 

Amazon

 

About L.M. Pierce: 

 Music to Lindsay’s ears. She is an eclectic liberal box of sparks. Friends call her a golden retriever. She is a lover of the new and the old, of asking questions and contemplating possibilities. In addition to the making of words, she is a mental health therapist, anti-oppression trainer, and queer AF.

​

She lives with her family, fur babies, and chickens in Olympia, Washington.

 

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Road Seven by Keith Rosson

Release date: July 14, 2020

Subgenre: Magical Realism, Contemporary Fantasy

About Road Seven: 

 

Road Seven follows disgraced cryptozoologist Mark Sandoval—resolutely arrogant, covered head to foot in precise geometric scarring, and still marginally famous after Hollywood made an Oscar-winner based off his memoir years before—who has been strongly advised by his lawyer to leave the country following a drunken and potentially fatal hit and run. When a woman sends Sandoval grainy footage of what appears to be a unicorn, he quickly hires an assistant and the two head off to the woman's farm in Hvíldarland, a tiny, remote island off the coast of Iceland. When they arrive on the island and discover that both a military base and the surrounding álagablettur, the nearby woods, are teeming with strangeness and secrets, they begin to realize that a supposed unicorn sighting is the least of their worries.  

Road Seven will mark the third of Rosson’s novels to be published by Meerkat Press.

 

Excerpt:

 

If you knew a little pop culture, you knew Mark Sandoval’s story.

You’d at least heard of him, or one of his books, even if you hadn’t actually read one. (But chances were that if you hadn’t read one, and you were in, say, an average-sized sedan, someone you were with probably had.) His was a name that came up as an answer during somewhat nerdy subsections of trivia night. Sandoval rested in the back part of the mind, a celebrity tumbled earthward, Icarus-style: famous, but with nowhere near the fervor of his earlier fame.

The story went:

When he was in his late twenties, Sandoval was assistant anthropology professor at a small but respected liberal arts university in Seattle. (He never named names in his book, hence the shock when Brian discovered that Don Whitmer had been involved). One morning he didn’t show up for a class he was scheduled to teach. Just skipped it. The head of the department (again, Don Whitmer, played by an earnest and affable Morgan Freeman in the film) was understandably frustrated. Pissed, even. This was not, after all, a new occurrence, Sandoval dipping out on his responsibilities. After multiple offers of a sympathetic ear from the school’s dean and more than one warning from Whitmer as to his tenuous footing regarding his employment, Sandoval and Whitmer had a meeting and Sandoval was removed from his position. It was something that probably could have been contested if he’d been of mind to do it. But long story short: he’d lost his job. He was fucking up big time.

Thing was, after that meeting? Sandoval just disappeared.

He was gone for thirty-four days.

Just vanished. Puff-of-smoke kind of shit. In The Long Walk Home, he wrote that his wife, who had admittedly left him just days before, grew frantic at his disappearance. His friends and colleagues were mystified. He was not, they say, depressed or in debt. He partied, sure, but not to excess. His position on campus, had he been able to keep it together, seemed almost assuredly tenure-track. (Again, this was via The Long Walk Home, and all of it strained through the colander of Sandoval’s heavy-handed and admittedly one-sided prose.) The police briefly talked to the wife but ultimately came to believe it was probably a kidnapping that, as the days continued to pass with no ransom demand issued, had possibly turned fatal. There were simply no leads to follow.

And then, thirty-four days after his disappearance from Seattle, Sandoval was discovered by an off-duty policeman in a phone booth in Middleton, Delaware, nearly three thousand miles away. Wearing only a pair of soiled boxer shorts, Sandoval sat curled and sobbing on the booth’s metal floor, rocking himself like a child. He was emaciated and dehydrated and initially appeared to have difficulty regaining speech. Not a heavy man to begin with, he’d lost over forty pounds since his disappearance.

Most notably, nearly the entirety of his body was now covered in a series of raised scars (circles, squares, trapezoids, octagons sutured together by an interconnected series of lines.) Only his face, hands and feet were spared. Though his language capabilities eventually returned, he purported to have no memory of the previous weeks. The scars, how he got them, and what they may or may not represent were, he claimed, a mystery.

Sandoval returned to Seattle as a strange dichotomy: both pariah and minor celebrity. Eventually he seemed to recover entirely. He was not evasive about what happened, but said he simply didn’t know. Claims by his wife that he had issues with drugs were fervently rebuffed. He did not return to his position at the university.

Within a year of his return to Seattle he’d written a memoir. It was sold to a major New York publisher after an extensive bidding war (rumors at the time placed his advance in the mid-seven-figure range). The bulk of the material was purportedly penned from memories unearthed after claiming to have undergone months of regressive hypnotherapy, though repeated media requests to name the therapist (titled only “Dr. X” in the book) were never answered.

And Mark Sandoval became famous. His memoir, The Long Way Home, became hugely popular. It became one of those books that was purchased by people that don’t often like to read, a book that stayed for years on supermarket shelves. A book that was gifted to people who were impossible to shop for.

And it was in this book that Sandoval claimed, as evidenced through his scars and his numerous regressive-hypnosis sessions, to have been abducted by aliens.

Brian remembered being a kid and watching the unending Saturday Night Live skits at that time, in which an alien was always bugging one of the cast members—arms and legs done up in pink makeup suspiciously like Sandoval’s scarring—about inconsistencies in that “dumb story you wrote about me.” (His mother had found these skits hilarious.) Sandoval cowrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. Brad Pitt nabbed an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a frightened, weeping Mark Sandoval, wandering Middleton streets with a brutal, unknown lexicon strung along his body.

Five books followed over the next couple decades, “nonfiction exposés.” All of them farting around between memoir and monster hunt. They were all well received, at least in terms of sales, though none were ever as successful as The Long Way Home. He remembered seeing Sandoval on Oprah: Sandoval had worn a leather jacket and a terrible goatee-mustache combo that was woefully, painfully indicative of the times. He’d looked like the sleazy older guy who’d try to pick up girls in a head shop.

Oprah, holding up a hardcover copy of the book, had touched Sandoval’s knee with her other hand and said, “Now really, Mark. Aliens? We’re supposed to believe that aliens came down and took you onto their ship? Did these things to you? These strange and confusing and sometimes hurtful things? I think some part of us wants to believe that there’s more than just us out there, but the things you write here . . . I mean, really?”

And Sandoval, without missing a beat, tucked his thumb under his chin and put his finger against his nose. Thinker in repose. (It was a gesture Brian would become intimately familiar with years later; it seemed one of the few natural, uncultivated things about the man.) Sandoval had nodded sagely, waited a beat and said, “You know, Oprah, sometimes? In matters of faith—and you know this better than most—just because we don’t understand it, doesn’t mean we can’t handle it. Or that it shouldn’t happen.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I believe . . . Well, I’m of the opinion that there’s a grand plan. Okay? And it’s one that we’re not always privy to. We can’t always encapsulate it into our understanding. But we still do our part, our tiny part, even if we can’t see the big picture at the time.”

“So things happen for a reason.”

“Exactly. Even if we don’t know what that reason is at the time.”

Oprah had seemed grudgingly accepting of that answer, if not exactly satisfied. She’d eyed him almost suspiciously. “That’s certainly a gracious way of looking at what happened to you, Mark.”

And Sandoval had smiled, a smile that disintegrated the foolishness of that goatee, the gelled hair. A smile that dissipated that huckster sheen of his. He leaned back, and viewers could see the scars peeking out of his sleeves.

“Well,” Sandoval had said, “I have been around the block a few times, after all.”

Cue the audience’s gentle laughter.

Meerkat Press | Indiebound.org| Amazon | Barnes & Noble

 

 

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About Keith Rosson:

Keith Rosson is the author of the novels The Mercy of the Tide and Smoke City. His short fiction has appeared in Cream City Review, PANK, Redivider, December, and more. An advocate of both public libraries and non-ironic adulation of the cassette tape, he can be found at keithrosson.com.

 

Website | Twitter

 

About Meerkat Press: 

 Meerkat Press is an independent publisher committed to finding and publishing exceptional, irresistible, unforgettable fiction. And despite the previous sentence, we frown on overuse of adjectives and adverbs in submissions. *smile*

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Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for July 10, 2020

It's time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with the various iterations of Star Trek, The Old Guard, Legends of Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, Palm Springs, tributes to Ennio Moricone and Earl Cameron, the latest convention cancellations and virtual conventions due to the corona virus and much more.

Speculative fiction in general:

• Goodreads shares the 100 most popular science fiction books on their platform.
• James Davis Nicoll shares five recent books for fans of spaceships, rockets and occasional explosions.
• James Davis Nicoll offers a brief history of megastructures in science fiction.  
• James Davis Nicoll also takes a look at the writing husbands of several famous woman SFF writers.
• Daniel DeVita shares ten awesome science fiction and fantasy books by black authors.  
• Suyi Davies Okungbowa shares five SFF books set in contemporary African locales. 
• Nisi Shawl offers a tour through the history of black science fiction.
• Alexandra Stronach takes a look at LGBTQ science fiction by New Zealand authors. 
• Estelle Laure shares five YA science fiction and fantasy books in which women reclaim their identities.
• Christina Orlando and Leah Schnelbach share 23 SFF retellings of classic stories. 
• Jasper Dewitt wonders whether the gothic novel is about to undergo a revival. 
• Gwendolyn Kiste shares five historical horror novels.
• Riley Sager shares famous literary haunted houses.
• Alexandra Christo shares five SFF books in which criminals save the day. 
• Chris M. Barkley talks about racism in the science fiction and fantasy community. 
• Melissa Bashardoust talks about Persian legends and their western counterparts. 
• Jay Stringer declares that genre labels are meaningless, but fun to discuss.
• Leah Schnelbach talks about language and codeswitching in Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson.
• Rahil Sheikh traces the history of the superheroine Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel 
• Aidan Moher praises the striking work of SFF artist Galen Dara.
• Alison Flood reports that several early short stories by Terry Pratchett, which have never been collected or reprinted will be published in book form in September.
• The BBC reports that several Harry Potter fansites have distanced themselves from J.K. Rowling a.k.a. Robert Galbraith because of her transphobic remarks. 
• Several prominent writers and scholars have posted an open letter, complaining about cancel culture.
• Timothy the Talking Cat also speaks out against cancel culture.
• The Polish magazine Nowa Fantastyka issues a statement in response to criticisms they received for publishing a story some readers considered homophobic. 
• Tor.com reports that a freelance game designer has left Wizards of the Coast because of a hostile work environment.

Film and TV:

• Stuart Heritage wonders if Warrior Nun is the next Stranger Things.
• Alex McLevy declares that Ju-On Origins offers some decent scares but little else. 
• BOLO Books shares their thoughts on Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. 
• Alex McLevy shares his thoughts on the latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Caroline Siede shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Stargirl.
• Maya Gittelman discusses the subversive LGBTQ triumph of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
• Ignatiy Vishnevetsky revisits the 1933 post-apocalyptic movie Deluge. 
• Jessica Holmes rewatches the 1965 movie Doctor Who and the Daleks. 
• Noah Berlatsky revisits the 1981 horror film The Evil Dead.
• David Roth revisits Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation of Starship Troopers.  
• Emily Temple shares Hilary Mantel's 1988 review of RoboCop.
• A.O. Scott expresses his dislike for superhero movies which he hates so much that he is glad the corona pandemic caused all superhero movies to be delayed. 
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw lists nine Marvel characters who deserve their own movie or TV show.
• Gavin Edwards shares the twenty best time travel movies.
• Mike Bedard lists science fiction TV shows ruined by bad endings. 
• Jon Berlingame takes a look at Emmy-nominated scores of recent science fiction and fantasy TV shows. 
• Emma Grey Ellis interviews Leigh Dana Jackson, producer of the upcoming Foundation series.  
• Cameron Scheetz interviews Danny Trejo, star of Machete. 
• Debbie Zhou interviews Natalie Erika James, director of Relic. 
• Joe Otterson reports that actress Javicia Leslie has been cast as the new series lead of Batwoman, following the departure of Ruby Rose. 
• Tor.com reports that The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has been cancelled after season 4.
• Theresa DeLucci shares her thoughts on the videogame The Last of Us II.  
• David Klass asks if the best adaptations keep the author at arm's length.
• Alex Cox talks about the difficulties of shooting movies under the new corona protection rules. 
• Andrew Pulver reports that Hollywood stars shooting in the UK will be exempt from the UK's quarantine rules
• Actor Nick Cordero has died of complications of the corona virus aged 41.  
• Legendary film composer Ennio Moricone has died aged 92. 
• Robert D. McFadden remembers Ennio Moricone.
• Actor Earl Cameron, best known for his appearances in Thunderball, Doctor Who, The Prisoner and Good Omens, has died aged 102.
• Andrew Pulver remembers Earl Cameron.
  

Comments on the various iterations of Star Trek:

• Many of his co-stars come together to celebrate the 80th birthday of Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Picard and Professor Charles Xavier in several X-Men movies among many other things.
• Keith R.A. DeCandido rewatches the Star Trek Voyager episodes "False Profits" and "Remember".
• Alvaro Zinos-Amaro revisits the 2011 Star Trek Deep Space Nine tie-in novel Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire by David George III
  

Comments on The Old Guard:

• Anya Stanley calls The Old Guard a thoughtful action fantasy hybrid. 
• Peter Bradshaw calls The Old Guard a forgettable thriller with a silly premise.
• Ellen E. Jones interviews Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of The Old Guard.
  

Comments on Legends of Tomorrow: 

• Graeme Virtue explains why you should watch Legends of Tomorrow.
• S.E. Fleenor praises the Star Trek parody in Legends of Tomorrow and how it pays tribute to the origins of fanfiction. 

Comments on Snowpiercer:

• Emma Fraser discusses the depiction of crime and punishment in Snowpiercer.
• Kayla Kumari Upadyaya shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Snowpiercer.

Comments on Palm Springs:

• A.A. Dowd calls Palm Springs a sweet and inventive timeloop movie.
• Cameron Scheetz interviews Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, stars of Palm Springs.
• Cameron Scheetz interviews Camila Mendes and Meredith Hagner, two of the stars of Palm Springs.
  

Awards: 

• Online voting for the 2020 Hugo Awards is now open.
• The winners of the 2019 Cóyotl Awards have been announced. 
• The nominees for the 2020 ENnie Awards have been announced.
• The winner of the 2020 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award has been announced.
• The winner of the 2020 Phantastikpreis der Stadt Wetzlar has been announced.
• The Heinlein Society has announced the winners of their 2020 scholarships. 
• Joe Sherry takes a look at the finalists for the 2020 Best Related Work Hugos.
• Camestros Felapton profiles Cora Buhlert, James Davis Nicoll, Alasdair Stuart, Bogi Takács, Paul Weimer and Adam Whitehead, the finalists for the 2020 Best Fan Writer Hugo.
  

Writing, publishing and promotion:

• Michael R. Underwood talks about writing a novel based on his favourite tropes. 
• Owen Matthews talks about truth and historical fiction. 
• Sherryl Clark talks about writers' day jobs.
• Dean Wesley Smith explains why he is opposed to traditional publishing.
• Cora Buhlert looks back on nine years of indie publishing.
• The SFWA reports that it is now possible to register the US copyright for several short works published online for a flat fee.
• Julian Mark reports that the owner of Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California, has been accused of sexual assault by his daughter and domestic abuse by his ex-partner.
• Mike Glyer also reports about the sexual assault allegations against the owner of Borderlands Books.
  

Interviews:

• Arley Sorg interviews Kate Elliott.
• Alex Clark interviews David Mitchell. 
• Redditors interview Aliette de Bodard. 
• The Book Bratz interviews Shveta Thakrar.
• Arley Sorg interviews Madeline Ashby.
• C.L. Polk and Alyssa Cole interview each other. 
• Mike Glyer interviews Ry Herman. 
• Runalong the Shelves interviews Kit Mallory.
• The Qwillery interviews John Fram.
• Andrea Johnson interviews Iain J. Clark.
• Andrea Johnson interviews Ariela Housman.
• Listen to an interview with J.R.R. Tolkien from the 1960s. 

Reviews: 

• Carolyn Cushman reviews American Demon by Kim Harrison and Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter. 
• Carolyn Cushman reviews Voodoo Shanghai by Kristi Charish and Forced Perspectives by Tim Powers.
• Paul Di Filippo reviews Hella by David Gerrold.
• Kat Hooper reviews Hella by David Gerrold.
• Buzz Dixon reviews Hella by David Gerrold. 
• Jessica P. Wick reviews Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 
• Ian Mond and Paula Guran review Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 
• Kat Hooper reviews Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 
• Runalong the Shelves reviews Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette de Bodard. 
• M.K. French reviews Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette de Bodard.
• James Davis Nicoll reviews The Year of Witching by Alexis Henderson. 
• Blue Book Balloon reviews Love Bites by Ry Herman.
• Runalong the Shelves reviews Sparks by Kit Mallory. 
• Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds reviews Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer.
• Katharine Coldiron reviews Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi. 
• Lee Mandelo reviews Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust
• Colleen Mondor reviews All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace.
• Paul Weimer reviews Master of Dreams and Mistress of Illusions by Mike Resnick.
• Kat Hooper reviews The Last Curtain Call by Juliet Blackwell.  
• John Valeri reviews Witch Hunt by Cate Conte. 
• Doreen Sheridan reviews A Sprinkling of Murder by Daryl Wood Gerber and tries a recipe from the book.
• Laura Miller reviews Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell.
• Ian Mond reviews A Peculiar Peril by Jeff VanderMeer. 
• Blue Book Balloon reviews Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford.
• Colleen Mondor reviews Oasis by Katya de Becerra. 
• Steve J. Wright reviews Deeplight by Frances Hardinge.
• Doris V. Sutherland reviews Dead Sea Chronicles by Tim Curran.
• Runalong the Shelves reviews Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay. 
• Cassie Schulz reviews Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews Unbecoming by Lesley Wheeler. 
• Rob Bedford reviews The Kingdom of Liars by Nick Martell.
• Rebecca Fisher reviews Under the Moon by Lauren Myracle.
• Bill Capossere reviews Or What You Will by Jo Walton.
  

Classics reviews:

• Kelly Lasiter revisits the 1944 mythological novel The Golden Fleece by Robert Graves.
• James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1946 science fiction comedy Mr. Adam by Pat Frank.  
• Sandy Ferber revisits the 1952 science fiction collection Away and Beyond by A.E. van Vogt.
• Joachim Boaz revisits the 1955 postapocalyptic novel The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett.
• Jason Sacks revisits the 1965 post-apocalyptic novel Dr. Bloodmoney or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick.
• Gideon Marcus revisits the August 1965 issue of Galaxy.
• Bogi Takács revisits the 1966 science fiction novel Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. 
• Paul Fraser revisits the 1970 anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Robert Silverberg.
• Judith Tarr revisits the 1981 children's science fiction novel Star Ka'ats and the Winged Warriors by Andre Norton. 
• James David Nicoll revisits the 1982 hard science fiction novel Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss.
• Tadiana Jones revisits the 1985 children's fantasy novel Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono, translated by Emily Balistrieri. 
• Summer H. Paulus revisits the 1990 fantasy novel The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan. 
• Pat's Fantasy Hotlist revisits the 1995 cyberpunk novel The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.
• Doris V. Sutherland revisits the 2005 vampire novel Vestal by Charlee Jacob.
  

Con and event reports:

• CoNZealand, the 2020 Worldcon has announced an initiative to support marginalised and historically underrepresented people. 
• Neil Clarke declares that the virtual Worldcon CoNZealand will be the most science fictional Worldcon ever.
• Andrew Liptak reports that DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, has gone virtual due to the corona virus. 
• Mike Glyer has more information on DragonCon going virtual. 
• MileHiCon in Denver, Colorado, has gone virtual as well. 
• The 2020 Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention in Lombard, Illinois has been cancelled due to the corona virus. 
• Sara Jones reports that the fate of the 2020 FanX convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, is still undecided.
• Mike Glyer reports that the New England Science Fiction Association will host a virtual one-day convention called reCONvene in August. 
• Locus reports that StokerCon in Petersborough, UK, has been postponed until 2021 and was rebranded as ChillerCon.
• Mike Glyer reports that the 2023 Worldcon bid for Nice, France, has run into problems, because its proposed venue is slated to be demolished.
• Font Folly shares his experiences at the virtual Locus Awards weekend.
• M.H. Srinahari reports about the national webinar on Indian science fiction organised by the Rizvi College of Arts, Science and Com­merce in Mumbai, India.
• Watch a video of the Fannish Inquisition for the 2022 Worldcon bids for Chicago, Illinois, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Mike Glyer reports that Ed Kramer, disgraced co-founder of DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, is sueing a judge candidate for libel after she called him a "convicted sex offender" in her campaign flyers.
  

Crowdfunding:

• Christianna Silver discusses how creators of boardgames are increasingly turning towards crowdfunding to finance their games.
  

Science and technology:

• The BBC reports that the launch of NASA's Mars rover Perseverance has been pushed back again.  
• Jonathan Amos reports that the latest mission of the Rocket Lab launch vehicle Electron has failed, destroying the satellite payload. 
• Jonathan Amos reports that ESA's Cryosat-2 and NASA's Icesat-2 will line up to measure Antarctic ice. 
• Andrew Higgins reports that Ivan Safronov, a former official at the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has been arrested for alleged espionage.
• Mike Glyer and Andrew Porter talk about futuristic architecture in New York City.
  

Free online fiction:

• "Artificial People" by Michael Swanwick in Clarkesworld. 
• "Accidental Kaiju" by Dianne M. Williams in Luna Station Quarterly. 
• "The Necessary Arthur" by Garth Nix at Tor.com. 
• "Once More Onto the Breach (But Don't Worry, the Inflatable Swords are Latex-free)" by Tina Connolly in Uncanny Magazine.
• "The Worlds Ends in Salty Fingers and Sugared Lips" by Jenn Reese in Uncanny Magazine.
• "Zen and the Art of an Android Beatdown, or Cecile Meets a Boxer. A Love Story" by Tochi Onyebuchi in Lightspeed. 
• "Baba Yaga and the Seven Hills" by Kristina Ten in Lightspeed.
• "Spider Season, Fire Season" by Carlie St. George in Nightmare Magazine.
• "Needles" by Kali Napier in The Dark.
  

Odds and ends: 

• Watch a trailer for season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. 
• Watch a trailer for season 2 of The Boys.
• Watch a trailer for The Fandom. 
• Daniel Dern offers an overview of Star Wars parody songs.
• Earthly Mission reports that Soviet monuments in Bulgaria have been painted to look like superheroes, much to Russia's chagrin.
  

324 Abercorn by Mark Allan Gunnells

 Release date: July 8, 2020

Subgenre: Ghost Story, Horror

About 324 Abercorn:

 

Brad Storm doesn’t believe in ghosts, but moving into the house at 324 Abercorn just may change his mind.

Best-selling author Bradley Storm finally has enough money to buy and restore his dream home. Despite 324 Abercorn's reputation as one of the most haunted houses in America, Bradley isn't worried. He doesn't believe in the supernatural. Then strange things begin to happen. Objects no longer where he left them. Phantom noises heard from empty rooms. Shadows glimpsed from the corner of his eye.

Is his house truly haunted, or is there something more sinister happening on the property?

With the help of Bradley’s new boyfriend and a few friends who are just as intrigued with the seemingly inexplicable occurrences surrounding the infamous house, they set out to find the truth of what stalks the halls at 324 Abercorn.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Excerpt:

 

The Maverick Center had originated as a school, and upstairs was a recreation of how the classrooms would have looked when the school first opened in 1856, with wooden desks and chalkboard tablets, outdated world maps hanging on the walls and even a dunce cap sitting on a wooden stool in the corner. Brad had visited the place before, and knew the classroom was technically in the next building over, but at the top of the stairs a door led onto an open walkway that connected the two buildings.

            Out on the walkway, Brad paused to enjoy the warm breeze. Still early spring but the temperatures were already in the 70s. This foretold of a blistering summer, but the heat had never bothered Brad. He’d rather be too hot than too cold any day.

            Letting his eyes wander over to his house, Brad found himself fixated on an odd shadow reflected in the glass of the bay window. Leaning slightly over the railing and squinting, he detected what looked like the silhouette of a person standing by the window. His bedroom window.

            Brad placed a hand over his eyes to shield the glare from the sun, sure his vision must be playing tricks on him. Just as a cloud scuttled in front of the sun, it seemed the figure in his bedroom stepped back from the window. Or it could have been the shade from the cloud removing the reflection from the glass.

            In any case, Brad turned back and retreated the way he came, bounding down the stairs and past the register. Marty asked if anything was wrong, but Brad didn’t answer. He was out the door and sprinting across the street, nearly colliding with a middle-aged couple who’d stopped at the edge of Crenshaw Square to study a large map.

            He took the curving steps two at a time, unlocked the door, and started for the stairs until the incessant beeping of the alarm drew him back to the foyer. He punched in the code, and then rushed upstairs to his bedroom.

            His bedroom was empty and seemingly undisturbed. The bedsheets lay rumpled in the manner he’d left them this morning, his Rolex sat untouched on the nightstand. He did a quick search of the upstairs, just as he had the other day when he thought he’d heard the footsteps, but the rooms were as deserted now as they were then.

            He made his way down to the lower floor and searched those rooms, as well as the basement library, Phantom following alone as if he were the Pied Piper. He found no one, and no sign that anyone had been inside. In fact, how could anyone have been inside when the alarm was still set when he came in?

            The alarm.

Something about this nagged at him, and he realized that he didn’t recall deactivating the alarm when he’d come in for the book earlier. Of course, punching in his code had become second nature so perhaps he’d done it automatically. He couldn’t be sure. Just as he couldn’t be sure he’d seen anything in the window.

Amazon

 

About Max Allan Gunnells:

 

Mark Allan Gunnells loves to tell stories. He has since he was a kid, penning one-page tales that were Twilight Zone knockoffs. He likes to think he has gotten a little better since then. He loves reader feedback, and above all he loves telling stories. He lives in Greer, SC, with his husband Craig A. Metcalf.

Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for July 3, 2020

It's time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with the various iterations of Star Trek, Warrior Nun, sexual harrassment in the speculative fiction and comics community, Ray Harryhausen at 100, the latest convention cancellations and virtual conventions due to the corona virus and much more. 

Speculative fiction in general:

• AudioFile Magazine shares the best new science fiction and fantasy audiobooks for summer.
• V.S. Holmes talks about the resurgence and power of subtle and quiet science fiction. 
• James Davis Nicoll shares five science fiction novels about doomed armies.
• Rory Power shares five books that feel like a fever dream. 
• Leah Schnelbach and Emmet Asher-Perrin share science fiction works where Jack the Ripper continues to murder into the far future.
• James Davis Nicoll shares five SFF books by Canadian authors for Canada Day. 
• James Davis Nicoll shares five intriguing SFF works from Asia which have not yet been translated into English. 
• Caitlyn Paxson shares six new YA novels to read this summer, including several SFF novels.
• A.M. Gelberg shares her appreciation for the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. 
• Lydia Kang shares novels about the messy history of medicine.
• Natalie Zutter shares five Marvel fiction podcasts that will fill the hole the lack of new Marvel movies has left in your life.
• Mike Glyer remembers Sam Moskowitz for what would have been his 100th birthday.  
• Rob Wolfe reports that several racially or culturally insensitive images have been pulled from Magic: The Gathering.
• Aja Romano talks about the troubled and toxic culture behind the popular game Cards Against Humanity.
• Graphic designer Milton Glaser who designed the I Love NY poster, the DC Comics logo and many other things has died aged 91.
  

Comments on various cases of sexual misconduct and general bad behaviour in the SFF and comics community: 

• Christopher Chiu-Tabet offers a timeline of recent sexual misconduct allegations in the comics industry. 
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw offers an overview of the latest wave of sexual misconduct allegations in the comics industry.
• Chuck Wendig releases a statement regarding the recent sexual harrassment cases in the SFF community and severs all contact with the male authors named.
• Brian Keene shares a statement regarding the various sexual harrassment cases in the SFF and comics community.
• Brian Keene and Mary San Giovanni weigh in on the allegations of sexual misconduct against horror author Matt Hayward.
• Kaila Hale-Stern reports that actor Cas Anwar, who plays Alex in The Expanse, has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women. 
• Britt Hayes reports that actor Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg in Justice League, has accused director Joss Whedon of gross and unprofessional behaviour on set. 
• Charles Brownstein, executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, has resigned following allegations of sexual misconduct. 
• Paul Levitz, Katherine Keller and Jeff Abraham have also resigned from the board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund following the allegations against Charles Brownstein.
• Foz Meadows talks about the recent sexual misconduct allegations in the SFF community and points out what is and isn't appropriate behaviour. 
• Mike Glyer reports about the reemergence of Benjanun Sriduangkaew in the wake of the recent wave of allegations of sexual misconduct and other bad behaviour and some of the responses and debates generated thereby.
• Runalong the Shelves talks abot the twin problems of lack of diversity in the publishing industry and the recent wave of sexual misconduct allegations.
• Camestros Felapton shares a general post about the various instances of harassment and bad behaviour currently becoming public in the SFF community.
• Camestros Felapton talks some more about bad behaviour in the SFF community and how to deal with it.
  

Film and TV:

• Guy Lodge calls the latest version of The Invisible Man a film about gaslighting. 
• Benjamin Lee calls Yu-On: Origins a gory but unscary spin-off of the Grudge horror franchise.
• Jack Seale praises season 3 of Dark.
• Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Snowpiercer.
• Danette Chavez shares her thoughts on the season 1 finale of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. 
• Alex McLevy shares his thoughts on the latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Caroline Siede shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Stargirl.
• Noel Murray shares his thoughts on season 2 of The Twilight Zone.
• Daveed Diggs, star of Snowpiercer and Hamilton, and Anthony Mackie, star of Altered Carbon and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, interview each other. 
• Chris Godfrey interviews Pierce Brosnan, best known for playing Remington Steel and James Bond.
• Beatrice Loayaza revisits the 1964 nuclear war movie Fail Safe. 
• Jessica Holmes rewatches the 1965 Doctor Who serial "The Chase". 
• Martin Edwards rewatched the 1973 horror thriller Nothing But the Night. 
• Olivia Rutigliano revisits the 1975 disaster movie Jaws.  
• Olivia Rutigliano revisits the 1980 movie The Great Muppet Caper for its fortieth anniversary and calls it the loveliest crime movie of all time.  
• Scott Tobias revisits the 1980 disaster film parody Airplane!
• Tom Breihan revisits Tim Burton's 1989 take on Batman.
• Keith R.A. DeCandido revisits the 2000 comic book movie Faust: Love of the Damned.
• Ben Child asks if Margot Robbie can rescue Pirates of the Caribbean from irrelevance. 
• Stuart Heritage makes fun of director Christopher Nolan's aversion to chairs on set.
• Andrew Liptak reports that the space opera TV series Vagrant Queen has been cancelled after a single season. 
• Actor and director Carl Reiner has died aged 98.

Comments on the various iterations of Star Trek:

• Tor.com reports that the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks will premiere on August 6 on CBS All Access.
• Laurie Ulster reports that Gates McFadden may reprise her role as Dr. Beverly Crusher for season 2 of Star Trek Picard.
• Keith R.A. DeCandido revisits the Star Trek Voyager episodes "The Chute" and "The Swarm".

Comments on Warrior Nun:

• Roxana Hadidi calls Warrior Nun a medieval spin on Buffy the Vampire Slayer with bonus Catholicism. 
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw calls Warrior Nun a disappointing Buffy wannabe.

Ray Harryhausen at 100:

• Steve Vertlieb remembers Ray Harryhausen for his 100th birthday. 
• Patrick Galvan lists five film series which owe Ray Harryhausen a debt.
  

Awards: 

• The winners of the 2020 Locus Awards have been announced.
• The winners of the 2020 Rhysling Awards have been announced. 
• The winners of the 2020 Deutscher Science Fiction Preis have been announced.
• The winners of the 2020 Science Fiction Research Association awards have been announced.
• The finalists for the 2020 Baen Fantasy Adventure Awards have been announced.
• The 2020 inductees in the Museum of Pop Culture Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame Class have been announced.
• Joe Sherry takes a look at the Hugo finalists for Best Novel.
• Joe Sherry also takes a look at the Hugo finalists for Best Short Story.
• CoNZealand has extended the Hugo and Retro Hugo voting deadline until July 22.
  

Writing, publishing and promotion:

• Shanna Swendson shares some tips for writing through difficult times.
• Charlie Jane Anders declares that the most powerful thing a story can do is show how people change. 
• Leonard Goldberg talks about originality in writing and why it's overrated. 
• Brenda Clough shares yet more ways to tank your writing career.
• F.J. Bergman explains how to piss off a poetry editor.
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch explains what to do about late payments from publishers and agents.
• Laurie Hertzel shares memories of Uncle Edgar's and Uncle Hugo's bookstores, which burned down during the recent riots in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  

Interviews:

• The Qwillery interviews C.T. Rwizi.
• Andrea Johnson interviews Chimedum Ohaegbu and Michi Trota of Uncanny Magazine.

Reviews: 

• Paul Weimer reviews Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott. 
• Kristi Chadwick reviews Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. 
• Tadiana Jones reviews The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. 
• Kat Hooper reviews Light of Impossible Stars by Gareth L. Powell.
• James Davis Nicoll reviews Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena. 
• Paul Di Filippo reviews Nine Shiny Objects by Brian Castleberry. 
• Publishers Weekly reviews Divided Earth by Dale E. McClenning
• Bill Capossere reviews Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. 
• Blue Book Balloon reviews Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 
• Publishers Weekly reviews A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong.
• Kelly Lasiter reviews Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh.
• James Davis Nicoll reviews Drowned Country by Emily Tesh. 
• Paul Weimer reviews Driftwood by Marie Brennan.
• Kat Hooper reviews City of Lies by Sam Hawke. 
• Kelly Lasiter reviews Scarlet Odyssey by C.T. Rwizi. 
• Alex Brown reviews Scarlet Odyssey by C.T. Rwizi.
• Adri Joy reviews We Ride the Storm by Devin Madson.
• Vanessa Armstrong reviews A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry. 
• Lesa Holstine reviews The Last Curtain Call by Juliet Blackwell.
• Kelly Lasiter reviews Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron.
• Rachael McKenzie and Rebecca Fisher review Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.
• Blue Book Balloon reviews The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde.
  
• Tobias Carroll reviews Devolution by Max Brooks.
• Tobias Carroll reviews Quotients by Tracy O'Neill. 
• Ian Mond reviews Pew by Catherine Lacey. 
• Paula Guran reviews Londonia by Kate A. Hardy.
• Michael Schaub reviews Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri. 
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews Out of Body by Jeffrey Ford. 
• Paula Guran reviews The Heart Is a Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories by Angela Slatter. 
• Mark Yon reviews A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill.
• Paula Guran reviews Songs For Dark Seasons by Lisa L. Hannett.
• Steve Stred reviews Murder Ballads by John Horner Jacobs.
• Matt Brandenburg reviews Hunger on the Chisholm Trail by M. Ennenbach.
• Jason Heller reviews Dark Blood Comes From The Feet by Emma J. Gibbon.
• Michael Patrick Hicks reviews The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. 
• Runalong the Shelves reviews The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 2, edited by Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards.

Classics reviews:

• John Miller revisits the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales.
• Paul Fraser revisits the Winter 1944 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. 
• Cora Buhlert revisits the 1944 space opera novella "Intruders from the Stars" by Ross Rocklynne.
• Jason MacGregor revisits the 1953 space opera Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids by Paul French a.k.a. Isaac Asimov
• Gideon Marcus revisits the July 1965 issue of Analog. 
• David Levinson revisits the August 1965 issue of If - Worlds of Science Fiction.
• Rosemary Benton revisits the 1965 science fiction novel The Mallot Diaries by Robert Nathan and Jason Sacks revisits the 1965 science fiction novel The Martian Sphinx by Keith Woodcott.  
• Sean Guynes revisits the 1967 science fiction novel City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin.
• Sandy Ferber revisits the 1967 sword and sorcery collection King Kull by Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter. 
• Jason MacGregor revisits the 1967 Professor Jameson science fiction novel The Sunless World by Neil R. Jones.
• James Davis Nicoll reviews the 1978 science fiction novel The World is Round by Tony Rothman. 
• Joachim Boaz revisits the 1980 Cyberpunk novel City Come-A-Walkin' by John Shirley. 
• James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1985 anthology The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.
• Nicole Brinkley revisits the 1993 science fiction novel Powers That Be by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.
• Alan Brown revisits the 1995 space opera Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro.
  

Con and event reports:

• Martin Pyne reports about the Fannish Inquisition of the 2022 Worldcon bids for Chicago, Illinois, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Arley Sorg and Liza Groen Trombi report about the virtual 2020 Nebula Conference.
  

Science and technology:

• The BBC reports that the NASA headquarters in Washington DC will be named after Mary Jackson, NASA's first black female engineer. 
• Andrew Griffin reports that NAA astronaut James Corden has lost a mirror during a spacewalk.
• Paul Rincon offers an explanation for the dimming of Betelgeuse last year.
• Paul Rincon also reports that a massive star that astronomers have been observing for almost ten years has suddenly vanished.
• Paul Rincon reports that atsronomers have observed the core of a gas planet for the first time.
• Rafi Letzter reports that axions may finally have been discovered.
  

Free online fiction:

• "Own Goal" by Dennard Dayle in Clarkesworld. 
• "The Ones Who Look" by Katharine Duckett at Tor.com.
• "Buttercream and Broken Wings" by Aimee Ogden in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  
• "Seven Dreams of a Valley" by Prashanth Srivatsa in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
• "The Wish" by Caite Sajwaj in Luna Station Quarterly.
• "Sweet Little Lies" by Lindsey Duncan in Luna Station Quarterly.
• "The Pandora" by Stephanie Charette in GigaNotoSaurus.
• "First Morning on Mars" by Aimee Ogden in Daily Science Fiction. 
• "The Last of the Goggled Barskys" by Joey Siara in Slate Future Tense.
• "A Cyber-Cuscuta Manifesto" by Regina Kanyu Wang at the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination.
• "Monuments to the Dead" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
  

Odds and ends: 

• Watch a trailer for The Old Guard.
• Watch a trailer for Brave New World.
• Watch a trailer for Cursed.
• Watch A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss, a BBC documentary in three parts. 
• Watch a clip from Soul.
• Watch the Muppets and James Corden sing "With a Little Help from My Friends"