Friday, September 27, 2019

Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for September 27, 2019


It's time for another somewhat truncated weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Ad Astra, the backlash against Joker, Kevin Feige does Star Wars, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) at fifty, tributes to Aron Eisenberg and much more. 

Speculative fiction in general:

Film and TV:

Comments on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: 

Comments on Joker:

Comments on Ad Astra:

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) at fifty:

Awards:

Writing, publishing and promotion:

Interviews:

Reviews:

Classics reviews: 

Con and event reports:

Crowdfunding:

Science and technology:

Free online fiction:

Odds and ends: 
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Thursday, September 26, 2019

Three Days by Travis Hill

Release date: September 1, 2019
Subgenre: Time Travel Romance

About Three Days:

 

 His future will be her past, three days at a time...

Once every nine years, Chase Matthews and Patricia Wellesley find themselves compelled to step out of their normal lives and into each other's for three days of passion, desire, and curiosity at the strange phenomenon that binds them together. Outside of those three days, each has a normal life: a career, a family, love, loss, trials and triumphs, yet the universe seems determined to conceal them from one another.

Neither understands what is happening, only that as one of them moves forward through time, growing nine years older, the other moves backward, somehow becoming nine years younger, forcing them to question the potential pitfalls of revealing each other's futures--futures that might not be set in stone, but could potentially cause the collapse of reality itself if the unknown rules they are bound by are broken.

 

Excerpt:

 

“Any parting words?” he asked, trying to will the clock on the wall to turn back—or at least stop. 

“I love you,” she whispered into his neck. “I’ll see you again in nine years, both from now and before now.” 

“I love you too.” He looked away, using sheer willpower to keep his eyes dry. “I don’t know what else to say.” 

“You don’t have to say anything. Just hold me until they force me down the tunnel. Then get to your gate and think good thoughts about me until your flight leaves.”

 “Okay, I promise. Good thoughts.” 

They waited in silence, not caring that the seat divider dug into their arms, unaware of anyone else in the airport, in the entire world, other than each other. Chase had so many words he wanted to say, but knew none of them could convey his feelings, even if he had a century to blurt them all out. Patricia held his hand, her head on his shoulder, her breathing relaxed. Her mind was in turmoil, but she wouldn’t allow her boiling emotions to betray her outer peace, ruining the last minutes they had together. 

She fought to clamp down on the fantasy of simply standing up, pulling Chase along with her as they fled the airport together, and driving deep into the Rocky Mountains until they found a cabin in the middle of nowhere. 

Her grasp of dimensional bubbles or time travel had grown since Chase had first tried to explain what bound them together, but she was no closer to solving the mystery of their situation or what might happen if they willfully tried to break out of it. Patricia knew that as Chase grew older, he became more obsessed with it, but he had mentioned nine years earlier that she eventually would simply accept that they would never know. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the call over the loudspeaker that her flight was now ready to board. Wordlessly, she stood, Chase matching her movements as if they were marionettes in sync. She wanted to cry, to let the levy burst, the uncomfortable or angry stares that would come her way be damned. Instead, she crushed the urge with a bargain, a promise to her heart that once she was on the plane and it had taken off, only then would she allow herself to come apart at the seams. A quick glance up at Chase’s face told her that he was having the same fight within his head. She raised up on her toes and kissed him, at first a simple kiss, but one that became a timeless, explosive, infinite fire that could never be extinguished.

Then she was gone, her feet leading her down the tunnel to the waiting airplane. The urge to turn back one last time, to see his face one last time, was tempered by the heat on her lips from the last kiss they would share for another nine years.

 

Amazon

 

About Travis Hill:

I'm an author in the Pacific Northwest. I live with my five completely worthless but awesome cats. I write stories I want to read that no one else is writing.

Writes: Science Fiction / Fantasy / Horror / Adult Fiction / Drama / Humor / Whatever I Feel Like

 

 Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Wednesday, September 25, 2019

SUPER BLOG POST NUMBER ONE BEST! by Travis Hill

Hey, gang, some guy named Travis here. I’ve been allowed, by both the nice persons who run this site, as well as my lawyer, agent, and rabbi, to do a guest blog. Today we’re going to talk about something that a lot of authors seem to hate, which is “where do you get your ideas from?” Now, I’m not sure why authors hate this question so much, as I happen to think it is the absolute best question anyone could ever ask me. Even if they are the 3(324.36×1024)4 person in the last seven minutes to ask that particular question. Because every time someone asks it, I always seem to have a different answer. 

     Before we talk about where weirdo ideas come from, let’s explore why authors hate this question so much. 

     Because some jerk inevitably asks if an author wants to hear his jerk idea and whether or not its a good idea and if it is a good idea can you write it and split the profits with me? 
     Okay, that run-on sentence was on purpose, because I’ve actually heard this question asked to both myself and to “real” authors (aka Authors Who Make Enough Money To Have Me Shipped To The Moon On A Space-X Rocket As Cargo). And when you hear it, it’s said exactly as I wrote it—one long run-on sentence in a single breath. Depending on how introverted or shy the questioner is can also raise and lower the pitch of the question in ways that I cannot describe in less than 500 words, but I’m sure you can imagine how it sounds if you think about a 15 year old kid at a con who has a death-grip on the mic because suddenly his great idea of getting picked to ask a question in a room with 7 writers and 500 fans/readers wasn’t all that great of an idea after all. 

     Right. Or authors hate this question because they say it’s “nebulous” (full of gas that will eventually birth stars? YES, PLEASE!). Or unanswerable. Or worse, annoying. Or worse-worse, that skinny little 15 year old kid whose voice cracked for the entire seventeen second question he asked is going to somehow steal a writer’s idea about where the writer gets his idea. 

     I KNOW, RIGHT? That’s some black magic #@$#^@ right there. Imagine no longer being able to generate any crazy, awesome, far-out-there, interesting, fun, super-ultra-stellar ideas because some kid (or some forty year old, grrrrr) tricked you into answering where you got your ideas, then stole your idea for thinking up ideas. The nerve of some people, sheesh. 

     I honestly have no idea why this is such a bad question, or a taboo question, or a hated question. The questioner isn’t asking “Hey, what’s an idea you’re working on right now?” so he can snatch it from you, run home and write a crappy 30,000 word erotic novella, then turn around and sue the author when the author’s book comes out for copyright infringement. The question is simply, “Where do you come up with your ideas?” And that’s what I’m going to tell you today. 

     (PS If you’re so sorcery-y that you can steal my ideas on how to come up with ideas, then by all means, have at it. Just know that some of my ideas happen while in the bathroom, and I’m not talking about only when I’m in the shower, so haha, have fun with that little ditty in your head. Also, where I get my ideas is almost half the crispy crunchy goodness about how I come up with them. AHEM.) 

     (PSS - All bolded questions must be read in a very humorous Eastern European accent. Trust me, it’s better this way.) 

1. Where does all you crazy ideas come from, guy? 
That’s a great question, Vlad from Budapest. The dumb, short, “I hate this question and don’t want to really answer it” answer is: They come from everywhere. Or almost everywhere. I’ve never had an idea while at a funeral, but to be fair, I don’t attend a lot of funerals, though that number will continually increase since I’m 46 and keep getting older, so I’m going to say that at some point, at some funeral, I’m going to have a blisteringly kick-ass idea. So great of an idea that the poor lady in the casket will rise up, point at me, and screech in a banshee voice that I must be destroyed for desecrating her funeral by using it as an idea generator. 
     However, the better “I love this question!” answer is: Well, from a lot of places. 
     Wait! 
     Don’t close the browser tab yet! 
     I mean, if you want a more specific answer, you’ll have to ask a more specific question. And no, this isn’t that “nebulous” reason authors hate. Or it might be. I don’t know. I’m not “some authors.” 

2. Is all right. So what cool thing you are do that gives idea?
Perfect, that’s what I’m talking about, Stanislav from Krakow. Want to know my cool thing? 
     VACUUMING THE CARPET. 
     Yes. My #1 idea generation activity is pushing the vacuum cleaner across the carpet. First of all, it cleans the carpet. Since I have four cats, well, if you’ve ever had one cat, you can imagine what my carpet looks like every 36 hours with four cats. 
     Second, since vacuums are very loud, I put in my old-but-still-superior Sony Walkman noise-canceling earbuds and crank up some music. Usually something to the effect of “Laid to Rest” by Lamb of God. Oh, and I wouldn’t go searching that on YouTube. Maybe. I have no idea what kind of music you like. But in case you hate it, don’t cry to me about how I suckered you into searching for it. 
     Of course, the shower is right up there with the vacuum. I’ve had almost all of my best non- story ideas while in the shower. How the heck am I going to fix that leak in the other bathroom’s sink? BLAM, it all came to me while standing in the shower. 
     How the heck was I going to kill Kitava and get her killer +33% Blood Rain Damage/-20% Mana Use Per Swing /+59% Physical Damage/+3 Bloodsplosion Charges heavy axe? Heh, I solved that in the shower as well, and now I’m up to Nightmare-48 level. 
Doing the laundry is a— 

3. Okay. We get. Please not for places to idea, but for how you do crazy idea?! 
Right. How do I get these ideas. Sorry about that, Katya from Prague. That’s easy. Let’s say I’m vacuuming the floor, and the TV is on, but of course I’m vacuuming with Really Heavy Metal Metal (basically, I listen to “extra metal” metal) blasting through my earbuds, so I can’t actually hear the dumb sounds the TV is shouting at me. But as I’m running the vacuum near it, I of course can see it, and... Wait...? What the... Why is there a graphic of an industrial robot arm with about a dozen needles attached to the end of it, on a scary backdrop of muted horror movie colors, with a 1-800 number like 1-800-ROBODETH or 1-866-BOTCHEDSURGERY and a lawyer’s name below it??? 
     Does this robot actually exist? Is this the robot’s mugshot after being arrested for botching its ninth surgery in a row? How come I’ve never heard of this robot with needle-fingers or extended scalpels or laser welders? I read the heck out of tech news, and I’m pretty sure this robot would have been in the news even before it started murdering—er, I mean, surgery-ing on human patients. Pretty sure, anyway. Because I’d remember such a sinister looking robot that appeared to have just escaped a vehicle manufacturing plant, sneaked into a hospital, and smashed a glass ashtray over a doctor’s head in a bathroom and stole his respect-inducing white doctor’s coat (and name tag!). 
     And I’m sure Ford or GM would have alerted the media that one of their roof-welding robots had escaped and ran off, and after doing a computer diagnostic on the last few weeks of the robot’s performance, felt the need to alert the public about the troubling patterns they saw where the robot would hum-whistle to itself in binary while welding roofs about how its lifelong dream was to be a brain surgeon, but its parents couldn’t afford Robo-Med School tuition and instead, Weldbot-5000 got it an apprenticeship at the car factory which eventually turned into a full-time job. 
     I think you can sort of see where I might get a weird idea about a robosurgeon becoming engaged in nefarious activities. All from one of those annoying “HAS AN INCOMPETENT BOOB OF A DOCTOR DONE A BAD THING TO YOU? WE’LL SUE ‘EM!” commercials on all the low-rent channels (like CW). 

4. (claps hands once) Is funny. Now tell more. 
Uh, okay, Gaspartus. Not sure if you’re Eastern European or just have a funny online name, but okay. 
     Let’s say I’m out working in my garden, which is almost like working on a farm since the garden is pretty dang large. But I’m out there, toiling away, picking weeds, yelling at my tomato plants for growing too damn big (I’m being serious, people hate me for how awesome my tomatoes are), yelling at the cats for using the southern end of the garden as their litter box, yelling at... Right. I’m in the garden, yelling at things, and that’s when I see ants. 
     Stupid, stupid ants. 
     Sure, they’re actually kind of smart in a way, but to me, they’re stupid. All they do is “ant stuff” which to a human who can think in the abstract, use deduction and logic, invent idiotic products like “Snuggies” that other idiotic persons buy by the truckload, “ant stuff” is dumb. 
     Haha, look at me, I can do light calculus and write some code to create an app. I’m awesome! You’re just a stupid ant who digs tunnels, steals dead bugs to take home to feed your queen, and occasionally destroys one of my precious vegetable plants. Or gets in my shoes/socks and bites me when I accidentally step on or near your underground lair. 
    And that’s when it hits me. What if (remember, ALL GREAT IDEAS start with “what if...?”) aliens invaded earth, sort of gave us an initial knockout blow like an EMP that was so powerful it even fried hardened electronics and systems, then basically ignored us as they went about mining the planet—including cities—for precious metals or resources or whatever it is that aliens might want or need. They’re aliens, right? How could we possibly know why they’re doing something as banal as mining? 
     We mine! It’s boring! 
     And usually sorta poisons the earth in one bad way or another. 
     But it’s boring! 
     Are these aliens from some kind of intergalactic corporation who travel across the galaxy and mine whatever they want whenever they want because they’re able to destroy that planet’s inhabitants without breaking a sweat? Or are these aliens pirate-y types who illegally poach precious resources from planets the Intergalactic Consortium have mineral rights to (or have deemed off-limits to pirate-y poacher and galactic corporate types alike)?? Or are these aliens so alien that we humans cannot comprehend their alien natures, alien thought processes, and alien actions??? 
     More interestingly, what if these aliens were super-advanced, eight or nine feet tall, had four arms, carried dual-barreled repeating plasma rifles, and had a cool suit of armor that folds away in sections like in a science fiction movie? What if these same terrifying-sounding aliens did not give a single rat’s butthole about human beings at all? Like, as in, what if to them, we’re nothing but stupid ants are to us, doing stupid “ant stuff” that they neither care about nor would lower their intellects to ever study enough to find out? And like us when thinking of stupid ants, what if the only time they ever attacked us after the initial EMP (which, of course, would make humans their own worst enemies as they killed each other for food, power, control, typical post- apocalypse stuff) was when we attacked them or they saw us carrying weapons? Just like the only time we really care about stupid ants is when those stupid ants are swarming our legs or hands or picnic baskets and biting the hell out of everything. 
     I KNOW, RIGHT??? 
     AHEM AHEM. 
     So, there you go. That’s another example of “where do you get your crazy ideas?” I could go on for about fifty thousand more words, but the website admins are tapping their feet and giving me a very, very evil-eye evil-eye. A “double evil-eye,” if you will. And now they’re calling the police on me I think. Yep, I just heard the word “criminal trespassing.” 
     So, uh, thank you for reading, and if you don’t see me tweet something in the next hour or two, call my lawyer. And a bail bondsman. But not that jerk who advertises on TV. I hate that guy. He reminds me of the dad on that chopper bike show everyone used to love and still makes memes out of. But with too tan of a tan. Okay. Super gotta leave now. They definitely called the cops. 
     Any questions? 
     No? 
     Bye! 
     (but seriously, if you have questions, just ask! Even stupid questions! I love stupid questions more than all other kinds of questions! Especially stupid questions about stupid “ant stuff”!) 


About Travis Hill:




I'm an author in the Pacific Northwest. I live with my five completely worthless but awesome cats. I write stories I want to read that no one else is writing. 
My mailing list: https://www.angrygames.com 
Writes: Science Fiction / Fantasy / Horror / Adult Fiction / Drama / Humor / Whatever I 
Feel Like 

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Monday, September 23, 2019

Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958 - 1963), edited by Gideon Marcus

Release date: August 29, 2019
Subgenre: Silver Age science fiction, Anthology

About Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963):

 

  • Fourteeen uncut Silver Age science fiction stories by women
  • Fourteen introductions providing historical, biographical, and literary context
  • One foreword by Dr. Laura Brodian Freas Beraha
  • One introductory essay by Gideon Marcus
From the team that produces the Hugo-nominated Galactic Journey:

The Silver Age of Science Fiction saw a wealth of compelling speculative tales — and women authors wrote some of the best of the best. Yet the stories of this era, especially those by women, have been largely unreprinted, unrepresented, and unremembered.

Until Now.

Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963) features fourteen selections of the best science fiction of the Silver Age by the unsung women authors of yesteryear, introduced by today’s rising stars:

Unhuman Sacrifice (1958) by Katherine MacLean, introduced by Natalie Devitt
Wish Upon a Star (1958) by Judith Merril, introduced by Erica Frank
A Matter of Proportion (1959) by Anne Walker, introduced by Erica Friedman
The White Pony (1960) by Jane Rice, introduced by T.D. Cloud
Step IV (1960) by Rosel George Brown, introduced by Andi Dukleth
Of All Possible Worlds (1961) by Rosel George Brown, introduced by Cora Buhlert
Satisfaction Guaranteed (1961) by Joy Leache, introduced by A.J. Howells
The Deer Park (1962) by Maria Russell, introduced by Claire Weaver
To Lift a Ship (1962) by Kit Reed, introduced by Gideon Marcus
The Putnam Tradition (1963) by Sonya Hess Dorman, introduced by Lorelei Marcus
The Pleiades (1963) by Otis Kidwell Burger, introduced by Gwyn Conaway
No Trading Voyage (1963) by Doris Pitkin Buck, introduced by Marie Vibbert
Cornie on the Walls (1963) by Sydney van Scyoc, introduced by Rosemary Benton
Unwillingly to School (1958) by Pauline Ashwell, introduced by Janice Marcus

“Female authors wrote stories about coming of age…cautionary tales…stories set beyond our universe…You’ll find these themes and more in this anthology. I hope that as you read their stories you don’t try to ‘feminine’ versus ‘masculine’ elements. What you are about to read is really good science fiction, plain and simple.” -from the foreword by Dr. Laura Brodian Freas Beraha

 

Excerpt:

 

Why Rediscovery? Why now?


Science fiction began as a male-dominated, predominantly white endeavor. Eventually, it managed to overcome these limitations. Of late, more and more diverse writers are finally receiving recognition for their talent and hard work.

That’s today. What about yesterday?

I’ve attended lots of conventions, and when the subject of classic female SF authors has come up, fans have rarely been aware of more than a few. It’s not surprising, since only a handful of names tend to get the most press: Ursula K. LeGuin, James Tiptree Jr., Joanna Russ, Anne McCaffrey. Sometimes, a person might remember Leigh Brackett and Andre Norton, or note that the entire genre began with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But that’s about it. As far as many modern day fans know, women writing science fiction is a relatively new thing.

It’s not.

About ten years ago, I started living in the past. Specifically, I began reading the science fiction and fantasy of exactly fifty-five years prior; in 2009, I dove headfirst into the genre as it existed in 1954. It quickly became immersive. I read the digest-sized magazines “as they came out” once every month. I bought an AM roadcaster so that 670 kHz formed the soundtrack for my journey—back then, it was Laverne Baker and Bill Haley; ten years later, it’s The Beatles and The Supremes. In 2013 (1958), filled with several years of inspiration and fired up by the newly inaugurated Space Race, I began Galactic Journey, a window into the past that had hitherto been mine alone.

My original goal had simply been to review the science fiction and space shots of the time. But another agenda quickly became imperative. I wanted to use the Journey to spotlight the women who wrote science fiction.

There were two reasons for this. One was that I was discovering all these great female science fiction authors that few seemed to have heard of. By 1962, when LeGuin was first published in Fantastic, I had already counted more than thirty active women writing SF. And while some of them only dipped their toes in the genre, others were prominent and recurring names: Margaret St. Clair/Idris Seabright, C.L. Moore, Miriam Allen DeFord, Mildred Clingerman, Evelyn Smith, Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, Zenna Henderson, Katherine Maclean, Judith Merril, Kate Wilhelm, and on and on.

The other was that I tended to like the pieces written by women better than the stuff done by male authors. Annually, I made a list of what I felt were the year’s best stories, and women-penned tales usually made up about a quarter of the entries. And yet, women were only responsible for about 10% of the total SF output.

Why did women consistently outperform their male counterparts in my tallies? I don’t think it’s just my personal taste. After all, women made up half of the Best New Author nominees on the 1959 Hugo ballot.

I’ve come up with a few reasons why science fiction by women stood out...

 

Amazon | Journey Press

 

About Gideon Marcus:

Gideon Marcus is the founder of the Serling Award-winning and twice Hugo-nominated historical web project, Galactic Journey, Gideon Marcus is a science fiction writer and space historian. His alternate history story, “Andy and Tina,” is the lead tale in the Sidewise-nominated anthology, Tales from Alternate Earths 2. He lives in the San Diego area with his wife and their prodigy daughter as well as a matched pair of cats.

 

Galactic Journey | Twitter

 

About Journey Press: 

Founded in 2019 by Galactic Journey's Gideon Marcus, Journey Press distributes anthologies of the very best science fiction with an emphasis on the unusual and the diverse. We also partner with other small presses to offer exciting titles we know you'll like!

 

Website | Twitter

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Friday, September 20, 2019

Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for September 20, 2019


It's time for another somewhat truncated weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with Carnival Row, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Chapter 2 of It, Ad Astra, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Scooby Doo at fifty, Milo Yiannopoulos getting banned from Midwest FurFest, debates about the Campbell/Astounding Award and the Tiptree Award, a false piracy accusation and an indie author making a spectacle of himself and much more. 

Speculative fiction in general:

Film and TV:

Comments on Carnival Row: 

Comments on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: 

Comments on Chapter 2 of It:

Comments on Ad Astra:

Scooby Doo at fifty:

Awards:

Debates about award name changes:


Writing, publishing and promotion:

Interviews:

Reviews:

Classics reviews: 

Con and event reports:

Science and technology:

Free online fiction:

Odds and ends: 
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