Monthly Archives: October 2017
Side Quest: from The Cold Step Beyond to Digital Rites
The next 10 stories in my side quest: The Cold Step Beyond by Ian MacLeod. A warrior-monk-girl-thing is sent on her latest monster-killing quest. The thing she’s sent to kill turns out to be herself in the past. Also, she’s the imaginary friend of a dead girl who took over the dead girl’s body. Possibly the […]
Side Quest: from The Copenhagen Interpretation to a Response from EST17
The next 10 stories in my Side Quest: The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell. A steampunk espionage story, where the great powers have learned to fold space-time. The Invasion of Venus by Stephen Baxter. Two alien species fight a war in our solar system, but ignore Earth. This could have been a nice flash fiction, but instead […]
Magazine: Mothership Zeta, issue 2
Mothership Zeta The human brain isn’t perfect. For example, most adults don’t remember the moment of their birth. I’m different. I remember the day I hatched, a fully grown human, from a pod on the mothership. I can’t tell you what the mothership told me that day, because the language she used has no written […]
21st-Century SFF Publishers
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I’ve been struggling to find good science-fiction stories in magazines. Although I haven’t blogged about longer fiction lately, I also have trouble finding good sci-fi and fantasy novels. I normally don’t pay any attention to a book’s publisher. I usually decide what to read based on […]
I’m a sixth-rate writer, at best
I recently received another rejection for my AI vs. Aliens story. This one was from L Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest. Before I entered, I knew the contest was kind of a big deal, but I didn’t realize it was a REALLY BIG DEAL. A number of sites I’ve read since submitting have […]
Planetary Defense Command 