More M-BRANE writers' links

I've added links to a few more M-Brane SF writers' sites (they're down there on the left side of the page a little way down).  If you have a story in #1 or one scheduled for a future issue but do not have a link to your site and want one, let me know and I'll add ...

LOCUS link/ #1 Corrected edition free on web/ Still effing around with the print version

There is a link to this site in today's "Blinks" items on Locus Online.  Pretty cool: maybe a lot more people will hear of the zine that way. A couple new subscriptions showed up, too, which is always encouraging.I think I have pretty well redistributed the corrected edition of the issue #1 PDF (restoring a couple lines of omitted text from Glenn's page 1 story), but for anyone still lacking it but wanting it, it is available freely to the world...

M-Brane writer in Amnesty campaign/ Read Greg Egan

I know I already went on and on today (see below) , but I forgot a couple things:1) Writer Rhian Waller of the UK, whose marvelous and disturbing story "Hard Frost" will appear in M-Brane #3 in April, is getting her head shaved as a charity event for Amnesty International. Clicking on this text will bring you to her site and you can get the details if you are interested in supporting this. 2) It's not that I was totally unfamiliar...

ARKHAM/ REALMS/ PRINT M-BRANE/ PDF PRICE/ M-BRANE LOOKS AWESOME!

Various business to catch up on...1. If you're into fiction that evokes the Lovecraft ethos, check out Nathan Shumate's zine Arkham Tales. It's a handsome (and free) PDF zine. The fiction is solid and it is not "Lovecraftian" in the sense of just being more Cthulhu Mythos-type stuff, but much more broad and varied than that. Writer Jeffery Sims has a novella in it called "The House on the Hill of Stars" featuring his character Professor Vorchek who...

CORRECTED M-BRANE #1

Naturally my biggest blunder in what was otherwise a pretty mistake-free first edition of M-Brane occurred right on the front page in the form of some omitted text from Glenn Lewis Gillette's story. I have begun redistributing the corrected edition: if you had one of the first-round copies and have not received the correction yet, you can see it right now at Glenn's website, where he has posted the complete issue.  It's a neat site anyway,...

ICE THREAT

OKC is getting some freezing rain--what we fondly refer to as an "ice storm." Actually, it's not anywhere near as bad as the biggest episode of it was last year, but it's still coming through and we're not safe yet.  I mention it here because I want anyone who follows this blog and M-Brane stuff to know that if I go "dark" for, say, two or three consecutive days, it's not because I have flaked out and abandoned the M-Brane mission...

A NEW DEAL/ GREG EGAN

I am feeling somewhat normal again, fairly well recovered from the bout of illness the other day. That, and having to spend the last two days at my so-called real job, have put me somewhat behind on my M-Brane schedule for the week. Things work out though: writers have blessedly laid off a bit on filling my in-box with tons of new story submissions for me to consider as I catch things up. As it stands now, the in-box is fairly well caught...

ILLNESS STRIKES!/ M-BRANE CIRCULATES

1. Damn and blast!   I am undeniably sick this morning! I'm pretty tough and don't fall ill very often--typically I'll get a cold or a stomach virus for a couple of days about once every second year and shake it off quickly, but this is the second bout of some kind of creeping crud in two months. I work in an assisted living facility where disease sometimes runs amok, and 'tis the season I suppose. I am off from work today, but I am annoyed...

Initial reactions to #1

The PDF of M-Brane SF #1 is traveling through the net, and I have been gratified to already have received a bunch of positive reactions to it from readers and from many of the writers whose work is featured therein or will appear in future issues. Though we're still some days away from its "official" publication and the availability of the print version,  I have decided to let this first one be freely available for anyone to examine starting...

A DAY THAT WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED!

Today, Tuesday January 20, is a huge day for me for a number of reasons.  Bear with me for a few paragraphs, and I will explain:1) The inauguration of President Obama was such a special thing, even more than I knew it would be back in November when we saw him win the election....

OK, Tomorrow EVENING!

I had wanted to have the issue rolled out, as described below, in the morning of 1/20. I have, of course, been summoned to work tomorrow on what was to have been my day off. So I need to do it in the evening instead. I guess President Obama being inaugurated is enough excitement for the first half of the day anyway. I have been screwing around with tiny little final edits of the zine off and on most of the day and am getting a little too obsessive...

M-BRANE SF #1 TO BE RELEASED TOMORROW

The PDF edition of M-Brane #1 will be "unofficially" released tomorrow, a few weeks ahead of its scheduled 2/15/09 publication date.  It will trickle out in a couple of stages: 1) subscribers and writers will receive it first; 2) then, over tomorrow and the next couple of days, a long list of other people whom I have selected to receive complimentary copies of the first issue will begin to receive them. My reason for a broad free release...

GALACTICA finally back!

I don't talk about TV or movie sf on this site very much. It's not what it's for.  I do want to make mention, however, of last night's long-awaited premiere of the final half-season of the brilliant Battlestar Galactica. Jeff and I were quite excited: it's our favorite show and one of the very few things on TV that we can enjoy together and make sort of an event around it.  Jeff does not consider himself a fan of sf.  He also doesn't...

Philip K. Dick Award/ In-box

1. I saw on Locus today that the nominees for the next Philip K. Dick Award have been announced. They are: Emissaries from the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro, Fast Foward 2 by Lou Anders (editor), Judge by Karen Traviss, Plague War by Jeff Carlson, Terminal Mind by David Walton and...

Misunderestimation

1. This morning, in his final White Press conference (I can't believe that  I can write those words and not have it be just a line from a science fiction story), President W opined that he had been "misunderestimated." I feel like I may have poorly estimated the timing of my planned early launch of the M-Brane zine: I thought it would happen as soon as Wednesday, but I may need to delay a couple of days because work (my day job) has intervened...

WORK and HATE

This post has nothing to do with any of the real subjects of my blog: neither the magazine, not my personal writing, not the sf genre.  It is purely a personal venting of frustration related to the job that I have been working during the past year to earn my paltry paycheck. Yeah, I know, it is considered imprudent to write about one's job on one's own public websites, but everyone can rest assured that there is no possibility that anyone that...

Science Friday/ Zine update

1. I always recommend that everyone listen to Ira Flatow's radio show Science Friday (it's the Friday edition of NPR's Talk of the Nation show, available on most NPR affiliates). One can also sign up for the podcast at www.sciencefriday.com or at the NPR site. Sometimes the show...

Contents of 26th Annual Year's Best SF

This has been showing up all over, starting with a post from Gardner Dozois on the forum at the Asimov's site. Everyone's probably seen this list of the contents of the next edition of Year's Best Science Fiction by now, but I figured I'd post it here also and a draw some attention to a couple of things. Swanwick, Reed and Baxter were all represented with very good entries in the last edition, and it's no surprise to see them in the line-up...

ANSIBLE/ LANGFORD

Does everyone know about David Langford's zine Ansible and its accompanying blog at www.ansible.co.uk? I've had a link to it down below for a while, but haven't mentioned it directly yet. It's easier for me to just send you all to it so you can look for yourselves instead of trying...

M-BRANE PDF TEST SUCCESSFUL/ COVER PREVIEW

To the right is an image of the front cover of issue #1 of the M-Brane SF magazine. The stories start right on the front of it, with Glenn Lewis Gillette's clone tale "Time Enough for a Reuben" leading it off. The complete issue is still undergoing some editing and formatting,...

M-BRANE WRITERS LINKS

I have added down below somewhere beneath the posts (yeah there's stuff to look at down there, too) a new list of links to the websites of writers who have stories upcoming in issues of M-Brane SF.  I will add to it over time as I acquire new stories and meet new writers. The list of general links is getting impractical because I am about to add a lot of stuff to it, so I need to come up with an organizational scheme.  But I'll always keep...

ACTIVITIES REPORT: BLOG/MAG/NOVEL

1. Well, evidently I lied the other day when I said, at the start of my entry about Kiln People and Vacuum Flowers, that I would update "later" on the magazine. I never got back to the blog or really anything else. 12/31 was pretty much a lost day as far as any kind of productivity, though Jeff and I did have fun visiting our friends Pat and Heather, who hosted a small party, that evening. We stayed up far too late, however.  None of us...