Sci-Fi, Thrillers, Contemporary
My story “The Stone Goddess” originally published in Horror Through The Ages, the first anthology from Lame Goat Press, has been read by Barry J Northern in the new Lame Goat Podcast. Barry does an excellent job – his pacing and tone is wonderful and really does the story justice.
Barry is creating a fantastic archive of podcasts from Lame Goat publications – “Lacerta” by Jodi MacArthur, “Beserker” by Deborah Walker and “Their Dark Master” by Mark Anthony Crittendon, with more to come.
Unplugged is a cool idea: a print collection of science fiction and fantasy stories that originally appeared online. As with any anthology, there are stories that appeal and stories which don’t, but overall the standard is pretty high. My personal favourite is “Snatch Me Another” by Mercurio D. Rivera – great pacey writing, a cool idea (a neat twist on the idea of alternate universes. There are some known writers here – Cory Doctorow, Nancy Kress, etc. – and also some less established names. There’s a handy list at the back of the volume with the original websites – some no longer functioning, but an intriguing resource. A cool description on the back cover too “unplugged surfs the web so you don’t have to” – that’s good, ‘cos I’m thinking lots of us (ie me) could do with a little less web time and a little more A.R.
James Kay Publishing has used some music from the Venus Vulture ep Alien Cities in a cool book trailer. The trailer promotes Derek Bullard’s book Mayan Moon which I hope to read soon.
The Alien Cities glitchy space-music feel seems to suit the trailer, especially since it’s tied in with some music by Thomas Andersson which is more uptempo and melodic (you can tell easily which music is mine and which is Thomas’s).
It’s cool to be part of this kind of thing – Venus Vulture music being linked back to science fiction writing. Alien Cities remains a reasonably popular download, especially considering it’s early work and I haven’t really put much promotion behind it. Bizarrely the ep cover is by far the most popular image on my flickr site – it has been viewed 10x as often as my next most popular image.
This is really just a diary entry, nothing too extraordinary here.
My Pecha Kucha presentation slowly evolves. I hope to have it down tonight. I’ll post the talk after Thursday sometime. I’m finally up to date with the creative writing study guide and ready, as I will ever be, to begin marking. Just as well because, even though the deadline isn’t until this coming Friday, the first portfolios have begun to arrive. I’m well into China Mieville’s new paperback The City and The City for review. It has been out in hardback for a while. I am enjoying it – this writer seems capable of everything. Yay, I did manage to get into a pool amongst all the busy-ness and become immersed – so refreshing.
My latest story published on line is here – Bored Out Of My Skull, on the ever-wonderful The New Flesh Magazine. This is quirky weird strange horror, perhaps humour bizarro. I don’t know, but it was a fun story to write.
Yes, it’s Thursday when I usually post about what I’m reading, but truly nothing much has changed since last Thursday – still deep in the heart of reading the tutoring manual and readings. Whew.
A new story – “Bored Out Of My Skull” – is coming out on the The New Flesh Magazine on the 17th (okay, it’s already the 17th here in New Zealand, but I’ll post a proper link tomorrow).
Bored Out Of My Skull seems like a dopey title for a story – a total cliche and I do rail against using cliches. The story, however it is more literal – involving drills and helmets: the kind of thing that naturally finds a home at a place like The New Flesh which publishes flash fiction of the more bizarre and quirky kind. Originally I wrote the story with the cliche as a kicking off point, never thinking the title would stick.
This will be my third publication at The New Flesh, following the more literary “While He Lay Crumpled” and humourous “Submission”. Thanks to the editors Suzie and William for accepting my story.
I have a couple of Igneous Flame albums – Intox and Oxana. Both are wonderful drifty drone-ambient pieces. Intox is a little over an hour long – so it suits me for a writing spell. It’s good music to be more concentrated to, there’s nothing too invasive or requiring too much attention (unless you want to to really give it attention). Oxana has some shipping forcasts later in the album which adds a little edge.
I still like CDs for variety and some of Igneous Flame disks are still available at Shopsonic, but you can stream music from the Igneous Flame MySpace page. There are also some neat videos at the NME site.
Late post here – I spent the weekend editing the novel and re-writing the last chapter. Mostly the edits are okay – minor changes to sentence flow here and there, for the most part it seems to be working, though that may all change when the editor looks at it. What did need a lot of work was the ending – it was all over too suddenly, so I have rewritten that from scratch. The 400 word final chapter has become three 500 word chapters and rounds it out much better. Of course it’s still draft material, and will take some revising, but it fits the pace and tone better so I feel a little closer to the end. I do want to get it submitted before I’m too caught up in tutoring. That was my weekend.
Professional photographer Kyle Cassidy has a wonderful project of photographing science fiction authors in their writing space. Where I Write is a quick and cool insight into the variations in how people write – Michael Swandick’s bustling busy office, Will De Smedt’s orderly space, Ellen Datlow’s living room approach. I think my favourite is Joe Haldeman handwriting in notebooks by candle- and lamplight.
Food Drive has just come out on Flashes in the Dark – another dark and creepy tale as we’ve come to expect from Angel. Angel has been in hiding for a while – though there are a few upcoming stories – I imagine he is working on something grand and devious.
Sean Monaghan - Writer 