Tag: asimov’s

Award Season…

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Now that the official announcement has been made, I can add in here to two of my stories from 2024 are finalists on a couple more award ballots. Both “Daisy and Maisie, External Hull Maintenance Experts” (Analog, March/April 2024) and “Wildest Skies” (Asimov’s November/December 2024) are up for those magazines’ awards.

“Daisy and Maisie…” for Analog’s Analytical Laboratory Award, and “Wildest Skies” for Asimov’s Readers’ Poll. There are a lot of familiar names in those lists, and I’m humbled to be among them.

The announcements of the winners for both will come with the July/August issues (out in mid-June), but in the meantime, you can read the stories for free at award pages – the links here will take you to them – and most of the other finalists are available there too. That’s a whole mess of great reading. There are some spectacular stories there. Enjoy.

These awards are kind of my favorites because they’re voted for by the actual readers of the magazines. I’ve been a finalist before in the Asimov’s Readers’ Poll, for “The Molenstraat Music Festival” (which placed fourth equal as best novelette of 2015), “Goldie” (which placed second as best novella of 2022) and “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles” (which won for best short story of 2017). This is the first time I’ve been a finalist for the Analog Analytical Laboratory, though I’ve had numerous stories there over the last few years.

While I’m jabbering on, I do have more Asimov’s and Analog stories forthcoming – “Can You Outrun A T-Rex” in the November/December Asimov’s, and “Ready For New Arrivals” in the July/August Analog.

But I digress. Both “Wildest Skies” and “Daisy and Maisie, External Hull Maintenance Experts” are also finalists in the Best Novella/Novelette category in New Zealand’s Sir Julius Vogel Awards, in the same category, though, which makes me feel a little like I’m up against myself, ha, ha. And both are also on the long list (i.e. nominated) for Australia’s Aurealis Award. More details on that one to come. Hoping that they might make the shortlist.

“Wildest Skies” was a fun story to write too, and stimulated a whole lot of other stories with the characters and situations, with more to come. See www.wildestskies.com with those stories there.

Goldie shows up again

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My novella “Goldie”, which was the cover story in Asimov’s January/February 2022 has been reprinted, again, this time in Neil Clarke‘s Forever Magazine.

This is its second reprint outing, following an appearance in Allan Kaster’s The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 7 last year.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a great opportunity to pick up the story, along with “Jaunt” by Ken Liu, and “The Empty” by Ray Nayler. Man, I’m humbled by that company that’s for sure. The excellent cover art is by Ron Guyatt. At $2.99 for the ebook of the issue, it’s an awesome deal.

While I’m mentioning the story, I’ll note that it placed second in Asimov’s annual readers’ poll. Who remembers the second place getter, right? So I’ll mention that first place went to Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who is pretty much the champion of science fiction novellas. See her (now completed) Novella Kickstarter here – which funded tremenously well and pretty quickly. Yeah, she really knows her stuff with novellas.

Goldie has always been close to my heart, so it’s great to see her out and about strutting her stuff once again.

 

In other news, I have a new contemporary fantasy story out now – “Everything Has Cupboards”. A quirkly little piece that was fun to write and fun to put out. Here’s the Universal book link, though it may take a few days to populate.

Everything Has Cupboards

Learning her way around the office at her new job, Milly discovers a locked cupboard door. Well that just fascinates Milly. As a child she explored everything, and that desire stayed with her.

Sometimes her curiosity creates problems. Mostly, though it creates more curiosity.

This time, though, things might just get out of hand.

A simple, fantastical short story that asks: Do we really know ourselves?

As usual $2.99 for the ebook, and $6.99 for the print book. Drop me a line if you’d like a code for a free one (which will come from Bookfunnel, via Shopify).

Also, out just a few days back, book 11 in the Captain Arlon Stoddard Series Cradle Robbers.

Royd Melgrave slams himself into an emergency vacuum suit as klaxons blast around him. The refinery station seems doomed.

When Authority investigators Captain Arlon Stoddard and his crew arrive, the refinery wreck follows an erratic orbit and little evidence remains.

What they do find only raises more questions. Questions that might turn things inside out.

 

ebook for $5.99, and in print for $16.99

 

Thanks for reading. More news in a couple of weeks.

Sean

p.s. Goldie is named for her remarkable amber eyes (which Dominic Harmon captured so well in the original cover illustration), but also, as a nod to my New Zealand homeland, after C.F. Goldie, an artist of enduring renown.

 

A week of wonderful covers, with my stories somewhere behind

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve already leapt around excited about these, but I want to toss it out there again. This week sees the publication of two of my stories in volumes I’m humbled to be associated with.

First the July/August issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction with my story “Bridges”. The cover story, and let me tell you, the art by Eldar Zakirov cuts to the heart of the story so well. I’m pretty amazed.

[as a side note, Eldar also drew the internal illustration for my story “Single Point Failure”, from Analog in 2022].

An excerpt from “Bridges” is available now on the Asimov’s site here.

There’s also an except from Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s novella “Death Hole Bunker” which is definitely worth a read. But I also note this because, after many many years of reading Kris’s amazing fiction and learning so much from her, this is the first time, as far as I can tell, that I’ve actually shared a table of contents in Asimov’s with her. She seems to have a tale in every second or third issue, and this is my tenth appearance, so I’m surprised it’s taken so long. That said, I’m hugely honored to be published alongside Kris… and various other luminaries there.

Available from booksellers and ebook retailers.

Second thing, also out this week, and available to preorder now, is The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories edited by Allan Kaster.

I’ve already mentioned this here, I think, but this is release week after all. The volume includes my story “Goldie”, which was published last year, also in Asimov’s. Goldie was a finalist in both the Asimov’s readers’ poll (category won by Kristine Kathryn Rusch), and New Zealand’s Sir Julius Vogel Awards (category won by the remarkable Marie Cardno for “How to Get a Girlfriend (When You’re a Terrifying Monster)”), so the story is having something of a second life, which is nice.

Since I seem to jabber on about things, I’ll also mention that the cover art here is by none other than the remarkable Maurizio Manzieri, who some years ago produced the fabulous Asimov’s cover art for my story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”.

The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories releases on June 16th.

 

Goldie – finalist in the Asimov’s Readers’ Awards

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My novella “Goldie” from the January/February 2022 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is a finalist in annual Asimov’s Readers’ Poll Awards. Amazingly this is actually my third time as a finalist for this award, following “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles” and “The Molenstraat Music Festival“.

When they put up the finalists lists, Asimov’s also make the stories and poems available to read online for a limited time – see the full page of finalists here, and the the direct link to “Goldie”.

Nice to see Dominic Harman’s cover illustration for “Goldie” as a finalist in the Best Covers category. Dominic captured Goldie herself so well that I was stunned when I received my copies of the magazine. I’d spent a lot of time with Goldie over the course of a year. The novella was a big work and there was a lot of back and forth with Sheila Williams, the Asimov’s editor in getting it right for publication (thanks Sheila!). I was surprised by my own feelings when I saw her so gorgeously realized right there in front of me. Thanks Dominic! Good luck with the award.

And good luck to all the finalists, though of course fingers crossed for me.

 

 

 

 

Ten Years of Writing Every Day

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

On January 1st 2012 I gave myself the challenge to write every day. I’m a writer, after all, so that seems like nothing too challenging.

Over the years, though, despite writing lots, I would still miss some days, perhaps even some weeks. I doubt I missed a month, but maybe somewhere I did.

Still, I didn’t have that regular habit. Today, as I write this, December 31st 2021, marks the ten year milestone. 3653 days (by my calculations – I think there were three leap years in there, 2012, 2016 and 2020) of writing every day.

As part of the challenge, I recorded my word count. Some days I wrote not very much (156 words was, I think my lowest number), some days a little more (one day was over 8000 words), but most days sat somewhere north of 1000. Most years were somewhere over 500,000 words. This last year I set myself the additional goal of writing a minimum of 1600 words a day – and I hit that, for a total of 652,682 words (which is actually over 1700 words/day average – kind of what happens when you set the bar higher, I guess). Not bad. Still not quite up to real pulp speed.

One thing that kept it engaging was the thought that ‘it’s all practice’. Just practising getting better. Practising openings, practising characterization, practising the rule of threes (see what I did there?). With practice, I would hope to get better.

Along the way I’ve published a lot of my works indie – links to a lot of them are here on the website – and gone wide, so you can find me on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Smashwords and Apple.

The big sense that the practising was working, though, came when I started selling to the professional magazines – Asimov’s, Analog, Landfall, etc. Maybe I was getting better. Some writers get there real fast, but for me it’s been more of a matter staying the course. Submitting. Learning to write better. Submitting again. I still want to get better, of course. I have a bunch of courses lined up and a bunch of new goals.

The challenge continues. Writing every day. Aiming now to make it to 10,000 consecutive days. That would be something. But still, 3653 is something in itself.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year.

 

 

Goldie – my new novella coming in the January/February issue of Asimov’s

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My longer novella “Goldie” will appear in the January/February issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, available from the middle of December. Look at that amazing cover. I’m so honored to appear in Asimov’s, but to have such a wonderful cover, with the illustration by Dominic Harman, is overwhelming.

He’s captured the story so well.

More on this in January, I think.

Asimov’s

“Ventiforms” a new Shilinka Switalla story in Asimov’s

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Having just returned from a month’s break I guess I should mention my new story “Ventiforms” in the current (January/ February 2019) issue of Asimov’s.

Following my award-winning* (yay) story from two years ago, “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles“, this is another story from my world of Shilinka Switalla. Ms. Switalla is an artist who creates artworks on a vast scale. In the case of “Ventiforms” transforming whole canyons into musical instruments.

My Worlds of Shilinka Switalla universe is growing slowly, with two other stories also available, “Cathedrals” and “Ten Gravity Tower“. I have fun with the concepts, and I’m glad that readers enjoy the stories too.