Those of you who subscribe to e-mails from Daily Science Fiction will receive my flash SF story “The Take” late tonight. Subscription is free, so you should sign up! And if you’re one of those holdouts who don’t like receiving free, awesome stories via e-mail, you’ll be able to read this story on DailyScienceFiction.com in one week.
“The Take” was inspired by the “Memory Eater” anthology. Although the story made it to the final round of consideration there, they ultimately passed on it. I made minor changes to remove references to the Memory Eater technology and sent the updated version of the story to Daily Science Fiction. I love DSF to death and they are almost always the first to see my stories, so I was thrilled to have “The Take” accepted there.
But wait, there’s more.
There’s a supporting character in the story named Charlie Tan. It wasn’t until after the story was accepted at DSF that I realized that my character shares a name with a well-known SF blogger Charles A. Tan. The editors at DSF realized this too, and wanted to know whether the reference was intentional.
My first instinct was to change the character’s name. But the more I thought about it, the more amused I became by the coincidence. So instead of changing the name, I reached out to Mr. Tan and asked his permission to leave it in. He was amenable to the idea and has officially become the first person to be tuckerized in one of my stories.
So read “The Take” and, if you enjoyed it, be sure to stop by the DSF Facebook page and leave a comment. Because I almost always have another submission in their slush pile, and a well-received story can’t possibly hurt 🙂
Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction 