Mike Resnick – On Safari
Robert Silverberg – Hannibal’s Elephants
Ken Liu – The MSG Golem
Jim Hines – Stranger vs. the Malevolent Malignancy
Matt Mikalatos – A Stiff Bargain
Fran Wilde – How to Feed Your Pyrokinetic Toddler
James Beamon – Class Action Orc
Jody Lynn Nye – Insider Information
Esther Friesner – Service Charge
Tim Pratt – The Retgun
Josh Vogt – The Girl with a Dagon Tattoo
Konstantine Paradias – How You Ruined Everything
Desmond Warzel – One Thing Leads to Your Mother
MCA Hogarth – Improved Cubicle Door
Wade Albert White – The Wiggy Turpin Affair
Michelle Ann King – Congratulations on Your Apotheosis
JW Alden – Item Not As Described
K.G. Jewell – The Haunted Blender
Heather Lindsley – The Diplomat’s Holiday

There are 19 stories total (compared to 29 in UFO1) but most of them are longer, with only a few very short (flash) pieces included this time. The two books are roughly the same length.

Arnie Swekel is currently working on the cover. I hope to have a sketch to share in a few weeks.

But wait, there’s more! Nine of the stories in UFO2 will feature unique illustrations by Barry Munden (and he will draw a tenth piece to use as a header for all the stories). Here’s a preview sample, the illustration for Ken Liu’s “The MSG Golem:”

#SFWApro

I’m moving forward with the COFFEE anthology  (See the cool preliminary cover above, designed by Emerson Matsuuchi).

Each story must somehow involve coffee as a major plot element. It’s not enough if an unrelated story is set in a coffee shop. I will also consider a few TEA stories as well. These stories must feature an element of the fantastic (fantasy, SF, light horror). No literary fiction please.

For the moment, I will only consider reprints.  If you published a story that you feel might fit the theme, please e-mail it to me at ufopublishing at gmail dot com. Please include information as to where and when it was first published, and confirm that the rights have reverted to you.

Pay: $0.01 per word plus one contributor copy of trade paperback and ebook

Rights:  Non-exclusive English worldwide print and electronic publishing rights.

Length: Up to 4000 words. Flash (500-1000 words) especially welcome.

Policies: Simultaneous and multiple submissions are both OK. Since these are reprints, I may take several months to respond as I won’t be holding the stories hostage and away from being considered elsewhere. I will be reading submissions until the book is filled, but no later than until end of summer. I will post a more detailed time frame soon.

There is some possibility that I’ll solicit 0riginal material for this book in the future. However, at the moment please send reprints only.

#SFWApro

Happy father’s day to all the dads out there!

It occurs to me that I write a fair amount of fiction centered around a father-child relationship. Undoubtedly, being a father myself has much to do with that (that’s my son Josh in the photo above). I selected a few of my favorite father’s day stories which are posted online:

Nuclear Family at Kasma SF – Very short. Caution: this is not a festive story.

Things We Leave Behind – Daily SF – This story is dedicated to my own father and largely inspired by my experiences of emigrating from the former Soviet Union.

The Tinker Bell Problem – Buzzy – A humorous take on the subjects of faith and family.  Family ties aren’t exclusive to humans!

Enjoy, and please share links to your favorite father’s day stories in the comments!

#SFWApro

“True Love” is now live at the Daily Science Fiction web site. This is a very short, sweet science fiction story that seems to have been well received by the readers so far. I hope you enjoy it as well!

#SFWApro

I am almost done with the final selection process for UFO2. Over the course of this week, all authors should be notified and those whose stories have been accepted will receive their contracts. Once all the contracts have been signed, I will announce the official table of contents.

While that’s happening, I am contemplating my next anthology idea. Namely, this:

COFFEE: The Caffeinated Stories of the Fantastic

This is not a submissions call as of yet — I am still contemplating the viability and interest in such a book. It would be a collection of speculative short stories in which coffee plays a major role. I would want to collect mostly flash fiction and short-short stories — the sort one can read while sipping a cup of coffee. I would want one or two tea stories as well. Because, as much as the Interwebs love coffee, some of us love tea, too.

I would be looking for reprints for this book: stories that have been already been published elsewhere rather than original material.

So, for now, I want to ask for everyone’s help.

Is this the sort of book you would buy?

Do you know of any stories that would be a good fit for such a book? If so, please post the link or any information you have about the story/stories in the comments below.

If you’re an author of a story that might be a good fit, you can send it to me at ufopublishing at gmail dot com. I want to stress again that this is not a submission call yet, I’m just exploring the possibility, and that I’m looking for reprints of speculative (fantasy, SF, mild horror) stories only. Published authors would be paid at the reprint rate of $0.01 per word, plus a copy of the book.

Please share whatever other thoughts/ideas you might have about this. They’re much appreciated.

#SFWApro

The speaking engagement at the Hackensack Barnes & Noble last night went wonderfully well. There were about 20 people in the audience. The host, Philip De Parto, did a wonderful job organizing the event and steering the conversation, and the readers in the audience were friendly and engaged.

Today I’m heading back to NJ for the BooksNJ Expo at the Paramus public library. A hectic but fun weekend of author/editor events.

#SFWApro

The books are currently live on Shashwords and will be going live on Amazon and B&N over the next day or two. I will post the other links once they’re live.

If you enjoy my writing, these stories are essential, because they form a prelude to my novel! I will be working on a much longer Conrad Brent story later this summer.

A Shard Glows in Brooklyn at Smashwords

Requiem for a Druid at Smashwords

#SFWApro

Balancing an engaging and entertaining story with Luc’s stated goal of laying out a clear and practical path for actual communities to follow is no easy task. I asked him to talk about the challenges of undertaking such a project and he was kind enough to write the insightful post below.

Really? A Novel With a Message?

By Luc Reid

Telling stories with an ulterior motive is not a well-respected activity. Samuel Goldwyn, then head of MGM Studios, famously told his producers “If you want to send a message, use Western Union,” and the sentiment carries over into fiction–with good reason. Human beings love stories by nature, but we aren’t naturally enthusiastic about being lectured to.

Yet every once in a while, a novel with a message works, or even becomes a classic of literature, for instance George Orwell’s 1984 or Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Both of these books championed ideas and created debate and interest in their topics.

Other non-fiction-in-novel-form books, by contrast, have succeeded despite having very questionable literary value. Psychologist B. F. Skinner created a fictional vision of an intentional community in his novel Walden Two, which was powerfully influential and even inspired groups to go out and do their best to make his vision come true. That book remains a top seller, and yet as a story it falls somewhere between “Where’s the conflict?” and “Don’t quit your day job.”

Other writers have had similar story-challenged successes, like Ernst Callenbach’s Ecotopia and Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt’s novel of manufacturing efficiency measures, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement–which as of this writing ranks at #1,269 on Amazon out of all books, despite having been written in 1984 and having no real characters to speak of.

These successes may seem surprising or contradictory of basic common sense about writing, but I think they teach us the same lesson as The DaVinci Code, Twilight, Slaughterhouse Five, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Lord of the Rings, 50 Shades of Gray, or Ulysses: that success for a novel isn’t a measure of a single, universal characteristic, or even a measure of how certain universal characteristics work together. Instead, the question is to what extent the novel hits a nerve or fills a need. That need can be romance, escape, enlightenment, intellectual engagement, wish fulfillment, or a way to increase plant productivity by 18%–it just has to be some meaningful and widespread desire.

I worry about my current project, a novel called The Town at World’s End, for which I’m currently running a Kickstarter campaign you can get to through www.TheTownAtWorldsEnd.com . It’s a novel about solving climate change on the community level, about how one struggling town transforms to stop contributing to the problem and build resilience. The thing is, climate change is an issue people tend to avoid if they possibly can. The novel paints a picture of a way of living that’s rewarding and sustainable, and I think the specifics of that lifestyle are very attractive and would enrich people’s lives–but will readers feel the same? Will people seek the book out because they want to find something positive and motivating about climate change, or avoid it because the topic is usually so depressing?

So far, having just launched the campaign the other day, the signs are very tentatively positive. I have a small number of backers, one of whom has even claimed one of the biggest rewards, the chance to name a city and a climate-related disaster that destroys that city.

Even apart from its climate change-related advantages, I intend for this to be a hell of a novel, and I have enough successful fiction writing experience that the prospects look good for that. Still, we’ll have to see. Regardless of whether you’re writing a standard epic fantasy novel or something unusual and possibly ill-advised, like my project, there are variables both of how strong the need is for what you’re providing and how well you speak to those who have that need. Good luck with your next story or book–and wish me luck with mine!

On Saturday at 8pm I will be a guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County which will take place at the Barnes & Noble store in Hackensack.

On Sunday, I will be at Books NJ all afternoon, to help promote UFO Publishing. You can find me at the SFABC table there.

In completely unrelated news:

* True Love, a SF flash, was published by Daily Science Fiction today. It was e-mailed to the subscribers. A week from now it will go live on the web site, and I will post a link.

* Interstellar Fiction accepted “The Sgovari Stratagem,” a stand-alone sequel to “The Dragon Ships of Tycho,” for publication in their August issue.

Genres: Speculative fiction

Length: 1000 to 30,0000 (4000-7000 preferred)

Pay rate: $0.02/word up to $150

Rights: First worldwide English-language serial, electronic, and print rights. 3 months exclusivity from the date of publication.

Editor: Joy Crelin

Betwixt is a new magazine, open to all kinds of speculative fiction, which is launching its premier issue this fall.  Ms. Crelin was kind enough to answer additional questions about her publication:

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I had several reasons for starting Betwixt, some better than others. I suppose the simplest reason is that I love speculative fiction and want to play a more active role in and contribute more to the field.