This story is written in a very difference voice/style from my usual. Definitely an experimental piece. Flash fiction is perfect for trying something new. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
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This is also a good time to remind everyone that there’s a little more than a day remaining in the Goodreads giveaway for a signed copy of UFO5. Enter here.
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Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: daily science fiction | 
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
It’s been a busy month. I traveled to Worldcon in Kansas City where I had a wonderful time, followed it up with a family vacation to Costa Rica where I also had a wonderful time, except I came back with a bad ear infection in both ears. (Bright side: the infection didn’t kick in while we were on vacation, only after.) I’ve been on two antibiotics and it’s finally clearing up enough to where I can write and work. Let me tell you, those things aren’t fun.
Meantime, two of my brand-new stories have been published! “Dante’s Unfinished Business” was released on September 1 in Galaxy’s Edge magazine. It’s free to read for two months, and available via subscription/purchase thereafter. As I enjoy experimenting with all forms and styles of humor, it occurred to me that I’ve never written a pot humor story in the style of Cheech and Chong (well, sort of.) So I decided to try my hand at it, blatantly ignoring the fact that I’ve never actually smoked any pot. Making sure my references were authentic meant getting an entirely different set of beta readers in addition to the ones I normally use. But I’m told I mostly got the references right, so I hope you’ll enjoy the tale. I also wrote it after binge-watching two seasons of Rick and Morty and I think a lot of the humor in the story was also influenced by that. Plotwise, it’s a loose retelling of Dante’s Inferno, except Dante is a 21st century pothead and instead of Virgil he is shown around hell by the ghost of Bob Marley.
The second story was just published online today, and will be in this week’s issue of the journal of Nature. “A Perfect Medium for Unrequited Love” is about artificial intelligence, love, and embedding communications “in the most interesting of media.” I wrote a more detailed “the making of” for the Nature Futures blog and you can read it here. I enjoy writing about artificial intelligence. Another story that explores its themes is forthcoming from Amazing Stories in the coming months or weeks.
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Comments Off on Two New Stories, Free to Read | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: AI, Dante, galaxy's edge, Inferno, nature | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I’ve been sitting on this news for months. It’s the secret project I was hinting at in my anthology update a few weeks ago. But now that the contract is signed, I can finally announce that I will be editing an anthology for Baen!
The Cackle of Cthulhu will be an anthology of Lovecraftian humor, half reprints and half original fiction. This is a topic I know a thing or two about. There are a number of great Lovecraftian humor stories out there and I will endeavor to collect a fun variety of them in this book, as well as to solicit a number of new ones.
There won’t be an open submission window for this anthology, but if you know of a great Lovecraftian humor story you feel I should take a close look at, please let me know about it in the comments or via social media.
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11 Comments | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Baen, The Cackle of Cthulhu | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
You can read “Forty-Seven Dictums of Warfare” here.
And another flash story, “A Perfect Medium for Unrequited Love” sold to Nature over the weekend. I expect it will run in a few months’ time.
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2 Comments | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: daily science fiction | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
My fantasy flash story is now live at Diabolical Plots, free to read here.
This story was originally written for the Art and Words collaborative show, inspired by the art in the poster below. I’m happy it found a good home at Diablolical Plots, edited by David Steffen. Enjoy!
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1 Comment | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Diabolical Plots | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I’ve been keeping busy: UFO5 submissions are in full swing, Funny Fantasy is done and will be released later this month as an e-book and in May as a paperback, and I turned in the manuscript for Humanity 2.0 to the publisher. So I hope you will excuse my silence here on the blog. I should be done with most of my editorial duties for the year in the next couple of months and then I can go back to writing more, and procrastinating on here more as a result.
Meantime, I’m popping in to report that Matt Haynes is producing an evening of short SF/F plays, featuring works based on the short stories of Tina Connolly. Nancy Kress, Jeff Carter, Briak K. Lowe, and my own “Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma.”
The performance will take place on April 21 and the details can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/869594576499644/
And now, back to the slush mines with me. POOF! *Disappears.*
Comments Off on “Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma” play returns to Portland | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma, play | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Many fine magazines with my stories in them arrived today.
ON SPEC #101, Canada’s premier SF/F digest, includes my humorous quantum physics story “One in a Million.”
NordCon XXIX convention booklet features the Polish translation of “Spidersong”
And Informator has been running my Tales of the Elopus mini-stories for close to a year, also in Polish translation. Pictured above is the second batch of the magazines — I think they ran all of them at this point.
Contributor copies make for a happy author. #SFWApro
1 Comment | Acceptances & Publications | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
My science fiction story “Whom He May Devour” was published today at Nautil.us — an award-winning science magazine. It’s about singularities, FTL, religious fanatics, love, terrorism, and cyborgs. And it’s gorgeously laid out and illustrated, and free to read online. So, what are you waiting for?
In related news, XB-1 magazine translated “High-Tech Fairies and the Pandora Perplexity” into Czech and published it in the January issue. I get to share the table of contents with Charlie Stross and Michael Swanwick. Not too shabby! You can click on the gorgeous cover above to see the larger version of the image.
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Comments Off on Whom He May Devour published at Nautilus | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Nautilus, XB-1 | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
My award-winning humor fantasy story is now free to read at Moozvine! You can download it in e-book formats, PDF, or just read in the browser. Check out the cool cover they designed for it, too!
Moozvine is an exciting new website that’s a bit of a mix between a free library and a crowdfunding platform. Some stories are released free for everyone to read (donations optional), while others are posted once a predetermined amount of funds has been raised. However, it’s not just the backers who get to enjoy the “funded” stories — once the story funds it is free to read and share for everyone!
Check out their library, featuring stories by Ken Liu, Nancy Kress and many other excellent authors. I should have a bit more news about Moozvine in a couple of weeks.
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Comments Off on Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma at Moozvine | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma, Moozvine | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I’m super glad to see Every Day Fiction return after taking the month of November off because of some technical issues. Their December stories are from authors and staff historically associated with the site. I’ve had a few stories published at EDF over the years, including my very first published piece of fiction, way back in 2010! So when they asked if I had a holiday themed story I was happy to offer them my favorite one. “Dreidel” originally appeared in Galaxy’s Edge but it wasn’t available online and I wanted to rectify that in time for Chanukah, so things worked out swimmingly.
Happy Chanukah and Merry Menorahs, everyone!
Read Dreidel of Dread: The Very Cthulhu Chanukah at EDF.
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1 Comment | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: every day fiction | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
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Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction 