Acceptances & Publications | Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction

Kakistocracy Release Day!

October 17, 2023

Book 2 in the Conradverse Chronicles is out today! Many of the digital retailers are still onboarding the audiobook but you should be able to buy the paperback and ebook in all the usual places, and the audiobook in several outlets already.

Here are a few of the vendors where you can find it:

Amazon (print, ebook, audio pending)
Barnes & Noble (print, ebook, audio)
Bookshop.org (print)
Spotify (audio)
Chirp (audio)

Listen to the complete chapter 1 of the audiobook on YouTube:

Read some of the early reviews of Kakistocracy:

Book series live and die by word of mouth. Please read/listen, share the book with others, and post a review or even just a rating. It will help ensure there’s a book 3!

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Murderbugs & Vampire Survival Guide

September 16, 2023

Two new anthologies are live on Kickstarter as of today! Murderbugs and Vampire Survival Guide are both edited by Mike Jack Stoumbos and will be published in 2024.

If the campaign reaches a $6000 mark I will write a story for the Vampire Survival Guide tentatively titled “Hemotherapy” (not a typo.) Intrigued to see what advice I might have for vampires to survive in the cold and uncaring human world? Pledge some cash to the campaign!

Those who pledge in the first 24 hours will also get a stack of additional e-books, including David Hankins’ hilarious new novel Death and the Taxman as well as my own Funny Horror anthology!

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The City that Never Sleeps on REN TV

May 29, 2023

I was interviewed on Chapman’s Secrets (yes, that Anna Chapman), a documentary show with strong tabloid vibes which airs on the Russian TV network Ren TV. They were working on an episode about the urban myths and legends of New York City, which I’m well-suited to talk about due to the nature of my current urban fantasy series. The episode aired on May 29, 2023 and I got to discuss the origins of many different urban legends. My replies were dubbed into Russian, but those who are able to understand it can watch me talk about crocodiles in the sewers, how a penny dropped from a skyscraper won’t actually kill you, and pizza rat.

https://ren.tv/project/tainy-chapman/1108118-tainy-chapman-gorod-kotoryi-ne-spit-29-05-2023

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Cover reveal: Kakistocracy

April 19, 2023

File770 graciously hosted an exclusive cover reveal for my next novel yesterday! Kakistocracy is the sequel to The Middling Affliction with more humor, monsters, zany adventures, and snarky heroes!

Please consider placing your preorders early as this really helps. Book stores and even sites like Amazon will base their own orders on the level of interest they see from their customer base, so early orders drive the book’s success more than almost anything else!

Preorder now: [Amazon] [B&N] [Bookshop.org]

Meanwhile, here are some other recent news:

The Digital Aesthete hybrid anthology/zine project has launched and you can read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s story right now at Future SF. This book will be published in November and the stories posted on the Future SF website after that.
I’ve talked about writing with Ed Willett at the Shapers of Worlds podcast. You can listen to the interview here.
My Canopus-nominated “The Race for Arcadia” was reprinted in Adventures in Space, an anthology of SF stories by Chinese and English language writers.
UFO9 is now available in audiobook format, brilliantly narrated by Bill Yarbrough!

Comments Off on Cover reveal: Kakistocracy | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: audiobook, Conradverse, Kakostocracy, Shapers of Worlds, UFO9 | Permalink
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New Translations in March 2023 Analog and Asimov’s

February 8, 2023

I’ve got a couple of translations in the March-April issues of Analog and Asimov’s which are about to go on sale next week.

“The Errata” by K.A. Teryna imagines a life on an ark ship very early in its journey (still in our solar system!) This story was commissioned by the Future Affairs Administration which involved K.A. Teryna writing it quickly and then me translating it equally fast, so that a relay translation could be performed from English to Mandarin Chinese. As usual, K.A. delivered a great story and Asimov’s snapped up the first English rights. Bonus: there’s also a cat!

“Incommunicado” by Andrej Kokoulin is a cool space opera adventure where the protagonist must race across the galaxy to reconnect with his lost love. This story reminded me of the best of Soviet-era sci-fi and is refreshingly optimistic. Its appearance in Analog is Kokoulin second English-language publication. My translation of his dark yarn “The Slave” was published in F&SF a few years back.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

New publication: Cain and Abel by Yefim Zozulya in Galaxy’s Edge #60

January 6, 2023

My latest translation of one of Zozulya’s fablesque stories, “Cain and Abel” is live in the latest issue of Galaxy’s Edge. Two more translations of his works — “The Tale of Ak and Humanity” and “The Living Furniture” appeared in Tor.com and F&SF respectively last year.

Current Issue

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2022 Publication Recap – Award Eligibility Post

December 17, 2022

Here are my 2022 publications, should you feel inclined to consider them for your end-of-year posts, award nominations, or just recommending to your friends!

Novel

The Middling Affliction – Caezik SF&F

Short stories

The Book of Raisa – Other Covenants anthology – Ben Yehuda Press

Number of Americans Swept into Oz Rises to Unprecedented Levels – Daily Science Fiction

A Dark and Stormy Night – Silence in the City, Founders House

Translations

The Farctory – K. A. Teryna – The Best of World SF 2 – Head of Zeus

Fly Free – Alan Kubatiev – Clarkesworld

The Tin Pilot – K.A. Teryna – Asimov’s

The Living Furniture – Yefim Zozulya – F&SF

The Tale of Ak and Humanity – Yefim Zozulya – Tor.com

Editor – short form

Future Science Fiction Digest

Unidentified Funny Objects 9

Future SF is also eligible in a semiprozine category.

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2023 Canopus Awards Nominee!

December 14, 2022

My story “Repairs at the Beijing West Space Elevator” was nominated for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing! This story originally appeared in Chinese as part of the FAA Lunar New Year Gala and was published in English at Analog.

Congratulations to my fellow nominees (that’s an impressive list and I really don’t expect to win my category!) Results will be announced at the 100YSS conference in Nairobi this coming February.

https://canopusawards.org/?page_id=166

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“The Farctory” by K.A. Teryna published in The Best of World SF 2

October 15, 2022

My translation of K.A. Teryna’s 11,000+ word novelette “The Farctory” was published this week in The Best of World SF 2 edited by Lavie Tidhar. This is an original, previously unpublished in translation story, and one of the longest among Teryna’s works. l like to describe it as an M.C. Escher painting in a written form. 🙂

I earned a prestigious RusTRANS grant from the University of Exeter to translate this story back in 2020 and Lavie picked up the completed translation for this anthology, which has already earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

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Fly Free by Alan Kubatiev (translation) published at Clarkesworld

October 11, 2022

This month’s Clarkesworld magazine includes my translation of “Fly Free” by Alan Kubatiev. This is definitely one of the most difficult pieces I’ve translated to date, and I hope everyone will check it out!

Click here to read.