Sneak Preview: Fight Finale From the Near Future! by James Beamon

June 28, 2012

This week I unveil a short story titled “Fight Finale From the Near Future!” by James Beamon.

James Beamon writes because he has to… and he can’t find anything worth watching on TV. But he doesn’t need TV when his wife is a muse and his son is amused by the stuff he makes up. And the cat–well, the cat’s not a fan of speculative fiction but has learned to attack on command. James calls Virginia home but his IT work takes him all over the globe. At the moment he is deployed over in Afghanistan, where he manages to write humor during the brief interludes between missions. Here’s James posing in full battle raiment in front of the Kajacki river valley:

There was an additional benefit for me in accepting James’ submission. As soon as I bought his story, I asked him to join our editorial board and help read and rate incoming submissions. His razor-sharp wit fits in nicely among the varying voices on the reading panel.

Here’s a brief preview of “Fight Finale”:

“You both stand back,” Brody says. He walks carefully across the catwalk. Then he hears the hammer of a gun cock back.

This is a needless gesture, as the only guns that require manually cocking to fire are Old West single-action revolvers.  But he hears it, and cringes despite the fact that anyone who wanted him dead would have killed him already unless their firearm was made before 1890. Brody turns slowly to face his nemesis.

Brody sees M. Vella on the catwalk. Behind the villain, Katya is tied up. M. Vella has left the Observer alone because observing never hurt anybody. Apparently, stealth is also useful for foiling good.

“And now, Agent Omen, I will explain to you my plan’s finer points,” M. Vella sneers as he raises the gun. “I call them hollow points.”

A shot rings out, loud, jarring. Silence follows.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Update – Submission Statistics and Art

June 21, 2012

Submission Statistics

As of this evening I have read and responded to exactly 100 submissions (counting unsolicited stories only). I read 100 stories totaling 207,000 words (that’s about two novels worth) between June 4th and today. Please note that most of these submissions are from professional writers who were invited to submit, members of SFWA and members of Codex Writers — so the statistics are significantly skewed as compared to what may be expected from an upcoming open submissions call.

Here are some interesting numbers:

Of 100 stories read I bought four.  Seven more were strong enough to advance to round 3 (stories I’m highly likely to buy but not 100% sure yes, and will make final decisions at the end of the submission period). I sent a rewrite request for one more story. The remaining 88 were rejected.

Exactly 25 of the submitted stories were advanced to the second round and read by the full editorial board. The remaining 75 were rejected in the first round.

Almost every submission was responded to — with either a rejection or a bump up into the second round — within 24 hours.

A total of 40 submissions have been reported on Duotrope. However, 3 of the 4 acceptances (75%) were reported, as opposed to just 30 of 75 rejections (about 40%).

The most common reason for rejecting a story was its apparent lack of funny. I strongly encourage everyone who plans on submitting to the anthology to read the excerpts from the accepted stories on this blog as well as the sample stories linked at the bottom of the submission guidelines page. We want speculative humor, not just a lighthearted story with a couple of funny lines here and there.

Regarding Artwork

I received queries from several artists who expressed interest in becoming involved in the project. I honestly didn’t have a ready-made answer for them. Beyond cover art and layout (which had been commissioned already) I had no intention of including interior art. However, I can be persuaded otherwise. If you’re interested in producing interior artwork for the book (either original artwork or using your existing pieces), please feel free to query at the submissions address. I did not budget for this, so all I can offer interior artists at this time are copies of the book and publication credit. But, if you’re interested anyway, do e-mail me.

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Sneak Preview: El and Al vs. Himmler’s Hideous Horde from Hell by Mike Resnick

June 21, 2012

I’m a huge fan of Mike Resnick’s fiction. I’ve been reading and enjoying his tales for years. His novel “Santiago” was among the first science fiction books I ever read in English. So I’m enormously thrilled to announce that Unidentified Funny Objects will feature his novelette “El and Al vs. Himmler’s Hideous Horde from Hell.”

According to Locus, Mike Resnick is the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction. He won 5 Hugos (from a record 35 nominations), a Nebula, and other major awards in the USA, France, Japan, Spain, Croatia, and Poland. He’s the author of 64 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and the editor of 40 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages.

The fate of the world itself hangs in the balance when the Third Reich summons super soldiers from hell to fight on their side. Now it’s up to Albert Einstein to engage his arch-nemesis Heinrich Himmler in a battle of sorcery that may well determine the outcome of World War II. With a little help from America’s greatest warrior — Eleanor Roosevelt.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Mein Gott, you’re big!” exclaimed Himmler as he looked at the army Satan had supplied.

There were thirteen of them, each blond and blue eyed, each armed with a magical scimitar (which is kind of like a curved lightsaber, but effective rather than pretty), each ten feet tall, each wearing naught but a leather kilt.

“Ow!” cried the nearest as his head bumped against the ceiling, an action and a cry that was repeated twelve more times up and down the line.

“Duck your heads, dummkopfs!” snapped Himmler.

“We bow to no one!” thundered one of them. “We’ll raise the ceiling!”

So saying, he lifted his magical scimitar and punched a hole in the ceiling.

“You see?” he said with a smile. “There is nothing to it.”

Well, he tried to say “There is nothing to it,” but somewhere between “There” and “is” a huge wooden desk fell through the hole and crashed onto his head. He collapsed beneath it, shoved it off to a side, and got groggily to his feet.

“Maybe I should have sacrificed two newts,” muttered Himmler.

P.S. I promise, the next few stories I’ll be unveiling feature absolutely no Nazis whatsoever.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Sneak Preview: Moon Landing by Lavie Tidhar

June 19, 2012

We’re hard at work reading submissions for Unidentified Funny Objects. I accepted four stories so far, with several more held in the final round of consideration. Tonight, the first contract was signed (and the first payment made), so I can finally announce one of the stories that will be published in UFO: Moon Landing by Lavie Tidhar.

 

 

Lavie Tidhar has been nominated for a BSFA, British Fantasy, Campbell, Sidewise, World Fantasy and Sturgeon Awards. He is the author of Osama, and of the Bookman Histories trilogy, as well as numerous short stories and several novellas.

Here’s a brief excerpt from Moon Landing, though I caution that it doesn’t really do the story justice:

Neil and Buzz stand on the surface of the moon.

“Houston? We have a problem . . .”

“Ja,” a new voice says. The new voice has patched into their comm. units. The new voice comes from the leader of the men facing the Eagle. There are a dozen of them. They all wear spacesuits. They are all armed. On each suit there is a patch, and on the patch is a swastika.

“Ja,”’ the voice says. It has a German accent. “You have a problem.”

Assuming that the edits are done and the contracts are signed in time, I will unveil another accepted story next week.  Later this week I will post more about the submissions we’ve been getting — along with some statistics.

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Update – Our Reading Process

June 17, 2012

This is what happens to stories that are submitted for publication in Unidentified Funny Objects.

Round 1

I open all incoming mail and read the submissions first. At this stage I’m looking at a couple of things:

* Is the story well-written?

So far almost every submission I received clears this benchmark with ease. Then again, that’s because submissions have been open to SFWA and Codex members and you don’t get to join those without a considerable amount of skill. I’m also OK with some minor problems/issues that we can fix in editing.  You will never get rejected because of a typo or because of 1-2 awkward sentences. Of course, if the manuscript is riddled with both, that’s another story.

* Is there a coherent story arc and a good ending?

This is where many of the submissions fail for me. In some cases (often in flash stories) they’re a delivery system for a joke or a clever idea the author had. In other cases the setup is great and the story is interesting, but it peters out in the end. Endings are *hard* to do well and it’s disappointing to see a story which shows a lot of potential early fail to live up to that potential on the last page.

* Is the story funny?

In order to be considered for UFO, the story has to be humor, and not merely lighthearted. To paraphrase a comment one of the associate editors made on a recent submission: “A story with a bit of character-based humor isn’t a ‘humorous story’ no matter how much you want five cents per word.” A large percentage of submissions are rejected because, while they’re good, competently written stories, they aren’t particularly funny.

“But Alex,” you might say, “everyone’s sense of humor is different. What if it isn’t funny to you but hilarious to lots of other people?”

Or, to quote the submission guidelines from Daily Science Fiction, one of my favorite SF ‘zines: “one alien’s funny bone is located near another species’ sac of indifference.”

I’ve tried to solve this problem by utilizing a panel of readers.

Which brings us to:

 

Round 2

Stories that I like enough to consider publishable (including some that I don’t find very funny but suspect others might) are advanced into the second round of consideration.

I strip all author information from the document and pass them along, anonymously, to a panel of readers. Why, you ask? I want stories from unpublished authors to be given the same consideration as those from Nebula nominees. In fact, several submissions from actual Nebula nominees met an ignoble end in the second round thus far.

Each associate editor reads the story and sends me their vote and their comments. They can vote “No,” ‘Yes,” or “Maybe.” The “Maybe” vote is reserved for those stories where the reader thinks it might be good but its sense of humor doesn’t align with their own, or stories that someone is genuinely on the fence about. You’d be surprised at how often the “Maybe” vote is used.

Readers are encouraged (but not required) to provide a few sentences of comments on the submission, especially if their vote is a no.  If the story is rejected in the second round I provide some of that feedback to the author, so they may consider it (or not) for making possible changes before they send their story on to the next market.

So far we’ve kept stories in round 2 anywhere between two days and eight days. Everything is read quickly, but some are more difficult decisions than others. Occasionally there’s quite a lot of back and forth between us on a particular story. One of us might champion a specific submission that others didn’t like as much, and vise versa.

 

Round 3

Stories with a high percentage of “Yes” votes (and not a single one has been unanimous yet) are advanced into the third round of consideration and I e-mail the author a ‘Hold Request’ — asking permission to sit on their story until early September. At that time the remaining slots in the table of contents will be filled with these stories.

Why make people wait so long? Suppose an author submitted a good, funny story about time traveling to the 1950’s. The story advanced through the rounds and was held. But then, another author submitted a story that is absolutely brilliant, and it also happens to be a 1950’s time travel piece. We’re very unlikely to publish two similar stories, and so the former one has to be released.

Other considerations such as available space and variety (I want a mix of genres and styles) also come into play.

Not every story has to wait until September. On very few occasions the story is so amazing that I *know* I want to include it, no matter what.  These stories get accepted early and we begin work on the copy-editing and contract process.  Several acceptances have been sent out, and I hope to begin announcing them as early as this coming week

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Update – June 11

June 12, 2012

I enjoy writing humor. Many of my stories are the kind of fluffy, light fare that doesn’t take itself too seriously. And I run out of markets to submit them to all too quickly.

“There aren’t enough humor markets” is the complaint commonly heard at conventions, on writing forums, and any other place where two or more writers happen to be at the time. There are great magazines that accept humorous stories, but when you compare their number to those looking to publish dark fantasy or horror, it isn’t close. I’ve grumbled about this enough times myself, until I realized that I can actually do something about it. And thus, an anthology of humor SF/F was born.

One of my goals in setting up this project was to avoid some of the frustrating issues that plague many of the fledgling markets. To that end, I’m doing the following:

* Full disclosure. My credentials, staff list, rights sought and all other details are spelled out in the submissions guidelines.  I will post regular updates here and on my Twitter account (@AShvartsman)

* High quality cover, professional typesetting and copy-editing. I want the final product to look as good as anything released by one of the big New York publishers.

* Treat the writers right. I’m paying $0.05 per word, and I’m paying it on acceptance so the authors don’t have to wait until winter to get their money.  I’ll strive to respond to submissions and queries quickly and keep authors abreast of what’s going on with their stories as they advance — or don’t — through three rounds of consideration (explained in the guidelines). Each contributor will get both an e-copy and a physical printed copy of the book upon release.

Thank you for the many awesome title suggestions. Ultimately I went with “Unidentified Funny Objects,” courtesy of Nathaniel Lee.  Things have been progressing nicely. Submission guidelines are posted and I’m getting ready to read your stories. In fact, I’ve been reading submissions already. I reached out to a number of excellent authors directly asking them to submit something. I also opened submissions early to members of SFWA and Codex Writers and have been reading furiously for over a week.

Sending out rejections is the worst part of the job. Having to reject friends, colleagues, people with whom I’ve been commiserating about other markets’ rejections and response times is especially brutal. But I’ve been doing it. So far I managed to get back to almost everyone within 24 hours with either a rejection or a note advancing their story to the second round. I also managed to provide at least some feedback with most rejections — a luxury I may not be able to afford once the general submissions open and the volume increases exponentially. But it’s all been worth it because of the stories I’m not rejecting.

There are several stories that I like a lot and am strongly considering for inclusion. I asked those authors for permission to hold on to their stories until the end of the submission period, to see if I can fit them into the Table of Contents.

There are also a couple of stories I absolutely loved and know I want to buy, right away. I’ll be sending those authors acceptance letters and contracts soon, and will be announcing their names here soon.

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Help Name An Anthology

May 29, 2012

In the coming months I’ll be editing an anthology of humorous SF/F stories.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail yet. I’ll write a much longer post on the subject when I’m ready to make an official announcement. For now, suffice is to say that it will pay professional rates ($0.05 per word) and will be released as both an e-book and a physical book. And if it’s very successful, it might become an annual thing.

What I need right now is the name. I want something really catchy and easy to identify as speculative humor. And, of course, it can’t be a title that was used by somebody else previously. If you have any good ideas, please post them in the comments (or e-mail me directly through the contact form). If I end up using your title there’s a signed physical copy of the anthology in it for you 🙂

I will also be looking for all sorts of other help, down the line. Slush readers, illustrators, someone to create a promotional YouTube video, etc. Feel free to reach out if you want to get involved. And, of course, if you write light/humorous speculative fiction, you may want to start getting those submissions ready!

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

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