My humorous fantasy story “Burying Treasure” is in this latest installment of the Chicks in Chainmail anthology series, edited by Esther Friesner. “Burying Treasure” attempts to explain why there are piles of treasure and gold always lying around, in the unlikeliest of places, for the heroes of traditional fantasy stories and Dungeons and Dragons campaigns to find. The short answer, or course, is Keynesian economics. The long answer … you’ll just have to read the story to find out!
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Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Baen, Chicks and Balances, Chicks in Chainmail, fantasy, humor | 
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
The fourth annual Unidentified Funny Objects anthology will contain 23 stories totaling approximately 86,000 words. Cover art by Tomasz Maronski. Interior illustrations by Barry Munden.
Unidentified Funny Objects 4
“We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” by Neil Gaiman
“The Time-Traveling Ghost Machine of Professor Jaime Peligrosa” by Andrew Kaye
“Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor” by Caroline M. Yoachim
“Match Game” by Esther Friesner
“The Transformation of Prince Humphrey” by Brent C. Smith
“In the End, You Get Clarity” by Laura Pearlman
“Project Disaster” by Tim Pratt
“Hello Hotel” by Piers Anthony
“Bob’s No Kill Monster Shelter” by Ian Creasey
“Board Meeting Minutes” by Oliver Buckram
“Armed for You” by Anaea Lay
“The Unfortunate Problem of Grandma’s Head” by Karen Haber
“My Mother Loves Her Robot More than Me and I Feel Bad” by Eric Kaplan
“The Worm that Turned” by Jody Lynn Nye
“Department of Death Predictions, Final Notice” by Tina Gower
“Champions of Breakfast” by Zach Shephard
“Keeping Ahead” by Mike Resnick
“So You’ve Metamorphosed into a Giant Insect. Now What?” by James Aquilone
“Confessions of an Interplanetary Art Fraud” by Michael J. Martinez
“Texts from My Mother about an Alien Invasion” by Tina Connolly
“Support Your Local Alien” by Gini Koch
“Topics to Avoid on a First Date with Yourself” by Jonathan Ems
“The Monkey Treatment” by George R. R. Martin
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2 Comments | Publishing | Tagged: fantasy, humor, science fiction, UFO4 | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
You can now listen to the title story of the collection here:
http://www.ufopub.com/2015/02/06/explaining-cthulhu-to-grandma-and-other-stories/
If you enjoy Tina’s narration (and there’s no good reason why you won’t) you can pick up the audio book containing all 40 stories at Audible, forthcoming in the next few weeks.
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
My humor flash story “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters” is live on the Daily Science Fiction website. Check it out! And if you prefer to hear it in audio, it will appear on the Far-Fetched Fables podcast sometime next year.
If you enjoy this story and the way it makes fun of movie tropes, you will probably also like “Worldbuilding” and the way that story satirizes science fiction tropes.
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1 Comment | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: daily science fiction, fantasy, flash, humor | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
One of my all-time favorite stories is now live!
“Fate and Other Variables” is a story of a hacker who teams up with a kabbalist to break into the metaphysical Book of Life and alter their futures. It’s a cyberpunk and ubran fantasy mashup, and you can read it for free at Galaxy’s Edge magazine by following this link — but only for the next three months. After that it will remain behind a paywall. (You can and should, of course, subscribe to get full access to this and other stories).
And here’s the illustration for “Fate” by Barry Munden, which will appear in Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories.
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10 Comments | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: cyberpunk, fantasy, galaxy's edge | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
My latest flash story is out at Daily Science Fiction this week, and it is free to read online.
This one is dedicated to the memory of Roger Zelazny. Those of you familiar with his “Game of Blood and Dust” will undoubtedly note some similarities, though the tone and the resolution of the story is sufficiently different from his story.
And if you haven’t read “The Keepsake Box,” which also premiered at DSF, early this year, it is now live in the “Pandora’s Box” volume of Timeless Tales.
Both are very short stories, perfect to read when you have a spare 5 minutes. Enjoy!
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
This past Wednesday I had two very different stories about Pandora’s boxes published in two SFWA venues. They were written at different times, submitted at different times, accepted at different times… But both were published within hours of each other. What are the odds?!
First up is the “High-Tech Fairies and the Pandora Perplexity,” a humorous Magic Pawn Shop fantasy story that features the same set of characters as “Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma.” This story was published in issue 37 of InterGalactic Medicine Show. You have to subscribe the magazine to read the full story, but you can check out the opening scene and beautiful illustration by Andres Mossa. Here’s a little sample, to whet your appetite:
“Never cared much for those,” said Grandma. “The things people try to put inside! In 1935, a fellow named Schrödinger shoved his cat into a Pandora’s box to prove some sort of a point. PETA activists from the 23rd century keep traveling back in time to egg his house, ever since. Using artificial eggs, of course.”
The other one is “The Keepsake Box” a flash fantasy story published at Daily Science Ficiton. DSF e-mails their stories to subscribers (it’s free to subscribe!) a week before they’re posted on the web site, so those of you who do not already subscribe will be able to read it for free in a few days (I’ll post the link). For now, here’s a teaser:
She dumps the contents of the keepsake box onto the table and begins to chant as she picks up the items one by one, drains them of their power, and weaves the resulting strands of enchantment into her spell.From the twig of the tree under which she met him, she drains excitement. It’s light and full of possibilities, like beats of a fluttering heart
This is not a humorous story. It’s dark and brooding, and kind of different from what I usually tend to write. I hope you enjoy it!
On the acceptances front, I just sold a suspense story (that’s right — not science fiction, not fantasy!) to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine.
I was also invited to submit a story to a New Zealand-based steampunk anthology Angels & Automatons. They just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book.
And, of course, I would be remiss not to mention the ongoing Kickstarter for UFO3. We have over 100 backers and raised a third of our goal already, but there’s still a long way to go, and I’d appreciate any and all help, in both pledges and sharing the details of this campaign.
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
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Each time a new book is released into the world is a little bit like a birthday. Today I had the pleasure of e-mailing the COFFEE e-books to our Kickstarter backers, and folks who were kind enough to pre-order them. Tomorrow I expect to spend much of my day packing physical copies. I’m very excited about this book, and can’t wait to share the end result with the world.
For those of you who didn’t back Coffee on Kickstarter (and why not, I ask?!), you can order your very own copies at UFO Publishing Buy Our Books page. It’s only three bucks for an e-book, which is cheaper than an actual cup of coffee, if you like yours Venti or Grande.
And if you do not already own copies of UFO1 or UFO2 (and why not, I ask again?!), we have a Holiday Bundle special where you can get all three physical books for $30 or all three e-books for $12. Follow that same link to take advantage of it. The special will only last until December 9th.
And if you absolutely must get it on Amazon, here’s the link to the paperback. E-books should be popping up on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and Smashwords by the weekend.
Remember: books make great holiday presents!
OK, I’m done with the hard sell now. Really.
2 Comments | Publishing | Tagged: anthology, coffee, fantasy, promotion, release, sale, science fiction | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
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It’s been a busy, busy week.
I shipped out several hundred copies of physical UFO book to Kickstarter supporters, distributors, and pre-orders. I set up the digital book to make it available on Amazon, Smashwords, B&N. and Kobo. I hosted a launch party for UFO2 on Sunday (thanks to everyone who came by!) and attended a SFWA reception on Monday, where I got to hang out with some of our awesome contributors as well as hand out a few copies of the book.
If you haven’t attended one of these things, there are at least three separate opportunities for you to snag a free copy of UFO2:
1) GoodReads giveaway:
You can enter the GoodReads giveaway between now and October 20th to win a paperback copy signed by me.
2) Jim C. Hine’s giveaway:
Jim is giving away a signed copy of either UFO2 or Heroes in Training on his blog to one person who contributes to Eugie Foster’s fundraiser. Eugie Foster is battling cancer right now and could really use the extra help, so please consider contributing to this.
3) J.W. Alden’s giveaway:
JW Alden is also giving away a copy of the book on his blog. All you have to do is post int he comments!
And if you don’t win? You can always click here and follow the links to buy a copy of the book from your favorite e-tailer. Or, buy a copy directly from UFO Publishing. I’ll get to keep more of the money and use it on — what else? — putting together UFO3!3
And, just in case you need a little more convincing, before you fork over some hard-earned cash for a copy of this book, check out our first review, by David Kilman at Amazing Stories.
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
“You Bet,” the short humor story I wrote to explain what’s happening in the wacky cover art of Unidentified Funny Objects volume 1 was released as a Podcast today by Cast of Wonders. You can listen to it here. As usual, the CoW team and particularly reader John Meagher did a wonderful job with producing this story. I really wanted to see this one produced in audio because there is a nice ensemble cast of characters in it, all speaking in wacky voices. The episode is just over 15 minutes long. and I encourage you to check it out.
This is my second story at Cast of Wonders (with the third one on the way). My previous story with them was “The Field Trip,” the translation of which happened to have been released in Romanian today. If you speak the language, you can check it out in the current issue of Revista SRSFF.
It’s really cool to have stories published in the United Kingdom and Romania at the same time. I’m also excited that one of my stories will be published in my native Russian soon. I will post details about that when I can.
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction 