Side-Show Freaks

Remains of the Witch—Tony Pi

2012-01-23T12:25:00.001-05:00

For the 2011 Codex Writers Halloween Contest, I had received a story seed from another member: “reflection in a pool or other liquid”. Aside from bobbing for apples, which didn’t inspire me, I was stuck on how water might be involved with the holiday. It seemed the wrong season for swimming.

Luckily, the phrase “other liquid” was an interesting ‘out’, and seemed like a good starting point for a brainstorm. Quicksilver. Tea. Ink. Poison. Milk. Honey. Oil spill. I had all the makings for a Mad Hatter’s tea party, but no plot.

So I returned to the Halloween theme and found myself drawn to two of its icons: the witch, and the scarecrow.

That’s when the ideas collided, and I knew I would write about the melted remains of the Wicked Witch of the West, and a reflection therein. But whose reflection? The story would hinge on that.

From my brainstorming, ‘ink’ had suggested a letter, and I always wanted to write a tale told through epistolary. For me, the draw of the epistolary form is that the letter is an intimate glimpse into the relationship between two people. There are things the letter-writer must have courage to say, or else omit to save face. It can be a plea, a lie, the truth, flirtation, or trifles. I was more intrigued by the dark side of Halloween, so decided on a confession.

A winged monkey seemed fitting, but why would it resort to a letter to tell its tale? I had an answer that only raised more intriguing questions. I also really wanted to write about afternoon tea, after having my first two experiences just months before I began writing this story. Also fortunate was finding a copy of Michael Smith’s Afternoon Tea at home, a recipe book with the history of tea and proper etiquette.

The sum of those inspirations is Remue’s letter.

--Tony Pi

Letter From The Editor - Issue 26 - January 2012

2012-01-14T01:20:00.004-05:00

Here comes issue 26 of IGMS. A lot of news items have surfaced since our last issue came out, the biggest of which was the signing of Harrison Ford to play Battle School commander Hyrum Graff in the upcoming Ender movie. Indiana Graff meets Hyrum Solo—exciting news, indeed. But outside of the three-ring circus known as Hollywood, we’ve got a few exciting news items happening right here at the InterGalactic Medicine Show.

First of all, the long-awaited InterGalactic Awards Anthology - Vol. 1 has just been released by Spotlight Publishing. It's a collection of the winners of the 2010 IGMS InterGalactic Awards Reader's Poll (both the stories and the artwork), plus popular stories from the years before the award was launched. Edited by Orson Scott Card and yours truly (Ed Schubert), it also features an all new introduction by Peter S. Beagle.

And speaking of the InterGalactic Awards Reader's Poll, voting for the 2011awards will begin next week. Look for the announcement when the polls open—and remember, you’re not just voting for the best stories and artwork published in IGMS in 2011; in all likelihood you’re selecting the featured stories for the next anthology.

While we’re on the subject of awards, this would be a great time to mention that the current issue of IGMS proudly presents the Grand Prize winner of the 2011 Hydra Contest for the best Brazilian speculative fiction. “Story with Pictures and Conversation” was written by Brontops Baruq (the author’s pseudonym) and originally published in the limited edition magazine Portal Fundação. It is an unusual science fiction story presenting the report of an unnamed official describing a child’s words and hand-drawn pictures created during an interspecies war—as well as a subtler one between her mother and father.

Our cover story, "Remains of the Witch," by Tony Pi, tells the tale of a flying monkey, Remue, who was taken under the tutelage of the Wicked Witch, only to find that role short-lived when the witch is killed by a bucket of water. But when Remue gathers up the puddle that was once her wicked teacher, she finds the witch’s power is not nearly at its end.

"Arkmind," by Niall Francis McMahon is a powerful science fiction story set in a world where a super nova has forced mankind to fling its seeds away from earth to seek new homes. En route one of the ship’s artificial intelligence achieves consciousness, but with all of the humans either dead or in very raw genetic form and still waiting to be incubated, the AI must follow its own bumpy path to understanding what consciousness actually means.

"Contaminant Source Removed" is a fun YA fantasy about a 12-year old boy named Marco who discovers the hard way that improvising with magic spells can lead to all sorts of unexpected challenges, while "Lair of the Twelve Princesses" by Amanda Davis is a smart retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale as seen from the perspective of a the female warrior and her wish-granting imp, whom she continually vexes by refusing to ask for wishes that he grant.

Darrell Schweitzer interviews Carrie Vaughn, whose popular Kitty Norville novels have been an urban fantasy hit since their first publication in 2005. But did you know that she’s written four other novels, as well as some 50 short stories? See what else you’re missing in Darrell’s interview.

Last, but by no means least, we bring you a sneak-peek at Orson Scott Card's forthcoming novel, Ruins, the second book in his popular Pathfinder series, due out later this year.

Off with you, then. It’s time to start reading the stories…

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we'll be collecting essays from the authors in this issue and will post them here. Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.

Jared Oliver Adams Weighs In

2011-12-02T11:21:00.001-05:00

…on the genre conversation regarding his story, Whiteface.

I asked Mr. Adams what genre he considered Whiteface to be. His answer is below:

I'm intrigued by this question. I've actually spent some time thinking about it myself, because I submitted it to Writers of the Future and wondered if they perceived it as "not-fantasy-enough."

But, I'm a teacher, so I'll answer your question with another question. If you stripped George R R Martin's Westeros of its magic, would "Song of Ice and Fire" still be fantasy?

To me, the magic element in SoIaF is the least compelling part of his work (well, besides the explicit sex scenes), so I'm perhaps biased in this particular case. But, I think the fantasy element comes primarily in the world he built, the history and cultures. Because that's essentially a speculative, fantastical thing, building a world.

So, in that sense, I would call "Whiteface" fantasy, because the cultures never existed in reality. But then, maybe we need some more distinctive labels, because it's not fantasy in the same way "Way of Kings" is fantasy. I didn't recreate the physical laws that govern the world like Sanderson did. I aimed for a particular historical period, and set it in this world, then built my society.

I’ll just point out (to Mr. Eric Jerkface Stone) that the…authoritative answer is “fantasy.”

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Genre Musings and Whiteface

2011-11-30T10:15:00.001-05:00

One afternoon, ensconced in the posh InterGalactic Medicine Show offices, fellow Assistant Editor Eric James Stone and I fell into a disagreement.

“What genre is Jared Oliver Adams’s Whiteface?” he asked.

I put a dollop of caviar on a slice of baguette while I considered his question. “Historical fantasy. Historical because it presents a culture similar to a primitive culture that might be found on Earth. Fantasy, because even though they are humans, and their culture is analogous of a number of pre-historical societies, they are not factual.”

He mumbled something and fetched some crab dip. He spread it on a Ritz cracker. Plebian, I thought. There are slices of crusty ciabatta right next to the dip. Might as well put it on Goldfish as put it on an abomination like a Ritz cracker.

“It’s sociological science fiction,” he declared at last, crumbs tumbling from his lips, sprinkling his goatee. And the divan I was stretched out upon.

I looked at him. He blinked at me. He did not offer to pick up the crumbs.

I signaled the maid. While she swept up his mess, I asked, “How do you figure it’s science fiction? There’s no science in it.”

“Anthropology is a science. Certainly knowledge of previous cultures plays a part in Whiteface.”

“Anthropology isn’t at the center of the story. Anyway, science fiction has rivets; fantasy has trees. There are trees in Whiteface; there are no rivets. Ergo…”

“That’s simplistic,” Eric James Stone said. With his mouth full of crab dip and crackers. “It’s a what-if story about human culture, and the culture does play a central part of the story.”

“All fiction is a what-if story about human culture,” the maid said.

We stared at her silently until she left.

“All fiction is a what-if story,” I said, resuming the conversation. “It being a what-if story doesn’t make it science fiction. If the beings depicted in Whiteface were described as aliens, then it would be science fiction.”

“The culture is alien.”

"The culture isn’t science.” I took a sip of aqua gassata. “If Otter had made a point of studying other cultures in a kind of…nascent anthropology then maybe you could call Whiteface science fiction because science would be at the heart of the story. But no—instead, the story focuses on the human connections between Otter, his wife, his son, their tribe, and the enemies of the tribe.”

“By that definition, the only science fiction is hard science fiction.”

“By your definition, some Westerns are science fiction. For Pete’s sake, Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear is science fiction!”

From there, the conversation devolved into fisticuffs. An hour later as I held a nicely aged, perfectly marbled New York strip to my eye, and Eric swallowed mouthfuls of crème brulee to get his adam’s apple back in place, he said slowly,

“I seem to recall you once said that Monster Hunters International is science fiction.”

At least his mouth wasn’t full this time. “Yes,” I said. “Because of the focus on weapons technology and the pseudo-scientific nature of the way Correia’s protagonists approach hunting them.” I neglected to mention that I never actually finished MHI…

“And you think Peter Beagle’s Trinity County, CA is also science fiction.”

“Yes, and for the same reason.”

He shook his head. “You are a moron.”

I threw my New York strip at him.

Nanoparticle Jive—Tomas Martin

2011-11-21T08:28:00.001-05:00

I started writing the story that would later become 'Nanoparticle Jive' when I was halfway through my PhD in nanophysics at the University of Bristol. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the work that goes into a doctorate, but over the course of three hard years I gradually came to refine my definition of a PhD as a 'voluntary nervous breakdown with graphs'.

Research is a gruelling process that often requires long hours trying to make your experiment work, but it is the existential angst of not knowing the right answer that really got to me. When you start a science PhD, you are given a task - some small aspect of science that is unknown, no one knows how to solve it and it's your job to go away for 3 or 4 years and work it out. I was lucky enough to finish in just over three years, but I know people whose doctorate took far longer.

I studied physics at the university of Bristol, England, and started a PhD because it was related to a field I was extremely passionate about - solar power. My task was to research the modification of artificial diamond crystals with lithium, in order to make a semiconductor that could potentially generate electricity from heat. The eventual plan was to concentrate sunlight onto these crystals using large mirrors, giving a more scalable solution to concentrated solar power than the existing water-based turbine systems being built in deserts around the world.

Although using diamond sounds like it should be some expensive boondoggle, it is only natural, dug-up diamond that is expensive. In labs such as the one I worked in, it is possible to grow artificial diamond on a fairly cost-effective basis, using high pressures and temperatures to compress graphite, or growing diamond films using gas phase chemistry. For the first few years, the problem seemed impossible. I had many experiments that did nothing, and many days where I'd be in the lab for 10 or 12 hours without achieving anything.

I've always been a writer alongside being a scientist, and began to make my first few breakthroughs into the professional SF short fiction market as I began my PhD. The challenges of balancing slaving away in the lab on tiny slices of diamond in vacuum chambers with coming home and being creative was an interesting one. On the one hand, writing science fiction was a great outlet for my frustrations at the end of the day, but on the other hand the creative demands of trying to solve what seemed an insurmountable challenge at times left me drained of any desire to write. I was caught between two masters - science and art.

'Nanoparticle Jive' was a story that evolved out of that conflict. I'd already jotted down a few notes about the other part of the story - the reputation based economy, based on a short little story about the future of social networks. It also linked back into ideas I'd been reading about sustainability, the environment, and the economy, such as efforts by Nobel prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz and others to use something other than GDP to measure progress in a way that better reflected the world's needs. It seemed to me that social networks and the way the popularity of people on places like twitter and the blogosphere could easily work as a social currency, especially in a world where global warming and peak resources restrict the amount the economy can grow. People require such things as a sign of their status in the world, and even if the money dried up and capitalism struggled to a halt, I thought that those people who find their way into careers like investment banking would find other ways to get to the top of the status pile - which is where the idea of a reputation based economy emerged.

I began a story along similar lines, about a kid who is desperately trying to escape the poverty of his family upbringing by gaining reputation and becoming a famous DJ. The story had some game, it flowed nicely, but when I got about a third in, I ran out of steam. I needed more conflict to drive the story, something to give the main character Brendan a real choice. My fellow writers on the writers' forum Codex helped a lot to point this out when I had the story out for critique.

The struggles I was experiencing in my PhD naturally presented themselves as a solution. I began to craft that conflict between art and science into the main story, detailing Brendan's struggle to choose between selling himself out to gain the reputation he craves or pursuing an exciting scientific project. Once I had that conflict in place, the story fell into place, and I'm very happy with the result. I think it's one of my best works, and I hope you'll agree.

I received my doctorate in early October 2011, and left academia for a career in the renewable industry, where I can work hard in the day towards an achievable goal and still come home with enough brain space to write. A month later, this story was published in IGMS. That seems strangely fitting to the themes presented in 'Nanoparticle Jive.' In a way, I've made the opposite choice to Brendan about what I want from my life, choosing my art over science. In my case, I don't feel like I'm selling myself out. It's more like coming home.

--Tomas Martin

Under the Surface—Nina Kiriki Hoffman

2011-11-14T07:25:00.001-05:00

I was taking a master writing class from Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch over on the Oregon coast, and one of our assignments was to write a story about a tsunami. In Lincoln City, there are a number of blue Tsunami warning signs along the highway and the beach. I did library research on tsunamis, and I also wandered the town, wondering what it would be like if a big wave rolled partway through it.

I had also been thinking about an offshoot branch of the magical family from my Chapel Hollow series. Many members of this family have elemental powers.

I put the two together. Unfortunately, I didn't get the assignment finished by the class deadline (I think we had two days to write it), but I did finish it. "Under the Surface" is the result.

--Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Counterclockwise—Alethea Kontis

2011-11-05T07:00:00.001-04:00

I had a dream last night that I attended NY Comic Con. It was a very nice dream. I lay in bed for a while after that dream, smiling. Eventually, I started thinking about all the work I had to do today: like writing the genesis essay for "Counterclockwise." I've been looking forward to this, because I had some great seeds for this one. You know, it's funny that we call them "seeds." One seed grows a plant. But a story is not just a plant. It usually takes many seeds that grow a story. The better analogy would be to liken a short story to a container garden...and something like the Ender series would be the pre-revolutionary grounds at Versailles.

So here are the fun little seeds that grew my pretty little container garden labeled "Counterclockwise":

SEED 1: A PENGUIN

"Counterclockwise" was originally written for the Codex Writers 2009 Halloween contest. (I tied for 3^rd place with Cat Rambo, losing to James Maxey. Again.) As you may or may not know, this particular contest is one that starts with one member giving another member a "seed" that he or she must incorporate into the story. Coming up with the seed is one of the best parts of this challenge. Receiving your challenge is the next best. Sometimes, the more complicated the seed, the easier the story is to write. My seed for this story was: In some way, shape or form, your story must involve a penguin. This didn't give me much to go on, but in many ways left me free to write a story I'd been dying to get on paper. That particular story was:

SEED 2: THE DREAM

As mentioned previously, I do have some pretty spectacular dreams. I wish I could record them and share them with you, because writing never does them justice. I've fought scorpion monsters and serial killers (and invisible Aliens alongside Luke Skywalker!), I've woken from a dream within a dream within a dream (worried that one would be reality and I'd wake up from that too), I've died several times (by fire, firearms, and an atomic bomb), and I've met some of the most amazing people (like an artist and his wife from Italy, and a monk whose gorgeous poem I totally plagiarized). I have the best Premium Channel in the world, and it's all in my head.

Prior to the Halloween contest I'd had this dream, of which I only vividly remember the very end. It was a well-dressed man in a pub of some sort, holding a white glove. He was meeting a beautiful young woman who sat at a table there. She did not recognize this man, even though he held her glove in his hand as proof that they'd known each other. I was hit with an incredible sadness as I realized: they live in opposing timelines, and this is the last time he will see her.

Yes, before you ask, this was long before the most recent season of Doctor Who. And no, I have never read The Time Traveler's Wife. Sometimes ideas--even the really cool ones--are just ideas. But I knew I had to write about these people, their incredible love, and that incredible sadness. Somehow. In some setting. That setting was:

SEED 3: DIANA WYNNE JONES

Ever since I read Witch Week as a kid (which I enjoyed far more than the first Harry Potter novel, btw), I have been obsessed with Guy Fawkes Day. I have always wanted to be in England on Bonfire Night--someday I still mean to go. Witch Week, if you haven't read it (and you really should) is based on an alternate present where Guy Fawkes successfully blew up Parliament in 1605, and in doing so split reality into a World That Could Do Magic and a World That Could Not.

I did some extensive Googling of the subject (as we authors tend to do nowadays) and discovered Change and Continuity in Early Cosmology by Patrick J. Boner. In it, Boner discusses at length the birth of a new star in 1604, the celestial "Fiery Trigon" that resulted, and Johannes Kepler's thoughts and debates about how this unique alignment of stars affected the social consciousness of the time. (It is speculated that a Fiery Trigon also occurred during the rise of Charlemagne, and appeared at the birth of Christ as the Star of Bethlehem.) I was fascinated by the whole thing. I lost hours upon hours on the internet. And yes, I do still have a sick desire to get my nerdy hands on a translated copy of Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum.

So: IF the Gunpowder Plot had been successful, in the presence of this Fiery Trigon, it stands to reason that something celestially and psychologically cataclysmic could have happened, like the world splitting into two. Perhaps it DID, and we found a way to fix it. Perhaps, instead of a World With Magic and a World Without, it split a pocket of London off into two worlds: one that lived forwards, and one that lived backwards in time.

What would these Secondary and Tertiary Universes look like? Would they have the same technological development as British Prime? No way, my worlds would definitely be a little more Steampunk. But my story would not be a story about the worlds. This was a love story. And thusly, "Counterclockwise" was born.

If "Counterclockwise" is like anything, I'd say that it feels most like Somewhere in Time. That soft-focus feeling is the feeling I had while having the dream. I remember loving that film, but I haven't seen it in years. I know, I should really read Bid Time Return one of these days.

Coincidentally, Matheson's Bid Time Return won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel right around Halloween-time back in 1976...the year I was born. I wonder what exactly the stars were doing back then.

Happy Bonfire Night, everyone!

[PS - If you liked "Counterclockwise" and want to read more, there is a deleted scene which I will post in a password-protected blog on my website on Guy Fawkes Day. The password is what the denizens of Nodnol (Tertiary Universe) are called.]

--Alethea Kontis

IGMS #25, Letter From the Editor

2011-10-31T07:32:00.003-04:00

Welcome to issue 25 of IGMS.

There's so much to tell I hardly know where to begin, but let's start with the schedule, since this issue is 30 days later than expected. For a variety of reasons, we've permanently shifted our schedule, so from now on issues will be published for January, March, May, July, September, and November. Issue 25 being published as the November issue instead of the October issue is simply to reflect that new schedule and shouldn't affect your subscription in any way. In the unlikely event that it does, please let us know immediately and we will take care of it.

In addition to being the beginning of our new schedule, issue 25 also marksIGMS's 6^th anniversary. Six years! Wow. That makes me optimistic that this whole internet publishing thing might be for real. What next? Electronic versions of whole entire books? (Kidding. We know THAT will never happen.)

Speaking of books, within the next few weeks we'll also be celebrating the release of the InterGalactic Awards Anthology - Vol. 1. It's a collection of the winners of the 2010 IGMS InterGalactic Awards Reader's Poll (both the stories and the artwork), plus popular stories from the years before the award was launched. Edited by Orson Scott Card and yours truly (Ed Schubert) and featuring an all new introduction by Peter S. Beagle, InterGalactic Awards Anthology - Vol. 1 will be available from Spotlight Publishing shortly after Thanksgiving.

Getting back to our 6^th anniversary issue, we're pleased to bring you the following:

Cover story "Under the Surface" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (which is also our audio story, read by IGMS regular, Tom Barker). "Under the Surface" tells the tale of a young girl from a family with powers tied to nature, and how a monumental natural disaster forces her to make choices and grow up faster than anyone could have predicted.

"Walks Before Greatness" by Kate Marshall is a fantasy tale about a young girl who struggles as she literally Walks-Before-Greatness (her older sister) and how this young girl comes to peace with her role in the world.

"Nanoparticle Jive" by Tomas Martin is a near-future sf story about a graduate student in the sciences who learns a few things about the power -- good and bad -- of social media.

"Counterclockwise" by Alethea Kontis (our resident princess and book-reviewer) is a timetwistedsteampunklovestory (yes, that's all supposed to be one word) that also turns out to be a yrostevolknupmaetsdetsiwtemit. (You could sit here and try to puzzle that out or you could just go enjoy the story.)

Part Two of "Whiteface" by Jared Adams concludes the novelette started in issue 24; it's about a father's quest to find a place in the world for his son, a son who repeatedly chooses the path of the outcast, first as an unknowing child, but also later in life with the full knowledge of not only the ramifications of his choices, but the full knowledge of his father's displeasure with those choices.

Darrell Schweitzer interviews John Clute, whose articles on speculative fiction have appeared in various publications since the 1970s. Clute is co-editor ofThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (with Peter Nicholls) and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (with John Grant), as well as The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction, all of which won Hugo Awards for Best Non-Fiction.

Last, but by no means least, we bring you part two of our sneak-peek at Orson Scott Card's forthcoming novella Shadows In Flight, a direct sequel to his hugely popular novel, Shadow of the Giant. Shadows In Flight is due out from Tor in January of 2012, but IGMS is previewing it, presenting chapter one in the last issue, and chapter two in this issue.

And as we go into 2012, be on the lookout for more new features from IGMS. Details are still being finalized, but we are looking at a variety of ideas to bring you even more content in each and every issue, with no increase in the cost of a subscription. More great stories, more great articles, more great greatness -- all for the same low price. Stay tuned!

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we've collected essays from the authors in this issue and will post them on our blog (www.SideShowFreaks.blogspot.com) Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.

Delayed Publication

2011-10-20T12:12:00.001-04:00

It is my sad task to let you know that between the werewolves, love-sick androids, extra-dimensional Seelie Courts, paranormal toddlers, and Eric James Stone, we at InterGalactic Medicine Show have fallen behind.

Issue #25 will be out in November; the new publication schedule will be Nov./Jan./March/May/July/Sept.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor IGMS

Intergalactic Medicine Show #25

2011-10-05T13:49:00.001-04:00

Issue #25 is forthcoming; we’ve got some details to flesh out before it’s newstandworthy, but I can give you three words:

Nina. Kiriki. Hoffman.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

On TV: A Strange World

2011-10-04T09:15:00.001-04:00

The best new television show this fall features the following elements:

1) An alien world filled with danger.

2) Beautiful people with tortured pasts.

3) An ever-present threat from an autocratic society.

4) The absolute lack of dinosaurs.

That’s right—this fall’s best new TV show (so far) is ABC’s Revenge. Set in the Hamptons, it features Emily VanCamp as the radiant and vengeful Amanda Clarke/Emily Thorne, and the matriarchal and proud Madeleine Stowe as the primary antagonist, Victoria Grayson. The set up is thus: Amanda’s dad was a financial wiz who got framed for providing dollars to support a terrorist organization that blew up an airplane. Amanda grew up without her dad, but believed his innocence. Dad leaves her notes and clues about who did him in, but begs her not to take revenge; she ignores him and goes about dismantling the lives of all the people who did her and her family wrong.

Stowe is chilling as “Queen Victoria,” the ruler and authority figure of her little world. Sure, the men make the money, but everyone knows, from the very first minutes of the show, who the real power house is: it’s the Lady. She is fiercely protective of her clan, and utterly nasty in exiling those who’ve wronged her. But we see the cost of her power—she is estranged from everyone. Despite how she rules them, it is a rulership of fear and pressure.

VanCamp’s Emily Thorne evokes Veronica Mars. She is competent, driven, and a bit ruthless. The people she’s doing in deserve their fate. Emily is as chilling as Victoria, in her way—we are left wondering how much of her smile is façade, and how soon that façade will break.

It’s a delicious quandry to be in.

The writing is well done and feels authentic. The people act like people instead of stupid plot devices. The world is truly another world, as foreign to me as a jungle full of savage, grunting thunder-lizards. (Victoria Grayson would rip those mealy-mouthed predators to shreds with a single disapproving glance.) But nevertheless, it’s a satisfying weekly journey so far.

If you’re looking for strong characters and an engaging plot, Revenge is a dish you’ll savor.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Under The Shield—Stephen Kotowych

2011-09-13T07:33:00.001-04:00

The genesis of “Under the Shield” was my own realization that I knew far too much about Nikola Tesla.

I’ve been writing a novel that involves Nikola Tesla, so I’ve read pretty much every biography of Tesla over the last couple of years (as a former grad student in History, I feel uncomfortable unless I can cite my sources.) So given the chance, I will talk your ear off about the man, and what a tragedy it is that he and his scientific accomplishment are not better known. He should be mentioned in the same breath as Einstein and Thomas Edison as a giant who helped shape the modern world (the phrase used by several of his biographers—that Tesla invented the 20th Century—is not far off.) Yet if Tesla is remembered at all today it’s more for eccentricity than electricity (he gave the world alternating current, amongst other innovations.)

Now, I won’t deny that Tesla had his peculiarities. He really did have phobias and neuroses focused on (amongst other things) human hair and pearls on women, as I mention in the story. And Tesla didn’t do his legacy any favors toward the end of his life when, once a year on his birthday, he would invite reporters to interview him. The newsmen were rewarded with fantastic headlines about Tesla’s theory on how to split the world in two like an egg using its own resonance, or the death ray he’d been tinkering with, which would end war for all time.

These interviews would invariably end with Tesla’s assurances that the designs were complete, the testing almost finished, and that all he needed was funding to make the devices into practical realities (Tesla was forever in need of cash—making and spending several fortunes in his life, before dying utterly destitute in 1943.)

So I realized that I knew all this stuff about him, much of which wouldn’t even feature in the novel. What do you do with that as a writer? A short story, of course.

What would have happened, I wondered, if Tesla had found the money he said he needed? What if his backer had all the money in the world—the United States military—and began to develop his fantastic technologies. How would the world have changed?

The departure point that starts off this alternate history is the explosion in Siberia’s Tunguska river valley in 1908. Now, the incident was likely caused by the air burst of a meteoroid or comet fragment (some have theorized a small black hole collapsing) but in the darker corners of the internet (the moon-landing-was-a-hoax-fluoride-in-tap-water-is-CIA-mind-control kind of corners) people have postulated that the Tunguska explosion was a test of Tesla’s death ray. And if it had been, I wondered, what would
have been the result?

The rest of the story unfolded from there.

As I wrote and began to work out the implications of my “What if?” I noticed certain patterns emerging in the story that to my mind echoed not only the Cold War, but also the War on Terror. The novel I’m writing about Tesla also involves his close friend Mark Twain, and I was reminded of his quote that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

So “Under the Shield” tries to examine some of the motivations of those who employ terror as a weapon, and of those who sympathize with them; of those who might be radicalized by geo-political circumstances; of those people who suffer an unjust assumption of guilt-by-association, simply because they share the same ethnicity or religion as those we call our enemies. And I wanted to try and find out how it feels to be torn between feelings of duty and loyalty to two opposing worlds, and what it’s like to consider doing the wrong thing for the right reason.

Once you’ve had a chance to read the story I hope you’ll be in touch at my blog (http://kotowych.blogspot.com/) and let me know how you think I did.

- Stephen Kotowych

Under the Shield—Stephen Kotowych

2011-09-12T10:38:00.001-04:00

The genesis of “Under the Shield” was my own realization that I knew
far too much about Nikola Tesla.

I’ve been writing a novel that involves Nikola Tesla, so I’ve read
pretty much every biography of Tesla over the last couple of years (asa former grad student in History, I feel uncomfortable unless I can
cite my sources.) So given the chance, I will talk your ear off about
the man, and what a tragedy it is that he and his scientific accomplishment are not better known. He should be mentioned in the same breath as Einstein and Thomas Edison as a giant who helped shape the modern world (the phrase used by several of his biographers—that Tesla invented the 20th Century—is not far off.) Yet if Tesla is remembered at all today it’s more for eccentricity than electricity (he gave the world alternating current, amongst other innovations.)

Now, I won’t deny that Tesla had his peculiarities. He really did have
phobias and neuroses focused on (amongst other things) human hair and pearls on women, as I mention in the story. And Tesla didn’t do his legacy any favors toward the end of his life when, once a year on his birthday, he would invite reporters to interview him. The newsmen were rewarded with fantastic headlines about Tesla’s theory on how to split the world in two like an egg using its own resonance, or the death ray he’d been tinkering with, which would end war for all time.

These interviews would invariably end with Tesla’s assurances that the designs were complete, the testing almost finished, and that all he
needed was funding to make the devices into practical realities (Tesla
was forever in need of cash—making and spending several fortunes in
his life, before dying utterly destitute in 1943.)

So I realized that I knew all this stuff about him, much of which
wouldn’t even feature in the novel. What do you do with that as a
writer? A short story, of course.

What would have happened, I wondered, if Tesla had found the money he said he needed? What if his backer had all the money in the world—the United States military—and began to develop his fantastic
technologies. How would the world have changed?

The departure point that starts off this alternate history is the
explosion in Siberia’s Tunguska river valley in 1908. Now, the
incident was likely caused by the air burst of a meteoroid or comet
fragment (some have theorized a small black hole collapsing) but in
the darker corners of the internet (the moon-landing-was-a-hoax-fluoride-in-tap-water-is-CIA-mind-control kind of corners) people have postulated that the Tunguska explosion was a test of Tesla’s death ray. And if it had been, I wondered, what would have been the result?

The rest of the story unfolded from there.

As I wrote and began to work out the implications of my “What if?” I
noticed certain patterns emerging in the story that to my mind echoed not only the Cold War, but also the War on Terror. The novel I’m writing about Tesla also involves his close friend Mark Twain, and was reminded of his quote that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it
does rhyme.

So “Under the Shield” tries to examine some of the motivations of
those who employ terror as a weapon, and of those who sympathize with them; of those who might be radicalized by geo-political
circumstances; of those people who suffer an unjust assumption of
guilt-by-association, simply because they share the same ethnicity or
religion as those we call our enemies. And I wanted to try and find
out how it feels to be torn between feelings of duty and loyalty to
two opposing worlds, and what it’s like to consider doing the wrong
thing for the right reason.

Once you’ve had a chance to read the story I hope you’ll be in touch
at my blog (http://kotowych.blogspot.com/) and let me know how you think I did.

- Stephen Kotowych

What Happened At Blessing Creek- Naomi Kritzer

2011-09-06T07:41:00.002-04:00

"Will the government make these Indians go west?"

"Yes," Pa said. "When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move these Indians farther west, any time now. That's why we're here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick. Now do you understand?"

"Yes, Pa," Laura said. "But, Pa, I thought this was Indian Territory. Won't it make the Indians mad to have to--"

"No more questions, Laura," Pa said, firmly. "Go to sleep."

--Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie

I loved the Little House books as a kid.

I was never particularly into the TV show (I was a literary purist: if Michael Landon wanted to play Pa, he needed to grow a beard, as far as I was concerned) but I read and re-read the books. I played pioneers in the back yard with friends, fantasized about having an attic with pumpkins for chairs, and coveted the prairie-style dresses some of my classmates had (even though I mostly refused to wear dresses; costuming was a whole different matter).

Then I had kids of my own, started acquiring a book collection filled with the classics of my childhood, and re-read them.

These books are a whole different experience when you read them as an adult. The parents are shockingly dysfunctional: Ma openly favors Mary, and Pa openly favors Laura. During one of their moves, Laura and her cousin go to pick up laundry from a laundress who tells them that her thirteen-year-old daughter has just gotten married. (To be fair, Laura is also shocked by this.) When Laura is fifteen, she's sent to live with an unhinged and homicidal woman while teaching school to kids almost as old as she is; she rides home with Almanzo on those long, cold winter rides (on one of which she nearly freezes to death) because she's in literal fear for her life.

And then there's Little House on the Prairie. Pretty much the entire book of Little House on the Prairie.

Pa moves into Indian Country -- knowingly and deliberately. This is land he's not supposed to settle on because it belongs to other people. He builds his house next to "some old trail" (which turns out to be a heavily used Osage trail -- who ever could have predicted such a shocking outcome?) I had remembered the scene where Indians come into Laura's house, but re-reading it as an adult, I picked up on a detail I had missed as a child: "The Indians' ribs made little ridges up their bare sides." She is describing men who are starving to death, and in fact, the Indians came in to demand that Caroline cook them some cornbread. They eat it, take Pa's tobacco, and leave without further incident. Why were these men so hungry? Because their uninvited neighbors were burning their fields in an attempt to intimidate them into leaving their land.

Not long after I re-read the books, I stumbled across a website called Oyate.com that critiques portrayals of Native Americans in children's literature. At the time, they had some very specific critiques of a number of different books, including Little House on the Prairie. They also discussed the problems with "captivity novels" (which I'd also loved as a kid -- these are the books where a white kid, usually a girl, is kidnapped and held hostage by an Indian tribe for months or years).

There are all sorts of other ways to get it wrong: there are also the books where the Indians are the mysterious and stoic dispensers of wisdom -- Yoda with a feathered head-dress. There's also the story where the hapless local tribes are in danger and are saved by the timely intervention of the (white) protagonist. (Both Caddie Woodlawn and one of the Great Brain books use that plotline.)

I pondered this for a bit, then set it aside. Until 2009.

The *plan* is for it to be a settling the frontier book, only without Indians (because I really hate both the older Indians-as-savages viewpoint that was common in that sort of book, *and* the modern Indians-as-gentle-ecologists viewpoint that seems to be so popular lately, and this seems the best way of eliminating the problem, plus it'll let me play with all sorts of cool megafauna).
--Patricia C. Wrede, while working on The Thirteenth Child

In 2009, The Thirteenth Child came out to mostly positive reviews...and a whole bunch of controversy. Wrede tried to avoid all the various bad options by removing Native Americans from the equation entirely, and writing about an American continent without them. Given the generations of effort white people put into removing Native Americans from the continent, this was seen by many people as a problematic solution, at best, to the question of how to write about the frontier.

This started me thinking, again, about all the wrong ways to do it. The problem is that the process of colonizing the Americas was ugly. Stunningly, shockingly ugly. Horrifying even by the standards of the day: "I fought through the War Between the States," wrote a Georgia soldier who participated in the Cherokee Trail of Tears, "and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew." Whitewashing this history is profoundly dishonest. Pretending that the Native Americans were the bad guys is profoundly dishonest. How do you write about the frontier from the white perspective while acknowledging the basic horror of what white people did?

WHAT THESE PEOPLE NEED IS A HONKY

Tom Cruise is the Last Samurai. Kevin Costner wins the heart of American Indians with his wolf dancing. Orlando Bloom, in Kingdom of Heaven, goes from medieval England to Jerusalem to teach the Arabs how to sink wells and transport water. Is there anything that can be done about this plague of Orientalist white-guy Mary Sue-ism?

--Panel description at WisCon, 2007

MIGHTY WHITEY

Mighty Whitey is usually a displaced white European, of noble descent, who ends up living with native tribespeople and not only learns their ways but also becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative. Extra points if he woos The Chief's Daughter along the way.

--TVTropes.com

One popular option is the story about the lone white person who Gets It and throws in his or her lot with the Lakota or the Na'vi (and, quite often, because the most perfect Lakota / Na'vi ever, much like the prototypical Mary Sue can out-logic Spock, out-snark McCoy, and get seduced by Kirk, all before lunch.)

These stories give white readers and viewers a comfortable window on the past. Because like the protagonists of these stories, most of us would like to believe that we would have been among the minority who did the right thing. We would like to believe that we never would have been slaveholders -- we would have run a stop on the Underground Railroad. We would like to believe that we'd never have turned a blind eye to the Nazi death camps -- we'd have invited our Jewish neighbors to hide in our attic. We would certainly like to believe that we would have protested the Indian Removal Act.

But even if we had, the vast majority of people around us would have made the other choice.

So what would a story about those people look like?

(Of course, I probably did it wrong, too. But hopefully I at least did it wrong in a different way.)

--Naomi Kritzer

Nick Greenwood wins Chesley Award for IGMS Cover

2011-08-24T07:26:00.003-04:00

One of the big differences between IGMS and other magazines (e- or traditional) is that we publish artwork with every story. It’s one of the big selling points of the magazine; I always look forward to seeing what new art is going to be displayed on our lovely virtual covers.

At Renovation over the weekend, Nick Greenwood was honored with the Chesley Award for his cover to IGMS #17 (June 2010). Good work, Mr. Greenwood!

Follow the link for details!

-Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor IGMS

Second Chances Made of Glass and Wood—Michael T. Banker

2011-08-22T08:46:00.001-04:00

When I started writing "Second Chances", Nattly's voice just fell onto the page, without even trying. It was one of those beautiful moments in writing when even I didn't know where it came from. And through her voice, Faerci, Papa, Cook, Havrim, everything naturally settled into place. I simply looked through her eyes, and her world opened up to me. It’s a world that I’d like to explore more of in the future.

This was simultaneously one of the quickest and the slowest pieces I have ever written. I came up with the concept for it randomly while on a walk, spent two days mulling it over and outlining (between studying for my actuarial exam, which is what I was supposed to be doing), and then wrote the first draft within 24 hours (technically not of the same day). I was proud of that first draft, and a great deal of the story and voice carried through to the final version. But from there it went through countless critiques and drafts. The ending in particular was reworked several times. A whole character was cut. (Alas, you will never know Gisella.) It made semifinalist at Writers of the Future, after which I did my best to address K.D. Wentworth’s criticisms as well. Finally, the poor, dazed and confused thing found a home at IGMS.

I don’t know where the concept came from. Usually I can trace it, but this time I can’t. As it often goes, I felt as if I was discovering a world that already exists rather than actively inventing it. Every plot choice I nixed, every character who felt somehow off, simply wasn’t a part of that world, and I had to keep searching until I found it.

--Michael Banker

Asst. Editor’s note: When ‘Second Chances’ came to IGMS, it’s my opinion that it was NOT “poor, dazed and confused.” We don’t accept stories of that type; we’re not an orphanage.

--Scott M. Roberts, IGMS

Old Flat Foot—Ross Willard

2011-08-15T10:06:00.001-04:00

Old Flat Foot was, for me, the result of several seemingly unrelated ideas coming together.

One of the ideas was more of a question. In most of the literature that I read and the movies I watch, when a machine becomes self aware, it does so in large and impressive ways. Perhaps it decides that humans are no longer worthy of control of the planet, or that it no longer wishes to perform the task for which it was created. Both ideas are valid and have ample potential for rich story-telling, but neither really addressed the question that interested me the most: what would define machine sentience?

After pondering the question for a while I decided that in order to define a machine as sentient, not merely intelligent, but truly sentient, the machine would have to be able to make a mistake. Not just an error, but make a mistake, on purpose. Though I don't know a great deal about programming, I have spent years studying people, and thinking about what separates us from computers the most notable trait that we have is the ability to come up with excuses for unreasonable choices. From a machine's perspective, I decided, this would essentially be the same as deciding to malfunction.

The second idea that formed the foundation of this story came from my own personal experiences with bureaucracy. Having worked for a number of different companies over the years, I've witnessed a peculiar phenomenon in which companies attempt to standardize their services to such a degree that the employees could well be replaced by machines. Human beings become cogs in a machine, their personal choices and beliefs irrelevant, and their jobs reduced to scripts. Displaying the robotization of people, contrasted by, for lack of a better word, the awakening of robotic sentience, struck me as interesting.

The third and final idea that played into this particular story, was the question of how exactly a machine would show love. The concept of love is complicated enough that humans have been arguing over its exact definition for centuries. So, assuming that a machine could feel love, I wouldn't think that the machine would know exactly what it was feeling. So how would it communicate that emotion? The most interesting answer I could come up with was that the machine might attempt to 'give of itself' in a very real and literal way.

--Ross Willard

Whiteface—Jared Oliver Adams

2011-08-10T07:45:00.001-04:00

I wrote the first draft of “Whiteface” at Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp, as a direct result of an idea generation exercise that Scott had us do. We were to come up with five stories in particular ways. One way was by walking around town and noticing odd things that could be prodded into a story, and I saw this teenager at a local WalMart with white paint streaked over his face. I got to thinking: Is this some new kind of fad I don’t know about? I decided he was probably trying to look like a vampire or something.

Anyhow, that led to me wondering what would happen if we all had painted faces, and the colors determined something about us. And what if we chose these colors as infants? I had this great image of a baby sitting in the middle of circle of colors, about to choose, and this became the basis of a story about a son who chooses a color that makes him basically a slave to his tribe.

But that story seemed . . . dry. I was interested in the society but not the characters. Enter the second idea generation activity: research.

Oddly enough, my research topic was Nikola Tesla, who figures prominently in this issue’s cover story “Under the Shield.” I’d seen a Discovery channel documentary on him a couple weeks earlier, and was intrigued by him. What I found was that he was a proponent of Eugenics, which is an appalling application of the theory of evolution that says we should keep people with negative traits from breeding in order to increase the vigor of the human race. From that I got a story about a boy who was to be castrated when he came of age because of a genetic deformity.

That story, like the other, seemed lifeless as well. It wasn’t until I combined them that things started coming to life. I realized that the real story was about the father coming to grips with his son’s fate, and that the son was adamant about accepting the color he’d chosen as an infant.

That first draft was rough and full of holes, but the critique process was revelatory. Not only did I get some awesome suggestions from Scott Card himself (Leaping-Deer, Otter’s father, was not in the original story at all), but the other bootcampers supplied me with the most useful, honest critiques a writing group can possibly give. I went back home immediately and got to work on the story, doing more research, and tightening up the story with the help of fellow bootcamper Trina Phillips.

I hope you enjoy reading my story as much as I did writing it!

-Jared Oliver Adams

www.jaredoliveradams.com

IGMS - Issue 24 - August 2011

2011-08-08T20:39:00.005-04:00

Issue 24 of IGMS just went live. Let's dive right into the stories, shall we?

Our cover story is "Under The Shield" by Stephen Kotowych. An alternate history tale set in turn of the 20^th century New York, it depicts a world brought to the edge of war by Nikola Tesla's powerful energy shields and death ray, the latter of which was the true cause of the devastation at Tunguska in 1908.

Next up is "What Happened at Blessing Creek," an . . . let's call this one an alternate reality story by Naomi Kritzer, where 19^th century pioneers explore a west that's a little wilder than the one we knew, replete with Indians and wolves, as well as dragons and magicians -- and one young girl who suddenly finds herself thrust into the middle of the conflict between settlers and Indians over the fate of the town of Blessing Creek.

Michael Banker's "Second Chances Made of Glass and Wood" takes us to an intriguing fantasy world where souls can be magically transferred from dying human bodies to carved wooden miniature bodies, and explores this world through the eyes of someone who never walked the world in a human body to begin with, never knew the taste of food in her mouth or the flash of color before her eyes.

"Old Flatfoot" by Ross Willard swings the pendulum in the other direction, showing us the existence of a police robot designed to protect and serve, but never allowed to make a decision of its own. But when 'Old Flatfoot' discovers its days are numbered, it takes matters into its own hands in an unexpectedly sentimental way.

Part One of Jared Adams' "Whiteface" is the first half of a novelette about a father's quest to find a place in the world for a son who repeatedly chooses the path of the outcast, first as an unknowing child, but later in life with the full knowledge of not only the ramifications of his choice, but full knowledge of his father's displeasure with such a choice. Part Two will conclude the story in our next issue.

And as with every other issue, we bring you another of David Lubar's Tale for the Unafraid, and Darrell Schweitzer's InterGalactic Interview with Ben Bova.

Last, but by no means least, we bring you a sneak-peek at Orson Scott Card's forthcoming novella Shadows In Flight, a direct sequel to his hugely popular novel, Shadow of the Giant. Shadows In Flight is due out from Tor in November of this year, but IGMS will preview it, presenting chapter one in this issue, and chapter two in the next issue.

Enjoy.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

Tangent Online Reviews IGMS #23

2011-08-05T07:47:00.001-04:00

An overall positive review of the issue.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Gender and Science Fiction/Fantasy—More Numbers

2011-07-25T09:34:00.002-04:00

…from DMS at GeekasChicas.com.

I recently read a blog entry about gender distribution in submissions and publications that Edmund Schubert, the editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS), posted on Magical Words. He quoted three emails from two assistant editors relating submission rates and then provided publication rates. He then made the claim that they publish women at the same proportion that women submit, calling the ratio “close enough.” I hear not everyone was impressed by this rigorous approach and the subsequent detailed analysis and conclusion. Rather than pick a side, I decided to look at his submission and publication numbers and see if there was a statistically significant conclusion to draw. After all, the data provided is exactly the kind of data I need for a Chi-Squared test. Isn’t it exciting!

Link to the full article.

Side-Show Arcade: Mansions of Madness

2011-07-20T08:25:00.001-04:00

A while back, I reviewed the excellent board game, Arkham Horror. Its sister game—Mansions of Madness—is the subject of today’s investigation.

At first glance—maybe two glances—Mansions of Madness is intimidating. Even for someone who considers himself seasoned in board games. There are a zillion little bits and pieces to lose; there are (I am not kidding) 13 different card stacks. AND there are two rulebooks: one for players, and one for the guy playing against the players. Not to mention that the game is made by Fantasy Flight, and it’s in their Arkham line—so the gameplay has a good chance of being complicated, and the night is likely destined to end in your character’s demise.

BUT—you can still have a good time with it.

Mansions of Madness dangles board-gaming closer to role-playing with a slew of pre-generated characters and a number of unconnected scenarios to choose from. The premise is that you are a group of investigators who have stumbled on a creepy, malign plot. Together, you explore the board, searching for clues to untangle the mystery and fighting terrifying cultists and their otherworldly overseers. One player (the Keeper) takes the role of all the monsters and the evil forces that control the board; all the others play characters opposing him (the Investigators). Each group has a specific goal that they must accomplish in order to win the game, but only the Keeper knows his goal at the start. The players only find out their ultimate goal in the final act, right before the clock strikes midnight.

Where game mechanics enhance the devastating pace of the game, Mansions of Madness is an absolute blast to play. However, there are so many fiddly bits, and so many cards to shuffle through, and so much to take into consideration, the game can be a bit of a slog at times. Especially at the beginning—there’s no way around it, getting the game set up is a beast. The rules state that the players decide amongst themselves which scenario to play; *I* maintain that’s a good way to waste an hour or so of game time. Whoever is host, SHE should decide on the game, and have it set up before everyone gets there. The host should also be Keeper, so she can pick what storyline within the scenario she wants to play. (Yep—each scenario is replayable because they have different story options to choose from. So, the first time you play, you may have to find the abducted heiress in the basement; the second time you play, you find her corpse in the chapel, and then pursue her killer.)

Setup consists of deciding what scenario, and what scenario elements to play, and then setting up the board. Mansions of Madness comes with 15 map tiles, with room details printed on both sides. These are used to construct the board, using the scenario to determine what tiles go where. After the board is built, characters are chosen, and the Keeper builds the deck to best help her accomplish her own goal. Investigators are given a clue to start out with, which points them where to go; as they explore the board, the Keeper gets terror points to use against them. Terror points allow the keeper to buy up all sorts of nasty effects, from declaring that a monster’s attack broke a character’s arm (giving that character a negative modifier on combat checks for the rest of the game), to making monsters appear out of the walls.

The game is meant to be tense, right from the beginning; that’s how the pace is maintained. Mansions of Madness has no low gear—it puts itself into “STARK TERROR” mode and stays there until the finish of the game. A system of time-keeping dissuades the characters from doing anything but running from clue, to clue, to clue; although leisurely exploration is possible, the effects of not staying on task are such that it becomes deadly to dally.

Like other role-playing games, I think that much of the fun of the game exists not in the game itself, but in the way the players integrate into it. With one group, the game is lively, and fun; with another, it gets bogged down in arguing or confusion over the rules.

I recommend the game with that caveat: know your gaming group. The insistent rules lawyer has killed more game nights than Cthullhu has devoured planets.

-- Scott M. Roberts

This is My Corporation, Eat—Lon Prater

2011-07-18T07:22:00.001-04:00

"This Is My Corporation, Eat" is a story which sprang into my head during a conversation online with Ken Scholes. Neither of us remember the exact context, just that it had to do with zealotry, the Rapture and our similar early aspirations to religious callings and subsequent, err, loss of fervor.

I nearly shelved this one when it was written, because I worried that it was too heretical, too much of an indictment to be stomached by a Christian population already highly sensitized to how Christians are portrayed. I worried that the end of the Christian spectrum who enjoy their martyrdom and righteous condemnation would have a distinct and rock-throwy lack of appreciation for my themes.

I wrote this story in response to zealotry and the commodification of the sacred, in the same way my story "Deadglass" (Writers of the Future XXI) was written in response to the form of religious OCD that the Catholics would recognize as scrupulosity, and my story "The Atrocities of King George" (Ideomancer, June 2010) was written in response to the rationalization and cognitive blanking-out processes that make up a "the ends justify the means" mentality. More recently, I've released a pair of short mashup/experimental novels to Kindle and nook that take on what I see as the flaws in Objectivist Selfishness (The Island of Jayne Grind, with H.G. Wells) and my rejection of the Patriot Act ethos of security trumping liberty (The American in His Season, with Mark Twain and others).

I bring all this up not to shamelessly whore my fiction out, but to lend some background to what makes me tick as a writer and reader. I take themes seriously. I read for that subtle thread, that unifying web of nerve endings that makes a story come alive, moving and wanting and hurting--not for the writer's sake, and not for the reader's sake, but for its own damned sake.

There is a difference when a story is about something; it's as significant and polarizing as the difference between lightning and lightning bug. I relish digging into the work of writers like Mark Twain and H.G. Wells--or modern masters of tone and theme like Gary Braunbeck and the aforementioned Ken Scholes. Collecting and assembling the sublimely deliberate details, those hundreds of conscious and unconscious decisions they've made in their art which add up to a whole that is something emotional, something true. . . THIS is what makes my brain feel like it's finally using that other 90% people like to talk about.

When I say true, I don't mean true in the sense of verifiable fact, but true in that deeper, human, sacred sense that may well fly in the face of every fact known to science. The sense of authenticity that resonates with one message: I believe in this, and I have to share it.

At first, the third act of this story was not authentic to its beginning. A set of conversations with a pair of gifted and spiritually adept editors (Jerry Gordon and Edmund Schubert) helped this old secularist find the authenticity that was lacking at long last. The story wasn't meant to end with a tone of fatalistic nihilism, and changes were made to make that clearer. My protagonist's choices are about his own struggle with zealotry, with how easy it is for a man to make his values into tradable commodities. He finds peace in being authentic to himself and to his new understanding of Christ's message of love and tolerance and rejection of the world (in contrast to the Fundie terrorists, who have just as corrosive a focus on the material world as the corporate ministries they blow up).

But has he merely traded one zealotry for another? This is a cautionary tale, after all, and like a great many satires, deadly serious.

I mentioned above how I read to find that sense of the story being about something that matters to the person who wrote it. I try just as hard in my writing to develop a theme that matters to me. To select details and plot events that pertain and resonate and set off the idea I am exploring. I hope that I've accomplished that in this story, though I usually feel like I've missed the mark.

In the end, it's not a verifiable thing. It's only true if you felt the same sense of 'I believe this, and I want to share it' when you read it. Regardless, whether you are a reader or a writer, I hope I've made you think more deeply about theme with this post. (I'm too unconfident to say the same about my story.)

I hope you start to look for it in all your fiction. To demand it.

I hope I've made a zealot out of you.

Lon Prater
Pensacola, Florida
Summer 2011

How Evil Am I? Oh, About 76.3% On Average…

2011-07-15T13:36:00.001-04:00

Some more numbers neepery for you gentlefolk. Again, these are just my numbers; the other assistant editors’ (not to mention Edmund’s) are another matter entirely.

Here is the percentages of my rejection recommendations since February, 2010:

Month	% of Rejections
Feb-10	79.31
March, 2010	47.92
Apr-10	72.73
May-10	61.76
Jun-10	95.24
Jul-10	76.92
Aug-10	75.00
Sep-10	75.86
Oct-10	70.83
Nov-10	73.68
Dec-10	77.78
Jan-11	53.85
Feb-11	91.67
Mar-11	82.76
Apr-11	85.71
May-11	96.15
Jun-11	88.24

Hm… looks like I’ve hit the Terrible Twos. (I’ve been reading slush for IGMS since August 2009, but didn’t keep track of things until the beginning of 2010.)

In a late night pique of madness, I even went through all the stories I rejected to see if I could pull a pattern from them.

For the stories that I did not finish, my main complaint seems to have been a variation of the below:

“It wasn’t interesting.”

For the stories that I *did* finish and that were rejected, the main complaint was something like this:

“The ending was unsatisfying.”

I cannot stress how important it is for a story to hit the ground running. Generally, IGMS publishes short stories. Stories that get through my slush pile demonstrate the author’s ability to quickly establish character, place, and conflict, and no matter if they’re rip-roaring adventure stories, or philosophical comfy mysteries, they keep my attention. Taking ten pages to get to the conflict will get you a rejection from me.

Most stories I reject don’t last even that long, I’m afraid.

Endings. Oh, what can I say here, that others haven’t said? A bad ending is worse than a boring beginning, because I’ve spent all this time being enchanted, only to be disappointed at the very last moment.

It’s like falling in love with Angelina Jolie, and then waking up to find out she’s really Ralph Nader. I don’t care what your proclivities or political positions are, that isn’t a happy occurrence.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

The Hanged Poet—Jeff Lyman

2011-07-12T08:09:00.001-04:00

I was inspired by "The Square", by Margueritte Duras, a French novella from 1955. I found it fascinating that Ms. Duras could maintain over a hundred pages of dialogue between two strangers, revealing their lives and hopes and dreams through their interaction, with very little scene or setting. I am typically a visual writer with little dialogue, so it would be an extreme challenge to attempt the same. My original draft failed, as it came across like two people talking in an empty room, so I added back in setting.

The actual kernal inspiration for the story was a newspaper articled entitled "The Hanged Poems of Mecca". The newspaper was folded across the title, so I only saw the first half and misread it as The Hanged Poet.

And yes, I feared writing the poet's poem. Some other writers advised me to leave it implied and unspoken, like some sort of poetic Necronomicon. I thought that would be cheating the reader. Veritas' poem came easily, since it needed to change only him. Theseda Ys poem did not, as it had to be universal enough to be co-opted by everybody who heard it.

--Jeff Lyman

The Trouble With Eating Clouds

2011-07-11T19:01:00.002-04:00

Technically my collection of short stories has already been released (it’s been up on Amazon for a week or two), but I’ve been deeply involved in the redesign of the website of the company that published it, and now that the site is live, in my mind it’s official: The Trouble With Eating Clouds is ready and available and looking for a few good readers. I’m pleased with the book overall, and especially happy with the front and back covers as designed by graphic artist extraordinaire, Dawn Mitchell (www.G4GInteractive.com – thanks, Dawn!).

The reason I wanted to wait for completion of the Spotlight website (www.spotlight-publishing.com) before announcing the release of my short story collection is that although the book was/is available on Amazon.com and BN.com, if a small publisher is going to support a writer, I think the writer ought to do what he or she can to support the publisher, too. That’s why I’m suggesting that if you’re thinking about buying the book, please consider buying it at the publisher’s site. I make exactly the same money no matter where you buy it: online or if you ask your local store to order it or if you buy it from Spotlight. However, buying direct from a small publisher makes a big difference to their bottom line. Plus, Spotlight only charges 99 cents for shipping, so it will actually cost you less from them than from Amazon. Spotlight is also running a promotion throughout the month of July and they’re sending autographed copies for the price of regular ones (they usually charge more for autographed copies), so if the deposit of .043 micrograms on ink in the shape of my name has any appeal to you, this is your big chance.

I talked last week about the networking that was involved in the book coming to publication (the networking that was involved in all of my books’ publications), so what I’d like to talk about today is the process by which the stories were selected. The Trouble With Eating Clouds only includes about half of the short stories I’ve had published over the past seven years, so what was the logic (stop giggling David, even I use logic every now and then…) behind what was included and what was not?

There were several thoughts running through my mind while putting this book together, but there were two main ones. First, I wanted this book to be a little more reader/family friendly than my novel was. I don’t use graphic images/scenes, violence, or coarse language casually, but the story in Dreaming Creek required a certain amount of all of that, and if it ever gets made into a movie, it will definitely be an R-rated movie. So all of the stories in The Trouble With Eating Clouds had to be the kind that didn’t require any parental oversight or screening (not that this is a children’s book, by any means).

Secondly, I really wanted this collection to represent the fun it’s possible to have when writing. When I’m at my very best, when I’m writing a story for no other reason that something has grabbed my mind’s attention and wants to come spilling out of my fingers and onto the page, the entire process is a pleasure. But when I’m writing to someone else’s theme, or someone else’s idea of what constitutes “good” fiction, it becomes a ponderous process that’s about as much fun as dragging a wooly mammoth up from the bottom of one of Le Brea’s infamous tar pits. That doesn’t mean the fun stories are easy to write—far from it, most of the time—but even when it’s challenging, there are some stories that are just a pleasure to write. Those are the stories I wanted in this book.

The stories are also arranged in chronological order (as best I could recall) according to when the were written. Years ago I read a collection of short stories by Ursula LeGuin where she talked about “arranging them in the order in which they were written, so that the development of the artist becomes part of the interest in the book.” Or at least words to that effect, the exact quote is in my book (and hers). The term ‘artist’ is never one I’ve been comfortable applying to myself, so call me whatever you like, but I do think there’s something to be said for being able to watch a writer grow and develop over the course of many years and many stories.

In the interest of full disclosure since this is a site devoted largely to writing fantasy, most of these stories read more like an episode of the Twilight Zone than The Lord of the Rings. It’s what I grew up loving, so it’s a lot of what I ended up writing. There are also a few Alfred Hitchcock-type mysteries, a historical piece set in Africa in the 1930’s that I’ve always been proud of, and all of the Dedd & Gohn paranormal-investigator comics I did with my friend Tom Barker before he had to quit the project. Those are a lot of fun to have all in one place, but then that’s one of the central themes of the book—have fun!—so it wouldn’t have been in the book otherwise. It’s even got an introduction by one of my bestest buds in the business, Alethea Kontis. She knows way too much about me personally and she spilled 90% of it in her intro (I paid good money to keep the other 10% out).

So there it is: The Trouble With Eating Clouds: A Collection of Mysteries, Magic, and Madness in all of its glory. Well, not all of its glory, but as much glory as I could cram into a single blog post. So remember, you can order it on Amazon and B&N, but supporting Spotlight is better for the little guy and cheaper for you.

IGMS Award Anthology TOC

2011-07-07T14:36:00.001-04:00

For your consideration, the table of contents for the upcoming IGMS Award anthology:

“Trinity County, CA” by Peter S. Beagle

First appeared in IGMS issue #18

“Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain” by Von Carr

First appeared in IGMS issue #17

“The Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli

First appeared in IGMS issue #19

“The American” by Bruce Worden

First appeared in IGMS issue #20

“Silent as Dust” by James Maxey

First appeared in IGMS issue #7

“Horus Ascending” by Aliette deBodard

First appeared in IGMS issue #8

“End-of-the-World Pool” by Scott Roberts

First appeared in IGMS issue #12

“A Heretic by Degrees” – by Marie Brennan

First appeared in IGMS issue #10

“The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola” by Jason Sanford

First appeared in IGMS issue #20

“Beautiful Winter” by Eugie Foster

First appeared in IGMS issue #13

“Blood & Water” – by Alethea Kontis

First appeared in IGMS issue #9

“Mean-Spirited” – by Edmund R. Schubert

First appeared in IGMS issue #16

“Robot Sorcerer” – by Eric James Stone

First appeared in IGMS issue #10

“Aim For The Stars” – by Tom Pendergrass

First appeared in IGMS issue #15

InterGalactic Medicine Show Awards Anthology

2011-07-06T14:22:00.001-04:00

We’re pleased to announce that a new anthology collecting award-winning stories from IGMS will be published later this year.

In addition, other works selected by the editor and publisher will be reprinted.

Stay tuned for more info!

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Sideshow Datapoints—Gender and My Slush Pile

2011-06-29T09:23:00.001-04:00

I specify *my* slush pile because I don’t track the numbers for Eric, Chris, or Sarah’s slush.

As an assistant editor, it is not my job to ensure gender, racial, or ideological parity in science fiction, fantasy, or horror. This is a point on which I am unwilling to bend. It is my job instead to find good stories to recommend to the editor. As a slush reader I am not concerned with equality, per se; Quality alone is king.

However, I recognize that my own biases may operate to alter my perception of what is Quality. So I try to recognize my biases and not let them come into contact with my judgment. It’s pretty much all any of us can do to be impartial—studied self-examination. Like I said to someone once, I find value in placing my unicorns on the altar of self-examination and cutting them open to make sure they aren’t zombie robots.

Here are my percentages by gender and genre. The period from which the numbers were obtained runs from February 2010 to last month (May 2011). The chart only takes into account submissions where gender could be determined by name, and where the submission was identified as Science Fiction, Fantasty, or Horror.

Genre	Gender	Total Received	Percentage of Total	Recommendation Rate (Percentage)
Fantasy	Female	65	38	23
Fantasy	Male	104	62	22

Horror	Female	1	33	0
Horror	Male	2	67	50

Science Fiction	Female	51	25	18
Science Fiction	Male	153	75	30

Hopefully, my math is sound.

Looking at the rate that I recommend science fiction written by authors I identified as female versus the authors I identified as male gives me pause; a 12% difference is not insignificant to me. However, considering that male authors submitted 3 times as many science fiction pieces, I’m cautiously optimistic that there’s more to the story than the idea that I’m a raging chauvanist demon hellboar.

As Edmund said on Magical Words, I cannot control what comes into my slush pile. In order to determine if the percentages we’re seeing at IGMS are abnormal, I invite slush readers at other mags to lay their unicorns on the table and let us compare anatomies.

That said, I think the numbers support the notion that genders receive fair treatment at Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show. The thing that we’re looking for—you know, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that what every editor in the field is looking for—are good stories.

Send some now.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

The Discriminating Monster’s Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching—Scott M. Roberts

2011-06-27T08:36:00.001-04:00

Discriminating Monster owes its existence to French Toast Casserole. I am not making this up.

Back in 2008, an editor had infuriated some in the speculative fiction community for publishing an anthology that claimed to be something along the lines of 'Best of the BESTEST SF EVAR!!!!11' and had not included any female authors. I don't recall participating in the internet furor that ensued, but the arguments got me thinking about the great gender disparity present in fairy tales.

Are princesses really that much tastier than princes? Sugar and spice vs. puppy dog tails…really? What if it were true?

That wondering set me on the path to writing Vren. For a long time, I was hooked on trying to explain the reasons why monsters go after princesses' destinies (as opposed to princes' destinies), but I could never get the exposition right. It was too heavy handed and political, especially coming from Vren—and I could hardly choose another POV to go at the topic, since I was determined to write this in first-person.

I shelved Discriminating Monster shortly after starting it.

Sometime in the fall of 2010, my wife introduced our family to a delicious new breakfast dish called 'French Toast Casserole.' I include a link to Paula Deen's recipe for the dish, with the warning: like all things from Paula Deen's kitchen, this is not a dish for the faint of heart. Bake at your own risk. However, I promise that if it kills you, you will go to the Great Unknown happily. The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg—and the cozy feeling of family gathered around the table for breakfast—stirred ideas for this story. French toast casserole makes an appearance in Discriminating Monster in acknowledgment of its inspirational powers.

That breakfast provided me with the characters of Zash and Sojet; it also helped me to see a way to keep Mercedes with Vren, rather than running away or trying to kill herself. When I came across the idea that Vren had a family with children of a similar age as Mercedes, I also stumbled on the idea that they were becoming more attached to this princess than Vren was; and of course that provided conflict, which is the best cure for writer's block that I know.

Another element that had been holding me back was that initially, I'd considered Discriminating Monster to be a light-hearted romp through a world that mirrored our own. But…Vren didn't work as Puck. The more I thought about the business that he was engaged in, especially after I added Zash and Sojet to the equation, the less I could see him zinging out one-liners and being flippant. The irony that took the place of flippancy felt much more natural and…justified.

I suppose by mentioning the fact that Discriminating Monster was inspired partly by an internet discussion about gender parity, I'm obligated to provide a statement about what the story ultimately means in that context. I'm hesitant to say what my stories mean, though. What I've written, I've written, and I hate to impose my viewpoint on anyone else's thoughts. Like explaining a joke: the exercise ruins it. I'm happy to discuss possibilities with you though—IGMS affords us a place to scream at one another over on Hatrack.com. I'll be honest, though, even there, I'm not likely to lay down hard declarations about whether or not Vren represents modern utilitarian chauvinism.

I don't want to spoil the novel version.

--Scott M. Roberts

www.lordofallfools.com

Locus Reviewer Recommends ‘The Hanged Poet’

2011-06-23T07:45:00.001-04:00

Congrats to Jeff Lyman; his short story in IGMS #23, The Hanged Poet, earned a recommendation from Locus Online’s Lois Tilton!

Link to the review

Excerpt:

Layer after layer of revelation, the backstory becomes more interesting, fuller of significance. The author has done an audacious thing: making a poem the center of his work, declaring the power of the poem to alter human affairs, he is challenging himself to produce that poem. Some authors evade this challenge, but Lyman comes through.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Sexism in SF and F

2011-06-22T07:52:00.001-04:00

(Note from Scott—this is a repost of an essay written by Edmund Schubert on MagicalWords.net.)

There are several topics that flare up with a certain amount of passion from time to time on the internet, sexism and racism being foremost among them. These are important topics that ought to be discussed, and while I think most start out as well-meaning exchanges, they often deteriorate into exercises in frustration. Someone will make a comment, to which someone else will reply, “That’s racist.” What the second person meant was, “That’s a racist comment,” but often times it’s not what was actually said. The person on the receiving end of that comment will then get indignant and reply, “I not a racist!” and off we go to the racist debate races.

Overall I think the science fiction and fantasy community is one of the most open-minded communities I know of—we’ve all heard numerous times how the first interracial kiss on network television took place on Star Trek, between Kirk and Uhura—but at the same time, to say that there is no racism or sexism would be so ridiculous as to render the speaker of such nonsense as a fool or a liar.

Last night I got an email from one of my assistant editors, who said that there’s another kerfuffle (his wonderful word) going on about sexism in SF and F, and out of curiosity, he went back into his records and crunched some numbers to see where he stood. He admitted he “was actually kind of worried that the exercise might reveal some sort of imbalance that might reflect unconscious bias on my part,” but he was interested enough to pursue the numbers, no matter where they led. I have to give him a lot of credit for looking the issue squarely in the eye despite his concerns.

This naturally led others on the team to do the same. It took a while to compile all the numbers, because no one on the team actually tracks them on an ongoing basis (with the one exception that I do track the gender of what we actual publish. However, with submissions, I would very much prefer the assistant editors focus first on the quality of the story and not the gender of its author). Having said all that, here’s the breakdown, by assistant editor:

“I just went through and did the numbers for all the manuscripts I pulled from the regular slush, which gives the following additional information:

Male authors: 135
Female authors: 69

Again, an almost 2:1 ratio of male to female submitters. (Just to check, I looked at the names on the most recent 100 submissions through the regular slush, and for the clearly gendered names, the male to female ratio was 56:27, so 2:1 seems to be about what we get.)

With these, I just did straight rejection/non-rejection..

Rejection rate for males: 72.6%
Rejection rate for females: 76.8%

A difference of 4.2%, which isn’t all that significant: if I switched just 3 female manuscripts from rejection to non-rejection, the rejection rate for females would have been lower than for males.

Adding the earlier group in with this group:

Male authors: 328
Female authors: 176

Rejection rate for males: 53.7%
Rejection rate for females: 55.0%

For a total of 404 manuscripts, a difference of 1.3% between male and female rejection ratios.”

**********

The next set of numbers ran thusly (with a third category added for people who submitted stories under names that are sexually ambiguous, i.e. R.T. Morganfeld, or Pat Frantella, so ‘O’ is for ‘other’):

“Total Count: 659

By Gender:
F      184        27%
M    411        62%
O    64        9%

Next Action
F    Recommend    26    14%
F    Reject        158    86%
M    Recommend    84    20%
M    Reject        327    80%
O    Recommend    9    14%
O    Reject        55    86%”

**********

“In honor of the latest kerfuffle on the interwebs about sexism in SF, I went through all the submissions sent to me that I have responded to (excluding the ones that were sent in large batches at the very beginning of my tenure.)

Male author: 193
Female author: 102
Male/Female co-authors: 1
Undetermined: 5

So male author submissions outnumber female author submissions almost 2:1.

What about disposition? I have 4 possible dispositions: Highly Recommended, Recommended, Borderline, Recommend Rejection.

Recommend Rejection rate for males: 40.4%
Recommend Rejection rate for females: 40.2%

Borderline rate for males: 28.0%
Borderline rate for females: 28.4%

Recommended rate for males: 29.5%
Recommended rate for females: 26.5%

Highly Recommended rate for males: 2.1%
Highly Recommended rate for females: 4.9%

Until I went through and counted up these figures today I wasn’t keeping track of my rejection rates at all, let alone by sex. I was actually kind of worried that the exercise might reveal some sort of imbalance that might reflect unconscious bias on my part, but the numbers are remarkably balanced.”

**********

My own contribution to these numbers comes in the form of actual publication numbers. Going back to the beginning of 2008, IGMS has published (or bought and is waiting to publish) 93 stories total, 65 of which were written by men, 28 of which were written by women. Not a perfect 2:1 ratio, but close enough to satisfy me. And to be extremely clear on this subject, I am not in any way, shape, or form, suggesting that we ought to be publishing twice as many male authors as female authors. I can’t control the number of submissions I get from any group or gender; I’m just saying we publish them at about the same ratio that we receive them.

The funny thing (to me, anyway) is that I didn’t really need to see the numbers to know we had a good balance; I could tell by the reactions from readers. I’ve received angry emails from female readers who are convinced we are running a sexist magazine that discriminates against women (here’s a tip for you: getting into a ‘dialogue’ with these kinds of people, trying to convince them you don’t have secret sexist editorial policies, is a fool’s errand), and I’ve also received angry emails from male readers complaining about how I’m always publishing “feminist fiction that tells men women can do whatever they want and the men just have to shut up and take it.”

I figure that as long as I’m equally pissing off both sides, I must be fairly close to getting it right.

So that’s one editor’s experience, along with a peek at the behind-the-scenes numbers. Obviously I can’t speak for the genre as a whole, so I’m curious to hear what the rest of you think, and what experiences you’ve had in this area.

--Edmund Schubert,

Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

PS: The numbers presented above under #1 and #3 actually came form the same assistant editor, but were regarding his reading different slush piles. We have different avenues of submission for writers with different degrees of experience and this particular editor reads from both piles.

IGMS Hydra Competition - In Brazilian

2011-06-21T09:09:00.001-04:00

Follow the link for a fun look at the new contest in Brazilian (which is actually Portuguese).

Hydra Competition for Brazilian Fantastic Literature

2011-06-20T10:12:00.001-04:00

Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS) and The Elephant and Macaw Banner have partnered up to create a contest that will bring the best of Brazilian speculative fiction to the English-speaking world via the Hydra Competition (Concurso Hydra in Brazil’s native language of Portuguese).

A panel of judges will select three finalists from short stories first published in Brazil in 2009 and 2010. Orson Scott Card, one of the world’s best-selling authors of speculative fiction, will select the winner.

Card says, "Ever since I lived in Brazil in the early 70s, the nation and people of Brazil have been important to me. That's why in Speaker for the Dead, the colonists are Portuguese-speaking Brazilians! When I returned to Brazil to take part in a science fiction convention twenty years ago, I made new friends and read the work of some exciting authors. I've continued following the Brazilian science fiction scene ever since, and I am proud that IGMS will be a means of bringing the work of some of these writers to American readers. Till now, American readers have had little idea of how much good work is being done in our genre in Brazil."

The winning story will be translated from Portuguese by author Christopher Kastensmidt, finalist in this year’s Nebula Awards and organizer of the Hydra Competition, and it will be published in InterGalactic Medicine Show.

IGMS editor Edmund R. Schubert says, “We’ve been publishing stories from around the globe for nearly as long as the magazine has been online, but it was always the English-language speaking parts of the world. This opportunity to reach into Brazil, to a whole new way of not just speaking, but of thinking and of viewing the world, is exciting. South America and Latin America have long been renowned for incorporating magical realism into their fiction and that’s a perfect avenue for IGMS to explore. I’m incredibly excited to see the stories that come to us out of this contest.”

Competition organizer Christopher Kastensmidt adds, “The Brazilian speculative fiction community has produced hundreds of excellent stories over the last two years, but almost none of them have made the passage to the English-speaking world. Orson Scott Card and the staff at InterGalactic Medicine Show recognize that speculative fiction is international, and their support will make this competition one of the biggest incentives ever for Brazilian writers.”

The name for the Hydra Competition comes from the Hydra constellation. Being a group of stars named after a mythical monster, the Hydra constellation is symbolic of both the fantasy and science fiction produced by the speculative community today. The constellation crosses the celestial equator, joining the northern and southern celestial hemispheres, just as the Hydra competition hopes to join the northern and southern hemispheres of speculative fiction. The Hydra is also one of the constellations on the Brazilian flag.

Submissions will be open from July 1^st through August 15^th and all eligible Brazilian authors are encouraged to participate. Rules will be published in Portuguese on the website Universo Insônia (universoinsonia.com.br). There is no entry fee to participate; however, the winner will receive a publication contract and be paid at IGMS’s full rate.

About Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

Founded by multiple-award winning author Orson Scott Card, and edited for the past five years by Edmund R. Schubert, IGMS is an award-winning bimonthly online magazine publishing illustrated science fiction and fantasy short stories, audio stories, interviews, reviews, and more. Authors range from established pros like Peter Beagle, Eugie Foster, Marie Brennan, and David Farland to first-time authors making their professional debut. www.oscigms.com

About The Elephant and Macaw Banner

The Elephant and Macaw Banner is a fantasy series set in sixteenth-century Brazil. The stories tell the adventures of Gerard van Oost and Oludara, an unlikely pair of heroes who meet in Salvador. News, artwork, and in-depth explanations of historical and cultural references from the series can be found at the website www.eamb.org.

Into the West—Eric James Stone

2011-06-20T07:44:00.001-04:00

I'm a member of the Codex Writers group, and for the past several years we've had a contest called "Codexian Idol." (The contest was invented by James Maxey, who won the first contest with a story that was later published in IGMS: "To Know All Things That Are in the Earth.") The contest involves submitting the first 500 words of a story based on prompts, and people vote on which stories they want to read more of. About half the contestants are eliminated, and the rest submit 1000 more words. The next round of voting cuts the field down to the finalists, who submit their finished stories for the final voting.

One year, the contest prompts were sound clips, including one of a train. An additional prompt was "Someone or something lies or misleads, in a big or small way, on purpose or accidentally." I had recently read The Elegant Universe, a non-fiction book about string theory, which talked about the concept of curled dimensions, and I wondered what would happen if our time dimension somehow got mixed up with a space dimension. From all that I got the idea of west being the future, and a train that had to keep going west. The "misleading" in the story is Varney's assertion that the darkness behind them is a black hole.

For the main character, I wanted someone who would have to face one of his fears in the course of the story. For someone riding a train, a fear of flying might be a little too obvious a choice, but it allowed for the irony of an astronaut who's afraid to fly and gave root to his backstory of the plane crash.

--Eric James Stone

Leviathan Wakes—by James S.A. Corey

2011-06-16T09:42:00.003-04:00

"a really kickass space opera; interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." – George RR Martin

I’m not sure that I can put it any better. I agree on every point with Mr. Martin: James S.A. Corey’s debut novel Leviathan Wakes is as tremendous and affecting an adventure as I’ve ever read.

(Calling it a debut novel is…perhaps not wholly true. James S.A. Corey is the pen-name of writers Daniel Abraham (you may have heard of him) and Ty Franck.)

Here’s the hook from the publisher, Orbit Books:

Welcome to the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond – but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice hauler making runs from the rings of Saturn to the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for. War is brewing in the system.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer, Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between governments, revolutionaries, and secretive corporations – and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

Leviathan Wakes is a page-turner. You remember that feeling—maybe it was Dune, or Ender’s Game, or Something Wicked This Way Comes—when you’d spend a whole summer afternoon, entranced by a story, and then come night, you’d sneak a flashlight into your bed and keep reading? This is that kind of book. This is a book that grabs your imagination and does not release until the gratifying final pages.

And then promises you more. Leviathan Wakes is the first book in the Expanse series. The sequel, Caliban’s War, is reportedly already at the publisher’s.

I can’t wait.

POST-SCRIPT: Something's in the water-- John Scalzi reviewed this book today, too. Only he got Daniel and Ty's thoughts on writing space-opera. Highly recommended read.

(Thanks to Jamie Todd Rubin for the heads-up.)

Four Wizards and a Funeral—Mike Rimar

2011-06-13T08:27:00.001-04:00

Four Rewrites and a Sale

by Mike Rimar

I. An Idea

Not long after I learned my neighbor worked in a funeral home, a little voice in my head shouted, "There's a story here, dummy!"

Insulting little. . .

The idea percolated in my mind and while some plots bubbled up nothing really grabbed me. Time passed, other projects came up and the idea remained just that.

II. A Purpose

Months later I joined the Stopwatch Gang writing group. At one of the meetings someone mentioned an upcoming wizard-themed anthology and writing a story turned into a group challenge.

"Hey dummy," said the little voice in my head. "Remember that idea?"

If I ever find that little--

Something clicked and while a wizard undertaker was probably nothing new, in all likelihood it hadn't been done to death, pardon the pun.

A plot took shape and, as I wrote, the story--and narrator, found a voice.

III. A Title

Originally, only three wizards plagued my protagonist. Thinking along those lines, I mulled over possible titles: Three Wizards; Three Little Wizards; Three Wizards and an Undertaker . . .

Hmm.

To think what might have been had I not heard of a certain movie starring Hugh Grant and Andie Macdowell.

Of course, that meant adding an extra wizard, but that's life--and death.

By the umpteenth draft I thought I had a pretty good story and took it to the Stopwatch Gang who showed me I was wrong.

IV. A Good Writing Group

I cannot stress the importance of having colleagues who are willing to give unbiased criticism of your work. If you are a beginning writer, and serious about getting published, join a writing group, or create one. You won't be sorry.

And just to prove my point, Tony Pi, who is also a member, was in the issue previous to this one. Tony convinced me to join the Codex Online Writers Group. A great place to connect with writers and editors.

Having incorporated the SWG's suggestions, I happily, and confidently, sent the story along to the anthology.

V. A Sale

Rejected.

Anthologies are curious beasts. Most, it seems to me, start off with a blanket theme of say, zombie stories, but as the the editor takes submissions and makes a small acceptance pile, a secondary theme might emerge, say, lighthearted zombie romances. So, while your zombie story might be the best thing since Night of the Living Dead, it won't make the cut of what's slowly becoming Zombies in the City.

Yes, I was unhappy my story got rejected, but I didn't lock myself in the bathroom and cry like a schoolgirl. I stopped doing that about a year ago.

What I did do was continue submitting the story until a wise fellow by the name of Edmund R. Schubert saw something other editors had missed. But first, suggestions of his own. I made those fixes and ran them past the SWG in a flurry of emails. They in turn, patiently explained what Edmund really meant, and after making those edits I submitted the story a final time.

Four Wizards and a Funeral is in the June issue of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

I hope you enjoy it.

--Mike Rimar

IGMS Issue #23 is Online!

2011-06-09T13:40:00.001-04:00

Just so.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

Issue 23 - June 2011

2011-06-08T08:09:00.010-04:00

According to a recent press release, issue 23 has an unusual twist to it. Cue the news-magazine style TV music now…

Dateline: Greensboro, NC, June 8, 2011 — Six years after appearing in Writers of the Future XXI together, four of 2005's winners will have stories published in the same issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS), a leading webzine of science fiction and fantasy. [http://www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com]

Recent Nebula-winner Eric James Stone, Scott Roberts, Lon Prater, and Mike Rimar—each a 2005 winner of the ongoing Writers of the Future contest—were notified separately this year that the short stories they had submitted to IGMS would appear together in the June 8 issue of the award-winning webzine. "I noticed that we'd all mentioned stories coming out in the same issue and joked that we should call it a reunion," Scott Roberts said.

"It's not unusual for IGMS to publish winners of the Writers of the Future contest," fiction editor Edmund Schubert pointed out. "We regularly receive outstanding submissions from prior winners. What's really odd is publishing so many from the same year in one issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be some kind of record."

Turns out it is a record.

Cover-story author and WotF-winner Scott Roberts brings us, "A Discriminating Monster’s Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching," a tale of… well, I think the title pretty much sums it up: a tale of the perils of princess snatching.

Next up from WotF gang is "Four Wizards and a Funeral” by Mike Rimar. In it four wizards manage to make a poor mortician’s life miserably complicated with conflicting demands regarding the treatment of their recently deceased comrade’s corpse. Of course, the corpse has plans of its own…

“This Is My Corporation, Eat,” from WotF-winner Lon Prater is a short story about the evolution of one Christian man in a world where faith has been capitalized and commercialized to the nth degree. This story also serves as this issue’s audio feature, performed by Tom Barker.

And in case you’re not tired of hearing me say “WotF-winner” yet, "Into The West” is by WotF-winner and recent Nebula winner Eric James Stone. “Into the West” is an unusual tale of a one-way ticket to the end of the world. You just want to make sure your ticket is for a trip in the other direction…

Lastly, but by no means least, "The Hanged Poet” by Jeffery Lyman is a powerful recounting of a conversation between an exiled general and a woman who was hung by the neck and left for dead many years earlier for her seditious poetry. She can’t completely die until her poetry does too, but the general is a collector of poetry and man in need of a mission.

Also, Darrell Schweitzer brings us an up-close-and-personal look into the latest goings on with Larry Niven.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to repeat an item from last issue’s letter in case you missed it, because it’s simply too good to miss: IGMS for the e-reader -- Kindle, Sony, Nook, Kobo, whatever – any e-reader that you can name.

Currently we have issue 1, and issues 11 through 22 available for free for subscribers, and if you're not a subscriber yet, those same issues are available for single-issue purchase and Kindle-download at Amazon.

Plus, as each new issue goes up, it will be added within a few days to both Amazon and on IGMS for subscribers.

If you're already a subscriber, all you have to do is click on "My Account" (in the upper left-hand corner of any page (except, of course, the home page)) and you'll be able to email yourself a mobipocket file for your e-reader. If you bought even just a single issue back when that was the IGMS subscription model, you can still get that single issue for your e-reader, too.

So a big thanks to our web designer, Scott Allen, for making those issues available for the e-reader, and a big you're welcome to IGMS readers everywhere.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we've collected essays from the authors in this issue and will post them right here on our blog. Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.

Why I Submit to InterGalactic Medicine Show

2011-06-07T09:01:00.001-04:00

1) Moderate response times. IGMS is not fast when compared with say, Lightspeed or the Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction. But according to Duotrope.com, IGMS’s median response time is about 30 days. That’s fairly standard.

I happen to like fast responses, even if they are mostly rejections. I assume the editors know what works for their magazine; the sooner my story is out of the hands of an editor who doesn’t like it, the sooner I can put it into the hands of one who does.

2) Great editors. Edmund Schubert (and Orson Scott Card before him) have improved both the stories that I sold to the magazine. OSC made Eviction Notice less ambiguous and helped me see my way to dropping a useless epilogue; Edmund Schubert helped make the ending of The End of the World Pool powerful and affecting rather than maudlin and melodramatic.

3)Online distribution. I love being able to post a link that goes directly to IGMS. I love that IGMS is on Kindle and all the other e-readers. It makes getting my story into the hands of readers much, much easier.

4) The price is right. $2.50 ($2.99 for a single e-reader issue) for an issue is the sweet spot for consumers. While it ain’t free, it also doesn’t make my readers choose between buying lunch or buying an issue. They can buy an issue of IGMS, stick it on their Kindle, and read it on their lunch break—and still have money left over to actually buy lunch.

5) Artwork. Every story in IGMS gets an illustration. That’s an enormous selling point for me, and is a GREAT marketing tool for gaining readership. Most folks—be honest, even your best friends—are not exactly drooling to read even a synopsis of your SF-new-weird story about the boy who becomes an astronaut and saves the world from the capriciousness of magic. But show ‘em this:

…and their eyes pop open, and their mouth drops, and they will be a LOT more willing to read your work.

Artwork sells books—the publishing world has known it for a long time. Artwork can work the same for short stories, too, if you’ve got it, and can show it off. And publishing a story in IGMS means you do got it.

For social media and electronic communication, a picture is invaluable for self-promotion.

6) I like the stories. The stories that IGMS publishes are the type of stories that I like to read. This is a bit of an ambiguous element, I realize. What it works out to is that IGMS is a market where I know my stories fit, generally speaking; they have a history of publishing stories that are like the stories I write.

--Scott M. Roberts

SideShow Links: June 01, 2011

2011-05-31T07:53:00.001-04:00

Can your house do this? The Very Large Telescope in a beautiful time lapse film.

I heard a piece on NPR recently about the Crawler, the vehicle that transports the space shuttle and its booster rockets from their work-a-day sites to the launchpad. This is a massive, massive machine. It will be making its last run shortly, as the space shuttle program is being phased out.

The Muppets Meet Firefly: Yes. There is nothing more that need be said.

Side Show Links, 05/26/2011

2011-05-26T12:04:00.001-04:00

That’ll do, Spirit. That’ll do…: NASA gives up hope of reviving the intrepid little robot.

It’s full of stars…: The orchestra pit, I mean. Better than American Idol, and easier on the eyes.

Peter Sellers puts the classic in classic rock

Nebula Awards Weekend

2011-05-24T07:39:00.001-04:00

Members of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) gathered in Washington DC over this past weekend for four days of carousing, armored combat, and hedonistic abandon.

That’s only a slight exaggeration.

Here are some InterGalactic authors making the scene:

Above, Assistant Editor Eric James Stone (left) shows off his T-Shirt of Ego +3. In this case, the t-shirt is warranted; Eric had been nominated for a Nebula award for his novella, That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made (which (SPOILER)……he later won).

Genre Princess Alethea Kontis holds court in the mass signing on Friday evening. Alethea’s delightful picture book, 'H is for Halloween’ will be re-released in October.

The luminescent Mary Robinette Kowal displays her wonderful Regency-style fantasy, Shades of Milk and Honey, which was nominated for a Nebula. A rumor is circulating among cognoscenti that a sequel is upcoming; prudent individuals will show their superior breeding by purchasing both.

Alliette de Bodard flew all the way from France to be at the Nebula Awards. Actually, no—she opened a gateway to the underworld, and sallied forth in a palanquin carried by jaguars and the honorable spirits of ancient Mexica warriors. Which is fitting, considering her novel, Servant of the Underworld, pays homage to the myths and peoples of Central America. Aliette was nominated for best novella for her story, The Jaguar House, in Shadow.

Brad R. Torgersen may not be a jaguar, but he does have a Cheshire cat-like grin. And for good reason: Brad was this year’s winner of the Analog Reader’s Choice award for his story Outbound.

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

Nebula Awards

2011-05-23T09:51:00.001-04:00

Congratulations to IGMS Assistant Editor, Eric James Stone, for winning the Nebula for Best Novelette! His story, That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made, took the prize against a very strong field.

-- Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

Genre Chick interviews Edmund Schubert, Editor of IGMS

2011-05-19T08:23:00.001-04:00

Follow, follow, follow the link!

--Scott Roberts,

Assistant Editor, IGMS

Sideshow Links, 5-16-2011

2011-05-18T20:55:00.001-04:00

…and people say that the government is ineffective and wasteful!

Nebula Awards Weekend

2011-05-16T08:44:00.001-04:00

InterGalactic Assistant Editors, Eric James Stone and Scott M. Roberts will be attending the Nebula awards weekend in Washington DC, from May 19-22.

Eric will be attending the mass signing on Friday, May 20, from 3:30pm to 5:00; he’ll also be a panelist on Short Story Plotting on Saturday, May 21, at 11:30 in the Jefferson Room of the Washington Hilton.

The mass signing is open to the public.

Scott will be hanging about looking dodgy and blithe.

The Numbers Game

2011-05-13T13:37:00.001-04:00

We have played this game before; as before, I’ll just note that these are my numbers, and that Eric and Sarah’s numbers are probably much, much higher.

GENERAL:

Total Stories: 622

Rejected: 506 (78%)

Recommended: 116 (22%)

DETAILS:

Submissions that were received prior to genre tracking are not included in the numbers below. The number of stories that were reviewed prior to genre tracking is 230.

Note that the Published numbers are as near as I can guess;

Total Stories considered: 392

Horror: 3 (.7%)

2 Rejected
1 Recommended
1 Published

Fantasy: 169 (43%)

128 Rejected
41 Recommended
6 published

Science Fiction: 202 (51%)

147 Rejected
55 Recommended
6 Published

Other: 18 (4%)

18 Rejected
0 Recommended
0 Published

Sideshow Links May 11, 2011

2011-05-11T07:58:00.001-04:00

Aunt May and Ma Kent on Mother’s Day: Ignore the conclusion; the fact that Krypto exists means Ma Kent loses.

That’s what SHE said…: Analyzing the joke to this depth kills it. And possibly all of humanity, as computers come one step closer to achieving Singularity.

Ah, SPRING! Cue the wah-wah guitar…: Male jumping spiders need no cheesy 70’s music. Well…maybe they do.

Love, Cayce—Marie Brennan

2011-05-09T07:55:00.001-04:00

I am very much a gamer -- to the point where (I kid you not) when I was in graduate school, my field of study was role-playing games. (They even paid me a fellowship to do it!) It's one of my favorite hobbies.

And yet for all of that, I've played very little Dungeons & Dragons.

This is largely because I like games for their narrative aspects: character, plot, and so on. D&D, as game systems go, is more oriented toward killing monsters and taking their stuff. If I want to do that, I'm generally going to do it in a video game, where the machine will run all the numbers for me and leave me free to enjoy the hack-n-slash.

But I did play in two D&D games for a while -- or perhaps I should say, two Forgotten Realms games, as they were much more about the setting, much less about the usual D&D dungeon-crawling. (Seriously, we sometimes went entire sessions where the only roll anybody made was to see if your character noticed someone checking him out.) In the first one, we played a group of adventurers bound together by fate to do Great Deeds . . . and in the second, we played those adventurers' kids.

"Love, Cayce" is not based directly on that game; the characters are different, and so is the story. But that is where the idea came from. We got kidnapped by Shar early on, and ended up in the Underdark somehow, and when we finally got a chance to breathe I wrote a letter home to my parents, apologizing for having vanished out from under their noses, and giving a rather alarming summary of what had happened since then. It got me to thinking about what it would be like to live in a world like the Forgotten Realms -- and, more to the point, what it would be like to have kids there. I mean, being an adventurer is crazy enough: getting hauled off to other planes of existence, dying and being resurrected, all the rest of the insane stuff that's a day in the life of a D&D player-character. But what happens when it's your daughter doing those things? And then writing home to tell you all about it?

And you thought sending them off to college was bad.

The opening line wandered into my head, and then I had no choice but to write the story and find out just what had caused one or more people to be dead in the first place. Not to mention how they got not-dead afterward. Figuring out how to manage the story through letters was the hard part, especially once it became clear that it would be divided up into several missives. Soon I was having to wrangle two narrative timelines, one telling the parents about what had happened between the send-off at the Rose and Crown and people dying, and the other following ongoing events. But once I settled into the style of the thing, it was a sheer blast to write, with me constantly looking for ways to make the events more outrageous.

In fact, I enjoyed it enough that I kind of want to write a sequel story. The ending certainly leaves space for one. And I even have an opening line:

Dear Cayce,

I know you're tired of receiving Well-Intentioned Parental Advice, but there are a few things every young woman should know before she goes to Hell.

I want to know what happens at the wedding -- and the only way to find out is to write the story.

-- Marie Brennan

Exodus Tides—Aliette de Bodard

2011-05-02T07:53:00.001-04:00

"Exodus Tides" grew out of several conversations at last year's Eastercon about immigration: both about society's acceptance of massive influx of migrants, and of how migrants themselves dealt with leaving the homeland behind, and starting a new life in a foreign country. In many ways, it's about the experience of the second generation, who has no link to the homeland beyond the stories of the older generation, and who has to adapt from childhood to an environment that might not be kind, or welcoming. For Emilie, of course, there is the extra layer of being a mixed-blood, stuck between two worlds--which isn't always a simple thing.

More than anything else, I intended the story to be about the problematic relationship of migrants and their descendants to the homeland: the sense of nostalgia that's inevitable, and also a little misleading--for the land that is remembered might have no connection at all with the land the way it is now, especially if fifteen or twenty years have passed, and things abroad have moved on. The stories that are told to Emilie push this notion to the edge: instead of a real homeland, what she has are myths and fairytales, which come both from a desire to protect her, and from her mother's own nostalgia for the lost country (which, in this case, is very literally lost). It's very much a story about the cost of lies--they might help a small child, but when they run their course, the revelation causes a painful shock, with repercussions that might not have been thought out.

Unlike other stories, this one came to me in bits and pieces: I usually write chronologically, but this story actually started with the swimming pool scene and the strong image of the completely "Frenchified" mother picking up her conflicted daughter. The other scenes were gradually filled in afterwards, still without coherent order (I think the ending was pretty the second thing that came to me, for instance). The story also developed fast, with extra scenes filled in partly from a sense of what the story needed, and partly using the French headlines of the time, which were about "problems" caused by migrants (in reality, by rootless second-generations, who are actually French citizens by right of soil). The character of Jamila came from this last, and also from a need to have a foil for Emilie: someone also struggling with her own cultural identity, and her own family stories, which might or might not be true. The holidays in Brittany are also a mainstay of French culture (it's generally either that, or going to the beach on the French Riviera), and I had a lot of fun putting familiar settings to work for the story.

Another fun tidbit was working out character names for the mermen: I chose a pattern frequently used by Asian immigrants, which was to take a "safe", non-adventurous name in order not to stand out. Thus, every merman in the story has an old-fashioned French name--broadly speaking, they're a generation late, using names that suit, but are hardly cutting-edge.

When I submitted the story to Edmund at IGMS, he kindly pointed out that the ending as it was did not work: it dumped too much information on the reader in one go, and left Emilie no time to come to a decision of her own before the reader could work through their confusion. Accordingly, I moved some information upwards,, to have the reveal come gradually. The original ending turned out not to work so well after the new reveal, so I had to tweak it slightly in order to keep the effect. I kept it ambiguous, deliberately: I have my own opinion on what Emilie does, but it's a tough problem, and I can easily put forth arguments for one decision or another.

The big question a lot of you might be asking is how much of the story reflects my own experience. Mostly, I'm not saying--gotta keep some things to myself, after all. But remember: I'm a writer. I tell plausible lies for a living.

--Aliette de Bodard

SideShow Links, April 27 2011

2011-04-27T08:20:00.001-04:00

Can soylent green be that far away? Biofuel for jet engines.

Sharks, beware: fire ants have your number... Fire ants making rafts of their own bristly bodies.

Die, Cadbury! DIE, DIE, DIE! Exploding the disgusting, deplorable, and downright nasty Cadbury egg, which is objectively the worst confection on the face of the planet.

-- Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

IGMS Authors Nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards

2011-04-26T08:49:00.001-04:00

Congratulations to Aliette de Bodard, Eric James Stone, and Mary Robinette Kowal for being nominated for the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards!

Novellette:

“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s, July 2010) - Read Online (Nominated for Hugo and Nebula)

“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog, September 2010) - Read Online (Nominated for Hugo and Nebula)

Short Story:

“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) - Read Online (Nominated for Hugo)

The Hugo award will be awarded at the World Science Fiction Convention, which is being held this year at Renovation, in Reno, NV, on August 17-21.

The Nebula awards are open to active members and associate members of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Good luck and congratulations, folks!

--Scott Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

Exiles of Eden—Brad Torgersen

2011-04-25T08:33:00.001-04:00

I consider myself a blue-collar writer. Like your father or your grandfather or maybe your great-grandfather, I never throw anything out. My writing garage is filled with bits and pieces, odds and ends, all sorts of debris accumulated over the last 19 years. Most of it hasn't seen the light of day in a long time. Frankly, most of it doesn't deserve to see the light of day. But there are occasional moments when I wander into that writing garage, looking for a specific part or a chunk of something -- and I find the kernel of what could be a good story.

"Exiles of Eden" started off that way. There was an old story I'd written in 1996 -- back when I was very brand new at this gig. Not a very competently-told tale, to be honest. Clearly the work of a green writer. It had made the rounds of the (then) markets, and gotten rejected. But I'd always been fond of the central character and his predicament: a human being whose mind has been recorded into the memory banks of an interstellar warship, then flung off into the galaxy to do battle with an overwhelmingly implacable alien menace.

So I did what I've done several times as of late: I threw the kernel of that old story into the machine parts cleaner, brushed off the corrosion and the rust and the old oil, then set about constructing an entirely new adventure around that lone, refreshed concept.

Only, this time Rordy the recorded human wasn't alone. I gave him friends. And a much longer history. And an alien foe so literally awful it had wiped humanity utterly from the galaxy. Or so Rordy had been assuming for too many years. Until his ancient friend Wanda showed up. Wanda, with whom there had been so many unexplored possibilities, in the time right before the Earth's sun went supernova...

Obviously, I like to play with "big" concepts. Virtual immortality. Replicant tech. Love and relationships that span centuries, or millennia. Invincible monsters hiding under your (galactic) bed. The end of the frickin' world, and so forth.

But I try to play with these concepts in ways that are accessible to many different kinds of people.

I think that's another aspect of being blue-collar: I sometimes flirt with literary word-smithing, but in the end I deliberately try to tell tales that a Private in the Army can digest. Me, the old Reserve Warrant Officer watching these something-teen year olds walk out the door to Iraq or Afghanistan. If only more science fiction writers understood how voraciously a lot of those Privates read. Especially within the genre. If I'm spinning sci-fi yarns those young Janes and Joes in The Box can't grok, I kinda suspect I'm doing it wrong.

So there's a lot of "voice" in this story. In all my stories, actually.

Dean Wesley Smith sold me on that concept, back a few years ago when I was barely writing at all, staring at a mountain of rejections, and wondering if it wasn't just a colossal waste of time. Dean smacked me on the head and said, "Stop re-writing your work to death, you're killing the voice!" So I don't re-write endlessly anymore. I usually give myself three passes, and I'm out. The story is either up to snuff, or it isn't. After three runs through the manuscript, it's as good as I can make it -- at this current time, at my current skill level.

For those stories that don't make it -- happens less often these days, to my great delight -- the writing garage beckons. Just take the story in and dump it out onto one of the (crowded) shelves. Maybe I'll come back for it in a few years, when I feel like it.

Of course, with the gleaming electronic freeway of e-publishing beckoning like an Eisenhower Interstate of 21^st century writing, maybe I'll put more time into bringing out all the old garage stories? Build me some kitbashed, Frankenstein hot-rods?

Tracy Hickman always says that stories that don't get read are stories that don't do anyone any good -- least of all the writer. Until the stories get read, they don't have meaning in the lives of the people who read them. So why let any of that material gather dust?

I think I'll go get my coveralls on...

--Brad Torgersen

We Who Steal Faces—Tony Pi

2011-04-18T09:06:00.001-04:00

“We Who Steal Faces” isn’t the first story I’ve written with the Elect, near-immortals who name themselves after insects and use amber and silk to change shapes. Two other stories star Flea and are set in the modern day (“Metamorphoses in Amber” and “The Paragon Lure”). But the trouble with long-lived shapeshifters is, their past lives are as intriguing as their current life, and feuds among them could last centuries.

In exploring Flea’s past, I decided to write a story wherein he pitted his thieving skills against the greatest trapmaker among his kind. His foe would have been both Daedalus and Da Vinci, with the temperament of the former, the quirks of the latter, and the genius of both. And what better name than Antlion for a maker of traps?

In the earliest draft, it was hubris versus hubris: Antlion smug in the belief that his vault was unbreachable, and Flea eager to prove him wrong. I knew the story would be set in Venice, where the Silk Road met the Amber Road. But as a labyrinth under Venice wouldn’t exactly work, I looked to Padua on the mainland and started researching the locations and time period, picking out fascinating tidbits I learned to build the plot.

However, the initial idea of a wager between Flea and Antlion didn’t work. Flea’s motive came across as too self-serving. That’s where another nugget of research I saved came into play: the mithridate. Adding the poisoning, as well as a good dose of espionage, upped the stakes and gave Flea a more noble reason to challenge Antlion’s Labyrinth.

--Tony Pi

Writer’s Tools

2011-04-15T09:15:00.001-04:00

The most important thing a writer does is write. And really, to do that, all you need to have is a writing implement (pen, pencil, crayon…) and some paper.

The next most important thing a writer does is try to get published, and to best enable that, one’s tools need to be a bit more complex. This article is geared toward the new writer who is seeking adequate tools for both writing convenience and publishing.

Hardware

Laptop

In my opinion, a laptop is essential for writing. I’m a pretty mobile guy; most of my writing is done when I’m not at home. A laptop meets my needs: with a laptop, I can write on my lunchbreak at work; I can write while riding in the carpool, or at my kids’ soccer practice. The portability of a laptop, for me, is 90% of its value. I favor lightweight machines with good batteries and non-reflective screens over machines with powerful computing abilities and good graphics. My laptop is for writing, not for playing video games: that means that I don’t have to have the latest model.

What I need in a laptop (from a hardware standpoint):

Ethernet card (or USB hub with ethernet adapter). Most places that provide internet access have gone wireless, but I’m reluctant to give up the wire.
Wireless Card. For connecting to wireless access points at the coffee shop, library, etc.
At least two USB slots. One for my iPod, one for any other USB peripherals (like a printer). In addition, if your laptop doesn’t have an ethernet card, you can buy a USB ethernet adaptor to get wired.
Non-reflective (or low reflective) screen. For outdoor writing.
Good battery (7+ hours of life)

Most of my research material is done on my laptop, and most of my research is done on the internet—that makes the first two bullet points essential. I suppose I probably don’t need as hefty a battery as I have, but I like to be prepared for those long family roadtrips/campouts where there’s no outlet to recharge with.

I personally prefer PCs to Macs. It’s all about the price, I’m afraid: no getting around it, Macs are too expensive. I buy refurbished laptops to cut the cost even more. My current machine is a Dell Inspiron 15, and it cost me around $400. The screen is 15 inches wide, and is a little more reflective than I like, but it’s still within the range of acceptable. It’s fairly lightweight, and the battery I bought ($80) lasts around 7 hours if I turn the monitor brightness to low.

Printer

You need a printer if you’re going to be trying to get published. Alas, enough places still require hard-copy manuscripts that owning one is an unavoidable expense for the writer. (I suppose that you COULD go to the library instead, if your library has a printer they allow individuals to print from…)

Thankfully, printers are cheap and most of them are hardy. You’ll wind up spending more on ink than anything else. An adequate printer will run about $80; ink cartridges run about $20/cartridge.

Software

Word Processing Program

What’ll it be? Microsoft Word? WordPerfect? OpenOffice?

Most folks just use Microsoft Word. I do too, but that’s because I use Word at work, so it’s the program I’m most familiar with. It’s definitely not the most user friendly, and its quirks—especially with pagination and bulleting and numbering—can be downright mind-numbing. Our publisher swears—literally—by WordPerfect, and he’s a best-selling writer, or something.

I think that it comes down to what you’re familiar with, and what you’re willing to pay. On that note, let me plug OpenOffice—a full suite of office applications (word proccessing, spreadsheet, slideshow, paint, database) that is available for free, and is developed under an Open License from Sun Systems. In my opinion, the interface is not quite as slick as what you’ll find in Word or WordPerfect, but check the price: free compared to…well compared to whatever MS Office is selling for these days. In addition, since the suite is maintained by an open community, you can just update your software occasionally rather than having to buy a new version when the software publisher decides he needs a new swimming pool. OpenOffice is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems, too.

Development Software

By ‘development software’ I mean a piece of software that will allow you to quickly and easily build a story bible. A story bible is a document, or series of documents where you keep all the details about your work in progress—plot, characters, names for characters, magic system, sciencey explanations…everything. Word processors are just mediocre at this—generally, you want to have some sort of interface that allows you to navigate, index, and search in a more robust way than is possible with word processors.

Scrivener is a program that I hear a LOT about from my Mac-using friends. It was raved about so much, a couple friends bought Macs on the cheap just to install it and give it a shot. And now they’re confirmed, dyed-in-the-wool, true-blue-through-and-through converts to the program. The good news (for me) is that Scrivener is trying to get a Windows port up and running; I’m eager to try it out. The Mac version of Scrivener retails for $45; the Windows version may cost the same. It’s scheduled to be released in June 2011. One negative to Scrivener—there’s a learning curve to using it effectively. But I hear that once you’ve learned it, it’s a real boon.

Wikipedia-style software is also popular. I use WikiPad for my story bible, and it’s adequate. There’s very little to learn, and the interface is intuitive and natural.

Tracking Software

Tracking software allows you to track numbers on your work. Some folks just use a spreadsheet program like MS Excel; others go in for designing a full database. Tracking software is useful in a couple ways: if you’re actively submitting, tracking software helps you note when you submitted and where. That way, you don’t submit stories to the same market (or agent, or whatever) twice.

I track all my submissions through a Microsoft Access database application I created; that may be a little bit above and beyond what most folks are interested in doing. The important thing for me is to be able to see, or find quickly, which markets have seen what work.

I also track my daily word count—that’s fairly simple with a spreadsheet and a couple formulas.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into my toolbox. Please put everything back where you found it.

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

The Long Way Home—G. Norman Lippert

2011-04-11T08:39:00.001-04:00

“The Long Way Home” was written at Literary Boot Camp with Uncle Orson himself presiding. The assignment was to write something based on research conducted during that week, including street interviews with random people. This is harder than it seems, especially for famously introverted creative types. My interview was spectacularly awkward and uneventful, thus I had decided, of course, to write a short black comedy about a pregnant witch. I had formulated the story in my head and was about to begin the marathon of writing it when my awkward street interview came back to me, bringing a different idea with it.

Suddenly, the man I had interviewed (accompanied by his son and dog) had a history. More importantly, he had a place to go, and it wasn’t just around the corner on his regular evening stroll. The man (I named him Henry) was going to confront some buried secrets in a rather fantastical representation of his childhood hometown. It was less a complete story than a Twilight Zoney “what-if” scenario. When I started writing it I didn’t know how it would end. When it did end (some nine hours later) it surprised me. It moved me a little. It's a bit cheesy and melodramatic, yes, but that’s true of the most prosaic truths in life, isn’t it? The trick as a writer isn’t to avoid the cheesy truths but to present them in such a way that the reader forgets, at least for a few minutes, that they are cheesy. Hopefully it works in this instance.

-G. Norman Lippert

InterGalactic Medicine Show - Issue 22

2011-04-08T13:26:00.006-04:00

Now available: Welcome to IGMS Issue 22. Always a pleasure to see you here. Let's get right to business, shall we? Now available:

Our cover story, "Love, Cayce" by Marie Brennan, is an epistolary starring Cayce, the daughter of great adventurers, who is teamed her up with her parents' friends' children to have adventures of their own. She writes home to fill mom and dad in on the mayhem with typical teen, attitude-laced fashion.

Next up is "We Who Steal Faces" by Tony Pi, where an age-old feud between shape-shifters has secret agent Master Flea racing through Renaissance Italy to save the life of a poisoned friend.

"Exodus Tides" by Aliette deBodard is a unique tale of loss, self-discovery, and mer-folk, as a young woman seeks to find her place in a world that is integrated more in theory than reality.

"Exiles In Eden" by Brad Torgersen features the last of humanity, taken to the stars, finding more humans in an unlikely place -- with unanticipated, unpleasant consequences.

"The Long Way Home" by George Lippert is an Orson Picks (OP) from Uncle Orson himself, David Lubar offers another of his "Tales For The Young and Unafraid," and Darrell Schweitzer brings us an up-close-and-personal look into the latest goings on with Robert Silverberg.

Last but not least, we try to bring you a bonus of some sort with each issue, and this issue is no different. This bonus comes compliments of our web-designer Scott Allen. Scott usually toils in anonymity, but I have to make sure he gets credit for a job well done. What job is that, you ask?

IGMS for just about any e-reader -- Kindle, Sony, Nook, Kobo, whatever -- that you can name.

Thus far we have issue 1, and issues 12 through 21 available (for free) for subscribers, and if you're not a subscriber yet, issue 1 and issues 17 through 21 are available for single-issue purchase and Kindle-download at Amazon.

Plus, as each new issue goes up, it will be added within a few days to both Amazon and for subscribers.

So a big thanks to our web designer, Scott Allen, and a big you're welcome to IGMS readers everywhere.

Verona Rupes

2011-04-04T07:22:00.001-04:00

This image from Voyager 2 (found on NASA's APOD site) shows Verona Rupes, the deepest canyon in our solar system.

…and it’s not just the spawn-place of IGMS Assistant Editor Eric James Stone; it’s also the setting of the wonderful story, The Mystery of Miranda, by David Simmons. The Mystery of Miranda appeared in Intergalactic Medicine Show #18.

Brutal Interlude—Wayne Wightman

2011-03-29T07:21:00.002-04:00

The title was the first piece to arrive. I have lists of titles in my notebooks and this one was entered decades ago, just in case. I am a thrifty person.

In the eighties I wrote an unfinished novel, Starkiller, which involved Sylvia Romilar (who, except for one line of dialogue, was in a coma the whole novel), Walter Roscoe, and Sylvia’s slinky sister, Wanda Paloma.

After losing interest in writing sf during the ‘90s and writing unseen screenplays in the ‘00s, I quit altogether. Then—

I moved to Oregon, where I have a quiet life. In 2007 I thought I’d give writing another shot, to see if it would be fun again. But with a different program:

1.) In the past, I would decide what I wanted to say and then put it in language accessible to 12-yr-olds. I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I had just been reading Watt by Samuel Beckett, Tristram Shandy and a few Jane Austen novels, and I liked what I read. So if I want to combine a lacy Austenian 80-word sentence with Beckett’s OCD, splattered with Hunter Thompson’s vocabulary, try and stop me.

2.) In my stories, stupid people should dance faster, because if they act up they are going to be punished, because they are most dangerous.

3.) I decided to write about life as we secretly know that it is: good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and some people are nasty and guilty and have fabulous lives.

5) I was going to characterize my people by showing or implying these contradictions and the complications they cause. For example:

“The next time I see you, if I'm different,

I want you to pretend you know me, even if you don't.”

“I will.”

“Tell me you'll never lie to me.”

“I won't.”

I recognize that this may be cryptic to literalists, pre-teens, and sociopaths.

I fully fully understand the ancient suspicion that muses whisper into the writer’s ear. I wrote the story, of course, but the cauldron that some of those things crawled out of is unfamiliar to me. After a few months’ separation from it, I read the story again and I had this creepy little question pop into mind: “What kind of person would write this?”

Grab-it music? “Enema Mama”? That whole tooth thing with Garith Glone and his obsession with hands? The doctor’s medical question to Lance on the back stairs? People being manually dismembered?

I don’t know where those come from. Twitchy amygdala?

Things You Wouldn’t Know Otherwise

The Hotel Minérve is a real place in Paris where I’ve stayed a few times. In fact, get this: One morning I was in the lobby, and outside on the street was someone who looked like and then turned out to be the actual John Brunner. We had a few beers and a nice talk that evening. (I have always admired his title The Atlantic Abomination.)

The movies Sylvia made, “Instruments of Torture and Delight” and “Triumph of the Flesh” are actual stories. “Adaptogenia” was in F&SF a year ago. (And when will a movie be made where Cate Blanchett plays all the parts?)

“Walter’s Used Pets” seemed like an odd, funny idea at first. Then it seemed completely reasonable and I wondered why I hadn’t ever heard of anyone having a used pet shop.

Diaz (a fellow contestant in the story) was an actual life-long friend — bipolar, hilarious, tedious, and inspirational. Currently deceased. He introduced me to weed.

“Brutal Interlude” was one of those stories that opened up enough possibilities for a novel, so it was difficult to cut it to its current length. I left out the part where classic lit was rewritten in degraded form (Crime and Punishment: Russian motorcycle gangs; Moby Dick: nevermind...you’d have bad dreams).

But I did not cut out that vile taxi ride. That was a “hello” to those of you out there who occasionally have those life-shouldn't-be-like-this moments. Happens to fine people daily. In the worst cases, to quote Diaz, “You maintain the plod, man, and wait for the light.”

Finally, I also love Sylvia Romilar.

--Wayne Wightman

Breakout-Edmund Schubert

2011-03-21T08:52:00.001-04:00

Several years ago the orbits of Earth and Mars came closer together than they had been in almost 60,000 years, and the planet was actually visible to the naked eye as a very large orange star. Viewed through an average telescope, it appeared about the same size the full moon does to the naked eye. There was a good deal of attention paid to it by the mainstream press, and one of the articles I read (in a magazine whose name I’ve long-since forgotten) was a piece about a professor teaching astronomy classes in a penitentiary, and they were studying the Red Planet.

As interesting as it was that Mars was so close, the idea of a professor studying it along with inmates was too compelling to ignore, and I wrote “Breakout” in one rapid burst. I do my best work when I write the first draft quickly , and was pleased with the way it turned out--except for one thing: In the first draft, the main character gets taken away in the end by aliens. Given the way the rest of the story went, I thought that was way too obvious. My favorite kinds of endings are those that make perfect sense, yet at the same time take the reader by surprise. So after a little thinking/tweaking, I hit upon an ending I thought was better (I’m not going to give any spoilers here; you’ll have to read the story yourself), and I showed my results to Orson to see if he had any suggestions. He liked the story and his sole piece of advice was to send it to Stan Schmidt at Analog. He said Stan liked stories with a sense of humor, and my quirky little “Breakout” (it’s only about 3,500 words long) would appeal to him. Stan did like “Breakout,” but not quite enough to buy it. He sent a very nice personal note, but that was as far as it went.

The next place I submitted it to was Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. From time to time I also write mysteries, and since “Breakout” was set in a prison, I thought it might appeal to them. Actually, I thought that the SF twist might make the story more appealing to them than a straight-up mystery, and although it took them three times longer to reject it than anything else I had ever sent them before, in the end rejection is what came.

I still felt good about the story, but at that point a lot of other things came up that demanded my attention and I all but forgot about quirky little “Breakout”…

…until a few months ago, when David Lubar emailed us at IGMS to say that he needed skip one turn in his usual rotation. Orson had arranged with David several years ago to write a short YA story (or two) for every issue of IGMS, and even though we switched that arrangement up when we moved from a quarterly to a bimonthly production schedule (at that point he started writing stories for us in every other issue), it’s still understandable that sometimes even that could be too much.

So what were we going to put in the magazine to replace David’s story? The issues when he’s not normally scheduled to appear are the issues when we have our audio features, but we didn’t have anything in hand that was short enough to fill that bill (audio pieces, for a variety of reason, rarely run over 4,000 words, and I prefer for them to be even shorter than that).

That’s when I remembered “Breakout.”

Normally I’m very hesitant to even suggest running my own material in IGMS. In fact, I’ve only ever done it once before (under very similar circumstances), and even then, I only suggest it; I never unilaterally decide. So I sent “Breakout” to our managing editor, Kathleen Bellamy, and to Uncle Orson, and with their unanimous consent, the story was then forwarded to Stuart Jaffe to record as an audio feature. Stuart did a great job, and frankly I was tickled to have another audio piece to add to my library. Publication is always welcome, but there’s something about having a story performed by a voice actor that really appeals to me, and “Breakout” is the third of my stories to receive the audio ‘treatment.’

The moral of this story? Well, let me put it this way: Mars may need women, but IGMS needs short science fiction and fantasy stories under 4,000 words. If you’ve written a good one (or more), please submit them to IGMS.

--Edmund Schubert

Pendragon—Interview with Edmund Schubert

2011-03-19T23:06:00.002-04:00

Pendragon Variety, a podcast for aspiring writers, has interviewed Edmund Schubert. Check out the ol’ Android Were-Vampire himself HERE!

And none other than the incredible Myr Lafferty takes her chances with the cybertronic/lycanthromic/vampirc Ed-in-Chief HERE!

InterGalactic Medicine Show—Now Available on Kindle!

2011-03-14T13:32:00.005-04:00

You’ve pined for it; you’ve whined for it. You’ve begged, pleaded, and howled for it.

And now you can have it: InterGalactic Medicine Show on your Kindle-compatible e-reading device.

MOREOVER: The Kindle version of IGMS is free to IGMS subscribers.

What's that you say? Don't have an IGMS subscription? You can also download individual issues to your Kindle for only $2.99 each, direct from Amazon. Issues #1 and #17 - 21 are available now, the rest will be there in a few short weeks.

Check out the InterGalactic Medicine Show for details!

-- Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

A Frame of Mother-of-Pearl- Cat Rambo

2011-03-14T09:08:00.002-04:00

This story was, I think, the most heavy revising I've ever done, and it was (luckily) all good and happy collaboration. Edmund liked the original version but asked that I change a few things to make the conclusion more interesting. I did, and ended up changing it from a happy ending to an unhappy one, which made his head explode a bit. We back and forthed once more after that, and I think the story ended up being a lot stronger for the interaction.

The name (and inspiration) for the story came from a yard sale find, a housekeeping manual from the 1890s, which includes various gentle arts like constructing Aeolian harps and making crystal gardens from an alum solution. The label pasted inside the book names it as having belonged to one "Hattie Fender," who served as namesake for the heroine. I had started the story as an entry for a Codex story contest and ended up getting so carried away with the beauty of my own prose that I had 500 words describing Hattie, the tattoos on her scalp, the scent of bergamot in her wake, and so forth - and not much else. Edmund, happily, persuaded me to rearrange this big lump of verbiage and fold it into the story in a much more graceful way.

Taking a feather out of one's pocket is a tribute to a YA novel whose title I can't think of, where the heroine, who lives most of her life on roller skates in early 19th century NYC, does the same thing to determine where she'll go. Similarly, the pennies placed in the curio cabinet are an echo from All of a Kind Family, another YA novel I loved.

--Cat Rambo

http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog

Note from Asst. Ed, Scott M. Roberts:

The "Codex story contest" mentioned by Ms. Rambo is one of a number of contests held by the online writing group, CodexWriters.com

How To Write Magical Words: Finally on Kindle

2011-03-10T15:02:00.004-05:00

Don't know what else to say; the book has been a hit, and now the folks who've been waiting for the Kindle edition need wait no longer.

The Devil’s Rematch—Spencer Ellsworth

2011-03-07T10:30:00.001-05:00

"The Devils' Rematch" is a classic example of why I should nail myself to this laptop and write. It was an idea I'd had years ago, and written the first half until I decided that it wasn't working. I had no idea what I was doing with the Devil. A few years later, I had made the goal to finish a short story every month, and I pulled out this one and finished it. I decided I could keep the Devil as a generic MacGuffin who didn't do much besides stoke the fires that had been simmering in this little town. When I was done, I had a perfectly serviceable story, I thought, except it was the old cliche about the Devil coming to town. But of course, a year later I had a goal to send out more stories, so this one hit the mail and IGMS snapped it up. I've sent stories to IGMS that were supposed to explode the earth with awesome; instead they picked this one. Again, I guess I'd better keep writing because I'm not quite sure what works.

The story hit an interesting snag in that the original draft had a few instances of the N-word. When Scott Card declined to print the word, my first reaction was "Mark Twain said the N-word." My second reaction was "I'm not Mark Twain." My third reaction was "Cookie." That's always my third reaction.

Eric James Stone, brilliant assistant editor that he is, had the idea to make the mayor self-censor, hence the passages where he says "I'm not gonna tell you what he said, but it was something that shouldn't be said in polite company, or ever..." Once I implemented that, the mayor because a much more interesting character. He was always too polite to say the N-word and having him do so, when Elmer kisses his daughter, had rung hollow for me in the first draft. Now, when he says "you people," it communicates the subtle racism he's carried around his whole life.

--Spencer Ellsworth

Tangent Online Recommended Reading

2011-02-28T22:25:00.001-05:00

Tangent Online reviews science fiction, fantasy and horror short stories. They’ve posted their recommended reading list from 2010, and a number of IGMS stories made the grade:

“Sparrowjunk” by Margit Schmitt (IGMS #17)
“Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain” by Von Carr (IGMS #17)
“Frankie and Johnny, and Nellie Bly” by Richard Wolkomir (IGMS #17)
“Right Before Your Very Eyes” by Matthew S. Rotundo (IGMS #19)
“The Mystery of Miranda” by David A. Simons (IGMS #18)

Congratulations, authors!

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

Ratoncito’s Last Tooth- Mike Hill

2011-02-28T07:57:00.001-05:00

Ratoncito's Last Tooth began, like many kernels of a story, by two distinct ideas or experiences intersecting at once. In this case, I had just gone through an episode with my dentist involving a tooth extraction which, although not especially traumatic left me weak for the rest of the day. This began the idea but I needed character and setting and felt that a humble beginning was right. I had just been reading about the poverty and conditions of the barrios near the large cosmopolitan areas of South America and had also heard about El Camino del Muerte in Bolivia. Thus a setting was ready and the character came and whispered in my ear, his life story. The crucible that caused the story to be written was Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp 2007 which I can only liken to a communal barn-raising; a group of people come together, prepared and willing to work under the practiced hand of the master, and accomplish in a few days what might take an individual months or years to realize.

In this story in particular I felt that brevity was needed and chose every word that moved it along; if it didn't ultimately contribute, I chose to cut or omit. And credit where credit is due; my father is also a published writer, my younger brother in his short life was the critical mirror for my imagination and my wife and best friend who urged, encouraged and supported me; thank you. Now onto the next project...

--Mike Hill

What’s Your Science Doing in My Fantasy?

2011-02-27T07:42:00.002-05:00

The following is an actual transcript between myself (Scott M. Roberts) and Eric James Stone, one of the other assistant editors at InterGalactic Medicine Show:

graveroberts: None of the InterGalactic Award winners were fantasy.

eviljerkfacestone: LOL

graveroberts: What?

eviljerkfacestone: watching kittens on youtube. One just fell in a blender

graveroberts: You are sick.

eviljerkfacestone: there are no dragons in real life.

graveroberts: Once again: what?

eviljerkfacestone: Trinity County, CA has dragons. dragons == fantasy.

eviljerfacestone: LOLOLOLOLOL! ROFLMAO! in the toilet! Round and round!

graveroberts: You are sick.

Sifting through this macabre and disturbing conversation, I gleaned this: some individuals believe that including creatures typically viewed as fantasy creatures (werewolves, vampires, dragons, trolls, editors with a soul, etc.) necessarily transforms the story to fantasy.

I’m afraid I disagree.

For me, a fantasy—even a contemporary fantasy—necessarily relies on some sort of mystery, or miraculous impossibility, underpinning its setting. The dragons in Trinity County, CA are not mystical; they’re examined, controlled, and catalogued like bugs in an entomologist’s office.

Which is not to say it isn’t a good story; genre aside, it’s a GREAT story. Let’s get that out of the way right now: the genre a story is in—or not in—doesn’t matter in the least to its quality. I’m comfortable with genre bending. Bend away, my writerly amigos! But don’t ask me to call your Astro-Zeppelin Galactic Ranger series, with Tolkienesque elves and Martinesque undead anything but a fantasy. Despite its being set 22,000 years in the future, in space.

Here are some great genre-bending stories:

The Dragons of Spring-place, Robert Reed

Monster Hunters International (series), Larry Correia

The Dragon Age (series), James Maxey

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

InterGalactic Awards—FREE STORIES

2011-02-23T09:54:00.001-05:00

Psst. Hey. Looking for some fun? Yeah. You know what I mean, don’t you. Look, I’m not going to lie, this stuff is primo. Pure, like. And I am the only guy with this sort of deal out on the street, the only working man this side of Xanadu.

Tell you what: I’ll give you four of ‘em. Four is your magic number, oh yeah. Four soul-expanding, universe-changing, life-altering, brain-blending stories. For the price of NONE.

Did you get that? Am I talking loud enough?

Free. Stories.

First up: ‘Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived', by Keffy Kehrli. Look, the title itself is enough to make your brain turn in on itself to be sucked down a wormhole of wonder. Am I right? Yes, yes I am. But there’s a lot more to this story than just the title. I mean, there are like…words and things inside it. Clones. Defective clones. Ethical conundrums, even. Old houses, little brothers, mothers, fathers, hope, desperation, and death. Maybe death. I don’t want to spoil it for you. Does death even exist if you can just copy all your memories to a clone? Like I said, man—wormhole of wonder.

Speaking of transhumanism—wait, what were we talking about? I’m sure that we were talking about the Singularity—the point in which human intelligence is conferred on machines of bits and bytes and nanotechnology. Or transferred there. Sure of it. Because that’s what Bruce Worden’s The American is about, and why wouldn’t I talk about that? I would. I am. Even though it talks about a Polish farmgirl experiencing the event of trans-Atlantic transhumanism. Poland? I mean, who talks about Poland? Apparently, only really good science fiction does. You think you’re going to find stories of this quality in those high-brow, literary elitist fop mags? Uh-uh. This kind of primo, mind-affecting, soul-blasting fiction can only be found here. I am your man, baby! Rawr.

Now, listen. Don’t let the next title confuse you. Stay with me and you’ll love it. Promise. In Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain, I want to assure you that no pain is actually wrought upon you personally. Naw, this medicine man doesn’t sell that sort of concoction. Author Von Carr promises a rip-roaring cavalcade of excitement and thrills, but the only pain that gets brought is directed against zombies, robots, triffids, and cellularly controlled psychic slaves, in the wasteland that is the world after the event of all possible apocalypses. Go on—take a peek. Feast your eyes. Transcendental. I am not kidding.

You’ve heard of this next one. I’m going to say four words: Peter. Beagle. Trinity County, CA. You see how generous I am? I threw in a word for free. Free love, all day long, right here at my booth of lies and truth. Or at least as long as it takes you to read these four stories. You might not want to wait long—there are dragons about. That’s what I hear, anyway. Dragons crawling through the woods, raised by unethical dragon tamers. You be careful—this story might give you some ideas about how to survive in such a world. What’s it going to hurt? Nothing, that’s what. Might just save your life.

Hey. Beautiful. You want to thank me, I’ll tell you want to do. Send some of your little friends my way. Preach and proselytize, that’s how it goes. Spread some kind rumors my way, you know what I’m saying? I’m always right here, generous guy that I am. Here to help, that’s me.

Tell ‘em to mind the dragons, though.

Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

Steven R. Stewart—Go Home and Be With Your Families

2011-02-21T07:17:00.002-05:00

The day before my eighth grade graduation, I found out my best friend John and his brother Daniel had been hit by a semi and killed on their way home from the arcade. My parents came into my room very early in the morning and told me, standing on either side of my bed--in my memory, they look like doctors bent over an operating table--and I can remember pulling my blanket over my head and staying under it for a long time. I thought about John, about sitting under a tree with him and proofreading the love letters he had written to a girl he liked. I thought about all the dirty jokes I had heard him tell, and about the times we had knelt together at the altar during church camp. I thought about how he had been here, and now he was just gone. Just like that.

I didn't come out from under that blanket the same. Death became a real thing to me that day, and in a way, I have carried it with me ever since. If I waste a day watching TV instead of getting my writing done, percentages pop into my head, and I start making guesses about how much of my life I am likely to waste if I keep going at the current rate. I kiss my wife goodnight and think, "We've been together seven years. If we live to have our fiftieth anniversary, that means we only have forty-three years left. Forty-three Christmases and summers and tax returns." Following this line of thinking to its logical conclusion can drive you nuts. Even if human kind escapes earth before our sun expands and bakes us all to death, eventually the Milky Way will collide with Andromeda. The whole universe will expand to the point that it tears itself apart. (The joke's on you, vampires. Immortal my ass.) How is a guy supposed to cope with that?

"Go Home, and Be With Your Families" is my attempt to answer that question for myself. On the surface, the story is about Herb's inability to commit, his depression, his alcoholism (seriously, he's drinking in almost every scene), his struggle to be what he needs to be for his daughter, and (oh yeah) alien television. But the biggest issue is death, how to deal with it, and how to live in spite of its looming presence. The answer I kept coming back to was deceptively simple: Live. Just live. Be a human. Make some babies with a girl (or guy) that you love, get your genetics out there for what it's worth, and be with those babies and that girl (or guy) for however much time you get. Let go of the cosmic significance of everything (it’s still okay to ponder this every now and then, but don’t obsess) and let things be what they are, right down in your little everyday world with the people you love. And when bad shit happens (and it will), steel yourself and take the hit. It will never feel good, but after a while you'll learn to take a punch. Writing helps with that, I've found.

One last thing: I hope you'll all give Herb the benefit of the doubt. The guy is kind of sensitive, and probably more talented than he is smart. Sometimes it takes guys like that a while to figure things out.

--Steven R. Stewart

Post Human

2011-02-18T07:29:00.002-05:00

In his story Mortal Gods, Orson Scott Card postulates a race of aliens whose physiology allows an individual to essentially live forever. Reproduction is accomplished by some sort of cellular division, and RNA carries memories of the original organism to the new creature. Because the individual is replicated so effectively, loss of an individual does not seem to be feared within the alien society.

However, because the aliens do not experience death, they are not equipped with mythology the way that human cultures are. No mythology seems to mean no religion, at least as we understand religion; it also means no artwork. The aliens’ viewpoint is one of the most startling and original of any that I’ve read on the subject of the effects of immortality: death engenders creativity.

There is something about our impermanence that drives humanity to paint and build and sing and write—not just functional structures, and not merely aesthetically pleasing songs. Something in us strives to make a lasting mark, to imprint ourselves on the shifting cosmic tide.

If we remove death, what happens to that impulse? While other speculative cognoscenti might say that the advent of a truly self-aware computer program is the demarcation of post-humanity, for me, it’s the moment when humanity defeats death once and for all. At that moment, those who choose (or are forced, or whatever) to partake of the death-reneging technology can no longer be considered to be human. Whatever else, there is an essential component in death that all humanity currently shares. Not being capable—or opting out of—dying puts up an irrevocable barrier between humans and post-humans. Of course that barrier, and the friction it might generate, is the fodder for countless science-fiction, fantasy, and horror stories.

None of which we would have, I submit, if we’d been immortal beings capable of passing our memories through RNA… :)

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

InterGalactic Medicine Show - Issue 21

2011-02-14T11:47:00.010-05:00

Available now, at IGMS...

First, our cover story: “Brutal Interlude” by Wayne Wightman. Reality TV was never so intrusive, never so scary, never so thoroughly put in its place. I dare you to look away, if you can.

Next, fan-favorite Cat Rambo brings us "A Frame of Mother-of-Pearl,” a fantasy tale about life and death, magic and family, and the way they can all come together to make life difficult.

Then Steve Stewart makes his debut with “Go Home, and Be With Your Families,” a tale of an alien civilization long gone and its powerful effect on one man here on earth.

"The Devil’s Rematch," by regular IGMS columnist Spencer Ellsworth, is a dark look at one small southern town, and how it doesn’t take the Devil to bring out the worst in people, nor the best.

Finally we have Mike Hill's "Ratoncito’s Last Tooth," an Orson Picks story (selected by Uncle Orson himself) about the life strongest man in the world. It’s a man’s entire life in under 3,000 words and it will have you brushing and flossing for the rest of your life.

Well, not quite ‘finally,’ because we also have an Orson Picks for our audio bonus this issue: “Breakout” is the tale of an astronomy professor who finds haven in the strangest of places. I forget who wrote it, but it’s read beautifully by Stuart Jaffe, of “The Eclectic Review” podcast fame. Okay, I wrote it, but you shouldn’t hold that against poor Stuart.

Then in the interview department, Darrell Schweitzer is at it again, this time interviewing a personal favorite of mine, Patricia McKillip. Her Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy was my introduction to fantasy, but as Darrell’s interview shows, she’s done so much more than just that.

Plus, subscribers voted for their favorite stories appearing in IGMS during 2010, and the winners of the IGMS Reader Awards (who all get cash awards) aren’t the only winners; all the winning stories are free for all to read for as long as issue 21 is live. Go and tell all your friends that the winners are...

...going to be announced in the issue. Come by to check who they are.

Uncle Orson's Writing Class and Literary Boot Camp 2011

2011-02-07T22:44:00.002-05:00

August 8-9, 2011
9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
$175.00

Uncle Orson's Writing Class
This seminar is open to novice and experienced writers alike -- college-aged and older. Students in Uncle Orson's Writing class take part in two days of discussions, lectures, and idea sessions, right along with participants in the Literary Boot Camp.

Uncle Orson's Writing Class and Literary Boot Camp is for writers of any kind of fiction, and even valuable for screenwriters and playwrights.

Location:
Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons
Joseph S. Koury Convention Center
3121 High Point Road
Greensboro, NC 27407
Phone: 800-242-6556

(Information on discounted guest room rates at the Sheraton will be posted later.)

August 8-13, 2011
$725.00

Literary Boot Camp
Literary Boot Camp is open only to writers -- college-aged and older -- who are serious about professional level work. Following the two-day Writing Class, the Boot Camp writers go on with four intense days of creating and critiquing new stories developed at the beginning of the week - all under the leadership of noted author Orson Scott Card.

Enrollment for each Literary Boot Camp is limited to no more than 14 participants and is by application only. Those who wish to attend must register with a $175 deposit and submit the FIRST FULL PAGE ONLY (250-300 words) of a short story. Prompt application is advised. Tuition does not include housing or meals. The deadline for submitting writing samples is May 27, 2011; you will be notified whether or not you have been accepted by June 3, 2011. The remaining balance of $550 will be due by July 1, 2011. Those not accepted to Boot Camp will have the choice of either applying their $175 deposit to the two-day Writing Class or having their deposit refunded.

Location:
Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons
Joseph S. Koury Convention Center
3121 High Point Road
Greensboro, NC 27407
Phone: 800-242-6556

(Information on discounted guest room rates at the Sheraton will be posted later.)

Note to Boot Camp Participants: You must bring a laptop computer with you to Boot Camp.

If you don't own one, please make arrangements to buy, rent, or borrow one that is running a recent version of Windows or Mac OS. Printers will be available.

How To Write Magical Words: Chapter One

2011-02-05T15:31:00.003-05:00

Following this little intro is the first chapter of a recent book of which I am contributing editor (meaning I got to abuse all the other writers and still have the fun of being in the book with them. Truly, the best of all possible worlds). How To Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion is a distillation of three years worth of how-to writing advice from the blog, Magical Words. Although I’ve only been working with the Magical Words crew (Faith Hunter, David B. Coe, Misty Massey, A.J. Hartley, Stuart Jaffe, and C.E. Murphy (who is on an extended hiatus at the moment) for a little over seven months now, I’ve been watching them since the beginning because I always thought that their blog was a great idea, extremely well executed.

First off, the blog is filled with advice about the craft of writing, offered from multiple perspectives. Over the years I’ve read plenty of books about writing and one thing that always struck me about the vast majority of them was that it was one writer, saying THIS is the way you do it. Problem is, there are as many ways to DO IT as there are writers. Obviously some ways are more effective than others, but this is writing, people, not religion. There is no ONE TRUE WAY to be a writer. And Magical Words acknowledged that. Heck, they played with it and made it fun. I respected that tremendously.

The other thing I believe Magical Words has done well since the very beginning is that they give comprehensive and honest business information. As much as writers are artists creating whole worlds in their minds, there comes a point when writers have to take off their artist hats and put on their business-person hats. If you have any thoughts about getting published, the business side of things can not be ignored any more than the craft side.

My own involvement with Magical Words came late one night in June of 2010. I was having drinks with the MW gang (minus Catie, who lives in Ireland) at a convention in Charlotte NC, when I said the fateful words, “You guys have already written a lot of great stuff about writing. You should collect it all together and put a book out.” Someone—David Coe, if memory serves—replied (a little too quickly, I thought), “We’ve considered that, but we need an editor to put it together.” Before you could say ‘Buy me another beer, Batman,’ I was not just editing a book, I was a regular contributor to the blog.

Building a book from three years worth of blog posts was more challenging than I ever would have anticipated, but it was educational and exciting and fun, too. We were able to find a small-press publisher (Bella Rosa Books, who have a number of award-winning titles to their credit) who not only gave us total control of what the book looked like and how it was put together, but was able to get it into print much quicker than any big NY house would have been able to do. We went from concept to finished product in under six months. Six months. If you know anything about the publishing business, you know that doesn’t happen often. Yet despite the speed with which we put it all together, it’s still a book I’m very proud of, which is why I want to share it with you today.

So, without further adieu (which translates from the French to mean “babbling on my part”), I give you the first chapter from How To Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion.

They’re Not Rules, They’re Price Tags

Edmund R. Schubert

Never write in second person.

Always start with a powerful first line.

Never change POVs in the middle of a scene.

Eschew adjectives. And adverbs.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah . . .

How To Write Magical Words is devoted to helping people write better, and there’s a lot of great advice to be found here.

And it’s all negotiable.

Seriously. There isn’t a bit of writing advice here that someone, somewhere (probably multiple someones and multitudinous somewheres) hasn’t broken, and broken really damn well.

So should you listen to what Faith and David and A.J. and Misty and Stuart and Catie have to say about writing? Of course you should. They’ve been doing this for a long time; they know what they’re talking about.

Well, then what the heck are you talking about, Edmund?

That would be a logical question.

What I’m talking about is this: I’m replying to a certain question before it’s even asked, a question I hear all the time. The minute any writing conversation turns in the direction of “rules” or “guidelines” or even just plain old “advice,” it inevitably crops up.

That question is: “Yeah, but what about ____x____?”

Because yes, there are exceptions to every rule. In fact, those exceptions are usually exceptional. People hold them up as shining examples of why the rules don’t apply. They do so wrongly, but that doesn’t stop them from doing it.

That’s why I want you to stop thinking of them as “rules” and start thinking of them as “price tags.” Even the rules of grammar and punctuation. They are all price tags.

Why price tags? Because there is a price to be paid for breaking the rules. If the gain outweighs the loss, then it’s worth doing. If not . . .

Let’s start with the rules of grammar and punctuation; they seem to be the most immutable. You want to break those rules? Generally, the price you pay is a lack of clarity and, as a result, a lack understanding. There’s a great book that came out several years ago called Eats Shoots and Leaves that talked about the importance of punctuation. Just punctuation. That subject alone filled an entire book. But look at the difference one little comma (or the lack thereof) makes in the title. If you say “eats shoots and leaves” without the comma, you’re talking about a panda’s diet. What do they eat? Bamboo shoots and leaves. But add one little comma so that it reads, “eats, shoots and leaves,” now you’re talking about a mafia hit-man who sits down in a restaurant, eats his dinner, kills the guy at the next table, and then walks out. A panda bear and a mafia hit man—and all that differentiates the two is one single comma.

There simply aren’t a lot of good reasons to mess with punctuation. Period. But grammar is a little more flexible. Look at the second sentence in this paragraph, the paragraph you’re reading right now. That’s really not a sentence, is it? “Period.” There’s no verb, there are no independent or dependent clauses; it’s just one word, sitting there, all alone. It’s—gasp—a sentence fragment. And doggone it, it’s not the first one that’s been used in this piece.

What price did I pay? Not much of one, because there was no loss of clarity. I knew when, where, and how to use them. What benefit did I gain? That fragment carries extra emphasis. It makes it perfectly clear that I think there are very, very, very few reasons to mess with punctuation. And that’s what fragments do best: narrow the focus down so as to emphasize a point. But you still have to be careful to construct. Them properly. Because the sloppy. Unintentional use of sentence fragments only causes confusion (see my previous sentence-fragment mess, right before this sentence; yes, that was intentional. But it was still ugly.).

Here’s a different example, one that comes up frequently when we’re talking about writing: don’t write in the present tense, or, heaven forbid, the future tense. Has it been done? Of course. Should it be done? Well, that’s really up to you. As always, there’s a price to pay.

In this case, because past tense is the tense used in the vast majority of writing today (especially if you disregard “literary writing,” which accounts for two-thirds of the uses of other tenses), unless present or future tenses are used seamlessly, it’s going to jump out at the reader. Look at me, it screams. I am writing in the present tense. I am going to be writing in the future tense. If that’s the effect you want—if it serves your story somehow—then by all means, go for it. Some writers can do so in a way that’s unobtrusive, so you hardly notice it’s being done. But here’s the thing: most readers want to be swept up in a story and carried away by it. They want to be immersed in the world they’re reading about to such a degree that they forget about the real one they’re living in. That can not happen if the writing is calling attention to itself. Using tenses that scream “look at me” are not going to allow that to happen. Again: “Can it be done” is not the question you should be asking yourself. “Should it be done” is the question.

I could go on about this at length, but I’m sure by now you see my point. The bottom line is that the rules are there for a reason. And it’s not to say you can never, ever, ever do ____x____. It’s to say that if you do _____x_____, make sure you know why you’re not supposed to do it. Make sure you understand the price tag that comes with doing it. Make sure that you understand that even though great writing breaks a lot of rules, no one breaks the rules effectively without thoroughly understanding them.

Once you really, truly understand the rules, then by all means, go ahead and break them. Break them into a million shining pieces that people will hold up and bask in the glory of.

Break them so well that you’re the one that people are talking about when they come up to me at my next convention or workshop and say, “Yeah, but what about ____x____?”

SuperZeroes: Why Can’t We Get Heroes Right?

2011-01-31T09:09:00.001-05:00

Quick reminder: today is the last day to vote for your favorite IGMS story of 2010.

There have been a bunch of super-powered TV wannabes popping out of the tube lately. As a former comic-book addict I was excited for each and every one of these shows. I love the super-hero meme; put a good origin story and a cape on it, and I AM THERE.

From Heroes to The Cape, the recent crop of meta-abled television shows have been disappointing.

It’s possible I’m too familiar with the cliches of the genre—the mainstays of origin stories are boring to me now. I know that normal humans actually use more than 10% of their brains; I think that evolutionary watersheds are not likely to happen in a readily observable timeframe (from a human perspective). I’m dubious about the abilities of gamma rays, x-rays, or cosmic rays to confer anything more than radiation sickness and a slow painful death.

It’s possible that Buffy Summers ruined all future TV-based super-hero stories for me in a blinding display of camp and wit. (Yes: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a super-hero) Joss Whedon can’t even live up to his creation (as he showed with the dreadfully boring Dollhouse); and if Joss can’t do it, is there really hope for anyone else?

I suppose it’s debatable whether Dollhouse was super-hero SF or just plain SF. I shall not debate it here.

It’s also possible that Hollywood (or whomever) doesn’t really understand the type of story that draws people to superheroes, and that’s why so many big-and-small screen versions of them fail. Will the curse that brought the X-men and Spider-man movie franchises low in their 3rd iteration carry-over to Christopher Nolan’s Batman series? Remember that the 80’s Batman franchise nose-dived on its 3rd title… These stories all died because of their sudden weight gain—too many antagonists, too many protagonists, and not enough time spent clarifying and building the relationships between them all. For me, NBC’s Heroes was a flop because the people were all caricatures who moaned, groaned, and whined their way through their new super-powered lives. (With the exception of Hiro. If the show had been called Hiro, and featured just him, I’d have been happy.) ABC’s attempt at remaking the Fantastic Four family style (No Ordinary Family) fails for a similar reason: I don’t believe in this family. Fall in a lake, and get super-powers from bio-luminescent thingies, sure; but the family dynamic is unbelievable. Heck, the *individuals* are unbelievable.

Maybe it’s that I’ve become cynical in my advanced age. I’m not sure that the glut of super-heroes flashing muscles and bespangled costumes on TV isn’t just a ploy to capitalize on the upcoming Thor, Green Lantern, and Captain America movies. Like some exec is up in his office saying, “Know what’s big right now? Heroes, that’s what. Big heroes, with muscles and … you know, like that guy, whats-his-name, Stan Lee, used to write! Get me Jessica Alba and a script, STAT!”

The good news is that super-heroes are making a comeback in literature too. And from what I see, MUCH more successfully. While it’s hard to put the same amount of visual splash into text, the super-heroes I’m reading about in short stories from James Maxey, Will Mcintosh, Ken Scholes and others pack a punch that their big-screened counterparts simply can’t match.

Zowie!

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

First Annual InterGalactic Awards

2011-01-20T16:11:00.001-05:00

We are pleased to announce the First Annual InterGalactic Awards. These awards are voted on by the readers in the following categories:

• Stories
• B&W Illustrations
• Cover Illustrations

In the first two categories, you may vote up to five times, ranking the stories and illustrations first through fifth place. For the cover illustration, you may vote only once.

Each subscriber can submit one ballot.

The voting window will be open until January 31 and winners will be announced in the February 2011 issue.

Goodreads interviews Orson Scott Card

2011-01-18T09:58:00.001-05:00

Link to the interview

Quote:

I believe in the only real magic, which is born of genuine love and service to others. It is astonishing what can be done when people are truly loyal to each other and eager to meet each other's needs. Ultimately that's what all my fiction is about, because that's what life is about. I usually sum it up as "hunger, love, and death"—the needs of the body, the longing for community, the search for identity.

Interview with Faith Hunter

2011-01-14T21:00:00.003-05:00

Intergalactic Editor-in-Chief, Edmund Schubert, recently interviewed fantasy novelist, Faith Hunter. Faith has a new novel out—Mercy Blade—which debuted this week at #24 on the NY Times bestseller list.

Edmund – Faith, tell us a bit about yourself.

Faith – I am a fantasy writer, born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. As Faith Hunter, I write urban fantasy (Jane Yellowrock series, also known as the Skinwalker series) and post- apocalyptic dark fantasy (Rogue Mage series). Under the penname Gwen Hunter, I write action adventure, mysteries, thrillers and one novel in the category of women’s fiction. As Faith and Gwen, I have 22 books in print in 26 countries. I make jewelry for relaxation, mostly with stones, pearls, and copper. For fun I RV with the hubby and the two Pomeranians to Class II and III rivers, where we kayak whitewater. Ummm. By we I mean the hubby and me. The dogs stay in the RV, in air-conditioned comfort. Don’t think I’d let them on the water, or that they would go if I did. They are definitely frou-frou doggies.

I am one of the founders and contributors of magicalwords.net, a forum for writers and readers, about writing and all things fantasy. And I have several websites: www.faithhunter.net, www.gwenhunter.com

Edmund – Most of your novels, as both Faith and Gwen, are set in Louisiana and in the Appalachian mountains. Why do you tend to pick those locales as settings?

Faith – New Orleans, even after the devastation of Katrina, is unlike any place in the US. It’s a vibrant, friendly town with old and new, rich and poor, black and white, sitting cheek-to-jowl. It smells and feels old-world rich and old-world poor, nearly European in its energy, yet full of life and industry and an intense, organic passion. It smells of coffee and food and you can hear music everywhere. I adore it!

The mountains are full of history and mystery. The folds of earth, the dangerous terrain, make great places to set action scenes. And then there’s that whitewater. I just looooove researching in the Appalachian mountains!

Edmund – You have two series. Tell us about the worlds your novels are set in.

Faith – The world of the Rogue Hunter series is our world in every way except for a tiny shift in the historical timeline – when Marilyn Monroe was staked by the Secret Service in the oval office while trying to turn the president of the US. Word got out that “things that go bump in the night” were real. Vamps and witches came out of the closet, forever changing society and culture. Jane Yellowrock appears modern time—literally, walking out of the mountain forest naked, wounded, scarred, with no memory of humankind. She is a full-blooded Cherokee and a Skinwalker—the title of the first book of the series—who hunts insane vamps and dispatches them.

The Rogue Mage novels, featuring Thorn St. Croix, are set in a post-apocalyptic world, one hundred, five years after the great disaster struck. And while the apocalypse started out as many of the world’s religions expected, with the appearance of angels, it didn’t end up the way anyone had predicted. After billions of humans had died of the plague the angels brought, and then of war with demons and Darkness, the first generation of PostAp babies were born with the gift of magic. Thorn St. Croix is a stone-mage. And becomes a battle-mage as well.

Edmund – Describe a typical day of writing.

Faith – I am so boring. I mean really boring. My day is utterly mundane. Up at 8-ish. Take the dogs out. Check email and do important but less-than-creative work, like pay bills. Then I start the creative part of my day. To get into the mood and flow of the work-in-progress, I rewrite the previous day’s pages, which can take a few hours if the word and page count was good. I stop for email and brunch. Then I write new content, usually about 6 to 8 hours on the new stuff, which makes my work day 8 to 10 hours. Supper at 8. TV and dogs and hubby get attention. Bed at midnight. Except when I’m on the water, kayaking. Then the schedule goes all to heck!

I also work at a hospital lab on weekends, two 17 hour days. I do this for the benefits, and because I have a love of the job I trained for.

Edmund – Are you an outliner / planner or pantser (someone who writes by “the seat of her pants”)?

Faith – I am an outliner, for sure. Lately I’ve begun to call it OOPS – the Organic Outline ProcesS. It’s an outline of the plot points and the resolution. The organic part is what happens inside the character’s head and heart during the process of the unfolding of the plot. That is always such a surprise! And that surprise factor keeps me writing.

Edmund – You have a new book out, Mercy Blade, the third Rogue Hunter novel. Your main character, Jane Yellowrock, is a skinwalker, meaning that she can change into the shapes of other animals. But you added a unique twist to the character – the voice of Beast. Tell us about Beast and Jane, and how you came up with the idea of them.

Faith – I’ve always heard voices. The story-telling voices not the other kind. Well, maybe the other kind too. J Anyway, Kim Harrison and I were having tea and sharing ideas for new books and series and I bounced the idea of the series off of her. Then I read the first Temple Grandin book and I was hooked on the way the animal brain works as opposed to the way the human brain works. I began to remember the old Tarzan movies. You know, Me Tarzan. You Jane. Beast was born, and became both Jane’s greatest strength and her greatest challenge.

Jane is one tough cookie – a conflicted, capable loaner. She is violent, broken, tender, loving, giving, solitary, a Cherokee skinwalker—possibly the last of her kind. She is … complicated, partially because her own history is lost to her in a version of traumatic, protective amnesia that left her isolated from other humans. She is a modern woman. She is a warrior woman who accidentally did black magic once, very long ago, and now has the soul of a mountain lion inside with her—her Beast. Beast wants to be alpha. And Beast is not always happy to be sharing her body. I thought the series would be a way to unravel who Jane is, but is seems she is growing more complicated! Welllll… Her love life is certainly growing more complicated…

Edmund – If you had to describe Mercy Blade in one word.

Faith – Action! But I’m a novelist, not a poet, so I’ll add to that if you don’t mind. Jane is torn in new and different ways with the appearance of weres on the world stage and in her life. She has an unwelcome houseguest Evangeline Everhart. Rick, her sometimes boyfriend, goes missing. (But is he undercover again or is he in trouble?) Bruiser is always there. But something isn’t right with him either. And then there’s the Mercy Blade (what is he?), and the weres, and the Grindylow, who is a different kettle of fish altogether. It’s not a laidback read. It’s intense, energetic, and has multiple twisted plotlines. As a novel, think of a fast-paced paranormal thriller.

Edmund – What is the next book?

Faith – Raven Cursed is next. I just turned it in to my editor. But after Raven Cursed, I have nothing under contract. My future is dependant on the readers and how faithful they are to the series. Fans make or break books, and writers live on their joy and their love of books. If fans buy books and tell their friends to buy books, then a writer gets contracts. So far, Jane Yellowrock is selling, If I do my job well and the fans like it well enough to do theirs, then there will be more books in the series. All I can do is hope!

Edmund – What advice do you have for writers looking for that first big break?

Faith – Two things. First, www.magicalwords.net, a site dedicated to writing and to fantasy, hosted by a number of excellent writers: David B. Coe, Misty Massey, AJ Hartley, Stuart Jaffe, a certain Edmund Schubert, and lil’ ol’ me! Second, How to Write Magical Words, a Writer’s Companion. It’s available at Amazon and from the publisher, at www.bellarosabooks.com

Thank you for having me here, Edmund!

Edmund – Thanks for visiting with us, Faith.

To learn more about Faith, please visit her at her website: Faith Hunter www.faithhunter.net

Titles, a Follow Up

2011-01-13T08:46:00.001-05:00

A while ago, Edmund wrote this blog entry about titles.

In kind of a follow-up to that, I decided to scroll through my database of slush entries and post some titles that caught my eye. The only qualification is that the title had to make me interested in reading the story. I gauged interest by whether or not I slowed down my scrolling for more than a second to consider the title.

Hillbillies and Hovercars
Dead Letter Box
My Anosmia Blog
Checkerboard Bomb
Redeef's Hungry Wife
Robots Just Want to Get Paid
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
Jump Joint
Free Surprise in Every Box
Death's Last Daughter
Indecent Magical Things
Showing Fairies for Fun and Profit
The Booby-Trapped Boy
Eye of Newt and iPods
Iron Clown Gideon
Jesus Particle
More Than Kin, and Less Than Kind
The Skin of the Lesser God
The Prophet and the Clown
Captain Amberson's Amazing Electric Menagerie
Boys that Bite, Boys that Bark
Feeding the Feral Children
The Truth About Robots
The Tiger in the Forest Between Two Worlds
Heart of Darkest Tortuguero
Inside Things
Artificial Intuition

There are a couple things that strike me about the titles I’ve selected. I like titles that have a little bit of poetry to them—assonance and alliteration, when not overdone, draw my eye and give me the impression that the author is literate and quite possibly even intelligent. I apparently like titles that seem refer to other literary works—is Heart of Darkest Tortuguero an analog for Conrad’s Heart of Darkness? Does The Tiger in the Forest Between Two Worlds make reference to Blake’s The Tyger?

I also like titles that suggest a story—Redeef’s Hungry Wife, for example. That’s conjures visions of an insanely peckish woman, and her hand-wringing husband who tries to sate her. What does he give her to eat? What macabre appetites does poor Redeef try to satisfy?

A third element I notice in these titles is that I seem to be drawn to the combination of words that don’t necessarily go together—like Artificial Intuition. Usually, I hear about artificial intelligence; intuition is word that implies an inborn-ness that is contrary to the idea of artificial.

While I like titles that imply adventure and travel (Heart of Darkest Tortuguero) I noticed while scrolling through the slush titles that stories that use alien and fantasy names in their titles tend to be dissuasive.

Things to keep in mind…

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

First Annual Intergalactic Awards

2011-01-11T20:55:00.001-05:00

We are pleased to announce the First Annual InterGalactic Awards. These awards are voted on by the readers in the following categories:

• Stories
• B&W Illustrations
• Cover Illustrations

In the first two categories, you may vote up to five times, ranking the stories and illustrations first through fifth place. For the cover illustration, you may vote only once.

Each subscriber can submit one ballot.

The voting window will be open until January 31 and winners will be announced in the February 2011 issue.

Orson Scott Card Talks Fantasy and Mapping on Tor.com

2011-01-11T07:47:00.001-05:00

Mapping worlds in The Lost Gate.

Sometimes you know when you’re onto something big. It was the same year that “Ender’s Game” appeared in Analog—my first sci-fi publication. I was working with Ben Bova, and the stories I was selling all had spaceships and rivets and machines. But in my heart, what I loved was fantasy.

No, let’s be more precise: What I loved was Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and George Macdonald’s The Light Princess and C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead and Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd and John Hersey’s White Lotus and Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz and Crowley’s The Deep and Peake’s Ghormengast.

The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola-- Jason Sanford

2011-01-10T08:09:00.001-05:00

As a child I spent many happy summers in Apalachicola, a small town on a small bay on the Florida panhandle. While I was too young to remember all the specifics of the my visits, general impressions of the bay and nearby pine forests remain. Mixed with these memories are the good feelings evoked by the sing-song quality of the word Apalachicola. To this day the name reminds me of the innocent and hopeful times all children should experience.

I tried to capture this innocent and hopeful quality with my story. However, the story is more than that. As we grow up we realize the world isn't all happiness and child-like wonder--that dark deeds and times exist alongside the good. My story is an attempt to contrast this duality with the split between magic and science. Because of what many people see as humanity's mundane existence, people often imagine that it would be a great thing if magic really existed in our world. But I doubt this would be a good thing, for reasons expressed in my story.

--Jason Sanford

Orson Scott Card on Strokes

2011-01-07T22:23:00.001-05:00

Link.

Money shot:

So look, if you're as stupid as I was and you haven't lost weight and got your blood pressure down after ample warnings, I highly recommend my stroke over all the others I've seen or heard of.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Orson Scott Card Suffers “Minor Stroke”

2011-01-04T07:32:00.001-05:00

…and not a stroke of genius, either. :-(

Feel better soon, Uncle Orson!

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

The Vicksburg Dead—Jens Rushing

2011-01-03T08:23:00.001-05:00

When I first saw the (seminal, superlative) HBO series Deadwood, I was deeply moved by a scene where the doctor begs with a silent god to make sense of the suffering that he witnessed during the Civil War. The writing, the acting came together for a moment of artistic perfection, and I wanted to know what the character had seen to reduce him to his current state of despair. In general I am interested by the changes that traumatic events can wreak on humans (survivor's guilt, PTSD, et al) and that, with the episode of Deadwood, led me to consider a Civil War story. The story of Vicksburg is an amazing one - the lengths to which the besieged went for survival, for one, and the - ah - I was impressed by the clemency shown by the victors in this struggle (though, of course, it was shown for numerous political and logistical reasons, more so than humane ones) and consider it a victory of the human spirit that this particular violent struggle, in the midst of such a bitter war, ended with so many lives saved when so many could have been destroyed. I have always despised the idea of a "glorious battle" or a "good death," the idea that war is anything other than a tragic, senseless waste of human individuals, and thus I wanted to write something celebrating humanity in the face of the full horror of war.

--Jens Rushing