Author Archives: James Pyles

Looks Like the 2020 Hugo Awards Once Again Sucked

martin

George R.R. Martin –
Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Well this explains it. The article George R.R. Martin Accused of Racism, Generally Sucking After Hosting Hugos (also found at Vulture) contains a link to my December 5, 2018 blog post Is SciFi Author/Editor Robert Silverberg Really Racist and Sexist (or has the internet once again lost its mind)?. It’s gotten hundreds of hits in the last day or so, and I couldn’t figure out why.

Interestingly enough, the article I found as a pingback to Updexnews.com used the phrase “racist history” as part of the link when referring to my Silverberg article, and I hadn’t intended to call Silverberg a racist (really, I’m shocked I haven’t gotten even a single piece of hate mail yet).

On this twitter account, I found the following image posted prominently. It was the first indication I had of yet another WorldCon social purging by the righteous (yes, I’m being snarky…I’ll explain below).

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Loving and Fearing SF/F Fandom

EDIT: I picked up some additional material on the twitter stream and thus the content. Any changes I’ve made in this blog post are bolded.

I started following fantasy author Jeannette Ng on twitter after she gave a rather “unusual” acceptance speech upon receiving what used to be called a “Campbell Award.” I recorded my reactions HERE.

I follow her, not because I’m likely to read anything she’s written, or even that we agree on much (if anything), but to understand differing points of view. Most of the time, I don’t give her much thought, but today, I saw a thread on twitter that caught my attention. I only read part of it since, due to the nature of twitter, threads get nested in interesting ways requiring a lot of clicking and time to open them and read.

So I took a screenshot (several actually, and I edited them together) to capture what I thought were the most representative points. Apparently, the discussion was about what got various people interested in Science Fiction and Fantasy (SF/F).  However it was also a debate regarding progressive vs. traditionalist voices in SF/F, and if it were possible to speak to the positives of what an author crafted while setting aside the more “difficult” aspects of their life (More text beyond the screenshot).

Update: Someone I know on twitter captured a much more straightforward vision of this thread Here. Since people sometimes delete their material, I redid the screenshots and updated the image below. Oh, and Ms. Ng, if you ever get around to reading this… “Stale, pale, male crowd.” Cute.

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My Short Story “The Haunted Detective” To Be Published!

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Screen capture from Facebook

In the last ten days or so, in pretty rapid succession, I got three rejection notices, two from the same publisher. Needless to say, I was bummed. That’s why when Ruth and Ann from Gemini Wordsmiths told me this morning that my short story The Haunted Detective was accepted into their Trench Coat Chronicles anthology, I was thrilled.

I can’t find a formal announcement on their website, but I did find one on a Facebook group, which is where the screen capture comes from.

Here’s part of the submissions call, just to give you an idea of what I had to shoot for:

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Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies) Paperback – May 26, 2020

vol 1

Cover image for “Fantastic Schools, Volume One”

Just found this out. My story “Sorcery’s Preschool” is still on track to be published in Volume Two of this series next month.

In the meantime, if digital isn’t your thing and you prefer a book you can hold in your hands, Fantastic Schools – Volume One is now out in paperback.

Buy them…

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Kathleen Morales and the Bandit Carolinas

oasis

Oasis in the Libyan part of the Sahara – Credit to Sfivat and licensed under Public Domain.

The open sky stretched from sand to horizon and the riders advanced on the oasis. Kathleen Morales led her band of rebel outlaws, two dozen strong, toward the wide, limpid pool surrounded by long grass waving in the torrid breeze under the shade of the broad palm branches. But when they finally arrived at this rare shelter amid a vast wasteland of the east, they discovered they weren’t alone.

The desert bandit swung a leg over her saddle and dismounted, heavy boots making their mark on the damp soil. Her hair, a tangle of magenta, azure, and her natural brown, flew up as she landed, and the gold and silver of her nose and ear piercings sparkled in the filtered sunlight. She marched up to the tiny collection of refugees and declared, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my oasis?”

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Being Superversive in a Subversive World

fantasy

Found on Richard Paolinelli’s blog. No image credit given

Richard Paolinelli has named me on a list of superversive authors (scroll down, the list is in alphabetical order by last name).

Now you may be asking yourself what is “superversive?”

According to Urban Dictionary:

Nurturing; supportive, building up — opposite of subversive

The superversives decorated the object with daisy chains, linked their arms around it and sang “Jerusalem.”

Seems a bit “flowery”.

So how does that translate into writing superversive fiction, and particularly science fiction? Back in 2016, Russell Newquist crafted an answer in What is Superversive Fiction? (I should say that he hasn’t posted anything on his blog since September 2019):

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Day Job and Insomnia

dreaming

Image: alghad.com

I’m beat.

I’ve been working at the new day job for a little over six weeks and I’m loving it, plus they seem to be loving me. The pay is good and I’m working from home. Probably will be too until at least the end of July and maybe longer.

But with doing a bunch of other, littler jobs before that, although the pay was lousy, I had tons of time to write.

Then there’s the insomnia. I go to sleep okay, but wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I’m able to roll over and eventually go back to sleep, but other nights, I’m up for a couple of hours.

Last night, I forced myself to stay in bed, but it seemed like it took forever to doze off again.  I finally was in the space to really sleep when it was time to get up.

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Fantastic Schools: Volume One Now Available

vol 1

Cover image for “Fantastic Schools, Volume One”

Finally L. Jagi Lamplighter’s magic schools anthology Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1) is available on Amazon. It features short stories by Christopher G. Nuttall, Mel Lee Newman, Emily Martha Sorenson, and others.

My short story “Sorcery’s Preschool” will be appearing in Volume Two of the series, hopefully out sometime this in August 2020.

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When Twitterati Troll Women in Action Films

Screenshot from twitter

So I came across a tweet on twitter from someone I follow named “Mara Jade” (@OG_MaraJade). It was a retweet of this.

I followed the link to the source and came up with |Blake| the Villain (@Enemies_Allies) who originated the image. He also said “This was a very successful tweet. They literally just expose themselves.”

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Featured Promotion for “Buried in the Sands of Time”

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Featured announcement from Zombie Pirate Publishing

Since Dastaan World once again has seemed to have crashed and burned, my previously accepted stories The Unreal Man and Surtr and the Phoenix have been “unaccepted,” which kind of stings.

This is why I was excited when I saw the notice at Zombie Pirate Publishing featuring my story Buried in the Sands of Time.

It’s my retro-SciFi tale featured in their anthology RAYGUN RETRO: A Science Fiction Anthology.

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