Category Archives: science fiction

2021 Helicon Award Winner for “The Three Billion Year Love”

“The Three Billion Year Love” wins a 2021 Helicon Award for best short story in an anthology

First of all, no one is more surprised than I am to have won an award. I have no idea what the nomination process was or how I got on the list, but “wow.”

I actually found out on Facebook first before I checked my email. Then once I did, I saw that Richard Paolinelli announced it on his blog:

Thanks to our new overlords and masters in Silicon Valley, the announcement of the 2021 Helicon Awards has been moved up 36 hours.

Check out the 16 winners and buy the books and discover some great authors!

Yes, it’s been a rough week for a lot of us, especially as many high tech platforms continue to censor anyone who leans even slightly right, but I’ll cover that another time.

Anyway, that leads to the 2021 Helicon Award Winners announcement.

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Waif

AlexandraSophie on Deviantart

Twin pairs of leather aeronaut’s boots crushed brittle green leaves and stems as gently as they could. Amanda Westcott and her love Wyatt Ellison approached the unconscious girl as quietly as if they were entering the room of a sleeping baby.

“Oh God, Wyatt, you were right. She is here, but how?” Amanda appeared some six or so years older than her thirty-year-old companion, but her hair was a rich and thick ebony restrained only by her pilot’s goggles. Equally “restrained” as it were, was her full figure, dressed in her leather aviation jacket, scandalously short knee-length wool skirt, and shear black silk stockings, she looked both innocent and alluring.

She bent over slightly as if to touch the child but then held back, perhaps not wanting to disturb her.

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TICK TOCK: A Time Travel Anthology (500 Fiction) Available Now

Promotional image for my short story “The Tenth Second.”

Well, it’s too late to add the science fiction anthology TICK TOCK: A Time Travel Anthology (500 Fiction) to someone’s Christmas stocking, but you can buy for your New Year’s reading pleasure either as a digital book for your Kindle or as a paperback .

There’s quite a number of time travel tales contained within its pages, and each complete story is a mere 500 words long.

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Review of The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976: “But What Good Is It?”

Cover image of Lester Del Rey’s “The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976

Finally finished The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976 by Lester Del Rey and I must say it is both very informative, and for long stretches, pretty boring.

This is one of two (probably) reviews, and today’s write up is the most “controversial” of the two.

The book was published in 1980 so 40 years of science fiction have passed since Del Rey opined “But What Good Is It?” in the 34th chapter. To Del Rey, the purpose of science fiction was to entertain, but then he remarked on page 348:

What disturbs me more is the whole concept of purpose as applied to any literature. To the Marxists, intent upon subordinating everything to the good of the state, the arts must serve a direct purpose of life — usually propaganda, I’m afraid. But why people in this country accept such Marxist ideas is a puzzle.

Del Rey died on May 10, 1993, about 13 years after penning this tome, and I’m glad he didn’t see what’s happening to field of science fiction today.

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“Tick Tock” Anthology of Time Travel Stories Coming Soon!

Promotional image for my short story “The Tenth Second.”

The Black Hare Press science fiction anthology Tick Tock will become available on December 15th, barely a week away. It features my short story “The Tenth Second.”

This series is unique in that each story accepted had to be five hundred words long. Imagine dozens of such stories, each one about time travel or some manipulation of timespace.

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You May Be Able to Check Out Amazon Digital Books From Your Local Library

Screenshot of James Pyles Amazon Author’s Page

I don’t visit Mike Glyer’s File 770 very often for a variety of reasons. One of them is that Glyer publishes content so frequently, and I don’t have the bandwidth to always consume it (so when I do visit, the sampling is very sparse). Also, having attempted to interact with his audience in the past, I’ve found at least a few of them to be remarkably hostile, and why talk to people who are going to hate you, right?

Anyway, curiosity got the better of me today and I peeked in at Pixel Scroll 12/4/20 The Rest Of The File, To Scroll Man, It’s… It’s A Filkbook!. I shot past the SFPA Officer Elections because I don’t care as well as someone eating a pizza, but stopped at “Hope for Libraries.”

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It Was Only a Matter of Time

Found at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. No photo credit given.

Dominic bowed his head to hide his face. Cameras were everywhere, on top of traffic lights, bolted to building eaves, and the incessant buzzing of drones were always eyes for them.

He stalked the streets by night but they used infrared. Curfew was coming, so he had to find shelter before the “riot police” came out in force. The young thief (yes, he could admit it to himself) deliberately bumped into his mark. He was just young enough, affluent enough, and naive enough to believe it was an accident.

“Sorry, excuse me,” Dom murmured without stopping. He managed to lift keys and wallet. The rich hipster was walking toward a technically illegal, but covertly state-sanctioned all-night club. He wouldn’t notice his keys for a while, and unless Dominic had missed his guess, the sap already had a permanent account, so he wouldn’t be reaching for his credit cards either.

He’d been heading for a club, but coming from a garage.

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Coming Soon: Superversive Sunday Spotlight

Screenshot from the Superversive Scribe blog

Every Sunday, author and editor Richard Paolinelli spotlights a different writer in a one-on-one interview. Last week he even turned the focus on himself.

This coming Sunday, November 22nd, the interview will be with me.

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Planetary Anthology Saturn’s Promotional Video

saturn

Screenshot of the promotional video for “Saturn”

Nearly a week ago, I published the blog post “Saving the Apostle” to be featured in the Planetary Anthology “Saturn”. This is particularly exciting for me because most of the time, I can’t write science fiction with a religious theme, particularly involving Judaism and Christianity, that is, with any hope of seeing such a tale published.

Heck, I’d written the story originally for a Christian science fiction periodical which turned it down.

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