Cover art for the anthology “Rush and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, Volume II
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This is it! Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, Volume II is available starting today in both digital and paperback format.
The anthology contains my science fiction short story “The Joker and the Thief.”
Here’s a little something to whet your appetite for the whole story:
PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox
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Phaedra the fugitive approached the shore. Not what she expected after the anguish she had suffered.
“Where are you?”
Her bare feet shuffled across the cool sand as she walked toward the odd collection of driftwood. A seagull hung suspended in the morning sky while another one “coo-cooed” on the beach.
Hot tears welled up behind her eyes but she refused to cry.
“You were supposed to tell me the secret.”
The dawn above turned off like a desk lamp. Phaedra saw alien stars across the dome and then something else. Her world was not a world, but a spaceship.
© James Pyles
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I’ve been reading Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries for a while now and found them to be a great science fiction series. I’ve reviewed them all on this blog if you want to do a wee search and take look.
That’s why when I read the seventh and latest edition, System Collapse (2023), I thought I’d missed a step or two.
The story started out slow and I felt like I was walking in at the middle of a movie. I read the last book only four months ago, but I still had trouble following who was who (in most cases) and what the heck was going on.
Murderbot is changing. He/she/it/they had some sort of spontaneous shutdown following a false memory where its leg was being eaten. I suspect that our protagonist is becoming a bit more human all the time whether they like it or not. This may be a setup for future stories, but given how flat most of this book was, I’m not sure I’m anxious to go on.
PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot
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“I’m to receive a pardon, so I won’t kill myself breaking anymore rocks with this damn sledgehammer.” William Henry Van Schaick, former Captain of the riverboat PS General Slocum took a challenging stance in front of Sing Sing prison’s newest and most brutal guard.
“You’re not out yet, Van Schaick, and if it was up to me, you’d serve every day of your ten-year sentence. My sister, two nephews, and a niece were killed because of your negligence.”
“It’s not up to you. President Taft himself has said he’ll sign my pardon.”
“Not if you’re shot trying to escape first.”
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Coming soon! (Before the end of November)
Featuring a Foreword written by Henry L Herz.
With 30 stories written by:
PHOTO PROMPT © Lori Wilson
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“Whatever you have on tap is fine.” William hoped he said that right. The woman behind the bar smiled and served him a light ale. Although he superficially recognized his surroundings, everything was different, especially in terms of how people treated each other.
He was served and paid what the man who sent him here told him to. He and his father Robert Owen were going to change the world starting with New Harmony, but that was two centuries ago. After utopia failed, he was granted a boon to see what the future held.
The 21st century wasn’t paradise either.
Cover art for the Blue Planet Pres anthology “Far Futures 3”
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It’s here.
My science fiction short story “Confluence” is now available in the Blue Planet Press anthology Far Futures Book Three – Deep Space.
The Amazon blurb says:
In Far Futures Three, some of the talented and rising authors in science fiction from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, have offered their diverse visions of life in deep space. Stories of broken generations ships and malfunctioning holograms. AI enhanced humans fleeing the solar system. Alien abductees taken light-years away. A NASA spacecraft highjacked in a perilous first contact scenario. Pirates and scavengers and more.
Here’s a small sample:
PHOTO PROMPT © Mr. Binks
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“I thought it was a cross up there for a moment.” Simon had to take a deep breath at the surprise and then sighed with disappointment.
“You shouldn’t say that out loud, you know,” his wife Evelyn chided. “If anyone nearby hears, they’ll report us to the constables.”
“It’s my fault for suggesting we take a different route for our evening walk. Oh, look. Noah’s rainbow.”
“Are you insane?” Evelyn’s voice came out as a hiss. “You know the government designated the rainbow for exclusive use, and not by Christians anymore. It’s illegal.”
“An old man can dream, can’t he?”
© James Pyles
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I must have originally read Harlan Ellison’s landmark SF/F anthology Dangerous Visions (1967) sometime in the mid-1970s, but I remembered nothing about it when I picked up the book again. I only decided to re-read “Visions” because it was mentioned by a publisher as part of their open submissions call.
When a publisher throws their gates open and allows any and all (with certain caveats) authors (would be or established) to submit a story to them (usually in an anthology), they sometimes offer hints or ideas as to what kind of stories they are (and are not) looking for.
One such strategy is to suggest the author read some of the stories they’ve already published. Another is to ask the writer to read other novels and anthologies they favor.
Recently, I read an open submission call that suggested, among other books, Ellison’s original “Dangerous Visions.” I can’t say whether I submitted to that publisher or not. I step away from a certain percentage of them for a number of reasons. This can include them being just too darn picky (too many hoops to jump through), they are only open to a certain population (usually those they believe are marginalized), or they’ve rejected everything I’ve ever thrown at them in the past and I’m resigned to that publisher never liking my writing.
So I checked out a copy of “Dangerous Visions” from the public library to see what I could see.
Image captured from Amazon
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Periodically, I get emails from Reactor Magazine. I must have signed up for them once upon a time. I usually scan the article titles and then delete the email unless something especially captures my attention. After all, so much of science fiction and fantasy targets an audience other than me.
But today, I saw the article When Did SFF Get Too Big?. The subtitle is, “Is it possible to pinpoint the moment when readers stopped being able to keep up with their favorite genres?”
I didn’t know this had ever been an expectation. That is, I hadn’t realized that lovers of science fiction and fantasy were supposed to read each and every title produced in the genre in a given year. Especially if you’re talking about reading all these books just as they’re published (brand new), that’s a lot of money to shell out (maybe some will end up in the “New Titles” section of the public library, but still…). How do you know you’re going to like each and every book? What if you know that some authors generally produce dreck but keep getting published anyway?
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