It never ceases to amaze me how often the first day of a new month surprises me. Here we are in September already, which means new fiction at Futurismic: this month, the always inventive Lavie Tidhar provides us with “In Pacmandu,” which may raise a few eyebrows at first — but by all means, keep reading! I hope you enjoy it!
Time for some quick Futurismic news! A new month (insert obligatory “already?” here) means new science fiction at Futurismic: stop over and check out a great new story by Nancy Jane Moore, “Or We Will All Hang Separately.”
Oh, and by the way, Futurismic has joined the twittersphere! Follow the site here: @futurismic.
Some months pass, others totally freakin’ evaporate. June was the latter for me…I’m picturing a Dopplering race-car sound effect, in fact. What happened? Is it NHL free agency already?
C.C. Finlay returns to Futurismic’s pages this month with the timely and disturbing “Your Life Sentence.“ When we started publishing fiction, Mr. Finlay led the way with his story “The Factwhore Proposition” — way back in May 2004! We’re thrilled to have him back with another great story. Go check it out!
It’s time for our next fiction installment over at Futurismic: we’ve just posted “Miguel and the Viatura,” a great new story by Eric Gregory which Paul nicely describes as a story that “updates the urban vampire for a nanotech-infested near future in the favelas of the Global South.” This is some cool stuff; check it out!
And speaking of Futurismic, I’ve just announced that we’re reopening for fiction submissions on Monday, June 7th. So if you’ve got a near-future SF story burning a hole in your pocket, get it ready for next week!
Our latest selection went live at Futurismic yesterday (just as I was leaving for work, or I would have posted sooner). Stop over and check out the wonderfully weird and wacky “Windsor Executive Solutions” by Chris Nakashima-Brown and Bruce Sterling!
As of today, I’m completely caught up on responding to submissions in the Futurismic slushpile. Which means that, twenty-eight days into my fiction-editing vacation, I’m finally starting my fiction-editing vacation!
What this means is that rather than starting my morning with coffee and Futurismic, I’m going to start it with coffee and writing. This also means I don’t have to cram writing into my lunch break, so instead, I get to work on GarageBand music, which has been sacrificed lately in the novel push.
Man, it’s nice to have some inventory built up! I expect this state of affairs to continue until early June (tentatively), when we’ll open the floodgates again, and I’ll get back to work.
Paul has just posted our April story over at Futurismic: stop over and check out Eric Del Carlo’s “Out Walking the Streets” at the site. This is Eric’s second piece for us — his first, “Fluidity,” appeared in October 2009. Enjoy!
For those of you who don’t have Futurismic on your feeds (and shame on you!), we’ve just closed the submissions webform and are no longer accepting submissions, temporarily. And no, this is no April Fool’s prank!
The fact is, we’ve recently bulked up our inventory with a number of new stories — enough that I felt we could afford to shut down the form, catch up on the remaining submissions, and take a nice little breather. I still have around 50 stories to review before I’m completely done, which I hope to cover in the next couple weeks. We’ll remain closed for a while after that so I can recharge my editorial batteries. I expect we’ll be back open in a month or so.
I have to admit, I’m really looking forward to some time away. When we cried out for submissions back in early December, the SF world roared into action, and I’ve been playing catch-up ever since. Time for a vacation! (Or at least a virtual staycation…)
Andrew Porter has just posted an interview with me at his website The Science of Fiction, wherein I answer questions about editing, Futurismic, and science fiction in general. This is my first interview anywhere…hmm, that kinda took a while…anyway, I hope folks enjoy it!
I’m pleased and proud to announce that Futurismic’s new short story for March has posted: “Tupac Shakur and the End of the World” by Sandra McDonald. Post-Apocalypse fiction is a very tough sell for me, but this one jumped up, stood out, and forced me to like it — I hope you do too!