Saturday, February 23, 2008

I, Alien

Just put this up on my recommended reading list. A few more comments below:

I, Alien - first-person accounts from the point of view of the Other, usually but not necessarily interacting with humans. The great majority of the stories in this collection were strong and absorbing. Most of the rest were at least entertaining, with only two real "misses" in the collection (Aortic Insubordination by Batya Swift Yasgur and Barry N. Malzberg, and Harvesting by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Sorry, guys). Unfortunately, they were right next to each other, which does bring me to my only major quibble about I, Alien - it might have been better organized. Most of the comedic stories were in a bunch near the front, with the collection turning more serious / esoteric as it continued. Until about a third of the way through, I was going to complain that the back of the book doesn't properly emphasize the humor element.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Also ...

Changed my excerpt on my webpage to a bit from another retired story, "Worlds Overdue." It's the opening half page or so, at least in the font I write.

Warrior Codes

I was pretty sure of this one - the editor was very complimentary when he told me they were holding the story for review - but it's great to have confirmation: Warrior Codes was just sold to Art & Prose. This was initially a challenge at Fantasy-Writers.org to write a story that could have the title "Butterknife Samurai" - I chose to do it by entering the word samurai into wikipedia and using the most interesting disambiguation entries.

Monday, February 04, 2008

BASH Review

A bit less positive on the count of my story, but I'm not too fussed as - this was my first sale. And a solid overview of the collection:

http://otter.covblogs.com/archives/025685.html