Crediting the Idea Factory

Last night I was doubting my imagination. I'd just finished a new short story, which was the conclusion of a premise I came up with fifteen years ago. My last three short stories were ideas I'd had for decades. Weary from pain, I worried the only ideas I had left these days were the creations of my younger self.

In my malaise, I started backing up my computer so I could rebuild it this weekend. My writing folder was full of unfinished drafts that I had to open to recognize. They were tens of thousands of words of plots, many I'd created in the last couple months but had been so busy I'd forgotten I'd written.

The idea factory was still open. It just wasn't getting credit.

Guest Post: Great and Terrible - 8 under-used, seriously scary monsters

Today I'm proud to present a guest post from author Tam MacNeil, who's just launched her paranormal thriller Salt and Iron. It's about the youngest member of a monster hunter family trying to make his way in the world - while the world is crawling after him, looking for a bite. To commemorate to the book, Tam wants to introduce us to some of her favorite monsters that you've probably never seen in a novel or movie before.

Monsters are one of my favourite things. Like pantheonic gods they often represent some aspect of human life - fear of mortality, personification of tragedy, unutterable pain, or mental illness. They are expressions of the uncertainty of human existence, which makes them familiar, and that is part of what makes them so proudly horrible. -Tam MacNeil

Gashadokuro - Japanese

One of my old Greek History professors once told me, “History is a body count,” and she was right. Anywhere you’re standing, odds are good somebody’s spilt somebody else’s blood, either through murder or neglect. Well, in Japan there seems to be some social anxiety about that, because Japan has the gashadokuro, the colossal ghost-skeleton.

Usually to be found stalking the unwary traveller with a broken-down car or hurrying home through the countryside at night, gashadokuro are voracious ghosts made up of the bones of those who died violently or of starvation. "Ravenous" is an inadequate little word for these colossal creatures, which are said to devour anyone found on the road at night.

Since they’re said to be invisible, the only way to know if there’s a gashadokuro in your vicinity is by a sudden ringing in your ears. What do you do when your ears start to ring? Run. And hope you’re running away from the monster.

Great Things I Read in February

February is one of those months when I'm grateful to do lists like this. I've been so busy with healthcare problems and editing that, until I checked the list, I thought I hadn't read anything special. Life can get so busy that it's easy to forget all the great art that flies by.

As usual, I'm collecting great short fiction and non-fiction that's free to read on the web.

Fiction

"Between Dragons and Their Wrath" by An Owomoyela and Rachel Swirsky at Clarkesworld

-No short story has haunted me more in the last month than this. The dragons are a metaphysical terror, casting a shadow of mutations across the landscape of two absolutely lovely characters. With scenes whipping by, each has a punch, even in the last line.

"43 Responses to In Memory of Dr. Alexandra Nato" by Barbara Barnett at Daily Science Fiction - I love stories that creatively use unusual real world formats, and here's a story told through a Comments thread. It's a bunch of believers who might be experiencing a haunting, since one of their dead friends seems to have shown up and is poking at their insecurities. It can't help but be funny and creepy at the same time, which is hard to pull off, especially with such limitations. Masterful work.

"Lotus Face and the Fox" by Nghi Vo at Uncanny Magazine

-Two god-masked figures pull off a little robbery in the dead of night, and it keeps up its creative enthusiasm from there. It feels flash-length despite being longer because of energetic pacing and a lovely handling of its world.

"Ars Longa, Amor Brevis" by David Twiddy at The Sockdolager

-Two pretentious master-artists bicker over their accounts of a calamity that their magical arts *may* have brought about. A fine use of homunculi! I actually beta read this story, but it's only grown stronger since the version I saw in 2015.

Bathroom Monologues Movie Awards 2015

It's almost March 2016, so of course we're all talking about the best movies of 2015. If all the griping on Twitter is any indication, I'm once again happy to have skipped the Academy Awards. Naturally I disagree with some of the winners. More naturally, I don't understand what some of the categories mean. But nothing shall dissuade me from telling a sizable democratic body of people who devote swaths of their lives to film that their mass conclusions were wrong. Here we go.

"Foreign Tongues" sold to Flash Fiction Online

I'm happy to announce I've sold my short, "Foreign Tongues," to Flash Fiction Online. FFO is one of my favorite short fiction magazines, and I'm tickled to return there. The story will go live in their April issue.

"Foreign Tongues" is the story of an alien explorer the communicates through taste rather than sight or sound. Upon landing in a strip mall, it decides ice cream is the greatest ambassador for earth, while humans are less savory. They keep resisting being swallowed.

I'm so grateful to Cassandra Williams, Sunil Patel and Arkady Martine for beta reading it. This marks the third time I'll have been published by FFO, and the third time I've been published in their April issue. I think I'm living up to my desire to be their personal April Fool.

Should Obama Replace Scalia?

This isn't about respecting the dead, as Justices have almost always been replaced within six months after they die. Obama has twelve months left in his term.

This isn't about whether a president should be allowed to nominate a new Justice in the last year of a term. FDR, Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Herbert Hoover did just that.

The root of the Conservative objection is that they don't want such a Conservative icon replaced by a Liberal Justice. Antonin Scalia seemed, more than anybody on the Supreme Court, like he was Their Guy (even when he was sometimes selling them out to the Kochs). I can get that, but consider the other side.

The root of the Liberal desire is to see a Justice that doesn't dismantle the rights of racial minorities, LGBT+ people, unions, and the poor for another thirty years. It's not just that Scalia said racist and homophobic things. He facilitated numerous reductions in rights and protections for so many marginalized people, and was at work doing more of this around the time of his death. Liberals are eager to see someone who will stand up for egalitarian values get into the Supreme Court and go to work immediately addressing grave concerns.

It's pretty easy for me to pick which is more important. One side wants someone from their team in power, while the other side wants millions of people who aren't in power to be treated like they're on our team.

Great Things I've Been Reading (December/January Combo Edition)

December ended busily with Books of the Year and Games of the Year posts, so I couldn't fit my normal short story/non-fiction round-up. January is now in our rear-view mirrors, so I figured I'd lump the two months together now.

As always, the rule is that whatever I link is free-to-read with no paywall. The selection will be bigger for this post, but it still feels too short, mostly for the December stories that melted from my memory with the pressure of deadlines and the holidays.

You and I Will Ruin X-Files

If one thing ruins this X-Files revival, it will be us. It won't be Chris Carter's zany and plodding scripts - you liked that twenty years ago. It's not the actors aging - Gillian Anderson has only gained more gravitas with time. No, we've changed. We've changed in a way that can screw this up for us.

I had a great time watching the premiere last night. It captured the unabashed hokeyness of the original series, a willingness to believe things that no one in my social groups does. It is once again a show about Belief and Plot getting along much better than they do in reality. It is once again an escape from the way things are, an itch only Welcome to Night Vale scratches for me these days.

But people got furious over the New World Order conspiracies that flooded the episode. They were angry that the show wasn't doing "better" than Alex Jones and Glenn Beck. Jones and Beck are contemptible in real life, but X-Files is not The Wire. It performs a different function. From the first episode when Mulder spray-painted an X on the street and gauged how much time a flash of light made him lose, it's been about indulging in tinfoil hat thinking.

Last night's premiere was remarkably faithful. The X-Files didn't change. We did.

Most Anticipated Books (and other things) for 2016

Hello, January! What a nice year you've brought behind you. Today I want to share the books I'm most looking forward to this year. Like every year there will be huge surprises, but there's already outrageous promise for what we can read. I've added a couple of games and movies to the end, because anticipation isn't reserved just for writing. But damned if I won't be unreachable the week Children of Earth and Sky releases.

The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster
(Right Now, Tor.com)

The first book on my list is actually releasing this week! One of Tor.com's hot novellas, The Drowning Eyes is a tale of the high seas, and the people that control the wind behind your sails. Wind mages are a great idea for pirate stories. Their power stopped raiders for years, but that magic has been stolen, forcing an intrepid captain to risk her ship and crew to get it back.

A Realistic Spider-Man?

The Russos Weigh In On Their Realistic And Grounded Take On The Amazing Spider-Man #Marvel #SpiderMan... https://t.co/tgXxvOGeIa

— ComicBookMovie.com (@ComicBook_Movie) January 9, 2016

So yesterday the Russo Brothers did an interview about how "grounded" and "realistic" their approach to Spider-Man would be. I couldn't help offering some tips on how a realistic Spidey story would go.

• A realistic Spider-Man? So, a kid is bitten by a spider, gets no powers, and struggles with poverty?
• His widow aunt can't afford their bills, so Peter gets a second job. They're evicted anyway.
• Peter photographs himself as an elusive vigilante. Daily Bugle won't call him back and he winds up with three reblogs.
• Mary Jane swipes left.
• Rich evil Norman Osborn dons a goblin mask and terrorizes the city. Pundits wonder when he'll run for president.

@Wiswell Continued funding of his secret projects is assured thanks to generous campaign contributions to both parties. #RealisticSpiderman

— Keith Manuel (@KeithAManuel) January 9, 2016

• While Peter is at a wrestling show, his uncle is shot. Naturally he blames poor standard of living and NRA lobbyists.
• Boy genius Peter develops liquid steel webbing technology. A troll swoops his patent and sues him.
• Doctor Octopus is a Podcatcher knock-off app that fills Peter's phone with malware.
• A sexy cat burglar is tearing up the city. Peter, who has crushing debt and no powers, never meets her. The end.

Top Ten Videogames of the Year, 2015

Nothing expresses how Three-Stooges-goofy I find ranking art than my own attempts to do so. After Twitter friends said they wanted to read about my Top Ten Games of the Year, I tried and failed to order them. In recent years I've tried keeping lists like this just to remind myself how great videogames are as a hobby, and every year I come up with impossible ties. 2015 was the year of the most goofy ties yet.

Below you'll find:
-A tie between Tenth, Ninth, Eighth, Seventh, and Sixth Place.
-A tie between Fifth and Fourth Place.

-A tie between Third and Second Place.
-And a game that's unlike any of the other nine, and yet I think is my favorite thing I've played this decade.

There is no objective superiority between any of the tied games. Hell, there isn't even a respectable objectivity in the games ranked above and below each other, because it turns out comparing art objectively is ridiculous. Ask me what I think of Awards Culture sometime for a fun rant.

Aside from revealing how goofy ranked lists are, this is my attempt to celebrate 2015 as a year where so many companies created such different pieces of great interactive entertainment. These were necessary escapes from some terrible health problems, and some enriching narratives that gave me great times with friends. The leaps videogames have made in narrative, in the ability to present art design, and in refining mechanics makes it one of my favorite respites. It's so great that I end the list with a bunch of Honorable Mentions. The Honorable Mentions are not ranked because Shut The Hell Up.

BestReads2015: My Favorite Books I Read in 2015

My favorite thing about BestReads is remembering how many special books I encountered in a year. It's easy to take great literature and fun stories for granted, but when I put them side-by-side like this, I feel privileged.

My picks are not ranked. Ranking is generally ridiculous for the arts, but obscene when you're compiling what art moved you the most. As always, the rules are you can list whatever you read for the time this year. You're not limited to what came out this year, as my first pick shows.

If you do your own BestReads2015 post, hit me up in the comments and I'll link you at the bottom of this post.

Christmas Eve Puzzle: Guess the Book!

I have a tradition with my brother. He likes to figure out what's in his Christmas presents, so I give him a book. Unable to figure out which book just by shaking and groping it, I give him clues to the plot, subject and title. It's also tradition that I post all the clues on this website.

This year's title is eleven letters long, so you get eleven clues, one per letter. If you're stuck in an airport, bored waiting for your date, or need something to play with your family for the holiday, feel free to guess along. Post any answers or guesses to the eleven clues below. Some years commenters have cracked this together long ahead of Dave.

1. This record company released more of his albums than any other. They deliberately mis-spelled their name, and this is the only letter than appears twice in it. Hint: see 11.

2. One of the first movies he appeared in never made it to theaters because he allegedly destroyed the negative himself. It was sensitively titled "_____ Tom's Fairy Tales: The Movie for Homosexuals " This is the first letter in the missing word.

3. The last letter in the last proper album he recorded with his label, and his second-to-last stand-up album ever. Compilations and anthology releases came later, but this was it, a one-word title referencing a superhero movie he appeared in that same year. He was a villain.

4. He was born in this Midwestern state. It's the most populous. The first letter of that state goes here.

5. This letter occurs three times in the title. This is the first time the letter occurs, though.

6. This vowel occurs twice in the title.

7. He wrote for this sitcom, titled after its two main characters whose names both started with the same letter. That letter goes here.

8. This is the first letter in a drug he was famous for doing. It's not much of a hint given how many American entertainers have done it, but few set themselves on fire while under its influence. He was a trailblazer.

9. Comedy Central once spent three hours by counting down the hundred greatest comedians of all time. This is the first letter in the number of where he ranked. Hint: he was in the top seven.

10. If a cop asks if you've committed crimes before, they might ask if you have any "prior ____." This is the first letter in the missing word.

11. This record company released more of his albums than any other. The first letter in their four-letter name goes here. The letter also occurs twice in the name of his home state.

Happy guessing!

My Mom's Six Reactions to Seeing Star Wars for the First Time

My mom doesn't really like Fantasy and Science Fiction. She barely reads what I write, preferring more grounded dramas like No Country for Old Men and The Ghost Writer. It's hard for her in a way nerd kids struggle to understand, because like many of our parents, she grew up without much access to cartoons or Fantasy books, and so didn't develop the taste that we have. She knows I love the genres, but can't get into Hunger Games and Pirates of the Caribbean. Or, she couldn't get into them until this year.

Earlier this year she watched LOST and started feeling like Genre Fiction could mean something to her. It had a blend of human stories along with its fantastic elements that made them approachable to her, something I'll probably write up later. In October, fresh out of European movies to watch, she binged all of Fringe, which was the true gateway drug for her. It's gotten me to start watching it, just to find out why it was the silver bullet.

That set her up, though. When the Force Awakens trailer hit, Mom called me up and asked something I'll cherish for years: "Can we watch Star Treks?"

Yes, Mom. We can always watch Star Treks.

She wanted to know about the cultural phenomenon she'd missed, about this weird collaboration between John Williams, the Jim Henson Company, and Harrison Ford. In preparation for the new movie, we watched Lucas's original trilogy. Watching her was more interesting to me than revisiting the films, and I had to share some of it.

#BestReads2015 Is Coming

It's December, which means it's Best Reads time. This is an annual event for bloggers asking what your favorite books were of the last year. BestReads2015 launches Monday, December 28th. That gets it out of the way of Christmas, and gives you a couple more weeks to finish your reading. I know I have five books I really want to polish off before I give up on 2015.

As opposed to Best of the Year lists, this can include any books you read for the first time this year. It includes anything from 2014 you only caught onto now (I presume The Martian will hit a few lists), as well as classics. As someone who's always catching up on older works, my list will probably be half things published over a decade ago. The Color Purple is fricking good.

The tradition is to list your favorite books of the year and write a little about them. You can list as many and write as much about each as you like - there is no mandated standard. A Dirty Dozen or a Top Three? Both work. If you post, let me know and I'll add your link to my post on the 28th. The easiest way is in the comments of one of these posts.

So think on it. What are your favorite books that you read this year? Not what was written or published in 2015, but that you personally read and loved for the first time. Fiction, non-fiction, prose, poetry and sequential art are all welcome. You can handle the number and format as you like.

On Twitter, our hashtag will be #BestReads2015. Feel free to launch questions below. We'll field them together.

KILL ME Props: Twitter, Jessica Jones, and a Thursday with Chronic Pain and Depression

It could be worse.

This is what it's like when it's bad.

Thursday is one of those nights. I intended to push four miles on the elliptical, but by dusk it feels like my spine is being pummeled whenever I sit up, and lying down makes it worse. The medication is definitely failing, so I can't even walk downstairs. My mind is thick with the fog of pain regulation, by all these alarms telling me to escape my own skin. I can't write or edit. I can barely make it through a couple paragraphs of anyone else's work. My friend's story beta will have to wait.

Twitter is something I shouldn't check when the pain is like this. Most often when people are happy, they enjoy the moment and neglect social media. You have more time for wifi when you're bored or angry. It shows.

Tonight people are outraged about anti-Muslim sentiments in America and Europe. Islamophobia will kill more innocents by the end of the year than all the terrorists attacks of the last month, but I can't get my brain to form cogent comments on it. Tweets cluster around the House's bigoted bill to prevent more Syrians from taking refuge here, but most tweets are just pissed in general. I want to support them because this could landslide, but am tag-teamed by the mental exhaustion of the pain, and the sense of worthlessness that depression always uses to dissolve good intentions.

Great Things I Read in November

My November reading got cut short by some health problems, but I still crossed several amazing short pieces. Since October, I've started a tradition of linking to the best free short fiction and non-fiction pieces I read in a given month. Most of these were published in November (naturally), but selections can come from anytime, so long as there is no paywall between the reader and the story.

I'm always looking for more great stories. If you have anything you've been loving, please link me up in the comments.

Also, this feature needs a better title. Please rattle off ideas if you have them.

Fiction

"The Game of Smash and Recovery" by Kelly Link at Strange Horizons 

-That Link magic kicks in after half a paragraph, when you realize Anat isn't just an adoring little sister, but a flamethrower-wielding vampire hunter. Possibly part of the last duo on earth. In such short scenes it alternates between dark and funny (the vampires might be stranded aliens?), bittersweet (she longs to meet her absent parents, and dreads her brother disappearing), and legitimately sweet (those birthdays, though). I adore how all the bits come together. Link remains one of the greatest short story writers I've ever read, doubly admirable for continually trying the hard things and making them look easy.

"Dispatches From a Hole in the World" by Sunny Moraine at Nightmare Magazine

-Trigger Warning for Suicide. This is a story about a viral epidemic of suicides that science has so far failed to figure out or combat. The grant student goes through case after gruesome case, gradually being worn down by the awful things she studies, and we fear she'll be infected by whatever this thing is. Could despair itself be a villain of Horror?

"The Customer Is Always Right" by Anna Salonen at Mothership Zeta 

-One of those successful all-dialogue stories that pulls off the sense of things actually happening while all you get is chatter. Also, death rays! It's the story of a customer service call for a malfunctioning death ray and just gets funnier as it goes along.

"Horror Story" by Carmen Maria Machado at Granta

-After all the Horror I've read, why did I relish a short that's mostly about figuring out what creepy crawly was stalking their apartment? Because Machado's story uses those tropes to deliver something else entirely at the end. She unfurls her idea slowly and assuredly, through gradual hints of a drain malfunctioning, of escalating blame, in a tight package that hands off to an abrupt and highly unusual ending.

Non-Fiction

"Everything is Miscellaneous: Why Publishing Needs Tagging" by Michael R. Underwood at Boing Boing

-There are more books in print today than you could ever read, so we need better methods of discoverability. Underwood recommends adopting fanfic-like tagging systems, with idea clouds identifying this novel has Dinosaurs, Coca Cola Product Placement, and Steamy Sex Scenes. It works for Trigger Warnings (hold your outrage; they're useful to people with actual psychological triggers), but are also greatly useful in finding books to meet your specific mood. Amazon has pushed its sub-categories, but the book-space still needs more robust discoverability options. It's an excellent proposal.

"How to be a Genderqueer Feminist" by Laurie Penny at Buzzfeed

-Feminism is supposed to be about equity for all, but historically has had trouble supporting anyone but cis white women. It's getting better, and discussions like this one are why. Here is a beautiful article about someone who identifies as neither male nor female, who believes passionately in some of Feminism, but whose identity is met with hostility by many adherents. It's food for compassion and expanding dogmas.

"Indonesia plans prison guarded by crocodiles for drug convicts" by Kesavan Unnikrishnah at Digital Journal

-"It’s not a human rights violation when a crocodile does the killing," says Slamet Pribadi, proposing a prison guarded by crocodiles. If you want to read it and gape in horror or laugh at the absurdity, it works for both. This, the Inodesian government believes, will be safer because unlike human guards, crocodiles can't be bribed.

"Campus Activists Weaponize 'Safe Space'" by Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic

-Breaking down the recorded instance of Tim Tai, an Asian American photographer who was bullied by a crowd of fellow students into not photographing events in a public space. They demanded he not touch them while marching towards him, said he had no right to photograph them (and ignored when he explained the First Amendment), and claimed the space was only for students despite the photographer being a student at the university. Tai was contracted for the work by ESPN, an outlet the protesters dislike, and so bent every rule available to themselves to intimidate him. Safe Space policies are necessary and indispensable, but it's important to consider how they can be abused as we move forward.

"How Binding of Isaac fans ended up digging holes in Santa Ana, California" by Patrick Klepek at Kotaku

-The Binding of Isaac is a videogame that's gained a cult following for being weird, but its latest expansion took that further. Fans suspected there were hidden levels, enemies, and characters locked away with no sign of how to reach them. Players dug up files from inside the game itself and followed the developer's cryptic tweets until they were combing real-life wilderness and amusement parks for clues over what was in the game. You dream of engaging with your audience that profoundly.

Giving Thanks for Blood Banks and Balloon Malfunctions

I went on a little Twitter rant Thursday morning. It was a positive rant, which is unusual because rants are not usually positive - nor are tweets. It felt weird seeing my string of gratitude filter between people griping or giving half-hearted thanks for tiny things in their lives. Often I'm like that, because you get caught up in your own norms and anxieties. 

But if you have the privilege of internet access, something that would have passed for magic in any time before that of our grandparents, you can be thankful for more than toast. Sometimes it's useful to remember that. So here comes an obnoxious barrage of things I'm glad are real.

For instance, I'm thankful for the crossovers cosplay affords.

"Making Her" in the inaugural Charleston Anvil

I'm proud to announce my short story, "Making Her," is live in the inaugural issue of The Charleston Anvil!

"Making Her" is one of the Bathroom Monologues I'm most proud. It's an unusual dialogue-only story in that it doesn't tell the normal conversational plot. Instead, it's about the people trying to define a girl's life for her as she's just trying to grow up and stay sane. If you miss my experimental fiction, this one's for you.

My story is running alongside work by Andrea Tsurumi, John Butterworth, and Randall Nichols. Randall has contributed his short, "The North Star," a neat tale I had the privilege of beta reading a while back. It's even sharper now.

The digital version of The Charleston Anvil is on sale forPay What You Want. That means you can download it for free right now. They'll be able to afford more authors and issues if you feel like contributing a little, but they'll leave how much it's worth to you. It's a model I respect.

Your Daredevil Fanfic Minute

Foggy: No no no no no.

Matt: What's the matter, Foggy?

Foggy: I just realized this guy is going to kill one of us and you're the main character.

Matt: You're the plucky comic relief.

Foggy: In a Marvel thing.

Matt: They wouldn't.

Foggy: MATT HE LOOKS LIKE JOSS WHEDON

Ten Times When It's Okay to Say "Merry Christmas"

1. On December 25th.

2. As you're leaving a Christmas Eve party.

3. The week before Christmas, as you part company with someone you probably won't see in the next week.

4. Weeks before Christmas, as you spot someone putting up Christmas decorations.

5. In November, to a senile person whose delusion you don't feel like challenging.

6. On Halloween, if your costume is Santa Claus in a hilarious joke that only you'll find funny - but that makes it funnier to you.

7. In the sweltering mid-weeks of August, when pursued by a shadow that is not your own, which can only be banished back to its infernal prison by a touched individual uttering the two-word invocation that saints once emblazoned upon its soul.

8. As an in-joke among friends. Irony is "in" with some people.

9. As your safe word, when feeling uncomfortable during BDSM.

10. On December 26th, when you're so hung over that your loved ones pity your lack of chronal awareness, and it's frankly a miracle you can say words at all.

True Events

Let me tell you the problem of Based On True Events. Because a lot of friends don't know it, but there was a time when I was chased by a pack of wolves through my high school? They got into the locker room from the neighboring woods, and the janitor locked them in. But I got to school early and didn't know, and they got loose. I almost died.

I hid in the Math room for two hours before Animal Control got there. I'll never forget how they sounded, sniffing beneath the door.

Actually, what I've just told you is only based on true events. The true events are that I saw a poster of a wolf in the locker room once. Also I got to school early a lot.

"The Terrible" is live at Daily Science Fiction

My superhero short "The Terrible" is now up and free to read at Daily Science Fiction! It follows The Terrible, the self-proclaimed greatest villain in America's greatest city, as he thinks to finally kill off his heroine. Tonight is not going as he intended. It springs from the relationship I wish more heroes and villains had. No spoilers.

I want to thank Max Cantor, Tam MacNeil, and Cassie Nichols for beta reading this thing, and convincing me that while demented, it was a good kind of demented. Also to Sunil Patel, whose Twitter goading got me to keep the heroine's name. It is my favorite superhero name I've ever invented.

In other news, I'm packing up for my last convention trip of the year, to the annual World Fantasy Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. Last year's was one of my all-time favorite cons, and this year I'm doing a panel! Drop by at 4:00 PM on Thursday, when I'll be part of Monsters as Devourers, discussing the psychological roots of why we tell so many stories about zombies and werewolves coming after us. It should be a blast.

Cool things I read in October

Happy Halloween, everybody! While I prepare for World Fantasy, I wanted to share some of the great things I've been reading. I'm only linking short fiction and articles that are freely readable online, no paywalls, and no novels.

If you want to hear about novels I've loved recently, well, just ask me about Beloved.

Fiction
"Dear Monsanto CEO, This is the Sentient Strain of Corn You Developed and We Need to Talk" by Tyler Young at Daily Science Fiction
-A case of writer envy. The title alone tells you the brilliant premise, twisted by particular satire at Monsanto, a pernicious American company whose genetically modified crops are subject to constant debate. But here the corn tells us it appreciates all we've done for it. It's learned from us like a child. Why, it's even learned about mutually assured destruction...

"Glaciers Made You" by Gabby Reed at Strange Horizons
-Bonnie keeps finding messages on her skin, and they keep peeling off, relating to some mystery in a distant mountain. The language is exquisite in this one, lines carefully chosen as well as often chopped up. Scenes end prematurely and in anxiety; passages of poetry Bonnie finds peeling off her skin suggest a far greater whole than she understands. It doesn't feel like a cheap tale of weirdness that turns out to be madness. Rather it's about a girl's growing obsession with mountains her skin has told her about, and wanting to be soothed over what seems so baffling in his world. It's a sort of Literary Fantasy any aspiring writer should read, to remind themselves this too is possible.

"The Apartment Dweller's Bestiary" by Kij Johnson at Clarkesworld
-One of those shorts that gets accused of "not being a story," which reminds me that fiction doesn't need to be a story. Rather this short is a list of the bizarre creatures found around an apartment, their natures reflecting the flaws in a couple that are falling apart. There's an obvious and heart-aching story hinted at throughout the entries, getting a troublingly deep strike at what makes us tick, but the point isn't the alluded tale. It's a unique Kij Johnson experience, which is why I keep re-reading it.

"Ro-Sham-Bot" by Effie Seiberg at Fantastic Stories of Imagination
-Originally appearing in Women Destroy Science Fiction, this gives me all of Ex Machina I want in a twentieth of the time to consume. It's a story of robot manufacturing with literal heart. What do the characters want to do with that heart? Click through and find out.

"8 Steps to Winning Your Partner Back (From the Server) " by A.T. Greenblatt at Daily Science Fiction
-Another very short one that makes me want to shoo you over there rather than tell you anything about it. It's one of few recent Online Games-ish stories to get me, in part because its told in eight very tiny installments with precisely chosen language, so each plot cog whirs pleasantly. You don't get more romantic than, "Only the most difficult and exclusive two-player mission will do."

29 things a character might do at the end of a scene rather than faint (with affection, for Arkady Martine)

This will make very little sense to most readers, but sometimes it's good to review how a scene can end. While I was stuck in the doctor's office, I came up with as many ways to end a scene as I could before they came for my blood pressure.

1.      They are rendered unconscious by deliberate usage of an ironing board

2.      Their pings to the server drop and they disconnect from the cyberpunk dystopia

3.      Being a ghost, their visible form loses its connection with our corporeal plane

4.      Being a corporeal person, their astral presence loses its connection to the higher (or lower) plane

5.      They resolve a personal and/or plot goal, making both them and the reader a little more satisfied in their journey through this book

6.      They have to exit to prepare for an attempt at resolving a personal and/or plot goal

7.      They are about to resolve a personal and/or plot goal, but are interrupted by villains (bonus: they can resolve this wrinkle in the climax of a later scene)

8.      They discover their love in the arms of another and must leave, lest they are indiscreet

9.      They discover their love in the arms of another and join in the poly fun (fade to black ending for modesty)

10.  The torrid sex comes to a climax

11.  They pretend to pass out in order to avoid a conflict

12.  They turn around, and their companion has vanished! A cursory search does not reveal the companion's location, requiring investment in a new scene

13.  They are consensually teleported to another location (bonus: the setting of the next scene)

14.  They are non-consensually teleported to another location (bonus: the setting of the next scene; bonus ii: conflict!)

15.  They catch their sidekick, who has just fainted

16.  The family of slime molds tells them the coast is clear, and they should get some rest; the drama seems over for now

17.  There's a knock at the door, and they are distracted and tell the party to enter, only for the party to be someone of such awkwardness for the protagonist that they themselves are rendered most comfortable by leaving (bonus: social cowardice that they can overcome in resolving a climax to a later scene)

18.  They spend the scene in transit, and arrive at their destination too early; they must stop and wait

19.  They conclude a revelatory dialogue that is not at all cryptic or annoying, and does not leave the reader yelling at the book that two more sentences would have explained this whole thing

20.  They are interrupted by an invitation from a mysterious party to have an interlude that is not meant for sensitive ears

21.  They just barely fly the ship through the asteroid field, escaping and leaving the enemy fleet behind

22.  They are abruptly pursued by a bear (bonus: several scenes end in abrupt bear chases until resolving the bear subplot is the end of its own scene)

23.  The guy who could solve all of this and seemed like a would-be hero is publicly executed (bonus: you get a seven-book series of scenes out of this)

24.  Their seemingly unbreakable sword is shattered, and they are impaled to death (problem: POV switch probably necessary in following scene?)

25.  They arrive with the wrong wine and have to return to the vineyard through the moonless night

26.  They upload their mind to the mainframe of the space shuttle, making a scene-break tonally appropriate for the shift in perception

27.  Their schizophrenic episode reaches a close

28.  The surreal world-warping event reaches a close

29.  They jump to moon to avoid talking to their aunt (bonus: next scene gets to open with an explanation on how the hell they can do that)

If you're wondering, my blood pressure was below normal.

Short Story Publications, and a Bonus!

If only all my posts could have this much good news. The editors at Podcastle just produced their latest episode, which includes an audio version of my short story, "Wet." You can listen to it for free right here.

"Wet" follows the unusual friendship between an immortal and a ghost stranded in Arizona. This is a reprint of a 2014 story of mine, originally appearing in Urban Fantasy Magazine.

Daily Science Fiction has also posted its Table of Contents for October, and I have a brand new story appearing for them on October 27th. "The Terrible" is about a supervillain who takes his heroine for granted. It's my tribute to Wonder Woman.

And just before Halloween, SF Signal will be running a Mind Meld on children's movies that terrified us. I'll be contributing, but if you want to know what beloved classic scared the crap out of me for an entire decade, you'll have to click back over in two weeks.

Last but not least, I've also been invited to a panel at Saratoga's World Fantasy Convention. I'll be joining expert authors for an hour of Monsters as Devourers - figuring out what human-eating  monsters have always wanted out of us.

Let's celebrate by shipping Jason and Sadako, by artist Bryan Lee. 'tis the season.