Tag: kickstarter

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anthology writing

No Sh!t There I Was: Uranus Calling

For today’s dip into the table of contents of this anthology (hey, we’re halfway to our goal! KEEP GOING!) I have for you Uranus Calling by Devyani Borade.

As you can imagine, with an opening line like No shit there I was, we got a number of submissions from writers who took it a bit literally. And I’m not going to lie, the best of those stories are represented in the anthology. I’M ONLY HUMAN, PEOPLE, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME.

Devyani went a step beyond though, a free association from shit to farts to butts to the planet Uranus, and the results are hilarious. (In our heart of hearts lives a five year old child.) The gassy heroine of Uranus Calling, Tina, receives an urgent distress call from Uranus (no, really) and must produce a Clever Plan to save the planet from a terrible fate after flying there in her inflatable spaceship with her obnoxious cousin Tommy.

The absolute charm of this story goes far beyond giggling at some well-timed fart jokes. If you, like those of us on the anthology crew, grew up reading Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, there’s an immediate mental connection between Tina’s tale and the Adventures of Spaceman Spiff. Tina and Tommy’s trip out to Uranus has that same feeling of imaginative illogic that we found with Calvin, and you’re never quite sure if the adventure is real, or if any moment Tina’s mom is going to come out of the house and yell at the kids to come in and have dinner, and please stop farting on each other, it’s not funny.

(Mom’s wrong. It’s very funny.)

Uranus Calling pins the silly end of the tonal spectrum for the anthology. It’s all in good-natured fun. I’d say it was clean fun too, but you should probably wash your hands first.

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anthology writing

No Sh!t There I Was: The Storyteller’s Sleight

And that’s how I ended up at the gambling table with a motley collection of aliens.

Wait, let me back up and tell you the whole story.

I knew Wren Wallis‘s The Storyteller’s Sleight was special from the first paragraph. This is not a story that tentatively dips its toes into the world or winks coyly at being space opera. You get thrown right into a colorful, rich universe full of myriad aliens and people and cultures without apology. You know you’ve only just scratched the surface as you follow the plots and tales of Esmat, the titular storyteller. There’s an incredible amount of world building depth visible in less than 5000 words.

(One thing I asked Wren right away is if there are more stories about Esmat, because I want to read more about her and the fascinating universe around her.)

And all that? Is the sumptuous backdrop for a heist that takes place during a game of chance, one that keeps you guessing about just what Esmat’s plan is until the end. I loved this story because it drew me in and kept me guessing–and I loved all of the players in it, sketched out with dialog and action. I have to give a shout out here to Captain Pham, the host of the game, who spends the entire story Done With Everything. (“The next person to ask me why anyone else at the shitting table got invited can show themself out the shitting airlock, right?”)

I’m a sucker for this kind of technicolor space opera, and for fun heist stories, and for clever storytellers. So no shit, there I was. And there you can be too, if you support the Kickstarter!

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anthology writing

No Sh!t, There I Was: Steal From the Sun

The great RNGesus has spoken! Today, I get to tell you about Steal From the Sun, by William Ledbetter, yet another amazing story you can read if you support the Kickstarter and get the book.

Bill actually goes back to the very inception of this anthology–no shit, there he was. I mentioned my idea for getting a bunch of science fiction and fantasy writers to do stories with this classic starting line at a panel, and he said he thought it was a great idea. “Okay,” I said. “But you’d better submit something if I do this.”

He said, sure he would, in that laughing way that I tend to assume means actually no. But then he did. Bill’s a man who puts his story where his mouth is, and he spun me a tale of two wisecracking guys who are basically space auto mechanics, trying to retrieve Mariner 10 from its orbit near the sun.

There’s a wide range of stories in this anthology, and my slush jackalopes and I mentally arranged them on spectrums between two poles. From the moment I read Bill’s story, Steal From the Sun, I knew I wanted it. And I knew it would pin down the “hard scifi” end of the spectrum. It’s got everything I could want out of a hard science fiction story in the style of the classics–space ships, physics, witty banter, and people solving engineering problem after engineering problem as the hull temperature slowly creeps up and threatens to cook the intrepid heroes.

Oh, and a flirtatious news anchorman who is adorable.

And unlike some hard SF that has left me cold before, Bill balances his elements in a perfect mix of cheeky wit and engineer porn that I was doomed to love. I jammed Steal From the Sun into the “I WILL HAVE THIS” file so fast I probably gave the pixels friction burns. It was almost–almost–the first item in that file, only the necromantic weasels got there first.

But that’s a story for another time. Literally.

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anthology writing

No Sh!t, There I Was: The One About Jacob

As promised yesterday, I asked the great god RNG to pick a story for me to tell you about today, and it has. That story is: The One About Jacob, by Tyler Hayes.

The One About Jacob is one of the few dark/horror stories that made it into the anthology–we didn’t get a whole lot of horror submissions, and that’s just fine, because I’m not that big of a reader of horror either. And it’s one of those stories that I didn’t read and immediately body slam onto the YES I WILL HAVE THIS list–because it did its work in a much subtler way. It crept up on me, day after day, and I found myself just thinking about the story, and the eerie nature of it, and the creepy final lines, until I finally had to beg: “Look, if I put you in the ToC, will you please stop whispering in my ear when I’m trying to make my morning tea?”

And Jacob smiled, that game, preternaturally likable smile of his, and said “Sure.” (He was lying.)

The One About Jacob is a story that’s about the power of stories people tell each other, both positive and negative. The way stories can bring the wounded together, and the way they can warp and twist and become something truly awful without anyone ever intending the end result. It’s also about the tenuous nature of free will, and how it’s a bad idea for anyone to have the power to change peoples’ minds in a permanent way, but an even worse idea when we’re talking pissed off, lonely, fucked up teenagers. Because this is what happens when people can literally create their own perfect friends, when perfection tends to hide something monstrous and ugly beneath.

It’s an excellent, creepy story, and it’s in No Shit, There I Was. Reason number 1 of 24 to support the Kickstarter so you can read it!

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writing

No Sh!t, it’s a Kickstarter, and have I got a book for you.

IT’S MY FIRST KICKSTARTER EVER LOOKEE LOOKEE!

I mean, just LOOK at this cover. My first ever anthology's cover. HOW AWESOME IS THIS?
I mean, just LOOK at this cover. My first ever anthology’s cover. HOW AWESOME IS THIS?

That’s right, everyone. The No Shit, There I Was speculative fiction anthology is THIS CLOSE to becoming a reality. A reality in which you get 24 amazeballs stories that I would wrestle a roid raging great white shark for, no shit. I’m excited and a little bit terrified, and I may be reloading the Kickstarter page every five minutes, so if you’d like to help my productivity level, please throw in your support and tell all your friends about my ridiculous anthology. Because the sooner we get completely funded, the sooner I can stop obsessively F5ing.

(Though let’s be real, I’m not going to be satisfied until we get line art and pay the writers even more, because trust me, they deserve to get paid more.)

But here’s the plan. Just in case you need convincing about how super double whip fudge velociraptor delite-filled this anthology is, I’m going to spend the next month(ish) telling you about the stories you’ll have access to once your have a copy of this anthology in your hot little hands. Just about every day, I’ll RNG the table of contents and write you a little blog post about whichever story comes up, to tell you why I loved it.

Stay tuned. (And did I mention I have a Kickstarter that could use your support? Because I totally do.)