Spin rack latest

Those of you who follow me regularly know my policy of buying mass market paperbacks from the spin rack in dollar stores to encourage the stores to stock them (whether I plan to actually read the books or not). I've written about this in the past, with posts such as "The Spin Rack is Making a Comeback".

http://louantonelli.blogspot.com/…/the-spin-rack-is-still-c…

Yesterday afternoon I picked up this book at the Dollar General store in Blossom, Texas.

Word Fire Press Adventure Sci-Fi Story Bundle supports Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

The Word Fire Press Adventure Sci-Fi Story Bundle, organized by Kevin J. Anderson, launched Wednesday.

On his blog Kevin gave a rundown on the books in the bundle:

Strap into your cockpit, fire up the faster-than-light engines, and set course for the nearest star. I’ve got a grab bag of 13 excellent science fiction books all in one new Adventure SF StoryBundle. Get them all for as little as $15, and help out a great charity, too!

I put in a brand new action-packed story, The Blood Prize, featuring the popular character Colt the Outlander from Heavy Metal magazines, with all new art by the Aradio Brothers. Robert J. Sawyer offers his classic novel Far Seer (a planet of intelligent dinosaurs!). Raymond Bolton’s Awakening shows a fantasy civilization on the cusp of the industrial revolution faced with an alien invasion.

You’ll read different adventures on very different lunar colonies in Gray Rinehart’s Walking on a Sea of Clouds, Lou Agresta’s Club Anyone, and T. Allen Diaz’s Lunatic City, as well as Louis Antonelli’s alternate space race and murder on the moon in Dragon-Award nominee Another Girl, Another Planet.

Jody Lynn Nye’s Taylor’s Ark follows the adventures of a star-traveling MD with a specialty in environmental medicine, and Brenda Cooper’s Endeavor-Award winning The Silver Ship and the Sea is a gripping story of prisoners of war abandoned on a rugged colony planet. Acclaimed, award-winning author Paul di Filippo gives a collection of his best stories in Lost Among the Stars.

And for thrilling military SF, the bundle also has Honor and Fidelity by Andrew Keith and William H. Keith, Recruit by Jonathan P. Brazee, and the hilarious adventures of Phule’s Company in Robert Lynn Asprin’s Phule’s Paradise.

The Adventure SF Story Bundle runs for only three weeks. You can get the base level of five books for $5, or all 14 for as little as $15. Pay what you like, and a portion goes to support the great efforts of the Challenger Learning Centers for Space Science Education.

In the aftermath of the Challenger accident, the space shuttle Challenger crew’s families came together, firmly committed to the belief that they must carry on the spirit of their loved ones by continuing the Challenger crew’s educational mission. Their efforts resulted in the creation of Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

Challenger Center and its global network of Challenger Learning Centers use space-themed simulated learning and role-playing strategies to help students bring their classroom studies to life and cultivate skills needed for future success, such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication and teamwork.

Challenger Center transports students to a cutting edge Mission Control room and a high-tech Space Station. Whether their mission is flying to the Moon, intercepting a comet, visiting Mars, or studying the Earth from the International Space Station, students see classroom lessons brought to life in the engaging, dynamic, simulated learning environment.

A not-for-profit 501(c)(3) education organization, Challenger Center reaches hundreds of thousands of students, and tens of thousands of teachers every year.

Latest sale

It's always great to start the month by signing a contract. I'm honored to have signed my contract with B Cubed Press this morning for the publication of my alternate history short story "Queens Crossing" in the More Alternative Truths anthology, due for release in November.

Half dozen tales of the imagination

Between August 15 and September 15 I had to fulfill SIX commitments I made to submit for anthologies. I got them all done, so that's another half dozen stories in the Antonelli canon. They are:

For Superversive Press planet-themed anthologies:

"Last Call" - Mercury.
"The Wrong Venus" - Venus
"The Girl Who Died Twice" - Mars.

For More Alternative Truths - "Queens Crossing".

For Toys Sha'Daa - "Sketches From the Apocalypse".

For Whispers of the APOC - "Stuck in the Middle With You".

The last I recall half of these have been formally accepted.

Well, that's a relief. I'm moving on to new projects now, but if anyone has an upcoming anthology that needs a good story, don't forget, I work fast and cheap!

Take no notice

I've noticed that Mike Glyer - the guy who runs the File 770 web site - has always seemed to believe his self-identified "Sad Puppies" are some sort of minority group that need to be ethnically cleansed.

Glyer lurks around Facebook pages and blogs, and cherry picks postings that he and his coterie of hate-filled commentators can use to attack and abuse those Sad Puppies.

File 770 purports to be a news site about science fiction fandom, but it's extraordinarily biased. I've noticed that if I post something he thinks makes me look bad - even if any normal, intelligent and honest person can't see any problem - he'll copy and paste it for his jackals to feast on.

On Sept. 26 I posted here about my satisfaction at having become a finalist for the Dragon Award on my own terms, without seeking any organized support. I realized this morning, as I am plowing through breakfast, that File 770 didn't take notice.

Now, Glyer's posted more trivial musings - from me as well as from other people - many times in the past. My reasonable supposition is that he can't see any hateful hay to be made from my comments.

Prejudiced and narrow-minded, he and his claque of character assassins would not admit of the possibility that I am a competent writer and that the Dragon awards are an indicator of popular appeal among fandom.

OK, I guess at some level I could be accused of being piqued at not getting free publicity - but that's not really the case.

I just don't like File 770, Glyer, his flunkies, and all the people who are still flogging the Sad Puppy dead horse.

Interesting possibiity

With my alternate history "Queens Crossing" running in the "More Alternative Truths" anthology to be released in a couple of months, it occurs to me that next year I might be in the running for the Sidewise award in both the short and long fiction categories.

The Sidewise is a juried award, so there's no way of telling, but both "Another Girl, Another Planet" and "Queen Crossing" will have been published in 2017; the Sidewise eligibility is based on the calendar year.

"More Alternative Truths" is a sequel to the initial anthology "Alternative Truths", which came out in April and has been very well received. There's probably more than one Sidewise contender between the two volumes.

Cue the Frank Sinatra song

Here's a point I would like to make about being a finalist for the Dragon Award this year:

Two years ago, I solicited support from the Sad Puppies group for the Hugo nominations. I know Brad Torgersen and I thought it would be a harmless way to get support. Unfortunately, the Rabid Puppies picked up a lot of the same nominations (I never asked to be on the Rabid Puppy list) and the cumulative effect - where in some categories ALL the finalists were either from the Sad or Rabid list - provoked a reaction from the s-f establishment - well, we all know what followed.

I vowed afterwards I would not solicit support from any similar organized effort in the future.

This year I lobbied for "Another Girl, Another Planet" on my own. Along the way, some folks gave me their support - such as Jon Jon Del Arroz and Declan Finn - and I accepted it, but I did not go our and seek advance support from any organized sources.

I got on the Dragon ballot that way, on my terms, and I feel much better about that. Yes, I lost to Harry Turtledove in the Alternate History category - big surprise!

I was beaten fair and square, but I was in the running, and I did it on my terms. After the fiasco two years ago, I feel so much better about that.