"The Starship Theodora"

I got a note in the mail today from Wesley Kawato, who runs the small print magazine Nova S-F, that Issue No. 29 is almost ready for the printer. My story "The Starship Theodora" will be the feature story for the issue, according to Wesley.

Nova S-F is a nice small print magazine that been around many years, a real labor of love for Wesley. He printed my short story "Good Old Gal" is Issue No. 18 in the fall of 2006.

"The Starship Theodora" will be my third publication this year, my 64th since 2003.

Ah-choo!

I spent Monday doing some serious spring cleaning at the cabin we own near Cedar Creek Lake - about 120 miles from here - and I stirred up a lot of dust. I was practically incapacitated Tuesday and Wednesday by an allergy attack. I left work after a half day Wednesday. I'm better now, and back to the normal East Texas spring allergy attack.

Feedback on "The Centurion and the Rainman".

I don't know that Buzzy Mag's fiction has been reviewed anywhere as yet, but the comments that have been posted on the web site about my story have been very heartening:

Phil Einhorn: Will we be be seeing more of Doncard? It appears he just got this new job:) Honestly, I enjoyed the story and feel it is an introduction to life in Magtown. I liked it.

T. Glenn Bane: I love hard boiled cop dramas. You have hit a neo-noir/pulp vibe that I enjoy. Good Stuff.

John Thiel: A good picture of magic oozing loose.

Yolanda Rose: The take on autism is nice. Reminds me of an old classic SF novel where the Earth was coming out of a dampening field and intelligence gets raised so that many animals became sentient and very low functioning retarded people became geniuses.

Theresa Bane: This was a really enjoyable read. you really captured that cop drama. Wonderfully written and I hope to see more.

"The Return of Alfred Bester"

Finished another flash, took two days. For the sake of consistency - or superstition - I brought it in at 995 words, just like "The Relic". I'm dropping "The Return of Alfred Bester" in the mail to Gordon Van Gelder at F&SF.

I'm trying to get caught up on a backlog of story ideas, and in some cases, they are little more than conceits, but I seem to be spinning a few of them into bona fide flashes.

Latest tale

My original plan for today, to do some roof repair at our cabin, came a cropper when the car died in the garage. I called the wrecker; still haven't got a verdict. Since I was stuck at home, I decided to put the time to good use. I banged out a flash, "The Relic", that came in at 995 words, and dropped it Uncle Stan's lap at Analog for consideration for Probability Zero. That's the 102nd story I've written.

Got a copy of Space & Time magazine in the mail. I had forgotten they agreed to finish out any subscriptions for Realms of Fantasy. Pretty smart move, actually, I don't think I've ever seen the magazine. I will give it a read.

Recount

I went and recounted my stories from my bibliography in the Wikipedia listing, and I counted 61, so "The Centurion and the Rainman" makes 62. And now David and Mary Gray's spring issue of 4 Star Stories is live, and it leads with my story "Encounter in Camelot". features an old Texas scrap hauler, a crooked Texas cop, and The Lake of the Lake. Your view of the Arthurian mythos will never be the same...

And that makes story No. 63.

Taking stock

The publication of "The Centurion and the Rainman" By Buzzy Mag is the 61st story I've had published since June 2003. I've written 101 stories since 2002, and right now I have a dozen in various slush piles. I have six that should run by the end of this year.