Gibberish from Jayme

Jayme Blaschke had some very kind comments about "Texas & Other Planets" on his blog "Gibberish" yesterday, which I herewith reprint:

So, Lou Antonelli has a new book out. This is news like Charlie Sheen saying something crazy is news. Happens pretty much every time you turn around. Lou has become one of those, whatchamacallit, "proflific" authors. He writes short stores. Lots of 'em. Fortunately, most of 'em are pretty good. Dandy even. I know there have been one or two occasions where I've been struck with a twinge of jealousy because Lou thought up a clever concept before me (and by "before me" I mean "never in a million years would I strike upon that idea").

Lou published his first short fiction collection, Fantastic Texas, back in 2009. It was a compilation of all of his science fiction and fantasy stories set in--you guessed it--the Lone Star State. Fast-forward to 2011. Lou's got his second collection out, Texas & Other Planets. This one contains a bunch of Texas-themed stories, but as the name implies, there are some other planets thrown in there for variety.

Oh, and I wrote the introduction.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Why would Lou, who seems a relatively sane and level-headed fellow (the Charlie Sheen reference above notwithstanding) commit certain career suicide with such an ill-considered move? Well, I'll tell you: He's trying to commit career suicide. It's the only explanation. That, or he felt some sort of misplaced obligation due to the fact that I was the first editor to ever publish him back when I served as fiction editor at RevolutionSF. I published quite a few of Lou's stories during my tenure, all but one (if my memory isn't betraying me) eventually earning some Year's Best honorable mention or other. I generally use overblown, gushing comparisons when discussing them, such as "Evocative of a classic Asimov logic puzzle, with better characters" or "channeling Bradbury." They're mostly included here, along with Lou's "A Rocket for the Republic" which marked his first professional sale to Asimov's. It was also Gardner Dozois' final buy before he stepped down from the editor's chair. He wanted to go out on top, I suppose. In any event, I bust Lou's chops pretty good in the intro, so it's safe to say he'll never make the mistake of asking me to write another intro for him again. That's probably a moot point, though, because of the career suicide and all. So what you folks need to do is rush over to Amazon and buy that book right now before it's too late. You'll be glad that you did.