Upcoming at ConDFW next weekend -

My schedule starts Friday at 3 p.m. with a panel on alternate history, "For Want of a Nail". It will be held in the Madison Room, and I am moderating. The other panelists are Julie Barrett, Melanie Fletcher, Katherine Eliska Kimbriel, and Rie Sheridan Rose.

The panel's description is as follows:

"How big of a change is needed to change history? The traditional tale of losing a war due to not having a nail for a horseshoe is a perfect indicator that not much is needed. However, if you make small changes you need to be able to predict where the nail falls, so to speak. Our alternate history experts talk about how to alter history in ways which are quite subtle, but create huge results."

I've gone to conventions over the years where the programming seems random and a bit arbitrary, or at least inexplicable, when it comes to what's handed me, and then there are times when the panels indicate my someone actually ready my biography and bibliography with an eye towards the choices.

This upcoming ConDFW has one of the best matched up line-ups for me, if not the best, I've ever seen. Having been a finalist for the Sidewise Award in 2013 gives me a modicum of respectability as an alternate history author.

Of course, anyone who plans to attend the panel needs to buy"The Clock Struck None" as the primary textbook.

Note the First: I will never, however, complain about convention programming because the people who do it are volunteers, and any time anyone gives of their time freely like that is to be thanked, and if there are any inadequacies, they're only human. A number of years ago I left a convention halfway through because my programming was messed up, but it was because of the human factor; it was when the Great Recession was beginning to bite and people were losing their jobs left and right. As it happened, that was the last time that convention was held, it didn't survive the Recession.

Not the Second: One of the best panel line-ups I ever was presented with was from last year's WorldCon. LonCon offered me panels on both Alternate History and Steampunk, but I had to renege on my offer to participate because the newspaper I worked at was sold in June and the bastards refused to honor my two weeks' paid vacation accumulated under the previous owners. I went from 14 days vacation to zero, and LonCon went out the window.

"Captain of the Clouds"

Sunday and Monday I banged out my latest short story, a retro-pulp dieselpunk alternate history called "Captain of the Clouds" It starts with an eleven-year old boy on a raft in the Mississippi who pulls an airship captain out of the water after he is tossed overboard when his dirigible is hijacked.

It's a cute story with a happy ending. I'll probably never be able to sell it. The major genre magazines only want stylish bullshit about how much the future's gonna suck. But I really pretty much write for myself, so who cares? I like it, and that's all that really matters. If anyone else happens to read it and also like it, that's so much gravy.

Sidewise award finalists

The Sidewise Award judges are pleased to announce this year's nominees for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History.  The winners will be announced at Loncon 3, this year's Worldcon, in London, UK during the weekend of August 14.  The Sidewise Awards have been presented annually since 1995 to recognize excellence in alternate historical fiction. This year's panel of judges was made up of Stephen Baxter, Evelyn Leeper, Jim Rittenhouse, Stu Shiffman, Kurt Sidaway, and Steven H Silver.

Short Form

* Vylar Kaftan, “The Weight of the Sunrise” (Asimov’s, 2/13)
* Ken Liu, “A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel” (F&SF, 1/13)
* Adam Roberts, “Tollund” (The Book of the Dead, Jurassic London)
* Kristine Kathryn Rusch, “Uncertainty” (Asimov’s, 3/13)
* Harry Turtledove, “Cayos in the Stream” (Tor.com, 8/7/13)
* Ian Watson, “Blair’s War” (Asimov’s, 7/12)

Long Form

* Robert Conroy, 1920: America’s Great War (Baen)
* Mark Hodder, The Secret of Abdu el Yezdi (Pyr, Ebury)
* D. J. Taylor, The Windsor Faction (Pegasus, Chatto & Windus)
* Bryce Zabel, Surrounded by Enemies : What If Kennedy Survived Dallas? (Mill City Press)

The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were conceived in late 1995 to honor the best allohistorical genre publications of the year. The first awards were announced in summer 1996 and honored works from 1995. The award takes its name from Murray Leinster's 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time," in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with their analogs from other timelines.

I was honored to be a finalist last year for my story "Great White Ship" that was published in Daily Science Fiction in 2012.

I had predicted earlier in the year that Ken Liu's short story "“A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel” would be a finalist, and I was right. Hope it wins, too.

On collections

"The Clock Struck None" is my third collection in five years; "Fantastic Texas" was published in 2009 and "Texas and Other Planets"in 2010. "Clock" seems to be getting the best reviews of the three so far; the positive review in the Reference Library of Analog is very gratifying.

I picked up two tricks over the years from various writers that have contributed to all these collections. First, I learned from Jay Lake that — while learning of one's craft — it doesn't hurt to submit often and everywhere. There are some authors who only submit to pro publications or publications of a certain level. But I saw a long time ago that Jay Lake was willing to submit to any publication which — in the phrase used by a fellow author once on a panel — "has a pulse". Jay is certainly an accomplished author, and I have to say that I think the constant writing has helped me improve my craft; 82 stories published in 11 years is a testament to that.

I learned from Joe Lansdale that developing a large body of published short stories gives you the ability to assemble a collection whenever needed. Joe has had hundreds of stories published over the years and he can pull together a collection with any theme whenever asked.

Fantastic Texas was obviously a collection of Texas-themed stories. "The Clock Struck None" is all alternate or secret history. Eventually I suppose I will be able to assemble a collection of space opera or time travel stories, too.

Praise for "The Clock Struck None"

The Reference Library column by Don Sakers in the upcoming July-August double issue of Analog focuses on short fiction, specifically collections and anthologies, and he has high praise for "The Clock Struck None":

"It’s possible that you haven’t run into the stories of Lou Antonelli. Since 2003, he’s been publishing delightful short tales of alternate history all over the nooks and crannies of the SF world. Thanks to Fantastic Books, we now have 28 of these little gems in one place.

"Many of Antonelli’s stories have an unexpected twist ending. And many of them are what he calls “secret history” stories, which aren’t exactly alternate history—they’re set in our familiar history, but there’s always some element that contemporary observers missed. For example, take the time travelers in “Meet Me at the Grassy Knoll.”

"As for alternate history, well, one of the included stories, “Great White Ship,” was a finalist for the 2013 Sidewise Award, which is given for outstanding works in the field of alternate history. In “Pirates of the Ozarks” the New Madrid earthquake of 1812 turned the Great Plains into a new sea. “The Starship Theodora” posits a universe in which a Christianized Roman Empire conquered the stars."

"Port Radium"

Finished my latest alternate history this evening, "Port Radium". Comes in at 3,905 words; contracted over 300 words this evening in final edit.

This is the story where Douglas MacArthur's family immigrates to Germany instead of America and he is an officer in the German Army in World War II.

Nice piece of business: Field Marshal Macarther smokes a meerschaum pipe instead of a corncob.

This is the 120th short story I've ever written, the 8th this year. I'll figure out where to send it tomorrow, I already have 17 stories circulating.