A useful idea

I understand that in some countries today - the day after Christmas - is called Boxing Day. I have no familiarity with the tradition, but it sounds like a great idea. Gather with family members one day and be superficially polite, and then the next day, square off for pugilistic confrontations to relieve the stress and work off the grievances accumulated the day before. Brilliant! We should do that in the U.S., we'd probably be all less neurotic.

Christmas Gift Story

An American soldier is left dying, impaled on a tree by a German bayonet, the result of an encounter during the Battle of the Bulge that left the members of both the American and German patrols all dead around him.

Then he hears a rustling in the sky...

As my holiday gift to all my fans and friends, I offer an unpublished short story, "The Twilight Angels". Email me at solacesdaddy@yahoo.com and I will forward it to you.

My list of personal - but unsung- favorites

The start of the nomination period for the Nebula Awards has made me think to pay tribute to stories I read in the past that I personally enjoyed very much but didn’t pick up any of the most prominent awards. I like to think it’s a testimony to how much great short fiction has been written over the years. My appreciation list is as follows, in chronological order:

1. “The Judas Bomb” – Kit Reed, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1961.
2. “Eyes Do More Than See” – Isaac Asimov, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1965 (Finalist for the Nebula, did not win).
3. “Wild, Wild Horses” – Howard Waldrop, Omni, June 1988.
4. “A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows” – Gardner Dozois, Asimov’s, Oct. – Nov. 1999 (Nebula finalist, did not win).
5. “Going After Bobo” – Susan Palwick, Asimov’s May 2000.
6. “The Raggle-Taggle Gypso-O” – Michael Swanwick, Tales of Old Earth, 2000.
7. “May Be Some Time” – Brenda Clough, Analog, April 2001 (A Hugo and Nebula finalist, but not a winner).
8. “Neutrino Drag” – Paul Di Filippo, Sci Fiction, August 2001.
9. “Lincoln in Frogmore” – Andy Duncan, Asimov’s, Oct. 2001.
10. “I Saw the Light” – Terry Bisson, Sci Fiction, Oct. 2002.

I began to write and submit myself in the fall of 2002, so I arbitrarily stop my list there.

Smoking saved his life

Twenty years ago, I worked at a newspaper and did an interview with a local man who was a Pearl Harbor survivor.

He said that morning he was up and among the first men to eat at the Mess Hall at Wheeler Field because he only had so much time for breakfast, and after he ate he wanted to take a smoke break before starting his duties of the day.

After gobbling breakfast, he and some buddies exited the mess hall and were right outside, puffing away, when the Japanese bombers arrived.

The concussion of the bombs dropped into the mess hall blew open the doors and threw him and his buddies onto the tarmac. As he picked looked up, he realized the Japanese had targeted the mess hall to kill all the men eating breakfast. I can't repeat what he said went through his mind at the time.

He served the entire war and came out alive. Fifty years later, when I interviewed him, he was still angry about the attack.

And he still smoked.

Always willing to help my friends - and do that "Good Turn".

Most you probably don't know I was a Boy Scout. That's how I got my start in journalism. I was a Patrol Scribe and I earned the journalism merit badge.

The Scouts's slogan is "Do a Good Turn Daily". And this weekend I did my daily good deeds, for two very different people - Jon Del Arroz and Howard Waldrop.

In Jon's case, I posted his novella "Knight's Training" on the SFWA reading list for the Nebula awards. Jon is not a member of the SFWA, but you don't have to be to to have a work listed on the reading list. Since I am a member, and since "Knight's Training" is worthy selection, I posted it myself. I'm sure some people will enjoy it. In fact, the last time I checked it had more views than my own story I posted in the short story category, "This Planet is a Hole".

As for Howard, I picked up the phone and gave him a call Sunday just to chat and get caught up. I didn't go to Armadillocon this year, where I usually see him.

In the course of the conversation we talked about the late, great Gardner Dozois. Howard contributed one of the many tributes to Gardner that were featured in the September issue of the New York Review of Science Fiction, which was a special memorial edition for Gardner.

Howard bemoaned the fact that he wanted to read what everyone else had written, but he couldn't get his hands on a hard copy. I told him that I had downloaded the PDF of that issue, and I would print it out and mail it to him.

Which I did. It went out in the mail Monday.

Nebula nominations are open

To any of my friends in the SFWA, I have posted my short story "This Planet is a Hole" in the SFWA Forum for Nebula nominations.

This story was written between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 on the morning of Saturday, January 13, 2018. Editor Dawn Witzke was online at the time and I emailed her the story immediately. She accepted it at 9:58 a.m., which makes for less than an hour and half from start to acceptance of a story.

I think that's a record. If you are an active or associate member of the SFWA, you are eligible to nominate it for the Nebula, if you like.

I woke up screaming...

You know when you have a day when everything seems to go wrong? Yesterday, Friday the 16th, was one of those for me.

It started badly. Like I said, I woke up screaming. As a diabetic, I've had muscle cramps in my legs before. Apparently early in the morning my foot became caught in a fold of a blanket and as I tossed and turned in bed my foot cramped, and then my leg.

If you've ever had these type of cramps, you know they are very, very painful. I woke up screaming and in my panic to extricate from my blankets I nearly fell out of bed. I had to sit on the edge of the bed and massage my legs for ten minutes before I could even stand up.

After a while I limped to the office, where we later earned Windtream has just spontaneously decided to disconnect our phone lines. If you call the main number you get a message it's no longer in service; if you call the fax machine you get the same message but you still hear the fax machine trying to pick up in the background.

Windstream said they have a work ticket on it and it should be fixed by 6 p.m. MONDAY.

Monday is the busiest day of the week at the newspaper office. Thanks, guys.

At the end of the day, I told Patricia I wanted to pamper myself and we went to a local restaurant where I ordered a rib eye steak for dinner.

I never got it. We waited an hour and ten minutes and then gave up and walked out. We went to McDonalds for quarter pounders.

Yep, we all have days like that.