The glossy, full-colour, 76-page inaugural issue of the long awaited Empress of Mars quarterly SF magazine is now available either in print, or in downloadable ebook format, from Magcloud: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/296025

This issue features fiction and poetry from Hive Mind authors, Bren MacDibble, Tracie Mcbride, Stuart Sharp and Mark J. Howard, and an interview with SFF author, Gregory Frost, of the Shadowbridge series of novels, by Alexandra Wolfe.

Artwork featured in the issue comes from the talent of Martyn Rotherham, Jane Hunter and Mark J. Howard.

Check it out now!

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For more information, check out Dreadnought Press at: http://dreadnoughtpress.com

Hey All -

The most amazing, splendiferous John Claude Smith has a collected works of horror, The Dark Is Light Enough For Me, out in all e-formats and ready for your reading pleasure. Stop in and grab yourself a copy at either Barnes & Noble or Amazon!

“Twelve intricate, dark tales of bittersweet madness, twisted desires, and souls in crisis explore the deepest realms of the human, and not so human, condition.”

Print – $14.00

eBook – $6.00

Download Preview, FREE!

I’m puzzled, fascinated, and inspired by the emergence and overwhelming success of genre books featuring strong women protagonists, such as Sookie Stackhouse, Mercy Thompson, and Annja Creed to name a few. It’s not that I think there is no market for male leads in genre books, but the trend says that women are hot. Thus, I started to rethink my male protagonists. Could I insert a woman in a traditional male role like Kara “Starbuck” Thrace in Battlestar Galactica?

In environmental activism fiction, men rule the genre, attempting to live up to Edward Abbey’s character Hayduke. I wanted to see if I could insert a female lead character and still tell a successful environmental activism – action – story. Several of my early drafts were published about the internet, so I believed that there must be some market for both environmental activism fiction and environmental activism that starred a female protagonist that aspires to be like Hayduke.

My protagonist had many names in those early drafts, but I finally settled on Inez Wick. Inez, according to Think Baby Names, means “pure” and Wick, according to The Free Dictionary, is “A cord or strand of loosely woven, twisted, or braided fibers, as on a candle or oil lamp, that draws up fuel to the flame by capillary action.” Thus, to me Inez Wick means “the pure one who draws fuel to flame,” a good name for a protagonist who blows up those who pollute the environment.

Once I found my leading lady, I started to focus my attempts on writing an environmental activism – action – story. Early publishers and supporters of those first attempts include: Tuesday Serial, “The Bike Mechanic;” eFiction Magazine, “Apophis;” Evolve Journal, “Spilling Sunlight;” and The Hive Mind, “Beyond Peaking.” I owe all of these outlets a debt of gratitude for not only their support but for their motivation.

Then a light went off, a moment when everything seemed to fit. I had almost 40,000 words of loosely linked stories about an eco-heroine, well to be honest, a mostly tragic heroine. I got the idea to self-publish, mostly inspired by Tonya R. Moore’s online publishing success through Smashwords.  However, Smashwords did not seem to fit my needs, so I looked at both Create Space and Lulu.

My wife, poet Jessica Fox-Wilson, author of Blameless Mouth, and I decided that we would jointly use Lulu to publish and distribute our books under our press name Everything Feeds Process. We like the ease of the publishing tools and book templates. The tools do take some getting used to, but I feel like a pro now. However, early on in the publishing process, I did have my share of frustrations.

My biggest frustration was in the selection of book size. I wanted a smaller sized book, something close to a mass-market book. However, after fully formatting and readying my book in the template, I discovered that the distribution package did not support the book size I initially wanted. I was disappointed. Yet, after holding a copy of the distribution supported sized book, I was relieved that it still looked and felt like a book. I’m very happy with the finished product.

Still, the cover options that are set in the Lulu cover tool look like amateur Power Point creations. I knew I wanted a cover that would pop and draw attention to my writing. As luck would have it, I work with a talented comic artist Bob Lipski, author and illustrator of Uptown Girl. He and I chatted, and I provided a physical description of Inez Wick. He then created the cover for the book. If you are interested, you can see the evolution of the cover on Lipski’s blog here: Cover Me.

Now that the book is out, I’m ramping up the self-promotion. I just started the Virtual Release Party, of which this post is a part. I started a Facebook page for the book a couple months ago, which is a fun place to discuss the themes in the stories. And I’ve also asked for help from many friends and fellow writers, including The Hive Mind (thanks for letting me ramble).

To close, if you like this post and want to know more about The Many Lives of Inez Wick or just want to chat, check out the Facebook page or my personal blog, Soulless Machine.

 
Laughter is the best medicine, thought Carl. And he desperately needed a dosage of giggles and guffaws about now. It’s the only thing that deterred the desire to kill.

Well, most of the time.

He entered the ironically titled Laughing Hyena Comedy Club seeking to suppress what his body ached to become, shuffling to a stool shrouded in darkness at the back of said club. Looking to the stage, he listened to the fidgety comedian.

“So my wife, um…she got pregnant—”

“No fault of yours, eh?”

Carl glared at the heckler. He hated hecklers. They were never funny. And Carl needed funny right now. He needed to laugh. He couldn’t help himself, the acid roiling in his belly like a tsunami trapped in a water balloon: “Shut up!”

Everybody gazed into the darkness at the back of the club; the darkness disallowed their perusal. The heckler waved his hand, a mocking hello. Carl ignored him.

Undeterred, the comedian continued: “Yeah, it w-was my fault. Anyway, when she had the baby there were…complications.”

Carl felt it in his bones, felt it scratching under his skin…

“So, um…m-my wife asks, ‘Can I see my baby?’ and the doctor says, ‘Yes,’ and leads her into a room where there’s a baby on a bed with no arms and no legs…and she asks, ‘Is that my baby?’ and the doctor says, ‘No,’ and she says, ‘Oh, what could be worse?’”

The heckler peered pensively into the darkness, itchy to respond.

“So they go into the n-next room and there’s a head on a pillow, and she asks, ‘Is that my baby?’ and the doctor says, ‘No,’ and she says, ‘Oh, w-what could be worse?’”

Carl felt it rising in him. He liked sick and twisted humor. But he needed the comedian to get to the punch line quicker. He felt himself changing, his snout elongating, and the pin-pricking rash of bristly hairs pushing through his skin, shredding his clothes.

“So, um…yeah…they go into the next room and there’s an eye on a p-pillow, and my wife asks, ‘Is that my baby?’ and the doctor says, ‘Yes,’ and she says, ‘Oh what could be worse?’ and he says—”

The heckler blurted through his invisible muzzle: “He says, ‘I suggest you name him Cyclops because—’”

Carl pounced on the heckler, tearing out his belly, pressing powerful forelegs into the man’s chest while his short hind legs sat clumsily on the man’s lap. The abrupt attack nailed everybody to their seats. The comedian’s face went white.

Carl turned, snout moist and dripping red, and said, “Punch line.”

The comedian stammered illegibly.

“Now!” barked Carl.

“And the doctor s-says, ‘It’s blind.’”

Carl emitted a growling hiccup of joy, of laughter; everybody joined in. The comedian smiled.

Naked and satiated, Carl sprinted out the exit as his transformation from laughing hyena back into man had commenced, derailing the desire to kill…for now.

After all, laughter is the best medicine.

THE END

© JOHN CLAUDE SMITH

 
When writing science fiction, hell, when writing any kind of good fiction, especially when it involves world-building in any shape, way, or form, we (as writers) are always looking to be extra creative in naming things: places, people, everyday objects.

It’s not coming up with catchy titles for my work that drives me nuts, nor do I usually have problems naming my characters, as I’m always stealing names out of the phonebook, from newspapers, or some mispronounced name the TV newscaster botched last night on the news. That’s one of the fun things about being a writer, collecting lists, and I mean, lists of names for possible future use.

No, I usually hit a brick wall when I’m deep into a sprawling SF saga, covering not just a local star system, but several, where I not only have to create the planets, cities, continents, exports, livelihoods, populations, but also make them uniquely distinct from one another without them all sounding like I plundered an Afrikaan dictionary, or learnt Swahili, or Urdu over coffee at the local Starbucks from a guy who swears he’s a linguistics professor at the local University.

Not only is it an amazing amount of time-wasting fun, it’s also infuriating and, at times, so frustrating I end up pulling large wads of hair out my scalp. Yes, it’s true, I’m a bald blond!

And now, all but half way through the second draft of my latest novel—COME THE INQUISITOR—I’ve passed the ‘Oh, this is fun,’ part and arrived at the ‘Oh shit!’ part where I’ve run out of background material, and things are beginning to stall as I have to suddenly dig up some more research.

And yes, before you ask, I do do extensive research and make and compile copious notes before I even start writing. It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. You always arrive at a point where you forgot something or, usually, someone critical to a plot point and simply cannot, but cannot, for the life of you dredge up one more name, or one more bit of information, off the top of your head.

So here I am, asking *you* dear reader, what you think about naming planets, do I go crazy and throw in lots of apostrophes that annoy everyone, or keep it simple?

Personally, I dearly love to plunder our own historical past and unearth some long forgotten civilization’s glory to utilize. I mean, how many of you have read or even heard of Akkan before now?

Right, I didn’t think so. Not unless you got this month’s National Geographic and you are scratching your head going, hmm, that one sounds familiar. But what the hell. Here’s just some of the choices I’ve come up with.

Vote early, and vote often by utilizing the comments, and tell me what *you* think. Yes, no, some, all, who the hell cares?

Planetary Names:
• Panthos (giving Panthosians)
• Panthia (giving Panthians)
• Akkad (giving Akkadians)
• Kronus (giving eh, Krononites?)
• Malakhai (giving Malakhainis)

Character names:
• Rekha Sharma (F)
• Saru Khan (M/F)

Dang! I need more…suggestions, ideas…anyone?

WRITTEN BY ALEXANDRA WOLFE