Archive for the ‘New Sale’ Category

Some Reprint Sales

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I’ve sold a pod­cast reprint of “Storm Comes A’Callin’” to Drabblecast, fol­low­ing up on the 3-​​flash piece sales over there, and I’ve also sold a reprint of “Arties Aren’t Stupid”  to Hub Magazine.

I sup­pose it’s about time I get some new work out there, eh?

Federations Table of Contents

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

Federations | John Joseph Adams.

John has posted the table of con­tents to Federations, the anthol­ogy to which I have made my lat­est sale.  Excuse me while I get a lit­tle starstruck and nostalgic.

The first author I ever shared with my father was also my first sci­ence fic­tion author.  When I was around 8 or 9, I stum­bled across a lit­tle book in my grade school library called Dragonsong by Anne McCaffery.   To this day, it is one of less than half a dozen books I have read more than once, an honor I reserve only for the most impor­tant titles in my life or, books I had to read for more than one class through my long edu­ca­tion. One of the first books I ever bought with my own money was an omnibus of the Dragonriders tril­ogy.    The first (and as far as I know, only) fan let­ter I wrote as a child was to Anne McCaffery.  I think she even wrote back.

My Dad and I read every sin­gle McCaffery book she pub­lished, pretty much.  She was one of those authors who the library sys­tem man­aged to get new books for, oddly enough.  Whereas I was mostly stuck read­ing Golden Age SF in the bow­els of the local library (lit­er­ally, the SF sec­tion was in the base­ment, in the back cor­ner), the new books shelf seemed to always have a McCaffery.

My Dad and I didn’t talk SF very much, but most of the time we did, it was regard­ing the lat­est McCaffery book.  We had long dis­cus­sions when [spoil­ers] Pern turned out to be a lost human colony of space far­ers.  [/​spoilers]  Later books, I haven’t been on top of.  Since her son started writ­ing them, I haven’t read them, not because of any rea­son other than lack of time, and well, nobody to talk about them with.

In one of the last con­ver­sa­tions I had with my Dad, when he was in the hos­pi­tal the day we learned that he wasn’t going to get any bet­ter and that it was time was hos­pice care (a med­ical term meain­ing ‘give up and die grace­fully’), I signed a copy of All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories for him, telling him that he could beat the can­cer like a pulp hero beats up Nazis.     He stood up, all 90-​​some pounds of what was left of him, and gave me the strongest hug I think he ever gave me and he said, “I’m proud of you son.”  I must have acted sur­prised because he said, “I’ve always been proud of you.”

That was prob­a­bly the most emo­tional moment of my life, and will remain so for a very long time. At least until I get to tell my own child the same thing,

Today, I feel like I earned that pride a lit­tle more, and I know that if he were here, he would be as excited about me being in this book as I am.

Sale: “The Culture Archivist” to Federations anthology

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I have the plea­sure of announc­ing that my story “The Culture Archivist” (known to early read­ers as “Fuck U.P.s”) has been accepted to the Federations anthol­ogy, edited by John Joseph Adams and com­ing out from Prime Books some­time in the future, I think later this year.

Here’s an excerpt:

The first goods cap­sule hit half a klick away and unfolded into a blos­som of blue flames.  Judging from the size of the impact, it had to be a habi­ta­tion mod­ule.  The big stuff usu­ally came in first.  Toasters didn’t quite have the same awe fac­tor as four-​​wheel drive vehi­cles and two-​​story starter homes.  But the deliv­ery mech­a­nisms were noto­ri­ously flaky and the goods didn’t always arrive plan­et­side intact. Case in point.

I could make out the smell of fear excre­tions from the Humpty herd in the dis­tance. The debate had turned into noth­ing more than chaotic noise.  Other rogue cul­ture archivists might have taken the oppor­tu­nity to col­lect data on the dis­rup­tion of a native cul­ture, but I had seen plenty of that in my time, both in my cur­rent life and the one before.

The con­sumer goods that had begun to rain down from the heav­ens reminded me of Santa Claus, that mytho­log­i­cal mag­i­cal crea­ture that flew through the air bring­ing toys and gifts to all the chil­dren of Terra, deliv­ered simul­ta­ne­ously on a sin­gle night.  A col­league spe­cial­iz­ing in the old cul­tures long since sub­sumed by the U.P. did a cal­cu­la­tion once based on pop­u­la­tion esti­mates and given how absolutely fuck­ing huge every­thing was back then, and fig­ured that old Santa’s vol­ume of goods to be tens of thou­sands of cubic meters.

This was like that, only if some prim­i­tive gov­ern­ment had fired a surface-​​to-​​air mis­sile and blown that mag­i­cal bas­tard to smithereens.  Merry Clausmas, Humpties.  Try to get out of the way.

Thanks to all the won­der­ful peo­ple who pro­vided feed­back on this story when I was fran­ti­cally try­ing to fin­ish it for the dead­line.  I um, can’t find my list of who you are, so speak up in the com­ments so I can thank you again.

This will mark some­thing like the 4th or 5th sale at pro pay rates that still doesn’t qual­ify me for SFWA.  Heh.

Sale: “This, My Body” to Escape Pod

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

“This, My Body”, my sexy chef story that appeared pre­vi­ously in Interzone 199, will be–I believe– fea­tured in the 150th episode of Escape Pod next week. Steve Eley totally rocks.

Man, this year just keeps get­ting bet­ter! What a fan­tas­tic pick-​​me-​​up after the work events of ear­lier this week.

Big thanks to Rachel Swirsky for encour­ag­ing me to try Escape Pod with the story!

Seeds of Change ToC and Cover Copy

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

John Joseph Adams has posted the ToC of his upcom­ing Seeds of Change anthol­ogy with Prime Books. Some of the authors included are Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Mark Budz, Ken McLeod, and… me!