JeremiahTolbert.com: SF Writer Web Designer Photographer

Posts Tagged ‘strange horizons’

The Strange Horizons fund drive, with member card art by me

Filed Under: Photography, SF Publishers

Strange Horizons, one of the internet’s longest running professional online speculative fiction magazines, is completely funded by donations from readers like you and me.  They consistently publish award-winning, interesting work.  Without our help, they would not be able to do so.

Donors receive prizes and gifts in addition to a nifty membership card with artwork by a different artist each year.  This year,  the editor-in-chief approached me about doing a photograph for the membership card.  I have given them a Roundbottom-style image called “The Dissection.”  It looks exactly like it sounds.  The only way you can See that image in all its glory is to donate to Strange Horizons!  If you’re a Roundbottom completest, send money now.

This is, by the way, the “secret” image and photoshoot that I was referring to a while back.  I’m very happy with the way it turned out.  In case you’re wondering, the beautiful model is my wife.  The woman holding the scalpel is just some person I dragged in off the street for the shoot. I kid!    You can catch a glimpse of the image over on the 2008 fund drive page.  Go check it out and let me know what you think.  I’ve had it on my desktop as wallpaper for weeks, and I really dig it.

Speaking of Desktop Wallpaper…

Is that something any of you would be interested in me making from some of my photography?  If you want wallpaper, just let me know what image and what resolution, and I will make it for you and post it on the site.  I’ll probably include my name and site URL in the lower right hand corner, just as  a little bit of advertising for me, but leave it otherwise unadorned.   Post your thoughts in the comments, or email me directly.

The Coming Online SF/F Renaissance

Filed Under: SF Publishers, Speculative Fiction

Tor Will Make a Big Splash

A few years ago, we were all upset when SCIFICTION was dropped by the SciFi Channel. The genre lost its best paying market, and arguably the highest quality publication, online or in print. Its departure from the scene left a hole that many have tried to fill, to varying degrees of success. But the world has changed significantly since then.

Today, nearly every publisher, large or small, has some sort of online component. No longer is digital content being largely ignored, as it was when I first came onto the scene in 2001. Baen, Prime Books, Small Beer Press, Tor, just to name a few that have recently or regularly released content online for free. Tor’s coming social networking/publishing site might be the final piece of the puzzle that ties the SF/F community together under one roof (depending on the extent of their social networking tools). I eagerly await the chance to beta test their site.

SCIFICTION and Strange Horizons stood mostly unopposed for a very long time. Smaller, respectable markets flourished, but none of us had the audiences of these two publications. Baen came onto the scene, and shook things up, but I don’t know much about them because their model of the subscriber wall keeps me out. Tor is going to bring in the existing online audience, and I think they have the clout and stable of authors to bring even more readers to online short fiction.

Tor’s entrance onto this stage is going to elevate everyone’s game. With a new giant player on the scene, the smaller publishers are going to be working harder to innovate, harder to stand out. We’ll see even more experimentation. We started out with the online fiction itself as the experiment. Tor’s entrance proves that experiment’s central thesis. People will and do read fiction online, and in great numbers. What’re more, I believe it validates the model of the short fiction as advertisement for long form publishers. Prime Books, Clarkesworld, and Subterranean have pioneered this.

I can’t help but think that we have Cory Doctorow to thank for much of this. I’m sure many people released books online for free before him, but did many who had traditional publishing contracts release their books online in conjunction with the print release? It’s almost certainly his influence that has led Tor to developing their coming site–I’m sure others, such as Patrick Nielsen Hayden and semi-anonymous Tor employees at who I do not know are ultimately responsible for the project, and I don’t want to minimize what they are doing. But Cory blazed the path. That path is turning into a paved road. Soon, it may be a highway.

Who Falls Behind?

I like the fiction in Asimov’s and F&SF very much, but they are beginning to look a bit like large warm-blooded bird ancestors prone to massive extinction by meteor impact. F&SF has made some strides in the online world, with it’s free fiction and blog, but the fiction is mostly pretty old, practically ancient in online terms, and their presentation leaves much to be desired.

Asimov’s web presence has not changed significantly since I first visited their website. It’s a mess, frankly. It’s great that you can buy it for the near-mythic Kindle, and they’ve been available in various e-formats for a long time via Fictionwise. But they have utterly failed to take advantage of the web as a medium. And no, I do not count their septic forums. I haven’t paid much attention to Analog, but I suspect they’re in a similar place, being owned by the same publisher.

What Next?

Who will make the next innovations in publishing? I think it will still be the small, fleet-footed publications like Futurismic, Clarkesworld, Fantasy, and so on. Podcasting, once the sole domain of EscapePod, now has several other major players on the field, even excluding the various EscapePod spinoffs. And remember, their number of listeners outweighs the readership of any print magazine out there. I also think that their listeners are not the same people as the subscribers of magazines. It’s a completely different audience, and ignoring the podcast audience would be like throwing money away at this point. I predict more will offer podcasting supplements to their web presences. Small publishers will begin to investigate developing for the mobile web, and this may call for a different type of fiction, something shorter and leaner. The use of multimedia and artwork is going to grow. A simple site like the Fortean Bureau looks like an Amish buggy compared to the hot rods we’ll be seeing in the next couple of years. I don’t know about you, but I’m very optimistic and excited about the things that are to come. We may not get paid much in the short fiction world, but there are more and more opportunities to connect with audiences. And for readers, there’s never been so many options for your reading experience (which presents its own set of problems).

“Where We Live” by Daniel J. Pinney

Filed Under: Recommended Media, Short Story

Strange Horizons Fiction: Where We Live, by Daniel J. Pinney

Grim, grim, grim–as I’ve come to expect from Strange Horizons lately. A future without hope, and yet, the characters themselves continue to exist. This story is full of telling details. I didn’t have to read the author’s bio to know that he had lived in the Middle East. Every descriptive line speaks with authority.

The character’s life unfolds slowly, in a nonlinear fashion, moving back and forth through time. The protagonist moves through life, ever forward, never hesitating, never despairing, despite the apparent end of the world around him.

The ending–I have to mention the ending–fucking perfect. Absolutely god damned perfect. The scene before it, even more so. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who might read it, and if you read this, go read it.

It builds slow, sets the stage, fleshes it out, piece at a time. It’s horrific, and beautiful. And hopeful. Did I say that?

More, more of this, please. Daniel J. Pinney is going on my “to watch” list, you can bet on that.

“We Love Deena” by Alice Sola Kim

Filed Under: Recommended Media, Short Story

Strange Horizons Fiction: We Love Deena, by Alice Sola Kim, illustration by Hellen JoIt’s the classic tale of love lost, obsessive love. Girl meet edgy girl, who kills people professionally for the government. Girl loses edgy girl. Girl possesses half the other women on the planet attempting to seduce edgy girl once more. Haven’t we read this one a million times before?

Well, no, actually. This is actually pretty good. The protagonist is believable, even sympathetic in her stalker ways. The story moves along at a very nice clip, and it ends in the only way it could. I’ve never heard of Alice Sola Kim before, but I will be looking forward to more.

Still have that death obsession going a little, Strange Horizons. This story was perky, but still kinda dark and twisted like everything else lately.

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About Me

Hi! My name is Jeremiah Tolbert, but you can call me Jeremy. I am a fantasy and science fiction writer, photographer, and web designer living in Northern Colorado. I am currently starting a new job and cannot take freelance work at this time. Drop me a line if you have any questions or comments. I love hearing from new people and I now have a lot more time to chat.

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Previous Photos at Flickr

Frozen Food Center (HDR)

Frozen Food Center (HDR)

A concrete building in Old Town, reminiscent of Soviet Russia. Once a warehouse of sorts, it is now a very badly maintained apartment building, at least from the outside. Hmm, that sky didn't look like that when I was working in photoshop. Single exposure RAW experiment.

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Vedawoo Trees

Vedawoo Trees

The trees of Vedawoo are twisted and gnarled by the high winds at that altitude much of the year. Not much grows up here, but what does is very hardy.

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Prayer Rock

Prayer Rock

From the right angle, these rocks look like praying hands, and I've always called them Prayer Rock. More haloing than I would like. I should probably process this one again, but I really like the foreground.

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Vedawoo Light

Vedawoo Light

The sun was at one of those great angles where everything low was still in the shjade, but the rocks were lit brightly. This is the kind of shooting opportunity that HDR was made for. This is one of my favorites, and is in excellent focus compared to some others. No matter what your shutter speed, you _cannot_ handshoot HDR.

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Vedawoo, early dawn II

Vedawoo, early dawn II

Another capture of the early dawn in Vedawoo, a rock formation in Wyoming. This reflects the pinkness of the sky very well.

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Vedawoo, early dawn

Vedawoo, early dawn

More of the Vedawoo rock formation in Wyoming. This is taken just barely after the sun came up. Everything was covered in frost and snow, resulting in a blue/pink miracle. Less hyper-real, more true to the actual situation. Oddly, a little bit of vignetting in the top left and right, but not elsewhere. I'm not sure how that happened. Actually might be caused by the highlight smoothing, come to think. I've been trying to eliminate the halo effect, which is what I like least in HDR, but it's hard in these landscape shots.

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Vedawoo Dawn

Vedawoo Dawn

The Vedawoo rock formations in Wyoming at dawn. It's not quite in focus. I need to work on my tripod locking. The blur I think comes from alignment issues.

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old water plant

old water plant

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Rocky Outcrop (Landscape)

Rocky Outcrop (Landscape)

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rocky outcrop with stones

rocky outcrop with stones

Trying to bring back the effect a bit. Was too much in the old version.

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Like Something Out of Myst No.2

Like Something Out of Myst No.2

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Like Something Out of Myst

Like Something Out of Myst

Gotta look at these at large or higher size.

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