Alien Contact -- Another Giveaway, Another Review

During the past three weeks, speculative fiction blog SF Signal has hosted a series of guest blog posts and interviews with some of the Alien Contact authors. I've been posting the links here on More Red Ink, but if you're just learning about this now, or you think you may have missed one of the guest posts or an interview or two -- SF Signal has graciously posted a recap, with links, of the entire series.

And, for the denouement, SF Signal is currently hosting an Alien Contact giveaway: a signed (by me) copy of the print edition for the winning U.S. resident, and a copy of the ebook edition (MOBI or EPUB) for the winning non-U.S. resident. The giveaway ends on November 22, so readers still have four more days to add their name to the proverbial hat. Details.

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Here's a recent review of Alien Contact that appeared in Library Journal:

Alien Contact. Night Shade. Dec. 2011. c.500p. ed. by Marty Halpern. ISBN 9781597802819. pap. $15.99. SF

From Paul McAuley's lyrically somber tale of zombielike aliens ("The Thought War") to Stephen Baxter's story of the last alien message to Earth ("Last Contact"), the 26 tales collected here demonstrate both the variety of alien-contact literature and the enduring popularity of this sf subgenre. VERDICT With strong stories from Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Mike Resnick, Pat Murphy, and other sf luminaries, this is a choice volume for sf fans and a good introduction to extraterrestial encounter stories.

— Library Journal Reviews, November 15, 2011

I'm hopeful that, with this positive review, my anthology will find its way to a lot of library shelves throughout the U.S.

Alien Contact was reviewed in LJ with a gaggle of other science fiction and fantasy titles, including two other anthologies also published by Night Shade Books. The reviews can be read in their entirety online on Reviews.LibraryJournal.com.

What You Are About to See...And Read...Now

What seems like so many months ago -- April, actually -- I was plotting the best ways to introduce to readers the 26 stories included in Alien Contact, my then forthcoming anthology. I had contacted all the authors for their assistance in promoting the book, with hopes that their schedule would allow for such participation. I asked the authors if they would be open to being interviewed and/or write a guest blog post and/or allow for the online publication of the complete content of their story. More than half of the authors responded with a "yes" on one or more of the options.

Then I had to find homes for these interviews and guest blog posts and stories. I didn't want to limit all of this material to More Red Ink. I have my share of readers, but there are other, more popular sites with readers numbering in the many thousands -- and I wanted to bring Alien Contact to the masses. Hallelujah!

So that's why SF Signal hosted all of the interviews and all (but one) of the guest blog posts. And though the complete text of five of the anthology stories were posted here on More Red Ink, I had worked out plans to have two additional stories posted elsewhere.

On September 16, when I first introduced Story #20 -- "What You Are About to See" by Jack Skillingstead -- I wrote: "I've probably read the story at least four or five times now, and each time the story still leaves me in awe. This is one of those stories that slithers in behind your eyeballs as you read, and tweaks the hell out of your mind." Jack had given me permission to post the story online, but I refrained from doing so, painful as it was, because the publisher, Night Shade Books, had agreed to post the story in its entirety on their website -- but not until after the book itself was published. (This is me, waiting...waiting...waiting....)

Finally, that time is now: "What You Are About to See" is approximately 5,100 words in length; it's not an overly long story, and if you are prepared to have snakes slithering in behind your eyeballs, and your mind rearranged, well, you merely need to click here... and begin reading....

[Update April 7, 2014: Jack Skillingstead's story "What You Are About To See" is now hosted here on More Red Ink.]

SFSignal's Close Encounters Concludes: Nov. 14

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact concludes with Pat Cadigan and this final "Alien Contact" interview.

On Tuesday, October 25, SF Signal began a series of guest blog posts and interviews with some of the contributors to my Alien Contact anthology. If you've missed any of these interviews/blog posts, you may want to start here.

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 10

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Bruce McAllister and the "Alien Contact" interview.

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 9

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Jack Skillingstead and the "Alien Contact" interview.

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 8

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Barbara Hambly, Executrix of the George Alec Effinger Estate, who chats about GAE and his talent for writing a story like "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything."

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 7

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Ernest Hogan and the "Alien Contact" interview.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z575

The new laptop has arrived. W00t!

And she is a beauty to behold: with 6GB DDR3 at 133MHz; an AMD A6-3400M at 1.4GHz; 750GB SATA Hard Drive; 15.6” HD LED Backlit Widescreen Display (1366x768); Integrated ATI Radeon HD 6520M Graphics; Blu-ray Rambo drive; SRS Premium Surround Sound, and 0.3MP Webcam -- to name but a few of the goodies.

Now, I just need to learn Windows 7 (after 10+ years of XP)....

October Links & Things

As a follow-up to my September 1 status: as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. (And it did, in fact, rain earlier today.) My mother, who had been under hospice care for a couple months, passed away on October 14; after spending a week away, I returned home on October 21, knowing that I would have to pack again in a few days for my trip to the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego. Then, on Sunday, two days after returning home, my laptop finally gave up the ghost. In previous years I had replaced the hard drive and the battery, and though the laptop had certainly paid for itself, I just wasn't ready to invest in a new machine, especially one running Windows 7. (I've been a die-hard XP user for more than ten years.) And then there was the work that had to be done on my mother's car: repair a window that wouldn't go up or down (and wouldn't stay up), and replace a burnt out horn. Anyhow, it was all of this or the World Fantasy Con; and all of this took priority. And, all of this was going on just prior to the release of my Alien Contact anthology, too. I was a bit overwhelmed. So, if you were looking for me at WFC, my apologies, but I simply had to bail on the con. Besides, after the week away, at the mom's funeral and dealing with the aftermath (which I'm still dealing with), I needed some time.... The next con I plan to attend will be FOGcon at the end of March, 2012.

So, finally, this is my monthly wrap-up of October's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• With the publication of Alien Contact, there are a number of special "events" going on: my interview with Matt Staggs on Suvudu.com, and SFSignal.com's fourteen days of guest blog posts and interviews with many of the contributing authors, as well as upcoming events on io9.com and Night Shade Books. Also, don't forget to sign up for the Goodreads giveaway: 5 free copies of Alien Contact; and please check out (and "Like") my Alien Contact Anthology Facebook page. There are widgets to the right of this post for both Goodreads and Facebook.
• I reported in September's Links & Things that Steve Davidson had been granted the "Amazing Stories" trademark. According to Digital Science Fiction, Davidson now "has announced the creation of an Editorial Advisory Board to assist in the re-launch of the world’s first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories.... Steve has also commissioned Frank Wu, multiple Hugo Award-winning artist, to create a re-imagining of Frank R. Paul’s inaugural cover illustration for the magazine. The cover art will be made available on a variety of different media and will be used as a fund raising and promotional vehicle."
• Speaking of magazines, Realms of Fantasy, with which I have been involved since the October 2009 issue, has called it quits-- this now the third time in as many years, and publishers -- effective with the just-published October 2011 issue. Publishers William and Kim Gilchrist of Damnation Books, editor Doug Cohen, and fiction editor Shawna McCarthy have all written farewells on the magazine's website.
• Larry Brooks (@StoryFix) on storyfix.com has a blog post from back in May -- which I recently just learned about -- entitled: Suffering Is Optional, Or, Ten Ways to Totally Screw Up Your Novel. He writes: "The best way to avoid a hole in the road is to see the hole in the road." -- 1) Never begin writing a story without knowing how it will end; 2) If you choose to ignore the previous tip, then you’d best accept this one....; 3) Don’t kid yourself about the critical nature – the necessity – of structure in your story; 4) Don’t take side trips; 5) Don’t write a "small" story without something Big in it; 6) If you can’t describe your story in one compelling sentence, you probably can’t write it in 20,000 compelling sentences, either; 7) Don’t save your hero; 8) Don’t for a moment believe that the things an established bestselling author can get away with are things you can get away with; 9) Don’t overwrite; and 10) Never settle. Each bullet point has the details. (via @BookBuzzr)
• Author Kay Kenyon (@KayKenyon) shares her Secrets of the First Page in a recent blog post, which came about after Kay and Larry Brooks (see entry above) worked a "first page critique session." In the "Cut to the Chase" section, Kay writes: "Start with a scene. Where something is happening on stage. Put us in the middle of something interesting. The goal of the first page is to get the agent/editor to the second page. So your goal is not really to introduce the novel, but to introduce the scene... Last week Larry persuaded me that openings could be successful if not a scene. If your voice is strong...if you can deliver information that is dramatic...or if you can give us something else wonderful!" The blog post has 14 specific bullet points. (via Deborah J. Ross's FB page)

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 4

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Mark W. Tiedemann and the "Alien Contact" interview.

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 3

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Jack Skillingstead's guest post on "Thermalling" -- those "rising columns of air called thermals [that] are like free gas stations." Read how Jack relates these thermals, and thermalling, to his short story "What You Are About to See" in Alien Contact.

Gardner Dozois Investigates Alien Contacts

Writer, editor, anthologist, reviewer -- Gardner Dozois is all of these, and more. If you read science fiction, and short stories in particular, and you are not familiar with Gardner's many (many!) anthologies -- specifically The Year's Best Science Fiction series, now in its twenty-eighth year -- then I would be compelled to ask you: What planet are you from?

So I was thrilled to learn that Gardner Dozois reviewed my anthology, Alien Contact (along with other short fiction titles), in the November issue of Locus magazine.

The review clocks in at a brief 139 words (according to MS Word), but brief is good, as long as the review says what it needs to say, and mentions so many great authors and stories in the process.

There's no confusion about genre classification in Alien Contact, edited by Marty Halpern—it's just what it says that it is, stories about contacts with aliens, all of them science fiction, and all of them considerably more varied, subtle, and intelligent than the flood of shoot-'em-up Alien Invasion movies we got over the last year or so. This is another really solid reprint anthology, and another excellent value for your money. The best stories here are probably Bruce Sterling's "Swarm," Michael Swanwick's "A Midwinter's Tale," Bruce McAllister's "Kin," Molly Gloss's "Lambing Season," Pat Cadigan's "Angel," Paul McAuley's "The Thought War," and Nancy Kress's "Laws of Survival," but there are also good stories by Neil Gaiman, George Alec Effinger, Cory Doctorow, Stephen Baxter, Mike Resnick, Harry Turtledove, and thirteen others.... there's really nothing bad here.

— Gardner Dozois, Locus, November 2011

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 2

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Paul McAuley and the "Alien Contact" interview.

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Nov. 1

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Ernest Hogan's guest blog post entitled "Once Upon a Time in SoCal: The Making of 'Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song.'"

SFSignal's Close Encounters Continues: Oct. 31

Per my previous blog post, which provides the complete three-week schedule, and links to the first four entries:

SFSignal.com's close encounters with the contributing authors to Alien Contact continues with Nancy Kress and the "Alien Contact" interview.

The Alien Contact Anthology Table of Contents

For the past 26 weeks I have been blogging about each of the 26 stories included in my anthology Alien Contact, from Night Shade Books. That last story was finally unveiled on Saturday, October 29 -- and the anthology is on schedule for publication tomorrow, November 1.

So here is the anthology's complete table of contents, with links to each blog post that pertains to that story. In some instances, the entire text of the story was provided; in other instances, a link was provided to elsewhere online for the text and/or a podcast of the story.

Alien Contact anthology contents:

Marty Halpern -- "Introduction: Beginnings..."
Paul McAuley -- "The Thought War"
Neil Gaiman -- "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"
Karen Joy Fowler -- "Face Value"
Harry Turtledove -- "The Road Not Taken"
George Alec Effinger -- "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything"
Stephen King -- "I Am the Doorway"
Pat Murphy -- "Recycling Strategies for the Inner City"
Mike Resnick -- "The 43 Antarean Dynasties"
Orson Scott Card -- "The Gold Bug"
Bruce McAllister -- "Kin"
Ernest Hogan -- "Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song"
Pat Cadigan -- "Angel"
Ursula K. Le Guin -- "The First Contact with the Gorgonids"
Adam-Troy Castro -- "Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl’s"
Michael Swanwick -- "A Midwinter’s Tale"
Mark W. Tiedemann -- "Texture of Other Ways"
Cory Doctorow -- "To Go Boldly"
Elizabeth Moon -- "If Nudity Offends You"
Nancy Kress -- "Laws of Survival"
Jack Skillingstead -- "What You Are About to See"
Robert Silverberg -- "Amanda and the Alien"
Jeffrey Ford -- "Exo-Skeleton Town"
Molly Gloss -- "Lambing Season"
Bruce Sterling -- "Swarm"
Charles Stross -- "MAXO Signals"
Stephen Baxter -- "Last Contact"

Close Encounters with the Contributing Authors of Alien Contact!

This was the headline as it appeared on SFSignal.com on Tuesday, October 25, 2011, a few minutes past midnight. Actually, the words "Starting Today" prefaced that headline, but that was Tuesday, and today is Sunday -- nearly a week later....

In support of the release this week of Alien Contact from Night Shade Books, SFSignal is hosting a series of guest blog posts and interviews with a number of the authors who contributed to the anthology.

World Fantasy Award nominee Charles Tan conducts all the interviews, in which the authors answer questions like: "What's the appeal of alien contact stories for you?" and "What was the first alien contact story you read that made a lasting impression?" as well as a question or two specific to their story. The authors also discuss their current projects.

The guest blog posts revolve around each author's story in the Alien Contact anthology. Readers will gain some insight into the genesis of each of these stories.

The blog posts and interviews will be posted at approximately 2:00 PM (Central time) each weekday (well, almost), from Tuesday, October 25, through Monday, November 14. Here's the schedule; links have been provided for the first four entries, which have already been posted:

* Tue, 10/25: Nancy Kress, Guest Blog post: "Building a Story from Fortuitously Nearby Construction Materials"
* Wed, 10/26: Mike Resnick: The "Alien Contact" Interview
* Thu, 10/27: Mark W. Tiedemann, Guest Blog post: "It's Not About the Buttons"
* Fri, 10/28: Adam-Troy Castro: The "Alien Contact" Interview

* Mon, 10/31: Nancy Kress: The "Alien Contact" Interview
* Tue, 11/1: Ernest Hogan, Guest Blog post: "Once Upon a Time in SoCal: The Making of 'Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song'"
* Wed, 11/2: Paul McAuley: The "Alien Contact" Interview
* Thu, 11/3: Jack Skillingstead, Guest Blog post: "Thermalling"
* Fri, 11/4: Mark W. Tiedemann: The "Alien Contact" Interview

* Mon, 11/7: Ernest Hogan: The "Alien Contact" Interview
* Tue, 11/8: Barbara Hambly, Guest Blog post: "George Alec Effinger and the Aliens Who Knew Everything"
* Wed, 11/9: Jack Skillingstead: The "Alien Contact" Interview
* Thu, 11/10: Bruce McAllister: The "Alien Contact" Interview

* Mon, 11/14: Pat Cadigan: The "Alien Contact" Interview

Remember, you can check in with SFSignal.com at approximately 2:00 PM every weekday -- that's 3:00 PM on the east coast and 12-noon on the west coast -- or, you could just check back here at More Red Ink each weekday for the next two weeks and I'll provide each forthcoming link in a new, albeit very brief, blog post.

Alien Contact Anthology -- Story #26 (the last story)

Story #26. This post ends my journey, so to speak, which began 26 weeks ago -- one-half year ago! -- to blog about each of the stories included in my anthology Alien Contact, forthcoming from Night Shade Books. The anthology is actually available this weekend at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, and should begin shipping, on schedule, November 1. I got behind only one week -- the week of August 28, due to a family emergency -- but made up for it the following week by blogging about two stories. I'm actually amazed that I've been able to maintain the weekly schedule, on top of everything else these past two months (more on this in my month-end recap). So let me get on with it already....

"Last Contact"

by Stephen Baxter

This story was originally published in 2007 in what has now become the first volume of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, edited by George Mann and published by Solaris Books UK. The story is approximately 4,400 words in length.

I first read this story in December 2007: it was included in Jonathan Strahan's anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Two, which I was proof reading and copyediting at the time for the publisher, Night Shade Books.

There are only two characters in this story (though other family members are spoken of) -- a mother and daughter -- that is, unless you want to count our galaxy as the third character. The daughter, Caitlin, is an astrophysicist, who discovered the Big Rip: "...the dark energy is pulling the universe apart, taking more and more of it so far away that its light can't reach us anymore. It started at the level of the largest structures in the universe, superclusters of galaxies. But in the end it will fold down to the smallest scales. Every bound structure will be pulled apart. Even atoms, even subatomic particles." The mother, Maureen, is a "search-for-ET-at-home enthusiast." The action, and dialog, all take place in Maureen's garden, when Caitlin comes to visit -- on three specific days: March 15, June 5, and October 14.

This is a minimalist story, yet powerful enough to stay with me such that, eight months later, shortly after proposing the Alien Contact anthology to Night Shade editor-in-chief Jeremy Lassen, I knew I wanted to include this story in the book -- and to make it the last story as well, the one that closes out the anthology. Here's an excerpt from March 15:

eBook Editions of Alien Contact Anthology

I'm pleased to announce that eBook editions of my forthcoming Alien Contact anthology are now available for preorder. Well, sort of...

The Kindle edition (MOBI format) can now be ordered on Amazon.com, and is currently priced at $7.99. Not too shabby for approximately 170,000 words of some of the best "alien contact" stories of the past 30-plus years.

The EPUB format -- for the Nook, Sony Reader, and Kobo eReader -- has been submitted to the respective eReader stores, but is not yet available. If the EPUB edition is your eBook of choice, please keep checking back at your favorite eReader store.

I wish to thank the publisher, Night Shade Books, for making these eBook editions available simultaneously with the print edition.

The cover shown here is for the Kindle edition. If you carefully compare this particular cover with the print edition cover (shown everywhere else on this blog), you will notice one significant difference between the two covers. If you discover the difference please comment below, at which time I would be happy to confirm said difference, and explain why.

One final comment: If you are a book blogger/book reviewer and you would like to review this anthology, I can provide either the EPUB or MOBI eBook editions, or a PDF of the print edition. The caveat: Please contact me via email only at FirstContactStory[at]gmail.com -- and state your request, including a link to your book blog/review site. And feel free to highlight any previous reviews you are particularly proud of. I'd like to give them a read.

Alien Contact Anthology Review - 1

There was a time, not all that long ago, when "professional" book reviewers and "professional" publications were the only source for book reviews. I relied on genre 'zines like Locus, Asimov's SF, and Fantasy & Science Fiction for my monthly book reviews fix. And also non-genre sources such as Publishers Weekly. As years passed and the internet grew, we could read book reviews online, on sites like Locus Online and Tangent Online, to name just two.

But with the rise of blogs and blogging, and other social media sites like Goodreads and Library Thing, the sources for quality book reviews have grown exponentially. A new class of blogger -- the book blogger -- has taken his/her place alongside the "professional" book reviewer. Reviews from the likes of PW and Kirkus may still hold more cachet than a book blog review -- but the average reader neither subscribes to nor reads these publications, primarily because they can't afford them! [Besides, I'd rather spend my money on the books themselves, rather than on publications that write about those very same books.] And if readers spend much of their time online, then online is where they will find book reviews as well.

The first review (so far) that I have found for my forthcoming anthology Alien Contact (Night Shade Books, November 1) is courtesy of Ria on the Bibliotropic blog. The book was originally reviewed by Ria on Goodreads¹ -- which is where I first read the review -- and then posted to her book blog.

Here are a couple excerpts from Ria's review:

I'm not normally much for short story collections, but something about this book just spoke to me, so I couldn't resist taking the chance to read it, especially after seeing such a stellar (if you'll excuse the pun) list of contributing authors. Neil Gaiman, Ursula K Le Guin, Stephen King, and yet more. There's all kinds of talent evident in this collection, and I'll say right off the bat that this is a book that no sci-fi fan should really be without.

[...]

The fun thing that I find about alien encounter stories is that they end up saying more about humanity than about any alien culture we can dream of. Whether it's displaying our own human arrogance about the universe and all within it, or displaying our sheer curiosity about what lies beyond us, all stories I've found that involve humans and some unknown sentient life form end up showcasing humanity in ways that a human-only cast of characters just couldn't....

If these snippets intrigue you, please take this opportunity to read the full review.

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Footnote:

1. Goodreads requires a user account and password, so I was quite pleased to learn from Ria that her review was also posted publicly on Bibliotropic. If you do have a Goodreads account, and you haven't yet ordered a copy of Alien Contact, please feel free to sign up for the giveaway that I am sponsoring, along with with publisher Night Shade Books. (See the Goodreads widget at the top of the right column of this blog.)