$1.99 For The Alien Contact Ebook [Ended]

I don't know how long this offer will be available: the ebook edition of my Alien Contact anthology is currently on sale for $1.99.

The $1.99 price is for either the mobi (Kindle) or the epub (Nook) edition of the book. If you haven't already done so, now is your chance to read 170,000 words of some of the best alien contact stories for a buck-99, all between the virtual covers of a single ebook.

Just click the Alien Contact ebook cover to the left to make your way to Amazon. For the epub edition, click this Nook book link.

One caveat: The ebook editions do not contain the Stephen King story "I Am the Doorway."

For more information on my Alien Contact anthology, please visit the dedicated Alien Contact page, which includes behind-the-scenes blog posts and links to the complete text of about a dozen of the stories.

[Ended] Alien Contact Ebook $1.99

The ebook edition of my Alien Contact anthology is currently on sale for $1.99. I've verified the price on Amazon, and I understand that iBooks also has the price currently set at $1.99. (I'm not an Apple kind of guy so I can't verify.) I'm also hoping that if you purchase your ebooks from other than these two sources, the price will be the same as well.

How long this price will last, I have no idea. I'm just the book's editor. In fact, I didn't even know the price had dropped to $1.99 until I received a web mention on my name, via email, earlier today.

So, if you read ebooks and you've been on the fence about this anthology, now is the time to buy, as this is probably the cheapest ebook price you'll find (that's not a pirated copy!) for these 26 stories and 170,000 words of hand-picked fiction. [1]

Here's the complete table of 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" [1]
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"

As I said, the anthology contains 26 stories -- and 26 weeks before the book was published, back in April 2011, I began a blogging project that entailed writing about each of the stories, at the rate of one story per week, for 26 weeks. I made my target, too, except for the week my mother passed away -- but I caught up the very next week. During those weekly blog posts, I talked about the original publication of the story, my relationship (if any) with the author, how I came to choose the story, and I typically included some excerpts from the story itself. Except, for those stories that I published in their entirety.

Now, more than four years later, you can still follow -- and read -- those weekly blog posts on Alien Contact by beginning at the "Beginnings..."

Or, you could simply click on any of the links above in the table of contents.


[1] After posting this, I remembered that in my endeavor to secure rights for the Stephen King story I had to wave ebook rights. So, the print copy includes 26 stories and 170,000 words of fiction, whereas the ebook edition does not include the Stephen King story, which clocks in at approximately 4,900 words. So aside from the fact that it is a Stephen King story, you're losing less than 5,000 words from the overall total. Sorry for any issue/confusion this may have caused.

A Mensch by any other name...

The Urban Dictionary defines "Mensch" as:

...someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being "a real mensch" is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous. (Rosten, Leo. 1968. The Joys of Yiddish. New York: Pocket Books. 237)

* * * *

For those of you who have worked as freelancers for any length of time -- especially in the various genre fields -- you have most likely encountered a situation when your employer kills a project that you've worked on, or the employer files for bankruptcy, or, to avoid bankruptcy, is purchased by another entity. In my years of freelancing, I've encountered this twice: the demise of Realms of Fantasy magazine, published for a short time by Damnation Books, and the demise and sale of Night Shade Books.

When these unfortunate events happen, the freelancer is typically owed money and, most likely, not all of that money will ever be forthcoming. Some refer to the money that eventually does get paid as a "kill fee"; I prefer to call it a "screw fee." A kill fee comes from the magazine industry, and refers to, say, an article that is written and accepted, but then never published for some reason. The freelancer did the work, but the article is never used; thus the freelancer is typically paid a pre-defined percentage of the money owed. In my case the work was accepted AND used, and there was no pre-defined "kill fee" clause. I simply wasn't paid the full amount owed to me by either Damnation Books or the new Night Shade Books owners, Skyhorse Publishing and Start Publishing.

And though I would prefer to be paid fully for work performed (Wouldn't we all?), especially at the level of quality that I adhere to for all my projects, I understand that that is one of the risks in freelancing, especially in this business of independent publishers.

* * * *

So what do "mensch" and "kill/screw fees" have in common, you might wonder....

When Night Shade Books was sold, the new publishers owed me for four projects that I had completed between November 2012 and January 2013. Though I was paid only a small percentage of what was owed, on the bright side, something is always better than nothing.

Shortly thereafter I received an email from one of the four authors whose projects I had worked on. S/he asked me how much was owed to me for working on her/his project, because, s/he said, "I want to make it right with you." The author was planning on paying me with the money s/he received, per contract, from the new owners of Night Shade Books.

So, using the percentage of what I was paid versus what I was owed, I figured out the difference, and determined how much I was still owed for that one project.

I emailed the author back, and I quote: "I want you to know that I in no way expect any author to repay me any fees owed to me by Night Shade Books. My invoices are for work performed for Night Shade, not specifically for the author." But, of course, if s/he was determined to pay me what was owed on this specific project, I certainly wasn't going to turn down any money. Keep in mind that my work for Night Shade Books was a significant portion of my income, which has ceased to exist as of mid-January.

That email was sent to me on April 10; on July 23 I received emails from both the author and PayPal that a payment had been made to me.

Now that is what a "Mensch" is. And the author? Well, that's between me and her/him, but saying "thank you" just doesn't seem to be enough.

Skyhorse Publishing and Start Media Acquire Night Shade Books

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Oleg Lyubner
olyubner@skyhorsepublishing.com
Meghan Kilduff
kilduff@start-media.com

SKYHORSE AND START ACQUIRE NIGHT SHADE BOOKS

(June 3, 2013) Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. and Start Publishing are pleased to announce the acquisition of Night Shade Books, an award-winning independent publishing house dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Founded by Jason Williams in 1997, who was joined by partner Jeremy Lassen shortly after, Night Shade Books has over 250 titles in its catalog, including some renowned genre fiction—written by multiple nominees and winners of Shirley Jackson, Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, Nebula, and Hugo awards. In 2003, Night Shade Books won the World Fantasy Special Award for Professional Achievement. Both Williams and Lassen will continue to be with Night Shade in a consulting capacity.

THE AGREEMENT WAS REACHED FOLLOWING A SPIRITED AND PUBLIC DEBATE AMONG AUTHORS, AGENTS, FANS, AND PUBLISHERS, WHICH RESULTED IN A DEAL APPROVED BY NIGHT SHADE’S AUTHORS. “THIS AGREEMENT BRINGS TOGETHER NIGHT SHADE’S DISTINCTIVE EDITORIAL VOICE AND SKYHORSE’S BUSINESS SAVVY AND MARKET REACH, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL INVOLVED, INCLUDING AUTHORS AND THE GREAT COMMUNITY OF SF/F FANS,” SAYS MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ, AUTHOR OF THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT, SLATED TO BE THE FIRST TITLE FROM THE NEW NIGHT SHADE. “I’M HONORED THAT MY FIRST BOOK WILL HELP KICK OFF THE NEXT CHAPTER IN NIGHT SHADE’S ONGOING STORY.”

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have added Night Shade to our various other imprints and look forward to working with Start Publishing to build it into the strong science fiction imprint that we feel confident it can become,” said Tony Lyons, Publisher of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

“Nightshade has been at the forefront of science fiction and fantasy for years. Start Publishing, alongside Skyhorse Publishing, welcomes the opportunity to provide Night Shade and its authors a platform to continue that tradition,” added Michael Maher, CEO of Start Media.

“I am very excited to have found a buyer that is such a good fit for Night Shade, one that will be able to take us further than I was able to on my own. I look forward to building up Night Shade into the powerhouse of science fiction and fantasy for years to come,” said Night Shade founder Jason Williams. Night Shade had net sales of roughly $1.5 million for the 2012 calendar year.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Oleg Lyubner, Director of Publicity at Skyhorse Publishing, and Meghan Kilduff at Start Publishing.

Publicity Contacts

Oleg Lyubner / (212) 643-6816 x 229 / olyubner@skyhorsepublishing.com

Meghan Kilduff / (212) 431-5455 / kilduff@start-media.com

Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 643-6816
www.skyhorsepublishing.com

Jonathan Strahan's Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 6

A couple weeks ago I published a blog post (Doin' Hard Time at Night Shade Books) on my nine years with Night Shade Books. In that post I listed the 125 books that I worked on throughout those nine years. One such book was Jonathan Strahan's annual anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 6.

When I checked my email this morning, I found a note from Jonathan Strahan awaiting my perusal. In the email, which was also addressed to Ross E. Lockhart, Jonathan informed us that his book, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 6, had just won the Aurealis Award -- Australia's premier genre award -- for best anthology of the year, and that he wanted to thank Ross and me for our work on this, and his previous books.

Of course, receiving a "thank you" email from an award recipient for one's contribution is very cool. However, as I was catching up on my online reading (Google Reader feeds) I saw that Jonathan had also posted about his award win on his blog Notes from Coode Street. Included in his post was his acceptance speech, which had been read by James Bradley, in Jonathan's absence, at the awards ceremony. With Jonathan's most kind permission, here is his Aurealis Award acceptance speech in its entirety:

Thank you so much. If James Bradley is reading these words to you, which I promise I will keep brief as absent winners should, then it means my anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six has won the Aurealis Award. It is a great honour and I wish I was there in the Independent Theatre in Sydney, and not sitting in Perth following this on Twitter, so that you all could see just how thrilled I am.

I would sincerely like to thank the judges Kathleen Stubbs, Matt Chrulew and Sarah Fletcher for their hard work (and commend them on their excellent taste), and I also want to thank awards administrator Tehani Wesley and the AA team for their hard work. It is an honour to be nominated alongside my editorial colleagues Liz Gryb, Talie Helene, and Amanda Pillar and the great team at my dear friend Russell Farr’s Ticonderoga, and I extend my congratulations to them as well.

Editing The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year series has defined the past seven years of my life. It’s a strange, wonderful experience, and I am deeply proud of the books I’ve been able to produce with the Night Shade team. I would especially like to thank Ross Lockhart and Marty Halpern at Night Shade Books for the care and attention they gave to this book, and for their work on the rest of the series. They are my unsung collaborators and deserve your congratulations as much as I do.

Finally, and most importantly, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of my spectacular agent Howard Morhaim, and the tireless support of my family Marianne, Jessica and Sophie who give me time to do this strange editing thing that I love doing so much.

Thank you all very much! Have a great night! I’m going to turn Twitter off now and go have a glass of champagne (or at least get the kids dinner on).

Like I said, receiving a thank you email for contributing to an award-winning book is one thing; having one's name mentioned in an acceptance speech takes that "thank you" to an entirely new level.

I, in turn, would like to thank Jonathan for the opportunity to work on his "best of the year" anthologies; I read many fine stories in these volumes that I wouldn't have had the occasion to read otherwise. And while I'm at it, let me thank Ross Lockhart, who kept the work flowing for the past five years at Night Shade Books. Ross could have sent Jonathan's anthologies to any number of other copy editors, but he typically sent the books to me.

Doin' Hard Time at Night Shade Books

How often, how many times, have you asked yourself, What have I done with my time? What have I really accomplished?

I've been asking myself this very question quite a bit of late; or, at least, more than I normally do....

I spent about nine years of my professional career working for Night Shade Books. If you are a genre writer and/or reader, then you probably have seen an online article, or blog post, about the publisher's demise. Essentially Night Shade Books is bankrupt, they just haven't declared it legally (yet), but are hoping to sell the assets of the company to a pair of publishing houses. I won't go into any of that here; you can just search for "Night Shade Books" and you'll find enough to read: posts from authors talking about the deal with the new buyers, posts from bloggers both objective and subjective about Night Shade, and so on.

But what I see is the demise of a publishing house that had the potential to make it into the "big leagues" as an independent. I recall an early telephone conversation with publisher/owner Jason Williams, in which he told me that he wanted Night Shade to be the next Baen Books. And they could have been, I honestly believe that, but they squandered it all away....

But six months from now, a year from now, will new readers even know who Night Shade Books is? And for those of us who know of them now, what will we think of them going forward? Will readers think of the books with positive memories: the great books like The Algebraist and The Windup Girl; the beautifully designed covers and interiors? Or will they remember the orders not fulfilled, the books promised and never published? Will former Night Shade authors remember Night Shade as the publisher who gave them their first break, bought and published their first book, bought and published the book that they were unable to sell to any New York publisher? Or will they remember that they were never paid their advance, never paid royalties, or if they did get paid, that they had to fight for every dollar, or that their book never even got published as promised?

But getting back to my original question: Just what have I accomplished in nearly nine years with this publisher? And what will I remember?

I sat down and reviewed all my invoices -- 190 of them -- dating back to 2004, and compiled a list of all the books I touched, so to speak. The first book was Adam Roberts's short fiction collection, Swiftly; the last book was Jonathan Strahan's anthology, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Seven, just this past January. And in between were a helluva lot of books.

Bradley P. Beaulieu's Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten

Artwork by Sang Han

Fate (if you believe in that sort of thing) has a way of, occasionally, flipping reality onto its head.

I have worked for Night Shade Books for these past nine years: the very first book I worked on was Adam Roberts's Swiftly, which I completed in May 2005; the last book I worked on, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Seven, edited by Jonathan Strahan, was completed in January of this year. In the course of these nine years, I edited, line edited, and/or copy edited content for approximately 190 books for Night Shade. 190. One of these days, I just may list all the titles. Unfortunately, I should have stopped working for Night Shade at least six months ago, but we'll leave that discussion possibly for another blog post.

About the same time I was wrestling with the decision whether or not to take on another Night Shade project (which I didn't, thankfully), another author was wrestling with a similar decision: Bradley P. Beaulieu (pronounced "Bowl-yer") was owed money by Night Shade Books (Aren't we all?) and the publisher had decided to push out volume three of his Lays of Anuskaya trilogy for at least another full year. Brad chose then to leave Night Shade, take volume three, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, with him, and self-publish the book. He explained all this in a blog post entitled "A Slight Change of Plans," which he published on February 19, 2013.

Now, while all this was going on, Brad was also running a Kickstarter campaign for his short story collection, Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories. Funding ended for Brad's collection on January 11, with the primary goal reached, as well as all six of the stretch goals.

Which brings us to the present: Bradley P. Beaulieu was in need of an editor for Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten, and I was in need of a new editing gig -- and I am pleased to announce that I will be working with Brad on this project.

Initially I edited the three stories written exclusively for the collection as part of the Kickstarter stretch goals:

"To the Towers of Tulandan" is a prequel story to his Lays of Anuskaya trilogy (The Winds of Khalakovo, The Straits of Galahesh, and the forthcoming The Flames of Shadam Khoreh).

"Prima" is somewhat of a sequel story to the trilogy: the story takes place 25 years after the end of The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, but is not related to the main events in the trilogy.

"Unearthed" is a prequel story to the world of Bryndlholt, a new middle-grade series that Brad has recently begun writing.

A "True Review" of Alien Contact

Whispers in the night... quiet words spoken amidst the rampaging hordes of vampires, werewolves, zombies... and superheroes.

Only a few of us, now, speak -- albeit resolutely -- of our Alien Contact experience. Of the stories therein, and their impact on our collective psyches, our thoughts, our visions of what is, what could be....

Recently, another spark of light has emerged from the darkness to wield its mighty words in approbation of this tome of some of the best stories from the past 30 or so years: 'zine True Review, edited by Andrew Andrews, reviews Alien Contact in its current issue (No. 82, Vol.25, Oct. 2012).

The review is brief, considering that the anthology contains 26 stories, but recognition in any size or shape is always welcome. The review highlights 10 of the stories; here's what Andrew had to say about Neil Gaiman's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties":

Two London blokes find out about a party coming to town like no other, with beautiful women who seem, well, kind of odd. But the guys want one thing only: to get to know the girls with perhaps some extended "benefits." Everything goes as planned until the dudes realize THESE women aren't of this world.

And Ursula K. Le Guin's "The First Contact with the Gorgonids":

Jerry and Annie Laurie Debree, tourists from a plastics conference in Australia, make it to Grong Crossing, one of the most unlikely places for humans to make first contact with aliens. But for these arrogant and ignorant tourists, fame will come, whether they like it or not.

For more of the review, please check out True Review.

More Alien Contact Anthology PR

Michael Swanwick, author of the story "A Midwinter's Tale," doing his best PR routine for Alien Contact at Readercon, Burlington (Boston), Massachusetts, Friday, June 13, 2012. [Note the stack of ACs on the table next to Michael!]

And speaking of PR:

If you are interested in reviewing the Alien Contact anthology, please contact me: you can post a comment below or, if you would prefer a private email, just click on "View my complete profile" for a link to my email addy. I can provide a print copy, a PDF file, a Kindle ebook, or Nook/Sony/Kobo ebook. In your comment or email, please include a link to your book review site or, if you review for another resource, a link to one of your reviews. And if you have any questions, you now know how to contact me.

Sense of Wonder and Alien Contact

Elias F. Combarro has recently posted his Alien Contact (publisher Night Shade Books) review and interview (conmigo) on his Spanish-language blog Sense of Wonder.

First, the review.

[Note: If Spanish is not your preferred language, Elias has graciously translated his review into English as well, which is the content from which I will be quoting. However, each page, English or Spanish, links at the bottom to the other version.]

On themed anthologies, Elias writes: "...I don't want to read the same story twenty times. I want to explore many different approaches to the same topic. I want to be surprised and amazed. I want to be shown something new, something that I didn't even imagine that could be done." He goes on to state:

I've recently had the pleasure of reading Alien Contact, an anthology edited by Marty Halpern. It is the perfect illustration of how to assemble a wonderful set of stories devoted to a fascinating theme. All the stories selected by the editor are excellent examples of human contact with alien races (not necessarily a first contact) but no two of them are alike.

[...]

This amazing variety of takes on a single theme is one of the strongest points of the anthology. Throughout all the stories included in the book, we explore, from different points of view, a fascinating topic: ourselves as seen by a stranger.

[...]

The stories of the book are complemented with an invaluable source of information: before Alien Contact was published Marty Halpern blogged about each and every individual tale, providing extremely interesting details and, in some cases, even the full text of some of the stories. While reading the book, I frequently revisited Halpern's notes and that certainly added a lot to the experience.

News of Alien Contact

While I was slogging away in the nether regions of fabulous Orange County throughout February and March, two reviews of anthology Alien Contact were published in online 'zines.

The first review, published on February 21, is courtesy of Josh Vogt (@JRVogt), Speculative Fiction Editor for examiner.com. From the review:

Alien Contact is a new short story anthology taking readers through 30 years of extraterrestrial fiction. As with many short story collections, there's a little bit of everything here. From the humorous to the horrifying, the inspiring to the incomprehensible. Often, I count an anthology successful if it leaves a lasting impression with at least a couple stories--and this one hits the mark more than once.

He goes on to review a few of his favorite stories, stating: "Of them all, 'Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's,' by Adam-Troy Castro, reigned supreme." Josh concludes his review with:

Alien Contact is a strong collection of science fiction short stories, well worth a hefty slot in your reading schedule. As with any anthology, there are entries that fall a bit flat, or leave you wondering what the point of it all was--but these are few and far between here. For all those who've wondered whether we're alone in this universe (and desperately hope this isn't the case), this collection will uplift your imagination and give you access to a wider reality where anything is possible.

The second review, from Laith Preston, appeared on The Dragon Page (@dragonpage) on March 1:

I'm always on the lookout for good reading and new authors to follow. Alien Contact is something of a veritable who's who of the current genre greats, with some names I'm not as familiar with in the mix as well.

With twenty-six short stories telling tales of man meeting with other intelligences, Marty Halpern has pulled together an anthology filled with hours of enjoyable reading.

One of the reviewer's favorite stories in the anthology was Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" -- "An extremely well told tale of the first meeting between two races, one more advanced than the other, and the unexpected outcome of that meeting." Laith sums up his review with: "I would highly recommend this anthology to fans of good short form Science Fiction."

And now for something related, but completely different:

Two Holes-in-One and a Bogey

This blog post has absolutely nothing to do with golf -- sorry, golf fans... -- I just happened to like this title that I came up with to represent the three recent reviews for my anthology Alien Contact (Night Shade Books).

I'll start with the two holes-in-one because we always want to boast first about the best -- our best golf swing, the humongous fish we caught, stealing home....

This first review is courtesy of Bob Blough, and published on Tangent online on January 30. After providing readers with the complete list of stories included in the volume, Bob opens his review with the following:

Alien Contact is an intelligently edited anthology of 26 first contact stories. And thankfully, Mr. Halpern has decided to mine the last 30 years for his selections, eschewing more well-known and oft-reprinted old favorites from earlier decades. So, this is a huge anthology favoring more contemporary SF and it acquits itself wonderfully. I do not agree with all of the editor's choices and can think of others I would have preferred, but so many terrific stories are gathered together in one place that everyone who likes this theme or is interested in learning more about it will perhaps find some new gems.

In the review, Bob focuses on "a few of [his] favorites." In particular, he singles out Pat Cadigan's story "Angel," which he refers to as "the best story of the batch (and one of my top SF stories of all time)."¹ Bob's other faves include stories by George Alec Effinger ("a story with the perfect title"), Neil Gaiman ("read it and revel"), Mike Resnick ("a sadly moving tale, albeit a joy to read"), Michael Swanwick ("a complex and beautiful novelette"), Molly Gloss ("bravura performance"), Robert Silverberg ("a terrific read"), Nancy Kress ("clever and a delightful entertainment"), and Stephen Baxter ("the final story is one of the best").

Bob concludes his lengthy review with this paragraph:

These are but a double handful of my favorites; others by Paul McAuley, Bruce McAllister, Jeffrey Ford and a number of others serve this anthology well. If you are new to most of these stories or want to reacquaint yourself with some favorites – get this book. I thank Mr. Halpern for his knowledgeable selections. Alien Contact was a kick to read.

Would you like to review Alien Contact?

If you would be interested in reviewing an eBook edition of my Alien Contact anthology, recently published by Night Shade Books, please read on....

I've made this offer previously and thought I would follow it up with one additional post. I have eBook editions -- mobi, epub, and pdf -- available for Alien Contact that I would be happy to provide to book reviewers and/or book review bloggers.

If you would like an eBook review copy, simply post a request below in the Comment section, along with a link to one (or more) of your online book reviews and/or a link to your book review blog. I'll also need an email addy in order to get in touch with you. If contact information is posted with your review or on your blog, no need to include that same contact information with your comment.

Any questions, etc. can also be posted below in Comments.

(Belated) December Links & Things

Whoa... hard to believe that we're in week four of January and I still have yet to post my December links and things. I do have a lot of excuses, like the holidays (and recovery from same), multiple computer, software, and network issues (some good, including a new ASUS Zenbook; most not so good; but all very time consuming), as well as a huge project -- 271,000-plus words! -- I just proofed and copyedited for Night Shade Books (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six, edited by Jonathan Strahan¹) that took far longer than I had anticipated. And I'm still dealing with the aftermath of my mother's passing: emails, phone calls, photocopying, meetings, forms to complete and notarize, and yet another trip to Southern California planned for next week.

But, as they say -- whoever "they" are -- that's life. And better that than the alternative, to be sure.

In fact, by the time I finish typing up and posting these December links it will be time to type up January's links... sigh....

I want to remind you that February 3 is the deadline to sign up for the last Alien Contact giveaway, hosted by SciFiChick.com. The giveaway is open to US residents (a print copy giveaway) and non-US residents (an ebook copy giveaway). So follow the link to SciFiChick.com, read my guest blog post entitled "Twenty-six Stories, Twenty-six Weeks..." and be sure to sign up for the giveaway.

And speaking of Alien Contact: Michael at The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review blog just posted his December Reading Log, and he had these kind words to say about the anthology:

Alien Contact edited by Marty Halpern – Ranging from first contact and last contact to vacationers visiting an alien's home world and being, typically, obnoxious guests, Alien Contact compiles one of the most diverse collections of modern stories concerning the "other." Highly recommended....

Now, on to the links: This is my belated monthly wrap-up of December's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. There is a lot of content this time around, so please return for a second visit if you need to to take full advantage of all the links. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Since I'm encouraging you to follow me on Twitter, here are teasers from Angela James's (@angelajames) "10 things authors should know about Twitter": 1) When you start your tweet with the @ symbol... 2) If you have your tweets protected... 3) You should not, really ever, I mean never, query or pitch an editor or agent on Twitter... 4) Please don't use Twitter DMs (or Facebook messages) to do business... 5) Just because the editor/agent is on Twitter at 11pm on a Friday night... 6) When we say you should "engage" on Twitter... 7) You should be talking about other people's books... 8) And while we're on the subject of promotion... 9) It's a good idea to be mindful... and 10) Twitter should be fun. For all the details: Angela James's blog. (via @ColleenLindsay)

• In 1963, at the ripe old age of sixteen, Bruce McAllister (1988 Hugo and Nebula awards finalist for "Dream Baby"; 2007 Hugo Award finalist for "Kin") sent out a 4-question mimeographed survey to 150 well-known authors to learn if "they consciously planted symbols in their work." Remember, this was long before the internet and email: the authors had to be tracked down, envelopes addressed and mailed, etc. He hoped the surveys would "settle a conflict with his English teacher by proving that symbols weren't lying beneath the texts they read like buried treasure awaiting discovery." Bruce has been sitting on 65 of those responses for all these years, and thanks to the Paris Review, we can now view many of these questionnaire responses from the likes of Jack Kerouac, Ayn Rand, Ralph Ellison, Ray Bradbury, John Updike, Saul Bellow, and Norman Mailer. This is amazing stuff! Not to be missed! The PR article was posted on December 5; on December 17, less than two weeks later, PR Online reported that they had 120,000 page views of the McAllister survey article -- the most page views they've ever had!

Close to the EDGE....

Kilian Melloy, Assistant Arts Editor for EDGE, poses some difficult questions for me in this Alien Contact interview, originally posted on EDGE:Boston.

When Kilian asked:

As a follow-up to last year's Is Anybody Out There? (which you co-edited with Nick Gevers for Daw Books), Alien Contact is a logical theme. Both books pose big philosophical questions. Is Anybody Out There? examined the paradox of why, if there is alien intelligence in the galaxy (as, mathematically, there ought to be) no extraterrestrial race has yet, to our knowledge, paid Earth a visit. Do you have a personal opinion on the best explanation for this conundrum?

I responded:

There are others who are far more qualified to respond to this question than I am... I would have to agree with Paul Davies¹, whose book The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was published nearly simultaneously with Is Anybody Out There? Davies states that focusing on radio signals for 50 years of the SETI project has been to no avail; we need to start thinking out of the box. One suggestion Davies makes is that ET might use biological organisms as a means of sending information, so we should dispatch retroviruses that would insert DNA into any found DNA-based organism. Coincidentally, the British edition of The Eerie Silence from Allen Lane Publishers is subtitled Are We Alone in the Universe?

You can read the full interview, including my response to this, the last question:

The collection includes a story by a well-known anti-gay writer, as well as one whose remarks on a blog got her disinvited as Guest of Honor from a convention a couple of years ago because some people saw her remarks as bigoted. When it comes to publishing a story by a writer who has generated such controversy, do you simply ignore his politics and rely on the quality of his work? Or do you have to weigh the political against the artistic when making your choices?

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Footnote:

1. My previous blog post, just prior to the publication of Is Anybody Out There? on Paul Davies and his book The Eerie Silence.

To the Core...

Keith Soltys reviews Alien Contact on his blog Core Dump 2.0. Here's the concluding paragraph to Keith's review, which I believe speaks to the heart (the core!) of Alien Contact:

Alien Contact is a strong anthology that showcases the diversity of modern SF. Given how central the idea of alien contact is to science fiction, you might think that all of the good ideas were taken long ago, but this anthology demonstrates clearly that that's not the case.

Keith isn't a book blogger, per se; his blog is subtitled "Things that interest me," in which he blogs "about science and technology, music, technical communication, computers and software, science fiction, and whatever else I feel like writing about." Hopefully his review of Alien Contact will reach a wider audience than just strictly book readers, and science fiction book readers at that.

Twenty-six Stories, Twenty-six Weeks...

...is the title of my guest blog post on SciFiChick.com, whom I would like to thank for providing me the opportunity -- and the space -- to share with a new group of readers some background on my Alien Contact anthology.

Here's an excerpt from my blog post:

By April 2011, I had finalized the story order for my Alien Contact anthology. So I was ready to announce the contents list. Most anthologists accomplish this by simply posting a list of the stories. SF news sites pick it up, as do SF bloggers and tweeters, and that's how readers learn of an anthology's contents. But a list is, well, a list — and boring.

I had already invested more than two years in putting together this anthology, and I was determined to maintain that energy level until the book was published. So, after a bit of brainstorming, I decided to blog about each of the stories — one story each week, in their order of appearance — over the course of twenty-six weeks, concluding by the end of October, just in time for the book's publication.

[...]

...if the reader thinks of Alien Contact as a DVD, then these twenty-six weeks of blog posts serve as the DVD extras....

Following my guest blog post is yet another Alien Contact giveaway: An opportunity for a US reader to win a signed/inscribed print edition, and for a non-US reader to win an ebook edition. The deadline to enter this giveaway is February 4. [Note: This is the final Alien Contact giveaway!]

Please check out SciFiChick.com, read my guest blog post while you're there, and be sure to sign up for the giveaway if you don't already own a copy of Alien Contact. (And if you don't, why not?)

Grasping at Aliens

In previous blog posts I've mentioned the significant role that book review bloggers play in today's publishing wars -- by bringing titles that aren't always reviewed by the mainstream press to the attention of book readers and buyers. Take Alien Contact for example: it's an all-reprint anthology from independent press Night Shade Books, and even though the book contains stories by such "name" authors as Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to name only three, it hasn't gotten a great deal of attention amongst mainstream publications, with the exception of Library Journal and The Guardian.

That's why book review blogs are so important to an anthology like Alien Contact and to a publisher like Night Shade Books. A typical reader doesn't have access to Kirkus Reviews or Publishers Weekly -- mostly because these publications are designed for libraries and bookstores and are far too expensive. But what a typical reader does have access to are the hundreds (thousands?) of free online book review blogs, such as John Ottinger's "Grasping for the Wind science fiction & fantasy news & reviews" blog.

I mention this blog specifically because John recently reviewed my Alien Contact anthology.

What I appreciate in particular about this review is that John addresses each of the twenty-six stories in the anthology. He doesn't necessarily like, or even understand, all of the stories, but he gives equal attention to each, which allows the reader to assess the overall content and quality of the book as a whole. As the book's editor, I'm gratified to see every author mentioned, not just the most popular or well-known authors.

Here are just a couple (well, maybe three) of Ottinger's individual story reviews:

Karen Joy Fowler's "Face Value" is a tragic story of a man and wife team sent to an alien planet to make contact with the moth-like intelligence found there. Taki is the xenobiologist and Hesper, his wife, a poet. Taki thrives, but Hesper becomes more and more depressed until even her poet's soul is lost. Fowler's sad story is about transcendence and the place where beauty comes from. It's about relationship too. Taki and Hesper's inability to understand one another has its echo in Taki's inability to communicate with the natives. There is a haunting beauty to Fowler's story that will leave you pondering long after you read it.

I have to admit that I don't really get "Guerrilla Mural of Siren's Song" by Ernest Hogan. The story appears to be about a street artist who encounters sirens deep in the winds of Jupiter. It's also a love paean to a dead woman. Art and experience combine in an experiential tale of whirling emotions and unreliable narration. It's likely to be the favorite story in the anthology of people with a less analytical and more artistic bent than myself, but for me it was rather confusing.

"If Nudity Offends You" by Elizabeth Moon is another story I have read before. In this one, a court secretary, living in a trailer park, finds that her neighbors have been illegally tapping into her electricity. Most of the story is about her confrontation with these odd foreigners who wear no clothes in their trailer, talk funny, and seem slightly off. The whole story builds up to a surprise ending that makes you wonder if these foreigners were not just from a distant land, but from a different planet entirely. It's a close encounter that is discovered only after the fact.

John concludes his review with the following observation:

Alien Contact is a title that might be slightly misleading. This is not an anthology of first contacts but rather a collection of encounters with the other, what we choose to call the alien, the ineffable, the different and unknowable. Halpern's anthology is an excellent collection of tales that share a theme in common, but that manage to postulate widely different scenarios

As I said, these are only three of the twenty-six individual story reviews; you'll find John Ottinger's complete review on Grasping for the Wind.

Redux: Another Alien Contact Giveaway

Just a reminder that this current giveaway [there will be yet another after the new year] ends in 4 days for a print edition (US residents) and ebook edition (non-US residents) of my Alien Contact anthology. To be eligible FTW you only need to send a very, very brief email -- no blog comment required, no Facebook "Like," no retweeting -- just an email with either your mailing address (US residents) or your country (non-US residents).

Click on over to Mad Hatter's Review blog for the details on how to enter the giveaway for a copy of Alien Contact. The deadline is midnight, December 31st.

Happy New Year everyone! And happy reading

Observed in the Wilds of San Francisco

I was hoping for a photograph or two from an indie bookstore, since the only pics I've seen so far of Alien Contact in the wild are at B&N stores....

So a special "thank you" to Jude Feldman at the best genre bookstore on the West Coast (and possibly even points farther):

Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street, San Francisco 94110

Note: When I asked Jude (via email) about the brown something in the top right corner of the photograph, she responded: "...the brown/black thing you're seeing in the background is a portion of a steampunk art piece that's mounted on the wall. It's called The Triparator and it was made by Dr. Alan Rorie."