Friday, November 30, 2012

A FUNGUS AMONG US* (review, update, and links)

My newest review is up on The Crow's Caw. I read FUNGI this month, an anthology built around the theme of…well, fungi. Some excellent writers contributed, including A.C. Wise and Nick Mamatas.

It's been a month since I started slush reading for Electric Velocipede and I believe it's gone pretty well so far. I've gone through more than a hundred and forty stories. (And consider there are four other slushies at EV. That's a lot of fiction!) I've read some really interesting pieces and had my eyes bleed on occasion. It's a time commitment, but I'm enjoying myself and find the experience quite worthwhile.

I've been looking forward to Damien Walters Grintalis' debut novel Ink for months, and finally, it will available next week. Yay!!!

Lee Thompson has a new release from DarkFuse, the second Red Piccirilli book WITHIN THIS GARDEN WEEPING from his Division Mythos.

December is upon us. How the hell did that happen? Happy Holidays!

*On Twitter A.C. Wise accepted full responsibility for my use of the phrase 'fungus among us'. THE SHAME IS NOT MINE ALONE

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Updates, a Bit about a Storm and Other Ramblings (Also Dog Pic)

So we made it through Hurricane Sandy relatively unscathed. We lost power Monday night, but were only out for seventy-four hours and had gas to run the generator long enough to keep both our and my grandparents' fridge and freezer going until it came back up. Other than that, we were cold, but incredibly lucky, just a few trees down. Of course on the other hand, my dad has had the week off because his employers still don't have power and may not next week. Lots of our neighbors are still without power, and are likely to be for sometime. My thoughts and sympathies remain with those who bore the brunt of the storm.

Anyway, my newest review went up on The Crow's Caw Monday. I reviewed Robert Shearman's collection, Remember Why You Fear Me.

Also, last week I became a slush reader for (Hugo Award-winning) Electric Velocipede! Though Sandy kept me from it for three days, I made up for it yesterday, and I'm enjoying the experience. If you have a genre-bending, literary-minded story, consider submitting!

If you feel like reading some seriously good fiction, Damien Walters Grintalis has had two really good stories out recently They Make of You a Monster on Beneath Ceaseless Skies and A Handful of Glass, a Sky without Stars on Daily Science Fiction. Go check them out. I highly recommend both.

I spent most of our period without electricity with my nose in a book, devouring Christopher Hitchens's (rather lengthy) memoir Hitch-22 and most of Panorama City by Antoine Wilson. (I might add, the battery on my Nook Color held up very nicely; I read Hitch-22 (hardback) by daylight and Panorama City (ebook) after dark and the Nook retains a third of its charge.) I'll probably post a review of Panorama City here sometime next week. Hitch's memoir is witty (I laughed out loud a couple of times) and erudite, and gives a remarkable view of a remarkable man. Hitchens lived a full life, and his packed-to-the-gills book only covers a fraction of it.

I did actually remember to charge the battery for the camera before the storm hit, and then promptly forgot to take any storm-related pictures. Not that there was much interesting in our neck of the woods, except downed trees and power lines, which mostly look the same anyway. So, here is an picture of my dog being silly in the snow, from a few winters ago, to compensate for my neglect.