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Silence in the CityJust fielded a couple of welcome emails from Founders House Publishing, the outfit that publishes my tentacle fiction and the collected Archdruid Report essays. First, I'm delighted to announce that Silence in the City, an anthology of original stories about the end of the modern world, which had a successful Kickstarter late last year (and was promoted here among other places.) It's got pieces by Alex Shvartsman, David B. Coe, Dean Wesley Smith, Gini Koch, Kevin McLaughlin, D.A. D'Amico, Annie Reed, Joshua Palmatier, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Kirsten Cross, D.B. Keele, Shaun Kilgore, and me. I've gotten my copy, and it looks really good. Interested?  Check it out here

In other Founders House news, owner Shaun Kilgore has been encouraged by the success of recent Kickstarters and is trying to establish steady funding for MYTHIC magazine, his flagship science fiction and fantasy quarterly, via Patreon. He writes: 

"Right now, I am making an open request for those who have chosen to like or follow MYTHIC's page, to please consider supporting the magazine through Patreon. You can do that for as little as $1 a month.
 
Mythic"You can get each monthly issue in eBook formats (PDF, MOBI, or EPUB) for only $2 a month. For a bit more, ($5) you get the eBooks plus bonus books like Best of collections and access to the back issues of MYTHIC. At $10 monthly, you'll get eBooks and signed paperback issues.
 
"The aim continues to be able to sustainably pay authors pro rates. But I have quite a mountain to climb to get to 8 CENTS A WORD. I need all hands on deck, gang! Seriously. I've even set up goals again to give me something of a roadmap. I'll add more goals as we cross them off. Right now, I have those to get us to 5 CENTS A WORD. (We are at 1 CENT A WORD currently.)  So, whaddya say?
 
Just think about this: If all of the followers and people who like this page jumped aboard even at $1 a month, we could almost get to 5 CENTS A WORD. Imagine if some of you became subscribers? We'd make some serious strides towards that 8 CENTS A WORD target!
https://www.patreon.com/mythicmag"
 
So there you have it. Imaginative fiction isn't quite dead yet!
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Journey StarI'm delighted to announce the publication of my latest novel:  Journey Star, the sequel to The Fires of Shalsha. We're back on the colony world Eridan, three centuries or so after the Earth choked to death on the waste products of human industry, and the story continues.  Here's the blurb...

"Twenty years have passed on the colony world Eridan since the end of the war between the warrior mystics of the Halka and the heirs of the tyrannical Planetary Directorate. With the Directorate and its lethal battle-drones gone, the Halka have turned all their strength to the struggle against the cannibalistic Outrunners, so that Eridan can finally be made safe for human settlement.
 
"Yet new forces are moving as the last Outrunner bands are hunted down, and one of the survivors—an Outrunner girl whose body contains an artificial symbiotic life form—may hold the key to Eridan's survival. As strange signals arrive from space and dissension spreads through the ranks of the Halka, the girl, the symbiont, and the last heir to the Directorate's secret knowledge must reach Journey Star, the starship that brought humanity to Eridan. What they find there may begin a new era for Eridan...or destroy the Halka and everything they hope to defend."

This and The Fires of Shalsha are my closest approach to hard science fiction, complete with starships and the challenges of an alien ecology. Check out the new book here and, if you haven't yet read the original volume (my first published novel!), you can pick it up here

***Update:*** The ebook version is now avaiable! You can get it in any format you prefer here

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Silence in the CityThe kickstarter for MYTHIC Magazine, Founders House Publishing's magazine of original fantasy and science fiction, was successful enough -- three stretch goals hit! -- that publisher Shaun Kilgore is back again with another Kickstarter project that will be of serious interest to readers here. Here's the blurb: 

"Sudden disruptions in power and other major services sends a city into chaos. In the blink of an eye, the modern technological world fails. Is it a government plot? Experiment gone wrong? A foreign cyber attack? Alien invasion? A mystical incursion from beings beyond this dimension? Who knows? Now the noise and the bustle of the city has vanished and an eerie silence settles over the urban landscape. Within, there are stories of human violence, depravity, and desperation, but also heroism, selflessness, and sacrifice. SILENCE IN THE CITY is an anthology of speculative tales asking what happens when a city—and all of modern civilization—is plunged into darkness.
 
"SILENCE IN THE CITY will contain at least fifteen original short stories spanning the science fiction, fantasy, and even horror genres that will be written by popular and best-selling writers like Gini Koch (writing as A.E. Stanton), David B. Coe, Dean Wesley Smith, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Joshua Palmatier, Kevin J. McLaughlin, Alex Shvartsman, John Michael Greer, and many others." 

Yes, I've got a story in mind for this project, one that I've been mulling over for a while now. I think the whole project is going to be well worth reading. As for the Kickstarter, Shaun's got a stack of add-ons and stretch goals in place. Check out the details here -- while you've still got electricity...
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MYTHIC coverI'm delighted to report that the fundraiser for Locust Creek Plant Haven, which I discussed in earlier posts here and here, is finished and has been a thumping success. They exceeded their goal with a donation total of $4889, so all the improvements to the endangered plant sanctuary and the establishment of a forest school for children are going ahead as we speak.  If you haven't visited the photo page for the fundraiser here, take a moment to do so. 

Meanwhile the Kickstarter subscription campaign for MYTHIC Magazine, which I also discussed in this earlier post, is heading into the home stretch, with just four days still to go. It's already met its minimum and passed the first of its stretch goals, and with $3,999 raised, it's got just a little more to go to hit the second stretch goal. Publisher Shaun Kilgore's mission here is one that ought to warm the heart of anyone who's ever dreamed of writing a story: he wants to pay his authors more. If you haven't contributed yet, or even if you have, please consider visiting the Kickstarter page here and making a contribution -- and if you know of any venues where you can let people know about the fundraiser or MYTHIC Magazine, please consider helping to get the word out. Thank you! 

***Update***--45 hours to go as I type this, and the fundraiser has met the second of its stretch goals. Thank you, everyone -- and if you haven't contributed yet, please consider doing so now!

***Further Update*** -- the fundraiser has closed, having hit three, count 'em, three of its stretch goals, and well over double the original amount Shaun asked for. Thank you, all of you!  I have the best readers on the internet, full stop, end of sentence. 
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MYTHICMany of my readers, perhaps most, are aware that Founders House Publishing -- the firm that publishes most of my fiction, including The Weird of Hali -- also  publishes a magazine of fantasy and science fiction, MYTHIC. If you haven't yet encountered MYTHIC, and you like imaginative fiction that isn't just a rehash of the usual clichés, you should definitely have a look at it. Yes, I've had several stories published there, and there are more in the queue -- why do you ask?  ;-) 

Publisher Shaun Kilgore has just launched a subscription drive through Kickstarter. It's already a paying market for stories -- relatively unusual these days for a magazine that isn't backed by the corporate big boys -- but his goal is to build the subscriber base to the point that he can start paying professional rates for the stories he publishes.  This strikes me as a worthy goal, and I'd like to encourage my readers to consider subscribing, or adding to their subscription, via Kickstarter. Interested?  Check out the Kickstarter page here
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New MapsRegular readers of my blog will be familiar with my longtime interest in deindustrial fiction -- that is to say, fiction set in the kind of future we're actually going to get, in which declining resources, crumbling infrastructure, and the accelerating failure of the grand myth of perpetual progress take the place of the shoddy Tomorrowland kitsch that provides so many minds these days with their prefab thoughts. There aren't many venues that will publish stories of that kind -- it's long been a source of wry amusement to me that so many of those cultural venues that like to strut around claiming to be antinomian and transgressive are the first to run like rabbits back into the conventional wisdom the moment anybody proposes something that actually contradicts the conformist beliefs of our time. 

Joel Caris' fine quarterly Into the Ruins offered a venue for deindustrial SF for several years, but Joel has decided to go in new directions now. Fortunately, other hands are ready to pick up the work. 

Thus I'm pleased to announce the impending birth of a new quarterly magazine, New Maps, which will publish stories of deindustrial science fiction.  You can find its website here. Editor Nathanael Bonnell is eagerly seeking stories -- you can read his submissions requirements here -- and is also looking for cover art for the upcoming issues. This is a real opportunity for aspiring authors and artists -- and of course for anyone who likes to read science fiction rather than spaceship-themed fairy tales. Check it out. 
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rocketJust a fast update -- we've got nine days left on the Kickstarter for Vintage Worlds 2 and 3, and while we're most of the way there, "most of the way" isn't home free. I'd like to encourage all my readers who enjoy good old-fashioned science fiction to consider kicking in a little, or a lot, to help get this project into orbit. Here's the link to the Kickstarter, and here's the link to the post here on my Dreamwidth journal that gives all the details. Thank you for your help with this!

***9/16/20 update:  Founders House Publishing has decided to sweeten the deal to encourage people to contribute to the Kickstarter. Everyone who kicks something in -- including those who have already signed up -- will also receive a copy of my first novel, The Fires of Shalsha -- a SF adventure set on a colony planet, which one of its reviewers described as resembling Seven Samurai as rewritten by Ursula K. Le Guin. Here are some details on the book...and you may want to have a copy, if you don't have one already, because the sequel -- Journey Star -- is finished in draft and in the middle of final revisions. Stay tuned for another announcement!***
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Dream HuntThose of my readers who picked up any of the volumes of the After Oil series of deindustrial-SF anthologies, or subscribed to deindustrial SF quarterly Into the Ruins, already know that Catherine McGuire is one of the rising stars of the subgenre. I'm really pleased to see that her first anthology of deindustrial stories, The Dream Hunt and Other Tales, is now available for preorder from Founders House. The deindustrial-SF subgenre is picking up speed -- no surprises there, as the myth of progress crumbles around us daily -- and this volume showcases some of the best recent work in the field. Interested? Copies can be preordered here




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scribe writingThis morning I was amused to hear from one of the readers on my blog—tip of the hat to Yvonne Rowse—that Katy Rose Pool, a blogger on the Tor.com website, has posted a longish piece on the trope of the Chosen One in science fiction and fantasy. The amusement, of course, came because her piece appeared all of five days after I’d put a lengthy and rather edgy essay on the same subject on my blog Ecosophia. It’s hardly the first time I’ve had the theme of one of my essays scooped up by the corporate media—that’s been happening since fairly early on in my blogging career—and it’s par for the course that it was done without acknowledgment. Mind you, I don’t recall any other examples that were quite so prompt, but then I knew when I posted my essay that there was a pretty good chance that I was going to hit a nerve.

I hope none of my readers think that I’m particularly vexed by this. Au contraire, this sort of surreptitious borrowing is an inevitable consequence of the way that the marketplace of ideas is set up just now, and it’s also one of the few ways that genuinely new ideas can find their way into the nearly airtight bubble of today’s approved discourse. I want to talk about both those dimensions here.

To begin with, while Tor Books and its online subsidiary are an integral part of the mass media industry—Tor is one of scores of once-independent labels that have been reduced to petty fiefdoms within the gargantuan Macmillan media empire—the people who provide content for Tor.com and other corporate blog platforms by and large aren’t part of the corporate world and its culture. They’re writers like me, some aspiring, some already successful, who leapt at the chance to turn out raw material for a well-known brand for the sake of publicity. I’d have tried to get the same sort of gig back when I was clawing my way to a full-time writing career, except that in those days I mostly wrote occult nonfiction and the big boys of the publishing world aren’t interested in promoting that.

Well, and there was also my awkward independent streak as a writer and thinker. One of the reasons I’ve found a happy home among small and midsized publishers is that the big boys of the publishing world treat content for books and websites as an industrial product, to be turned out to spec on demand. The conspiratorially-minded like to think of this as a consequence of evil plots among our sinister overlords, but the conversations I’ve had with editors and marketing people at the big publishing houses that have picked up a few of my book projects have convinced me that it’s a matter of groupthink instead. In today’s world, where mass market publishing is dominated by a handful of grotesquely oversized corporate behemoths, the decisions that matter are made by a very small number of people, who share similar values and mindsets, and who are also as fashion-conscious as a gaggle of twelve-year-olds reading the latest issue of Tiger Beat.

That’s why science fiction and fantasy, which used to be among the most consistently original of literary genres back when they were turned out by hundreds of independent publishers, have become obsessed with one dreary cliché after another now that they’re the wholly-owned subsidiaries of a handful of bloated media conglomerates. It’s also why the writers who get sucked into providing content for said conglomerates have so unenviable a task. Their job requires them to do two mutually exclusive things. The first is to follow without question the requirements handed down by their corporate bosses. The second is to write something interesting, so that people keep reading the books or the blogs. Those requirements are mutually exclusive, in turn, because no matter how interesting the latest fashion might have been when it was new and fresh, by the time it gets picked up by the folks in the corner offices it’s roughly as new and fresh as the mummy of Ramses III.

How do you square that circle, and keep your bosses buying your content when they want you to rehash the same old same old but keep it interesting and fresh and new?  The answer, of course, is that you carry out covert raids on the feral side of the blogosphere, the side that hasn’t submitted to corporate domestication, and surreptitiously import as much from there as you think you can get away with.

I suspect many of my readers know that outright plagiarism from bloggers has become pandemic in the news industry these days, as reporters desperate to meet deadlines lift whole paragraphs from obscure corners of the internet and hope they won’t be caught. What Pool is doing is of course far less objectionable. She’s simply picked up a topic discussed on an obscure corner of the internet, put her own spin on it, sedulously removed any reference to the edgy political dimensions of the theme, and turned out a pleasant, unthreatening, and entertaining piece that clearly caught the interest of her readers. I don’t mind this in the least, because the result is that an idea I wanted to get into circulation has gotten a substantial boost.

That’s what makes the present situation so fraught with possibility for those of us on the feral side of the blogosphere, off in the obscure corners of the internet where ideas don’t have to be approved by a corporate marketing flack to find their way to readers. As those who remember the twilight years of the Soviet Union know well, when every officially respectable media outlet is ringing changes on the same dreary themes, nothing is so appealing as a genuinely different idea. Nor does it matter in the least if those genuinely new ideas have had every obviously challenging aspect scrubbed off them.

It’s of no concern at all, in other words, that Pool didn’t happen to mention the way that the Chosen One theme has monopolized so much of science fiction and fantasy, or that she said nothing at all about the way that this particular trope helps support the myth of meritocracy that the corporate managerial class uses to justify its monopoly on power. That myth is already cracking apart—the college admissions scandal is just one of the rifts opening up in it just now—and it doesn’t take superhuman powers to notice how pervasive the Chosen One theme has become or how obviously it relates to the self-image of the absurdly overprivileged.

There are things that only have power so long as nobody talks about them in public. Certain kinds of myth are among them—and now that people on a corporate forum like Tor.com are talking about the trope of the Chosen One, the unraveling of the myths that gave that trope its emotional appeal and political influence will proceed apace.
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Vintage WorldsI'm delighted to announce that several fiction projects in which I've been involved to one degree or another are now available. First of all, Vintage Worlds -- an anthology of SF tales edited by me and the indefatigable Zendexor, set in the Old Solar System, the wholly imaginary but utterly entrancing realm of classic science fiction -- is now available in both print and e-book formats.

Think of it as space fantasy: tales of two- (or more-) fisted adventure set in a solar system that's chockfull of intelligent species, inhabitable worlds, and spaceships that look like something other than random collections of hardware -- yes, we're talking tail fins here. The mere fact that we turned out to inhabit a much less interesting solar system doesn't take anything away from the delight readers still get from the solar system tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, and the other great authors of science fiction's Golden Age, and there's no reason not to set new stories there -- after all, how many people quibble about the fact that Middle-earth and Narnia don't exist? 

This collection includes seventeen stories, including my "Out of the Chattering Planet," and amounts to 120,000 words of interplanetary adventure. You can pick up your copy here

There's also good news for readers of fantasy. The first two volumes of my epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, are heading into print in new paperback and e-book editions, with the others scheduled to follow over the course of the next year. The first volume, The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth, is already available in e-book format and can be purchased here, and the paperback edition is in press -- it can be preordered now (use the same link) and will be in print on December 17. The second volume, The Weird of Hali: Kingsport, will be released in print and e-book editions that same day; it can be preordered here

Kingsport coverThose of you who haven't been following this end of my writing may want to know that, while these novels use the tentacle-ridden horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft as raw material, they're not horror fiction. Lovecraft was a brilliant fantasist as well as a capable horror writer, and I've long felt that the fantastic end of his work has been neglected for far too long; the worlds of his imagination are also just too tempting a venue for fantasy for me to pass up.

The twist, of course, is that we're not getting your standard tale of how tentacled horrors out to devour the world, with the aid of their sinister human cultists, get stopped at the last minute by some combination of square-jawed investigators and sheer dumb luck. (That's been done not merely to death but out the other side into a couple of further reincarnations.) Au contraire, there's always at least two sides to any story; these tales are from the point of view of those awful cultists -- the ordinary men and women, that is, who discover the forbidden truth about those tentacled horrors (aka the old gods of nature) and get drawn into the ancient and terrible struggle between archaic gods and their all too modern, efficient, and up-to-date adversaries. It's a conflict on which the fate of the world does indeed rest, but, ahem, it's not the old gods of nature who are seeking to turn the living Earth into a smoldering, lifeless waste strewn with plastic trash...

So here are the first two volumes -- the stories, to be precise, of how the two main characters of the series find their way into a wider and more eldritch world. The third volume, The Weird of Hali: Chorazin, which launches those characters and several others on a desperate quest to awaken a sleeping goddess, will be out early in the new year.  The others -- The Weird of Hali: Dreamlands, The Weird of Hali: Providence, The Weird of Hali: Red Hook, and The Weird of Hali: Arkham -- will be in print by the end of 2019. Stay tuned for more announcements! 
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The summer 2018 issue of Into the Ruins has just been released, and it contains a treat...
Winter's Tales

Longtime readers of mine may remember the first work of deindustrial fiction I ever wrote, which appeared in the last months of 2006 on The Archdruid Report. "Winter's Tales' was a set of vignettes of everyday life in an American city in 2050, 2100, and 2150, taking three samples along the familiar historical curve of decline and fall. It's been turned into a graphic story by Marcu Knoesen and Walt Barna. Yes, this is the first page. 

I'm delighted, and I think my readers generally will find the graphic story a compelling revisioning of my tale. If you don't have a subscription to Into the Ruins yet, you can pick up a copy of the latest issue here

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The latest issue of Into the Ruins has just been released by Figuration Press. For those of my readers who aren't familiar with Into the Ruins, it's a magazine of science fiction stories about the future we're actually going to get -- as in, wave goodbye to the hackneyed, done-to-death mandatory orthodox interstellar future of mainstream SF, say hello to futures here on earth as people deal with the aftermath of the Industrial Age and the emergence of new cultures in the far future. I think of Into the Ruins as the ongoing quarterly successor to my four volumes of postpetroleum SF, the After Oil series, and it features some of the most thought-provoking science fiction being published today. Pick up a copy here, or better still, subscribe

Since this journal seems to have attracted a lot of people who are interested in writing, it's probably also worth mentioning that editor Joel Caris is always, as in always, looking for new stories suited to Into the Ruins. You can find the submission guidellines here -- and remember the tried and true advice from the old days of SF pulp magazines: always read an issue of a magazine before you submit a story to it. 

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ecosophia: (Default)John Michael Greer

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