I recently mused on how I seem to have come out of alignment with the decision-makers at the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future competition after my 9,000-word ghosts-on-a-spaceship story (oh, how Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores really, really hated that concept) got a 'D- see me' scribbled in the corner by teacher. And I used to count on at least a couple of silver honorables (sic) each year.
I followed that up with a 13,000-word crossing of the timelines story set in both the 1920s and 2030s, about inadvertently, indirectly killing Hitler and letting out a horror even worse. It was originally, pre a heavy rewrite, the first and third parts of a triptych, the middle of which was published as a standalone in Ossury Press's 'Under the Stairs' a couple of years ago. It got the same treatment.
Well, my ability to submit to WotF may soon be no more as Utopia SF have taken my near future dragons versus robots story The Black Dragon, to be published in their August issue. And, unlike the vast, vast majority of my publishing credits, this one counts against my eligibility for WotF. So, after Sunrunner's appearance in Third Flatiron's 'After the Goldrush' was my first, this is my second strike. I'm allowed a third, but after that the scientologists regard me as a professional. At this rate it should happen in, oh, about fifteen years. Perhaps Tom Cruise will return my calls then?
And can I say a big 'chapeau' to Utopia for an unusually frictionless editorial and contractual process - within fourteen hours of seeing the acceptance email and responding, all the blue pencilled i's were dotted and rights and responsibilities t's were crossed. I can't be bothered to look back a past posts detailing polar opposite experiences, but I'll let you dig through the archive and find them. Let's just say they're there.
Whilst we're talking about the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future competition, the story which got me to the finals back in 2017, Doctor Herzog's Collection, is due to be published soon by Graveside Press in their Tiny Terrors strand. And, frankly, when I went back to the manuscript, it was so baggy I'm amazed teacher didn't scribble 'D- see me' in the corner. I'm a better writer now, and have tightened it until it'll confess to anything. I'll let you know how to see for yourself when it flies the nest. How it got to be a finalist in the state it was in is a mystery...
My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms
Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.
2084. The world remains at war.
In the Eurasian desert, twenty-year old Adnan emerges from a coma with memories of a strictly ordered city of steel and glass, and a woman he loved.
The city is the Dome, and the woman... is Adnan's secret to keep.
Adnan learns what the Dome is, and what his role really was within it. He learns why everybody fears the Sickness more than the troopers. And he learns why he is the only one who can stop the war.
Persuaded to re-enter the Dome to implant a virus that will bring the war machine to its knees, the resistance think that Adnan is returning to free the many - but really he wants to free the one.
24 0s & a 2
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).
