This year’s Locus Awards nomination period is now open.

Anyone may vote for the Locus Awards. In each category, you may vote for up to five works or nominees, ranking them 1 (first place) through 5 (fifth). Listed options in each category are based on Locus‘s 2012 Recommended Reading List, with options in categories for editor, artist, magazine, and publisher including results of the past two years. You are welcome to use the write-in boxes to vote for other titles and nominees in any category. Nominations close April 15, 2013. To nominate, go here.

To assist you in finding material to nominate, I’ve assembled this post to list everything that I worked on in 2012.

• All of Lightspeed‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• All of Nightmare‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• Selected stories from Armored are available online.
• Selected stories from Under the Moons of Mars are available online.
• Selected stories from Other Worlds Than These (reprints) are available online (not eligible for the short fiction categories, but this may assist you in nominating in the Anthology category).
• Selected stories from Epic: Legends of Fantasy (reprints) are available online (not eligible for the short fiction categories, but this may assist you in nominating in the Anthology category).

After the jump, you’ll find all of the 2012 eligible stories/authors that either appeared in Lightspeed or Nightmare, or in projects I’m otherwise affiliated with. (more…)

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Check out this awesome video of David D. Levine (a/k/a the villain Dr. Talon) reading his “Letter to the Editor,” which you’ll be able to read yourself in The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination (out Feb. 19):

In other news, Tor Books, publisher The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, is sending me on a short west coast book tour in support of the anthology’s release.

Dates and details below. All of the events should run 60-90 minutes unless otherwise noted.

• Kepler’s Books
  • READING / SIGNING
  • Feb. 21, 7:30pm
  • 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park CA
  • Featuring…me! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!
• Mysterious Galaxy
  • READING / SIGNING
  • Feb. 22, 7:00pm
  • 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd Ste 302, San Diego, CA
  • Also featuring contributor Austin Grossman!
• Borderlands
  • READING / SIGNING
  • Feb. 23, 3:00pm
  • 866 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA
  • Also featuring contributor Seanan McGuire!
• Poisoned Pen
  • SIGNING
  • Feb. 25, 7:00pm
  • 4014 N Goldwater Blvd STE 101, Scottsdale, AZ
  • Also featuring contributor Diana Gabaldon!
• University Bookstore
  • READING / SIGNING
  • Feb. 28, 7:00pm
  • 4326 University Way NE, Seattle, WA
  • Featuring…me! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!
• Emerald City Comic Con
  • PANEL: The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination
  • Mar. 3, 1:20pm – 2:15pm
  • Hall C | Rooms 602-603
  • Washington State Convention Center, 800 Convention Pl, Seattle, WA
  • Also featuring contributors Daniel H. Wilson, Seanan McGuire, and Chris Claremont!
• Powell’s Books @ Cedar Hills Crossing
  • READING / SIGNING
  • Mar. 5, 7:00pm
  • 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, OR
  • Also featuring contributors David D. Levine and Daniel  H. Wilson

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Over on Goodreads, we’re giving away 5 copies of Oz Reimagined. These are Advance Review Copies (ARCs), also known as Advance Uncorrected Proofs; this is an early version of the book that is produced ahead of publication, for the purpose of giving reviewers time to read the book before it comes out, so their coverage can be timed accordingly. There may be some errors in this version of the text, and it does not include the interior art–it’s the same book otherwise. If you’d like to enter to win a copy, just pop over to Goodreads and enter! Contest ends Feb. 4.

Also on Goodreads, Tor Books is giving away 9 copies of The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination. Giveaway ends Jan. 31, so if you want to win one pop over to Goodreads and enter for a chance to win! Contest ends Jan. 31.

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This year’s Hugo Awards nomination period opens January 1.

The 2012 Hugo Awards will be presented in San Antonio, TX during Lone Star Con 3, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention (Aug. 29-Sep. 2). Nominations close on March 10, 2012. Anyone who has a supporting or full membership of Lone Star Con 3 as of January 31, 2013 and all members of Chicon 7 (last year’s Worldcon) may nominate works. If you didn’t attend Chicon 7, and you don’t plan to attend Lone Star Con 3, you can still nominate by purchasing a supporting membership. Nominations may be submitted through the online ballot, available here.

To assist you in finding material to nominate, I’ve assembled this post to list everything that I worked on in 2012.

• All of Lightspeed‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• All of Nightmare‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• Selected stories from Armored are available online.
• Selected stories from Under the Moons of Mars are available online.

If you are planning and eligible to vote for the Hugos this year, if you email me proof of your Worldcon membership (i.e., your name is listed on the Worldcon website as an attending member, or the email confirmation or receipt you received when you purchased your membership, etc.) I would be happy to make all of my 2012 content available to you in the digital format of your choice (doc, pdf, mobi, or epub).

After the jump, you’ll find all of the 2012 eligible stories/authors that either appeared in Lightspeed or Nightmare, or in projects I’m otherwise affiliated with. (more…)

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This year’s Nebula Awards nomination period is now open.

From November 15 to February 15, Active and Associate SFWA members may submit nominations for the Nebula Awards. Nominations may be submitted through the online ballot, available here. For more information, visit SFWA’s How to Vote page.

To assist you in finding material to nominate, I’ve assembled this post to list everything that I worked on in 2012.

• All of Lightspeed‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast). If you are a SFWA member, you can also grab each of the stories in various formats from the SFWA Forums, or else download an ebook (epub/mobi/pdf/doc) compilation of all 2012’s original material.
• All of Nightmare‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast). If you are a SFWA member, you can also grab each of the stories in various formats from the SFWA Forums, or else download an ebook (epub/mobi/pdf/doc) compilation of all 2012’s original material.
• Selected stories from Armored are available online. If you are a SFWA member, you can also grab each of the stories in various formats from the SFWA Forums, or else download an ebook (epub/mobi/pdf/doc) of the whole anthology.
• Selected stories from Under the Moons of Mars are available online. If you are a SFWA member, you can also grab each of the stories in various formats from the SFWA Forums, or else download an ebook (epub/mobi/pdf/doc) of the whole anthology.

Note: If you are not a SFWA member, but you are a Worldcon attendee and are planning/eligible to vote for the Hugos this year, if you email me proof of membership (i.e., your name is listed on the Worldcon website as an attending member, or the email confirmation or receipt you received when you purchased your membership, etc.) I would be happy to make these files available to you for that purpose.

After the jump, you’ll find all of the 2012 eligible stories/authors that either appeared in Lightspeed or Nightmare, or in projects I’m otherwise affiliated with. (more…)

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This year’s World Fantasy Awards nomination period is now open.

The World Fantasy Awards will be presented in Brighton, England during the World Fantasy Convention (Oct. 31 – Nov. 3). Deadline for nominating is and ballots must be received by May 31, 2013.

All registered members of the 2011 World Fantasy Convention in California, the 2012 World Fantasy Convention in Canada, and the 2013 event in Brighton will be eligible to vote before the deadline. If you didn’t attend one of the previously mentioned World Fantasy conventions, and you don’t plan to attend this year, you can still nominate by purchasing a supporting membership.

Already registered? Go and nominate your favorite works! Voting information is available on the World Fantasy Convention 2013 website.

To assist you in finding material to nominate, I’ve assembled this post to list everything that I worked on in 2012.

• All of Lightspeed‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• All of Nightmare‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• Selected stories from Under the Moons of Mars are available online.

If you are planning and eligible to vote for the World Fantasy Awards this year, if you email me proof of your World Fantasy membership (i.e., your name is listed on the World Fantasy website as an attending member, or the email confirmation or receipt you received when you purchased your membership, etc.) I would be happy to make all of my 2012 content available to you in the digital format of your choice (doc, pdf, mobi, or epub).

After the jump, you’ll find all of the 2012 eligible stories/authors that either appeared in Lightspeed or Nightmare, or in projects I’m otherwise affiliated with. (more…)

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This year’s Stoker Awards nomination period is now open.

Complete Stoker rules for 2012 are available on the HWA website [PDF link]. Nominations close January 15.

To assist you in finding material to nominate, I’ve assembled this post to list everything that I worked on in 2012.

• All of Nightmare‘s original fiction from 2012 is available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).
• All of Lightspeed‘s original fiction from 2012 is also available online (and also much of the 2012 original fiction is available as a podcast).

If you are an HWA member, you may email me to request copies of all of the stories listed here in either doc, pdf, mobi, or epub format.

After the jump, you’ll find all of the 2012 eligible stories/authors that either appeared in Lightspeed or Nightmare. Since Lightspeed publishes science fiction/fantasy primarily, I’ve only noted the stories here that lean toward horror/dark fantasy. (For a full list of my 2012 materials, see my Nebula Awards nominations post.) (more…)

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I was tagged by Charles Tan to take part in The Next Big Thing meme, which basically asks writers (and editors) to answer the same set of questions and hops from blog to blog.

What is the title of your next book?

That depends on what is meant by “next.” The next book I have that’s coming out is The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination (Feb. 19, 2013). That’ll be followed shortly thereafter by Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond (Feb. 26, 2013), which I co-edited with Douglas Cohen. And just recently released were Epic: Legends of Fantasy (Nov. 6, 2012) and the revised and expanded second edition of my anthology Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories (Dec. 4, 2012). If “next” means the next book that I’m working on now, then that’s Wastelands, Vol. II: More Stories of the Apocalypse (Summer 2013).

For purposes of the meme here, since I have to pick one, I’ll go with the mad scientist anthology.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was listening to the Escape Pod episode featuring Jeremiah Tolbert’s story “Instead of a Loving Heart” (which I ended up including as one of two reprints in the anthology), which I loved, and I thought, “Hey, you know what I like? Mad scientists. Someone should do a mad scientist anthology.” And, being a mad scientist an anthologist myself, I decided to be the one to do it. Then, fortuitously, Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible came along, and made a mad scientist anthology super-viable.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s an anthology of stories about mad scientists and evil geniuses, so it’s mostly science fiction, with some fantasy and a liberal dose of humor in many cases.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I don’t care but I would like—nay, DEMAND—it be directed by Christopher Nolan. Or, given the humorous slant of most of the book, maybe Edgar Wright.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Evil geniuses are always so keen on telling captured heroes all their fiendish plans; isn’t it about time someone gave them a platform such as this one to reach the masses with their messages of hope death and prosperity destruction?

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be published by Tor Books (Feb. 19, 2013). I’m represented by Joe Monti of Barry Goldblatt Literary.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

It took about six or nine months or so to assemble the anthology, I guess, if you count all the time I gave the authors to write their stories.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It is beyond compare. If any dare to even stand in its shadow, they will be utterly and mercilessly destroyed.

Well, actually…I suppose there’s the Dr. Horrible comics, and any superhero anthologies, such as Lou Anders’s Masked.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

World domination. Editing the anthology was actually an integral part of my own evil plan for taking over the world. See, I just got some of the greatest creative minds of our time to dream up various world domination scenarios under the guise of fiction, which I will of course exploit myself.

First order of business: owning and reading The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination will be mandatory!

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

As research for the anthology, I had to do a lot of scouting to find the right Pacific island to build my evil lair. An evil lair has to be on an island, of course, and it requires a certain level of shark-infestation in the waters, so it can be difficult to find just the right spot, especially with all the mad scientist competition for lair real estate. (Plus, you can’t use any of the ones the government tested nukes on…well, actually, I can see that being of use to SOME people, but it’s not my thing.)

***

I’m told tradition dictates, I’m to tag five people, and thus urge them to participate. They will or they won’t! (I am a benevolent dictator!) Hope you check out their blogs next week:

Jonathan Strahan
Hugh Howey
Steven Gould
William Alexander
Molly Tanzer

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You may have noticed that Lightspeed’s subscription price went up recently, from $1.99 an issue to $2.99 an issue (e.g., from $23.88 to $35.88 annually). I just wanted to briefly explain why. A version of this note is going to run in the December editorial, but I wanted to post about it sooner rather than later.

As many of you know, Lightspeed has been available as a subscription via Amazon.com’s Periodicals program since late 2011. What you may not have known is that Amazon actually sets the price on those subscriptions. When Lightspeed first launched as an Amazon subscription, it was before the Lightspeed–Fantasy merger, at which point the issues were about 30,000-35,000 words long. At that time, we sold individual issues for $2.99 and Amazon priced Lightspeed at $1.99 a month for subscribers.

Post-merger, we doubled our amount of fiction content by merging Fantasy Magazine into Lightspeed, and then also added in the novella reprints to each ebook issue as well, taking each ebook issue to around 80,000-85,000 words total. We raised our cover price to $3.99, but Amazon kept our subscription price at $1.99 per issue; Amazon reviews periodicals pricing on their own schedule—regardless of what the publisher may prefer—so it wasn’t until the past couple of weeks that they reviewed the pricing for Lightspeed. After their review, they adjusted the subscription price up to $2.99, due, we assume, to the fact that each issue of the magazine is now much longer. Our individual issue price remains at $3.99 an issue, so subscribers will still be saving a dollar an issue by subscribing (or about 25% off the cover price).

So, the price increase is not something that was under our control, but we feel like it is a fair price for the magazine, and we hope you’ll agree and continue to subscribe. Rest assured, we’re not going to take this newfound income and spend it frivolously; indeed, we plan to take it and invest it back into Lightspeed, to make it the best magazine it can be.

 

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