I’m off to Worldcon in the morning. Will be back late on Monday. Probably won’t post much while I’m away…not that I’ve been posting much while at home, but just thought I’d post a notification. I might, however, be twittering up a storm. So if you gotta get your JJA fix, check out http://twitter.com/johnjosephadams. At the very least, I was planning to live-microblog the Hugos, so if you just can’t wait to find out who won, check my twitter feed on Saturday evening.
Random House’s Suvudu blog has a cool post on metal songs based on fantasy novels. Of course, I had to chime in with some additions in the comments, which I’ll duplicate here:
Can you think of any others not mentioned by me, or the original list?
FEDERATIONS
EDITED BY JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS
From Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea of vast intergalactic societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations will continue that tradition.
What are the social, religious, environmental, or technological implications of living in such a vast society? What happens when expansionist tendencies on a galactic scale come into conflict with the indigenous peoples of other planets, of other races? And what of the issue of communicating across such distances, or the problems caused by relativistic travel? These are just some of the questions and issues that the stories in Federations will take on.
Genres: Science Fiction only. Original fiction only, no reprints.
Payment: 5 cents per word ($250 max), plus a pro-rata share of the anthology’s earnings and 1 contributor copy.
Word limit: 5000 words. (Stories may exceed 5000 words, but $250 is the maximum payment per story, and stories 5000 words or less are strongly preferred.)
Rights: First world English rights, non-exclusive world anthology rights, and non-exclusive audio anthology rights. See my boilerplate author-anthologist contract, which spells out the rights in detail.
Reading Period: November 1-January 1, 2009
Response Time: Most rejections will be sent out quickly, but stories that I like may be held until January 31 before a final decision is made.
Publication date: May 2009
Publisher: Prime Books
Submission Instructions: Email your story in .doc Microsoft Word format (preferred) or .rtf rich-text format to John Joseph Adams at [anthology now closed]. Include the title of the story and your byline in the subject line of the email.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
John Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, Seeds of Change, and The Living Dead. He is also the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and is the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire (the news service of the SCI FI Channel). For more information, visit his website at www.johnjosephadams.com.
ETA 2/1/09:
Table of Contents
Look what I got for my birthday:
And here’s the Night of the Living Dead-esque shot:
I look forward to freaking out delivery people and other strangers who come by.
I have to say, it’s one thing to see a photo of it, it’s quite another to see it in your own backyard. It really amuses me to no end.
Thanks, Mom!
I just went outside to take out the garbage, and look what I found on my porch:
It’s sooooooo pretty!
Because I won! The KGB Fantastic Fiction Raffle I posted about last week has come to an end…and I won! This:
Pen & Ink drawing of an animal-of-your-choice by Gahan Wilson
Which, if I recall correctly, the description said the animal could be “real or imaginary.” So I’m thinking I want a zombie. If that doesn’t count as an animal, I’m going to go with a minotaur. Or what about a ZOMBIE MINOTAUR??
You can see all the winners here. Congrats to them all, including the fabulous Rhodi Hawk, who won an autographed copy of Wastelands!
In my recent post about music, I named Scar Symmetry as one of the top bands to debut in the last couple years. Their new album, Holographic Universe, just came out, and is, as expected, made of awesome. However, there’s a new song I’d like you to listen to that isn’t on that album, and in fact technically isn’t even one of theirs. It’s a “Nuclear Blast All-Stars” song (Nuclear Blast being a metal record label). To celebrate 20 years, Nuclear Blast put out this all-star complication. Basically, one guy wrote all the music and the instruments are played by the same crew, but the vocalist is different on each track. (For more details on the album, see the wiki.) This song, “The Overshadowing,” features Christian Alvestam from Scar Symmetry, and may actually be the best Scar Symmetry song–it sounds exactly like one, and really nails everything that they do well.
Note: For those of you who shy away from harsher metal vocals, this one’s probably not for you, though if you give the song a minute or so, you’ll see that the vocalist throws plenty of honest-to-god good singing in there as well.
