PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS (See Below For Full Text)
Lightspeed Magazine April
Phoenix Pick
Detcon1 YA Finalists
SOCIAL
Sexism In Tech: The ‘Breast App Ever’ Controversy (NY Times: May be behind a paywall)
There’s A Lack Of Diversity At Tech Conferences (Big Shock)
Star Wars & Race Handling
Hollywood Not At Fault
Politician Gigged For Being A Geek
Kirk’s ‘Forced’ Kissing Of Uhura Was Almost Lazarus Passionately Kissing Engineer Masters
Rape In A Bankrupt City
Women’s History Month
ENTERTAINMENT
The WIL WHEATON PROJECT (Wil Finally Gets To Do A Show About…Wil)
Sci-Fest: Hollywood 1st Annual One Act Play Fest
1000 Years of European Border Changes (Video)
Best Indie Short SF Films
April Fools Gravity Clip (Video)
Ant Man News
12 Monkeys To Be SyFy Show. (Maybe Bruce Willis Will Travel Far Enough Into The Past To Stop SyFy Before It Is Born)
FANDOM
Malzberg Dissed In the Paris Review (Seems some folks STILL don’t ‘get’ science fiction)
Sheckley Tribute (Will You Feel Anything When They Do THIS?)
Straczynski Answers Fan’s Questions
Truefandom: Heinlein’s Church Of All Worlds In the Real World
AWARDS
Detcon 1 YA Awards Shortlist
Parsec Awards Nominations Call
INDUSTRY
David A. Hardy Painting Disappears While Being Shipped To New Owner (Please Keep An Eye Out)
May 15 Deadline For Dwarf Star Poetry Anthology
Teaching SF: Why?
Guardians Of the Galaxy Lego
Is Star Wars VII Already Being Filmed?
Cap & Winter Soldier Earn Out Big Time
SFWA: How To Increase Blog Readership
Economics In Creative Fields
SCIENCE
COSMOS: Settling the Score
Doctorow Challenges Asimov’s Three Laws (Plus One): Robots Can’t Be Regulated
Meteorite Almost HIts Skydiver (Video)
TONIGHT: Moon & Jupiter Getting Together
April Night Sky Watch
PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS
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The April 2014 Issue is Now on Sale!
Welcome to issue forty-seven of Lightspeed!
We have original science fiction by Linda Nagata (“Codename: Delphi”) and Shaenon K. Garrity (“Francisca Montoya’s Almanac of Things That Can Kill You”), along with SF reprints by Ted Chiang (“Exhalation”) and the aforementioned story from Robot Uprisings, “Complex God,” by Scott Sigler.
Plus, we have original fantasy by Carmen Maria Machado (“Observations About Eggs from the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa”) and Thomas Olde Heuvelt (“The Day the World Turned Upside Down”), and fantasy reprints by K J. Bishop (“Alsiso”) and C.J. Cherryh (“The Only Death in the City”).
All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with Scott Sigler and Pi, Black Swan, and Noah director Darren Aronofsky.
All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with a pair of feature interviews.
For our ebook readers, we also have the novella reprint “The Autopsy” by Michael Shea, who tragically died suddenly in mid-February. In lieu of an author spotlight, which we were not able to conduct before Michael’s sudden passing, we have a brief tribute to his life and work by his friend and admirer, Laird Barron.
Also exclusive to our ebook edition, we’ll have our usual array of novel excerpts: This month, we have Afterparty by Daryl Gregory and Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear.
Can’t wait to get your hands on a copy? You can purchase the issue from the following ebookstores: Lightspeed (direct), Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, and Weightless Books. Visit our Ebooks page for links and more information.
Women DESTROYED Science Fiction!
As you know from our newsletter, editorials, and (incessant?) social media posting, we ran a very successful Kickstarter in January-February to fund the publication of our Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue, which will be guest-edited by Lightspeed’s own Christie Yant. We asked for $5000, and we got $53,136 in return, which was 1062% of our funding goal. Wow! As a result of all that sweet success, we announced—and met—some rather excellent stretch goals: Once we surpassed $25K of funding, that unlocked a Women Destroy Horror! special issue of our sister-magazine, Nightmare (guest edited by Ellen Datlow!), and once we passed $35K, that unlocked a Women Destroy Fantasy! special issue of our other sister-mag, Fantasy (guest-edited by Cat Rambo!). Look for the Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue this June, and then you can expect the Women Destroy Horror! and Women Destroy Fantasy! issues in October.
If you missed out on the Kickstarter: Never fear. All of the special issues (including the print editions) will be available for pre-order soon. Watch this space!
Lightspeed Got FOUR Nebula Award Nominations!
Awards season is officially upon us, with the first of the major awards announcing their lists of finalists for last year’s work. Neither Lightspeed nor Nightmare got any love from the Bram Stoker Awards (alas), but we’re delighted to announce that the Nebula Awards, on the other hand, seem to be absolutely infatuated with us: Lightspeed has four Nebula finalists this year! (That brings Lightspeed’s lifetime Nebula nomination total to eleven since we launched in June 2010.) Our nominees for this year are: “Paranormal Romance” by Christopher Barzak, “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” by Ken Liu, “The Sounds of Old Earth” by Matthew Kressel, and “Alive, Alive Oh” by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley. For a complete list of the finalists, visit SFWA.org. If you missed reading our Nebula finalists, you can find them all at lightspeedmagazine.com/tag/2013-nebula-award-finalists.
ROBOT UPRISINGS!
I told you about my new anthology, The End is Nigh, which I co-edited with apocalyptic rock star Hugh Howey. Never one to rest on my laurels, I have another new anthology out this month. On April 8, Vintage will publish Robot Uprisings, which I co-edited with Robopocalypse author Daniel H. Wilson. It’s about just what you would suspect based on the title—namely: robots, uprising! It’s got a great lineup, featuring all-new, never-before-published stories by Robin Wasserman, Seanan McGuire, Scott Sigler, Charles Yu, Anna North, and Genevieve Valentine, among others, plus a new novella by my esteemed co-editor, Daniel. If you’d like a sneak peek at this anthology, why look no further: The complete text of Scott Sigler’s story, “Complex God,” appears in this issue as one of our reprints. Visit johnjosephadams.com/robot-uprisings or your favorite book retailer for more information.
JJA Will Curate New Best-of-the-Year Anthology Series
ICYMI: I have agreed to serve as the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, a new entry in the prestigious Best American series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Our inaugural guest editor will be bestselling author and all-around swell guy Joe Hill. The first volume will be published in October 2015, collecting the best of 2014. To learn more about the series, including information about how you can recommend stories for consideration, visit johnjosephadams.com/best-american.
Newsletter Pandemonium!
If you’re reading this, then chances are you already subscribe to the Lightspeed newsletter. Thanks! But did you know that we also have a couple of other newsletters you can subscribe to?
For instance:
If you don’t want to risk missing out on news about John Joseph Adams’s other projects, sign up for JJA’s free newsletter (sent out no more than once or twice a month) to receive updates about his various projects. Subscribe to the JJA Newsletter.
Or, if you’d like to keep up with our sister magazine, Nightmare, we’ve got a free monthly newsletter for that too. Subscribe to the Nightmare Newsletter.
Lightspeed Subscriptions & Bundles of Back Issues! (Now also in PDF format!)
Just a reminder that our Lightspeed Direct ebookstore is open for business. If you’d like to purchase an ebook issue, or if you’d like to subscribe directly from us, please visit lightspeedmagazine.com/store. All purchases from the Lightspeed store are provided in both epub and mobi format, and now we’re also offering all of our issues in PDF format as well.
And don’t worry—all of our other purchasing options are still available, of course; this is just one more way you can buy the magazine or subscribe. You can, for instance, still subscribe via Amazon.com or from our friends at Weightless Books. Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/subscribe to learn more about all of our subscription options.
In the Lightspeed ebookstore, we’re also currently featuring a selection of Ebook Bundles. We currently have the following Lightspeed ebook bundles available:
Lightspeed (Year One) – $19.99
Lightspeed (Year Two) – $24.99
Lightspeed (Year Three) – $29.97
Lightspeed Supermassive Bundle (Years 1-3) – $69.95
Buying a Bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. So, for instance, the Year One Bundle gets you a copy of every issue we published during our first year (June 2010 – May 2011), etc. And then there’s the SUPERMASSIVE BUNDLE, which nets you a copy of every issue published during our first three years. (And buying the Supermassive Bundle saves you $5 off the cover price of buying the other three Bundles individually!)
Fantasy Magazine Back Issue Bundles
In addition to the Lightspeed bundles mentioned above, you can now also buy ebook back issues—and ebook back issue bundles—of Lightspeed’s (now dormant) sister magazine, Fantasy. (You might remember that we merged Fantasy into Lightspeed back in January 2012.)
To check out the back issues, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine—all 57 issues—for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the Bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!). Of course, if you don’t want to buy a Bundle, you can also just purchase an individual ebook issue! All issues of Fantasy Magazine are available in epub, mobi, and PDF format.
Fantasy Magazine (2005-2007) – $24.99
Fantasy Magazine (2008) – $24.99
Fantasy Magazine (2009) – $24.99
Fantasy Magazine (2010) – $24.99
Fantasy Magazine (2011) – $24.99
Fantasy Magazine (MegaBundle: Every Issue, #1-#57) – $114.99
Have You Tried Our Sister-Magazine, Nightmare, Yet?
Have you checked out our sister-magazine Nightmare yet? Because of the ubiquity of gory horror movies, when a lot of people think of the horror genre in literature, they imagine it deals with that same kind of gory slasher-type stories we typically see in film, full of blood and guts and generally a lot of awfulness. But literary horror is rarely like that, and the fiction in Nightmare basically never is. The fiction in Nightmare tends toward “quiet horror”: that is, the stories are literary and dark—at times visceral, and at times unsettling. In other words, not overly dissimilar from the stories you’d find in Lightspeed—just more toward the darker end of the literary spectrum.
Pop on over to www.nightmare-magazine.com to check out the magazine, purchase issues or subscribe, or just for more information and updates (or to subscribe to the free Nightmare newsletter).
If You Love Your Subscription, Review Your Subscription!
If you already have and love a Lightspeed subscription, please consider leaving us a positive review on Amazon.com or Weightless Books. A few kind words can go a long way toward encouraging other readers to try out Lightspeed if they’re on the fence about whether to give it a shot or not.
If you’d like to leave a review, here’s the product page on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Lightspeed-Magazine/dp/B004HO5TCO, and here’s the 12-month subscription option on Weightless Books: https://weightlessbooks.com/format/magazine/lightspeed-magazine-12-month-subscription.
Reviews of individual issues are also welcome, of course, though our primary interest is in spreading the word about subscriptions, so if you want to help out, please let other readers know what you think!
Keeping Current
Remember, in addition to this newsletter, there are several ways you can sign up to be notified of new Lightspeed content:
RSS feed (full): lightspeedmagazine.com/rss-2
Podcast feed: lightspeedmagazine.com/itunes-rss
Twitter: @lightspeedmag
Facebook: facebook.com/lightspeedmagazine
Google+: plus.google.com/100415462108153087624
Subscribe: lightspeedmagazine.com/subscribe
Looking Forward: Issue 48
Coming up in May, in Lightspeed . . .
We’ll have original science fiction by Seth Dickinson (“A Tank Only Fears Four Things”) and Sandra McDonald (“Selfie”), along with SF reprints by Nisi Shawl (“Deep End”) and Sean Williams (“Zero Temptation”).
Plus, we’ll have original fantasy by Matthew Hughes (“The Ba of Phalloon,” a Kaslo Chronicles tale) and Fred Van Lente (“Willful Weapon”), and fantasy reprints by Rachel Pollack (“Burning Beard”) and from the new weird western anthology Dead Man’s Hand, Rajan Khanna’s “Second Hand.”
For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella will be “Shiva in Shadow” by Nancy Kress, and of course we’ll have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with bestselling fantasy author Jeff VanderMeer and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.
All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with a pair of feature interviews.
For our ebook readers, we also have “Shiva in Shadow” by Nancy Kress as our novella reprint and a pair of novel excerpts.
It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. So be sure to keep an eye out for all that SFnal goodness in the months to come. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed!
Thanks for Reading!
We couldn’t publish the magazine without the loyal support of readers like you. So we here at Lightspeed salute you, and would like to thank you for your continued patronage.
Well, that’s about it for this installment of the newsletter. Thanks again for reading. Meanwhile, for more, visit www.lightspeedmagazine.com. See you next month!
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APRIL 2014 NEWSLETTER
Dear Readers,
A couple of new things to report, including a change in the Free Book of the Month mechanics. No worries, we are still planning to offer you free ebook(s) every month, but after 46 consecutive months of free ebooks using a coupon code we are just changing the way it is done. More on this later (see below).
We are now on Twitter. You may follow us @GalaxysEdgeMag (Galaxy’s Edge is the science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Phoenix Pick).
However, this newsletter is still going to be the primary source of information about free ebooks, deals, etc. from Phoenix Pick and Galaxy’s Edge magazine—at least for the time being.
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The March issue of Galaxy’s Edge is still live (free online) and will be so until it’s replaced with the next issue on May 1. It has some great stories, including ones by C.J. Cherryh, Mercedes Lackey, and Elizabeth Bear and an old classic by Hugo and Nebula winner Alexei Panshin.
Galaxy’s Edge Issue 7 (March 2014)
Free for online viewing
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION (digital) $14.99 Click Here
1. Buy Paper Edition from BN.com or Amazon.com $5.99.
Amazon.com BN.com
2. Buy Single Issue for Download (Direct) $3.99
PDF EPub/Nook Mobi/Kindle
Click here for past issues
3. Buy from Amazon.com or BN.com $3.99
Amazon.com BN.com
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EBOOK OF THE MONTH
changes afoot!
The first free ebook we gave away was Joan Slonczewski’s Daughter of Elysium during June 2010, 46 months ago. At first the program was envisioned as a short-term promotion, but its popularity made it a permanent monthly feature, and we have given away a free ebook every month since then using the same coupon-based mechanism.
We are now changing that. We will still offer an Ebook of the Month every month and readers will be able to download it for free. However, readers who wish to help support us and this program will be able to pay an amount of their own choosing as well.
Readers will no longer require a coupon to access the site, but will have to go through a purchase-cart process. This is because we are outsourcing the actual housing and download of the books and this is the only mechanism our partners have to allow you to access the book.
We will, like this month, try to offer ancillary deals as well.
And to start off the new system, we have a truly great deal. New York Times bestselling author Mercedes Lackey’s critically acclaimed Reboots (written with Cody Martin). Details follow:
Ebook of the Month—April
Reboots by Mercedes Lackey
Zombies, werewolves and vampires in space…
what’s not to like????
“Film noir runs smack-dab into space opera in Lackey and Martin’s sequel to Reboots, which populated an SF universe with paranormal creatures. Principled Humph the Boggart is a down-on-his-luck private investigator on the Mos Eisley–esque, downtrodden Planet Mildred when a case neither he nor his partners can resist walks into the office.” —Publishers Weekly
“The wonderful story, a clever mixing of the paranormal and space opera subgenres, is a classic tale of espionage. From the outset, Martin, through deft use of self-deprecating humor, makes Skinny Jim a sympathetic protagonist who the reader desperately wants to “survive.” Martin’s writing is easygoing and comfortable, his characters well rounded and personable, and the story’s conceit both familiar and exciting. One can easily see why Lackey, who shares many similar writing traits, would pick Martin as an author to watch. I’d certainly like to see more stories from Martin, particularly in this same universe with a broader range of paranormal beings.”
—Grasping for the Wind
“Really prefer my zombies, reboots, as non-thinking shambling munchers; however, this was a lot of fun. Comedic and made me laugh. Lots of derring-do and space opera.” —Goodreads review
“Inventive combination of paranormal and scifi with a quirky sense of humor. Loved it!” —Goodreads review
To get your book, look for the link on our online catalogue page (under the cover art, as usual) or go directly to
https://www.PhoenixPick.com/botm/Lackey.htm
BUT WAIT, there’s MORE.
We have just released the much anticipated (and requested) sequel to Reboots, titled Reboots: Diabolical Streak. During April you can get both Reboots and the sequel for an absolutely ridiculous price as low as $1.99. Ladies and gentlemen, this includes the latest release by New York Times bestselling author Mercedes Lackey just released on March 15 of this year.
Happy reading, and welcome to the new Book of the Month from Phoenix Pick.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 2, 2014
Detcon1 Announces Finalists for the Detcon1 Awards for Young Adult and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction
Detroit, MI – Detcon1, the 2014 North American Science Fiction Convention, is delighted to announce the final list of nominees and that voting is open for the Detcon1 Awards for Young Adult and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction.
The finalists for each category are as follows:
Young Adult
Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Katherine Tegen Books)
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press)
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Arthur A Levine Books)
Middle Grade
Handbook for Dragon Slayers by Merrie Haskell (HarperCollins)
House of Hades by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)
Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Only members of Detcon1, supporting or attending, are eligible to vote, and voting closes June 22, 2014. Further information on voting will be sent to Detcon1 members directly is available at https://detcon1.org/award. Those interested in purchasing a supporting or attending membership to Detcon1 can do so at https://detcon1.org/involved/registration/ A supporting membership is only $35, makes the member eligible to vote for the awards, and includes copies of all Detcon1 publications.
Detcon1 created two Member’s Choice awards to be presented with the Golden Duck Awards in a joint ceremony during Detcon1 at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, MI, on Saturday, July 19, 2014. The award statues are being designed and produced by Jeremy R. Haney, a Detroit-area artist.
Detcon1 Award Administrator Maggi Idzikowski says, “The variety of speculative fiction on Detcon1’s shortlist just goes to show the breadth of content, setting and style that is being published now. Science fiction, fantasy, YA publishing in general is going through a tremendous renaissance. From vampires to demigods, from Virginia to Brazil, humorous and dramatic and everything in between, this is an excellent sampling of the finest in speculative fiction for young readers.”
Nominations for the Detcon1 Awards for Young Adult and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction were accepted for any book-length young adult or children’s science fiction or fantasy books first published in calendar year 2013. Works published in a language other than English were also eligible if their first year of publication in English was 2013. Nominations opened in December 2013, and closed in March 2014, and were open to both members of the convention and the general public. Category determination between Young Adult and Middle Grade for each work was determined by the work’s publisher.
Funding for the Detcon1 Awards and related Young Adult programming was provided by Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Chicago, IL.
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PRESS INFORMATION FOR DETCON1
Direct press queries or requests to be removed from the Detcon 1 Press Release Mailing List should be sent to press@detcon1.org
Inquiries regarding the nomination or voting process, or about the Detcon1 Awards can be directed to the Award Administrator, Maggi Idzikowski, awards@detcon1.org.
ABOUT DETCON1
Detcon1 is being held July 17 through 20, 2014, at the Renaissance Center Marriott in downtown Detroit, Michigan.
The North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC), is held in years when the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is held outside of North America. Worldcon, an international gathering of the science fiction and fantasy community, is being held in London, England in August 2014.
Memberships for Detcon1 can be purchased at https://www.detcon1.org/
For more details on Detcon1, visit https://www.detcon1.org/
“World Science Fiction Society,” “WSFS,” “World Science Fiction Convention,” “Worldcon,” “NASFiC,” “Hugo Award,” the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy Rocket are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.
