Amazing Stories Now Selling Discounted Advertising – Great Deal For Small Press & Indie Authors
PRESS RELEASES AND NEWSLETTERS (See below for full text)
Phoenix Pick Monthly News
Start Publishing news
Lightspeed Magazine November
Industrial Toys November
CAUSES
ENTERTAINMENT
SF Signal’s 220 Reasons To Read SF/F/H This November
TangentOnline OTR from The Inner Sanctum
Hunger Games Final Trailer for Catching Fire (video)
Steampunk Animation (video)
Justice League Animated (video)
Lost Return Of the Jedi Outtakes
Jupiter Ascending News
Kirkus – November’s Best Genre Bets
Tales To Terrify (audio)
Sword & Laser Show Features Ancillary Justice
The American Experience Covers the War Of the Worlds Broadcast (video)
I, Frankenstein Poster
FANDOM
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller Book Tour For New Liaden Universe Title Trade Secret Continues
Robert A. Heinlein Bust Probably On the Way
LoneStarCon3 DVDs
The Queen of SF Film Acting Signs On For Another One! and here
C. S. Lewis 50th Events
50 Biggest Film Fandoms
Dalek Barrista
Michael Dirda’s Curated List Of SF
INDUSTRY
Airship 27 Sale!
Print No Longer the Norm?
New Releases Of Oldies From Singularity & Co
Cyberpunk Panel – Doctorow, Stross & More
E-books Settling In
Great! Now the Next Star Wars Flick Is Going To Be Rushed
SCIENCE
The Economics of Starflight
Mars Flyover – Very Cool (video)
When THEY Show Up, Will WE Be Ready?
Our Robot Overlords Might Have Something To Say About This…
PRESS RELEASES AND NEWSLETTERS
NOVEMBER 2013 NEWSLETTER
FREE STUFF AND BARGAINS
www.BookBale.com is now live. Choose your bundle and choose the price you want to pay (minimums apply). The following books are participating in the bundle sale:
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Robert Heinlein
Joe Haldeman
Frank Herbert
Bill Ransom
Mercedes Lackey
Andre Norton
Nancy Kress
Robert J. Sawyer
Mike Resnick
Kevin J. Anderson
[/two] [two_last]
Citizen of the Galaxy
The Hemingway Hoax
The Jesus Incident
The Elvenbane
Future Perfect
Starplex
Birthright: The Book of Man
Climbing Olympus
[/two_last]
This is a limited-time sale, and includes a Hugo/Nebula winner, a Hugo/Nebula nominee and a title being offered as an ebook for the first time ever. Don’t miss this super deal.
www.BookBale.com
Ladies and Gentlemen, I know you all like great deals. (That’s why you’re on this mailing list.) Help us make this bundle sale a success (by participating, spreading the word, tweeting and Facebooking, etc., about it) and I promise you more bundles in the coming months (including more Heinlein). Many of the authors/agents are using this as a test case to see if it’s worth their while.
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I’m delighted to announce the release of the latest from Nancy Kress. She is an outstanding story-teller and she is at her peak in this. No wonder Publishers Weekly calls it “Kress at her best.” This brand-new ebook is only $5.99.
Set in the near future, Nancy Kress’ story gives us a world increasingly hostile to new ideas as religious fundamentalism dictates social agenda and where the primary use of science is to bolster these very same uncompromising attitudes. Annabel Lee is a child of this society, but unique. She has been infected by a long-dormant alien parasite. But this “infection” may be the only hope for the world, if she can survive long enough.
Therese Pieczynski’s companion piece predates the world Nancy Kress gives us and takes us to back to 1980s Nicaragua, where a strange demon lurks.
Paperback $12.99 Amazon Kindle $5.99 Barnes & Noble Nook $5.99
Publisher’s Direct EPub $5.99 Publisher’s Direct MOBI $5.99
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Our free ebook for November is The Children Star by Joan Slonczewski.
The code for November is 9991487 and the link to download the book is available, as always, from our online catalogue page at www.PPickings.com. The book will be available through November 30, 2013.
Brief description of the book:
Only children can colonize the planet Prokaryon, genetically modified for a world whose chemistry kills unaltered adults. A colony of orphans struggles to survive, and finds that the planet hides strange secrets.
The Prokaryan landscape is ordered, as if by unseen gardeners, “hidden masters” no human has ever found. The weather behaves as though designed to meet the planet’s needs. When fire threatens a forest, a rainstorm appears, only to dissipate when the fire is put out.
When a ruthless corporation threatens to terraform Prokaryon, to recreate it for “normal” humans, there is a sudden urgency to find the intelligent life form directing the planet. For only then can the colonists save their world—and reveal unexpected possibilities for the human future.
“A story that is not only exciting but also filled with memorable characters.”—Publishers Weekly
“This novel’s fireworks in the final third admirably justify its long, slow fuse.”—The New York Times
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Issue 5 (November) of Galaxy’s Edge is LIVE.
The current issue has stories by: Jack Dann, Sabina Theo, Andrea G. Stewart, Catherine Asaro, Eric Cline, David Brin, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Kevin J. Anderson, Martin L. Shoemaker, and Larry Niven.
Serialization: Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton (Part 1 of 2)
Columns by: Barry Malzberg, Gregory Benford
Book Reviews: Paul Cook
And all FREE online …
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION (digital) $14.99 Click Here
OTHER READING OPTIONS
www.GalaxysEdge.com
The magazine is published every two months (January, March, May, July, September & November). This is the November issue. Earlier issues are downloadable
from the magazine site:
www.GalaxysEdge.com
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The November 2013 Issue is Now on Sale!
Welcome to issue forty-two of Lightspeed!
This month, we have original science fiction by Sean Williams (“Death and the Hobbyist”—a Twinmaker Story) and Beth Revis (“The Turing Test”), along with SF reprints by James Tiptree, Jr. (“And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side”) and James Stoddard (“The Battle of York”).
Plus, we have original fantasy by Kelly Barnhill (“The Insect and the Astronomer”) and Matthew Hughes (“Sleeper”—a Kaslo Chronicles tale), and fantasy reprints by Ian McDonald (“Tonight We Fly”) and Maria Dahvana Headley (“Bit-U-Men”).
All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with NFL punter/über-geek Chris Kluwe and Dinosaur Comics-creator Ryan North.
For our ebook readers, we also have the novella “Holy Places” by Martha Wells, and novel excerpts of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Starhawk by Jack McDevitt, and SEAL Team 13 by Evan Currie.
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.
World Fantasy Awards
The World Fantasy Awards are being presented at the World Fantasy Convention, being held this year in Brighton, England, Oct. 31 – Nov. 3. As we mentioned previously, Kat Howard’s story, “Breaking the Frame” (Lightspeed, August 2012), is a finalist for the award this year, as is your humble editor (now for the fifth time), this time in the Best Anthology category, for Epic: Legends of Fantasy. The results will be announced on Sunday, Nov. 3; if you keep an eye on the Lightspeed Twitter feed, we’ll be reporting the results as they’re announced.
Lightspeed Subscriptions & Bundles of Back Issues!
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 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!
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 new 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.
Thus far, Nightmare has published original stories by acclaimed and bestselling horror scribes Ramsey Campbell, Sarah Langan, Jonathan Maberry, Laird Barron, Daniel H. Wilson, along with new material from talented newer writers such as Genevieve Valentine and Desirina Boskovich, among others. All that plus classic reprints by the likes of Joe Haldeman, Poppy Z. Brite, Sarah Pinborough, Tananarive Due, Lucius Shepard, and Lisa Tuttle.
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!
Sponsor Spotlight: 47North
Lightspeed’s sponsor this month is 47North:
This month, look for SEAL Team 13, by Evan Currie (of which you can also read an excerpt in our ebook edition this month). You can find more from 47North at www.apub.com.
For more information about Lightspeed’s sponsorship program, visit our advertising page.
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 43
Coming up in December, in Lightspeed . . .
We have original science fiction by Hao Jingfang (“Invisible Planets,” translated by Ken Liu) and Gregory Benford (“Leaving Night”), along with SF reprints by Maureen F. McHugh (“Dead Fads”) and David Barr Kirtley (“Power Armor: A Love Story”).
Plus, we have original fantasy by James Patrick Kelly (“Miss Nobody Never Was”) and Siobhan Carroll (“The Correspondence Between the Governess and the Attic”), and fantasy reprints by William Browning Spencer (“The Foster Child”) and Kit Reed (“Yard Sale”).
All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with Jay Lake and Margaret Atwood.
For our ebook readers, we also have the novella reprint “The Ballad of Bowsprit Bear’s Stead” by Damien Broderick and a pair of novel excerpts.
It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. 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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1st Midnight Star Preview!
This month, we traveled to the offices of leading games website IGN for the first official press preview of Midnight Star. We sat down with Features Editor Justin Davis for a first look at what the game is all about, and he published his reactions last week. Here are some of the aspects we covered along with highlights from the article:
In the preview, we revealed our core design philosophies that cascade through control, gameplay and level design:
“Midnight Star has been designed to be played with just one hand, while still providing plenty of depth for core gamers to sink their teeth into. This is no easy task. The result is a wholly unique gameplay experience. It might best be described as a cross between an on-rails shooter like House of the Dead, with traditional Halo-style weapon depth. But the truth is that direct comparisons to other shooters, either on PC/console or mobile, all tend to not tell the full tale.”
We walked through how the game focuses on the strengths of the mobile platform while retaining systems that give players plenty of context and feedback:
“The bite-sized stages and built-from-the-ground-up touch controls feel wholly unique, but Midnight Star’s elaborate stat, achievement, and leaderboard systems borrow much more closely from modern shooters like Halo. Every level is a high score affair. It’s not just enough to get through alive. Can you get through with the most style, putting yourself atop your friend-powered leaderboard? Virtually everything you’re shown in Midnight Star is shown to you in the context of your friends’ relative performance.”
There wasn’t time to get through everything in the game, but we set the stage for more info in the days to come:
“Midnight Star is a very big game. During my 90-minute demo we barely touched on Charlie’s Mass Effect-esque special powers, the elaborate, multi-stage achievements system, and plenty more. We’ll have much more on this promising shooter, including plenty of in-game footage, as soon as possible.”
Additional previews are planned for the coming weeks, and we will be posting those as they come. In the meantime, follow the game’s day-to-day progress on Twitter, and for a shot at playing the game early, be sure to register your username at the website.
Name Change
“Morning Has Turned To Midnight”: Under the government protocol in our narrative, an alien signal is classified as a “Morning Star” signal if first contact turns out to be friendly. If it’s hostile, it’s a “Midnight Star” signal. Guess which one it turns out to be? Thus, check out all of the details on the freshly re-branded Midnight Star in an article from Tim this month on Gamasutra.
New Content, New Channel
@mstargame Is Live: Among all of the recent news, we launched the game’s official Twitter page, where players can get all of the latest Midnight Star-specific news. It will feature updates on the game, the universe and the graphic novel application (Midnight Rises). In the last few days, tons of new images have been published on various websites, including concept art, gameplay screenshots and peeks at the game’s UI. You can find them all gathered together here.
Friend on Facebook
Follow on Twitter
Forward to a Friend
We Want You
As A Beta Tester: Have you ever picked apart a game to the point where you’re pretty sure you could guess what the designers had for breakfast? Have you ever been so full of helpful ideas that you huff and puff like a child and spout them to anyone who will listen? Do you have a maniacal attention to detail? Well, then, you’d be a perfect candidate to become a Beta Tester for Industrial Toys! We’re looking for a small group of passionate individuals to help our QA team find bugs and give feedback. If you think that you have what it takes, register your user handle at midnightstargame.com, and we’ll be contacting tester candidates soon. If you think we’d be fools not to consider you, hit us up here and tell us why. Godspeed!
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Start Publishing Cover Logo
Happy Halloween!
and the winner is…
Dear writer and readers,
First and foremost Start Publishing would like to thank all that participated in our 1st Annual Halloween Writing Contest! It was a pleasure reading ALL of your submissions. We would like to thank author Michael J. Martinez of The Deadalus Incident for taking on the hardest job of all, to select one winner from all of the fabulous submissions!
Due to the amazing number of participants, this will be the first of many contest to come. New ideas are always welcome, feel free to email us at contest@start-media.com.
Lastly, special congratulations to our winner Mr. Daniel Soler! Awesome read!
Sincerely,
Start Publishing
Train Fare
By Daniel Soler
The train brakes, metal shudders, and passengers tumble as blurred passage stills to cramped, grimy underground. People stand, share glances, curse delays. The intercom sputters non-words.
No one hears the background susurration swelling in the tunnel.
The lights fail, phone-lit faces bloom in the dark, voices shout-until faint emergencies glow, silencing commotion. No one moves.
The conductor’s remote voice returns, clearer now: “I’m sorry.”
The doors singsong apart, the cars rock, and an engine rumbles awake. People pause, await doors closing and forward motion; voice confusion about the fading train roar and their own unchanging state. Word passes down: the conductor decoupled, fled. Disbelief bubbles, devolves to uproarious argument.
The first waves of rounded, chitinous bodies spill into the front and back cars, tens of thousands of tiny articulated legs drumbeating the floor. People jump, yell, swat at strays flung onto feet and laps. The living carpet spreads, rises past ankles, and drives people onto the seats. Some brave the seething mire and de-train into deeper beds of squirming strata; some fall and thrash beneath a rust-red mosaic, never to surface.
In the cars, people beat windows, moan prayers, avert gazes from the waxing, moving mass-until the things scale legs, rush torsos, swarm flailing limbs, grasp taut, scream-shaped throats, shoot past lips and over tongue into open mouths-one segmented form diving after another, each tickling pink insides with long antennae as a prelude to hot asphyxiation.
The cockroaches settle upon the corpses, and feed.
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
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DEAL ALERT: AMAZON’S MONTHLY KINDLE DEAL
Laird Barron’s The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All now available on Amazon for $1.99 !
(Deal expires at midnight)
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