Into the BreachOnce more into the breach, this darkness comes so swift,Only with the light of truth shall this vale ever lift.The fault of this pain no man does own,For the end of this pain, no mercy is shown.It Lies now broken, this hearts forever dreams,No needles long enough to sew its shattered and torn seams.Once more into the breach, darkness now upon me,I close my eyes and scream these words for all the world to see.No light shines here, to guide safe passage back,For the home of these thoughts is forever filled black.Thoughts not of pain or of sinful dark shame,But thoughts of the past and what may never be again.Thoughts of love and thoughts of peace,Oh what I would give for these thoughts to never cease.But end they shall when the black comes at night,And try as I may, things shall never be set right.Once more through the breach, for the end is soon to come,The darkness that clouds my soul, my heart it has now won.But the lo from the sky, a messenger is sent,In hopes that this transformation to the cold may relent.“Idol of peace, you bird as white as cream,Awake me from this nightmare, remove me from this dream!”With hope guiding its way it makes way through this place,Away parting this fog; shining hope in my face.But it to succumbs to the force of my sorrow filled plight,Gone now is peace, plucked from its merciful flight.Trapped in the breach, shall I never be free?A new mornings dawn, shall I never see?Oh great dove, of Heaven sent mercy,No longer shall your words this day curse me.And lead not my heart into this foul tempting abyss,Let me wander no more in loves painful bliss.No light, no sun only memories now lost,In this sea of hatred forever I now toss.But hate I shall not for this place is my own,This breach in my soul with my hand shall be sewn.For freedom comes not from prayers of inaction,But from the will and mind of the one who has cast them.Life love and the pursuit of joy,Are not playthings meant to be wrestled like a toy.Free from this breach, yet triumphant I am not,My soul weighs now heavy and my heart now taut.Once more I begin my quest for peace,No more shall I question when it is in my reach.MLM
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Forever’s PenanceStricken with grief from a lost loves bittersweet visit,Peace being forsaken as faith leaves with it.Once more down this road with despair at my side,The pain in my heart this time I shall not hide.Why must you leave when you’ve just made your bed?Why can you not stay the night and lay your weary head?This night so familiar, like the setting of the fall,This feeling so new, from my weary eyes heavy tears now crawl.Once more into my heart these daggers now sting,No more in my ears do the bells of bliss ring.“A curse upon your life was given many moons past,Forever this shadow of Penance upon your love shall be cast.”Not a curse of unknown, for your love shall be returned,But last it will not, so long as the world turns.Where can one turn; to whom can one shout?Shall faith be forever spoken with such doubt?Karma speaks to me, of an eye for an eye,Yet this eye sees only a Heaven sent lie.Be gone with this sight, so that love shall not wander my way,And if it comes again, my heart it shall not sway.Be at peace my love, for destiny has chosen you this day fit,Upon a throne of peace and joy may you forever sit.Hold your head high, for your battles are not yet through,The trials of forever shall beckon your heart blue.Hold fast forever to your righteous fury,And never again your beauty should you bury.Peace now my Angel to the end of our days,Blessed be to those whom your light doth gaze.MLM
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A Single TearA single tear is all that I ask,To show that in the end This Too Shall Pass.A Tear to mark the solemn day,That Hell has passed and peace is coming this way.A single tear is all that I pray,To enter your heart on this sorrow filled day.For your blood now runs cold during these trials of life,And your anger cuts through me like a twin sided knife.I feel for your loss more than you know,So this tear I give to you, for my love to show.A single tear is all that I have,But I will give more should you only ask.And let them run from my eyes to my knees,Yet let not one touch the ground should your wishes it not please.Let them gather round low and swirl into a stream,And upon the sight of your face they begin to gleam.Like a moonlit eve, your eyes will wash them away,And set upon my soul forever and always to stay.But no more tears are left to cry,For my eyes are welled up, swollen and dry.But I smile still for my heart is now full,With the thought of you whole and your fire now cool.Peace to this day, for your trials have now ended,Together we shall be, torn together yet mended.MLM
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We hit more targets: a Ziran supply convoy, another arms production complex on another Ziran moon, and a pair of bombardment platforms. The platforms were a prize find. They were en route to a human world to replace the ones we destroyed. One of Vinia’s surveillance probes spotted them when they went into drive just outside the Gatina System in Vingin space. I estimated where those platforms would most likely reappear. Paradyme. It had to be Paradyme. From the platform’s angle of approach in the Gatina System, Paradyme was the nearest human world.I tasked three PCs with the job of taking out the platforms: my own Tantamous, the Congress and the Admiral Hite. Cloaked in stealth, we skirted the asteroid field separating the inner worlds of Paradyme’s star system from its three massive gas giants. I expected the platforms to enter the system, stopping short of the asteroid field. Jasin expected them to have picked up an armed escort along the way. A Sky Mauler, perhaps accompanied by three or four assault frigates.We waited for 49 and a half hours. Suddenly the schematic screen lit up.“Hostiles out of Drive, approaching asteroid belt at maximum sub light propulsion,” reported the sensor tech. “Two platforms, one Sky Mauler capitol ship, four assault frigates, two medium destroyers.”Jasin was on the bridge, standing by the entrance. I turned around and we exchanged smart nods. It turned out our predictions were, for the most part, correct.“Send the Congress and Admiral Hite in first to distract the escorts,” I ordered.Cal opened a channel to the two ships and relayed my command.The visual screen came to life with the images of two warships emerging out of stealth in front of us. On the schematic screen enemy icons veered toward the approaching threat.“Drop the stealth?” Cal asked.I watched the icon representing Tantamous moving closer to the nearest platform. Both vessels continued their course toward the asteroids while the escorts engaged. But the platforms were unaware that a stealth-coated Protector Class was zeroing in on them. I wanted to keep it that way until the last cold second.“Not yet.”The platforms were less than a minute from entering the belt. The Tantamous was closing in fast. The platform in the rear grew larger on the screen as we narrowed the pursuit gap.“Target the rear platform,” I ordered. “No Category As. We need to conserve our stock as best we can. Use short range missiles and point kinetics. Aim for the thrusters.”A glitter of missiles, punctuated by staccato bursts of shield-penetrating, hull- puncturing rounds from point kinetic guns, perforated the platform. The besieged vessel’s thruster housing disintegrated on impact. The entire rear segment of the platform flaked away in a gaseous swell. Massive flares, doused by airless space, erupted from apertures caused by our ferocious missile/kinetic attack. Interior damage must have been devastating. The platform lurched off course, heading toward the nearest asteroid…more like a planetoid. A faint, dying glow issued from the jagged cavern where its thrusters used to be. Once ensnared in the planetoid’s gravity well, with no motive power, the platform’s demise was imminent.More short range missiles from the Tantamous streaked toward the remaining platform, exacerbating irreparable damage, shrouding the vessel in a blazing wreath of destruction.“The Sky Mauler is attempting to intercept us,” said Cal.I switched my attention from the forward view visual to the left angled view at the far upper right corner of the console.The Congress and Admiral Hite were locked in a furious tussle with the Ziran capitol ship. The space between the three close proximity combatants was ablaze with the exchange of missile and beam fire. The assault frigates scurried back and forth peppering the human ships with combustion beams. The smaller destroyers attacked from a relative distance, launching waves of missiles at the PCs. The small Ziran ships, not even a forth the size of a Protector Class, were little more than night flies harassing an armored grub rodent. The ineffectual nature of their attacks was demonstrated in the manner in which their missiles and beams collided harmlessly against the PCs’ variable density shielding.A blue-white streak of death lanced from the Congress striking one of the assault frigates in its smooth underbelly as it made strafing run over the top. The beam evidently penetrated a weak section of the ship, igniting a reactor. One second the frigate was whole, the next it was a seething billow of gas and debris.Someone hissed in savage delight. I was so fixated on the action on the screen that several seconds went by before I realized that ‘someone’ was me. I jerked my attention to the forward screen. An uending hail of kinetics from the Tantamous raked the fleeing platform, shredding its thrusters until their impulse glows faded to black. Ghostly white plumes of atmosphere from breeches in the platform’s upper rear vented with volcanic intensity.“Dammit, incoming!” Shouted the sensor tech. “Sky Mauler missile launch…signatures register as high grade nukes.”That was enough to remind me that I was definitely not a spectator in this affair.The Ziran capitol ship may have been heavily engaged with our PCs, but it still managed to open a window from which to target and lob a few equivalents of Category As right up our asses. I gripped the armrests of my chair tighter than normal as kinetics from our rear guns pulsed in precision waves toward the oncoming missiles. Four missiles were hit, their impact detonations so bright as to strain the optic capacity of the view screen polarizers. The fifth and last missile actually banked, avoiding a file of kinetics that ripped past it.“It adjusted,” whispered Kelte. “The Zirans never deployed missiles like that against the Tacherins!”Cal glanced up at the weapons officer on the high deck to his right.“Switching to dispersal fire pattern,” the boyish looking officer announced without being asked.Kinetics flew toward the remaining missile in a wide arc. The missile zigzagged through this metal gale with a maneuverability rivaling a pilot-operated fighter craft.I didn’t know what to expect. The missile was closing in, seemingly unhindered by the fire directed its way.I inhaled and waited for death.
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This essay on Barack Obama's victory in the presidential election first appeared on the blog at my website, www.charlessaunderswriter.com. I decided to share it with BSFS as well.He did it. He really, really did it. Barack Obama’s victory was not “taken away” at the last minute, as so many of his supporters (myself among them) feared. I have to tell you, though, that as I watched the first returns coming in, with John McCain leading in so many of the states whose polls closed at 6 p.m., I was feeling kind of queasy. I was thinking that I was seeing the “Bradley effect” – in which a black candidate leads in the public-opinion polls but loses in the polling booth – in action.Only when Obama won Pennsylvania and Ohio did I realize that he had put an end to the “Bradley effect.” He was actually going to win! It was just a matter of whether or not he could win in some of the states that were traditional Republican “red states,” especially in the South. I remembered that during the Democratic primaries, Obama won the states in which Republicans usually win in November, while Hillary Clinton won the states that Democrats usually win in November. I was concerned that this would spell trouble for Obama in November, even as he took the nomination away from Clinton – which, in itself, was hardly a small accomplishment, and would ensure that Obama would be more than just a footnote in history even if he lost in November.The question was: could those angry Hillary supporters bring themselves to vote for the man who took the nomination away from her? The polls right after Obama sewed up the nomination didn’t look at all promising. A lot of Hillary supporters were saying they would either vote for McCain or stay home. That reminded me of members of those religious orders in which people whip themselves, or that guy in The Da Vinci Code who wrapped barbed wire around his leg.Happily, that didn’t happen. I think that McCain’s nomination Sarah Palin as his running mate made a lot of those Hillary supporters step back and say, “What is this? Their answer to Hillary? Thanks, but no thanks.” And then, of course, the Wall Street meltdown came, and the Democrats realized that this was one time they had better not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.I stayed up to watch the confirmation of Obama’s victory, as well as McCain’s concession speech and Obama’s victory speech. I was impressed by the graciousness of McCain’s speech. It was as though he was allowing his true self to show – the self that he allowed his advisers to obscure during the campaign. I wish Al Gore would have won the 2000 election, but if he had to lose, I would rather it had been to the McCain of that time. Not the McCain of the third presidential debate – the one who referred to Obama as “that one.” Anyway, McCain showed a lot of class.So did George Bush, during the speech he made the day after the election. Considering that both candidates were essentially running against his record, Bush was as courteous as he could be under those circumstances.Obama could not have made a better victory speech. He showed why people should support him, even if some of them couldn’t vote for him. His smile reminds me of Nelson Mandela’s – it lights up the room. His voice and speaking style remind me of Martin Luther King Jr.’s – inspirational. Imagine a CD that consisted of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, followed by Obama’s victory speech. Who could listen to that without being moved? Well, I can think of some people, but I’m trying to be positive here.I’m sure you’ve heard it said again and again, by black people and white people and other people, that they “never imagined that a black person would be elected President of the United States during their lifetime.” Maybe you’ve said it yourself. I know I have. But I don’t think anybody imagined that a game-changer like Obama would have appeared on the scene – someone who added an unprecedented element to the racial scene.How, you ask, is Obama a game-changer? It’s because he’s an African-American who does not carry “The Legacy” with him. I’m talking about the legacy of slavery, which has been a long-term poison in American society. That poison affects blacks and whites alike. I will not call it “baggage,” because that’s an insulting reference. The legacy is at the root of the lingering racism in the United States.Obama is an African-American. But the African part of his heritage is not connected to someone who came to America on a slave ship 200, 300 or 400 years ago. His father was a Kenyan who came to America on a scholarship, not a slave ship. And his mother was a white woman whose parents did not disown her for marrying a black man, as was often the case back when Obama was born.So, this whole sad stew of resentment over who is the grandchild of a slave and who is the grandchild of a slave-owner and who should be exempt from that whole debate because their ancestors had “nothing to do with it” does not apply to Obama. For me, he represents what black Americans could have become a lot sooner if their ancestors had come to the United States as free people, not property.Yet the progress those of us who carry “The Legacy” have made is far from inconsiderable, and it tends to get overlooked because of the unfinished business that “The Legacy” brings with it. I believe that many of the whites who enthusiastically supported Obama were able to do so because when they looked at him and his background, “The Legacy” was not there, and they had no reason to believe he thought he was owed a debt of guilt because of what happened to his ancestors.Ironically, Obama’s lack of “The Legacy” caused a lot of black Americans who do have “The Legacy” to look at him with suspicion. This whole “He’s not black enough” thing was code for “his blues ain’t like mine.” All these people who say that blacks’ 95 per cent vote for Obama is proof of their “racism” conveniently forget that at the start of the campaign two years ago, Hillary Clinton had 70 per cent of black Democrats’ support, and she had the support of most of the Congressional Black Caucus. He had to prove himself to the people who carry “The Legacy,” just as he did with everyone else. He identified himself with people of “The Legacy,” because he sympathized with what was going on in their heads, even though it wasn’t going on in his.Another way that Obama is a “game-changer” is that he’s a one-man “melting pot.” You know how the United States is always saying it’s a “melting pot,” assimilating ethnic minorities into “one nation, indivisible.” Of course, groups such as African Americans and Native Americans wonder why they haven’t “melted” yet. But look at Obama. His father was from Kenya, a part of Africa from which few, if any, slaves were sent to America. His mother was white and from Kansas, and was rooted enough in U.S. history to be able to claim distant kinship with Dick Cheney, of all people. I almost died laughing when Obama cracked a joke about the “black sheep” in the family – meaning Cheney.After divorcing Obama’s father, she married an Indonesian, with whom she had a daughter. So, Obama has a sister who is half-white and half-Asian. His father sired other children in Kenya, so Obama has half-siblings in Africa.Obama’s sister is married to a Chinese-Canadian. Obama himself is married to an African-American who is an heir to “The Legacy,” which is why the Republicans depicted her as an “angry black woman,” and why she made that much-criticized comment about feeling proud of her country for the first time in her life. His wife’s brother is married to a white woman. Not only is Obama a walking “melting pot,” he’s a living United Nations. Not many people could look at his background and not see themselves somewhere.Having said all that, I don’t believe that Obama “transcends” race. If he “transcended” race, he would have won a landslide in the popular vote, including a strong majority of white votes, if not the 95 per cent he got from blacks. He did get a landslide in the Electoral College, though, and that’s historic in itself, and something to be proud of.Obama didn’t transcend race – he overcame it. Especially by winning Virginia, the heartland of the old Confederacy, where statues to Confederate Civil War heroes line the public square of the state capital, Richmond. Of course, now there’s a statue of Arthur Ashe in that square, too, so maybe that was an omen.What Obama accomplished is more than good enough for me. Maybe we’ll transcend race some time in the future, but I’ll take overcoming it any day of the week.Now, Obama created expectations greater than those set by any president since John F. Kennedy, under very different circumstances. I hope he meets them. If he does, then both black and white people in the country of my birth will be able to turn the page on “The Legacy.” That doesn’t mean forgetting it; but it does mean that it will no longer hold such a central position in our hearts and minds – and will cease being such an obstacle to moving forward.When Ronald Reagan was first elected President, he said it was “morning in America.”It wasn’t.Maybe now, it is.
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I’m pleased to announce that on November 2nd, my novel Zahrah the Windseeker won The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa!!I posted some pictures and a full account of my trip to Nigeria on my blog at: http://nnedi.blogspot.com/This was truly a journey I'll never forget.Nnedinnedi.comRead more…
My Fellow Americans, As Is it here with true joy in my heart as America elects it’s first black president my eyes have wells up with excitement that which a person rarely sees in life. Barack Obama’s win is not just a win for Barack or a win for Black people, but a win for the American People and all people that have struggled for a just cause. This time is one of the turning points in our evolution as a species another jump in our ability to conquer evil and unjustness as we have done in the past as seen in the 1960s during the civil rights era. This man is but a symbol of what we as a people can become when you do thing s the right and just way, have faith in God and refuse to give up on what is right and good. We can honestly say to our children that they can be anything they set out to be when they grow up when they make the right choices and have God on their side. I am use again optimistic that we all can work together as one to create a more perfect union in this country we cam America. God Bless AmericaRead more…
These are some of the first scifi figures ive seen that really inspire me to want to make art and incorporate "blackness" to it. They are done by a japanese guy called Takayuki Takeya aka "the master". This cat is RAW. For all i know these figures are from a story that is blatantly racist or something, i really dont care tho. Someone could probably look at these and see them as offensive but i get inspired by the strangest things. When i see these i see black people sculpted in a way ive honestly never seen before. I dont know if that speaks to the lack of black representation in the toy/figure industry, or the skill of Takeya.
This guy is japanese and i dont know of any black sculptors outside of the fine art world. If anyone knows of anyone's work and think i might be interested in it please let me know. Im always looking for new artists to look up to and black ones would be particularly cool.
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I just realized that I didn't post this here, so here it is:
I've decided to drop "Mbachu" from my last name (as I've been ecstatically divorced since February '08, :-D). I held on to the name because of my daughter, but it's about time to get rid of it."Okorafor-Mbachu" will appear on the forthcoming paperback of The Shadow Speaker (March). But after that, the name is officially retired (r.i.p.). I'm pleased to say that it will not appear on the cover of Long Juju Man (to be released Feb 6th).From now on, I will go by Nnedi Okorafor, my maiden (and true) name. I'd be highly pleased if you spread the news.Nnedinnedi.comRead more…
Posted by Fumi Bankole on October 22, 2008 at 9:25pm
One hundred years in the future when life on Earth's surface can no longer tolerate the blaze of its own Sun, the world has been divided between a genetically engineered elite and a massive, mixed race underclass. But there are others…Messob, a young woman raised deep underground in the isolated, yet evolved community of the Tunnels, must start the dialogue between her own people and the Sky People, safe on their elevated Sky Shelf. On her mission, Messob learns that though these elites live in a seeming techno-paradise, their very existence depends on a massive slum just meters beneath their Sky City.
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Posted by Fumi Bankole on October 22, 2008 at 9:05pm
Chapter OneSharp pebbles bit through the seat of the girl’s fatigues while she sat in the tunnel’s narrow path and stared at the wall ahead of her. There it was, clearly chiseled, her namesake and destiny. Up until now, Messob was simply the lyric that drew her attention and which, in twenty years, she thought she had grown into. As a gust of tunnel air toyed with her long, hazel curls, Messob scooted onto her feet and stood up. There was a haggle of teenagers searching the walls for their own destinies ten meters to her left and a lone reader several meters to her right. She breathed hard and took a step closer to read it for the third time:“All praises due to God for Republic of Kalifornia. Contraband missiles destroy cities and farmland of our beloved Ethiopia. Sent troops when no United Nations to help, no mercy for us from the West. In 2120, we came to republic in five fighter jets and battleship to repay favor. General Haile Messob, direct descendent of His Imperial Majesty, led us in combat at Kalifornia border. Our ship lost. Kalifornians housed us in Sky City until turned against general, banishing us for blood that makes skin brown.”The teenagers were moving on, leaving Messob alone with the man who suddenly burst into laughter and blurted out, “Woo wee.”“What, found yourself?” Messob said loudly enough to carry the distance.“Yeah, and after how many years?” The man readjusted the worn leather top hat that compressed his bushy hair. “Let’s see, I’m almost thirty. Whatever. It’s been some time.”“You don’t look it.” Messob said.“Who does in this tomb?” he said. “Besides, I enjoy the medicines of music and natural mystic.”“What’s your name?”“Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy.” A momentary blank stare made him seem doubtful.“You sure?” Messob said. He glanced at her.“I think he was a made up guy. Funny thing is I really do play guitar. And I’m left-handed.”“So it won’t be hard to internalize,” Messob said, thankful for the interlude.She wandered over and followed the man’s eyes to the wall. Together they read some of it; she silently, he out loud:“Ziggy played guitar/jammin’ good…the spiders from Mars…played it left hand… then we were Ziggy’s band…”“Yeah, this is all me,” Ziggy said. He laughed again and hitched up multi-patched jeans.“I just found me too. Over there,” Messob said, pointing.“Sonia Sanchez?” he said. Messob rolled her eyes. Her voice was heavy.“Not hardly. A war general.”Messob began a quick return to her funk. It just could not be her name. There was a mistake, perhaps just a consonant or a syllable, skewering the meaning that should have been tutor or doula or oils mixer.“We were just talking about their Laws for Racial Coexistence. Crazy eh, thosetests?” Ziggy said, drawing Messob back to the moment.“I’m no war general,” Messob said, resisting the urge to rub her eyes for fear of grinding dirt into them. “We don’t deal with war.”“I used to deny who I was. Trust me. It ain’t worth it. You should read the Republic of Kalifornia’s Constitution?”“I read it.”“It’s a stack of farts ‘bout to bust. Maybe you’ll have a hand in that.”Messob winced at that prospect. She knew alphabets, signs, and symbols. She knew the trader patois that conjoined Spanish to Indio and Korean to English.Language was at her mental fingertip, and like most other tunnel dwellers, she had been walking and reading it since her youth. By far, the gory soldier confessions scribbled in guilty syndrome-ridden hand disturbed her most. The name was wrong.“You going up to Ground Zero?” Ziggy said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out.”Messob shrugged. Of course he hadn’t seen her; she never went. Ziggy kneeled and picked up a large, pieced-together backpack that, once strapped on, shot up into a turret above his head. The emzees discouraged going outside. As far as Messob knew, it was reserved for the Outzone workers and was a last resort safe haven if something cataclysmic happened in the tunnels below. Otherwise, it was far too dangerous. Besides a well-gossiped den for the submerged tenth, the sky was lethal. At once, she felt an agoraphobic tightening of her throat.“We’re always up there playing music.” Ziggy looked around while Messob was quiet, allowing the pause to grow thick. “So I gotta get some air. Coming with?”Messob thought a moment longer and sized up the boy with a sideways glance.“You go all the time?” she asked.“Yep. Can’t beat fresh air.”Normally, she didn’t entertain strangers in the tunnels, but with her namesake come to light, her life had more than changed; it had spun vertigo.“Yeah, I’ll go,” she said while grabbing her pack. Then she added, “We have to go this way so we can get my sister.” She pointed up the tunnel.“Alright?”“Cool.”
INFRADEAD - GuidelinesINFRADEAD is an anthology of original novella-length science fiction stories to be published in trade paperback format in 2009. INFRADEAD is edited by Tyree Campbell, J Alan Erwine, and Scott Virtes. INFRADEAD is looking for tales of human extinction.Preferred length is 5,000 to 10,000 words, but we will consider longer works. Pay will be 1/2 cent per word. We will not consider reprints.We will consider poems. However, the theme of this anthology requires that poetry be very well developed--not necessarily long, but well developed. Pay will be a flat $6 per poem. We will not consider reprints.The successful INFRADEAD story is driven by its plot, the events of which are experienced by fully developed characters. The science in the story is speculative but plausible. In summary, we want to know what happened to bring humanity to this state, and how, exactly, in the words of the last humans, they lived the last lives. If you choose to have small groups of survivors [see add'l note below], tell us how they cope with their circumstances. And remember: the Earth will have changed in some way. This change must be taken into account when you tell us how the survivors cope.One additional note: it is not necessary that the entire species be wiped out. There might exist very small pockets or remnants of humanity--but in the conditions of the story, the species will for all practical purposes be finished.Either of these works will offer suggestions regarding the human denouement.1. A Choice Of Catastrophes, by Isaac Asimov2. Our Angry Earth, by Isaac Asimov and Frederik PohlThere is no need to rush your writing. We will close to submissions on 1 December 2008. We expect to "hold" about 10-12 story submissions and about 8 poetry submissions until then, at which time we will make our final cuts. We will advise you of declines or holds within 2 months of the date of your submission. So there is no need to hurry.HOW TO SUBMIT:Stories: submit your story as an rtf or Word attachment. Submit only one story at a time, please. At the top of the attachment put your snail mail address and contact information. Double-space. Indent paragraphs five space-bar spaces--do not tab, please. Use italics when necessary. In your cover letter, be sure to include the word count and a brief bio. Send your story toinfradeadsdp@yahoo.com . Be sure to put Submission in the subject line.Poems: submit your poem in the body of the e-mail. Submit one poem at a time. Be sure to include your snail mail address and contact information. Use italics when necessary. Include a brief bio. Send your poem to infradeadsdp@yahoo.com . Be sure to put Submission in the subject line.And if you have any questions, please query at infradeadsdp@yahoo.com .An Open Call for Submissions~*~Howdy Pardners!Mosey on up ta the bar and let me tell ya about the darnedest, silliest, most outrageous Western anthology this side of the Mississip'.Y'all heard right! CyberAliens Press'll be spittin' out another one o' them themed anthos on May 1, 2009.We'll be featuring hilarious stories of the Wild West, some sappy Prairie Romance, and even a little bit o' SteamPunk - as long as it's knock-us-on-our-butt funny! We're also lookin' fer cowboy poetry and limericks, art and comics, and anything else that's sure-as-shootin' silly.So saddle yer ponies, get them doggies ta market then set yerself down and write us the silliest bunch a words what never come outta that pencil a yers.In plain language:We are looking for short stories from 500 to 3500 words in length, as well as poems, jokes, puns, limericks, artwork, and general silliness. All submissions must express one of the following themes:+ American Wild West+ Steampunk+ Prairie Romanceor some mixture of the above.Submissions open November 1, 2008 an' close on February 28, 2009. Acceptances and declines will be ongoing through the submission period. No late submissions will be accepted. Put "SUBMISSION: [TITLE]" in the subject line, and address all correspondence to The Editors (there's two of us) and email them to: sillywestern @ gmail.com - ¿Comprende? Now saddle up and write.~*~http://residentialaliens.blogspot.com/2008/10/silly-western-antho-call-for.htmlCheck out the footprints anthology alsoFOOTPRINTS ANTHOLOGYScience Fiction anthology to be edited by Jay Lake and Eric T. ReynoldsPUBLISHER: Hadley Rille BooksSUBMISSION GUIDELINESTHEME: Long after our species and all its works have turned to dust, the moon landing sites will show evidence of our time here on Earth. Imagine future explorers from among the stars interpreting that. The astronauts' footprints should last longer than the fossils in the Olduvai Gorge have.LENGTH: 4,000 to 10,000 wordsNO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONSELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS ONLY. Send as an attachment to an email message. Microsoft Word doc file is preferred, or rtf is okay (please contact us if you need to make arrangements for another format). Please virus scan your document before sending.EMAIL YOUR STORY TO: subs@hadleyrillebooks.com. Important: put FOOTPRINTS in the subject line.FORMAT: The standard manuscript format as shows herehttp://www.shunn.net/format/story.html, except that we prefer single-spaced rather than double-spaced. Please don't do any fancy formatting such as right-justifying, etc. – leave that to us. Please don't hit Enter (or Return) at the end of each line. Let your word processor wrap the text.SUBMISSION PERIOD: From August 15, 2008 through November 15, 2008.PAYMENT: $40 upon publication. Payment is by PayPalhttp://www.hadleyrillebooks.com/FootprintsSubs.html1. The Nemonymous editor requires a story judged suitable by its author for inclusion in the projected Cern Zoo book, planned to be published in June 2009. Ideally, this story should be specially written for ‘Cern Zoo’. 'Cern Zoo' (alternatively 'Cerne Zoo') simply means what it means to you. The above image is not intended to guide the nature of submissions and your story can have any title.2. Between 500 and 14000 words for each story.3. Lump sum payment in UK pounds to author upon publication: £0.01 a word up to a maximum of £100 (by Paypal).4. Stories should be submitted as a Word Doc attachment. The editorial addresses to which your submission should be sent are bfitzworth@yahoo.co.uk ANDdflewis48@hotmail.com5. One story per author under consideration at any one time. The deadline is 31 March 2009.6. You may submit the story anonymously. If so, you will be asked to reveal your identity and/or by-line when and if the story is placed on the short list.7. The story must be original to the author and never published before in any form. No simultaneous submissions.8. It is possible that any story will be kept for the whole of the reading period and still not be accepted for publication.9. The stories will be published without a direct by-line but there will be a disordered list of authors’ names printed on the back cover. The by-lines will be correctly assigned on-line to the stories' titles when 8 months have elapsed after the publication of 'Cern Zoo'=C 2and also correctly assigned within the projected printed 'Nemonymous Ten' in 2010.10. The decision of the Nemonymous editor is final regarding all points above. By submitting a story, any author accepts these terms. Please put 'Cern Zoo: Story Title' as the subject of your email. Also, please show a word count at the top.To help you with 'styling' your story for NEMONYMOUS, please see all the independent reviews linked from: www.nemonym ous.com and also by reading previous editions of Nemonymous.http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/cerne_zoo__guidelines.htmWar is All We Know:This anthology is designed to collect the best fiction on war. We don’t want war as a backdrop to another story, but the war or conflict must be the major part of the story. Using historical fiction or other fiction is fine, but we don’t want real-life battle stories. Each story must also include as a quote or somewhere else in the text the phrase “War is all we know.”Page length: Between 20-40 pages, but we would consider longer or slightly shorter pieces.Due Date: December 1 (tentative-we reserve the right to extend this if we have not yet accepted enough stories to complete the Anthology).Contest End Date: December 1 (to ensure full consideration of your story make sure that your entry is received by this date. The contest deadline may be extended, as noted above, but is unlikely).Interested in submitting stories?Click here to view Submission GuidelinesFantasy Anthology:The stories may include any type of sword and sorcery type fantasy, but must be original works NOT following any material owned or trademarked by other companies engaged in publishing books or games set in fantasy worlds.Page length: Between 20-40 pages, but we would consider longer or slightly shorter pieces.Due Date: December 1 (tentative-we reserve the right to extend this if we have not yet accepted enough stories to complete the Anthology).Interested in submitting stories?Click here to view Submission GuidelinesHorror Business:This anthology will collect the best fiction horror short stories. We are interested in traditional horror, Gothic horror, the supernatural, and hauntings. Hack and slash, gore, or other Hollywood modes that rely more on the "picture" and less on the plot will not be included.Page length: Between 20-40 pages, but we would consider longer or slightly shorter pieces.Due Date: November 1 (this is a tentative date that will only be extended if we have not yet accepted enough stories to complete the Anthology).).Interested in submitting stories?Click here to view Submission Guidelineshttp://diversionpress.com/anthology_seriesCall for Entries as Prize for New Fiction goes AnnualCall for Entries as Prize for New Fiction goes AnnualThe Desmond Elliott Prize 2009Entry forms are downloadable at www.desmondelliottprize.comThe trustees of The Desmond Elliott Charitable Trust are delighted to announce today (Tuesday 23rd September) that theDesmond Elliott Prize will now be an annual event. Launched in 2007 as a biennial prize to reward and promotefirst novelists, the success of the inaugural prize in 2008, won by Nikita Lalwani for her novel, Gifted, has prompted thechange.Entries are now invited for the 2009 prize. A panel of 3 judges, to be announced early next year, will be looking for anovel which has a compelling narrative, arresting characters, and which is both vividly written and confidentlyrealized.Worth ￡10,000 to the winner the prize is designed to support new writers and celebrate engaging new fiction. The prize reflectsthe ethos of the charismatic and successful agent and publisher, Desmond Elliott whose professed duty was to have confidence and faith in his newauthors by offering them 3 book deals to ensure they were free of financial worries and so could write happily andsecurely.Books will be considered from all fiction genres. As an indicator, last year ’s shortlist was: Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (whichwent on to win), Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, and Sunday at The Cross Bones by John Walsh. A longlist of 10 titles will be announced in Aprilfollowed by a shortlist of 3 books in May 2009. The winner will be announced in June 2009 at a centralLondon venue. The judging panel will be announced in early 2009.Entry forms are downloadable at www.desmondelliottprize.comEllipsis Press is interested in novels that are structurally innovative.http://www.ellipsispress.com/submission-guidelines/Submission GuidelinesWe like: novels that look normal but aren’t (more than those that look weird but are actually quite normal); those that aresuccessful at bypassing or evolving the seemingly necessary but often tired elements of character and/orplot; and those that respond in some way to the history of the novel as genre and form.Writers who have studied the traditional elements of the novel and experimented with them to emotionally movingand/or extraordinary ends are invited to submit for publication.Send your whole manuscripts as a .rtf attachment by email only to editors [at] ellipsispress [dot] com.We are not interested in poetry, short story collections, or non-fiction at this time. Due to time constraints we can respondonly to those submissions we wish to pursue. These responses will be made within four months time.SHINE Anthology Guidelineses/>October 28, 2008 at 9:07 pm * Filed under GuidelinesSHINE is an anthology of optimistic near-future SF, edited by Jetse deVries, published by Solaris Books, and is planned for an early 2010release.Keywords:Convincing and optimistic: Imagine that we are the biggest skeptics onthe planet, then show us how things can change for the better, andpersuade us.Near-future: from now until 50 years later.SF: we're not going to define it. Write what you think is SF, andconvince us with the story.The Gritty:Length: up to 10k words (not hard, but anything longer than 10k shouldbe mind-blowingly superb).Payment: 5 cents a word, on publication (and probably a pro rata shareof the anthologist's earnings: I'm working on that)Genres: science fiction only. I greatly prefer original stories, but Iwill - like Baen's Universe - look at stories that have been publishedin markets that are not professional by SFWA standards, or markets witha relatively small reach. I also consider Interzone, Black Static,Postscripts, Futurismic, Apex Digest and Flurb to be either professionalmarkets or markets with a wide reach (or both), so don't want to seestories published by them, either.Rights: First World English Rights, non-exclusive world anthologyrights, non-exclusive audio anthology rights, and further subsidiaryrights specified in my boilerplate [author-anthologist contract], whichI'll put up after I return from World Fantasy. NOTE: obviously, foreventual reprints the first world rights will become anthology rights,first if possible.Reading Period: May and June 2009Response Time: Most rejections will be sent out quickly, while I willhold over stories that I like until July 31, when a final decision ismade. No multiple submissions, please: only one story per author, andonly submit a second one if I expressly ask for it. Simultaneoussubmissions: at your own discretion, but keep in mind that I will notfight over a story, that is, if it's with another publisher I will dropit like a ton of bricks.Submissions Instructions: send your story, preferably single-spaced andin rich text format (RTF) to [email to be added later]. Put Submission:"Title of your story" in the email's subject line.NOTE: I will be travelling to Calgary for World Fantasy tomorrow(writing this on October 28), so there might be some small changes afterI return. But these are the main things for the momentGUIDELINES FOR CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2:more tales of beauty and strangenessCLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness is the next volume in the annual anthology series edited by Mike Allen, scheduled to be published by Norilana Books in July 2009. The anthology's literary focus is on the high end, and it is open to the full range of the speculative and fantastic genres.Editor Mike Allen says: "CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2 is a home for stories that sidestep expectations in beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their settings and startle with the ways they cross genre boundaries, that aren't afraid to experiment with storytelling techniques. But experimentation is not a requirement: the stories in the anthology must be more than gimmicks, and should appeal to genuine emotions, suspense, fear, sorrow, delight, wonder. I will value a story that makes me laugh in its quirky way more than a story that tries to dazzle me with a hollow exercise in wordplay."The stories should contain elements of the fantastic, be it science fiction, fantasy, horror or some combination thereof. A straight psychological horror story is unlikely to make the cut unless it's truly scary and truly bizarre. The same applies to a straight adventure fantasy or unremarkable space opera — bring something new and genuine to the equation, whether it's a touch of literary erudition, playful whimsy, extravagant style, or mind-blowing philosophical speculation and insight. Though stories can be set in this world, settings at least a hair or more askew are preferred. I hope to see prose that is poetic but not opaque. I hope to see stories that will lead the reader into unfamiliar territory, there to find shock and delight."Update for the second volume: "Over the course of reading for the first volume, I developed some criteria for stories that aren't likely to interest me (though exceptions are always possible). These include straightfoward retellings of well-known fairy tales; stories in which a Machine Discovers Its Humanity; stories that aim to prove Christianity/Religion Is Bad; stories about a Privileged Schmuck who comes to understand Oppression Is Bad; stories whose entire plot can be described as X Commits a Murder; stories of wish-fulfillment with little complication — i.e.: character longs for something; character is granted that something; end of story."My aim with the CLOCKWORK PHOENIX books is, somewhat selfishishly, to create books that satisfy my own tastes as a reader. And as a reader, I enjoy stories that experiment, that push the envelope, that dazzle with their daring, but I'm often personally frustrated when an experimental story ends without feeling complete, without leaving an emotional crater for me to remember it by. At the same time, I find myself increasingly bored with the traditional, conventionally-plotted and plainly-written Good Story Competently Told. For better or for worse, I envision the CLOCKWORK PHOENIX books as places where these two schools of story telling can mingle and achieve Happy Medium; where there is significance to both the tale that's told and the style of the telling."RIGHTS PURCHASED: First English Language Rights and non-exclusive electronic rights. The anthology will be published by Norilana Books in a trade paperback edition in July 2009, to be followed by an electronic edition to be produced later.PAYMENT: $0.02 a word on acceptance as an advance against royalties, then a pro rata share of royalties after earnout, plus a contributor copy.WORD LENGTH: Stories should be no longer than 10,000 words, preferably shorter. This is a firm limit for unsolicited stories.READING PERIOD begins August 23, 2008; ends Nov. 16, 2008. Any unsolicited stories sent before Aug. 23 will not be read until sometime after the reading period starts.SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: Submissions are electronic only. Please submit your story via e-mail, as an RTF file attachment. Your e-mail subject line should say "Submission: Story Title". Include a brief cover letter in the body of your email. It should have your name, address, e-mail address, title of story, number of words, and brief biographical information in case we don't know you, with most recent publishing credits, if applicable. We are open to new writers and seasoned veterans alike.EDITORIAL ADDRESS: clockworkphoenix@gmail.comFAIRY TALE REVIEWPlease note that our next submission period isApril 15,2009 - September 15, 2009. We will be accepting submissions ONLINE duringthat time, via a Submission Manager, accessible at that time from our website.We look forward to reading your work!http://www.fairytalereview.blogspot.com/http://www.fairytalereview.com/Fairy Tale Review is an annual literaryjournal devoted to contemporary fairy tales. The journal hopes to provide anelegant and innovative venue for both established and emerging authors of poetryand prose. Fairy Tale Review is not devoted to any particular school ofwriting, but rather to fairy tales as an inspiring art form.Fairy TaleReview is a co-publication of The University of Alabama Press. For recentnews please visit www.fairytalereview.blogspot.comOCTOBERhttp://www.leeandlow.com/p/new_voices_award.mhtmlLee& Low BooksNEW VOICES AWARDSAbout the AwardLEE & LOWBOOKS, award-winning publisher of children's books, is pleased to announce the ninth annual NEW VOICES AWARD. The Award will be given for achildren's fiction or nonfiction picture book story by a writer of color. The Award winner will receive a cash grant of $1000 and our standard publicationcontract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.Established in 2000, the New Voices Award encourages writers of color to submit their work to a publisher that takes pride in nurturing new talent. Since1993 we have published more than eighty-five first time writers and illustrators. Past winners of the New Voices Award include The Blue Roses, winner of thePaterson Prize for Books for Young People; Janna and the Kings, an IRA Children's Book Award Notable; and Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: TheSammy Lee Story, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and a Texas Bluebonnet Masterlist selection.Eligibility1. The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the U.S. and who have not previously had a children's picture book published.2. Writers who have published in other venues, such as children's magazines, young adult, or adult fiction or nonfiction, are eligible. Only unagentedsubmissions will be accepted.3. Manuscripts previously submitted for this award or to LEE & LOW BOOKS are not eligible.Submissions1. Manuscripts should address the needs of children of color by providing stories with which they can identify andrelate, and which promote a greater understanding of one another.2. Submissions may be FICTION or NONFICTION for children ages 5 to 12. Folklore and animal stories will not be considered.3. Manuscripts should be no more than 1500 words in length and accompanied by a cover letter thatincludes the author's name, address, phone number, e-mail address, a brief biographical note, relevant cultural and ethnic information,how the author heard about the award, and publication history, if any.4. Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on 8-1/2" x 11" paper. A self-addressed, stamped envelope with sufficient postage must be included for returnof the manuscript.5. Up to two submissions per entrant. Each submission should be submitted separately.6. Submissions should be clearly addressed to:LEE & LOW BOOKS95 Madison AvenueNew York, NY10016ATTN: NEW VOICES AWARD7. Manuscripts may not be submitted to other publishers or to LEE & LOW BOOKS general submissions while underconsideration for this Award. LEE & LOW BOOKS is not responsible for late, lost, or incorrectly addressed or deliveredsubmissions.8. Dates for Submission: Manuscripts will be accepted from May 1, 2008, through October 31, 2008 and must be postmarked within that period.Announcement of the AwardThe Award and Honor Award winners will be selected no later than December 31, 2008. All entrants who include an SASE will be notified inwriting of our decision by January 31, 2009. The judges are the editors of LEE & LOW BOOKS. Thedecision of the judges is final. At least one Honor Award will be given each year, but LEE & LOW BOOKS reserves the rightnot to choose an Award winner.**************2009 Essence Short Fiction Contest Official Rules <-- I think this is over for this year but am keeping it here for next year.Dream of being the next Terry McMillan or E. Lynn Harris? It just might happen. Start by entering our 2009 Essence Short Fiction contest. The winner will be announced at next year's Essence Literary Awards. See rules below.Write On!2009 ESSENCE Short Fiction ContestOFFICIAL RULES1. ELIGIBILITY: This contest is open only to legal residents of the United States and Washington, DC 18 years or older at the time of entry that have never had a work of fiction published in a major commercial book, or in a magazine with a circulation of more than 25,000. Void where prohibited by law. Employees of Sponsor and its promotional partners and their respective parents, affiliates and subsidiaries, participating advertising and promotion agencies (and members of their immediate family and/or those living in the same of household of each such employee) are not eligible.2. HOW TO ENTER: All stories submitted must be works of original fiction featuring an adult female of African descent as the main character. All contest entries must be typed, double-spaced, with one‹inch margins, on one side of 8 1/2 -by-11 inch paper and not more than ten pages or 2,500 words. The author's name, mail, email address (if available) and daytime telephone number must appear in the top right-hand corner of the first manuscript page. All subsequent pages must be numbered in the top right-hand corner and include the author's last name. Submit your entries via postal mail only in care of 2009 ESSENCE SHORT FICTION CONTEST, Essence Magazine, 135 W. 50th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10020. All entries must be postmarked no later than September 30, 2008 and received no later October 7, 2008. Limit one entry per person. Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late, illegible, incomplete, postage due mail or entries not received for any reason. Entries become sole property of Sponsor and none will be acknowledged or returned. By entering, Entrant warrants that his or her entry is original and does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party and has not previously won an award. ESSENCE WILL NOT ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS IN THE FORM OF FAXES OR ELECTRONIC ATTACHMENTS. Entries will not be returned, and the contestant will only be contacted if her or his entry is chosen. Telephone, postal mail, email or fax inquiries will not be accepted and could cause disqualification.3. JUDGING: All entries will be judged by the editorial staff of ESSENCE and a select panel of publishing experts appointed by ESSENCE based on the following criteria: Originality (25%); Creativity (25%); Use of language (25%); and Appropriateness to contest theme (25%). First, Second and Third place winners and Seven Honorable Mentions will be chosen by the judges. In the event of a tie, an additional tie-breaker judge will determine the Winners from among all such tied entries using the judging criteria above. Incomplete and/or inaccurate entries and entries not complying with all rules are subject to disqualification. Decisions of judges are final and binding. Winners will be notified by telephone or email on or about January 10, 2009.4. PRIZES: One First Prize Winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 and publication of her or his contest entry in a winter 2009 issue of ESSENCE magazine. The submissions of the First, Second and Third Prize Winners as well as those of the Seven Honorable Mentions will be featured on ESSENCE.COM during the first quarter of 2009. ALL TAXES ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WINNERS. The prize is nontransferable and is awarded without warranty, express or implied, of any kind. ALL WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE 2009 ESSENCE LITERARY AWARDS.5. CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION: No transfer, assignment, or substitution of a prize permitted, except Sponsor reserves the right to substitute prize (or prize component) for an item of equal or greater value at Sponsor's sole discretion. Nothing in these official contest rules shall obligate Sponsor to publish or otherwise use any entry submitted in connection with this Contest. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Entrants agree to be bound by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding on all matters pertaining to this Contest. By entering, Entrant represents that any materials submitted as part of Entrant's Contest entry are original and will not constitute defamation or an invasion of privacy or otherwise infringe upon the rights of any third party, and that the Entrant owns or has the rights to convey any and all right and title in such entry. In addition, by entering, Entrant grants to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to edit, publish, promote, republish at any time in the future and otherwise use Entrant's submitted entry, along with Entrant's name, likeness, biographical information, and any other information provided by Entrant, in any and all media for possible editorial, promotional or advertising purposes, without further permission, notice or compensation (except where prohibited by law). Potential Winner, as a condition of receiving any prize, also may be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility, a Liability Release and where legally permissible a Publicity Release and confirmation of a license as set forth above within 7 days following the date of first attempted notification, certifying, among other things, the following: (a) entry does not defame or invade the privacy of any party; (b) entry does not infringe upon the rights of any third party; and (c) the entry submitted is original and has never won an award. Failure to comply with this deadline may result in forfeiture of the prize and selection of an alternate winner. Return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate winner. By entering and/or accepting prize, Entrants and Winners agree to hold Sponsor and its promotional partners, its directors, officers, employees and assigns harmless for liability, damages or claims for injury or loss to any person or property relating to, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, participation in this Contest, the acceptance and/or subsequent use or misuse, or condition of any of the prizes awarded, or claims based on publicity rights, defamation, or invasion or privacy. False or deceptive entries or acts will render the Entrant ineligible. Sponsor, in its sole discretion, reserves the immediate and unrestricted right to disqualify any entrant or prize winner, if either commits or has committed any act, or has been involved or becomes involved in any situation or occurrence which the Sponsor deems likely to subject the Sponsor, entrant or winner to ridicule, scandal or contempt or which reflects unfavorably upon the Sponsor in any way. If such information is discovered by Sponsor after a winner has received notice of his/her prize and before the prize is awarded, Sponsor may rescind the prize in its entirety. If a portion of his/her prize has already been awarded, Sponsor may withdraw the remainder of the prize that has been fulfilled. Decisions of the Sponsor are final and binding in all matters related to this paragraph. Sponsor is not responsible for any typographical or other error in the printing of the official rules, administration of the contest, or in the announcement of the prize.6. GOVERNING LAW: This Contest is governed by the internal laws of the state of New York without regard to principals of conflict of laws. All cases and claims pertaining to this Contest must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in the City of New York, without recourse to class action suits.7. SEVERABILITY: If any provision of these Rules is found to be invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction or appointed arbitrator, such determination shall in no way affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision herein.8. WINNER'S LIST: For name of Winner(s), available after February 15, 2009, log onto www. Essence.com for a period of thirty days.9. SPONSOR: The Sponsor of this Contest is ESSENCE Magazine, 135 W. 50th Street, New York, NY 10020.Our tentative deadline for submissions for The Book of Exodi (see below) is November 14, 2008. To guarantee that your submission will be considered for this anthology, please submit your story by that date.Since some writers have voiced some confusion about what we are seeking for the The Book of Exodi, here are a few points we'd like to emphasize. Just remember, these are only guidelines, not hard and fast rules. If you don't quite adhere to these guidelines but we like your story, we'll still consider it for inclusion.The acceptable genres are science fiction, fantasy, horror, or any combination of these three.The exiles should be a significant portion of the sentient population and they are to leave their home world, their home planet, or perhaps their home plane. A large population moving to some other country or continent on their home world is not what we're looking for.Tell why the exiles had to leave their home, but not necessarily as an expository paragraph.The focus should be on the characters, not events or setting. Events and setting need to be included, but they are not the focus.Give some explanation of the means of transportationused by the exiles to flee their home world. Do not get overly technical with this explanation and don't necessarily write it as an expository paragraph.Eposic plans to publish fiction anthologies. Each anthology will be based on a central theme, which may vary from one anthology to the next. We will only accept fiction that fits the theme for a planned anthology. In general, we are looking for science fiction, fantasy, or horror stories that fit the currently planned themes. As long as your story fits one of our planned themes, your story will be considered for publication; if your story does not fit one of our planned themes, it will not be accepted for a planned anthology.Currently, we are seeking stories for our first planned anthology, "The Book of Exodi." The theme for this anthology is the theme of "mass exodus," of peoples forced to leave their home worlds. The home world in any given story could be Earth or some other inhabited planet, and the people forced off their world could be humans, aliens, or fantasy kindreds, but should be a significant portion if not all of the world's sentient population. The story could tell about the adventures of exiles in fleeing their home world or it could tell about their adventures some time after they have fled and what their lives are like wherever they ended up. Or it could be about people finding their way back to their home world after being forced off for a while. Each story should give a reason as to why the people were forced to leave their planet.As long as your story is based on the required theme, it can be any type of story—action, adventure, romance, comedy, etc. The genre for the story should be science fiction, fantasy, horror, or a combination of any of these three genres. Regardless of the type of story or the genre, the primary focus of the story should be on its characters, their interactions, their experiences, and their feelings. We are also interested in stories that describe the environments in which the characters find themselves after leaving their home worlds, contrasting the new environments with their home worlds. Last but not least, we'd like to see stories that give the reader, without being overly technical, a good understanding of the means of transportation used to flee the home world.Themes of other anthologies will be revealed here as soon as we decide what those themes will be. We are open to suggestions.Please do not submit stories to us that use any trademarked names. No fan fiction, please.Contributors Guidelines Indexhttp://eposic.org/submissions/fiction.phpCATASTROPHIA <-- not sure about the deadline for this. Might be the end of October.In Brief:Allen Ashley will be editing acollection of stories loosely themed around “Catastrophes, Disasters,Post-Apocalyptic Fiction”. Allen is looking for original, unpublished storieswhich deal in a modern manner with these classic Science Fiction and SocialHorror based themes.Rights and Other Technical DetailsWe are lookingonly for original material - No reprints. We are seeking to acquire FirstBritish and First North American Rights for your story with a six monthmoratorium subsequent to publication. At the current exchange rate we areoffering 3p / 6c a word up to a maximum payment of £100 / $200 per story. Weexpect to only publish one story per author. The book will be split 50:50between solicited works and open submissions. The submission period is scheduledto open on 1st July 2008.How do I submit?The information in thissection applies only to "open" / "unsolicited" submissions. It does Not apply toinvited authors.Please note: To enable authors to fully develop their corecatastrophe idea and their characters’ reaction and response to the disaster, weare generally seeking stories in the range of 6000 to 12000 words. We willconsider shorter material but we are extremely unlikely to take a story longerthan 12000 words long.Please note: Before submitting – before completing –your opus, you should email a 500-750 summary to Allenat:editorcatastrophia@hotmail.co.ukIf we like your idea or approach,Allen will then contact you with a request to see the whole manuscript.Allen will NOT be receptive to submissions without prior email contact andagreement on the synopsis. Your synopsis does not have to include every plottwist but should detail the specific catastrophe/disaster/problem and thesetting (e.g. downtown LA, the London Underground, beginning in Madagascar andspreading across the world…).Stories should be in English and in a legibletypeface (Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New). Stories will be requested as anemail attachment compatible with Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format.Whatdo we mean by catastrophes?In short, some event that rapidly changes theworld social order, threatens the survival of Humankind or planet Earth, reducespeople to a state of mere hand to mouth existence, puts the clock of progressback a couple of thousand years almost overnight, takes our attention off theexploits of celebrities, footballers and politicians and instead focuses it onkeeping ourselves and our loved ones alive until sundown… you get the picture.To give a further flavour of what we want, here is a quote from Allen Ashley’sstory “The Overwhelm” (Catastrophe = World is engulfed by fog): “Truly it didn’ttake much for the veneer of civilisation to be stripped away.”We are takinga broad view of what constitutes a catastrophe / disaster / apocalypse. Pleasenote, however, that we do not view catastrophe stories as an excuse fordisgruntled authors to indulge in a pointless orgy of gratuitous rape andviolence fantasies.A Brief History of Catastrophes:These sortsof tales have a long and prominent history within the genre and are amongst thefirst titles that spring to mind when listing SF classics. Discounting Biblical,mythical and similar precedents, this sub-genre probably commenced with:“TheWar of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells (Invading Martians destroy Britain) and M. P.Shiel’s “The Purple Cloud” (Polar toxins kill everybody barprotagonist).Brian Aldiss famously labelled many of these stories as “cosycatastrophes” but that certainly hasn’t got in the way of our enjoyment. Youreditor grew up on these stories and with “Catastrophia” expects to reinvigoratethe genre for the twenty-first century. Indeed, recent films such as “The DayAfter Tomorrow” (environmental disaster), “Deep Impact” (comet strikes Earth)and a re-make of “The War of the Worlds” suggests the desire is there to befaced with the apocalyptic all over again.Further Information andInspirationWant to get the feel for the nature of the catastrophe beforewriting and submitting?Here’s an “off the top of my head” list ofcatastrophe stories to add to those already mentioned:John Wyndham – “TheDay of the Triffids” (Blindness and Killer Plants);John Wyndham – “TheKraken Wakes” (Marauding sea monsters);John Christopher – “Death of Grass”(AKA “No Blade of Grass”) (All grass / wheat / rice crops fail);J. G.Ballard – “The Drowned World”, “The Drought’, “The Crystal World”, “The WindFrom Nowhere” – early quartet of psychological / environmental disaster novelsfrom the master;Brian Aldiss – “Greybeard” (No children are born);EdmundCooper – “All Fool’s Day” and Richard Matheson – “I Am Legend” (Benchmarkpost-apocalyptic last man on Earth tales);Brian Aldiss – “Barefoot in theHead” (LSD contamination causes social breakdown);Edmund Cooper – “Kronk”and Charles Platt – “The Gas” (Rampant venereal disease / sex plagues);JohnChristopher – “The World in Winter” (New Ice Age);Keith Roberts – “TheFuries” (Giant wasps);Roger Zelazny – “Damnation Alley” (Mad Max startedhere).For a really modern catastrophe story in the short form, Irecommend that you track down “Approaching Zero” by John Lucas (Contemporarylifestyles as catastrophe!), most recently available in “The Elastic Book OfNumbers” Edited by Allen Ashley (Elastic Press, 2005).Catastrophes forthe New MillenniumWith the current prominence of “Green” issues, you maywell decide to try your hand at environmental disaster, biological agentsrunning amuck, responses to the future fuel and water shortages or similarthemes…I’ve always quite liked the idea of the animal and plant kingdomsgetting their own back on Humankind (See “The Furies’, “Day of the Triffids”,the film “Them”, etc…) – so I’d be quite receptive to an idea along those lines.No vampires, though, which have been done to death.Something based on ourdependence on technology in the so-called Information Age. No cyberspeakgobbledegook, please, and no rehash of “Transformers”… but I’m sure there’splenty of material to extrapolate from.Better still, come up with a freshcatastrophe idea, something that has not been explored before but is still closeenough to the real world to convince as an extrapolation or apossibility.OK, enough of me broadcasting ideas – it’s now up to youfabulous authors out there to impress your humble editor.-Alleneditorcatastrophia@hotmail.co.ukNOVEMBERThe Phantom Queen AwakesA Dark Celtic AnthologyEdited by Mark S. Deniz & Amanda PillarIt may come as little surprise to the friends of Morrígan Books that Mark S. Deniz has decided to dedicate an anthologyto the publishing company’s patron goddess, the Morrígan. The collection will be edited by Mark, with in-house editor, Amanda Pillar as co-editor.To date, Elaine Cunningham and Katherine Kerr have agreed to write for the anthology.The Morrígan is commonly portrayed as a triple goddess, but her tripartite nature is uncertain at best. This ambiguity shall beat the heart of The Phantom Queen Awakes. Please follow the link for some background on the Morrígan.The Phantom Queen Awakes, will focus on Morrígan’s tripartite nature. We want stories set in the ancient world of theCelts (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celt for some information), that talk of Morrígan. She does not have to be a centralfigure (although she must appear at least once in the tale), however we would prefer it if she was.Mark and Amanda are looking for stories that push the boundaries, for tales that resound with the reader long after they’ve beenput down. Supernatural creatures are allowed, although they must be in tune with Celtic mythology. We do not want gratuitous violence or sex scenes. The editorswould prefer stories of a darker nature, and are much more likely to take well written stories with this in mind._________________________________________________________________________Word Count: 50 to 6,000 (the lower word countbeing reserved for excellent flash fiction and poetry).Payment: $.01 per word for original stories, no reprintsDeadline: 1st December 2008 - we are implementing a new submission selection for the anthology but will let allauthors know as soon as possible after the deadline day as to the decision regarding their story.Submission Format: Please write the title, your name, your address, email, contact numbers and the word count at the top of themanuscript submission. Please include the page number in the footer.Manuscripts should be in either the Courier New or Times New Roman font. Please make sure your manuscript is double-spaced.We will only accept manuscripts electronically and they must be in .rtf (rich text format).Submissions: Send submissions as attachments to: phantom.queen@morriganbooks.comhttp://www.morriganbooks.com/?page_id=120DecemberWarrior Wisewoman is a new annual anthology series of science fiction featuring powerful and remarkable women, edited by Roby James.The first volume was published by Norilana Books in June 2008.The anthology was conceived as a sister volume to the classic Sword andSorceress fantasy series originally edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley,with the main difference being that the story themes will involve sciencefiction instead of fantasy, and they will be intended for a more matureaudience, allowing a mixture of serious contemporary issues and reasonablesexual content (but no erotica) in addition to action and adventure. The storieswill have a stronger focus on the interface between scientific exploration andour sense of wonder.Editor Roby James says:"I am looking for stories that shed light on the truth of what itmeans to be female, that illuminate the wisdom and the strength of a woman, butnot in cliché 'goddess' stories. I love action and adventure, grand space opera,thrilling discovery, and intelligent protagonists. Make the story thoughtful,wise, and surprising, not merely the same old metal spaceship hull filled withcardboard military uniforms with female names 'barking' orders and firing ataliens. In addition, the stories in the anthology should appeal to genuineemotions, suspense, fear, sorrow, delight, wonder. The science can be part ofthe background and the characters foremost, or the science can be central to thestory, as long as the characters are realistic and appealing. It is stronglyrecommended you read thefirst volume to get an idea of what kind of material we're looking for."This is science fiction, but I also welcome stories of spiritualexploration, looking at the bond between the scientific and the divine. I wantto see how a woman survives tragedy and disaster, overcomes impossible odds,achieves her true potential, or goes on to thrive in a marvelous universe of somany possibilities, using what is inside her, as well as what she finds in thelaboratory, the alien planet, or space itself."The stories should contain the question of 'what if' on some level. And theyshould have a woman answer it."Read the editorial Introductionto Volume One.DECEMBERGuidelines for Volume #2 of the Anthology:RIGHTS PURCHASED: First English Language Rights and non-exclusive electronic rights. The anthology will be published by Norilana Books in a tradepaperback edition in June 2009, to be followed by an electronic edition to be produced later.PAYMENT: $0.02 a word on acceptance, and a pro rata share of royalties, plus a contributor copy.WORD LENGTH: Up to 10,000 words, with longer stories having to be exceptional.READING PERIOD begins on August 1, 2008. Please do not submit your stories before then.DEADLINE: December 15, 2008.HOW TO SUBMIT: Submissions are electronic only. Please submit your story as a Word (.doc or .rtf) attachment to your e-mail. The subject lineof your e-mail should say "Submission: Story Title, last name of author." Also, include a brief cover letter. It should have your full name, address, e-mailaddress, title of story, number of words, and brief biographical information in case we don't know you, with most recent publishing credits, if applicable. Weare open to new writers and seasoned veterans alike.EDITORIAL ADDRESS:We look forward to reading your most inspired work.http://www.norilana.com/norilana-ww-guidelines.htmDelacorte Press Books for Young Readers is pleased to announceThe Twenty-Sixth AnnualDelacorte PressContestfor a First Young Adult NovelThe prize of a book contract (on the publisher's standard form) covering world rights for a hardcover and a paperback edition, including an advance androyalties, will be awarded annually to encourage the writing of contemporary young adult fiction. The award consists of $1,500 in cash and a $7,500 advanceagainst royalties.All federal, state, and local taxes, if any, are the winner's sole responsibility. Prizes are not transferrable and cannot be assigned. NO PURCHASENECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.ELIGIBILITY1. The contest is open to U.S. and Canadian writers who have not previously published a young adult novel. Employees of Random House, Inc.and its subsidiaries and affiliates, and members of their families and households are not eligible.2. Foreign-language manuscripts and translations are not eligible.3. Manuscripts submitted to a previous Delacorte Press contest are not eligible.FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS1. Submissions should consist of a book-length manuscript with a contemporary setting that will be suitable for readers ages12 to 18.2. Manuscripts should be no shorter than 100 typewritten pages and no longer than 224 typewritten pages. Include a brief plot summary with yourcovering letter.3. Each manuscript should have a cover page listing the title of the novel; the author's name, address, and telephone number.4.Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on 8-1/2" x 11" good quality white paper, and pages should be numbered consecutively. The type should be at least10 point. The author should retain a copy of any manuscript submitted.5.Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white (not gray) paper.6. Do not submit manuscripts in boxes. A padded envelope will do. Please do not enclose checks for postage. The publisher is notresponsible for late, lost, misdelivered, or misplaced submissions.7. Please enclose a business-size stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification only. Please do notenclose checks for postage. Due to new postal regulations, the publisher cannot return any manuscripts. All submissions will be recycledby Random House after they are read.MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS1. Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while underconsideration for the prize.2. Authors may not submit more than two manuscripts to the Delacorte Press competition; each mustmeet all eligibility requirements.DATES FOR SUBMISSION1. Manuscripts must be postmarked after October 1, 2008, but no later than December 31, 2008.2. Send manuscripts to:Delacorte Press ContestRandom House, Inc.1745 Broadway, 9thFloorNew York, New York 10019JUDGING1. Entries will be judged by the editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers. The prize will be awarded on the basis of originality, style,and creativity.2. The judges reserve the right not to award a prize.3. The decision of the judges will be final.4. The editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers will not be able to offer critiques of manuscripts orenter into correspondence about the manuscripts other than with the winning author.5. Writers will be notified between January and April as submissions are evaluated by the editors. Final contest results will be announced on our Website on or around April 30, 2009.JANUARYFEDERATIONSEDITED BY JOHN JOSEPH ADAMSFrom Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea ofvast intergalactic societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations will continuethat tradition. What are the social/religious/environmental/technological implications of living in such a vast society? What happens when expansionist tendencies on agalactic scale come into conflict with the indigenous peoples of other planets, of other races? And what of the issue of communicating across such distances, orthe 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 stronglypreferred.)Rights: First world English rights, non-exclusive world anthology rights, and non-exclusive audio anthology rights. See my boilerplate author-anthologistcontract, which spells out the rights in detail.Reading Period: November 1-January 1, 2009Response 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 2009Publisher: Prime BooksSubmission Instructions: Email your story in rich-text format (RTF) to John Joseph Adams at federations.anthology@gmail.com.Include the title of the story and your byline in the subject line of the email.ABOUT THE EDITORJohn Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies Wastelands: Stories ofthe Apocalypse, Seeds of Change, and The LivingDead. 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 hiswebsite at www.johnjosephadams.com.http://www.johnjosephadams.com/?p=1630Highlights for Children will accept submissions to the publication's 29th annual fiction contest during the month of January 2009. The contest is open toanyone interested in writing for children and three winners will receive $1,000 each.For this year's contest, Highlights seeks stories set in the future. Under contest rules, any unpublished story is eligible, whethersubmitted by a professional or a new author. Previous winners have included both published and first-time authors.Contest guidelines state that all entries must be postmarked between January 1 and January 31, 2008. The storiesshould not exceed 800 words, and they may be considerably shorter for younger children. Stories glorifying war or crime or containing violence or derogatoryhumor are not acceptable.The three contest winners will be announced on Highlights.com in June 2008. Winning manuscripts become the property ofHighlights and will appear in the periodical at a later date. All other contest submissions will be considered for purchase at regular rates and terms. A listof winners will be sent by mail if a self-addressed stamped envelope is included with submissions.Highlights also accepts the submission of articles, stories, and fillers throughout the year.For guidelines or additional information, go tohttp://www.highlights.com/custserv/customerservicecontent2main.jsp?iCategoryID=203&iContentID=1584&CCNavIDs=3,203MarchDelacorte Press Books for Young Readers is proud to announce theSeventeenth AnnualDelacorte Dell Yearling Contest fora FirstMiddle-Grade Novel*The prize of a book contract (on the Publisher's standard form) for a hardcover and a paperback edition, including an advance and royalties, will beawarded annually to encourage the writing of contemporary or historical fiction set in NorthAmerica, for readers age 9–12. The award consists of $1,500 in cash and a $7,500 advance against royalties.All federal, state and local taxes, if any, are the winners sole responsibility. Prizes are not transferrableand cannot be assigned. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO WIN.ELIGIBILITY1. The contest is open to U.S. and Canadian writers who have not previously published a novel for middle-grade readers. Employees of Random House, Inc. andits subsidiaries and affiliates, and members of their families and households are not eligible.2. Foreign-language manuscripts and translations are not eligible.3. Manuscripts submitted to a previous Delacorte Press contest are not eligible.FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS1. Manuscripts should be no shorter than 96 typewritten pages and no longer than 160 typewrittenpages. Include a brief plot summary with your covering letter.2. Each manuscript should have a cover page listing the title of the work and the author's name, address, and telephone number. The title shouldalso appear on each manuscript page.3. Manuscripts should be typed doublespaced on 8 1/2" by 11" good quality white paper, and pages should benumbered consecutively.The type should be easy to read, preferably 12 point. The author should retain a copy of any manuscript submitted.4. Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white (not gray)paper. Partial or illegible entries will not be acceptable.5. Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white(not gray) paper.6. Do not submit manuscripts in boxes. A padded envelope will do. Please do not enclose checks for postage. The publisher is notresponsible for late, lost, misdelivered, or misplaced submissions.7. Please enclose a business-size stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification only. Please do notenclose checks for postage. Due to new postal regulations, the publisher cannot return any manuscripts. All submissions will be recycledby Random House after they are read.MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS1. Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while under consideration for theprize.2. Authors may not submit more than two manuscripts to the Delacorte Yearling competition; each must meet all eligibilityrequirements.DATES FOR SUBMISSION1. Manuscripts must be postmarked after April 1, 2009, but no later than June 30, 2009.2. Send manuscripts to:Delacorte Yearling ContestRandom House, Inc.1745 Broadway, 9th FloorNew York, NY 10019JUDGING1. The Judges are the editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers.2. The judges reserve the right not to award a prize.3. The judges' decision will be final.4. The editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers will not be able to offer critiques ofmanuscripts or enter into correspondence about the manuscripts other than withthe winning author.5. Writers will be notified between July and October as submissions are evaluated by the editors. Final contest results will beannounced on our Web site on or around October 31, 2008.* Formerly the Marguerite de Angeli ContestSPECTRA SHORT FICTION CONTESTPresenting a new short fiction contest for unpublished writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.For its third edition of Spectra Pulse, Bantam Spectra is allowing unpublished writers to get their work featured alongside some of the most well-respected names in science fiction and fantasy.One lucky winner will receive $100 and have his/her story published in the Summer 2009 issue of Spectra Pulse, Bantam Spectra’s exclusive magazine distributed at Comic-Con San Diego and select conventions and bookstores (available July 2009).*Prize:The winning author will receive $100 and have his or her work published in the Summer 2009 issue of Spectra Pulse.To Enter:Submit a work of speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, new weird, anything fantastic in nature) no longer than 2,000 words in length to spectrapulse@randomhouse.com by January 31, 2009. Be sure to include your name, e-mail address, and mailing address.One winning story will be selected by the Bantam Spectra editorial department. The Winner will be notified by March 18, 2009 and announced on April 28, 2009.Open to adults, ages 18 or older, who are residents of the United States and have never published a work of fiction nor entered into a publishing contract as of the time of entry. Entrants who subsequently enter into a publishing contract will be disqualified from winning if their contracted work is to be published before Fall 2009. Submissions that have been submitted to another publication or online site for publication will not be accepted.Scroll down to read the Official Rules for complete eligibility requirements and submission guidelines.If you have any questions, you may e-mail us at spectrapulse@randomhouse.com.OFFICIAL RULESOFFICIAL RULES 2009 SPECTRA PULSE SHORT FICTION CONTESTNO PURCHASE NECESSARY.1. This Contest runs from October 28, 2008 to January 31, 2009. To be eligible to win, entrants must email their name and complete mailing address along with their Spectra Pulse Short Fiction Contest submission (in English) to spectrapulse@randomhouse.com on or before the entry deadline: 11:59 P.M., Pacific Time, on January 31, 2009. Each story must be limited to no more than two thousand (2000) words and must be submitted as a .doc, .pdf or .rtf file. The e-mail must include the subject line "Spectra Pulse Short Fiction Contest Submission." Sponsor may use entrant's e-mail address for purposes of prize notification and to request a mailing address to be used for the sole purpose of delivering the prize. Any entries received after the deadline will be ineligible to win. LIMIT ONE ENTRY PER PERSON and ONE ENTRY PER EMAIL. Multiple entries from the same person are void. Sponsor is not responsible for entries that are late, misdirected, lost, garbled, or unintelligible, including those due to computer or network malfunction or congestion (including at Random House), and any such entries are ineligible.2. Prizes are as follows: One (1) Grand Prize: a $100 cash prize and inclusion of the Winner’s short fiction submission in the Summer 2009/Issue No. 3 edition of Spectra Pulse. No transfer or substitution of the prize will be permitted, except by The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. ("Sponsor") in its sole discretion, in which case a prize of equal or greater value will be awarded.3. On or about March 17, 2009 one (1) Grand Prize winning submission will be chosen by Sponsor's marketing and editorial departments from all eligible and completed submissions received by the entry deadline. Entries will be judged on the basis of originality, creativity and writing style. Winners will be notified by e-mail and their mailing address will be used by Sponsor solely for the purpose of delivering the cash portion of the Prize.4. This Contest is open only to residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico) who are 18 years of age or older, have not published a work of fiction (self-published books included), and do not have a publishing contract at the time of submission. Entrants who subsequently enter into a publishing contract will be disqualified from winning if their contracted work is to be published before Fall 2009. Submissions that have been submitted to another publication or online site for publication will not be accepted. Employees of Random House, Inc., its affiliates and subsidiaries, and their immediate family members and persons living in their households are not eligible to enter. This Contest is subject to all federal, state, and local regulations. Offer void in Puerto Rico and where otherwise restricted or prohibited. All federal and local taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the Winner.5. Sponsor assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft, destruction, or unauthorized access to the site. Sponsor is not responsible for injury or damage to entrants' or to any other person's computer, other equipment, or person relating to or resulting from participation in the sweepstakes, or from downloading materials or accessing the site.6. By entering the Contest, entrants represent and warrant that they are the sole owner of the copyright in their submitted work, that the work is original to them and that it does not infringe upon the proprietary rights of anyone, invade on anyone’s privacy or violate any other rights. By accepting the prize, Winner grants Sponsor the exclusive right to first publish his/her work in Spectra Pulse and online and the nonexclusive right after such first publication to publish, post online or otherwise reproduce the work and the name and likeness of the Winner in any and all forms and media throughout the world, and for any and all publicity or promotional purposes, without obligation or compensation, except where prohibited by law. Entries will not be returned or acknowledged.7. For the names of the Winner, available after October 28, 2009, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope, separate from your entry, to Spectra Pulse Short Story Contest, Bantam Internet Marketing, Dept. MW, 1745 Broadway, New York, New York, 10019 by December 31, 2009.8. Sponsor: The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 1745 Broadway, New York, New York, 10019.http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/spectra/spectrapulseshortfiction.htmlRead more…
My first novel, Zahrah the Windseeker, is one of three books shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature.The full shortlist:Beast of The Nation by Uzodinma Iweala (I've read this…absolutely phenomenal)Zahrah The Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor (read this, too. Fabulous. Ha ha)The Weaving Looms by Wale Okediran (Looking forward to getting my hands on this one)If all goes as suddenly planned I'll be in Nigeria very very soon meeting the amazing Wole Soyinka at the awards ceremony!View more details in a recent article from the Guardian (a Nigerian newspaper) hereFor more info about this prize, go to: http://luminafoundationsoyinkaprize.com/prize_about.htmRead more…
Well, now that I've sent The Constant Tower off (in it's very messy state) to my editor, I can now return to Dark Inheritance. So, FYE: here is the fourth chapter of Dark Inheritance. Hope you enjoy. Am gonna try to finish this for nanowrimo. -C#As a child Ethan had feared her. He would lay in his bedroom, his head covered under the Mickey Mouse blankets, hoping she would not come. But she always did. At least two nights a week, the headless female torso would materialize in his room. His bedroom door would clamp itself shut under his shaking hands. His hands would go clammy and inside his Spiderman slippers, his little hammer-toed feet would grow cold. He would shout and plead and beg the looming specter to not hurt him, to just leave, leave, please, please! She would call to him, laughing. And that was damn strange because she had no mouth, at least no physical one his little kid eyes could see. When she spoke, her voice grated, like fingernails against a blackboard, and it sounded muffled as if it came from behind some thick invisible wall. Which he figured was understandable because, after all, she had no mouth.He tried to explain all this to his mother, tried to explain how the smell of death would fill the room, and the room would go cold. He followed his mother around when bedtime came, telling her repeatedly that a naked female spirit without a head lived in the walls and came to visit him at nights and could his mother please sleep in his room with him, or maybe could he sleep with her in hers, especially since now his daddy had run off. He told his mother, “when she comes into the room, the room smells like dead people.”His mother stroked his bowl-cut hair and responded, “Son, how do you know how dead people smell?”He answered, “I just know.”One day, his mother asked if he wanted to switch rooms with his sister, Ruth. Such a question only showed she didn’t believe him. He thought of Ruthie alone in that room and what the spirit would do to her. He decided he didn’t want Ruthie to be hurt. “I’ll stay in my room,” he said. He said this although he was sure the spirit would kill him but he was prepared to fight her. He fought her a long while. Needless to say, he figured it best to not even mention that the spirit tried to force sex on him.At one point he told his Uncle Li all about it. His uncle said it was a demon, that such things were common. His uncle tried to persuade his mother to take him to a Shinto priests. But his Uncle Li was a drunk and his parents were good modern Chinese Christians – Methodists. They told his uncle to stop filling Ethan’s head with superstitious old stories. A week after that, his uncle died suddenly. He had left a note among his sparse belongings telling the family the spirit was going to kill him.Ethan got to reading the Bible and visiting the local shrines whenever the family went to Chinatown. He took to buying praying candles at the supermarket and burning them on rocks in the woods near their upstate New York home. His mother noticed his new-found spirituality. She said it was good if he studied the spirituality of other cultures but he shouldn’t go overboard. His older brother, Arnold, said he was just a silly kid turning to religion because his dad had deserted the family for his sleazy co-worker. Ethan listened to them, tried to mull over their words and sort through what was happening in his room at nights. He read about generational curses. He read about haunted houses. He read about psychosis, mental illness, and depression. But nothing helped and after a while it just seemed to him that neither Buddha nor the Christian God were strong enough to help him. He began to believe the entire thing was his karma. Yet, he kept wondering why such a bad thing, such a weird thing, should happen to him.During all that time the Beloved kept attempting to seduce him. She would tell him to lift the covers, to not be afraid of him, that she was there to protect him and love him. The silky smoothness of her ice-cold breasts, the rawness of the moist place between her legs (even though she smelled like garbage and a dead dog he once found in the woods)— they seduced. After a while, he gave in to her. What joy she brought him! What shame too! Terrified at first at the sudden venture into sexuality, he grew to like the wild force of her sex, grew to love her. But she was headless, mouthless, lifeless.He was no more than eight years when the visitation began and about ten when he began to give in to her. That was the day when he realized that goodness was all a crock. Or at least the power of goodness. Heck, his dad wouldn’t have dumped his mom if the world so was good and if God had any control. But still, he did feel that he was a bit abnormal. He knew that love between a spirit and a human could never be permanent. One day, he told the Beloved so.She answered him, “One day, you will touch my human flesh, hear my human voice, and enjoy my human body.”“How will I know you?” he asked. After all, the Beloved had no head.“You will find me,” she answered. “Seek me. Love many women. Seek and you will find me.”And that’s what he did. He had dated. Many women, of all colors. But none of them made his body thrill as much as the Beloved did. There was always something lacking. He told this to the Beloved when she visited him. “I searched,” he pleaded, “and none of these women give me the pleasure that you do. Their bodies aren’t as cold as yours. They don’t look like you. They don’t smell like death.”“You will have to search for me in other places,” she said. “Climb windows, enter locked houses. Find me. I will live in one of those women. Find me, and pleasure me.”And that’s what he began doing. He was eighteen when he raped the first girl. But even then, the pleasure was nothing compared to what the Beloved gave him. He didn’t like to see the girl lying there under him, crying. The Beloved told him that guilt prevented him from enjoying himself, that he should cast guilt aside. The Beloved had spoken the truth. After the fifth rape, he began to allow pleasure to flow into his body. The pleasure helped to push the guilt away. When he pushed himself into the women, he felt the Beloved’s joy working inside him. Now, sitting on his bed in Attica, he no longer felt or even understood the terror that used to make his little boy body tremble.The Beloved had also been faithful. She always protected him. Even when he murdered them two girls. The Beloved had told him to, and he understood the expedience of it. There was little about the Beloved’s commands that he never understood. She was always right. Hadn’t she told him to decapitate several of the women he had raped? To make them in her image? Hadn’t he done that? And those women’s bodies had never been found. If only he had listened and had avoided the woman in the mall, the woman who turned out to be the mother of his Beloved son. If he had done as the Beloved had ordered, he would not have ended up in jail.He lay in his cell remembering his trial and thinking. How strange it had been to hear the court officers, the prosecutors, and the cops call him a rapist! What kind of rapist would kneel between the legs of a woman to pleasure her? They had not understood that. Detective Ramsey had even called him a sick puppy. Stupid woman! When he got released, he wouldn’t immediately kill her though. That was just the kind of thing the cops would expect of him. He’d bide his time. Besides there were more important things to do. He still had to find his son. The Beloved wanted that. And he had to find the Beloved also. The Beloved with a head, a mouth, human flesh. He would search for her as long as it took....and he would find her.
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Posted by Night Manager on October 16, 2008 at 9:22am
This is just about where things started to go wrong. I had a plan... I SWEAR I had a plan. But instead of this being a short story it's reading more like a pilot for a TV show and I don't know how to end it as just a short story! Hell, I'm WAAAAY off what I started to write which is why the title makes no sense“It’s a façade! Pull it out!” Wade ordered. He and Wilson stood back as two of the Rangers stepped forward. Another of the white and blue armored men moved into flanking positions behind them, cocking and raising his rifle. A fourth was holding what looked like an older model cellular phone; large with a long antenna and wide digital face screen.“Signal’s strong.” He reported. “Can’t break the encrypt but it’s reading clear. Someone’s online.”With a crack the huge crate broke away from the others it stood against. A flash of white streaked by too fast for the Rangers moving the crate to react to.“Hold your fire!” Wilson yelled too late as the rifle report filled the air. The Rangers were well trained and disciplined; the rifle stopped firing as the order was given. Never the less the result was there was a woman lying face down on the hard warehouse floor her white lab coat covered in blood.“Damn it!” Wilson cursed.“What?” Wade looked apathetic. “It’s what we came here for right?”“We are looking for the God damned tech!” Wilson snapped. “Only she…”His mouth snapped shut as a pained gasp came from the woman on the ground. Immediately one of the Rangers moved up to her. He kicked away the small black device lying next to her and leaned down and lifted the lab coat.“She caught two in the thigh”, he reported. “Wounds not bad; she’ll survive.”“What’s this?” Wade asked as he picked up the handheld she had dropped. “Micro terminal. Looks like the source of your signal.”Wilson snatched the monitor from him and turned it on. The Eagle logo flashed at him before the desktop came up. He drew his finger across the screen but nothing happened.“Security feature.” Wade said looking over his shoulder. “They come with keys… cards, finger covers, chipped pens… it won’t work without it.”Wilson quickly stepped by the Ranger, knelt down and grabbed the woman roughly by her long black hair. He turned her face around until her pain filled eyes met his.“Remember me little whore?” he said in a whisper. “You got something for me?”“Sir there’s a door here!” one of the Rangers reported. In the hiding space behind the crate against the wall of the warehouse there was indeed a door.Wade walked over and looked it up and down. “Now how did that not show up on the Satellite imager?” he looked back to the woman on the ground. “It’s a security door too. Probably rigged with… WATCH IT!”The knife flashed and a bright red line of blood streaked across the room. Wilson screamed and fell back, trying to get away from the black hunting knife. Lucky for him the injury to the woman’s leg kept her from being able to chase after him. Otherwise she might have gutted him with her second lunge. As it was he rolled backward without being cut again, clutching his face while Wade and two of the Rangers pinned the woman.“CHRIST!” Wade grabbed the woman’s wrist as she tried unsuccessfully to drive it through the breast plate of one of the Rangers. It took hardly any effort to get the knife from her then and she cried out in anguish as he pried it from her hand.Knife in hand Wade turned to see Wilson standing still holding his face his hands now soaked with blood but not so much that it looked life threatening.“Fucking bitch!” Wilson was shaking with rage. “I should have popped you when I…” but Wilson stopped himself. One of the Rangers was pulling at the man’s hands trying to get a look at the wound.“Sliced all the way through the cheek…” he reported.After a quick glance back down at the woman Wade turned his attention to Wilson. “Damn. She cut you a nice new smirk.”“We need to get you to a Medi-unit.” The Ranger was saying but Wilson ignored him and pushed past Wade on his way back to the woman still pinned to the ground.“Whoa!” Wade warned him. “We still need the tech remember.” But he was stifling a laugh as he said it.“Stand her up.” Wilson ordered and the two men who were pinning her pulled the woman to her feet. She gasped in pain and leaned heavily on her right side trying to give her wounded left leg respite.“Okay… okay Ms. Corrigan…” Wilson was speaking through clenched teeth. “You have no idea how bad it’s going to get for you now.”But the dark haired woman just glared back at him through pain filled eyes and said nothing. Lightning fast his hand whipped out and smashed her in the face. Her long black hair flew wildly as her head snapped back from the blow. She sagged a bit in the Ranger’s arms and her hair covered her face. Wilson reached and savagely grabbed her by the throat and forced her head back up.There was blood all over her pale face. A lot dripped down from her nose and around her mouth but most of it was smeared across her right cheek; blood from Wilson’s own hand.“Back to business?” Wade reminded him. Wilson nodded with the same shaky, barely controlled rage. Still holding the woman by her throat he pulled her face close to his.“Where is the fucking Engine, Corrigan?”Her breathing was as haggard as his was. Bloody spittle slid down her chin, mixing with the blood flowing from her nose. But her eyes were defiant; she remained silent.“Still got nothing on this thing.” One Ranger waved the small Computer unit with frustration.“She just used it. We need her key card.” Wade stepped forward and reached into the woman’s lab jacket pockets. Then he frisked her thoroughly until;“Here it is.” He held up the stylus then handed it to the Ranger with her device. “So what exactly was the deal?”Wilson spit a little blood himself. “Simple. She sold us the specs for the Engine. Now we’re here to collect.”“You…” the woman uttered her voice cracking. “… you killed him.”Wade smiled, looking sidelong at Wilson who was trying not to look back at him. “The way I heard…” he began, still keeping an eye on Wilson for his reaction. “… you’re the one did your boss in. I saw the body. Decapitation’s an ugly way to do someone you once called friend.”The woman looked from one man to the other. A defiant smile slid across her lips. “You weren’t supposed to do it. You weren’t supposed…”Another back hand ripped across her face. Blood gushed from her nose, seeped from both corners of her mouth. Wilson drew his hand back for another strike.“Alright, alright!” Wade grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. His face was a mean smirk. “Don’t forget we’re here for the tech. Don’t want to mess that up… twice apparently.”“Don’t think you’re so smart Wade.” Wilson turned his glare to his partner. “She cut the son of a bitches head off.”Wade’s eyes narrowed and he looked from Wilson to the woman and then back again. The smirk slid further up his cheek. “Maybe… but was he alive when she did it?”The snort was halting and sounded a little wet. Wade turned back to the woman. Her head was down and her long black hair covered her face. She shook with the second snort.“The Jones won’t like that too bit of news.” She said slowly leaning her head up and flashing a smirk of her own.Wilson’s eyes flared with anger but Wade stepped in between them again. “Now why would you cut off a dead man’s head?”“You… you won’t find the Engine.” She said desperately.“Got it!” The Ranger who was working on her portable device handed it and the stylus over to Wade. He looked at the screen and tapped it a couple of times with the stylus.“Yea… good encrypt…” Wade said concentrating on the screen. “But it’s LAST month’s encrypt…” and after another tap of the stylus the screen color changed.“What the hell are you monitoring?” he said tapping the screen a few more times.“SIR!” one of the Rangers had raised and cocked his rifle. He was peering into the remains of the fake crate. The security door that they had been ignoring after the knife attack was wide open.“Who the hell opened that door?” Wilson hissed.“Look behind you.” The whisper came from the woman whose head had fallen back down. Wilson snorted himself, unwilling to take the bait. Then he noticed Wade looking past him, just over his shoulder. The smirk was gone. The Rangers turned together and Wilson whirled around and his jaw dropped.It stood six and a half feet tall. First Wilson thought he was looking at some kind of chrome skeleton covered with dark plates of the same metal as the woman’s blade. The dim warehouse lights gleamed softly off the dark metal coverings which flexed and rotated minutely seeming to almost to float lightly about the chrome skeleton. The thing stood on three pronged feet and flexed four digits at the ends of its two long arms. The dark plates covered its joints, torso and also its head. There smaller shifting plates formed a mask of where they shifted, twitched and fluttered like an insect’s wings. Those smaller plates danced around a trio of cylindrical lens cases that moved in unison sweeping over the group of Rangers.“Oh shit.”
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no science fictionThe SagesWhen I was a little boyWhen men appeared as immortal giantsIt was they whom I idolizedTheir lives I wanted without knowing their plightsMy dreams were blessed with ignoranceNow I am a young man only slightly wiser of the nature of lifeI now know the truth of these menI listen to the wisdom of these sagesThey warn me of every misfortune I would come uponI didn’t listen, because I know allEveryday I live I learn how wrong I amWith that knowledge I come closer to being one of the sages
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Posted by Night Manager on October 12, 2008 at 12:29am
3rd in the installment. At this point it still flowed but I was running over on my word count.Her hand was clamped tight over her mouth. She had been startled when the lid had hit the ground and could not help jumping. Now everything on the other side of the crates had gone quiet. They had heard her. Did they know where she was?Then the heavy stomp of boots bounced echoes off of the walls around her. They stopped on the far side of the crate she was hiding behind. Their voices were muffled but she heard barking orders and then the echoes of the boots spreading out in every direction.Her lungs began to ache and she realized that she had been holding her breath. With the boots stomping about loudly she pulled her hand away from her mouth and chanced a quick gulp of air.Luckily the boots never noticed, so she took another. She listened while more harsh voices barked out more orders. With the noise from the increased activity she decided it might be safe to check her bag. Carefully, while still in a crouch, she swiveled around on her toes. The scratchy sound of her shoes twisting on the concrete floor went unnoticed. Beside her lay a black leather bag, misshapen and bulging. As quietly as she could she pulled on the zipper and opened it halfway. Boot steps came close to the other side of the crate and she paused but they continued on and away. She pushed her hand deeply into the bag, stopping every few centimeters because something in the bag would knock not so quietly against something else. Once she got her hands on what she wanted it took even longer to get it out because the bag was so full.Finally the device came free. It was about twice the size of her fist with a small liquid crystal display covering one half and a small touchpad the other. With her thumb she rolled a small dial then pressed a small button on its side. The display came to life bathing her face with its soft blue light. A circular logo flashed for a moment and then the screen read ready displaying a common computer desktop. She reached into the jacket of the long white lab coat she was wearing and withdrew a small stylus. The tip lit up as the stylus made contact and she then drew it across the touch pad maneuvering the on screen pointer towards a javelin shaped icon.The sharp crack of splintering wood startled her again and she fell backwards onto her butt.Had they seen the light?No. Someone was opening another of the crates; the one she was leaning against. In her panic she had pressed the small device to her chest to cover the glow of the light though she knew rationally that the light was not bright enough to be seen past her hiding space. With a tiny breath she pulled it away from her chest.She also knew that they would find nothing in the crate that would lead them to her hiding place. It was filled with construction supplies for what would have been their new offices in downtown Philadelphia.They would find no prints. She had worn gloves. They would find no footprints. She had the staff sweep the floor before she got here. They would not find her.All this she knew rationally but never the less her hand ached as it held a viselike grip on the second item she had pulled from her bag. She had snatched it out of reflex when the second crate had opened and now held it low and ready to use. It was the only weapon she could get past the security check points and she knew how to use it. The long hunting knife had an onyx blade that reflected very little of the soft blue light.She turned her concentration back to the small screen and noted the progress bar that had appeared beneath it. Her heart began to race. Gritting her teeth she tried to calm herself down. There was still much to do.Another tap with the stylus and another icon, this one the shape of a dollar sign, flashed and opened. A small hour glass spun for a moment and she felt her anxiety rise even more. So much depended on every little detail working out the way she had planned. Even one mistake and it would be over then she would most likely find herself strapped down with a needle in her arm.The small digital hour glass stopped spinning and the screen changed from soft blue to a dull gray white. The top of the screen now displayed the corporate logo of a bank. A few more taps with the stylus and she almost breathed the sigh of relief out loud.The money was there.It was going to work.Hard running boots stampeded nearby and voices were raised in harsh warning on the other side of her crate. She pressed the screen to her chest again and clenched the knife tightly. It was okay, she told herself, they couldn’t know. The small device began to vibrate against her and she pulled it away from her now sweat soaked blouse to see why. A red and yellow window had opened in the bottom right corner flashing a warning:ALERT CONNECTION MONITORED!.
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please critisize“This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done” said Maricus. Isn’t there another way to figure this out?“Well this is the most accurate way we have” said Dr. Langdon. “If you have a better way of figuring this out, I’d be glad to hear it.” Maricus sat quietly for a moment.“No I don’t have a better way, but I was just wondering do we really need to know?” asked Maricus after a moment. Dr. Langdon pondered.“Yes” he replied after a while. “It’s not like you’re really dieing. You get to come back after a few minutes.” Maricus thought about it, and said nothing else.They resumed changing their clothes in the dressing room. They removed their causal attire and replaced them with plain white hospital scrubs. They put their belongings into their respective lockers, and exited the dressing rooms. They walked into the hallway and meet two more mean in identical attire.“Are you gentlemen ready?” asked Dr. Langdon.“Ready as we’ll ever be” said one of the men.“Not sure if I still want to go through with this” said the other man.“Good lord, am I the only one with any balls around here” asked Dr. Langdon jokingly. “Fawkes, I’m surprised at you” he said referring to the person that had spoken previous to him. “You’re usually the brave one. We’ve already got enough adversity coming from outside sources, the last thing we need is someone getting cold feet at the last second. So if anyone wants out, they say so now.” The hallway was silent. “Very well, let’s do this” Dr. Langdon said beginning to walk. The other men followed behind him.They walked down the hallway, passing doors with signs that read:Dr. Samuel WashingtonDepartment of Biblical ScienceDr. Edward LyonsDepartment of DivinityDr. Marcus RossDepartment of Biological Creationism.They reached a pair of swinging doors. Dr. Langdon pushed through them. On the other side stood a man wearing a black suit with a red tie. The lapel of the suit had a crucifix pin on it.“Dr. Lennon, to what do we owe the surprise?” asked Dr. Langdon. “If it is about stopping the experiment, I will have to ask you to talk to me about it afterwards becauseWe’re about to go do the experiment.”“Langdon, I’ve previously been against the experiment because of its lack of Christian morals, which I am still against, but now I think your team is in danger.“What kind of danger?” asked Dr. Langdon.“I think someone might pull the plug on you guys” said Dr. Lennon.“Lennon, we have everything set up well here” said Dr. Langdon. We’ve covered every corner on this. Nobody is going to pull the plug”.“But Langdon there are forces at work here that you don’t see” Dr. Lennon said in solemn voice.Dr. Langdon began to chuckle. “What forces, Aliens” the other men began to laugh all except for Dr. Lennon. “Let’s do this before the Aliens get here guys” Dr. Langdon joked. The group of men walked away leaving Dr. Lennon do watch them disappear through another pair of double doors.“The men walked into what appeared to be a well illuminated surgical auditorium. In the center there were four tables with IV machines beside them. At the head of each of the tables there was a computer, each with a man controlling it. The spectator section of the auditorium was full of people, all of whom were gazing at the four men who had just entered, and whispering among themselves. In the middle of the surgical floor was a podium with a microphone on top.Dr. Langdon walked to the podium. The other men stood on either side of him. “Good evening, ladies, and gentlemen” Dr. Langdon began. “I would like to welcome you to SIC, the Scientific Institute of Creationism. Here men from all over the world have come together in and attempt to prove the theories of Creationism. We are glad that you have attended today, to witness this day that shall most defiantly go down in the pages of history. Today we shall find sufficient evidence to prove the theory of intelligent design, and possibly disprove the theory of evolution. How will we do so? We believe that the only way to prove that there is a God is to see him. So that is exactly what we plan to do here today.Murmurs erupted throughout the auditorium. “How do you plan to do that?” One of the men shouted from the observation balcony.“Well” Dr. Langdon continued. “The bible teaches us that when we die we shall come before God in judgment. We believe this is the only surefire way to se God.”Murmurs once again echoed through the auditorium. “So you plan to kill yourself?” someone shouted out.“We will not be breathing, and we won’t have a heartbeat, but we will regain them after twenty minutes. We will use a newly developed chemical, named Babylonium, which will stop our heartbeat and breathing. After our twenty minutes, Babylonium will restart our heartbeat and breathing. By that time we believe we will have had contact with the Supreme Being.”The room was quiet. “So you basically plan to trick God.” Someone shouted out.“We do not plan to trick him; we just mean to establish contact” Replied Dr. Langdon.“How do you know the drug will work in stopping your heartbeat, and breathing, and then restarting them?“The medicine” said Dr. Langdon has been thoroughly tested on animals. This is the first time it will be used on a human. Still we are confident that it will work.”“How do we know that you will really be dead?” asked another man. “And how do we know that it won’t be a biased answer?”“To your first question” said Dr. Langdon. “We have an Electrocardiogram monitoring our heartbeats that you can see on the TV in the observation balcony. We also have four doctors from local hospitals and medical school that will be down here observing, and manually checking us for a heartbeat. For your question about knowing if it is the truth I am taking three other men. The one to my left is Dr. Amahad Rashik. He is a professor of Islamic studies at Florida State University. Since he practices another religion he will not lie and just say that he saw God. The man to my close left is Dr. Gary Fawkes, who is a professor of philosophy at Duke University. He is a atheist who works with the Institute for Humanist Studies, and is a member of the South Place Ethical Society. With him on the team he will take out the chance of religious bias. To my far left is Maricus Battle. He is a Graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, pursuing a master of divinity. He has a bachelor’s degree in ethics from Howard University and is also a Notary Public. He will ensure the truth is being told.“This is blasphemy” said another voice from the balcony.“So we’ve been told” said Dr. Langdon. “Many religious groups have strongly opposed the experiment for various reasons. We believe it is in the interest of the future of man kind that we do this experiment. For to long man has wondered the existence of God. The belief has even halted scientific advances in fear of offending God. Today man shall wonder no longer. The experiment will begin in five minutes.”The men retreated from the podium. “I can’t believe we are about to do this” said Dr. Rashik. The men came together in a huddle.“Hope the Babylonium works” said Maricus. “I don’t have a life insurance policy yet.“Everything will work out fine” said Dr. Fawkes. “If it doesn’t, what will we care, we’ll be dead.”“We won’t die” said Dr. Langdon. “Now lets get to our tables and do this. We are about to see god, and prove or disprove the age old question of a Supreme Being.”The men walked to their tables and laid down on them. A sense of excitement filled the room. All was silent. An age old question was about to be answered. The four men were nervous because they were about to kill themselves, and more importantly stand before god himself.The men who were behind the computers started to connect the IV machines that would administer the Babylonium. They sanitized the area were they were going to put the needle. Then they stuck it in. The men’s faces twisted in a quick moment of pain, but soon were relieved. The technicians then went to there computers and started the flow of Babylonium into their bodies. They lay on the table breathing heavily. Their eyes were looking every which way. Soon there eyes began to close. The lines on the Electrocardiogram began to flatten. Soon the line became completely flat. A beep echoed through the room.The four men found themselves in fog. There was no sound. There was nothing. There were just the four men. They looked around expecting to see something or at least hear something. But there was nothing.“I am ready for you gentlemen” said a loud voice suddenly. Then the four men found themselves in an office. The office had bare white walls with an oak desk. A man was sitting behind the desk looking at the frightened men chuckling. He wore a white three-piece suit, and had a well groomed beard on his face. “Welcome gentlemen” he said. “We’ve been expecting you.”The men stood dumbfounded before the mans desk. But the worst off was Fawkes who was in a state only describable as insanity. “I believe you gentlemen have your answer now don’t you?” said the man behind the desk.“There is a God” said Fawkes, hardly believing his own words.“You admit without seeing him yet” said the man. “That’s strange for a man of science like you.”“So you’re not God” said Langdon finally having the courage to speak up.“No, I’m not” said the man. “You will see him in a moment. For the record when you do see him, you should bow down.”“Who are you then?” asked Maricus.“I’m an angel” the man replied.“So there is a Supreme Being” said Langdon.“Yes” said the man.“Can we talk to him?” asked Langdon.“No need to be in such hurry” replied the man. “Trust me. You will get your turn.”“But we have to hurry up” said Langdon.“Trust me” said the man. “You have plenty of time.“You don’t understand” said Langdon. “We are only going to be up here for twenty minutes, and then we are coming back to life.”“I know your plan” said the man chuckling. “It’s not going to work.”“What!” exclaimed the men simultaneously.“You gentlemen really thought you could cheat God?” said the man chuckling. “There’s a reason men don’t know for sure that God exist. If they did what would be the point of life. God put man on earth to test his faith. If man knew for sure that God existed man would have no faith, he would know. Knowing takes away the need for faith. Knowing everything is a horrible existence because you will have nothing to question, and having nothing to question is a fate much worst than death.”“There is no purpose in questioning if you aren’t going to make an effort to figure it out” retorted Langdon.“True” said the man. “God gave man a quizzical nature. A sense of curiosity that causes a hunger that can only be feed by knowledge. I suppose it’s not your fault. It’s your nature. I suppose if man didn’t have that sense of wonder he would be no more than a monkey that stood upright. Well still we knew it would come to this. God made it so it would happen this way. Gregory he gave you sense of curiosity greater than most other men. Your yearning to understand everything has become apparent in this fiasco. It was truly your destiny for you and your friend’s lives to end like this.”The men gave each other a quick look. “End” they said in unison.The man began to chuckle. “You didn’t expect us to send you back down there and mess life up for everyone else did you?” The men stood dumbfounded again. “At this moment the doctors who were watching over you have declared you legally, and irreversibly dead.”“How?” asked Langdon.“You should have listened to your friend Frederick Lennon” said the man. “There were forces at work there that weren’t visible. You should do a little more of a background check on the men who you leave your life in the hands of. The technicians were Catholics. If you remember one of the religious groups that opposed the experiment was the Catholic Church. You see in the event that you did cross into the other side and did not see God; you would come back and tell everyone that there was no God. If you did do that they would loss a considerable amount of influence in the world. They were not willing to allow that to happen. Lets just say some officials at the Vatican told the technicians that if they put a few ounces more of the Babylonium, which would then make it lethal, in each of your IV `s that your deaths would be used as atonement for all their sins, and lets just say those technicians had quite a few skeletons in the closet.”The men stood there speechless.“We’re dead” said Maricus.“As a door knob” replied the man.“We can’t go back” said Rashik.“That is highly unlikely. All you can do now is stand before God in judgment, and maybe then God will let you go back” said the man.“How do we do that?” asked Langdon.“Just walk through that door” said the man. “God has the final say. He’s going to place judgment on you.” The man opened a folder. “By the looks of it” he said looking at some papers in the folder. “All of you are going to have a lot to answer for.”“Wait it’s not fair” said Fawkes desperately. “I didn’t know there was a God, so I didn’t live right.”“That’s what faith is for” said the man. “Now its time.” He said pointing to the door in the corner near his desk.“What if we don’t go?” asked Fawkes.“Then things could get ugly” said the man.The men walked towards the door. They never knew they would be so afraid to stand before God. Langdon reached the door. He placed his hand on the gold door knob. He looked behind him. He looked at the men he would stand before God with. All of them with the fear of God in their hearts. Langdon opened the door. A bright light swallowed up the room.
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Posted by Night Manager on October 3, 2008 at 3:30pm
Again this is now part TWO of the 1st story I had written for the BSFS anthology but I thought the one I did submit was better.REBIRTH OF SLICK part 2“You had me bring three Rangers for ‘dis?” Wade kicked a crumpled soda can across the warehouse floor. He resisted an urge to chase after it and kick it again.“She’s a murderer; very dangerous.” Wilson answered. They were both dressed in neat business suits, both Air Force blue. Wilson was walking along one long row of stacked crates, reading the labels on each as he went. He was an older man, sporting a close cut ring of white hair about his head and a hard lined face. His look was grim, his eyes drawn tight as he continued his inspection.The warehouse was well lit but huge stacks of wooden and metal crates cast vast shadows along the far walls. The floor had been swept but the job had been left incomplete with mounds of trash and dirt left in the corners. The most of the crates were stamped with a company logo; an eagle’s head and wing.“Girl’s not much more ‘an a hun’ert pounds” Wade spat back. “Could ‘a just sent me.” Wade was a much younger man, dark haired with a wickedly cut goatee. The two men’s suits were identical but Wade’s tie was missing and his shirt unbuttoned. He was not paying much attention to the crates. Instead he was checking the messages on his phone.“So we could find you the way we found Knox?” Wilson asked.Wade ruffled at that remark a bit and glanced over his shoulder. Against the far wall by the one door in view stood a man in blue fatigues covered by light white body armor. He was carrying a heavy looking rifle, glossy black in color with a wide barrel. An old standard issue Forty-Five was strapped to his hip along with spare clips for the gun. A visor dangled from his neck so Wade could clearly see the amusement in the man’s eyes… and the smirk as well.“That was a nasty piece of work…” he admitted. “But Knox wasn’t a soldier. He was a rich nigger that got too big for his britches. Besides… I thought she worked for us.” Wade snapped his cell phone shut and looked around the room for anything of interest.“That’s what we thought but looks like she had an agenda of her own.” Wilson moved on from the crate he had been examining and walked further into the room. “She gave up Knox but not his technology.”Wade followed him across the room and when they both went beyond the Ranger’s field of vision he followed as well. As soon as he left another similarly outfitted man stepped into the room to stand in his place.“No new tech toys for Five Stars?” Wade’s voice was a bit mocking. “That engine would have been a nice coup. No Engine equals no flying Rangers.”“The company has already invested in the new program. Without that damn engine we’ll have wasted millions in advertising.” Wilson tore another packing list off of a crate, read it and discarded it with a grunt.“Yea I’ve seen the new ads... Glossy. ‘Just look up...” His raised his voice mockingly. “Five Stars Security is shining down.’ You know what I especially like?” Wade bent, picked up the discarded piece of paper and regarded it. “I like the shot of the one Ranger standing atop the American Commerce Building, with the top spire all decked out in Five Stars colors now, all blond haired blue eyed and very ‘All-American’. But Philly ain’t buyin’ it. You know, Analog’s been tellin’ folks for months that we set up Knox to steal the tech.”“I hate those fucking pirate transmissions. Watch yourself. UNG!”Wade’s head snapped up when Wilson forcefully cracked open one of the crates. Dust flew as the lid hit the floor. The crate was so large that Wilson had to stand on tip toe just to see down inside.“There’s nothing here”, he said in frustration. “Not the tech… and certainly not the…” he cocked his head suddenly.Wade raised his eyes in genuine interest. “What is it?”Wilson reached into his suit jacket and withdrew a Forty-Five. “Get the Rangers in here.”
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Posted by Night Manager on September 26, 2008 at 3:30pm
WINTER GHOST P 6Footsteps in the stormI let her legs go and push us up until I get my feet under me, but I don’t stand. Instead I crouch and peer off into the storm in the direction the shadow went. My eyes search but the snow won’t let me see. My ears listen but the wind is all I can hear.It went… that way.I turn, grab her legs and pull them out of the snow once again.We’ll go this way.I hop through the snow. We’ll cross the street… make to the houses on the other side… someone has to be home.How can the wind push at us like this? It pushes me from behind helping to lift my legs through the snow, then from the left, pushing me off course and blowing her nightgown up and into my face.It pushes from the right throwing her hair into a frenzy making the tips stab at my eyes.And it blows against us, so strong that I have to stop, dig in and then change direction because I’m afraid it will knock us over if we try and keep going.Finally my foot hits something high and solid. I look up and see the huge rise of snow in front of us and the dark brown shape rising even higher beyond it. A lawn and behind it a house. We’ve reached the other side of the street.I can’t see where the steps are. Too much snow. So I step hard, kicking my toes into the snow to dig in and get sure footholds to climb. I clench my jaw tight as I see her feet trailing in the snow. Faster damn it. Climb faster.My foot kicks away loose snow and I’m at the top of the snow covered lawn. The house is still indistinct because of the storm but I can make out the mound of snow covering the front steps. I can almost make out the shape of the front door. It’s flanked by a dark patio on the other side, covered by an awning and filled with snow.I don’t see a light anywhere.The wind blasts us from the front again. I brace us, plant my feet and lean into it. Almost there……just hold on……I’ll get you inside this time…… no matter what…But this time the wind isn’t changing. It just gets stronger and stronger. I lean forward more and more until I feel my elbows dipping into the snow, feel the wind blowing over my head and driving snow into the back on my collar.… no matter what…My teeth ache I’m biting down on them so hard. I lean harder and take a step forward. My skin is hard and unfeeling. I can hear her hair, now just as hard, tapping against the side of my face, my ears, sounding like frenzied wooden wind chimes.… no matter what… and I take another step.Suddenly the wind stops, breaking off almost as though spent. I would fall forward but the snow in front of us has been pushed into a small wall against us almost up to my waist. I take a breath.We’re covered in snow. My legs, her chest, my shoulders, her feet, my eyebrows…The snow still falls, once again settling into falling straight down instead buzzing around like enrage hornets. The street is so quiet now.The house is clearer now but still mostly hidden by the snow fall. An old stone house, typical here in Mt. Airy, a little bigger though than most in this neighborhood. There’s a breezeway between this house and the next, where the snow fall is not as heavy. I can see down the small alley a bit, the sides of the houses, the windows and still I don’t see a light on.… no matter what…I turn back to the front door and the huge mound of snow that’s covering it. If I have to I’ll…Tiny warm puffs of breath pulse against the underside of my jaw. I look down and see her brows are knit tight, her mouth pursed but open. She’s breathing so hard. Is she in pain? She looks like… she’s exhausted.Then I hear them; footsteps in the snow.I turn in a panic and peer around but still I can’t see anything. There’s another step… then another…It goes quiet again for a long moment before I hear another step.And then it’s quiet again. I can… feel him. I know he’s… searching… listening as I am right now. I don’t move.Another step… another and… it’s quiet again.The falling snow is too deceptive. It makes man-like shapes out of the gray background and makes objects move that aren’t really there to begin with. Where is he?Another step…On the street?Another step… was that one farther away?… another. Yes! He’s moving away!A deep ache at the bottom of my throat is reminding me that I need to breath. Not just yet… another few steps… just a few…The gasp comes out like a whisper… a quiet secret… almost intimate. She let the breath out like she was just getting her breath back. Her eyebrows are relaxed again, her mouth no longer pursed and her lips are apart just a hairs breath now.I whip my head back up and stare into the white fall. It’s almost quiet enough that I miss it but another footstep sounds… closer.The falling snow begins to shift….Another step… another, Oh God… they’re coming closer!…The wind returns but without the force it once had.Another step and I look into the far falling snow and see the dark shadow looming.He’s too close.We’ll never make it.
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