News

A porn actor, who was accused of killing a coworker with a sword, died after falling off a cliff Saturday when police used a stun gun to subdue him.

You really, really can’t make this stuff up. Even on the off chance you could actually come up with the idea, no reader would buy it.

*shakes head*

An open letter to everyone, everywhere.

If you can’t be bothered to capitalize and punctuate, I can’t be bothered to try to read whatever it is you’re trying to say.

Sincerely, me.

So since I still may (or may not) be in the mood to run something in the near future, I’ve been giving some idle thought to campaign ideas. And what keeps bubbling to the forefront of what’s left of my brain is to use the upcoming 4e Dark Sun setting as a baseline to build a campaign world that is actually Earth near the end of the universe’s life span, a la Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique Cycle. But, uh, more desert/Barsoom-ish, as befits Dark Sun. The assumption being that, as the universe enters its dotage, the laws of physics have begun to fray and unravel just a bit, allowing for the appearance (return?) of magic.

So we’d still have a few scattered major city-states–ruled by Sorcerer Kings, as per the DS setting–but that are made up of a combination of medieval-style stonework and the last lingering, broken ruins of the steel-and-glass metropolises of the age of science.

What I haven’t yet decided is

A) whether to go ahead and allow the divine power source, assuming that the old gods of Earth mythology returned with the return of magic, or to keep them away as with Dark Sun proper, and

B) what the hell the campaign itself will actually entail/be about. But I really like the basic idea…

And speaking of short story markets, there’s a new sci-fi market. Lightspeed is an online magazine, focusing specifically on sci-fi (no fantasy) shorts. And they pay professional rates, too (though they’re closed for submissions until mid-July).

Wow. At this rate, spec-fic short story writers may actually have options again before too long. 😉

Since I’ve often gone on record lamenting the relative dearth of short-fiction markets for sci-fi and fantasy, I think it’s only fair that I help spread the word regarding Realms of Fantasy magazine. Specifically, RoF–which was saved from oblivion last year by a new publisher–is once again facing possible cancellation, due to insufficient subscription rates. You can learn more at the site linked above, or here, at the blog of editor Douglas Cohen.

I’m not suggesting that you should subscribe out of "loyalty to the genre" or anything like that. If you’re not interested (or can’t afford it), that’s perfectly all right. But if you’ve ever considered subscribing, or have wanted to but have been putting it off, now would be a really, really good time.

Even though I’ve been doing this for years, even though I’ve published (or signed to publish) seven novels so far, I still get nervous any time I turn in a novel manuscript to an editor/publisher/whoever for the first time.

Why do I mention this? Guess who just sent the first draft of the current project to his agent. 😮

(Not that I expect her to have any major problems with it. But then, expectation isn’t really the issue here, is it?)