Journal comics

I'm doing a couple journal-style comics, but don't expect these every day. Just more or less when I feel like doing them. And here's something I've discovered--I never draw myself the same way twice. Anyways, here are two for now (click them to enlarge the picture):

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Top 50 favorite short stories

I've been reading short stories now for several years, and this list (can you tell that I like lists?) has been growing inside my head for some time. To ease the migraines and furry little demon lords, I'm going to post what I think are my Top 50 favorite short stories EVAR. Well, maybe not EVAR since more and more will probably continue to impress me, but you get the point. These are more like my Top 50 stories as of November 29, 2006. And you'll probably notice that most of these come from recent or just emerging authors, and that's because I've been doing more reading of what's current than what's in the past.

Feel free to yell at me for that. Throw fireballs for all I care. Or, better yet, suggest short stories to me that you'd think I'd enjoy. I'm attracted to the weird, the extreme, and the tragic (and, well, anything involving broken robots).

Personal thoughts/comments/quips are added when I feel like adding them. So there.

Also, please note that these are in no order whatsoever. Just my favorite fifty I could come up with.

Top 50 favorite short stories

1. Cory Doctorow - "Craphound" (I will say this time and time again that Doctorow's story of aliens, yard sales, and friendship is one of the most powerful tales I've ever read.)
2. Ursula K. Le Guin - "The Birthday of the World"
3. Ursula K. Le Guin - "Darkrose and Diamond" (I'm a sucker for Earthsea, though I enjoy her short stories about the world more than the novels. Weird.)
4. Neil Gaiman - "Harlequin Valentine"
5. Margo Lanagan - "Singing My Sister Down"
6. Kelly Link - "The Girl Detective"
7. Paul Melko - "Doctor Mighty and the Case of the Ennui"
8. Jay Lake - "The Soul Bottles"
9. Jay Lake - "Fat Jack and the Spider Clown"
10. Albert E. Cowdrey - "Imitation of Life"
11. Sandra McDonald - "Lost and Found"
12. Patrick Samphire - "Uncle Vernon’s Lie"
13. Liz Williams - "Mortegarde"
14. Josh Rountree - "The Queen's Wood"
15. Josh Rountree - "A Better Place"
16. Lawrence M. Schoen - "The Game of Leaf and Smile" (One that I can see myself re-reading every Halloween.)
17. Michael Bishop - "Bears Discover Smut" (Brilliant and fun.)
18. Richard Bowes - "There's a Hole in the City"
19. A.M. Dellamonica - "The Spear Carrier"
20. Dario Ciriell0 - "Valley of the Shadow"
21. Ruth Nestvold - "The Old Man and the Sneakers"
22. Heidi Cyr - "X & Y"
23. Anne McCaffrey - "The Girl Who Heard Dragons"
24. Aliette de Bodard - "A Warrior's Death"
25. James Tiptree, Jr. - "The Women Men Don't See"
26. Paul Di Filippo - "Shipbreaker"
27. Ian R. MacLeod - "New Light on the Drake Equation"
28. E. Sedia - "God's Chosen" (Hooray for broken robots!)
29. Richard Parks - "Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge"
30. Tanith Lee - "En Forêt Noire"
31. Mary Robinette Kowal - "Cerbo en Vitra ujo" (Effing disturbing. That's all I'll say.)
32. Jeffrey Ford - "In the House of Four Seasons"
33. M. Thomas - "The Tinker's Child" (Hooray for broken robots!)
34. Heather Lindsley - "Just Do It"
35. Ef Deal - "Czesko" (I was really drawn into the story simply by the voice of the narrator.)
36. Lisa Silverthorne - "Wild Feed"
37. Joan Bauer - "Blocked"
38. Pamela Zoline - "The Heat Death of The Universe"
39. James Tiptree, Jr. - "Painwise" (Too weird for words, but awesome regardless of the matter.)
40. M.K. Hobson - "Discovery's Wake" (Go tenure!)
41. Forrest Aguirre - "Treason Is"
42. Merrie Haskell - "Dead Languages" (I'm a Buffy fan, so what?)
43. Lavie Tidhar - "304 Adolf Hitler Strasse"
44. James Enge - "Payment Deferred"
45. Hannah Wolf Bowen - "Watch Dog"
46. Jeffrey Ford - "In the House of Four Seasons"
47. Ann Sterzinger - "Tremors" (My goodness, this horrific tale is tattooed in my memory.)
48. Lucy Sussex - "Frozen Charlottes"
49. Vera Nazarian - "The Slaying of Winter"
50. Paolo Bacigalupi - "Small Offerings" (You commoners won't get to read this for a few months, but by the gods I'm now permanently afraid of the miracle of life.)

And that's all for now. Looking over the list, I've realized I've missed many short stories that I absolutely loved, but they'll just have to wait for the next list, whenever that'll be.

Moo, indeed

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy your wine and turkey and naps!

Ysssssabel

Check out my review for Guy Gavriel Kay's Ysabel, an excellent book that everyone should be on the lookout for in February 2007!

Here's an update (somewhat!)

Philcon was fun though a bit different than what I was expecting. Met some good folks like Neil Clarke, John Joseph Adams, Diane Turnshek, and others. Bought some mags and drank some beer. Overall, not terribly bad for my first con but I've quickly learned that other (bigger) cons are more about socializing than just panels. Those are the ones I really want to attend.

29-day sale of the dark robot story "67442" to Murky Depths for Issue #1 in September 2007. I think this makes me an official international author.

And lastly, check out the Thanksgiving/LOST-themed comic at Greenhorn. Hurley stars in it, which should be reason enough to go lookie at it.

I think that's it for now.

Farthing, Issue 4 review!

Check out my review of Farthing, Issue 4, September 2006!

Con time!

I'll be attending Philcon 2006 on Saturday the 18th. It looks to be a fun con, with Charles Stross as a guest. Neat! Hope to meet some folks there. I'm sure that if anyone needs to find me they can just look towards the hotel bar. Heh.

Update

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo. I've decided that, at the moment, I do not need the extra pressure. I'm going to work on my short stories for now. Besides, I like short stories. They are easier (I said easier, not easy!) than novels to me. And that's that. Good luck to those doing NaNoWriMo though! May 50K come before you know it!

Also, I bought Final Fantasy XII. It's amazing so far.

And have started a videogame blog called Game Beliefs. So check that out!

NaNoWriMo - Day #3

Progress notes for November 03, 2006:

Waterways



New words: 583
Total words: 3,739 of 50,000
Pages: 11
Deadline: Dec. 1
Reason for stopping: NEED. SOME. SLEEP.
Stimulants: Coffee, beer
Exercise: I drove for three hours. How's that?
Songs sung too loud to please the neighbors: "The Last Three Years" by Joe Wilson
Mail: None
Today's words Word don't know: I can't remember right now
Mean Things: Suprisingly...nothing
Tyop du Jour: None
The life of a WrITeR: Ugh, no writer today

NaNoWriMo - Day #2

Progress notes for November 02, 2006:

Waterways



New words: 1,440
Total words: 3,156 of 50,000
Pages: 10
Deadline: Dec. 1
Reason for stopping: No more writing for tonight as I need a break
Stimulants: Hot chocolate from Starbucks
Exercise: None, but maybe some stretches before bed
Songs sung too loud to please the neighbors: "The Priest and the Matador" by Senses Fail
Mail: None
Today's words Word don't know: swimmable
Mean Things: Embarassed a boy in front of a girl
Tyop du Jour: None that I can remember
The life of a WrITeR: Took out the trash, got a haircut, and went food shopping

NaNoWriMo - Day #1

Progress notes for November 01, 2006:

Waterways



New words: 1,716
Total words: 1,716 of 50,000
Pages: 7
Deadline: Dec. 1
Reason for stopping: Need to shower and shave. Plus, I need major sleep.
Stimulants: Two cups of coffee...mmm...
Exercise: Went for a short walk
Songs sung too loud to please the neighbors: "Girl in America" by Mat Kearney
Mail: None
Today's words Word don't know: None
Mean Things: Baby knocked off boat
Tyop du Jour: None
The Internet is full of Things: Sushi pillows. I want one!
The life of a WrITeR: Did the dishes

Jigsaw review!

Check out my review of Jigsaw Nation edited by Edward J. McFadden III and E. Sedia! Lots of neat stories! Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

Go check out Greenhorn and the special holiday comic that's up! And then send me e-mails full of free candy. Nothing with coconut in it. If I taste coconut, I will make your email inbox explode. I can do it with my mind.

Stupid book!

Check out my review for The Younger Gods by David & Leigh Eddings! I didn't like it. Not one bit, not a single word.

Books, books, books...

I recently discovered the Montclair Book Center just up the road from me. It's awesome; shelves towering up to the ceiling stuffed with books, all old and yellowy and smelling of something pungent and old. I love it. They have a ton of books I'd really like to get, but for the moment I grabbed some old anthologies from long past. This will definitely be a place I visit frequently. Here's a pic of the books I got for a simple $15.00:


Here's what I scored:
- Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Quozl by Alan Dean Foster
- Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy I edited by Lin Carter
- The DAW Science Fiction Reader edited by Donald A. Wollheim
- Sword and Sorceress edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley
- Future on Fire edited by Orson Scott Card
- Isaac Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy 2: Witches edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh
- Isaac Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy 11: Curses edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh

Of all that I'm most pleased with the le Guin novel. It's also in pretty good condition for being some thirty years old. Inside it, they mention how she's getting some early praise for The Left Hand of Darkness. Hee. Well, duh. And, whatever, I like Alan Dean Foster, so there.

Score one for spooning!

I was just flipping through my contrib. copy of Dark Jesters, which contains my short story "To Make a Friend," and I noticed a short section at the back that contains comments on all the stories from the zine's editors. Of mine, Nick Cato said:

"This one's like an insane mixture of Young Frankenstein and the seldom-seen 70s schlocker, Doctor Gore. I think it was the mention of 'spooning' that initially won the Jestitors over...and I actually laughed harder the fourth or fifth time I read it."

Cool. Score one for spooning.

Farthing reviewww

Check out my review of Farthing, Issue 3! There's some really good stories in this issue.

Let's see...

NaNoWriMo is coming up very soon. Seven days. Wait, eight. Ah, who knows. I didn't go to school for counting. The outline for Waterways is mostly finished, but there's definitely enough there to start out at a strong pace. I'll be documenting my progress here daily so if you like word countings, witless ramblings, and that infamous whine that is a writer struggling live without a net, well, this is the place then. Enjoy your stay and don't forget to tip the maid!

Also, I suck at self-promoting things I do. Basically, I just post a link on here and leave it at that. Well, with that out in the open, please visit Greenhorn, my web comic about the speculative fiction world, and if you like what you see/read, leave me a comment. If you hate it, leave me a comment too. Either way, you'll make my day. I promise.

Hmmm...videogame news? I beat Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves the other day. Fun game though it felt like they threw in every single mini-game idea possible just to have the game brimming over with junk to do. Some were fun, some were stupid, but all in all the game was enjoyable. Now I'm trying to finish playing Killzone, which is really stupid, but I feel bad about buying a new game when I have so many that I still need to finish. So I'm holding back from buying new games until I beat the ones I got. There is one exception though. Final Fantasy XII comes out on October 31. I will either buy it once I complete NaNoWriMo or I will buy it December 1. That'll be a nice treat.

And, to end on a more somber note, I'm currently reading the biography of James Tiptree, Jr./Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips and it's the most engaging thing I've probably ever read. Really, she was a fascinating woman. And all I can think of as I read is how me and her are so similar in a lot of small ways. Several large ones save that I'm not as fascinating. I encourage everyone to learn more about her and read "The Women Men Don't See."

Seacrest ou...Paul out!

My BSG post (spoilers within)

Well, it was inevitable. It was only a matter of time until I finally came to this moment, but it's now, so get ready for it:

Battlestar Galactica is one of the best television shows to ever see light in the past twenty years. Simple as that. It's what space opera should be; engaging characters, an ever building air of tension, strong storylines, marvelous editing, special effects that actually look good, and creepy-as-hell-sex-fiendish-broken-robots!



Season One, now thinking back to it, was quite tame, but it was a strong season, mainly due to the marvelous four-hour miniseries that launched the show to new popularity. The question of who might be a Cylon and who might not be was always on the forefront of my mind as I watched the show. It was enticing, making each episode more and more nervous to watch. And the season finale...near perfect. We'd spent a whole season following Sharon around, hoping she wasn't what she feared she was. We grew to like her as a character, to be sympathetic to her actions, and then BAM! she goes and shoots Adama. Triggered. Like that. Amazing.



Season Two, was a mixed bag. The first half...great. So much chaos; Sharon being a Cylon, the search for Earth, Pegasus showing up, and more. Everything was moving at a good pace with the acting getting better and better each episode. Then the next half was all right. The wait inbetween was enough to annoy me but then the producers decided to kill off Billy (Billy! You were great!) so that Apollo and Dee could fall in love. Blah. The season finale, which set things up for what's happening now, was good. I was impressed that Ron Moore wasn't afraid to take the show in a whole new direction. Granted, some episodes of Season Two--along with some certain deaths and actions--felt like filler. And for a show this amazing, that is not acceptable.

Season Three, so far has blown my mind. Let's ignore the use of mirroring the War On Terror for a moment and look at what the show is doing. It's getting back to basics, getting folks off New Caprica, and making another run from the Cylons. We've got whole new relationships and the Cylons are more than just machines. Xena is even...I mean whatever number she is...is looking for love. There's torture, betrayal, and sacrifices. And it's only been four episodes so far. I'm hooked. I can't wait to see how the show plays out over the rest of the season.



Frakking amazing. So say we all.

Crossover review

Check out my review for Joel Shepherd's Crossover! It's a fun sci-fi thriller easily akin to that of Ghost in the Shell. Very enjoyable.