Category: Uncategorized

Well, actually, this isn’t a brand-new story, since I wrote it last winter, and the sale has been more-or-less official for several months.  But I’m finally free and clear to announce it to the world!

So.  I’m downright delighted to announce that I’ll have a story appearing in After Hours: Tales From the Ur-Bar, an anthology edited by Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray, and to be published by DAW in March 1, 2011.  (Hey, that’s just a month after the scheduled release date for Milkweed #2, The Coldest War. [Edit: Coldest War is now scheduled for October, 2011.])

To celebrate, Patricia is running Ur-Bar Bingo on her blog.  Match the authors to their story synopses to win fame and fortune!  (If you want a hint, Josh has posted the table of contents here.  The story titles might help.)  Though, people familiar with some of my other projects will find it easy to figure out which description applies to my own particular contribution.

The European Space Agency’s Planck mission released its first all-sky map the other day. 

A few minutes ago, I stepped out into my little garden/patio to dump some spare drinking water into the soil near my peach tree.  (The same peach tree happened to be the source of a real Milago Beanfield moment for me earlier this year, namely the Death of the Blossoms.) 

I don’t wear shoes in the house.  But I keep a pair of sandals near both the front and back door for quick trips outside, like checking the mail or filling the bird feeder. 

As I stepped into my hiking sandals, something cool bunched up against the toes of my left foot.  The left sandal happens to be the one with the loose lining, thanks to its most recent trip through the washing machine.  So I didn’t think anything of it.  But then, as I was about halfway to the tree (all of five feet) it suddenly didn’t feel like loose lining at all.  A little too cool.  A little too. . . wriggly.

In one sentence?

Perhaps the best prison break movie since Shawshank Redemption.  Or possibly Chicken Run.

Okay, that’s two sentences.

Also, the action sequences in this G-rated animated movie were far more exciting and engrossing than the action sequences in the vast majority of action movies I’ve seen.  It’s interesting to me that I rarely come out of an animated film feeling like I’d just wasted time and money, but I rarely come out of a live-action film feeling like it was entirely worth my time and money.

I know you feel very strongly about the issue of Search Engine Optimization.  Have no fear, kind sirs!  Your passion for this subject comes across quite clearly in your dedication to, and fascination with, my contact form.  I thank you for your selfless concern for my website’s wellbeing.  And I applaud your dedication to using only the finest white hat optimization techniques.  You rule.

(And, by the way, I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had problems with your email solicitations getting intercepted because peoples’ spam filters are set too high.  That’s a shame.  In a just and fair world, spam filters would only intercept, you know, spam.  Like unsolicited emails containing vaguely targeted business proposals.  I now understand why you feel the need to randomly contact people who have commented on my blog.  Chin up and shoulder to the wheel, my friends!  Don’t let those bastards at SpamAssassin get you down!  Also, in completely unrelated news, my irony meter just exploded.)

I also thank you for your gentle yet frantic, persistent yet ominous reminders that I may be — at this very moment! — neglecting my “international clientele”.   Indeed, your warnings about my absence from the most popular Slovakian and Mongolian web search engines has caused much soul searching here in the international headquarters of my business empire (by which I mean my spare bedroom).