WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction finalists

The Washington Science Fiction Association is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2009 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction:

"Drinking Problem" by K.D. Wentworth, published in Seeds of Change, edited by John Joseph Adams, Prime Books (August, 2008).

"Hard Rain at the Fortean Café" by Lavie Tidhar, published in issue 14 of Aeon Speculative Fiction Magazine, edited by Bridget McKenna.

"His Last Arrow" by Christopher Sequeira, published in Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Jeff Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, (October, 2008).

"Silent as Dust" by James Maxey, published in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, edited by Edmund R. Schubert, Hatrack Publishing.

"Spider the Artist" by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, published in Seeds of Change, edited by John Joseph Adams, Prime Books (August, 2008)

"The Absence of Stars: Part 1" by Greg Siewert, published in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, edited by Edmund R. Schubert, Hatrack Publishing.

"The Toy Car" by Luisa Maria Garcia Velasco, (translated from Spanish by Ian Watson) published in April 2008 edition of Aberrant Dreams, edited by Joseph W. Dickerson.

The award honors the efforts of small press publishers in providing a critical venue for short fiction in the area of speculative fiction. The award showcases the best original short fiction published by small presses in the previous year (2008). An unusual feature of the selection process is that all voting is done with the identity of the author (and publisher) hidden so that the final choice is based solely on the quality of the story.The winner is chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association (www.wsfa.org) and will be presented at their annual convention, Capclave (www.capclave.org), held this year on October 16-18th in Rockville, Maryland.
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By chance, I had already signed up as a guest at Capclave for my first time ever. Ed Schubert, the editor of IGMS who's responsible for publishing two stories on this list, had recommended the con to me several times. Lucky coincidence, or good omen?

Name that Sword!

I've got a long short story (or a short novella) appearing soon in an anthololgy called Blood and Devotion from Fantasist Enterprises. Outside of my Dragon Age books, it's my only short story about a dragon. In this case, the dragon is called Greatshadow; he's the exact literary opposite of my Dragon Age dragons. These, I built to obey the laws of physics and biology. Greatshadow, I designed to obey the laws of myth. He's a big, honking, six-limbed, fire-breathing beast with a wing-span a half mile across and a propensity for piling up large heaps of gold, silver, and jewels to nap on.

I'm currently writing a fantasy novel that expands on the short story, unfolding in this alternate reality where dragons breathe fire and wizards perform magic by telling lies to the universe and making the universe believe them. The big picture of the story is that the adventurers are on a quest to kill Greatshadow, the primal dragon of fire, a three-thousand year old beast that is more of an elemental force than a flesh and blood creature. The thing that makes killing the dragon possible is a magic sword. In the short story I'm basing the novel on, the sword is called "Frostbite." It's a blade of enchanted ice that's sort of kryptonite to a dragon of fire. My problem is, for the book, the name "Frostbite" seems overused. While I can't think of a specific instance, I'm pretty certain that in the 10,000 fantasy novels on the shelf already, someone has already used the name Frostbite for a magic sword.

I thought of calling it the "Winter Fang." But, I googled that, and sure enough, that's also already been used. In the book, the legend behind the sword is that it's been carved from the tooth of Hush, the dragon of ice, the opposite force to the dragon of fire. The sword is formed of a substance known as "false matter*," and is, essentially, a sword shaped vacuum of absolute zero that disintegrates any "true matter" it touches. I thought of calling it the Nulfang, but I don't like the look or sound of the word. And, other ideas I come up with all die beneath the crushing force of Google: I think I have something, but when I google it I find that some game or book already is using the name for a sword.

So, I though I'd throw it out to you guys. What would be a good name for a really, really cold magic weapon? It doesn't have to be a sword: I suppose the plot works just as well if it's a spear or an axe, but I'd like to keep it a hand-held weapon: the climax needs to have the hero within arms reach of the dragon, so, no holy handgrenades. Any ideas?

I don't want to turn this into a formal contest, but if you suggest a name and I use it in the book, you will, of course, wind up in the acknowledgements to the book, and get a free copy. However, since the book isn't written, and has no publisher lined up, it might be a while before that reward materializes; the non-existence of an prize is why I'm not making this an official contest. Just post your suggestions in the comments section. Feel free to make more than one suggestion.

*In this world, there are four essential forces that blend together to form reality: Matter, Spirit, Truth, and Lies. Most of the physical world - chairs, mountains, hammers, rain, and lollypops- are made of true matter. Dragons, according the the church, are made of false spirit matter. Most things are combinations of two of the forces; humans are the only things known to be made from all four forces, which either makes them the most balanced thing under the sun, or the most unstable.

More reviews, Dragoncon, Capclave

I've been on vacation the last week, and spent most of the last two days recovering from my bout of relaxation. You know you did a vacation right when you need a vacation to recover from it. So, for those of you who contributed to the Books for Breasts campaign last week, I haven't put books in the mail yet, but I swear they'll get in the mail before the end of the week.

I've had a couple of people ask me about upcoming signings. I don't have any bookstore signings lined up at present, but I will be a guest at Dragoncon in Atlanta over the Labor Day Weekend, then a guest at Capclave near Washington DC in October. I skipped Dragoncon last year, and have never been to Capclave, so I'm looking forward to reconnecting with people I haven't seen in a while and making new friends.

Finally, two Dragon Age book reviews popped up while I was gone. First, Loren Eaton has reviewed Bitterwood at I Saw Lightning Fall. He admires the book for breaking conventions, but dislikes Hezekiah's voice-of-God mode where he quotes the Bible in ALL CAPS. It's a fair criticism; I think it was a fun idea when I had it, but perhaps it was a little too cutesy in retrospect.

Dragonseed got some ink (or photons, I guess) over at Aliette de Bodard's blog. She writes: But what I loved about the previous books, and that I still love about this one, is Maxey’s willingness to handle hard questions about species survival, humanity’s worthiness and the value of faith and religion. Those were themes already explored in Bitterwood and Dragonforge, and I’m glad to see that they’re back, and that Maxey handles them gracefully, without sinking into too much preachiness. Every character has a different view on the matter–and, in the end, it’s only the fanatics such as Prophet Ragnar who might be proved wrong.

More updates soon!

Interview, Review, Bitterwood.net, Books for Breasts update

First, I had to delay shipping some of my international "Books for Breasts" because my local post office didn't have any customs forms. I went to a different post office this week to get the forms, and now have all books in the mail. If I owe you a book, and you haven't gotten it by next week, send me an email and I'll get another one out to you.

Second: With the release of Dragonseed, the conversations going on at bitterwood.net are starting t0 pick up. The forum has had 143 members sign up. If you dropped by there when I first mentioned it a month ago, it was pretty sleepy, but now it's definitely worth jumping in if you are looking for a place to discuss the books with fellow fans. This morning, I started a thread where I asked three questions:

1: If genetic engineering reached a point where it was possible to create complex life forms, are there any fantasy beasts you would want to see other than dragons? 2: I decided that humans would hunt the dragons because a lot of our entertainment is built around humans fighting dragons. Do you think, if intelligent dragons existed, we would ever live peacefully with them? Or, would you really welcome the chance to slap on some armor and go out with a lance to try to fight one of these things? 3: Let's drop the "if" from the first question. I think we are probably no more than a century away from understanding the genetic code to the level that creating new creatures from scratch is possible. When that day comes, would you regard it as ethical to create new life forms like dragons or angels? How about reviving life forms, like dodos and velociraptors? Or should we just stay away from playing God?

Third: Another review of Dragonseed has popped up! Author Colin Harvey has just reviewed the book, along with recaps of the previous books. Read it all at Suite101.com.

Finally: There's an interview by Cindy Hannikman at Fantasy Book Critic where I discuss Land of the Lost, Christian-bashing, the fate of mammoths, and the esoteric knowledge that humans have aquired that is even better than magic. Read the whole thing at Fantasy Book Critic.

Anthology Builder Contest

There's been an interesting print-on-demand project helmed by Nancy Fulda called "Anthology Builder." She's collected a large catalog of short stories by some of today's best speculative fiction authors. Visitors to the site can build an anthology by picking stories from their favorite authors. The site has been in a beta testing phase for about a year now, but now she's taking it live.

To celebrate the launch, she's holding a contest. Anthology Builder has a collection of pre-designed covers; she's inviting writers to write a story based on their favorite cover. The winner of the contest will win $200 and publication in the Anthology Builder database. Full details of the contest can be found here.

I've got a both of my Asimov's stories available there. Final Flight of the Blue Bee is a superhero tale; To the East, a Bright Star is a "last-day-of-earth" story about a former circus aerialist. Now that the site is no longer in beta, I'll probably expand my offerings there in the near future.

Books for Breast Update

As of July 1, Team Dragon met its fundraising goal of $1000 for the Susan G. Koman Foundation. I've had 33 contributors, a couple of whom already had copies of Dragonseed, so I still have 20 copies left to give away. But, on the fundraising page, it showed my goal had been met 100%, and donations have pretty much stopped since I hit $1000.

I just raised the goal to $1500. I have mixed feelings about raising the goal. On the plus, it's for a good cause, and I hope the higher limit will encourage people who still learn about this cause to contribute. The only downside is that I dislike moving the goalpost, so to speak. I told my friends and fans I wanted to raise $1000, and you did an amazing job of making that happen in only a week. I don't want to diminish your hard work and dedication by taking away that 100% filled-in goal thermometer. But, in the end, I think the greater good falls toward raising the goal and trying to collect a little more if I can. It may be that the news of this drive has spread as far as it's going to, but if there is someone out there who hears about this in the coming weeks, I don't want them to be confused into thinking the Books for Breasts drive is over. If I can raise even another hundred bucks toward fighting breast cancer, I intend to do so.

Thanks again to everyone who helped meet the initial push toward $1000. I cannot begin to sum up my enormous gratitude for this. As readers of my dragon novels may surmise, I'm not someone who always sees mankind in the sunniest light. The fact that so many people jumped in for this cause so quickly has reminded me that the greatest thing about humans is their humanity. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

First Dragonseed Review!

Woohoo! The first review! Cindy Hannikman at Fantasy Book Critic writes:

In the end, Maxey lived up to my expectations in Dragonseed. I loved the fact that readers get to learn more about the characters that they have spent 2 books learning about and even grow closer to these characters. There are definitely a number of twists and turns in Dragonseed that bring an element of surprise and action to the book.