Jason Sanford

Two items of an extremely exciting nature (if you like my fiction, that is)

InterGalactic Medicine Show Awards Anthology, Volume  I

Spotlight Publishing, which released my collection Never Never Stories, has now published InterGalactic Medicine Show Awards Anthology, Volume  I. Edited by Orson Scott Card and Edmund Schubert, the book collects stories from Card's online magazine and includes an introduction by Peter S. Beagle and stories by me, Beagle, Eugie Foster, Aliette deBodard, Marie Brennan, Alethea Kontis, Eric James Stone, Scott Roberts, James Maxey, and many more.

You can order the book directly from Spotlight Publishing, who are also offering a limited number of copies signed by both Card and Schubert. The book is also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

StarShipSofa Jason Sanford episode

In equally exciting news, the Hugo Award winning audio fiction magazine StarShipSofa has released a special issue focused on my fiction. The issue features two of my stories, an essay narrated by me, and tons of other fun stuff. StarShipSofa is one of the top SF podcasts in the world, so go check it out.

“Heaven’s Touch” sells to Asimov’s and I go all touchy-feely daydreaming of childhood SF magazines

My grandfather's mid-December 1983 copy of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, featuring the Hugo-winning story "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler. Note the mailing label still attached.

Exciting news: my novelette “Heaven’s Touch” has sold to Asimov’s Science Fiction! The story involves a race for survival on a near-future comet and is one of the hardest science fiction tales I’ve written.

This will be my first appearance in Asimov’s and I want to thank Sheila Williams for both accepting the story and giving me a number of excellent suggestions regarding rewrites. I naturally took these suggestions to heart because only a fool argues with a Hugo-winning editor whose ideas vastly improve your story!

Obviously I like Asimov’s since I subscribe to the magazine. However, Asimov’s also played a critical role in my development as a science fiction writer. When I was growing up there were three SF magazines I daydreamed about writing for—Analog, Asimov’s, and Interzone.

Because I grew up in rural Alabama, finding an issue of the British magazine Interzone was out of the question. But I continually noticed that many of the stories I loved in the various “year’s best” collections were first published in Interzone. So while I may not have seen physical copies of Interzone as a young man, the magazine still influenced me greatly.

Analog and Asimov’s were more familiar since my grandfather collected SF magazines. But of the two, my grandfather clearly had a special place in his heart for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine—as it was then called—because he was a subscriber. I remember once when my mom picked up my grandparent’s mail while they were away on vacation. The mail contained a new issue of Asimov’s and I stared at that magazine for a long time, wondering if my grandfather would notice if I read it first.

I still have copies of my grandfather’s Asimov’s with his mailing label attached. They’re among my most valued heirlooms.

Once I left for college I subscribed to Asimov’s. This was during Gardner Dozois’ famous editorship, when he won the Hugo for best editor nearly every year while the stories he picked also dominated the major awards. On days when the magazine might arrive I’d race to my apartment, hoping to discover a new issue. The first thing I'd read each month were Issac Asimov’s editorials, followed by story after story from groundbreaking authors like Michael Swanwick, Connie Willis, Tanith Lee, Greg Egan, Mike Resnick, and many more. I even submitted a few horrible stories and poems to Gardner during those days—thankfully he rejected them quickly and without fuss.

And now I’ve landed my first Asimov’s acceptance. It’s amazing that I’ve placed stories with all the magazines I used to daydream about. But it’s also damn exciting to place a story in a magazine like Asimov’s, with which I’ve had such a long, loving relationship.

A reminder, some praise, and a great SF essay

A few items of note:

1) I'm attending Epic ConFusion this weekend in Detroit. I'm taking part in a number of panels, will be autographing Never Never Stories at the main autograph session at 5 pm on Saturday, and plan to have a ton of fun. My complete schedule is here.

2) Over at the SF Site, D. Douglas Fratz has some amazing words for my fiction. To quote:

Over the decades that I have been reading science fiction, there have been occasions when a new writer with a singular new style and vision appears whose fiction seems destined to have lasting impact on the field. Jason Sanford is one such a new writer. He writes with a confidence and skill that makes it difficult to believe that he burst onto the scene only in the past few years.

Wow! Many thanks to Fratz for the kind words and support.

3) Cory Doctorow's essay "A Vocabulary for Speaking about the Future" in the Jan. 2012 Locus is flat-out one of the best SF essays I've ever read. I plan to write more on the essay in the near future, but until then go and read it!

4) And no, I haven't forgotten about this year's Million Writers Award. Look for the initial announcement about the award next week.

My Epic ConFusion Schedule

After months of slow blogging due to the continual intrusion of that "life" thing, I’m now returning to more regular posting. And the first big news to post is that I’m attending the Epic ConFusion convention from Jan. 20-22 in Detroit. This looks to be an amazing con, with a stellar line-up of authors including

• Pro GoH -- Patrick Rothfuss
• Toastmaster -- Jim C. Hines
• Saladin Ahmed
• Elizabeth Bear
• Tobias Buckell
• Kameron Hurley
• Jay Lake
• Cat Rambo
• John Scalzi
• Catherine Shaffer
• Ferret Steinmetz
• and many, many more.

This will be one of the few con appearances I’ll make this year, so please drop by if you’d like to grab a signed copy of Never Never Stories or simply want to shoehorn me into a in-depth discussion on arcane SF topics.

My schedule is as follows:

10am, Saturday: Grammar Police in Salon F
Anne S. Zanoni, Christian Klaver, Jason Sanford, Charles P. Zaglanis

1pm, Saturday: Science in Fantasy in Salon F
Jason Sanford, Catherine Schaffer, Dr. Phil Kaldon, Jim Hines, Cindy Spence Pape

3pm, Saturday: Reading by Jason Sanford and Bradley Beaulieu in Athens      

5pm, Saturday: Mass Autograph Session in Salon E

8pm, Saturday: Reviews and Criticism in Niles
Gretchen Ash, Howard Andrew Jones, Jason Sanford, Christine Purcell, Robin Hobb

11am, Sunday:  Small Stories in Epic Fantasy in Salon E
Bradley Beaulieu, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss, Jason Sanford, Brent Weeks

If you’re attending the con, I hope you'll look for me and say hello.

Blog Posts Have Been Slow of Late...

...but only because life has been so busy for me. I'm editing two Million Writers Award anthologies and these books have totally consumed my free time recently. I'll have complete details on the anthologies, including the official table of contents and release dates, later this month.

Until then, here are some random thoughts and a few things to check out:

• Weirdfictionreview.com launched yesterday and it's already creating an impressive buzz in speculative fiction circles. The website is devoted to The Weird and is the brainchild of Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Until recently Ann edited Weird Tales Magazine and she co-edited with her husband The Weird: A Compendium of Strange & Dark Stories, a 750,000-word, 100-year retrospective of weird fiction. As for Jeff, he is known for writing very weird and wonderful fiction. I'm extremely excited that they've created this site, especially since Weird Tales no longer appears to be interested in publishing truly weird fiction. Among the highlights are an exclusive interview with Neil Gaiman about weird fiction and a translation of Thomas Owen’s short story “Kavar the Rat” by Edward Gauvin.
   
  
• I keep watching Terra Nova even though the show can't decide if it wants to be a time-travelling Lost clone or a show for kids. Unfortunately, they keep mixing both extremes together, a blending on horrible display in Monday's "Bylaw" episode. The episode should have been called "Murder by Dinosaur" because that was the main plot point, aside from the kid-candy secondary story of a dinosaur hatching from an egg. The main reason I keep watching is because my kids like the show. But if Terra Nova keeps going like this my kids will soon experience one of my worst reoccuring childhood memories, i.e., having your favorite TV show cancelling in its first season.
   
  
• My story "Her Scientifiction, Far Future, Medieval Fantasy" from Interzone 234 received a great review in Stephen Hunt's SFCrowsnest. Evidently I wrote "a whirlwind of a story that bashes together every trope of speculative fiction into a big chaotic adventure and it is tremendous fun to go along for the ride." Many thanks for the kind words.
   
  
• My kids dragged me to see Real Steel and, for a robot boxing movie, it wasn't too bad. Since I expected to be banging my head on the seat in pain at this big-screen version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, "not too bad" in this instance counts as a win.

Interzone 236 Reaches These Shores

I've heard from a few readers that Interzone 236 is now available in U.S. bookstores. The issue features my story "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues" (which is the sequel to my award-winning tale "Plague Birds"), along with great fiction by Mercurio D. Rivera, Fiona Moore, Jon Ingold, and Stephen Kotowych.

Traditionally Barnes & Noble carries Interzone in their magazine section, but you might want to call first before driving out of your way. In my experience only about half of the B&N stores carry the British magazine. Interzone is also available in the U.S. at specialty bookstores.

So is the issue worth buying? Absolutely. Check out this great review by Sam Tomaino of SF Revu, who not only calls my story "Hugo worthy" but praises all of the fiction, adding "Interzone is the best science fiction magazine in the world." It's hard to argue with that.

And if that doesn't fill your Jason Sanford and/or Interzone fix, issue 231 – Interzone's special issue focused on my fiction – is now available as an ebook edition through both Fictionwise and via Smashwords.

The Political Battlefield of Military Science Fiction

SF Signal has published my essay "The Political Battlefield of Military Science Fiction," which examines the political issues surrounding this subgenre in the U.S. The essay was originally published in the Czech SF magazine XB-1. I should also note there's a wonderful anecdote in the comments section about the first time Robert Heinlein met Joe Haldeman.

Aliette de Bodard also has a follow-up post to my essay in which she discusses how Americans use the word “political” to refer to something which, to her, is not political (i.e., whether or not war is justified, which to Aliette is an ethical issue, not a political one). A great point and one I'll have to think about.