Weird Tales, the very long-running SF/F/H magazine where my first published fantasy story appeared, has made some major upgrades.

As detailed in this announcement, WT will now be paying 5 cents a word, up from 3 cents.  They’ve also adopted the very slick electronic submissions system that Clarkesworld Magazine pioneered and that Fantasy Magazine and Asimov’s use.  Ann VanderMeer, who as Fiction Editor bought my story “Excision” several years ago, is taking over as Editor-in-Chief.

I’m sure these changes will only improve this run of the magazine under Ann, which has already won the 2009 Hugo for Best SemiProZine.  I’ve been a fan and subscriber ever since “Excision” appeared in WT #347, her first issue, the one with the cool cover art of a severed head in a jar.  :)   I had the pleasure of dining with Ann and Jeff at Capclave, and they are tireless champions for short fiction.  I look forward to this new era for Weird Tales!

My first introduction to Jirel of Joiry was "Jirel Meets Magic", first story in the Jirel of Joiry compilation from Ace, and it was love at first paragraph. Jirel was, as is her custom, riding toward the biggest, baddest evildoer in the land, and before she leaves her castle she curses her soldiers for cowards (again as is often her custom). As their leader she rides where they will not and cuts through anything foolish enough to stand in her way.

Moore's prose has a poetic cadence and a stunning unselfconsciousness, and I knew from the first page that I had found the taproot ancestor of magic-wielding or magic-fighting adventuresses I loved: Tarma and Kethry from Mercedes Lackey's Oathbound stories in particular, or countless other heroines from Marion Zimmer Bradley's many Sword and Sorceress volumes.

What's so remarkable about Jirel even today is her sheer limitnessness, the elemental force of her femininity and human will. She seems not to know the first thing about apologizing, for herself or anything else: when thwarted she's prone to bursting into tears, immediately before tearing the object in her way into bloody strips. How can you not fall in love?

C. L. Moore was born in 1911 and made her first professional sale in 1933, a Northwest Smith story called "Shambleau" to Weird Tales. (I haven't read the Northwest Smith stories yet, though justinhowe talks about them at the slightest opportunity. I'm almost afraid of running out of Moore's work. I don't have any other excuse.) Jirel appeared just about a year later in the same magazine. In 1936 she met her future husband and writing partner, Henry Kuttner -- whose work is also stunning and worth digging up, and who initially thought she was a dude. They married in 1940, and after Henry died in 1958, Catherine allegedly never wrote again, which is one of the saddest romantic stories I know. Together they wrote the Science Fiction Hall of Fame award-winning "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" under the pseudonym Lewis Padgett.

So today marks the Moore centennial. Do yourself a favor and look up some of her work! "Quest of the Starstone", a Jirel story written with Kuttner, is available here for free in txt format. You can get Jirel of Joiry used on Amazon for $.01 and shipping.

"Quest of the Starstone" begins with a short poem well deserving of the legend:

Jirel of Joiry is riding down with a score of men at her back,
For none is safe in the outer lands from Jirel's outlaw pack;
The vaults of the wizard are over-full, and locked with golden key,
And Jirel says, "If he bath so much, then he shall share with me!"
And fires flame high on the altar fare in the lair of the wizard folk,
And magic crackles and Jirel's name goes whispering through the smoke.
But magic fails in the stronger spell that the Joiry outlaws own:
The splintering crash of a broadsword blade that shivers against the bone,
And blood that bursts through a warlock's teeth can strangle a half-voiced spell
Though it rises hot from the blistering coals on the red-hot floor of Hell!

The Hugo awards are coming up. The ballot deadline is in March. Everybody is promoting their eligible works, making their picks, turning in their votes. But in the interest of not taxing your attentions, precious reader, rather than bombarding you with stories I loved and stories I wrote I’d love you to love, I’m going to keep this simple.

If I may convince you to read just one story in advance of the Hugos (and I really hope I can, because I’m only giving you one), let it be Erin Hoffman’s short story “Precise and Invariable Laws”. It’s a story both brilliant and fun, with a satisfyingly plucky young heroine, an amazing setting and a shocking amount of intricate, fascinating worldbuilding somehow made to fit into an eminently portable form factor. It also has a really cool ending twist. And tragically, not all that many people have read it—many fewer than it deserves—because it appeared not in any of ye fancy big name magazines, but our humble chapbook, The Homeless Moon 3. Which is available for free in the ebook format of your choice from both homelessmoon.com and Weightless Books.

Erin’s is a name you should watch out for. The first novel in her Chaos Knight series is due out this summer from Pyr, and a new short story, “A Single Small Globe Against the Stars”, is forthcoming from Tor.com.

‘Tis the season, in F/SF circles, to nominate for Hugo and Nebula Awards!

I had several stories come out this year, but by far the most award-worthy stuff I’ve done is with my magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  We had a dozen very well reviewed stories in 2010, including by breakthrough authors such as Erin Cashier and Yoon Ha Lee.

Here’s a shortlist of the best-reviewed BCS stories that are eligible for nomination and the official Hugo/Nebula categories they fit into (Short Story, Novelette, etc), with links in case you’d like to read them.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies itself is also eligible for the Best SemiProZone Hugo.  Last year we published 52 stories and novelettes and 20 audio fiction podcasts. Editor and Locus reviewer Rich Horton  calls BCS “a really important source of fantasy.” John Klima, Hugo winner at Electric Velocipede, thought BCS deserves to be on the final ballot for Best SemiProZine.

To nominate and later vote for Nebulas, you have to be a member of SFWA, but to nominate and vote for Hugos, you only have to be a member of WorldCon, and anyone can buy a membership.  But you need to do it before Jan. 31 to be eligible to nominate.  Nomination deadlines are in February (for Nebulas) or March (for Hugos).

Thanks very much if you find BCS or our stories worthy of nomination.

I've been sitting on this awhile, though some of you know this already, or have kindly pointed it out to me. ;)

First point of order, though, is introducing Kiba, also known as Kiba The Wonder Pup, seen here and in my icon. She is a "goldendoodle" (Golden Retriever + Poodle) and comes to us from Dee Gerrish in North Carolina. Mac has always loved other dogs, and we'd been making do with him getting his buddy fix at EveryDog Day Care, but now he has a puppy of his very own. She is unbearably cute and has therefore been appointed my new Chief Marketing Officer.



Following that, Kiba instructs me to say: In case you didn't know from copious posting on other forums (fb, twitter, the usual), my first fantasy novel (!), SWORD OF FIRE AND SEA, was picked up by Pyr Books in May and will be published in June 2011. As you can see from the tweet, Editorial Director Lou Anders (of much fame this year and others) describes it as "Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion meets Avatar: The Last Airbender", and more recently has been throwing in a dash of Final Fantasy, which suits me swell.

And now its gorgeous cover is viewable by all, courtesy the heroic efforts of Lou and Prometheus design staff (would love to use specific names but don't yet know if they like being publicly credited!). It's been amazing watching this come together and I'm beyond thrilled to be able to share it. The artist is Dehong He, a digital artist from Singapore who works by day on MMORPGs. He was perfect for a bunch of reasons, first of course being his phenomenal talent (you can see more of his artwork here). Beyond that, I've always loved the vibrant style of Asian MMO art, as well as the unique way they show humans -- faces, costumes, everything. Being multiethnic myself, to me their art is distinctly international in a way much western art is not. I've also always been an anime fan, and know that there are many anime fans who also read fantasy, so have wondered if a cover that "speaks" to anime fans with its art style would recognize that crossover more.

Needless to say I am entirely biased, but assume my current "omg" level to be in the gazillions, so if you scale that down for bias this is still really awesome. Here is the link to the Amazon page (where you can zoom in and see a larger version), and without further ado:

If I have anything to do with it I'm sure you'll be seeing it everywhere soon... ;)