Thursday, February 28, 2019

Fan Mail and Feedback



It’s not often a writer gets comprehensive feedback in the form of a review of published work, and so far my story Tymass by Ring-Light with Heroic Fantasy Quarterly has garnered three such! The first was some fan-mail to the mag itself which the editor kindly sent on to me, and there have since been two reviews of HFQ #39, released at the beginning of February.

The longer and more comprehensive can be read here at Quick Sip Reviews:

The shorter appeared at Tangent, an online sci-fi review portal, and can be found here:

It’s certainly nice to know one’s work carries merit in the eyes of readers! Clearly it must have something going for it to make it into print in the first place, but one becomes inured to either blank rejections or the cursory “sorry, but your story didn’t impress us very much” sort of formula comment one sees from the high-flowthrough pro titles, so appreciative comment is something of a new experience!

I have a couple of new short-listings in play. Two “Middle Stars” stories are in contention at the moment, “Windwalkers” at New Myths, and “Mano รก Xeno” at Constellary Tales. The latter is a brand new pro-paying market, and I’m thrilled to be getting a second look there.

As a point of interest, the industry needs pro markets desperately, and the coming of Constellary will hopefully go some way to counterbalance, from the writer’s perspective, the demise of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, due to close in June. The fewer pro titles, the fiercer the competition, between the worldwide stable of pro writers, is likely to become. Losing even one tightens the acceptance odds on the rest!

Hoping for a few placements in the not too distant future,

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Saturday, February 2, 2019

In Print, February 2019 (and Progress)



Lovecraftiana Vol. 3 No. 4 appeared in the last week of January, and features my black comedy piece The Forgotten Supremo. If you like a little pizza with your Cthullian abominations, this is your meal-ticket! Buy here. I have now appeared in five of the dozen issues to date, a nice record!

Also, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #39 just went live, and you can read my story Tymass by Ring-Light free online here.  I have an invitation to submit some black and white art to accompany the story sometime in the next few months, which will be an interesting exercise for me, it’s been a long time since I put drawing pen to paper!

In other developments, the new Synth Anthology Series has picked up my SF short Naevus for a second edition, though I’m not sure when it’ll be coming available.

At this moment I have eighty stories out there, just one short of my record, and am waiting on a particular market to open for reading to make it 81.

UPDATE (6th February)



Alien Dimensions #17 has been released, featuring my story Sky Tears, one of my “Tales of the Middle Stars.” Find it here.

Cheers, Mike Adamson