Saturday Afternoons, Sunshine and Small Presses

This post is sponsored by a trip to Amazon.

Today, I bought pretty (awesome) books even though I'm not supposed to be buying any until my current to read pile has shrunk. In fairness, I'd been meaning to pick up Lavie Tidhar's 'The Bookman' for a year, and I loved Carrie Ryan's two previous books so I had to have 'The Dark and Hollow Places' and then I discovered a book by Genevive Valentine that I hadn't heard of before - Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti. Check out that blurb and the cover... Plus, yesterday I finally renewed my subscription to Interzone and Black Static, because I'd have felt guilty if I didn't, and they're fantastic magazines and I worry, our small presses are going to fold in on themselves and die!!!

Bloody hell, I guess I have my melodramatic head on today. Someone fan me and feed me grapes.

In other news: Did you know, I'm cultivating a forest in my back garden and there's a note on the seed packet about monsters? Stay tuned for more news...

That sentence is sponsored by things I hate about summer: gardening, gardening and yep, more gardening. Guess what I did today? Well some folk would claim 'my acts' didn't resemble gardening at all but I stick my tongue out at them and hand them a spade.

I guess, if I'm done writing for the day (we don't talk about the word count), I should catch up with my reading. I have about a thousand short stories to read before I can buy anymore (promise), and that is not an exaggeration. Okay, maybe a slight one. Oh wait, it's almost time for So You Think You Can Dance?

I do, I do.

Space, Time and Missing Things

A few weeks ago I won a copy of Space and Time when Robert Swartwood ran a competition on his blog, and it arrived this weekend. I, of course, had to place it on top of my 'to read' pile, and in fact shoved Cherie Priest's Boneshaker aside to read it.

What a fantastic magazine... And I'm left feeling guilty as I've had a copy of issue #106 (this is #109), unread, on my shelf since earlier this year, despite it containing stories by Camille Alexa and Kurt Newton. Wrists duly slapped.

My favourite stories were 'End of Our World As We Know It' by Robert Swartwood (and for those thinking well she would say that, I challenge you to pick up issue #109 and prove me wrong) and 'Small Motel' by Dennis Danvers.

Small Motel is a slice of small town science fiction with delicious characters and a sprinkling of green tea. There is an ease to Danvers tale about alien abduction, and I'll be searching out more of his stories next year. End of Our World is beautiful, brilliant, and an excellent example of how to write in second person narrative. Oh, and Robert... You might notice something missing from this post.*

*For those wishing to understand that final, cryptic note - you'll have to read End of Our World.