“Looking Backward: Part 1” • by Bruce Bethke

In response to yesterday’s Week in Review post, in which I wrote about taking a deep dive through our historical data and readership stats, Guy Stewart asks, “…now what do you do with THAT?”

We’re still digesting all we learned, and still in talks with our financial backers to determine how best to take Stupefying Stories and Rampant Loon Press forward into 2025. Like ordering a fresh bowl of Caldo de Camarón, though, the moment the data arrived on our table, we were surprised to find some obvious things staring us right in the face. 

For one thing, it’s the rare story or article that is still drawing in new readers a year after it’s been published. This tells us there really is no reason to keep a 14-year archive of stories on this site. In fact, given that most readers are now reading the site on their cell phones, they’re not even seeing the Blog Archives button that’s in the upper right corner of our desktop site, much less clicking on it to explore our backlist. 

The only deep backlist posts that still get significant attention are old articles, and for some reason, certain movie reviews. That, and “Remembering the Future: 40 Years with ‘Cyberpunk’,” of course. It seems a lot of people are still far more interested in hearing me talk about “Cyberpunk” than I am in talking about it. I suppose this means I should consider reviving the “Ask Dr. Cyberpunk” column.

Sigh.

Another thing that emerged from the deep dive is the notion that I really need to pay more attention to the shifts in reader dynamics. The differences between the 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day readership stats suggest trends that are not always obvious. Some stories generate tremendous buzz for a few days, and then drop off the charts and vanish, never to be read again. Others don’t generate as much excitement when they’re first published, but have “legs,” to use the marketing term, and continue to pick up new readers for weeks and even months after first publication. These are the authors and stories I believe I want to focus on finding and nurturing.

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We can push backlist stories. For example, after we published The Pete Wood Challenge Index of all the PWC stories published so far, these four stories saw a sudden belated bump in readership.

“Angels,” by Sophie Sparrow

“A Nightingale Sings,” by Sylvia Heike

“There is Only One Black Cat,” by Pauline Barmby

“The Annual Times Square Paint Dry, by Larry Hodges

Why these old stories are suddenly interesting to someone, though, and who’s reading them, remains a mystery.

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One inescapable fact that emerged from this deep dive is that no one is paying any attention to any of our archive and legacy websites, excepting perhaps some bots and A.I. crawlers. Therefore, it’s time at last to say goodbye to our old SHOWCASE webzine site—but before we do, here is your last chance to read these selected stories from October 2014.

“Till Death Us Do Part,” by E.N. Loizis

Jennifer stared at the man sitting across from her. “Excuse me?”

“I’m a vampire.”

“As in… dead?”

“We prefer the term undead.”

“Back from the Dead,” by John Lance

The crowd of angry villagers outside the iron gate was impressive.
Cassius spotted pitchforks, clubs, and torches. He felt flattered.
He drew himself up to his full height. “Yes, it is I, Cassius the
Necromancer. What brings you to my home?”

The sheriff stepped forward. “Begging your pardon, we’re at the
wrong address. Do you know where this fellow Frankenstein lives?
He’s been causing a lot of trouble lately.”

Cassius tried to hide his disappointment. “I’m dangerous, too,”
he said in a sad voice no one heard…

“The Pro Turned Weird,” by Stephen Lickman

Dr. Edward “Eddie” McDaniels knew that if there were two things
that went together, it was horrible weather and the revenge-obsessed
undead. “Rain,” he sighed. “It’s always rain with these jerks.
Couldn’t one show up in Tahiti in December?”

“A Failure to Communicate,” by Phil Temples

On a morning in late October, the alien stepped out of his
spaceship and into the bright morning sun in the Boston
Commons. “Hello, Earthling,” he said to the first human
he met.

She eyed him suspiciously. “Nice costume.”

“Excuse me?”

“This Cat Must Die!” by Jason Lairamore

The heavy ceramic angel sitting high on the shelf was perfect
for what Sham had in mind. That fat orange cat had to die.
Its death was the only way he could become a real ghost, and
get on with the job he was here to do—scaring people.

“Disclaimer,” by Bret McCormick

Thank you for pressing the “Accept” option on the
previous page and legally completing the transfer of
ownership rights and obligations of authorship in the
work of fiction entitled, My Five Minutes in Hell,
penned by Howard Phillips Derbury in 1952…

“The Thing About Analyn,” by David Steffen

In retrospect, I should have realized there was something
bizarre about Analyn much earlier than I did…

 

“Fulfilling,” by Joy Bernardo

I’d been born and raised in sunny Florida, so isn’t it ironic
that the one thing I fear most in life is a night-stalking
bloodsucker? I’ve spent many nights staring out my
bedroom window, at eyes glaring back at me from the trees…

 

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The Month in Review • 27 October 2024

It’s been a batguano busy month here at La Casa del Calamari, so it’s been some time since we’ve done a Week in Review post. Looking back at the last one…

The first and foremost thing that jumps out at me is what’s happened to the cow pasture and that little maple tree just across the fence. This morning, it looks like this:

I suppose it won’t be too much longer before it looks like this again.

I tell people I choose to live in Minnesota because I like the ever-changing parade of seasons. In truth, I wish the ever-changing parade of seasons would just slow the f*** down once in a while. They’ve been moving much too fast lately and I’m beginning suspect they’re accelerating. I’d like them to pause for moment, to let me catch my breath.

§

The end of September is always a difficult time for me. It should be a wonderful time, as we celebrate my eldest daughter’s birthday. Instead, this year was the 15^th anniversary of the day the El Paso county coroner’s office called to tell me her body had been found, and I needed to fly out to Colorado right away to confirm her identity and claim the body. I’ve no idea why this particular anniversary hit me harder than any of the previous ones, but it did. Perhaps it has something to do with this also being the 2^nd anniversary of the acute medical crisis that put my wife in the hospital, first into the ER, and then into isolation and the ICU, for what turned out to be the rest of her life.

Last year at this time I was still in shock, I think, and trying to deflect by burying myself in work. This year the numbness has worn off, and I’m really starting to feel. I’m not enjoying it.

§

I am by nature an introvert. I can fake being an extrovert, but only for a while, and find it exhausting. My natural introversion leads to introspection, and in the case of Stupefying Stories, retrospection. For much of the past month I’ve been buried in back-office stuff, taking a hard look at a chaotic mountain of disconnected statistics and metrics and trying to figure out what we’ve been doing right, what I’ve been doing wrong, what’s worth developing further, and what’s been a waste of time.

A sidebar parable: In 1975 I had a great ticket for a WHO concert, main floor, center, about 15 rows back from the stage. My pleasure was somewhat diminished by the fact that there was a pretty young girl next to me, perhaps 15 years old, who spent the entire concert jumping up and down in a frenzy, waving her arms in the air and screaming “ROGER!” at the top of her lungs. I suspect she was the sort of girl for whom Pete Townshend wrote the song, “Sally Simpson.” By the end of the show she had jumped herself to exhaustion and screamed herself absolutely hoarse, but Roger Daltrey never noticed.

That’s a bit like how I’m feeling about Stupefying Stories right now: like I’ve spent the past 14 years jumping up and down and screaming “NOTICE US!” at the top of my lungs, but am beginning to suspect that Roger never will.

§

This bout of intense intro/retrospection was triggered by Pete Wood, who’d asked me to finish that complete chronological list of Pete Wood Challenge stories I’d been putting off doing until “later.” The task turned out to be more difficult than it at first appeared, as our site search function doesn’t work quite as expected and our metadata tagging was far less consistent than I’d thought. To complete the list I eventually ended up having to crawl month-by-month through absolutely everything we’ve posted since 2021, to glean the stories that might otherwise have escaped. Along the way, I also accumulated a lot of interesting and/or puzzling statistics.

Here follows the chronological list of everything we’ve published since the last Week in Review post. After that, I’ll share some notes about what I learned from taking a deep dive through our last three-plus years of stories and posts. 

 

“The Slings and Arrows of Childhood,”
by Richard Zwicker

When Astrid says, “Last one there is a rotten egg,” she means it.

Six Questions for… Brandon Nolta

He’s been compared to Bradbury, Vonnegut, Ellison,
and Disch. Find out what all the fuss is about. 

“Data Integrity,”
by Tommy Blanchard

The downside of uploading your memories to the cloud.

“Vacuuming Unused Rooms,”
by R. Gene Turchin

A strange and sad little story about immortality and grief.

 

THE PETE WOOD CHALLENGE #34: “Homeless”

“Towerless,”
by Lorraine Schein

“Wandering the Cosmos,”
by D. A. Xiaolin Spires

“The Ghost of Moscow,”
by Sophie Sparrow

“The Sky Will Fall,”
by Tobias Backman

“Proper Witch’s Home,”
by Carol Scheina

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“Don’t Shoot the Messenger,”
by Andrew Akers

A particle physicist makes a truly mind-blowing discovery.

“You Should Go,”
by Laura Bohlcke

Some guys just won’t take no for an answer.

“The Creeping Fear,”
by Harris Coverly

A wee spot of good old-fashioned Gothic horror for you.

The Pete Wood Challenge Index
The Complete List of Everything We’ve Published, So Far.
More than 200 stories!

Also available through this permanent link. Bookmark it!

Six Questions for… Pete Wood

So who is this Pete Wood character anyway,
and why do we cut him so much slack?

The Never-ending FAQ • 25 October 2024

ROGER!!!!

“Release Me,”
by C. L. Sidell

Carrie and Vanessa were just trying to find a good ghost story.
They got more than they’d bargained for.

§

And now, some things gleaned from the deep-dive

#1 All-time Most-read Post: “Announcing the 2014 Campbellian Anthology”

It was the Pro-bono Project from Hell, proof that no good deed goes unpunished, and a colossal waste of time, money, and energy. I still regret agreeing to do it.

#2 All-time Most-read Post: “Submission Guidelines”

Well, at least people are reading them, even if they’re ignoring them.

#3 All-time Most-read Post: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (movie review)

Saw this movie, we did. Long, it is.

#4 All-time Most-read Post: “Remembering the Future: 40 Years with ‘Cyberpunk’”

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

All-time Most-read Original Short Story: “The Shrine Keeper,” by Made in DNA

Not assigning it a number, but it’s somewhere in the Top 20s.

 

Top 10 Most-read Stories in 2024

“gastronomic,” by Richard J. Dowling

“Outside the Window,” by Gordon Pinckheard

“Chasing the Moon,” by Karin Terebessy

“The Pros and Cons of Time Travel,” by James Blakey

“You,” by Conrad Gardner

“Must Have Been Moonglow,” by Jeanne Van Slyke

“You Should Go,” by Laura Bohlcke

“As You Wish,” by R. M. Linning

“Don’t Shoot the Messenger,” by Andrew Akers

“Moving Further On,” by Gordon Linzner

Interesting that of the stories that were on the mid-year Top 10 list, only “gastronomic” and “The Pros and Cons of Time Travel” are still in the Top 10. For the most part, stories that were on the mid-year list have been bumped down by more recently published stories. This suggests that the SHOWCASE readership is growing, albeit so slowly as to make the growth nearly imperceptible.

Top 5 Most-read Stories in Q3 2024 (August, September, October)

“Outside the Window,” by Gordon Pinckheard

“Chasing the Moon,” by Karin Terebessy

“You,” by Conrad Gardner

“Must Have Been Moonglow,” by Jeanne Van Slyke

“As You Wish,” by R. M. Linning

Top 10 Most-read Stories in October (non-Pete Wood Challenge)

“You Should Go,” by Laura Bohlcke

“Don’t Shoot the Messenger,” by Andrew Akers

“The Pros and Cons of Time Travel,” by James Blakey

“The Slings and Arrows of Childhood,” by Richard Zwicker

“A Few Minutes in the Life of a Xenosociologist,” by Miriam Thor

“Vacuuming Unused Rooms,” by R. Gene Turchin

“Making Friends at Twenty Thousand Leagues,” by Addison Smith

“Chasing the Moon,” by Karin Terebessy

“Data Integrity,” by Tommy Blanchard

“Arrivals at Hope Station Have Been Indefinitely Postponed,” by Warren Benedetto

Had the most recent Pete Wood Challenge stories been included in this list, they’d all have fallen between “Vacuuming Unused Rooms” and “Chasing the Moon,” for October, but none would have made it into the Top 30 for Q3 or the Top 50 for 2024. Which led me to wonder…

Top 5 Most-read Pete Wood Challenge Backlist Stories that were read in October, but published before October

“That Darn, Dear Cat,” by Melissa Mead

“Roadside Stand,” by Pete Wood

“Worth It,” Keyan Bowes

“No Justice for Deserters,” by Pauline Barmby

“Lunar Ghosts,” by Sylvia Heike

I honestly was surprised that Pauline Barmby’s “Songbird, Jailbird” didn’t rank higher, but as I said earlier, the data is somewhat puzzling.

§

At this point I have no firm conclusions. However, the data seems to suggest these ideas.

» SHOWCASE readership is growing over time, albeit so slowly as to make the growth nearly imperceptible.

» SHOWCASE stories have short shelf-lives. It’s the rare story that is still being read six months after it was published.

» Pete Wood Challenge stories have even shorter shelf-lives. They get a decent amount of attention at the time they are published, but that attention fizzes away rapidly. Two weeks after they’re published, most PWC stories have gone flat and stale and will never be read again.

Therefore?

Therefore, I don’t know. All I can say at this time is, hmm…

And remind you of this.

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Heads up: from Sunday, October 27 to Thursday, October 31, Stupefying Stories #26 will be FREE on Kindle. You don't even have to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it will just plain be FREE on Kindle for those five days. For those same five days we will be running a countdown sale on Stupefying Stories #23, #24, and #25. 

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And also this.

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“Release Me” • by C. L. Sidell

“This wasn’t always a library,” Matilda says.

They’re in the archival room, which is also the basement. Vanessa sets her bag on the table and pulls out a chair. Carrie leans against the photocopier, spiral in hand, pen poised to write. Everything here is ordered on shelving units with easy-to-read labels… and dust. Those pesky bunnies don’t have a preference for where they nest and breed.

Peering about the stacks, Matilda clasps her hands. “It was originally a printing house. During the Spanish influenza, it became a sick house. Patients who were beyond help were brought down here—tended to by nuns instead of nurses.”

“Lots of people died, huh?” Vanessa remarks, sneezing.

“Heaps.”

“That’s why people think the library is haunted?”

“With time, some of the lost have managed to find their way. But there are many,” Matilda replies, “who don’t understand what has happened to them. They wander the building seeking loved ones, seeking closure. Which is impossible, of course, since their loved ones have also departed.”

“There’s more than one reported ghost?” Carrie scribbles ink across the page. 

“Indeed.”

“Have any of them been identified?” Vanessa asks.

“One.” The light above Matilda flickers. “You’re writing this for a school assignment?”

“It’s a Halloween special for our blog, actually.”

“I see.” Matilda walks over to the exterior wall, gray skirt swishing about her ankles. She palms the brick, glances at the window above their heads.

“Is that okay?” Carrie asks.

“It might make a difference.” Matilda shrugs. “Who knows?”

“So, who’s the ghost?”

“They say,” Matilda begins, “the head nurse walks the floors day and night, looking for someone who will grant her absolution.”

“Why?”

“It was the head nurse, you see, who wielded the scythe. When the sick were brought in, she evaluated them. Then she pointed upward or downward, and that was that.”

“But isn’t that something she had to do?” Vanessa—nose reddening, eyes watering—sneezes again.

“That’s right,” Carrie agrees. “Sometimes triage is necessary. Though if I were in that position, I’m sure I’d feel guilt too. It couldn’t have been easy sending people to their graves.”

“That isn’t why she needs to be pardoned,” Matilda replies.

“Oh?” Carrie lifts her pen.

“She liked it.” Matilda fixes the girls with her almost-black gaze. “She enjoyed the power, the thrill of knowing their lives rested in her hands. Sometimes… she sent savable people to their deaths. Just. Because. She could.”

“Wow.” Carrie grimaces. “That makes her a serial killer, doesn’t it?”

“I’d say so,” Vanessa agrees. “Like, the worst kind.”

“There’s more.” Matilda pauses. “Supposedly, she’ll appear on these very stairs”—she points across the room—“if you ask her properly.”

Carrie arches an eyebrow. “Like an invocation?”

“Do you have to light candles? Offer blood?” Vanessa asks.

“Heavens, no.” Matilda chuckles. “Language is more powerful than anything of substance. Words have the capability to strike fear, stir hate, start wars. No, nothing is required but a few simple lines. Besides, old as this building is, there are fire alarms down here.”

“You’ve got me hooked,” Vanessa says, running a finger under her nose. “What are the magic words? Abracadabra? Open sesame?”

Turning from the wall, Matilda pulls a slip of paper from her skirt and hands it over. 

“This?” Vanessa’s eyes widen as she reads the words aloud. “Blood and bone don’t seal my fate. To curry favor, I summon hate. Draw me in, I’m yours to serve. Breathe me, need me, sew each nerve. Show me what there is to see. Our bodies as one, our chains broken—freed.” 

“Creepy.” Carrie finishes her notes and glances up. “This ghost requires forgiveness in order to cross over—that’s the gist?”

“You can write that.” Matilda heads toward the stairs. “Whatever you think will encourage the sycophants to visit,” she murmurs.

“Huh?” Vanessa dabs at her nose again. “What’d she say?”

“Didn’t catch it,” Carrie replies as Matilda disappears up the steps. “You okay?”

“Mm. Just allergies.”

Vanessa begins to edit their article-in-progress while Carrie sits down at a computer to research Matilda’s story. Twenty minutes later, she walks over to the filing cabinets and removes several boxes of microfilm. The third article she locates is dated August 24, 1918. It details the sick house and praises those who serve it, including the head nurse.

“I haven’t found anything to back up what that librarian said,” Carrie remarks. “Seems like the lady was a saint. According to the papers, she basically moved into the building. Spent all her waking hours taking care of others.”

“You think our readers are going to care whether the story’s true or not? They’re not going to fact-check us, Carrie. It’s all about entertainment—the spook factor.”

“Well, I care. And I’m not going to make stuff up.” Carrie presses the forward button, gasping when the next article slides into view.

“What’s wrong?” Vanessa leans toward the screen. “Whoa. That’s some weird shit.”

The accompanying photograph reveals a grainy image of Matilda standing beside a coughing patient, finger pointing toward the floor, a mask-hidden smile crinkling her eyes.

“I don’t think we should write this story,” Carrie says, a tremor in her voice. “I mean, how do you fake that? You can’t.”

“Everyone has a twin, hon. Some people make money impersonating celebrities. Remember that guy we met who pretends to be George R. R. Martin at comic-cons?”

“Yeah, but…” Carrie looks at Vanessa, the face on the screen, the words scribbled in her spiral.

“What’s the worst that could actually happen? Come on”—Vanessa wiggles her fingers—“let me see those notes so I can start writing.”

It’s a coincidence.

That’s what Carrie tells herself as she hands over the notebook. The head nurse was a Florence Nightingale. Matilda bears an uncanny resemblance to her. And the incantation? Perfectly harmless.

Their readers will eat up the article, maybe increase their revenue. 

And the story?

“It’s just a story,” Carrie whispers, shivering as ice-cold fingers tiptoe up her spine.

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A native Floridian, C. L. Sidell grew up playing with toads in the rain and indulging in speculative fiction. You can find her on various social media platforms @sidellwrites

A Pushcart Nominee, Best of the Net Nominee, and Rhysling Finalist, her work has appeared in 34 Orchard, Apparition Lit, The Cosmic Background, F&SF, Factor Four Magazine, Impossible Worlds, Weird Christmas, and others. Her two most recent appearances is Stupefying Stories are “It’s In His Kiss” and “Long Distance Call.”

Ribbit.

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Heads up: from Sunday, October 27 to Thursday, October 31, Stupefying Stories #26 will be FREE on Kindle. You don't even have to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it will just plain be FREE on Kindle for those five days. For those same five days we will also be running countdown deals on Stupefying Stories #23, #24, and #25, with prices starting at 99¢. 

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The Never-ending FAQ • 25 October 2024

It’s the last Friday in October already, so it’s time to clear out the mailbox and get ready for November. Beginning with…

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Heads up: from Sunday, October 27 to Thursday, October 31, Stupefying Stories #26 will be FREE on Kindle. You don't even have to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it will just plain be FREE on Kindle for those five days. For those same five days we will be running a variety of discount deals for Stupefying Stories #23, #24, and #25. 

Tell your friends. Remember, likes are nice, but shares and retweets boost the signal.

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Q: What’s with the Six Questions for… series of posts?

A: Stupefying Stories’ entire rai​son d'être is to draw attention to newer writers. We thought it would be fun to do this by running short profiles, longer than the usual author’s bio, but lacking the time to do full-blown in-depth interviews, we settled on giving authors a list of questions, some serious and some silly, and asking them to pick the six or so they felt like answering. It was either this or go whole-hog into doing a podcast, and we don’t want to go there.

Q: When will be seeing “Six Questions for... Bruce Bethke”?

A: You won’t. Six questions aren’t nearly enough to cover all the questions I get asked on a regular basis.

Q: Oh, come on. Surely there must be one question you can answer. How about…

Q: If you had a theme song that played every time you came into a room, what would it be?

A: I like to think it would be something really exciting, energetic, and dynamic; perhaps something written by Mike Post. I suspect it would more likely be “Send in the Clowns,” though.

Q: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, what kinds of music or which artists?

A: No. I can’t. If there’s music playing, I must listen to it—and listen to it critically. Analytically. Much as it’s really hard for me simply to read and enjoy fiction now, it’s really hard for me simply to listen to music.

I know people who can write in noisy, crowded coffee shops. I can’t. I need quiet, in order to focus and think. In one particularly bad office environment I worked in the ambient noise level was right up there with working on a factory floor. When I complained about it, I was told to buy ear buds and listen to music. This was counter-productive. At the end of the day I was in a really good mood, because I’d been listening to good music all day, but I hadn’t gotten much done.

Q: What’s the best kind of computer for a writer?

A: When asked what kind of camera was best, Ansel Adams answered, “The one you have with you.” The same goes for writers and their working tools. The best tool for writing is the one that you have with you, that enables you to get your ideas out of your head and onto some medium you can share with others.

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Q: Are you a plotter or a pantser?

A: I wish. I can plot first, but the results always seem dry and sterile to me. I can try to pants it, but when I do that I always seem to end up meandering around in circles and going nowhere. I truly envy both the folks who can start with an outline and produce good results and those who can just grab onto one end of a story and start pulling, to see where the tale goes.

My preferred method is to start with a legal pad and a cheap fountain pen, and to start by sketching out ideas. (Sometimes literally sketching a scene or a character, in order to help me visualize it.) My true first drafts are nothing that anyone else would recognize as such. They’re full of scribbles, parenthetical notes, crossed-out paragraphs, circles and arrows, comments in the margins, sometimes Post-It notes, sometimes half-pages torn out and Scotch-taped or stapled to other pages. I can’t really start to write what other people would recognize as a first draft manuscript until I’ve figured out how the blessed thing ends. Then I can go back and start figuring out what pieces need to be in place in order to setup and support that ending.

I’m definitely a non-linear writer. I liken it to sitting down at a piano and free-form improvising, working out motifs and progressions until I’ve developed some idea of what it is that will go into the piece of music I want to write. For fiction, that’s me with a legal pad and a fountain pen.

I’ve tried improvising on a typewriter. It’s just not the same.

Q: Back in August you announced an ambitious Fall scheduled for Stupefying Stories. Since then, nothing. What happened?

A: Towards the end of August something large and unpleasant dropped on me—no, not the oak tree limb through the roof, that happened in October—that caused me to question my entire reason for doing Stupefying Stories and to make me wonder whether I really still want to be doing this in 2025.

On both these questions, the jury is still out. I will tell you right now though that our original novels sell. Our short story collections don’t. The move to putting Stupefying Stories exclusively on Kindle and making it free to read on Kindle Unlimited didn’t change that. It’s beginning to look as if we can’t even give short story collections away.

Q: Aren’t you going to try to rush at least one book out right now?

A: Right now? Do you think anyone will notice anything besides the election and its aftermath in the next five weeks?

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Q: I’ve worked in short fiction publishing for [name redacted]. Must you be a masochist to be a small press publisher?

A: No. You need to be a dreamer, and something of an idealist.

Stupefying Stories began with a dream. Actually, not even that; we began with an informal writer’s workshop, The Friday Challenge, and with the idea that we could pull together a group of people with above-average reading comprehension skills and far-above-average verbal acuity, and do something really interesting, that people would notice.

For a while, that seemed to work. A lot of new writers came through here, on their way to bigger and better things. It was always an uphill struggle, though, especially as Karen’s cancer progressed and the Karen & Bruce story wound its way to the last chapter and epilogue. To the end, Karen was always really proud of all the new writers we’d helped get their start in publishing.

In the years that we’ve been doing Stupefying Stories, the market has changed. More importantly, the readership has changed, and continues to do so. It’s not enough to publish good fiction now. You need to promote and market, constantly, relentlessly, without fail, to the point of exhaustion and then beyond.

No, it doesn’t require masochism. But to be commercially successful at it definitely requires something we don’t seem to have.

Q: You should be more interactive! Be more engaged on social media! Maybe try BookTok? Can you do reader polls? Maybe those will bring in more readers?

A: Yes, we have the capacity to do reader polls, and have done them in the past. As with our failed Instagram experiment, our short-lived “Courting Controversy” series, and many other similar experiments, though, we’ve found that while they get plenty of attention, they don’t bring in more readers. Instead, they bring in people who have an urgent need to express their opinion, but once they’ve done so they feel no need to stick around and read anything else on the site. And given that the entire point of Stupefying Stories is to encourage people to read new fiction by new writers…

Honestly, reader polls are like having a fire hydrant on your lawn. You get a lot of attention from the neighborhood dogs, but only briefly, and it doesn’t do the grass much good.

 

So here we are: on the last Friday in October. Surprisingly, there’s no snow on the ground… yet. While the peppers are done for the year, I’m still picking green beans in the garden, and I may yet get a few more ripe tomatoes before they freeze to death. 

Without thinking about it, this traditionally has become the time of year when I reassess what I’ve accomplished in the year now ending and start making plans for what I will do differently next year. At the moment, the only thought that is absolutely clear in my mind is that no matter how it turns out, I can’t wait for this election to be over.  

After that?

Stay tuned…

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Heads up: from Sunday, October 27 to Thursday, October 31, Stupefying Stories #26 will be FREE on Kindle. You don't even have to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it will just plain be FREE on Kindle for those five days. For those same five days we will be running a variety of discount deals for Stupefying Stories #23, #24, and #25. 

Tell your friends. Remember, likes are nice, but shares and retweets boost the signal.

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Six Questions for… Pete Wood

Pete Wood is an attorney from Raleigh, North Carolina, where he lives with his kind and very patient wife. His first appearance in our pages was “Mission Accomplished,” in the now out-of-print Stupefying Stories #6. After publishing a lot of stories with us he graduated to becoming a regular contributor to Asimov’s, but he’s still kind enough to send us things we can publish from time to time, and we’re always happy to get them.

For the past few years Pete has been in the process of evolving into a fiction editor, God help him, first and foremost with The Pete Wood Challenge, then with Dawn of Time, The Odin Chronicles, Tales from The Brahma, and on, and on. Along the way he’s introduced us to the creative work of Roxana Arama, Gustavo Bondoni, Carol Scheina, Patricia Miller, Kimberly Ann Smiley, Kai Holmwood, Brandon Case, Jason Burnham, and many, many more. We suspect Pete’s real love is theater, though, as evidenced by his short movie, Quantum Doughnut — which you can stream, if you follow this link.

[Pete Wood photo by Lee Baker]

With all the attention we’ve been paying to The Pete Wood Challenge lately, this seemed like an opportune time to catch up with Pete and ask him our usual batch of half-serious, half-silly questions.

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SS: What is the first SF/F book or story you remember reading?

PW: That’s tough. I used to go to the bookmobile a couple of times a week and check out fairy tales when I was in first or second grade. Then I moved onto fantasy and science fiction. The first science fiction book may have been Danny Dunn, kid genius who developed all sorts of cutting edge technology from time machines to shrink rays. Or it may have been a paperback novelization of the 1960s television show, The Time Tunnel. I remember reading The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet in fourth grade. A bunch of us did. The first serious science fiction book that really stuck with me might be The Infinite Worlds of Maybe, by Lester Del Ray, or the story “Frost and Fire,” by Ray Bradbury. [Nb: You’ll find that one, along with a lot more stories that are iconic now, in Bradbury’s R is for Rocket.]

 SS: When you write a new story, are you a plotter or a pantser? 

PW: I’ve always been a pantser. I develop the characters first and then a concept and let the characters lead me where they want to go. My last two novellas have been heavily plotted with the characters thrust into the plot after the fact. That’s a tougher way to write, I think, because the characters can’t act naturally if their fates have already been predestined.

SS: Of everything you've had published, which book or story of yours is the one you are most proud of? Where can readers find it? 

PW: “The Less Than Divine Invasion,” published in the January/February 2023 issue of Asimov’s. This story took ten years to write. It started out as a novel and ballooned up to 40,000 words before I had to admit it just wasn’t working. I cut it back to 18,000 eventually. I had to massacre my darlings, but I think it ended up being a damned good story. It’s about an incredibly ill-conceived (and I hope reasonably comical) alien invasion that starts in a small town in North Carolina.

SS: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, what kinds of music or which artists? 

PW: I listen to albums or just a mix of certain artists. Back in college, I put on the Moody Blues LP of Days of Future Passed to write. That’s still an option, but my new favorite is probably Making Movies by Dire Straits. Kinda mellow, kinda profound and never too intrusive. A good Steely Dan mix is nice too.

SS: What feels like your best natural length for a story? 

PW: Flash. I love a good flash story. I can crank out a flash piece in an hour or so if I am lucky. You can pack a lot into flash if you try. I have a lot more respect for decent flash than stories or (God help us) novels that run on forever and have endless sequels. That’s why I love doing the Challenges for Stupefying Stories. The diverse takes on the prompts are fun and fascinating.

SS: If you could snap your fingers and make one cliché, trope, or plot gimmick vanish, which one would it be? 

PW: Sexism. I find it just depressing that so many golden age stories and novels have no female characters. In so many, the women are window dressing or sex objects. I gave up a third of the way through Stranger in a Strange Land, because Heinlein didn’t have a clue what women are like. Sadly, there’s still a lot of sexism going on. Women characters and authors have much more of a voice, but we still haven’t gone nearly far enough.

SS: Thank you for your time, and just in case we haven’t plugged it enough, here’s the link to every Pete Wood Challenge story we’ve published so far. There are more than 200 stories in this list, all free to read for the cost of a click on a link. Check it out!

The Pete Wood Challenge Story Index (So Far)

 

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Heads up: from Sunday, October 27 to Thursday, October 31, Stupefying Stories #26 will be FREE on Kindle. You don't even have to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it will just plain be FREE on Kindle for those five days. For those same five days we will be running a variety of discount deals for Stupefying Stories #23, #24, and #25. 

Tell your friends. Remember, likes are nice, but shares and retweets boost the signal.

Read More