Book Release: STRAEON

From the creator of the acclaimed Campbellian Anthology series comes STRAEON: a new quarterly exploration of stories that are longer, more complex, more mature, and more challenging than the norm. If you’re looking for space unicorns, sexy vampires, or short comedies that end in bad puns, you won’t find that here.

But if conventional genre stories don’t quite fit you—if you aren’t comfortable with the genre you’ve been wearing, or have grown too comfortable with the way it hangs upon your frame—if you sometimes wonder why you never see stories that speak to who you are, and are looking for fiction that is new, different, and not entirely safe…

Maybe you should try on STRAEON.

More than a year in the making, STRAEON #1: Malady Fare, features:

• “Lady Sakura’s Letters” by Juliette Wade
• “Avenzoar’s Dilemma” by Pat MacEwen
• “Rains of Craifa, Figure 1—Girl with Shavlas” by Lara Campbell McGehee
• “The Art Teacher” by Gillian Daniels
• “Kelly’s Star” by Ian Creasey
• “The Splintered Stars” by Jenny Rae Rappaport
• “Cupful of Sunshine” by Anna Yeatts
• “Sunira’s Daughters” by Robert Dawson
• “Signal” by Renee Carter Hall
• “A Kernel of Truth” by Heather J. Frederick

Now available for the Amazon Kindle and Kindle Reader apps at these links:

United States | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | Mexico | Germany | France | Spain | Italy | Netherlands | Japan | Brazil | India

More links coming soon!

If you're not reading SHOWCASE, you're missing great stories!

Here's what we've published lately!

 

"Lightspeed Messenger," by Michael Andre-Driussi

"Copy That," by Holly Schofield

"How the Invasion Came to Able Tooling of Cooper's Creek, Kansas," by Tyler Tork

"The Last Tree," by Rebecca Roland

"Bottoms Up," by Gary Cuba

"Viral," by Simon Kewin

"Waters of Oblivion," by Michael Haynes

"Dragonomics," by Richard J. Dowling

"Panopticon," by Simon Kewin

"Tricky," by Alex Gorman

"Habeas Felis," by Julie Frost

"In Fall, After the Harvest," by S. Travis Brown

"The Roads to Hell," by Larry Hodges

"Hunger Gamesmanship," by John H. Dromey

"Echoes in the Dark," by Gunnar De Winter

"Edvard Munch," by Robert W. Hobson

"Stingray," by Peter Wood

"Foundation and Zombies," by Arlan Andrews, Sr.

"Till Death Us Do Part," by E. N. Loizis

"Back from the Dead," by John Lance

"The Pro Turned Weird," by Stephen Lickman

"Failure to Communicate," by Phil Temples

"THIS CAT MUST DIE!" by Jason Lairamore

"Disclaimer," by Bret McCormick

"The Thing About Analyn," by David Steffen

"Fulfilling," by Joy Bernardo

EOCL Sale: Stupefying Stories 1.2

One of my pet peeves is the traditional publishing industry “All Rights for the Remaining Balance of Eternity” contract, so when we launched the e-book version of Stupefying Stories, I included a “three years and out” self-destruct clause in the contract. To my surprise we’re still here three years later, and that self-destruct clause is now armed and ready to blow.

Therefore, this is your LAST CHANCE to buy Stupefying Stories 1.2 (a.k.a., the November 2011 issue) at the special end-of-contract-life price of $0.99! Because as of midnight Central Time on November 30, 2014, this one goes out of print, never to be re-released again!

And now, the catalog copy...

STUPEFYING STORIES 1.2
Released November 2011
No sooner was 1.1 released than STUPEFYING STORIES began growing very rapidly. This book contains more and longer stories than 1.1 and marks the first appearance in our pages of Aaron Bradford Starr, Clare Deming, Sarah Frost, and fan favorite Rebecca Roland, as well as another story from Anatoly Belilovsky and one of the most disturbing horror stories we’ve ever published, “The Oily,” by E. A. Black.
Which has led to considerable confusion ever since. Is STUPEFYING STORIES a science fiction magazine that sometimes publishes horror or a horror magazine that sometimes publishes science fiction? Somehow people fixated on “The Oily” and didn’t notice that this book also contains two of the funniest stories we’ve ever published, “First Impressions” and “Watch This!”
Contents:

• FIRST IMPRESSIONS, by Aaron Bradford Starr
• THE BAMBOO GARDEN, by Clare L. Deming
• HOME SECURITY, by Gary McKenzie
• BORROWED FEATHERS, by Sarah Frost
• IF THIS BE MAGIC, by Anatoly Belilovsky
• THE OILY, by E. A. Black
• IN FALL, AFTER THE HARVEST, by S. Travis Brown
• THE KING OF ASH AND BONES, by Rebecca Roland
• WATCH THIS!, by Henry Vogel

Available for the Amazon Kindle at these links: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia.

Also available for the Barnes & Noble Nook and in the Apple iTunes Store.

Inventory Clearance Sale: It Came From The Slushpile

Yes, it’s our original print edition, done as a prototype to see just how closely we could emulate the look and feel of a vintage digest-sized pulp in what was initially planned to be a quarterly magazine. We spent a small fortune on this one, and aside from my never being really happy with the way the cover turned out, it worked...but it also convinced me our money was far better spent on paying writers and artists more rather than on keeping paper mills and print shops in business.

Nonetheless, we still have a few boxes of copies of this one taking up space in the warehouse, so from now through December 31, 2014, we’re selling it out for the blowout price of $1.99, plus the usual Amazon shipping charges. Then, as of midnight Central time on 12/31/2014, it’s going out-of-print, never to be reissued again!

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982897405/

P.S. Be sure to get your copy from K&B Booksellers, as K&B is the only dealer selling fresh-from-the-box new copies at this price. (Some optimists out there think this one is a valuable collector’s item worth $45 or more!)
Contents:

• TECH SUPPORT, by John Oglesby
• LIFELINE, by Kersley Fitzgerald
• IT CAME FROM THE SLUSHPILE, by Bruce Bethke
• CATACHRONISM, by Jakeb Lliesl Ladrey
• ICEHAWK'S ILL OMEN, by Martin Davidson
• ARMSTRONG, by James Rye
• WE DON'T PLUMMET OUT OF THE SKY ANYMORE, by M. David Blake
• ASSAULT AND BUTTERY, by Anton,Gully
• TEACHING WOMEN TO FLY, by Guy Stewart
• FIRST RULE, by Allan Davis Jr.
• THEN THE END COMETH, by David Yener Goodman
• HEART OF DORKNESS, by Henry Vogel

STORYBLITZ!

STUPEFYING STORIES SHOWCASE returns to production with STORYBLITZ: A Storm of Stories!

Featuring:

• Fulfilling, by Joy Bernardo
• The Thing About Analyn, by David Steffen
• Disclaimer, by Bret McCormick
• This Cat Must Die! by Jason Lairamore
• A Failure to Communicate, by Phil Temples
• The Pro Turned Weird, by Stephen Lickman
• Back from the Dead, by John Lance
• Till Death Us Do Part, by E.N. Loizis

And that's just what we published today!

It's our first-ever 36-HOUR SALE!

That's right. For the next 36 hours, STUPEFYING STORIES 1.1 (a.k.a. the October 2011 issue) is on sale for the irresistibly low price of $0.99! Slightly notorious around here for being the last time we ever attempted to publish poetry, issue 1.1 is better known for being the first time Anatoly Belilovsky appeared in our pages, as well as the first publication of the outstanding hard SF story, “Return to Earth” by Ryan M. Jones, which has since been picked up for several other podcasts and anthologies. STUPEFYING STORIES 1.1  features:

• ODE, by Amy Helfritz
• THE WINDOW, by David Yener Goodman
• THE DEPORTED, by Vox Day
• PICKY, by Anatoly Belilovsky
• THE CURSED WAIL, by Caileigh Marshall
• S&M VAMPIRE GRRLZ: THE MOVIE, by Chris Bailey Pearce
• QUILL, by Allan Davis Jr.
• REVIVAL, by Daniel Eness
• DAVE’S FRIGHT, by Kersley Fitzgerald
• OTHER SISTER, by Rich Matrunick
• RETURN TO EARTH, by Ryan M. Jones

If you missed this one when it first came out -- if you've been meaning to pick it up but just never got around to it -- this is your last chance, because at the stroke of midnight on October 31 it goes out of print, never to be released again!

Available for the Amazon Kindle at these links: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia.

Also available for the Barnes & Noble Nook and in the Apple iTunes Store.

Cross-links are live

Every day, we get a little closer to what we're trying to achieve. Today, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we've got the cross-links working.

Which means that if you open the Amazon.com page for the Kindle edition of Scout's Honor, you'll find a link to the paperback edition, and vice versa. Better yet, the reader reviews and ratings are now shared across both editions. Likewise, if you open the Amazon.com page for the Kindle edition of Five Stars, you'll find a link to the paperback edition.

Best of all is this little bonus, which you'll find over on the right side of the Amazon.com pages for the paperback editions of both books:

If you buy a new print edition of this book (or purchased one in the past), you can buy the Kindle edition for FREE. Print edition purchase must be sold by Amazon. Learn more.

An actual book to read when you feel like reading ink on paper, plus a Kindle version to read on your phone or tablet when you're on the move, all for the price of the dead-tree copy alone? How cool is that?  

BOOK RELEASE: FIVE STARS

Title: FIVE STARS: Five Outstanding Tales from the early days of STUPEFYING STORIES
Contributors: Aaron Bradford Starr, Rebecca Roland, Guy Stewart, David W. Landrum, Ryan M. Jones
Editor: Bruce Bethke
ISBN: 978-1-938834-35-6 (print edition)
ISBN: 978-1-938834-34-9 (ebook edition)  

FIVE STARS is the new STUPEFYING STORIES sampler package.* These five carefully selected tales from our earliest issues are all outstanding examples of the kinds of stories we're looking for, because these are the kinds of stories we love to publish. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, sometimes brimming over with adventure and excitement and other times simply dripping with terror, these are the sorts of stories that made us fall in love with fiction in the first place, back when we were reading just for the fun of it, and long before we ever dreamed of becoming professional writers or editors.

Whether you're a new friend who's wondering whether to start following STUPEFYING STORIES, an aspiring contributor who's wondering what sort of stories we'd like to see, or an old friend who just happened to miss these tales the first time around, check out FIVE STARS.

Featuring:

• "First Impressions" by Aaron Bradford Starr
• "Sennacherib" by David W. Landrum
• "Teaching Women to Fly" by Guy Stewart
• "The King of Ash and Bones" by Rebecca Roland
• "Return to Earth" by Ryan M. Jones  

Now available in our first-ever simultaneous Kindle and print editions!

For Kindle and Kindle Reader Apps: United States | Canada | United Kingdom | Australia | India | Japan | France | Germany | Italy | Spain | Mexico | Brazil

Print editions on Amazon: United States | United Kingdom | CreateSpace

Links for other e-readers and readers apps to be announced as they come online.

_______________________

* Personally, I think of FIVE STARS as our Greatest Hits EP, but whenever I say that, I end up having to explain what EPs were, which always segues into a discussion of my theory that short stories are the Top 40 hit singles of the literary world, and pretty soon we've gone so far off-topic that we've completely lost the trail of breadcrumbs and that dicey-looking gingerbread cottage is beginning to look like an attractive place to bed down for the night. It's a sampler, okay?

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!

After more "learning experiences" than I like to think about, our first print-on-demand book, Scout's Honor, is finally debugged, finished, approved, and ready to go. Today you can get it at this link (https://www.createspace.com/4958544) but over the next few days it will be percolating out to Amazon worldwide, and then out to distributors, bookstores, and...well, basically, everywhere.

Wow. The mind reels. Good thing Henry's already finished the sequel, Scout's Oath, and we're working on releasing that in September.

And yes, this means from that this point forward (and retroactive back to STUPEFYING STORIES 1.12), everything we release will come out in Kindle, epub, and print formats. In time we'll even make it to releasing books simultaneously in all formats.

I now consider myself a fully qualified expert on the subject of converting author's manuscripts to p.o.d. books, and am available for consulting at modest rates.

Book Release: The Book of Judith: Sixteen Tales of Life, Wonder, and Magic by Judith Field

Featuring:

• "The Prototype"
• "The Night the Cat Crept In"
• "Psychopomps"
• "The Great Grampando"
• "Leaky Magic"
• "The River Bride"
• "Lindow Five"
• "The Tap-Washer Talisman"
• "Stitch in Time"
• "Novichok-452"
• "The Finnegoid"
• "Diva"
• "The Way to a Man's Heart"
• "Transit of Mars"
• "Full Fathom Five"
• "And then there were three"

Now available for Amazon Kindle and Kindle Reader Apps at these links:

United States | United Kingdom | Scotland | Australia | Canada | Mexico | Brazil | India | Japan | France | Germany | Italy | Spain 

More links coming soon!

__________________________

Introducing Judith Field...

One of the secret pleasures of editing a short-story magazine is that you get to meet some very talented writers, long before they become well-known names. Sometimes you watch them develop slowly, as they learn the craft and develop their skills, while other times they just sort of erupt, and produce a string of great stories right from the start.

Judith Field is that second kind of writer. I knew I was seeing something special the first time I read "The Prototype," but then, when she followed up with "The Night the Cat Crept In," "Leaky Magic," "Diva," and "Full Fathom Five," I realized she was only getting started.

It's the nature of the short-story form that writers eventually outgrow it. Sooner or later, some major publisher is going to sign her to a nice big contract for a big fat novel, or some television producer is going to discover her Cleopatra Court stories and make her rich and famous, and then we'll be left saying, "Ah yes, Judith Field. I knew her when..."

But right now, today, it's my pleasure and privilege to present these sixteen stories—fourteen never-before published, and two reprints of stories you may have missed the first time around—that show the range of Judith's story-telling talents. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes romantic, sometimes disturbing—sometimes all four in the same story!—but always a good, solid, entertaining story, well-told.

Enjoy!

—Bruce Bethke, Editor

STUPEFYING STORIES

Book Release: Stupefying Stories 1.13 (August 2014)

Featuring:

• "Personal Space," by Alison Pentecost
• "The Great Work of Meister VanHocht," by Auston Habershaw
• "Rainbow Spores," by Jamie Lackey
• "End Times," by S. R. Algernon
• "Her Symphony and Song," by Sarah Frost
• "Happy Valley," by Garth Upshaw
• "Memory Makes Liars of Us All," by Eric Dontigney
• "Meat 2.0," by William Ledbetter

Now available for Amazon Kindle and Kindle Reader Apps at these links:

United States | United Kingdom | Scotland | Australia | Canada | Mexico | Brazil | India | Japan | France | Germany | Italy | Spain

More links coming soon!

________________________________ 

And we're back!

Again.

If you've been following us on Facebook, you know that for the crew here at STUPEFYING STORIES, this past year has been one filled with challenges and changes. If you haven't been following us, never mind: what matters now is that with this issue, we begin our fifth year of publication, with new tools, new technologies, some new people in certain key positions, but with the same dedication to bringing you the best stories we can find, delivered directly to your e-book reader, phone, tablet, mobile device—or rolling out very shortly, to your mailbox, in the form of printed, bound, assemblages of paper!

(We've been told they're called "books." How quaint.)

To those of you who have stuck with us through the "interesting" times, we say: thanks for your patience, understanding, and support. And to both longtime fans and those who are just discovering us for the first time, we say: welcome aboard and buckle up! We have insanely ambitious plans for Year Five, and it's going to be an exciting ride.

Per ardua ad astra!

Book Release: Scout's Honor, by Henry Vogel

Rampant Loon Press is pleased to announce the release of our first original novel: Scout's Honor: A Planetary Romance, by Henry Vogel.

Currently available for Amazon Kindle (and already a best-seller with twenty reader reviews!) Scout's Honor will be available in the Nook Press and Apple iTunes store shortly, and (now this is the part we're really excited about) in print format on Friday, August 1.

Watch this space for more details. And now, without further ado, the marketing copy...

                                     

When Terran Scout David Rice climbs from the wreckage of his starship’s escape pod, he finds himself transported from the space age to the steam age in the blink of an eye. Drawn to the sounds of fighting, David immediately throws himself into a desperate battle against overwhelming odds to save the life of a beautiful young princess.

Now, marooned without hope of rescue, David is swept into a world of steam-powered airships, treacherous pirates, brutal savages, bloodthirsty monsters, royal machinations, and plots within plots, where matters of strength and honor are most often settled with the clash of swords. As he struggles to learn the strange ways of this new world and who he can trust, one thing becomes clear to him: he must put aside his growing feelings for Her Highness and do everything in his power to return her to her family, even though this means giving her up to the prince she’s pledged to marry.

Told in a relentlessly fast-paced and breathless style, SCOUT’S HONOR is an exciting modern homage to the classic tales of planetary romance made famous by writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett, as well as the cliffhanger-driven energy of the early science fiction movie serials. If you like your heroes unabashedly heroic, your heroines feisty and true, and your plots filled with dangers, twists, turns, and double-crosses upon triple-crosses, you’ll enjoy SCOUT’S HONOR.

Now available for Kindle and Kindle Reader Apps at these links:

United States | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | Mexico | Brazil | India | Japan | Italy | Spain | Germany | France

More links coming soon! 

SHOWCASE #18 IS LIVE

Issue #18 of our free companion webzine, SHOWCASE, is now live at this link:

http://www.stupefyingstoriesshowcase.com/index.html

Featuring:

"DEATH BITES" by Bill Bibo, Jr.

"SPORT OF KINGS" by Judith Field

And another Progress Report by yours truly.

SHOWCASE #18! It's got ninja leprechauns!

STUPEFYING STORIES 1.12 (March 2014) is released!

STUPEFYING STORIES 1.12 (a.k.a., the March 2014 issue) is now live on Amazon and selling in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, and Japan.  For sales links, samples, and more information, see the SHOWCASE site.

More sales links coming soon!

Featuring:

	CHRISTOPHER LEE KNERAM		“Anachronic Order”
	JULIE DAY		“Dried Skins Unshed”
	PETE MCARDLE		“A Nun’s Tale”
	CAROL HOLLAND MARCH		“They Followed Me”
	JOHN J. BRADY		“Interregnum”
	JUDITH FIELD		“Full Fathom Five”
	TORAH COTTRILL		“Bone Mother”
	BRANDON NOLTA		“Aleph”
	RANDAL DOERING		“Alien Treaties”

Reading Period Closed

*** PLEASE NOTE ***

STUPEFYING STORIES is currently CLOSED to unsolicited submissions while we concentrate on releasing new books. We will resume reading new submissions for STUPEFYING STORIES, SHOWCASE, and the STUPEFYING STORIES PRESENTS line on June 1, 2014.

Note also that this closure affects STUPEFYING STORIES only. STRAEON remains open to new submissions.

SHOWCASE #15 RELEASED

The changes announced in SHOWCASE #14 are already paying off, as SHOWCASE #15 rolls out right on schedule this week. If you're looking for the latest news, latest download links, and best of all, FREE STORIES, check out our companion webzine, STUPEFYING STORIES SHOWCASE, now ready for your reading pleasure at this link:

StupefyingStoriesSHOWCASE.com

 This week featuring:

• “Best in Show,” by Robert Lowell Russell
• “On the Pond,” by Jake Doyle 
• “The Wiser of Oz,” by Jez Patterson
• “Four Corners of the Earth,” by Sandi Reed-Chan

Enjoy!
~brb

Stupefying Stories is temporarily closing to new submissions

Effective March 1, 2014, STUPEFYING STORIES will be closed to unsolicited submissions until June 1, 2014.

The short explanation is that the volume of new submissions we're receiving is interfering with our ability to release new books on schedule. For a more complete explanation, see the editorial in SHOWCASE #14.

If this works as expected, we will again be closed to unsolicited submissions from October 1, 2014, to December 31, 2014, and thereafter be on a three-months-on/three-months-off reading schedule.

Please note that this change does not affect STRAEON, which has a separate submissions queue and reading schedule. 

SHOWCASE #14 ESCAPES!

For the latest news, latest download links, and best of all, FREE STORIES, check out our companion webzine, STUPEFYING STORIES SHOWCASE, ready to read now at this link:

StupefyingStoriesSHOWCASE.com

This week featuring:

• “Advances,” by Liz Colter
• “The Collections Agent,” by A. G. Carpenter 
• “How Love Works,” by Jamie Lackey
• “Stanley P. Strauss, Destroyer of the Universe,” by Samuel Marzioli
• Editorial: And we're back...again, by Bruce Bethke

ATTENTION, WRITERS. Beginning March 1, 2014, Stupefying Stories will be closed to unsolicited submissions until June 1, 2014. For the explanation of why we're doing this, please read the editorial in SHOWCASE #14. 

SHOWCASE #13 ESCAPES!

For the latest news, latest download links, and best of all, FREE STORIES, check out our companion webzine, STUPEFYING STORIES SHOWCASE, ready to read now at this link:

StupefyingStoriesSHOWCASE.com

This week featuring:

• “Cold Beyond White,” by Beth Cato
• “Above the Ice,” by Matthew Timmins 
• “Searching for Home,” by Lance J. Mushung
• “The End,” by Scott M. Davis
• 2014: The Changes Ahead, by Bruce Bethke