The Friday Challenge: Reminder

Just a gentle reminder here, that: A.) The 12/22/17 Friday Challenge, “2018: The Year in Review,” is still open for submissions, and B.) “Arfour’s Complaint” is still on the autopsy table. Meanwhile, we’re still expecting to release Stupefying Stories #19 on Monday, January 1st, so if you’ll excuse us, we’ll get back to work. P.S. And buy some of our books, wouldja?...

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Talking Shop

  Op-ed • “The View from the Field,” by Eric Dontigney • I’m a writer. That is one of the loneliest sentences in the world, for a host of reasons. Tell someone you’re a doctor or an accountant, they get a decent picture of what you do. The details might be wrong, but the gist is accurate. Tell someone you’re a writer and it evokes images of Hemingway in Paris or that...

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Did you get a new Kindle for Christmas?

Are you looking for something to read on it? Then you’re in luck, because right now we are giving away the Kindle editions of these two ebooks absolutely free for the cost of a click. In a galaxy where psychics are hunted outlaws... Matt Connaught’s parents have vanished. He knows that they are still alive. But powerful people want them to stay vanished, and if Matt...

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The Seemingly Oligatory Christmas Column

Nonfiction • “Christmas Eve, 2017,” by Bruce Bethke • I had a column I used to recycle every Christmas Eve. It was a mopey, sentimental thing about my Dad and the 8mm movie camera he used to take to every family gathering when I was a kid. The technology of the times required that he use a battery of photoflood lights if he wanted to shoot color film indoors, so we have a lot of footage of my relatives raising their hands and cringing before those...

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The Friday Challenge • Judgment Day: The Appeal

After the decision in the 12/08 Friday Challenge was announced, one author filed an appeal. We promise not to make a practice of doing this, but in this one case, after discussion with the author, we have agreed to conduct a test. Herewith, a link to the story in question: » “Arfour’s Complaint,” by S. Travis Brown Now, in the column to the right, please note the associated...

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The Friday Challenge • Judgment Day

The votes are in, and the winner of the 11/17 Friday Challenge, by an overwhelming margin, is “A Once a Year Gig,” by James Westbrooks. We’ll have more to say about that one in a bit, but first off, congrats to James for the win! Now, as promised, here are our comments on the other finalists. » “No Christmas Without Santa,” by Gary Cuba What can we say about this one? Gary Cuba has been a regular contributor to Stupefying Stories and SHOWCASE...

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The Friday Challenge • 12/22/17

While the judges are evaluating the entries received for the 12/08/17 Friday Challenge, it’s time to announce today’s challenge. This one is very simple. We call it: 2018: The Year in Review Yes, that’s right. While everyone else in the media world is staring intently into the rearview mirror and writing articles looking back at the events of 2017, I want you to imagine it’s exactly one year in the future, and you are looking back at the events...

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From the SHOWCASE archives...

Fiction • “The Music Teacher,” by Mark Niemann-Ross • We have a sort of a double-header in today’s SHOWCASE archive selection. First off, I’d like to direct your attention to On writing “The Music Teacher,” by Mark Niemann-Ross, in SHOWCASE #4, which is a really good non-fiction piece about how Mark went from an idea, to a story, and then to a published story. If you...

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Free eBook Friday

It’s another FREE EBOOK FRIDAY! Beginning at midnight tonight, and continuing through Christmas Day (because who knows, maybe Santa is bringing you a shiny new Kindle?), we are giving away the Kindle editions of these two ebooks absolutely free for the cost of a click. In a galaxy where psychics are hunted outlaws... Matt Connaught’s parents have vanished. He knows that...

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It's Amazon's world, we just rent space in it

I got a query from an old friend the other day. And by old, I mean old: this is someone I’ve known for more than forty years. After a long and successful career as a teacher and writer of non-fiction books he retired, and decided to try his hand at writing a novel. In the fullness of time he actually finished his novel, and then to compound the miracle, he found a publisher...

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From the SHOWCASE archives...

Fiction • “On the Pond,” by Jake Doyle • Look at our breath rise in the crisp, cold air. Look at the moon reflecting off the black ice. Look at the snowflakes melt into the ice. Look at that ice, there’s something about it. It’s bumpy, with an occasional crack. It’s not anything like man-made ice—it lets you know where you are, let’s you feel the bumps and cracks transfer...

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Friday Challenge Reminder

Gentle reminder: the Friday Challenge deadline cometh. This post is to remind you that you have about two and a half days left in which to vote for your pick to win the 11/17 Friday Challenge. You can read the four finalists right here. Likewise, you also have about two and a half days left in which to submit your entry for the 12/08 Friday Challenge. If you need a refresher, you can read the challenge statement and submission guidelines right ...

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Book Release! Free eBook Monday!

To celebrate the escape release of Stupefying Stories #18, we are giving away the Kindle edition of this book absolutely FREE, but only for the next 24 hours. DOWNLOAD NOW Always fun and exciting, never predictable, Stupefying Stories is the terrific new reading you've been looking for! Stupefying Stories #18 features: AI, ROBOT • by Joel David Neff PRINCESS NICOTINE...

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A little something for the weekend...

Star Wars: The Last Jedi • Movie review by Bruce Bethke • Saw this movie, we did. Long, it is. Impossible to write a substantive review without including spoilers, it may be. Nonetheless, try I will. In the interests of full disclosure, though, I must lead off this review by pointing out that I contributed not one but two essays to David Brin’s Star Wars on Trial, the...

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Free eBook Friday / Book Release

It’s another FREE EBOOK FRIDAY!  Today and tomorrow only, we’re giving away the Kindle editions of these two books free. A generation ship, lost in space for more than a thousand years. A shipwrecked combat pilot, desperate to survive. A case of mistaken identity, that will spark a revolution... DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK NOW DOWNLOAD THE AUDIO BOOK NOW While...

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Teetering on the brink of release...

One of our more eye-catching covers, I thi...

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From the SHOWCASE archives...

Fiction • “Above the Ice,” by Matthew Timmins • [Nota bene: This story was published on SHOWCASE in the transitional period between the original weekly webzine format and the later WordPress site, and thus has been nearly impossible to find until now. Enjoy!] ChaaSooNiik had never been this far above her home vents before. Her mother-sister had told her what to expect...

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From the SHOWCASE archives...

Fiction • ‘A Glimmer of Artificial Intelligence,’ by various authors • While looking at the results of the 11/3 Friday Challenge and the authors’ bios for the current batch of finalists, I realized that we have published a lot of stories that spring from this same basic idea: What would be the most amusing | disturbing | frightening common thing to be given Internet...

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Let the voting begin!

Re: The Friday Challenge • 11/17 Edition As you may remember, the 11/17 Friday Challenge was to write a short, Christmas-themed SF/F story. After sorting through the flurry of stories that came in at the last minute just before the deadline, we have narrowed the list of finalists down to these four. In no particular order, then: » “No Christmas Without Santa,” by Gary Cuba » “A Once a Year Gig,” by James Westbrooks » “Grodie and The War on Christmas,”...

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The Friday Challenge: Judgment Day

The votes are in. We had a remarkable 337 individual voters cast a total of 350 votes to select the winner of the 11/3/17 Friday Challenge, which was to write a short story about the most [intrusive | obnoxious | unpleasant] common household item you could imagine to be equipped with Internet connectivity and blessed with a glimmer of artificial intelligence. The winner—by...

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The Friday Challenge • 12/08/17 Edition

WOW! The final tally shows that we had 337 voters participating in judging the 11/03 Friday Challenge, and a total of 350 votes cast. Incredibly, “The Han ‘Nasty” edged out “A Toothsome Tale” by one vote in the last minutes the poll was open. While the judges take a closer look at the voting results to ensure that there were no irregularities, I’m pleased to report that we also got a flurry of last-minute entries in the 11/17 Friday Challenge. These...

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It's another FREE BOOK FRIDAY!

For the next 48 hours, we are giving away the Kindle editions of these books for the cost of a click.* But you need to act fast, because at midnight Saturday, this offer ends. (*However, if you enjoy reading any of these books, we would really appreciate the favor of a good rating or a quick review.) This week’s free ebooks are: Scout’s Honor, by Henry Vogel The bestselling...

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A little something for the weekend...

Coco • Movie Review by Jocelyn DeVore • I was not prepared. When I watched the trailer for Coco a couple of months ago, I was excited to see that Pixar was releasing a movie filled with culture and vigor. Another culture, possibly similar to mine? Bright colors? Enthusiastic main characters? I thought I was ready. I thought that I would go in, watch a movie, and leave...

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Today on SHOWCASE

“Bogfather” • Fiction by Guy Stewart • Ozaawindib Erdrich stood with her arms crossed over her chest.   Tommy Smoke scowled, then said, “Why is it here?” Ozaawindib, who went by Win, snorted and said, “As well ask the wind why it blows.” Tommy looked at her and rolled his eyes. “That’s supposed to sound like Ojibwe chief wisdom?” “Nah, just a limnological observation,...

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Friday Challenge Update

There's still 5 days left to vote for your pick to win the 11/3 Friday Challenge. It looks like it's shaping up into a tight race between "The Han 'Nasty" by Christopher Naron and "A Toothsome Tale" by James Westbrooks, with "iGene" by Chris Pearce solidly in third place. In the meantime, the 11/17 Friday Challenge is still open to submissions, so if you're still working on your Worstest Christmas Story ever, you have 5 days to finish it and...

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Book Release • THE RECOGNITION REJECTION, by Henry Vogel

Rampant Loon Press is excited to announce the release today of THE RECOGNITION REJECTION, Book 2 in the critically acclaimed and award-nominated Recognition trilogy by bestselling author Henry Vogel. We could rave on and on about how excited we are by this book, but we’d rather quote the rave reviews for Book 1. “The characters are well-crafted, the pacing is absolutely...

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Cyber Monday Lasts All Week

Here at Rampant Loon Press, this week may begin with Cyber Monday, but it’s just a prelude to Book Release Friday. To celebrate, we’ve decided to make a whole pile of ebooks absolutely free, but only for this week. These great deals includ...

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11/3/17 Friday Challenge: And now, it's time to vote.

We’ve heard from a few folks that it’s hard to find and read all the current Friday Challenge entries, and really hard to vote for your favorite, especially if you’re reading this site on a cell phone. Therefore, to improve accessibility, here are direct links to the six stories currently in the running for the 11/3/17 Friday Challenge, as well as a direct link to the voting...

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