Coming Attractions (& Such)

Tomorrow on SHOWCASE: “Market Futures,” by M. Ian Bell A murdered man. An impossibly clean crime scene. Plenty of people with a motive to be the killer, but none with the opportunity, and no one leaves behind a crime scene that devoid of clues. Detective Ellouise Nielson has had some tough cases before, but this one might just set the record... “Market Futures,” a new...

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On Writing: “After ‘Oath,’” by Guy Stewart

Worlds are supposed to be long-lasting, apparently eternal to those that live on them and even in fact whirling around their stars for a long, long time. This is what I’ve always wanted to do when writing science fiction—create long-lasting worlds so that I could return to them again and again. Last Saturday’s SHOWCASE story, “Oath”, was the first story to grow from a...

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Status Update • 11/28/2018

We have a lot of new developments to report, so I’m going to put on my serious business face and cut right to the chase. » Print Editions: I’m delighted to report that we’ve finally solved the problem of how to generate ebooks and print books from common source files. (And no, Henry, the solution was not, “Buy a Mac.”) Ergo, next week we’ll be releasing Stupefying Stories...

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STUPEFYING STORIES 22 ESCAPES!

CYBER MONDAY SPECIAL! To celebrate the release of Stupefying Stories 22, for today only, we’re giving the Kindle edition away FREE for the cost of a click. Download it now from: » AMAZON.COM » AMAZON.CO.UK » AMAZON.DE » AMAZON.FR » AMAZON.ES » AMAZON.IT » AMAZON.NL » AMAZON.CO.JP » AMAZON.COM.BR » AMAZON.CA » AMAZON.COM.MX » AMAZON.COM.AU » AMAZON.IN (Of course, if...

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OP-ED: “A Generation Ship The Size of a Small Planet,” by Bruce Bethke

Nota Bene: You can blame Guy Stewart for this. A few days ago he sent me off on a quest into the RLP archives to find some things relating to his short story, “Oath,” and along the way I found this one again. I had a vague recollection of having written it, and had always meant to revisit the core idea for a new feature to be called either Tropisms or Books I’ll Never...

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SHOWCASE: “Oath,” by Guy Stewart

Anna Joaquim sighed contentedly, taking Dabney Joaquim’s arm and snuggling closer. She did not have eyes for him, though. Looking into the deep darkness of the Wild Lands beyond the Interstate Rail car window, she whispered, “I love you.” Dabney knew her action and words were, if not a lie, at least a gross misrepresentation of her feelings. He detected the lack of proper...

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Upcoming Releases

We have a lot of projects in development right now, and I probably should talk more about what’s going on behind the scenes here at Rampant Loon Press, but having done so before, I have a profound fear of jinxing books by talking about them too soon. HENRY VOGEL has no such fear, though. In fact, he’s developed the remarkable habit of writing his books online and posting...

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SHOWCASE: “Invasive Species,” by Steve Quinn

“Do you know how many species of post-arboreal bipeds we have on the conservation list?” the vaguely froglike creature asked. It was the size of a rhinoceros and using its tongue to manipulate a three-dimensional holographic listing of species and their home systems. “Not offhand, no,” Megan said. Her supervisor, the American Ambassador to the United Nations, would probably...

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For Discussion

Which is the greater virtue: equality of opportunity or equality of outcome?  I ask because Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s story, “Harrison Bergeron,” has been much on my mind lately: so much so that I just wasted twenty minutes trying to scan a page of it from my 40-something-year-old copy of Welcome to the Monkey House. My computer and scanner aren’t talking to each other...

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A View from the Geek

• "Geeking Is Good," By Eric Dontigney • When I was a kid, geeking was purely the domain of D&D players, fantasy fiction buffs, and hardcore science fiction fans. At least, that was the general perception. Some of this was simply a byproduct of visibility and intensity. By and large, the groups listed above were populated by social outcasts, kids with lots...

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Discussion: Input Wanted

I have a problem with prescience: to me, it’s always been useless. There are days it seems as if I’m condemned to live in the future I envisioned, with absolutely no hope of changing its course. For example, today, I’m going to get all self-referential and—well, reference myself, or more specifically, this interview I did with Lynne Jamneck for Strange Horizons more than...

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BREAKING NEWS: Disney to Remake Outlaw King!

Just kidding. You can resume breathing. Yes, we did watch Outlaw King this weekend: my wife, because she finds Chris Pine to be pleasing eye-candy, and me—actually, she kind of dragged me into watching it. I’m already quite familiar with the story. Robert the Bruce is a distant ancestor, after all. It was not by accident that my Dad named my older brother Robert, and me......

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Armistice Day 2018

A century ago today, the guns on the Western Front fell silent, and “the war to end all wars” came to an official close. That wasn’t exactly what really happened, of course: on the Eastern Front, the Great War segued into the Russian Revolution, followed by the Polish-Soviet War and then the Russian Civil War. On the Greco-Turkish front, the fighting continued until...

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The Friday Challenge: 11/09/2018 Edition

Posting on Saturday morning, because to be honest, by the time I got done with all the work that absolutely needed to be done by E.O.B. Friday, I just wanted to relax, enjoy dinner, and then kick back with a glass of wine and watch Incredibles 2. Good movie, by the way. If you enjoyed The Incredibles, this is one of those rare sequels that picks up from where the first...

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Bad Imitation Lovecraft Contest: AND THE WINNER IS...

After taking an entire week longer than originally planned to reach a decision, and after doing my best to pawn the responsibility off on someone else recruit celebrity judges to help guide our decision-making, I am delighted to announce two things: 1. That after a surprising amount of debate, we finally have settled on a clear winner for the Bad Imitation Lovecraft Friday...

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SHOWCASE: “Nights Over Ganymede,” by Victoria Feistner

Three days of riots. Three days of burning, coughing gutter-smoke, air-hoarding. Watching gauges on tanks like it’s a bartender pouring your first legal drink. Three days of gunfire, leaping at shadows, holding your breath while the god Jupiter stares down on us. Jupiter doesn’t care. Half the time I want to be out there with them, shouting and throwing trash from...

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SHOWCASE: “The Last Interview,” by Chris Dean

The man’s face is gone, shredded and pasted into white mosaic. His eyes are blue-pink with despair as he strolls with arms jouncing into my office. He has on the ugliest affable smile I have ever witnessed. It is a puerile, disturbing act, this bravado. “May I?” His tone is perfectly suited. He may, I gesture, and he is careful to place himself into the chair in the most...

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SHOWCASE: “Night Shift,” by David Hann

Rick Clayton wiped the sweat off his brow. It was after eight in the evening, the factory doors were open to the night air, but it was still in the mid 90s. Rick hated July. Rick, to be fair, hated a lot of things. Right now it was humidity, heat, and the weight of the boxes he was shifting that dominated his thoughts, but given time he could think of a great many...

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Re the Bad Imitation Lovecraft Challenge

As of the Saturday deadline, we’d received six viable entries for the Bad Imitation Lovecraft challenge. Another entry was disqualified for exceeding the 100-word limit—by a factor of 40X, which in itself is impressive overachievement—and as for the Lovecraft limerick we received......

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SHOWCASE: “Hunter’s Moon,” by Edward Ahern

“You headed out tonight, Otis?” “Got to. Clear sky, full moon. None better.” “Maybe not. Tom Sizemore went out two year ago, never come back.” “Tommy was a drunk.” Otis reached up to the gun rack and lifted off a Savage lever action .308. He was forty years old, and the gun was a lot older than he was. As he mounted a flashlight atop the barrel, he talked to it. “All...

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One More Bad Imitation Lovecraft Contest Update

Just a quick reminder: the Bad Imitation Lovecraft contest is still open for submissions. The official deadline for submissions is midnight Central time tonight, but as usual, the Snowdog Rule* applies. See this post for more information. [* Briefly stated, the Snowdog Rule holds that while the official deadline may be midnight tonight, the practical deadline is whenever I wake up and check my email tomorrow, as there ain’t no way I’m staying up...

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Talking Shop

re pseudonyms (cont’d) One argument in favor of using a pseudonym is that life can get very weird when you become a public figure; even as minor a public figure as a published writer. There is a small but determined subset of the species who seem to believe that because they’ve read and liked something you’ve written, you’re their new best friend, and you would be...

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