This is it. STUPEFYING STORIES #21 goes out of print forever in about 12 hours. This is your last chance to get the Kindle edition for free. All you need to do is click the link. How much easier could it be?DOWNLOAD IT NOW ►&nb...
Sunday, October 31, 2021
Saturday, October 30, 2021
Assorted Reminders and Updates
STUPEFYING STORIES #21 goes out of print forever on Monday, November 1, which means you now have about 36 hours left in which to grab the free Kindle edition. Don’t miss your chance to get the collection that reviewer Hamilcar Barca described thusly: “All of the tales are well-structured and well-written. I was pleasantly surprised that none of the writers were "weak...
The Spooky Season: Let's Talk About Zombies! • by Ray Daley
While I'm mostly known for writing science fiction, one of the other hats I wear is that of a horror writer. I love me a good horror film, be it haunted houses, undead armies, crazed slashers or whatever. There's nothing like a damn good scare.
I saw my first X-rated horror film when I was 13—The Sword & The Sorcerer. Let me tell you this, a guy gets his head...
SHOWCASE: “REVIVAL” • by Bruce Arthurs
When the dead came back, they turned out to be assholes.
“Wake up, dude.”
I cracked an eye open, groaning, hoping it wasn’t cops. Roscoe, the mutt who stays with me for some stupid dog reason, was sitting up beside the shopping cart. The cart was jammed out of sight between two bushes growing by the funeral home. I’d worked my way behind the bushes a few hours earlier...
Friday, October 29, 2021
Talking Shop: Eric's Writing Challenge Update 16
To date, I've written about 82150 words toward the 87,500 word goal. That puts me about 94% of the way toward meeting the goal. I wrote about 4500 words on the urban fantasy over the last couple of weeks. That works out to about 2250 word each week or around 320 words per day.Yeah, the writing challenge update is lot less exciting now that the first
draft of Rinn's Run is...
Q: Why is Stupefying Stories #21 available only on Kindle?
As the free ebook promotion runs its course and the hours to its going out of print tick away—we’re now at T-minus 60 hours and counting—another pair of questions about STUPEFYING STORIES #21 have come up again. Why is it available only on Kindle? Why isn’t there a print edition?
DOWNLOAD IT NOW ►
The answer, unfortunately, is pretty simple and stupid. SS#21 was...
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Q: Is Privateers of Mars a comic book?
This question has been asked before, but now that it’s been asked again I suppose I’d better answer it. No, PRIVATEERS OF MARS is not a comic book or graphic novel. Structurally it’s three sequential short stories that add up to the length of a novella. I rather liked the way one reviewer put it: “it reads like three episodes of a great science fiction show that you...
T-minus Four Days and Counting
First item on the agenda: the “get it now before it goes out of print forever” free e-book giveaway for STUPEFYING STORIES #21 continues, from now through midnight on October 31st. If you want to read my complete eulogy for the book you can do so at this link, but if you just want to cut to the chase and download the e-book now, here’s the Amazon link.
DOWNLOAD IT NOW ►
Hmm....
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Updates
We have a lot of things going on behind the scenes here at RLP right now, so here’s a quick mid-week roundup. STUPEFYING STORIES #21 has reached end-of-contract-life and goes out of print on Monday, November 1. If you haven’t looked at this issue yet, this is your big—and last—chance. For the next five days we are giving away the Kindle edition FREE, for the cost of...
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Talking Shop: About False Starts
An aspiring writer asks (truncating and paraphrasing now):People always say, ‘Go with your gut feeling.’ But what if my gut feeling tells me to trash the whole stupid thing and start over?It sounds like you’ve run into the “pantser” vs “plotter” dichotomy. Ask yourself, how do you begin to write a new story? Do you just have an idea spring semi-formed into your...
CREATING ALIEN ALIENS: Part 2 – How Do I Present Alien Aliens So Humans Can “Get It”? THEME…
Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota. Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS...
Monday, October 25, 2021
And now it's time to say goodbye...
STUPEFYING STORIES #21 has reached end of contract life and is going out of print. I was really proud of this issue: it has a really strong selection of stories and I spent a small fortune on the original art for the cover story, “DEW Line,” by K. H. Vaughan. That’s why I’ve posted the art here sans lettering. This one would have made a good poster. Please take a moment...
Sunday, October 24, 2021
IT'S ALIVE!
It’s our first HARDCOVER, and it’s a beaut! THE LOST PLANET is now live on Amazon! Never mind the “Not for Resale” banner in the photo: that’s something Amazon slaps on proof copies to make sure we can’t pre-order copies for a launch party before the book goes live on Amazon. (Grumble, grumble.) The point is, the book is real! It’s really really real! THE LOST PLANET...
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Movie Review • “DUNE: It's Got a Lot of Problems..." by Ray Daley
WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS!
So I recently got to see the new version of Dune. I'd seen all the trailers. I was looking forward to it but had a few reservations.
Reservation 1 - The Star
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides. He looks about fourteen and is so skinny it appears he’d probably snap in half in a brisk breeze. He does not look like the saviour of a planet, not...
Friday, October 22, 2021
A Tale of Two Book Covers (Part 1)
I’ve been taking a really deep dive into marketing lately, to try to learn what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong, and where we can improve. The objective of Rampant Loon Press is to get people to buy and read books, after all. That’s our entire, fundamental, raison d'être. If people aren’t reading what we publish, nothing else we do matters.And to be blunt, sales...
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Help Wanted: SF Readers
Eric Dontigney has just turned in the first draft of his new unabashed space opera, RINN’S RUN. From what I’ve seen of it thus far it’s pretty exciting, but I haven’t had time to read the entire manuscript myself.Ergo, I’d like to do something a bit different this time. What I am looking for now are four or five people willing to read the manuscript and form a focus...
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Think Before You Kill • by Marie Brennan
Some authors really enjoy killing characters, and some kinds of story practically require it. But any time you start offing people in a tale, you run the risk of yanking away one of the main supporting beams of the audience’s interest. Many of us engage with the mystery or threat through the conduit of one or more characters, and once those characters are dead, we find ourselves...
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
CREATING ALIEN ALIENS: Part 1 -- The Premise and Groundwork
Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS...