Creating Alien Aliens, Part 7: Really Strange Sensory Suites and 'Knowing What Creature Might Be Domesticated' Might Be A Sense In Itself…And Other Thoughts…

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...

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Urgent Update • email outage

Thanks to GoDaddy’s unilateral decision to move all our email accounts to Microsoft Exchange and pipe all messages through the Outlook content filters, we have lost effective control of our email accounts. The ONLY Rampant Loon Media email account that still seems to be working somewhat reliably is submissions@rampantloonmedia.com.If you have another email address for us, forget it. Going forward, use only the submissions email address, until such...

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The First Sunday After Thanksgiving

Today’s reading is from the Book of Leviticus, chapter 7, verses 11 through 18. 11 And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the LORD.12 If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil,...

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Status Update • 27 November 2021

 Just discovered: the seamless migration to Microsoft Exchange wasn’t. I thought it went off without a hitch because email still seemed to be getting through. What I didn’t realize until this morning is that even though we don’t use Outlook—I dislike Office 365 in general and loathe Outlook specifically—Exchange “helpfully” routes all our email through the Outlook junk...

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Happy Thanksgiving (Actual)

While searching the RLP stock art library for the illo I used with yesterday’s post, I came across this one, which I share with you now. I’m not sure exactly why this bit of CGI creeps me out—maybe it’s the lit-from-the-underside face, maybe it’s the dead doll eyes—but when I look at it I hear an eerie female voice, superficially soft and sweet but with a demonic grating edge,...

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Happy Thanksgiving!

 Enjoy the holiday. Enjoy the time with your family and friends. You may loathe Aunt Luella’s infamous casserole now—there are only so many times you can look at that chipped Pyrex dish filled with French-cut green beans drowned in Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup and sprinkled with French’s crispy fried onion bits straight out of the can before you get religion, or...

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Cowboy Bebop (live action) Review • By Eric Dontigney

So, the live-action Cowboy Bebop show finally dropped on Netflix to a wholly unsurprising bashing by professional critics. To that, I say, you people take yourselves too damn seriously. Unfortunately, that also meant that you took this show too damn seriously. More surprising were all the viewers who took issue with it for reasons that, honestly, I’m struggling to fathom....

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Creating Alien Aliens, Part 6: The Horrible Alien as a HERO...

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...

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Talking Shop: Turning Bad Ideas into Good Ones • By Eric Dontigney

Yesterday’s post focused on what geek queen Felicia Day refers to as “chocolate fountain” people. That is, creative types for whom ideas flow like a chocolate fountain. For those people, the problem is never having or coming up with ideas, it’s sorting out the really good ideas from the not-so-great ideas. What about people who don’t have that idea machine in their brain?...

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Talking Shop: The Idea Machine • By Eric Dontigney

The subject of creativity is a popular one in the writer set. Given the central role that creativity plays in the fiction profession, it’s no wonder that writers obsess about it. I’ve met some writers who agonize over coming up with ideas for any kind of writing. It’s a legitimate struggle they face, and I feel for them. Not having ideas when you want to create is awful.Yet,...

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Creating Alien Aliens, Part 5: How Can I POSSIBLY Think Like An Alien?

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...

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Schedule Change

I’ve decided to push today’s planned SHOWCASE package back a few days. Nothing bad going on here; I’ve just decided it needs a bit more work before I unleash it. Have a good weekend.—Bruce Bethke ...

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"When Good Salad Bars Go Bad" • by Gustavo Bondoni

  The worst thing about being an apprentice had to be negotiating with the demons. That went double when you summoned them without the master’s permission. “I get it. You’re angry I woke you. But could you at least stop pushing the ship down while we talk?” Gene said. The algae monster he’d summoned roared something incomprehensible. “You’re not supposed to kill everyone,...

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"Bargaining Power" • by Mary Berman

  The worst thing about being an apprentice had to be negotiating with the demons.  Here Tony was, clinging to a hunk of flotsam, saltwater already erasing the bloody pentagram he’d hastily streaked into the wood, the waterlogged bodies of the ship’s crew swirling about, and the demon prince he’d summoned to his rescue said regretfully, “I just don’t think that’s...

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Re: Point of View • by Bruce Bethke

This may come as a surprise, but I still study the craft of writing. I am… many years old. My work has been published professionally in a wide variety of venues since the 1970s. I have seen my work hit the bestseller lists and be nominated for and win awards for decades.Yet I still study the craft. In part it’s to understand why I do the things I instinctively choose...

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"Out With the Old" • by Eric Fomley

   The process server I’d been dodging for months spotted me. I was taking the old boat out when I saw the sniveling little ‘bot coming down the pier.  I gunned it. “Oh,” he said to me over my HUD. “Running from a legal entity on a boat. Brilliant plan, sir.”  I ignored him.  When I looked back, the server ‘bot flashed some documentation to another...

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