BULL SPEC #3 has gone to the printers! (Pre-orders, anyone?)

Posted on 2010-10-06 at 21:37 by montsamu

Whew. It’s been quite a ride, but Bull Spec #3 is now in the printer’s hands. That means:

• Sample is up at Issuu! (Includes the complete “Happenings” section so dig in!)
• You can pre-order issue #3 right now!
• If you are a reviewer, you can request an early PDF copy be e-mailed to you (must accept 25 MB attachments!)
• Deliveries (local subscribers and stores) and mailings in 10 days or so!

• United Kingdom orders or subscriptions may select United States shipping! Yeah!
• I’m working on Australia. Honest. Let me know how hard I should be working on that in the comments.

Posted in announcements

First two interviews videos are on YouTube.

Posted on 2010-09-16 at 18:38 by montsamu

Well, it’s not nearly a podcast, but at least (after 8 months…) the first two interview videos are up on YouTube. Each had to be split into 3 parts to fit the “max 15 minute clips” format there, but, hey, at least they are up!

LEE HAMMOCK:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


SCI-FI GENRE COMICS & GAMES:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Posted in interviews, lee hammock, sci-fi genre

Third Bear Carnival: a Bull Spec contest with 3 identical prizes. First, the meta contest.

Posted on 2010-09-14 at 19:05 by montsamu

I’m quite late to the festival which is/was Matthew Cheney’s Third Bear Carnival. But to make up for this tardiness, I have 3 copies of Jeff VanderMeer’s recent collection The Third Bear which need a good home:

   

Posted in contests, third bear carnival

A sneak peek at issue #4's editorial...

Posted on 2010-09-12 at 19:15 by montsamu

Hey all; while I haven’t even put together issue #3’s yet, I have something already burning its way out of my mind and into draft for issue #4: the important SF/F books of 2010.

There’s still a few months left, but here is a sneak peek at what and why:

1. The SHINE anthology edited by Jetse de Vries (Solaris). Optimistic SF is hard and important; if we as speculative fiction writers cannot see our way convincingly to something optimistic from where we are, perhaps that is as good an argument as any that we’re in a lot of collective trouble here on this shimmering blue rock. SHINE delivered this, but not in a token, “oh, they found some optimistic stories” way. Rather, it was with great stories. So that’s important, and hopefully sets the tone for what makes a book important to me.
2. THE DERVISH HOUSE by Ian McDonald (Pyr). I’m not going to talk to much about this, as I’ll let the review in issue #3 from Richard Dansky do that; but while the book has its critics for being labelable as (paraphrasing Saladin Ahmed in late 2009, off-handedly responding to the jacket copy) “yet another terrorism in the near future arabic world book” it does almost the inverse of what the SHINE anthology does. In a way similar (to me) to how THE WINDUP GIRL did so in 2009, THE DERVISH HOUSE shows us, clearly and believable, where we are currently going. It shows a possible positive future in negative space. Of course, that is likely my reading through my incredibly narrow lens into the book, which attempts to fit as many nearly square pegs into a rigidly square hole as possible, but: there it is.
3. THE ALCHEMIST & THE EXECUTIONESS by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias Buckell. This book, a pair of novellas (yes, yes, I heart novellas) by two of this generation’s most imaginative authors, would not make this list on its beautiful, dark fantasy alone; or on its deep, convincing worldbuilding; or its touching and very human characters. That is because this list is not about “the best” books — those qualities I mentioned might indeed put this book onto such a list, but I will not be doing such a list, so that leaves me with my own list. It is something else about this book, combined with its quality, which brings it here. That is: this is not actually a “book”. It is produced first and exclusively (so far) as an audiobook from Audible. Let me say this again: two of this generation’s most imaginative storytellers took an amazing pair of novellas and it is published directly and only as a digital audiobook. Something about that tips the scales from a “best” list to my “important” list.

1. SACRED SPACE by Douglas E. Cowan (Baylor University Press). This is a non-fiction book which tackles the idea that much of our science fiction is a quest for meaning. Baylor University Press sent it my way some time ago, but I haven’t had a chance to dig into to see how it does at its task. It is asking an important question, which gets my attention.
2. The AETHER AGE anthology edited by Christopher Fletcher and Brandon Bell (Hadley Rille). This book has had my attention since its inception as a “Shared World” anthology — to be published as a Creative Commons share-alike world. These things have happened before, but this one is really in a position to be interesting and important, as it asks a couple of questions. What might have happened if the printing press and literacy had been widespread as early as 3000 BCE? Can a CC-SA licensed book really be, well, good?
3. The GATEWAYS anthology edited by Elizabeth Hull (Tor). (Did I mention this was the year of the anthology? It was. So many good ones.) Based on some reviews, this one has me quite curious. Pohl wrote (and writes!) on some important themes (consumerism, overpopulation) and an anthology of work inspired by his is indeed something I hope to find time to check out before the year runs out.
4. The MONGOLIAD. I don’t know at all what to make of this yet. But another attempt at a serialized novel (the last one I followed was King’s THE PLANT) along with illustrations, maps, all kinds of odd weird historical fiction goodness. From Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, and more.

Posted in Uncategorized

So many, many things.

Posted on 2010-09-11 at 17:52 by montsamu

First, a “fall” flyer is here, which stretches from mid-September through November. Contents are basically:


GUIDE TO LOCAL EVENTS
FALL 2010

SEPTEMBER
12 McIntyre’s Books hosts Warren Rochelle for a reading and signing of his new novel The Called
21 Duke University hosts William Gibson for a local stop on his tour promoting his new novel Zero History


OCTOBER
22 Quail Ridge Books hosts Scott Westerfeld for a reading and signing of his new young adult novel Behemoth, sequel to Leviathan
26 Mark Van Name reads from and talks about his new science fiction novel Children No More at The Regulator Bookshop; author’s proceeds donated to Falling Whistles, a child soldier rehabilitation charity

NOVEMBER
12 Clay and Susan Griffith will read and sign their upcoming novel The Greyfriar: Vampire Empire at Quail Ridge Books
16 Cate Tiernan will read and sign her new young adult novel Immortal Beloved at The Regulator Bookshop

Not listed there is NC Comicon on 13-14 November in Morrisville. When there’s a little more room off the top, I’ll get a new flyer put together, hopefully to include the Bull Spec #3 launch and a few more things in the works along the local rumor mill.

OK. Second! Bull Spec #3 has cover art, and Firetower Studios’ Jason Strutz is the source. He’s posted a nice little walkthrough of starting with a sketch and building it into the finished piece:

Posted in bull spec #3, flyers

Further afield. Some things beginning to unwrap.

Posted on 2010-09-01 at 02:09 by montsamu

So: making a bit of a regional and further push as I put the wraps on issue #2. (Which includes another box, though I have to decide how many.) A lot (lot!) of the regional pushes (Acme Comics in Greensboro, Barnes & Noble of Burlington, Black Bear Books of Boone, etc.) are pending, but a few further afield places are giving me a shot.

CHICAGO: Quimby’s Bookstore will take anything, so I’m not special. But it was nice to get an e-mail receipt from them, so I know they’ve received the books. So, my fine Chicago friends, give me a stock check, will you? (And see if you can resist that cover for #2, eh?)

PORTLAND: Powell’s took a look at an evaluation copy, and I doubt they’ve received their shipment yet. But maybe tomorrow. So, my fine Portland friends, give me a stock check, will you?

And I’m still looking for places in Charlotte and Wilmington to be willing to even take a look at an evaluation copy. If you’ve got ideas, let me know!

And something which has been a bit under wraps for a bit is starting to leak out, so I’ll go ahead and put it out there. Soon I’ll be making a bit of a push for benefactors, patrons, etc. There have been more than a few folks who have been incredible with their support, not just in terms of money for printing copies and buying words, but deliveries, flyering, time, etc. So I’m going to recognize a few of them, and shamelessly invite more folks to join in on that side of things. (Particularly since I’m burning through the last of the convention sales to print that last box of #2.)

Posted in meta, store-announcements

September 2010 events flyer.

Posted on 2010-08-31 at 16:15 by montsamu

The flyers seem to be a fairly popular little thing, so here is the September 2010 Local Events/News flyer. It is a PDF file which you may and probably should print out a bunch of times and put everywhere.

Inside:

• Natania Barron is published (“The Wakened Image”)  in Weird Tales #356, the Summer 2010 “Uncanny Beauty” issue
• Kij Johnson is published (“Names For Water”) in Asimov’s October 2010

Posted in events, flyers

Issue #1 is back in stock. In a big, big way. And quarters. And more.

Posted on 2010-08-26 at 00:57 by montsamu

So. I can’t really say enough about Publisher’s Press, without whom I don’t think it would have been possible to start an honest-to-goodness, full-size, glossy, thick stock, some color print magazine at all. When I sold out of issue #1 at NASFIC I figured I was done with issue #1, period, end of story.

But then folks kept asking for #1. Heck, bookstores called me and asked for #1. So, I caved. I called up my printer and asked about one last run. Deliriously happy with the quote, I ordered one last box, and soon at least Chapel Hill Comics and Quail Ridge Books will have some of them. (I think Foundation’s Edge still has a couple as well.)

I now have 173 more copies (!!) which brings the total issue #1 print run over 500, which, combined with the PDF downloads, sends issue #1 over 1000 total. A big, big milestone. If, by some miracle (by which I mean NASFIC coming to Raleigh every quarter…) that keeps up, one of my big goals for Bull Spec — SFWA qualification — has a chance of happening.

Another of my big goals was to get all 4 “quarterly” issues into calendar year 2010. Given that it took 4 months to put together issue #1, and another 4 to put together issue #2, I had to hit the ground running with issue #3. Well, issue #3 (“Autumn”) is shaping up; the fiction’s booked and nearly edited; art is starting to come in; the poetry’s in; some reviews are in; an interview is in (Paul Riddell) and another is half in (the local writer and artist behind The Order of Dagonet). I’ve got a lot of work to do on the David Drake interview (i.e. actually put it together and send it to him) but there’s more.

Joe. Freaking. Haldeman. I had an amazing pair of chats with him at NASFIC, from how he writes (longhand, fountain pen by lantern light, 300 words a day) to what he thinks of 100K word novels, Dexter, audiobooks of his own stories, and more. I haven’t decided if I’m going to present it in “interview” or “article” mode yet, but I have a lot of work to do in either case. (Much more on an article, but it’s probably time for me to dust off some of those old journalistic skills. An article can also be more dangerous; by necessity, or at least in order to avoid Sahara-like dryness, an article needs a hook or angle to it, it needs to be trying to say something. We’ll see.)

But yet, wait, wait, there’s more. Yes, more.

Bull Spec #2 is now available at the Greenville Barnes & Noble, as well as “Sweets & News” at Northgate Mall in Durham. Boo-yah! The empire grows.

Bull Spec #2 is under evaluation at: Powell’s (Portland, Oregon); Burlington B&N; Acme Comics in Greensboro; Coffee Hound Bookshop in Louisburg, NC; Downtown Books & News in Asheville, NC; and, though they may not realize it yet, Black Bear Books in Boone, NC. I don’t know what it is, it’s a personal crusade of mine at this point to get Black Bear Books to carry the magazine. I visited them only once (twice? does stopping only for Bald Guy Coffee count?) but absolutely loved the place.

OK. Whew. Is that it? No. There’s more. But no time. Another day. And much work to be done before then.

But a quick last missive: Issue #3 has none (zero) booked advertising. That’s bubbling its way pretty high up the todo list right now.

Posted in meta

How far is Pittsboro?

Posted on 2010-08-13 at 19:09 by montsamu

For most of us around the Raleigh-Durham area, luckily that answer doesn’t fully apply when talking about McIntyre’s Books. Fearrington Village is about halfway from Chapel Hill to Pittsboro along US 15-501, which is far, but maybe not too far for a couple of local events of Bull Spec interest:

The first is so recently booked that it isn’t yet on the village calendar but it has made it onto Mark Van Name’s events so I think it’s safe to say it’s official. Mark will be at McIntyre’s on Sunday, August 29 at 2 PM, reading from and talking about his new book Children No More (Baen, August 2010) and, I think it’s safe to say, Falling Whistles.

Posted in events

Two new homes for Bull Spec! Also, flyers! Also, a brief aside on selling out.

Posted on 2010-08-10 at 19:26 by montsamu

I’m very happy indeed that there are two more places in the Triangle where folks can get their hands on a copy of Bull Spec #2: The Durham County Library’s Southwest Regional Branch on Shannon Road, and Duke University’s Gothic Bookshop.

I want to talk about the library first, not only because it was there first chronologically but because, well, it’s very awesome for me on a personal level to know that somebody can walk into the library and discover worlds, as I did all through my youth at my “home” public library in Marion, Indiana. The magazine was already at the Durham main branch’s North Carolina Collection but the hours there are a little more limited, and it is primarily used as an archival and research room. Now, folks can come in, flip through without tweezers, etc. And I love this. I absolutely love it.

Secondly, I’d been trying to figure out a way to approach Gothic Bookshop for a while. It’s in the heart of Duke campus, so it’s not a place I generally pass by on the way to or from anywhere, I’m not a regular customer there, and it’s been a good long while since I had a serious connection with Duke. But, from the world of random events, I saw that they were looking for somebody to hand out flyers at NASFIC for the upcoming William Gibson book tour, and, hey, I was driving to NASFIC from not too far from campus… so I ended up with a stack of bright yellow flyers and finally that random connection to the store; now it’s in stock, so, “Let’s Go Duke!” and head to Gothic, eh?

Thirdly, flyers. While versions will come and go, here are some flyer links:

• Current Bull Spec bookstore locations flyer (updated for Gothic!)
• Current Bull Spec guide to late summer events flyer (updated for Stephen Messer at Quail Ridge Books on August 19!)

Posted in meta, store-announcements