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Another review! Bookgasm's Rodd Lott reviews BULL SPEC #1.
Posted on 2010-04-14 at 14:10 by montsamu
While he found some things I need to do better (such as give the reader something to go on before plunging them into an interview), Bookgasm’s Rodd Lott also had some very kind things to say in his review of BULL SPEC #1, calling BULL SPEC a “worthy vehicle for the short story” and singling out the first chapter of Mike Gallagher’s serialized comic “Closed System” as “great fun.”
So check out the review!
Posted in bookgasm, reviews-of-bull-spec, rodd lott
BULL SPEC #1 PDF available under a Creative Commons license at "pay what you want." Yes, even $0.
Posted on 2010-04-09 at 02:01 by montsamu
It’s the way I wanted to do things from the beginning, and even though it is the result of an awful lot of work (and not a tiny amount of money) I’m putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to a lot of things, the two that come to mind right now are:
- Gift Economy: Don’t want to pay, don’t pay. Want to support the authors, artists, and editor behind Bull Spec? I hope I made it easy enough.
- Creative Commons: The PDF file is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This means you can e-mail it to your friends, share it using BitTorrent or whatever, even host it on a non-commercial website. I’d like to ask nicely here that you don’t host it on a website for a few months so that “the place” to get the file is through Bull Spec for a little while. After all, it’s a free download, and hopefully it’s not going anywhere.
Posted in announcements
BULL SPEC is available at two new places.
Posted on 2010-04-08 at 17:24 by montsamu
The first is at the Chapel Hill location of Ultimate Comics, where I finally met owner Alan Gill and learned about as much as I could have hoped about the local comics scene. (For example, did you know that Cowboy Ninja Viking features an Ultimate Comics cameo? I didn’t.)
The second is at the Durham County Library’s Main Branch. Don’t look for it in the periodicals section, instead head upstairs to the North Carolina Collection and look for the periodicals section. As a kid who grew up loving books and my own local public library, I’m very, very happy that you can find it there.
Posted in announcements, where to get bull spec
A truly "diabolical" contest.
Posted on 2010-04-08 at 11:00 by montsamu
The writing blog Diabolical Plots is having a little contest to celebrate its hit counter rolling into five digits, and what better way to celebrate fun base-10-centric milestones than with a giveaway? So I sent David Steffen an extra copy of Bull Spec #1 to give away.
But there’s a catch. Both Diabolical Plots and Bull Spec like to do interviews, and are asking you to give an idea of somebody in speculative fiction to interview. For the full details check out the Diabolical Plots post on the contest, and good luck!
And if you just can’t wait a week to find out if you’ve won, you can always order a copy of your own. Just sayin’. (Or head to one of the 12 Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill bookstores carrying Bull Spec and pick one up today!)
Posted in announcements, contests, diabolical plots
Well, that's neat. BULL SPEC #1 is "very cool."
Posted on 2010-04-06 at 16:25 by montsamu
In “Bull Spec” On Target for Speculative Fiction, Suvudu blogger (among many other things) Matt Staggs says the magazine is “very cool.” That’s very cool of him. Not as cool as this picture of him:
But pretty darned cool. Also “sharp-looking and smart.” That goes for Matt, too.
Posted in matt staggs, reviews-of-bull-spec
More stores, nearer you. And starting to spill the beans on BULL SPEC #2 content. And other random assortments.
Posted on 2010-04-03 at 03:48 by montsamu
First, some store updates. BULL SPEC #1 found a home in two more area stores today, bringing the total to 10. Thanks to All Fun & Games in Apex and the wonderful, amazing, beautiful shrine to books that is Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. That place… well, I hadn’t been there yet and they just jumped in line for where I’d like to do an event.
More store updates? Let’s. Talks have been going very well with some very supportive folks: managers of the Raleigh-Durham area Barnes & Noble stores. Fingers crossed, anyone?
Anyway, it’s getting too hard to keep some things to myself with respect to the second issue. So…
Now that it’s in the can (on film and disk) I’m happy to say that BULL SPEC #2 will include an interview with John Kessel. Fiction and non-fiction author, anthology editor, two-time Nebula winner, professor of creative writing and science fiction at North Carolina State University, cyclist, and very interesting fellow indeed. Hint: he’s very skeptical about using things like Moore’s “Law” to argue for the likelihood of a technological Singularity.
Stories? Yes. An absolutely wonderful science fiction story headlines BULL SPEC #2: “Hirasol” by Melissa Mead. I have two more stories booked already for the issue, the first a hard-to-classify story from Uri Grey and the second a real “ride” of a fantasy story from Kaolin Fire. Not as much local flavor as I’d like, so a 4th story from a local author will be in there somewhere, maybe a 4th and a 5th, depending on whether I take another novel excerpt or not.
Some other interviews are planned, some poems are booked, some reviews are starting to come together, and, of course, the second (of four) parts of Mike Gallagher’s serialized graphic short story “Closed System” will remain the physical centerpiece of the issue.
Among other things, I am looking for a short essay to be translated into English/Spanish/French/Chinese for the issue, and if you read Josh Whiton’s “There Are No Orcs” in BULL SPEC #1 you would have a good idea what I am looking for.
On BULL SPEC #1: the PDF version is nearly ready, with some final bits to tweak. (Some early review copies were already sent out.) However the click-through “pay what you want, even $0” e-order system is barely started. I know I need to get that available to folks, and I’ll keep the midnight oil going until it’s ready.
And I’m way, way behind on reading submissions. Sorry to everybody on that front. But I hope the pavement pounding I’ve been doing to get into stores, and the stack of review copies I’ve been mailing out, end up paying dividends enough to make it worth the wait.
Posted in announcements
Mail troubles.
Posted on 2010-03-30 at 15:30 by montsamu
Due to ongoing issues receiving e-mail directed @bullspec.com addresses (including missed submissions without any failure message to the recipient!), I’ve changed to a new mail host. There will likely be some transition period while different DNS servers update, and I apologize to folks who have been impacted by this. Hopefully it will be sorted out for the better as soon as possible.
Posted in announcements
There will be snacks!
Posted on 2010-03-23 at 14:55 by montsamu
As I mentioned over on BULL SPEC’s Facebook page there will be a serious array of desserts at the launch party, thanks to the lovely and talented (and infinitely patient) Mrs. BULL SPEC. She saw a blog post on Will Gwaltny’s Writing for Sanity which hoped “wishfully” that there would be food, and decided to make it so, to the tune of: brownies, lemon bars, rice krispy treats, cupcakes, sugar cookies, and, for the health-conscious among such a prodigious proliferation of pastries, a fruit salad.
So don’t miss it! Along with, of course, readings, hands-on with the printing proof copies and the cover art, …
Posted in Uncategorized
Some photos!
Posted on 2010-03-19 at 16:03 by montsamu
Over a hastily constructed and eaten sandwich for lunch, some photos posted onto the Bull Spec Facebook photo page:
Going from proofing the first issue:
To receiving the first shipment:
To finding it in the store:
I didn’t take a single photo when delivering copies to stores or the large stack of outgoing mail… next time! And all current orders have either been mailed or delivered. Somebody fix that for me, eh?
Posted in announcements, photos
Available at a store near you: and getting nearer!
Posted on 2010-03-17 at 23:43 by montsamu
By Monday, Durham (The Regulator Bookshop, Sci-Fi Genre Comics & Games) and Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill Comics, Internationalist Books) had their first stack of copies in stock. Tuesday saw Raleigh get some BULL SPEC #1 love at Quail Ridge Books & Music.
If that wasn’t close enough for your tastes, today, two more stores joined the BULL SPEC fold! Foundation’s Edge on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh and Storytellers Book Store in Wake Forest both took their first shipment as well.
All pre-orders have been mailed out (and I’ve already heard from two folks that they’ve received them already!) and all but one local delivery has been couriered.
See everybody in just under a week at the launch party at The Regulator!
Posted in announcements
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