Posts Tagged ‘MKeaton’
ORBITAL LOVECRAFT is sort of a sub-subtitle and “Dark of the Moon” (see September 10, July 31) is my story in it. The Amazon blurb reads simply enough:
STRANGE AEON: 2021 brings you seventeen stories of cosmic horror in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith.
Tales by Erica Ruppert, Gregory L. Norris, G. Nicholas Miranda, DJ Tyrer, C. I. Kemp, James Dorr, John A. Frochio, Damir Salkovic, J. L. Royce, Jeffery Scott Sims, Davin Ireland, Alfred D. Byrd, Tais Teng, S. Cameron David, Gordon Linzner, Lena Ng, and your host, M. Keaton with original art by Joel Martin.
But one more thing to quote (blush) is from editor Keaton, preceding the bio that follows my story in the book: “Dark of the Moon” is one of this century’s classic Mythos tales and I’m thrilled to be able to include it here. Well, yes, it has at least been around for awhile by 21st Century standards, having been originally published in THE CHILDREN OF CTHULHU (Del Rey, 2002), as well as one or two places since.
To see it this time, though, with sixteen more stories and even occasional illustrations, one may press here.
Another quickie, though two or three days in the completing. Wednesday the email arrived from STRANGE AEON: 2021 (FEARFUL WISDOM): Welcome to the editing process. . . . Well, we know the routine, the story this time being “Dark of the Moon” (see July 31), originally published in THE CHILDREN OF CTHULU (Del Rey, 2002 — it being a reprint is important in that it means it’s been through a publisher’s edit before, with likely a minimum of changes to be asked for this time). The only problem: the vintage Computer Cave laptop wouldn’t open the file that came with it.
But that’s not new either, and more modern computers are at hand in the County Library. Except the next day, when I packed up an earlier printed copy (just in case) and, at the library, fired up their machine, the file still wouldn’t open! So all one could do was reply to the email, requesting perhaps an RTF or PDF file instead. Except. . . .
Except then I considered. Some of library’s terminals, installed at varying times, have on past occasions shown their own individual strangenesses. So, why not?, I tried another . . . and this one worked! I don’t say I know why, but all that’s important is that, as predicted, the changes and/or questions asked were few and, with only one request for a correction at my end, back the file went Thursday afternoon.
The call seemed like a winner. I want good, solid stories in a cosmic horror/Lovecraftian vein. I specifically say Lovecraftian rather than Cthulu because I’d like stories across the entire Mythos, including additions by the original group of Mythos authors like Robert Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. In fact, this year I’d like to use more stories that do not have specific Lovecraftian references and that move away from the traditional Lovecraft style and voice. . . . Although open to all forms of cosmic horror, science fiction horror is more of a focus in this year’s anthology. I am especially interested in stories of mad science and stories that “peel the onion.”
So how could I resist — especially when Editor MKeaton added: For this anthology I’m asking for non-exclusive rights and will happily take reprints. And I had just such a tale, originally appearing (one adds) in an anthology called THE CHILDREN OF CTHULHU, published in 2002 by Del Rey Books.
And so Friday’s email: I would like to use your submission in the anthology. The contract is pasted below; please read it and send me any questions you may have before you sign and return it. (It should be very simple boilerplate.) Section 5 describes payment (it’s slightly different depending on which country you’re in) and let me know how you would like to be paid: by paypal or I can send you a check. Please fill in your address (I need it for payment and sending comp copies where applicable). After you return the contract, we’ll start the editing process.
The book in question is titled STRANGE AEON: 2021 (FEARFUL WISDOM), a sequel of sorts to one I missed being in, STRANGE AEON: 2020 (LOVECRAFTIAN TALES), the former as might be expected more strictly adhering to Lovecraftiana. And my story, “Dark of the Moon” (see also November 4, September 15 2016; August 22 2012, et al.) with reference as well to Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe, a tale of NASA and one-time Soviet cosmonauts banding together on an international lunar mission. And, “going where no man has gone before,” discovering. . . .
More to be revealed here as it becomes known.
jamesdorrwriter 