If you enjoy superhero comic books, then you will probably like this week’s excerpt. Wonder City Stories is a satiral take on the superhero genre, following several viewpoint characters as they attempt to live their ordinary, extraordinary lives.

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• News: Rose and Bay Award Winners

I am pleased to announce the winners of the 2010 Rose and Bay Awards.  These awards honor excellence in cyberfunded creativity.  Congratulations to all the winners! Read the rest of this entry »

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This week we have an excerpt “The Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom,” which has completed its first draft and is now being polished for book publication.  This crowdfunded project is currently supported by subscription, donation and book one pre-sales, as well as advertising.  When Book One is re-released, both the crowdfunding model and the website will be updated.  Details are still developing, but there will be some exclusive content for subscribers.

Now that he’s of age, Prince Temmin must leave his childhood home behind for a new life with his father in the capital. King Harsin plans to educate his son in the ways of all the kings who have come before. But the family’s immortal advisor, Teacher, has other plans: to bring Temmin closer to the people he will rule, to bind him to a Temple devoted to eroticism, and to set him on a path that will lead to unimaginable glory for the House of Tremont–or to its end. Read the rest of this entry »

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The March 2010 issue of Ideomancer, on our new upgraded website, is live!

Our poets this month — Nebula nominee Rachel Swirsky with “Mundane”, Chris Flowers with “Voyager 2, Upon Arrival”, Liz Bourke with ”Autocannibalism: Not A Love Poem”, and Shef Reynolds with “Lunar Parable” – explore the questions of loss and regret.

March’s fiction also explores loss and regrets across time, space, and genre, and in some unexpected ways. LaShawn M. Wanak returns for a second appearance in our pages with “Future Perfect,” a decidedly different take on the question of doing it over again; Nicole J. LeBoeuf’s “The Day the Sidewalks Melted” offers a vivid look at personal apocalypses;

and Autumn Christian’s “Sunshine, Sunshine” explores the edges of the things we never even admit are missing in lush, Gothic prose.

I’m also pleased to announce that as of right now, we have reopened to both poetry and fiction submissions. There have been a few changes to the poetry guidelines, so be sure to visit our submissions page.

That’s not all! We’ve been busy. It’s been a long time coming and a lot of sweat, but we’ve rebuilt, redesigned, and relaunched the website: as well as the usual fiction, poetry, and non-fiction offerings, there’s now easy access to our Twitter feed and Facebook page, a shoutbox and comments function to let you, the reader, talk back, and a tidier, modernized build. The design credit goes to Erin Hoffman, Associate Editor and our new webmaster, who donated her considerable skill to build us something beautiful. Heap some well deserved praise on Erin.

We’re also launching a new feature on the Livejournal Community: Associate Editor Alena McNamara will curate the Ideomancer Atlas of Imagination, a collection of links, bobs, flotsam, and cool stuff we’ve found washed up on the Internet that illumines the

geography of the imagination. The Atlas of Imagination will turn a page every Monday and Saturday.

Enjoy!

Jaime Lee Moyer

Poetry Editor

http://www.Ideomancer.com/wp/

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My dark SF flash fiction ”The Negotiator” is up today on  Everyday Weirdness March 5.

Ann K. Schwader

http://ankh_hpl.livejournal.com/

http://home.earthlink.net/~schwader/

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This week I’d like to introduce you to the crowdfunded project “Fireborn.”  It is funded by donations.

Fireborn by Wyld Dandelyon

Welcome to a world where humans have a variety of different shapes.  Some can fly, some can breathe water, some can hang from trees by their tails alone.  All are related, all are human.  And some, born to each shape, can work magic, and are called fireborn. Read the rest of this entry »

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Holly Lisle is designing a new TalysMana contest.  This will be a competition rather than a random drawing.  Holly explains,

The winner will:

*  Be a character in the novel TalysMana.

*  Have a TalysMana artifact created around his or her character.

*  And receive a numbered, limited-edition copy of that artifact

signed by both of us.

Next Tuesday (February 16th) we’ll be sending out the rules to all

TalysMana list members.

If you’re not already following this story, you can sign up here.  Installments and news will be delivered to your email.

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This week’s excerpt features a tale of psychic powers, intrigue, and parenthood.  Good thing that’s happening to someone else, eh?  It’s wildly amusing from the safe distance of another universe.

Strange Little Band by Nancy Brauer and Vanessa Brooks

Strange Little Band is the ongoing story of Addison and Shane, two self-centered, amoral psychics who work for the cut-throat Triptych Corporation. Their insular, comfortable lives are disrupted when, due to Triptych’s machinations, they become unlikely parents. How can they raise a child when they can’t trust each other?

New installments are posted on Tuesday and Friday.  Bonus stories air every other Monday or so. There’s a podcast and forums, too!

Excerpt: from chapter 1

After her week 21 appointment with Dr. Frasier, Addison headed toward the commissary. With morning sickness behind her, Addison’s appetite had returned with a vengeance. Once again her body had skipped hunger and went straight to ravenous. Little could stand between her and whatever she was craving.

Addison’s route through the sprawling complex took her past Genetics — Myers’ department. The doors to the various labs and offices were closed, as usual. Myers ran a tight ship.

The door ahead and to Addison’s left opened, and a balding, middle-aged white man in a lab coat strode through. The printout in the man’s hand had his complete attention. His unshielded thoughts washed over Addison.  …don’t know how the hell he thinks we’ll resequence…

Addison’s eyes found the nameplate beside the slowly closing door: Dr. Shane Myers. On impulse she ducked inside.

Even if the freak hadn’t been sitting at his glass-topped desk, Addison would have guessed this was Myers’ office. The decor was cold, modern, and minimal. The only exception was a black leather sofa against one wall. Rumor had it that Myers was a workaholic. He may have slept on the sofa more often than a bed.

Myers himself was oblivious to her presence. Like his underling, he was too busy frowning at papers to notice a buxom woman a few feet away.

Addison fought to keep her amusement from her voice. “Dr. Myers.” Her tones were cool and polite.

Myers’ head snapped up. Surprise flitted across his clean-shaven face, then was replaced with a scowl. “What are you doing here, Harris?” he demanded.

Addison perched on the sofa arm closest to Myers, careful to stay out of reach. She leaned forward to hide her bump and display her generous cleavage. “Can’t I visit a colleague?”

Myers’ scowl didn’t waver. “No.” Nevertheless, his brown eyes briefly darted to her breasts.

Addison allowed herself a smug smile. “Shane.” She propped her elbow on one knee, resting her chin on her upturned palm. “You don’t mind if I call you Shane, do you? ‘Dr. Myers’ sounds so formal, considering that we’re practically family now.”

Silence stretched as Myers studied her. Addison studied him back. He wasn’t bad looking. Lanky, and possibly fit under his dress shirt and slacks. The fact that Addison couldn’t sense his emotions — her mental fingers slid off of his eerily slick mental shields — reminded her that the average-looking man was part alien.

Myers hadn’t ordered her out, so Addison continued. “I suppose I should start with congratulations.” She stood and drifted toward him, unbuttoning her jacket. “Or didn’t Daniel tell you that your donation worked out? One of those sperm is the little engine that could.”

For an instant confusion, curiosity, and a hint of lust radiated from Myers. Addison laughed as her jacket fell open. “Don’t flatter yourself, Myers. I don’t want to shag you.” She ran her hand over her rounded belly. “Congratulations. Twenty-one weeks and still growing strong.”

Myers gaped as his shields slipped again. Taking advantage of his distraction, Addison grabbed his hand, lifted the hem of her shirt, and pressed his palm to her bared abdomen. “For confirmation.” The man’s mute shock made the precariousness of the situation worthwhile.

Chuckling, Addison backed off, heading for the door while buttoning her jacket. She tossed over her shoulder, “If you’re going to buy those chocolate cigars, you want the ones with the blue wrappers. It’s a boy, Dad.”

Addison felt Myers’ eyes on her back she strode out of his office into the hall. Daniel will be pissed, Addison mused. She dismissed the thought with a shrug. She really didn’t care.

Her stomach, on the other hand, wondered if there was any chocolate cake in the commissary. She had a craving for it.

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David C. Kopaska-Merkel has a new piece of flash fiction up.  ”The Cabbage Patch God” is the first in a series about gods, humans, and others.

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Here for your delectation is this week’s excerpt, an excursion into dark literature…

314 Crescent Manor by M. Jones

Where the rent is cheap and your neighbours are dead to the world. Read the rest of this entry »

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This week’s featured cyberfunded creativity is a piece of urban fantasy.  You never know what could be around the next street corner …

Addergoole by Lyn Thorne-Alder

Addergoole is a contemporary fantasy story with erotic and dark-fantasy elements, a modern-day fairy tale of sorts, without the soft-glow filters to soften the harsh edges, without the safety of ”happily ever after” or even the security of knowing that the Prince on his white horse is the good guy. Read the rest of this entry »

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This week’s excerpt introduces a fairly new piece of cyberfunded creativity from Cecilia Tan…

Daron’s Guitar Chronicles by Cecilia Tan

DGC is a serialized novel telling the story of Daron, a guitar player trying to make it in the face of a dysfunctional family, internalized homophobia, and the changing face of celebrity in the 1980s. It’s a story of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the era that brought us AIDS, MTV, and Just Say No To Drugs. It all starts when 19-year-old Daron, playing a low-rent gig in a heavy metal cover band, runs into an old friend, a much older and more successful musician he knew when he was a lot younger, whom he hasn’t seen since the guy got famous and moved away. Read the rest of this entry »

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Caveman Joe proposes a reader-friendly business model for electronic fiction that would allow readers to route money directly to their favorite writers.  He explains in detail how the website and service would work.  Since this doesn’t exist yet, anyone who thinks this is a cool idea could manifest it…

What I Want From E-Books

I want to go to a website and find a story to read.  There will be no purchase, no login, nothing to stop me from getting to the story.  The web page will display the story, along with a selection of plain, unstyled links across the top of the page, and nothing more.  No graphics, no fancy layout – nothing that will distract from the text or hinder my ability to read it on my phone.  Which is the device that I’ll be using most of the time.

This website will work not by asking authors to upload their stuff, but by asking readers to find great free stories and tell the website where these stories live.  The website then spiders the page on which the story lives, creating a local copy stored in a database (and stripping out any word-processor-generated HTML garbage as it does so).  Alongside the actual story, it’ll store the original URL, the author’s name and PayPal E-mail address, the genre, and the word count, all of which become searchable.  Y’know, just like how a search engine works (think Google mobile).

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Here is the latest stop in our tour of cyberfunded creativity. The author describes the challenges of life above ground…

“Above Ground” by A. M. Harte

Life above ground is something Lilith Gray has never experienced. When she gets the chance to visit the outside world, she’s understandably ecstatic. But the infected have a reputation for being dangerous for a reason, and Lilith is about to find out why.

“Above Ground” is a dark fantasy serial, exploring explores a world where fighting the odds – and surviving – is no mean feat. Read the rest of this entry »

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This week I have another excerpt of a cyberfunded project for you, as Clare introduces her phantasmagoric world…

Chatoyant College by Clare K. R. Miller

Corrie, Edie, and Dawn are new students at the only institution in the United States that teaches magic: Chatoyant College. They’re looking forward to learning how to cast spells, curse their enemies, write essays, and learn foreign languages. But not everything is what it seems, and even less is what they expected. Dawn has memories no one else shares. Corrie finds things she thought she understood spiraling out of her grasp. Edie doesn’t even believe in magic when they arrive, but the line between fantasy and reality quickly blurs. They find themselves turning to fiction to answer the questions their professors won’t. Creatures out of folklore and legend lurk behind friendly facades as well as within forbidden places. The girls have a lot to learn. College leads you farther from home than geography can account for, and there’s no turning back now…

Chatoyant College is fantasy weblit, an online serial novel about college life, updated with a new chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Come take a look! Read the rest of this entry »

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This piece of cyberfunded creativity is historical fiction, an interesting change of pace from the widespread fantasy and science fiction projects. The Roman View is a weblit serial by Michael L. Coburn.  The author describes it like this:

A whimsical look at Rome if some of the circumstances that led to its fall had been slightly different.  The following is a teaser from about mid-way into the story. Read the rest of this entry »

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This announcement came from Bruce Boston:

The ninth-anniversary issue of The Pedestal Magazine is now online, with a
special flash fiction section that Marge and I guest-edited. Seven stories, all under 1000 words, selected from more than six hundred submissions.

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This cyberfunded creativity project caught my attention recently.  ”The Book of Phoenii” is an ongoing project that spans fiction and poetry, written by Joyce Chng.  She explains…

“The Book of Phoenii” is a Book from a book, a collection of phoenix-related stories and poems. If you love the phoenix or the fire bird or feng huang and love a twist to the tail … tale, the Book of Phoenii will pique your curiosity. Read the rest of this entry »

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David Kopaska-Merkel has a story, “Declaration,” up in Daily Cabal.  A permanent link to David’s archive page is here.

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Holly Lisle is trying a new experiment: writing a novel and sharing it with readers one section at a time, raw before edits.  She’s also collaborating with her daughter, who is producing jewelry and other nifty tidbits related to the book.  I like to encourage alternatives to the “conventional” writing/publishing process, so I’m excited to watch this one develop.

TalysMana is fantasy about an artist who discovers a weird new connection to the characters and settings that she has been imagining all these years.  It begins in media res but I encourage you to read the several installments already available, as I find myself increasingly caught up in the story as it progresses.

Below is an excerpt of the first installment. Read the rest of this entry »

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