Category: News/Updates

Launch: alexkanefiction.com

If, understandably, you’re still accessing my blog via the old host at kanearts.net, please do me a solid and update any links, bookmarks, or notes-written-in-bloodstains-across-your-walls with the new URL, alexkanefiction.com.

In a few months, I’ll likely delete the kanearts.net (the one you’re reading now) website entirely. Meantime, the alexjkane.com umbrella domain will instead forward to alexkanefiction.com, and will remain long after kanearts.net is just a fond memory.

Seemingly without warning, I’ve done a lot of tinkering under the hood and migrated all the archived posts from this blog — kanearts.net — over to the new domain, along with piecing together a new, long-term design to reflect my evolving views on the craft of fiction, the art of storytelling, and the business of publishing.

There are a number of reasons for this: Yahoo! Web Hosting is no longer fulfilling my admittedly needy demands as an amateur webmaster; I’m dropping the “J.” from my byline, for a number of reasons that have been rolling around in my head for quite some time; and I’ve fallen prey to the notion of a post-genre, “New Pulp” era for tomorrow’s working fictioneer. No longer can I rightfully claim to be a science fiction writer, or fantasist, or horror writer; it’s becoming increasingly clear that most of my favorite writers — and, indeed, most of the great writers of the past century — belong not to a single genre, but rather form a genre unto themselves: King, Bradbury, Gaiman, Matheson, Sturgeon, Le Guin, Oates, Lake, Palahniuk, Gibson . . . you get the idea.

So, anyway. It’s been a good run. There’ll always be a special place in my heart for kanearts.net — but its usefulness has run its course, and a domain like alexkanefiction.com is just a lot more practical as a platform to reach readers, writers, and the world of fandom.

Mirror Shards 2 Release

Just in time for Worldcon 2012, the second volume of Mirror Shards: Extending the Edges of Augmented Reality is now available from several major online retailers. The book includes my story, “An Apocalypse of Her Own, One Day,” along with new work by some of my favorite writers and fellow Writers of the Future forumites, including Annie Bellet, Marina J. Lotstetter, and editor Thomas K. Carpenter. There’s no technology more relevant than augmented reality, with exciting new platforms like Google’s Project Glass no longer a distant horizon. I find that any science fiction story lacking some form of AR will soon be made quaint by the rapidly evolving capital-f Future and the promise it holds for technology of all sorts. Enjoy!

“Prospect of a World I Dream” to Appear in Futuredaze Anthology

Those who subscribe to my Facebook updates have already heard, but I thought that I should let the rest of you know that I recently signed the contract for my second professional short fiction sale. One of my personal favorite stories, “Prospect of a World I Dream,” has been selected to appear in the Kickstarter-funded Underwords anthology Futuredaze: An Anthology of YA Science Fiction. As if the concept alone wasn’t exciting enough, the list of contributing authors and poets has me feeling honored to be among some of the genre’s very best, as well as a few of my fellow up-and-coming contemporaries from Codex (of which I recently became a member, thanks to this very sale):

 FUTUREDAZE
An Anthology of YA Science Fiction

edited by Hannah Strom-Martin & Erin Underwood

List of Contributing Authors
in alphabetical order

POETRY:

E. Kristin Anderson
Jenny Blackford
Cathy Bryant
Sandi Cayless
Alicia Cole
John Grey
Evelyn Lumish
Irving
Brittany Warman
Neil Weston
Anna Della Zazzera

FICTION:

Steve Alguire
Camille Alexa
Stephen D. Covey
Danika Dinsmore
Gregory Frost
Nancy Holder
Alex J. Kane
Rahul Kanakia
Miri Kim
Rich Larson
Dale Lucas
Alex Dally MacFarlane
Jack McDevitt
Sandra McDonald
Jennifer Moore
Katrina Nicholson
Chuck Rothman
Mark Smith-Briggs
Leah Thomas
Llinos Cathryn Thomas
Lavie Tidhar
William John Watkins

I love pretty much every story I’ve read by Lavie Tidhar, Rahul Kanakia, and Camille Alexa; I’m truly humbled to be in such fine company. Not to mention Jack McDevitt, whose novel Chindi I recently picked up at an airport bookstore in Las Vegas — the guy can write like nobody’s business, his books carry blurbs by none other than Stephen-freakin’-King, and I’ve got my fingers crossed for an opportunity to meet him at the Chicon 7 Writers’ Workshop at the end of the month. If you haven’t checked out his short story “The Cassandra Project,” originally published online at Lightspeed, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. McDevitt recently collaborated on a novel-length adaptation of the story with Mike Resnick, which is due out before the end of the year. Can’t wait for that one.

Oh, and before I forget: I’ve got a lot of people to thank for their invaluable feedback on “Prospect of a World I Dream” — Hugo nominee Brad R. Torgersen, Dave Hutchinson, Jeremy C. Shipp, Grayson Bray Morris, Lyn Perry, S.C. Wade, Shaun Duke, Rahul Kanakia, Michael Beers, Ben Godby, anyone else who participated in Jeremy C. Shipp’s Yard Gnome Army fiction-writing class . . . Hell, I owe a lot of people big-time for this one. Seriously, you people are awesome, and beautiful, and I ought to buy you all drinks. Track me down sometime, and I’ll do just that. If there’s anyone I’ve forgotten, please accept my sincerest apologies. You’re amazing, and I love you guys — but I’m a forgetful dude. One of my many faults, unfortunately.

I’ve never gotten this amount of input on a story before, or such a warm reception. Even though it’s been rejected more times than I can count, people seem to love it. I know I’ve fallen in love with the characters, and find myself returning to the idea of a future novelization with greater and greater fondness for the story’s general premise. I think Inna and Ayden deserve a novel-length canvas in which to tell their story — an accessible, relevant YA novel with a science-fictional skeleton and an everyday, real-world heart. Hopefully one day soon I’ll get around to writing that book. Until then, I’ll play around in my Whispering Light universe and see where that takes me.

For Real, I’m Writing a Novel

Yes. For real this time.

While my last novel idea was exciting, it was half-formed and unoriginal. Less than half-formed. Like, a-quarter-formed. It’s never going to go anywhere until I develop the premise a lot further. That’s still in the back of my mind, of course, but something I’m saving for when I’m a more mature writer. More experienced.

This time, I’ve spent months researching, reading and rereading some of the best science fiction novels I could find, and giving my creative brain a chance to play around before getting into the nitty-gritty of the thing.

Now, I’ve got a first draft in progress, and a title. Let me know what you think:

Whispering Light, that’s what I’m calling it. For now.

Postcyberpunk with a dash of near-Earth space opera. And nanopunk. Hopefully a touch of mystery, adventure, and wonder, too. Guess we’ll see.

I’ve got about three or four chapters done, but I’m only at about 4% completion as of right now. Gotta get in at least 500 more words tonight. Should be a hell of a first draft if I can keep this slow but steady, regular pace going.

I’m finding that by writing a little bit every day, rather than being lazy during workdays and writing like mad one or two days a week — like I used to have to do — I’m getting a lot more done on a week-by-week basis. And I feel a lot better about the project as a result. I’m excited about my characters, and where I hope to take them. I’m writing the sort of thing I’d like to read. Something like The Apocalypse Ocean by Tobias S. Buckell or 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke.

Oh. And I sold another short story recently. Pretty exciting news, but I can’t share the details quite yet. Check back soon.

Bookgasm: Year’s Best SF 17 Review

My first review for Bookgasm, of David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s newly released Year’s Best SF 17 anthology, is now live for your reading pleasure. Feel free to start a controversial flame-war in the comments section, so that the review can go viral and thus begin the first stage of my campaign toward total planetary domination.

Um. Yeah. Thanks.

Prometheus, Writing, et cetera

Saw Prometheus last night. I’d been dying to see the film since the first trailer hit the web many months ago, and despite what a lot of people are saying about it, I wasn’t disappointed. Complaints dwell on its busy plot, supposedly one-dimensional characters, and the pervasiveness of the Alien franchise’s trademark horror elements. I’m not sure I buy the criticisms about characterization, except maybe in the case of Charlize Theron, whose character gets little screen time despite a solid, if enigmatic performance. To be honest, no negative review I’ve seen has mentioned the tacked-on second ending, which I found to be completely unnecessary. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that I haven’t stopped thinking about the film, contrasting my expectations of it with my actual experience, and with others’ criticisms; and I plan to see the film again, if possible. It’s easily the best science-fiction film since Duncan Jones’s Moon, or Inception – which I consider fantasy, rather than SF, really – even if it is a tad bit flawed. I loved the visuals, the performances by Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender, and some of the ideas put forth about the nature of intelligence and creation. The 3-D was spectacular, but gave me a slight headache, which I get fairly often with 3-D theatrical releases (The Avengers was a notable exception).

Been writing quite a bit, compared to still-in-college Alex. Full-time banker Alex has churned out a short (often very short) story every consecutive week since, well, May 10th, to be exact. That’s five stories in five weeks; I’m very proud of this small milestone in cultivating regular writing habits, even if it means I haven’t exactly developed a high word count.

What else?

It hasn’t quite hit me yet, that I’ll never step foot inside a classroom, after eighteen years of institutional learning. That I’m more or less in charge of how I spend my time outside of work. Been reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, albeit sporadically and somewhat slowly over the course of two weeks or so. Enjoying the hell out of it, though — it may end up being one of my favorite novels by the time I’m through with it. I can definitely see the influence Gaiman’s had on Joe Hill, whose novel Horns is probably my all-time number one.

Yeah, I’ll probably have more to say about Prometheus sometime in the next few days. Might write a review for someone else, or just post a short one here. We’ll see.

Day Jobbery, Side Jobbery

Hey, I got two new jobs. As of today, I’m a full-time universal banker at my present place of employment — a local bank, not one of the nationwide corporate banks, thankfully. It isn’t lost on me just how fortunate that makes me. I graduated from college with a B.A. in English only two weeks ago; to have a full-time, career-worthy day job already makes me part of a very small minority. I owe enormous thanks to the educators, friends, and colleagues who have guided and encouraged me over the years. I’ll now have a chance of paying off my student loans and living a modest real-world existence, hopefully with little enough stress that my writing — ahem — career will proceed as planned.

I’ve also been given a position reviewing science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels for the lit website Bookgasm, who publish some of the best book reviews on the web, in my entirely biased opinion. Check ‘em out. My first assignments are Killing Ghost by Christopher Ransom and Year’s Best SF 17, ed. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. I’ll share the glorious linkage as soon as those are online. Looking forward to reading both of them. I get a kick out of writing book reviews, so getting a regular supply of free books out of the deal ain’t half bad.

Let me know if you need an author website, too. Don’t forget. Y’know, only $200.00 for a custom, high-quality online presence. That’s cheap. I know, right? Helluva deal.