Dayton's Blog: A pimple on the ass of the Internet.

Last Thursday marked the official publication date of Space Grunts, the iddy-biddy anthology I edited for Flying Pen Press. As well as distributing marketing info to various booksellers and whatnot, they also conducted a brief interview with me. Read all about how Space Grunts came to be.

Last Friday night, I once again spent some time with the gang from Trekcast, the weekly Star Trek podcast. David Ivy and Darren Benjamin were joined by Jerad Formby, current author of Trekcast's "Hey, Star Trek!" blog as well as one-time performer at Star Trek: The Experience (he was the Ferengi "Quan"). The topic of our discussion? The new Star Trek movie, of course, as well as how we as Star Trek fans carry way too much trivia and other minutiae around in our heads. Our chit-chat was but one part of the episode, which also features an interview with Andy Gore, CEO of Quantum Mechanix, the super-cool outfit that makes high-quality prop replicas and other collectibles from various SF and Fantasy properties. Check out Episode 28: "You Know Too Much". Then subscribe to the podcast and listen to it every week. These guys are a lot of fun to hang out with.

I was reminded today by publisher David Rozansky at Flying Pen Press that today is the official publication date for Space Grunts!



Yes, it's been listed as available at Amazon for a bit now, and we premiered the book last month at the Starfest convention in Denver, but those were advance reader copies. This is the real deal.

Sweet.

So, give my author line-up a well-deserved "W00T!" They done good:

Derek Tyler Attico
Robin Wayne Bailey
Kirsten Beyer
David Boop
John Coffren
Jeff D. Jacques
Jean Johnson
Alan L. Lickiss
Julie McGalliard
Nayad A. Monroe
Scott Pearson
Irene Radford
Selina Rosen
Bradley H. Sinor and Susan P. Sinor
Anne Stringer and Jason McDowell
James Swallow
Geoffrey Thorne

Thanks, folks!

Say what?

scottpearson tipped me off to this today: Apparently, Space Grunts is now listed as being available at Amazon.com. Get out!



I guess folks can start their Christmas shopping early this year. Just sayin.

Well, the corrected page proofs are with the publisher. Contracts are signed and en route to and fro, so I figure it's way past time to introduce y'all to the talented band of word slingers who have made Full-Throttle Space Tales #3: Space Grunts the kick-ass little anthology I think it's gonna be (though I'm naturally biased):

Derek Tyler Attico, "Blowback"

Robin Wayne Bailey, "Shin-Gi-Tai"
robinbailey

Kirsten Beyer, "Widow’s Weeds"

David Boop, "The Thing With Private Leon’s Face"
longshot_1986

John Coffren, "Across the Endless Sea"

Jeff D. Jacques, "Rush"

Jean Johnson, "It’s Not a Game"

Alan L. Lickiss, "Granny’s Grunts"

Julie McGalliard, "98 Hill"

Nayad A. Monroe, "An Assessment of the Incident At Camp Righteous"
nayad

Scott Pearson, "Finders Keepers"
scottpearson

Irene Radford, "Price of Command"
ramblin_phyl

Selina Rosen, "Unchained"

Bradley H. Sinor and Susan P. Sinor, "Who Stand and Wait"
sinor_sb13

Anne Stringer and Jason McDowell, "Flashback"
anne_stringer

James Swallow, "Target Market"
jmswallow

Geoffrey Thorne, "Truth Metric"

Oh, and me, "A Fresh Perspective"



Say howdy to my peeps!

ETA: The official publication date is May 14th, though advance reader copies (ARCs) are supposed to be available next weekend at the Starfest Convention in Denver.

As I work my way through the stacks of contracts, page proofs, and whatnot associated with the Space Grunts anthology, I pause the madness long enough to offer up a peek at the cover:


Click to embiggen.

The only thing left to add are the names of the contributing authors, which will be done any day now as contracts are finalized.

The art is provided by Laura Givens, who's done a whole mess of sweet cover art. Check out the gallery on her site.

We now return you to the insanity, already in progress....

The three or four of you who read this blog and keep tabs on what I'm working on may recall that earlier this year, I was approached by friend and fellow writer David Boop on behalf of Flying Pen Press, a small-press publisher based in Denver, Colorado. FPP was in the midst of ramping up a series of anthologies with the umbrella title Full-Throttle Space Tales. The first two anthos, Space Pirates and Space Sirens, were in process, and they were looking for an editor to tackle the third book, tentatively titled Space Grunts and focusing on space-based military stories. Given my background, David thought I might be a good fit for the book.

Needless to say, I was intrigued. I'd never really given serious thought to the editing side of things. The challenge of editing an anthology appealed to me, and though the publisher wasn't going to be offering huge gobs of cash, I was looking at the bigger picture. After all, it might theoretically be easier to convince the editor at a big-city publishing house that I could handle anthology editing duties if I was able to point to at least one actual example, right?

So, with no small amount of skittishness, I waded into the editing waters, crafting a proposal and a list of potential contributors. I approached several friends in the Trek writing community, and I went after a few "new voices" who had yet to make that first pro sale. I even called in a favor or two from some Big Names, in the hopes that their schedules might allow participation (or, at the very least, that they had a story languishing in a file somewhere that fit the theme). The responses were far better than even my most hopeful estimates. Pretty much everyone I asked either said straight out that they wanted to write a story, or else wavered between "I will if I can fit into my schedule" and "No" for a respectful amount of time. I suppose it's gushy to say I was overwhelmed by the positive response (and maybe I shouldn't have been; I tend to hang around with a classy bunch of peeps, after all), but overwhelmed I was. When all was said and done and I had stories in hand, I was told by the publisher that the turnout was better than both of the first two anthologies combined.

And with that, the hard part began.

The anthology would of course have a maximum number of contributors, as well as a maximum word count. I had nearly four times as many stories as could ever fit in the book, so obviously choices had to be made. While none of the stories were "bad," some had problems which could or could not be addressed, depending on the circumstances. The largest contingent of stories that didn't make the cut were those that didn't fit the anthology's theme to one degree or another. Even once I got past those, I was still left with more stories than would fit. So, the decisions became harder. Finally, after much agonizing, debate between the voices in my head, and even a few gut calls, I assembled what I believed to be the strongest table of contents.

Though I can't yet reveal the final list here until the publisher signs off on everything, I will say that if you read the Star Trek fiction then you'll recognize several names. More than one member of Pocket Books' Trek stable is present...a salty vet or two along with several newer voices from the Strange New Worlds contests. Several writers from a list I was given by Flying Pen Press and who were invited to submit also number among the selections. I'd never read anything written by most of those folks, but two of my favorite stories ended up coming from that camp. Now, whether the anthology ends up being "good" is not to be decided by me, but I will say I'm satisfied with how things are shaping up at this point.

Regardless of how the book ends up being received, I will take away some interesting lessons from my first go as an editor. Whether I get a chance to utilize my "new skills" in the future remains to be seen, but I'm certainly having fun with them right now.