Fantasy & Science Fiction

For over sixty years Fantasy & Science Fiction has been the premier magazine of--well, fantasy and science fiction short stories. This title has hosted the likes of Issac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and many more giants of genre fiction. It was the original home of "Flowers for Algernon," and "The Gunslinger."

In an age of compressing literature markets, the publication has been struggling to stay afloat. Just this past year they have gone to a bimonthly schedule from their previous 11 times a year. The stories they currently publish are still top notch and garner awards every year.

Some say the short form is dead and the novel is the only way for a writer to make money in this day and age. I say short fiction is where all the exciting writing is being done. One can experiment with 7,500 words in a way one can't with 100,000. The great thing about F&SF is if you don't like something you don't have to struggle for very long to get through it, or--if it's truly unbearable--you can skip to the next one.

A yearly subscription costs under $35 and nets you six 250+ page volumes. If you want a variety of good stories you can't go wrong. I know I'll be re-upping for another two years when I get the cash.

The Norwegian Blue

Sold "live" in many pet shops, the Norwegian Blue is a remarkable bird. Beautiful plumage! It is shown here resting after a long squawk. Notice the nails in its feet. Those serve to prevent it from nuzzling up to the bars of its cage, bending them apart, and VOOM!

What a remarkable bird. Lovely plumage!

So, yeah. The contest's closed.

Turkey Time

As promised earlier, here is the turkey on display at Phoeb-a-roni's day care. Each of the children decorated a feather with their family and brought it back to be a part of the beautiful plumage. I think we did very well all things considered.

Tom here has been up for a couple of weeks now. I only just snapped a picture today as I dropped Phoebekah off at school this morning. The timing of the picture is kind of inspired actually. As we emptied Phoebemeister's school bag, I found the next Family Project. We have to decorate a 4 inch round(ish) paper ornament for Monday.

You, faithful readers (yes, both of you), get to help. What can we do to spice up this white piece of paper? Post your suggestions in the comments. Stay tuned to find out what we did.

Finally, I would like to announce the first ever Penguin Postings contest. The first person to correctly identify the Monty Python reference in this post wins a prize. Mthr. M-G you are not eligible. Good luck.

Brain Massage

Sometimes writing about religion, faith, war, genocide, and the transcendence of art can get a little rough. That's when I need a double helping of geekiness: Transformers comic books.

Here we have a classic from the mid 1980s. This is from the original Marvel 4-issue miniseries--later expanded to an ongoing series lasting 80 issues. We have special guest Spider-Man sporting his new black costume. We would later find out the suit was "more than meets the eye" when it was discovered to be an evil alien that would go on to bond with Eddie Brock to create Venom. That was in Spidey's future, though. At this point the costume was just Marvel's attempt to sell more action figures through their Secret Wars toy line.

The weird thing is, I don't know how ol' Web Head figures into this story. I've read a trade paperback collection featuring this story, but it wasn't published by Marvel. All the Spidey stuff had to be cut including the cover image. He can't have played too large a role as I didn't notice any glaring plot holes. Then again it was the '80s and this was a licenced Marvel comic. I'm not sure a whale-sized plot hole would have seemed out of place.

Today's Transformers comics are much better. The audience has aged with the property and unlike more mainstream facets like animated television and live-action movies the comics can cater fairly exclusively to us fanboys. The last collection explored the effects of war on individuals that once shared common beliefs and how it can drive relationships beyond the brink. Faiths are challenged, philosophies adjusted, and lives destroyed.

I said I wanted escapism. Oh well, I got giant robots.

By the way, NaNoWriMo is half done, and so am I!

Monkey Maintenance

I pledged to spend quality time with Mthr M-G tonight. So instead of crafting prose, I crafted pork wellington. I even canceled my afternoon class and tried a new restaurant for lunch before that. It was a good day.

Tomorrow it's back to work. I've got to hit 25k by Sunday!

In Remembrance

Thank you to all the men and women that have served and are currently serving in the armed forces. Because of what you have done, I am able to do what I choose. I pledge to make that worth while.

Sincerely,

penguin_poet

My Back Against the Wall

When you're having to battle against a seemingly insurmountable word count it helps to have friends. Power Up Optimus Prime here is a good choice, especially if your word count comes in the form of evil toy robots.

My help this evening was the ever patient, ever lovely, Mthr. M-G. After playing chauffeur to Phoebester and me, she was perfectly willing to drive out of our way to pick up dinner rather than ask me to cook. I then spent nearly four hours at the keyboard posting my single highest word count this month just so I could make up for a big fat ZERO yesterday.

Not once has Mthr. M-G complained about my time away in novel-land. (Although she did just offer an unsolicited grammar correction from over my shoulder.) For that, she outranks the big guy here. (But come on! He's looking pretty awesome, right!)

Thank you to my two cyber cheerleaders, Gamer Queen and Grandma Berger. You ladies are great.

Creative Writing: The Geek Way

When I take on any project of moderate to long duration, I find it helps to make a chart. It's nice to have a visual means of recognizing where I've been and where I'm headed. Tonight, I'm sharing my chart with you.

The blue line, labeled Pace, symbolizes the total word count necessary to win NaNoWriMo. The red line, labeled Total, is my personal total word count. As long as the red line stays above the blue line I'm doing fine. If the red line dips below the blue line, I've fallen behind.

I'd like to get a little further ahead than I already am. I'd be nice to have a day's writing as a safety net.

By the way, I've gotten further this year than last. Even if I crash and burn now, I've made progress.

Thanks for checking on me.

Dr. Pepper is Novel Fuel

In late August Wal-Mart featured pallets full of these football shaped half-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper as a promotion for the beginning of football season. By early October, Wally World still had half a pallet of the stuff so they marked it for clearance at $0.25 a bottle.

I was trying to make up my mind as to whether or not to give NaNoWriMo another go at that time. Then it struck me. For $7.50 (plus tax) I could supply myself with daily writing rewards for the duration of the event. That sealed it. (Hey, books have been writen for worse reasons.)

These cases have been taking up pantry space for a month. On Halloween night, I put one of these into the refrigerator and as I've made my goal of 1,667 words each day I've taken a cold 500 ml of southern refreshment to celebrate. Day by the the pantry will empty as my word count rises.

Also, "Remember, remember the fifth of November . . ."

V: The Reason I'm Not Writing

I'm a little ahead of schedule for today's word count so Mthr. M-G and I are digging into our burgeoning DVR recordings. In anticipation of the remake airing on ABC tonight, SyFy ran a V/V: The Final Battle marathon this past weekend.

Unfortunately, after we scheduled our recording SyFy bumped everything up by half an hour. The DVR isn't "smart" enough to catch something like that. So we've missed the first thiry minutes. (Sad clown face.)

Thanks for the encouragement with my NaNoWriMo attempt. It really does help.