Sunday, February 7, 2010

Tactical Highlighter #18

It’s been a long week. I did, however, get my VD2010 first draft finished so this year there will definitely be a VD project. It’s scheduled for automatic posting. If I get kidnapped or distracted or something, you’ll still get your VD2010. It just might be a bit rough.

I’m going to try hard to get VD2009 finished (yes, nearly a year late) and have a double-header. If I manage it, VD2009 will post up the day before VD2010.

In the mean time, here’s this week’s Tactical Highlighter. I’ve changed the formatting a bit. I think this works better. It’s certainly psychologically easier for me. Let me know if you don’t like it.

  • Greek and Roman Ghost Stories by Lacy Collinson (LibriVox). SFFaudio’s feed puts unusual stuff into my catcher and since my fauxpod organizes it by its tags rather than by the podcast it came from, it sometimes takes awhile before I figure out what filled up my fauxpod. I found Ghost Stories this week and decided to give it a listen. If I had realized that it was going to be historical discussion rather than fictionalized accounts, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. But then I would have missed out on this awesome book. The first chapter is absolutely essential to SF and Fantasy writers. Excellent story fodder.
  • Littleblossom Makes a Deal With the Devil by S. Hutson Blount (Escape Pod). This is a really subtle story about human interaction with artificial intelligence, politics, and the nature of patriotism and loyalty. Good near-future SF elements. The setting is a little chilly so if you’re bothered by being cold physically and imagining being even colder, you’ll want to hold off for March or April before listening.
  • Excision by Scott H. Andrews (Dunesteef). A fantasy medical story told with the kind of rigor you might expect in a hard SF story. Of course, it’s not about that, but it is an interesting feature of the story.
  • The Twa Corbies by Marie Brennan (PodCastle). A phenomenal twist on the “fantastical gift” scenario, and a great story to boot.

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