Honored samurai, ruthless ronin, wayward vagabonds, shadowy ninja and helpless villagers... welcome.
Opening Volley
"In the early spring of 1980 Bruce wrote a little short story about a gang of teenage hackers. From the very first draft the story had a one-word title—a new word, one that he’d made up in a deliberate attempt to grok the interface between the emerging high technology scene and teenage punk attitudes, and this word was—"
(John) Shirley, that’s not what we’re here for, and you’d be correct, but I would be remiss in not presenting the man behind this week’s post — Bruce Bethke. Gentleman, scholar, author and I could throw a million words at you to describe him (and dollars to donuts, he’d probably give me an earful for doing so). His publishing chops. That’s what we’re here for this week. 65 stories in 2 months through his Stupefying Stories website. A free-to-read, 1000-word story-a-day extravaganza of science fiction, fantasy, horror and great genre fiction. But don’t take my word on it...
Main Event
65 stories... I began with a goal of finding 62 stories, to fill the pipeline and be able to run one story daily every day in July and August. We actually went a few over, but we'll figure out a creative way to use them all in the time allotted. Internally, we call this exercise "Storyblitz 23," and the purpose of it is...
Think of it as a metaphorical weather station. We're trying to capture some hard empirical data on which way the literary wind is blowing, how the ambient temperatures are trending, and what patterns are there to be discerned. I'm watching the readership numbers and reader comments very closely, with an eye towards deciding who and what we should publish more of, who/what we should publish less of, and who/what we shouldn't publish at all.
This is not a one-shot deal. Right now we plan to do another short open reading period in August, with the goal of refilling the pipeline for September and October. We'll refine our submission criteria based on what we learn from
observing the mice in the mazelistening to the readers of the stories we're running now. Right now I see no reason why we won't continue running a new story daily for the foreseeable future.1
If your wondering what day it is, story—wise, Mr. Bethke is in the States, so all stories are publishing on a US Central timeframe (UTC/GMT -5 hours at current time). Meaning, as I write this, seven stories have been published. (Eight hit the streets as I read this one last time before dropping this newsletter.)
“Valet of the Dolls” • by Hillary Lyon -- When androids become playthings for rich a$$h0l3z. By far my favorite story so far, androids, hacks, and neon futures so bright you have to wear mirrorshades. (Oops, wrong Bruce.)
“Castaways” • by Pete Wood -- Time travel, bars, and Gillian's Island. Smart comedy. You might need to be of the Gen X generation to catch all the references. To hell with it, TO WIKIPEDIA WITH YOU!
“First Date with the Hive” • by Gretchen Tessmer -- Nothing worse that a first (and last?) bad date. Ouch. This is how I envision our first contact will probably go. Unfortunately.
“Poutine” • by Pete Wood -- When the shoe's on the other foot and you'd wish you hadn't opened your big, fat mouth! To be honest, it's hard to be an American overseas because the world is SATURATED by the stench of the States. Perhaps it takes being overseas to understand this, and I beg your forgiveness if I offend. Life is not just about fries... or is it?
“The Finder of Lost Things” • by Karin Terebessy -- A side of stinging commentary to a heartbreaking story. Tough story about "tough love"? Or, as they say, there's no one harder to love than yourself.
“A Whiff of Brimstone” • by Bruce Bethke -- The hardships of being a werewolf. SCOTT! NO!
“This Is (Not) My Beautiful Cat” • by Ephiny Gale -- Leave it to cats. That's all I'm going to say. Cute. But be sure to follow up with the link to "Restoration". I kid you not when I say that it's got to be my favorite flash fic piece of the YEAR.
With each at just 1000 words or less, they are an easy read over a meal or coffee break, or binged on a weekend afternoon like your favorite streaming media or anthology. For many, this event may come as a relief with the “loss” of Daily Science Fiction, an email and online magazine devoted to exactly that. But Mr. Bethke didn’t just decide now to kick the tires, he’s been helming Stupefying Stories for 12 years (and longer if you count earlier incarnations). Alright then, so why is he doing this, because it certainly (and he’s admitted as much) must be a pain in the asteroid?
How do I frame this? As an act of defiance, I think. As a way to scream at the Universe, "We're still here! We're still standing!"
For me personally the past 12 years have been challenging; the past 4 really bad; the past 2 pretty much Hell on Earth and the past year awful beyond description. When my wife's cancer story finally reached its end, though, I was faced with a choice. I could let myself be crushed by grief -- and believe me, I mourn her every day, but I'm learning to keep that private. How many people in this world are even capable of understanding how it feels to marry your high school sweetheart and still be hopelessly in love with her 50 years later, and then to have to stand by helplessly while she slowly and painfully rots away and dies? Not many, which is how you end up with the story of Orpheus and the Maenads.
Or I could go full introvert, build that Eurorack system I've been dreaming of, and go back to doing electronic music, secure in the comfortable knowledge that no one will ever listen to or care about what I'm doing so I can do whatever I damn well please.
Or I could go the really pathetic route and start writing short stories and novels again, in hopes of capitalizing off my history just like every other old formerly famous writer out there. But hey, if even Marc Laidlaw can't sell new novels now, what hope do I have?
OR...
I could go back to where Karen and I began with Stupefying Stories 12 years ago: with the idea that we could use the attention that people seem to want to pay to me, because of the stories and novels I wrote back in the 1980s and 1990s, to get them to pay attention to younger writers who are writing great new stuff now.
We were always really proud of all the writers who we were the first, or one of the first, to publish, who went on to have significant careers as short-story writers and novelists. For a time there it seemed like we were destined to be the AAA farm team for Analog, because so many of "our" writers went on to become regular contributors to Analog, Asimov's, Clarkesworld...
...or Daily Science Fiction, which I guess in some way was also part of the impetus for Storyblitz 23. A lot of "our" writers went on to become regular contributors to Daily Science Fiction -- and then when DSF went out of business, they were homeless again. I didn't even know that DSF was out of business until after I'd put out the first call for submissions, and started to hear from some of our former contributors.
Hmm. This is sad, but also an opportunity. I'm not looking to turn Stupefying Stories into a direct replacement for DSF -- for one thing, I think there were some fundamental problems with their business model, and for another, at this time we can't afford to pay writers nearly as much as DSF did. But if we can get more subscribers, we will.
That was always the goal with Stupefying Stories: to grow our sales and subscriber base to the point where we can pay pro word rates. To that end I have never made a penny off Stupefying Stories: I have always ploughed everything we made back into paying our authors and artists more. That goal is always out there.
Or maybe it's just a mirage. In the next six months, I intend to find out.
This is where I leave you. I’ve babbled on long enough. (Longer than most of my posts.) But I felt it important as a member of the Substack community, where authors reach out to each other every day, to offer up this man’s noble corner of the Supernet Interweb Information BylineWay. So I HOPE you’ll go Stupefying Stories for the free reads, stay for the comment section — because we all know how important it is — and finally, to consider offering your support with just $5 a month. Don’t get me wrong, the stories ARE FREE (completely, no logins, signups, ads or BS), but Mr. Bethke PAYS his authors. (I’ll let you do the math.) To me, Stupefying Stories has become a great place to learn the art of the short story through both reading and writing. There is some absolutely supreme work, so don’t forget to deep dive the site (it won’t take much). Last quote (I promise!):
If you like the stories we’re publishing, subscribe today. We do Stupefying Stories out of pure love for genre fiction, but in publishing as in tennis, love means nothing. To keep Stupefying Stories going at this level we need to raise at least $500 USD monthly, and rather than doing so with pledge breaks or crowd-funding campaigns, we’d rather have subscribers. If just 100 people commit to just $5 monthly, we can keep going at this level indefinitely. If we raise more, we will pay our authors more.
We never meet without parting
Next issue... Interview with
Until then!
Made in DNA
https://campsite.bio/madeindna
All email conversation quotes printed with Mr. Bruce Bethke’s permission.