The Official Susurrus Press Blog

Okay, okay, okay.  I accept all of the blame for Neverlands and Otherwheres not being finished. Mainly because it’s my fault. I won’t use excuses (though there are LOTS, some of which may even be valid), I’m just gonna take it like a man.

I also will not quite make a promise about what date it’ll be finished by, because, well, stuff happens. But I can say SOON. I’m in the process of sending it out for a final polish to someone who will look for those last couple of mistakes (she works fast, as in, finishes in days), then it goes to the printer. After it goes to the printer, we swear to never make another book again for at least a couple of months.

-Rev. Brian Worley

I don’t really care for video games or computer games.  I think that at the point where you started using more than your thumbs to mash a controller, a lot of the fun went out of them.  That being said, I LOVE StarCraft.  Back when I was much more into games, I played WarCraft and it was fun, but I didn’t read fantasy then, so a game involving battles between ogres and humans didn’t appeal that much.  But the same game with aliens and monsters and Terrans?  Oh, yes.

So it’s understandable when I decided to read the SC Ghost novel, Nova.  The Ghost is one of the coolest characters in the whole SC universe (and my preferred method of attack.  Can anyone say “Nuclear launch detected.”?)  And man, this book was awful.  It took me almost a week to knock this one out because every time I came back to it, something in my mind said, “Couldn’t you be doing something more constructive to do?  Don’t you have a novel to edit?  Don’t you have submissions to read?  Don’t you have to earn back all that money you’ve lost playing MS Solitaire?”  But I finished it, and it’s one of those that I’ll never read again nor recommend to anyone else.  If you want to know the story it tells, read a synopsis (which Wikipedia strangely doesn’t have), or read the spoilerific passage below.

***SPOILER ALERT***

It’s basically the story of Nova Terra (groan), the scion of one of the Old Families, who has the most amazing telepathic and telekinetic powers in the universe, and she accidentally kills 300 people when her family is brutally murdered.  She then flees to the poor part of town and is harrassed and then used by a drug dealer.  At this point, you might be asking yourself, is this even science fiction?  I mean, aside from the cleverly named hover-bikes and fones, and the occasional advertisement robot, this could be New York in the 80s.  There’s a cliche cyberpunk ex-cop who’s trying to track her down.  Seriously, this novel is boring, and I think someone should have smacked DeCandido in his face for writing such a waste of words.

***NO MORE SPOILERS, YAY!***

Unlike the good Reverend stated in his review of the same novel, this did not satiate my hunger for new StarCraft adventures or excite me for the next game.  So, I acquired the other three books in the series and started reading some of those.  Please keep in mind, I don’t read Star Trek novels (Planet X aside, that is.), DnD novels, Warhammer, WarCraft, or any other books based in a world created from a TV show or a game.  Like the literary snob who turns his nose at Philip K. Dick because he’s a SF writer, I turn my nose at these books because they’re … well, IMO they’re just not very good.  I’ve tried, Zeus knows, but they seem to be the romance novel equivalents for the speculative genre.

That being said, the first SC novel, Uprising by Micky Nielson, is pretty good.  I’m writing this, having read only about 75% of it, but already it’s very much a SC novel, very much a SF novel, and it’s good, clean fun.  It has familiar characters (Arcturus Mensk, Edmund Duke, and Sarah “Closer your mouth, boys, you’re drooling” Kerrigan.  It has lots of new characters, some stock, some of the literary persuasion.  The science fiction is good–it’s not Michael Chricton or Ray Bradbury, but this novel is being written by someone who knows what he’s talking about.  There are no awkward dialogues about budding breasts or attempts to show what addiction to “crab” is like–hell no, we’re talking siege tanks, invisible assassins and space marines.  This has made me want StarCraft II.  This has reminded me of why I kept playing StarCraft in lieu of physics homework or paying attention to girlfriends.

If you’re wanting something good to read that’s read in the SC universe, go “acquire” Uprising and give it a go.  It’s a short book (I started it on the subway this morning, and I’ll be finished by dinner.) and it’s being written for people who like science fiction and StarCraft.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic
Atomjack Magazine

We’re busy. Really, really busy. We’re working on two print anthologies, putting out magazines, and dealing with ever-growing slushpiles.  Not to mention, NaNoWriMo is coming up!  So Susurrus Magazine is closing to submissions until January first, lest we stretch ourselves so thin that we go transparent.  We’ll still be publishing issues; we’ve got an enormous backlog to draw from.

In other news: Neverlands and Otherwheres is coming!

For those of you who are looking forward to Neverlands and Otherwheres: We’re working on it.  It’s going through a final bit of layout polish before we send it out for proofreading, then it goes to the printer.  We’ll update you as it goes along. Info here.

So I just finished Julio Cortazar’s Cronopios and Famas, and I’m not entirely sure I like it.  It’s a short collection of sketches rather than stories, and they’re so heavily steeped in metaphor that it’s like poetry.  And I am not a fan of poetry.  I picked up the book because I’m always willing to give Spanish-speaking authors a chance (especially when they fall into that magic realism category–me likey magic realism.)

And here’s a blurb on the back from Pablo Neruda.  You tell me you could resist picking this up.  “Anyone who doesn’t read Cortazar is doomed.  Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences.  Something similar to a man who has never tasted peached.  He would quietly become sadder … and probably, little by little, he would lose his hair.”

That’s just about one of the best blurbs I’ve ever read.  So I picked it up.

The book is divided into four parts:  The Instruction Manual, Unusual Occupations, Unstable Stuff, and Cronopios and Famas.

The Instruction Manual is exactly what it sounds like:  a series of short instructions on how to do things like walk up stairs, comb hair, wind up a watch, and more.  This part is pretty amazing.  Almost every set of instructions is surreal and funny and sometimes incredibly sweet.

Unusal Occupations deals mostly with the narrator’s family (although who the narrator is is not really explored or given) as they deal with an aunt who is afraid to lean backwards, as they build a gallows in their front yard, as they commandeer wakes and funerals.  This part is also definitely a keeper.

Unstable Stuff is a jumble of page-and-a-half long sketches that deal with all kinds of strangeness:  battles with secretaries, geography texts written by ants and analyzed by humans, camels, bears, and too many topics to cover.  This section is where the collection started to break down, as it no longer seemed to have a coherent theme (like the previous two parts) to hold it together.  The others could read straight through, all together, but these feel like they should read one a day.

Cronopios and Famas depict lots of the philosophies, actions and feelings of three kinds of “people” for lack of a better term, the cronopios, the famas and the esperanzas.  I’m sure these are metaphors for something, or the product of a hard trip, but as I couldn’t figure it, and Wikipedia couldn’t help me, I have no idea what most of these little sketches were trying to represent.

All in all, I’d say check this one out at the library first and see if you can figure it out.  If not, I’d pass.  If so, please post below and enlighten my uncultured self.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic
Atomjack Magazine

8pod, the new Susurrus Press podcast, has just published its second story. The story is “Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Souls of the Faithful Departed” by Dale Wisely of Right Hand Pointing. It’s read by Jenn Book Haselswerdt, and you can see it here. It appeared in the December 2007 special editor’s issue of Susurrus, which you can see here.

Give it a listen, and let us know what you think.

I just finished Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, which delivers exactly what its name suggests: it’s like a younger, more exciting version of 1984. Expect a full review in the August issue of Atomjack.

If you’d like to read the book for yourself, it’s available as a free download here.  Be sure of check out Cory’s reasons for why he offers the book for free download.  It’s quite interesting.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic
Atomjack Magazine

So the title has now been changed to Neverlands & Otherwheres, which I think is a truer representation of the stories that will be contained within. You wouldn’t believe how many stories we got of distant planets–hard SF that indicated to us that the submitters hadn’t really read anything about the anthology but the title.

Anyway, here’s the list of contributors (no particular order):

Rabia Gale
Patricia Russo
Mark Lee Pearson
John Weagly
Lisa A. Koonis
Maxwell James
Alexander Jennings
Kit St. Germain
Sylvia Kelso
Jennifer Moore
Casey Fiesler
Mercedes Murdock

and possibly one more by an author we’re working with.

We plan on printing here in Korea (and possibly with a POD in the States) and shipping from here, as both the Rev. and I are currently living here (and plan on being here for the foreseeable future).

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic

So in the last year alone, the cost of maintaining Atomjack has gone up considerably as I switched over to a higher profile hosting service and started paying my contributors more. And that got me thinking of how I can get Atomjack to start paying for itself.

I’m a realist–I don’t expect Atomjack to make me any money, but it’d be nice if it could at least pay for itself.  Right now, it’s kind of like a cat–it just sits there and expects me to feed me and change its litter.

So I’ve been putting advertising on the site.  I’ve been working with Project Wonderful, a bid-based advertising site, and from March until a few days ago, it had earned me a little over US$3.  Not exactly what I’d call booming business, but I’m going to stick it out for a few issues and see how the bids change as the traffic surges around the release of a new issue.

Also, at the end of every story, when you click on the button, it’ll take you to a page that is the online equivalent of a page of advertising in one of those comic books from the 60s.  And with the varied content that wins bids, who knows what you’ll see in there.  Why that guy who sells blooming teas is so hardcore about selling in Atomjack, I’ll never know.

Anyway.  I’m also fooling around with placing ads here in the blog.

If you have any comments, I’d be delighted to hear them.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic

I am such an amazing technomage that I successfully downloaded and installed the easiest-to-use blog software all on my own!  I think I need a holiday named after me.

But seriously, folks, welcome.  It’s our goal here to provide you with a way to know what’s going on when there’s not a new issue, anthology or apology rolling around out there. We’ll probably also put up fun stuff that might interest our readers, as well as reviews and what-not of things that aren’t right for either magazine.

At this moment, our magazines are:  Atomjack Magazine and Susurrus Magazine

Our past anthology:  I Am This Meat

Our upcoming anthologies:  Chicago Overcoat and Neverlands & Otherwheres (previously Far, Far Away)

Stay tuned for more.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor