Athabasca Valles, a region on Mars, shows signs of erosion and processing by some fluid or other, sometime in Mars' past. Opinion has been divided as to whether the processing has been done by liquid water or by lava. A new report in New Scientist (from which the above image was also copied; it's originally from NASA/JPL/Arizona State University, just to be above-board about such matters) reveals that, thanks to the unprecedented optical prowess of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the mystery may have been told. It seems like those spiral features in the above image, which are of the order of 5 to 30 metres across, are diagnostic of lava action rather than water or ice. Which, in and of itself, is a neat piece of geological deduction.

But it got me thinking ... just what kind of lava action could give rise to these spirals? And, you know, I have a theory of my own.

Because, well ... Mars. Spirals. Rocks. Lava. This is all sounding rather familiar ...

( (cut for spoilers) )

I rest my case.

In this case, I'm delighted that the suffering of my characters has once again reaped benefits for their creator ... with the news that my inadvertent-snowball-Earth story, 'Sky Pie', has found a home in the U.K., at Ian Redman's long-running Jupiter Magazine. It should be out in the July issue, #37, which will be identified as always as one of Jupiter's many satellites. (An earlier story of mine, 'M. R. E.', was in Jupiter XXII: Harpalyke, a few years back).

In other news, I have been so preoccupied with layout on various projects that my dreams, this week, have been in InDesign(TM) format. (Next week, when I switch to e-book editing, my dreams will doubtless morph into epub format ...)

... but we expect to have ASIM 54 ready-to-launch within the next week or so.


Here's the lineup: (The link in Anatoly's story is to its electronic release on the ASIM website, in commemoration of the Titanic centenary.)

Anatoly Belilovsky,     ‘Durak’
Sue Bursztynski,     ‘Midwinter Night’
C A L,     ‘The Iron Lighthouse’
Zen Cho,     ‘The Earth Spirit’s Favourite Anecdote’
Belinda Crawford,     ‘Lex Talionis’
Tamlyn Dreaver,     ‘Petting the Tiger’
Dirk Flinthart,     ‘Head Shot’
Sarah Frost,     ‘On Carbon Wings’
Edwina Harvey,     ‘HG’
Robert Porteous,     ‘Roasted’
Kent Purvis,     ‘Going Fourth’
Alter S Reiss,     ‘Server Issues’
Nike Sulway,     ‘The Fox’s Child’
Robert P Switzer,     ‘The Day the Iguana Stood Still’
Nicole M Taylor,     ‘The Mad Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter’
M Darusha Wehm,     ‘Modern Love’

The cover art, and this issue's internal art, is done by the inimitable Lewis Morley. (The cover's inspired by Bob Switzer's story, and it's a doozy.) There are also poems by David Luntz and s c virtes, some Hitchhikerish nonfic from Jacob Edwards, and an interview with Brenda Cooper. What more could you want? (Except, of course, for lemon-soaked paper napkins.)

I had a lot of fun putting this issue together. It has a quite different feel to ASIM 51, but it's not quite clear to me yet as to why it's different--my tastes in fiction haven't changed dramatically, nor have I matured as a person to any significant extent in the intervening year. It is, obviously, a different set of authors to issue 51, and a different group of stories, but there's more to it than that, and as indicated it's something I can't put my finger on. But I believe I've chosen well ...

ASIM 54. Out soon, for a given value of 'soon'. Watch this space.

that voting closes in the FFANZ race tomorrow. (It's still a race, even if there's only the one entrant ...)

Glutton for punishment, I must be.

I’m currently putting the finishing touches to both ASIM 54 (of which some details in an upcoming post) and Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear (see here and here), with the ambition of having them both ready for unCONventional (the NZ Natcon, first weekend in June, which I’m looking forward to attending—my first con back in The Old Country™). Then there’s ASIM 56, the tenth anniversary issue of ASIM, which, while a hivemind editorial effort, involves a significant input from yours truly as partial editor as well as layout artist. Also with a deadline of unCONventional if we can manage it, Continuum (the Australian Natcon, second weekend in June, my first non-Worldcon-Natcon, if that makes sense) if we’re pushed. (And what of ASIM 55, I hear you ask? Well, sir or madam, surely you should not be so naïve as to expect ASIM  issues to follow one after another in strict linear numericularity …)

Which is all well and good. But I put myself forward, a month or so back, for yet another editorial assignment, and blow me down if it hasn’t come through. This one, too, has a Natcon deadline, although thankfully it’s next year’s Natcon (Conflux 9, here in Canberra, and chaired by Donna Hanson and fellow dinosaur aficionado Nicole R Murphy) rather than any of this year’s. To abridge a long story, the next Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild anthology will be edited by Rob Porteous and yours truly, on a theme and with a title yet to be decided.

For those of you who know little of this Rob Porteous of whom I speak, he’s one of a number of talented new writers who’ve been coming through the ranks of the CSFG over the last couple of years. (Others who fit into this category, in my humble opinion—and I stress that this is by no means an exhaustive listing—include David Dufty, Natalie Maddalena, Leife Shallcross, Zena Shapter, and Robin Shortt.) If you’re at all curious to explore Rob’s written work, there are examples of it—as it happens—in both ASIM 54 and Light Touch Paper.

Rob and I look forward to announcing the anthology’s theme, and title, and details of just how many puns and dinosaurs authors will be required to work into their stories so as to ensure acceptance, in the very near future. (No velociraptors, though. Been done to death, they have …)

[There should be links in the above, but I haven't put any. Sorry. My laptop doesn't do cut&paste linkery very well at the best of times, and shopping mall wifi doesn't count as the best of times in any event ...]

EDIT: Links now added, in a daring feat.

... is currently giving me the form of epilepsy commonly afflicting those who remove corn from its husk.

That is to say, the shucking fits ...

There was a splash. "Quick! Throw him the lifesaver!" shouted the Captain. But the ex-Jedi crewman misheard him ...

The Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear cover is set to look something like this:



And to refresh your memory, the stories contained therein are:

Joanne Anderton,  'The Bone Chime Song'

Adam Browne,  'The D____d'

Sue Bursztynski,  'Five Ways to Start a War'

Brenda Cooper,  'Between Lines'

Katherine Cummings,  'The Travelling Salesman and the Farmer's Daughter'

Thoraiya Dyer,  'Faet's Fire'

Kathleen Jennings,  'Kindling'

Dave Luckett,  'History: Theory and Practice'

Ian McHugh,  'The Godbreaker and Unggubudh the Mountain'

Sean McMullen,  'Hard Cases'

Ripley Patton,  'Mary Had a Unicorn'

Rob Porteous,  'The Subjunctive Case'

Anna Tambour,  'Murder at the Tip'

At this stage, all is still on track for an early June release date. We hope to have a couple more anthology-related tidbits for you in the weeks ahead.

... something big went down. Something so big that, eighty-five years later, it would allow a movie director (who has since plumbed depths that other directors can merely dream of) to fabricate a hideously expensive movie with an ending so well known that the concept of 'spoiler' would be, for once, entirely obviated; something that would, in its way, become one of the defining incidents of the twentieth century. (And no, I'm not talking about the birth of Kim Il-Sung, father of North Korea, although curiously today's the centenary of that, as well.)

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Anatoly Belilovsky's short story, 'Durak', set on a certain ocean liner, has just now been released as a free-to-view story on the Andromeda Spaceways website. Please check it out!

I chose Anatoly's story for the yet-to-be-released ASIM issue 54 (and it is imminent; I'm hoping it'll be available in print and e-book before the end of the month). 'Durak' will still feature, as intended, in issue 54, but ASIM felt that we couldn't let the centenary go past uncommemorated. And Anatoly graciously agreed to the story's appearance on the website. So think of 'Durak' as a trailer for the issue, and please read it.

Because I'd hate to see it sink without trace.