I’m delighted to report that another story of mine has sold to the good folks at Space and Time Magazine. They published my story “Ebb” last year, and now they’ve bought “The Very Strange Weird of Endart Sscowth.”

This story is an homage to Clark Ashton Smith, a great writer of the 20s and 30s pulp fantasy era, who is often lost in the shadow of his colleague Robert E. Howard and his pen-pal H.P. Lovecraft. It’s also very different from all my published stories to date–quite short, under 2000 words, and not quite so serious; actually rather droll, if I may say so myself.

The title includes an archaic usage of the word “weird,” as he once used it–an old Scottish one that means fate or destiny. Hence the adjective “strange” that I inserted before it, to show that this weird is a noun and not our more common adjective interpretation of that word. A strange weird, indeed. :)

Space and Time tells me that “The Very Strange Weird of Endart Sscowth” should see publication in late 2010 or early 2011. I hope you will find it droll as well. ;)

Issue #14 of M-Brane SF magazine is now out, featuring my hard-SF baseball story “Picking Up the Spin.”

If you’ve always wondered what SF written by me would read like, given that I have a chemistry background but always write fantasy, this is your chance to find out. :)

M-Brane is a great indie mag, now in their second year (not unlike my mag BCS). Among the many other authors in Issue #14 is my friend and colleague Cat Rambo. So definitely give this issue a look.

I’m delighted that my hard-SF baseball story “Picking Up the Spin” has found a home at M-Brane SF, an up-and-coming online SF magazine that got very good compliments in Rich Horton’s year-end review.

The story is a near-future look at what might happen to a ballplayer who had to undergo a genetically engineered treatment for retinal disease. It has lots of cool baseball jargon and my near-future baseball speculations (maybe someday there will be a major league team in Havana?).

The science is extrapolated from the retinal signal-transduction pathway I assisted with research on during an undergraduate summer. The scientific approach in the story also features a different angle than I’ve seen in SF before.

[Warning: Science Content! Many science fans don’t realize how massively difficult it is to modify a biological system by changing or adding a gene. Specifically targeting one gene is trying to access a thousand base pairs of DNA among 3 billion. Even if you add a new gene, the old one is still present. The problem expands from there, as RNA transcription and translation and protein mechanics are exponentially more complex and less well understood than DNA processes. To see my neat approach that circumvented all that, you’ll have to read the story. :) ]

Despite my science background, this is the only piece of true SF that I’ve ever written. I think that may be because for me, scientific concepts and personal or character things rarely mesh for me. Character is always the most important element of a story for me, so, even in hard SF, the science must take a back seat.

The good folks at M-Brane tell me that “Picking Up the Spin” is slated for the March issue. Right around when spring training games will be starting for the new season. Play ball!

My story “Keeli’s Ordeal” is now live at Crossed Genres magazine, in issue 15. Here’s the direct link.

The magazine looks quite nice! In addition to online text, it’s also available in paper format and in several ebook file formats–visit their web-store for all the options.

I’m sharing the TOC of this issue with Barbara Krasnoff, a good short story writer I met at ReaderCon last year, and my Homeless Moon cohort Jay Ridler. If you check out my story, be sure and check out theirs as well.