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Back Up or Lose It All

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Fletcher DeLancey: “How do you back up your writing? Have you ever had a catastrophic failure, and if so, how did you recover?” We did once. Mark and I run several online directories for the LGBT community, and back in the early days, we backed up to Zip Drives – do you remember those? They were like floppy discs, but fatter. They held HUGE amounts of data – like 500 MB or maybe a Gig! LOL… Well, at one point, Mark’s hard drive crashed. And for some reason, the back-up had failed on one of … Read more

Your Next Cruise

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Who wouldn’t want to go on this cruise? Looks like the Force will be with Disney Cruise Line next year, when the heroes and villains of “Star Wars” board the Disney Fantasy. The new Star Wars Day at Sea experience will be staged during eight sailings to the Western Caribbean from Port Canaveral, Florida. Themed deck parties, fireworks, trivia games, meet-and-greets with the characters, and screenings will all be part of the fun. (The film line-up includes Disney’s new XD animated series, “Star Wars Rebels.”) By Donna Tunney – Full Story at Shermans Travel

Announcement: Grydscaen Tribute, by Natsuya Uesugi

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QSFer Natsuya Uesugi has a new book out in the Grydscaen series: The short stories that make up the science fiction anthology grydscaen: tribute focus on the hackers in the series. Intrusion, infiltration government overreach selling data, smuggling psi inducer drugs, and social engineering – it is all covered. When the young adult Faid is solicited by George, the rich and powerful member o the corporate board of the SenseNet, Faid’s life in the Echelons drastically changes. Besides being George’s host, Faid starts the Packrat hackers and embarks on his mission of taking down the government and stopping them from … Read more

Fantasy Tropes

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Michael Barnette: “What Fantasy tropes are you seriously tired of seeing? For me it’s the ‘evil wizard and minions taking over the world’ bit. In the last 3 days I’ve seen 2 books advertised here on FB with that exact plot.” We had a similar discussion a few months ago based on this article: 10 Tropes Involving Fantasy Weapons That Should Die In A Fire But let’s broaden it out to Fantasy tropes in general. I’m not immune to using them. My first Fantasy story involved a magical ring that was key to the ending … Read more

Announcement: The Sinclair Selkie, by Chris Quinton

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QSFer Chris Quinton has a new shifter MM romance book out: Folk singer Donal MacCraith is touring the Scottish Western Isles, documenting traditional songs and investigating his family history. He meets Niall MacLachlan in Stornoway and Niall invites himself along. He has a secret and an agenda of his own. Meeting Donal is the chance he needs to complete it. American Donal MacCraith is on a road trip along the western coast of Scotland and the Western Isles. His family roots are there, but his main reasons for the extended vacation are the songs and legends. He’s a folk-singer, come … Read more

Your First Speculative Fiction Influences

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When I was a child, I was a voracious reader, and sometime around second grade, my mother introduced me to a trilogy that would change my life, setting me on the path to become a writer. It was the Lord of the Rings, and I devoured the three books. I still remember when Boromir died after an orc attack on a hillside surrounded by his friends – I cried over that for days. I remember spending a fleeting few days in Lothlorien, my little heart beating happily with the thought that such a beautiful, forlorn, and doomed place could possibly … Read more

“Infected: Paris” by Andrea Speed

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Infected: Paris is a novella by Andrea Speed, and a prequel to the Infected series. I had only read Infected: Prey, the first book, before I read this. I really liked Paris. I’m a sucker for a black-haired, blue-eyed beauty. The narrator is mainly Roan McKichan, but there are some Paris point of view scenes as well. If you start with this book, you’ll still get the general set up of the world, which takes place in contemporary Seattle, where everything is essentially the same, except that a small percentage of the population has a cat infection…or turns into a … Read more

Announcement: Love Spanks Anthology

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QSFer Anastasia Vitsky is in a new FF romance anthology that includes some spec fic pieces, part of the Seasonal Spankings series: Seasonal Spankings is a four-year tradition of authors coming together to share excerpts of their work, offer prizes, and interact with readers. Love Spanks, the first weekend in February, focuses on F/F fiction. Sci Spanks (June 12-14 for 2015) includes all pairings within the broad range of speculative fiction. For more information, find Anastasia Vitsky at Governing Ana (http://governingana.wordpress.com) or on Facebook. If you are interested in writing for Sci Spanks this year, please send her a sample … Read more

Your Favorite Flavor of Sci Fi

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Today’s sci fi day at Queer Sci Fi! Are you a sci fi reader? I have been since I was, like, seven or 8. I used to wander into the “spare bedroom” at my Mom’s house and peruse her three shelves of sci fi. My Mom was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, and new books would arrive every month. I grew up on Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Anne McCaffrey. I bounced back and forth between hard sci fi, fantasy, and more fantasy-flavored sci fi – and still do to this day. So for our question … Read more

Creating New Creatures: Night Vision, Amelia Bishop

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QSFer Amelia Bishop has a new paranormal MM romance book out: Hi QueerSciFi-ers! Thank you to J. Scott for having me on the blog to promote my paranormal Romance Night Vision (which released today!!) I’m really happy to be here. :) I thought for my guest post, I’d skip over the Romance part of my writing and focus on the paranormal part. More specifically, the paranormal creatures themselves. Popular creatures, like vampires, werewolves (and/or shifters), Witches, & Fae, populate most of our paranormal fiction. Ghosts, zombies, demons, angels, and other assorted creatures show up often, as well. But what about … Read more