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Worlds Without End Blog

Guest Post: Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. by Kevin J. Anderson Posted at 12:24 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

Dear Worlds Without End Readers,

We have a personal message from Science Fiction and Fanytasy Master Kevin J. Anderson and an opportunity to participate in his Kickstarter with some pretty special offers:


Writers of the Future and Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.

Dear Readers,

Many of you know me for the Star Wars or Dune universes. I also have my very fun and popular Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series — like The Naked Gun meets the Addams Family.

Bats in the BelfryShamble’s next adventure, “Fire in the Hole,” is the cover story of Writers of the Future 39. This was a cool, unique project—the story is inspired by the amazing cover art, and I agreed to write the story before I even saw the painting. After seeing the fire dragon, how in the world was I going to fit a Zombie Detective into THAT? Well, I did—and the result is hilarious.

As a judge for the Writers of the Future Contest, I’m thrilled to present this year’s award-winning stories and stunning illustrations by the best of tomorrow. And for the audiobook, my actor friend Jim Meskimen knocked it out of the park!

More Dan Shamble news: I’m almost finished with the draft of BATS IN THE BELFRY, the new novel. Check out the Kickstarter campaign where I am offering some very special bonus items. You’ll laugh so hard, brains will come out your nose!

Happy reading.

KJA

Guest Post: Writers of the Future Contest and Volume 39 — Are you ready? Posted at 2:42 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future: Volume 39 The highlight of the year, for aspiring writers and readers alike, is fast approaching with the release of the latest volume of the Writers of the Future Anthology. Volume 39 promises to be the most inspiring offering to date, featuring twelve debut stories by the winners of Writers of the Future 2022 and three bonus stories by best-selling authors, all illustrated by winners of the Illustrators of the Future Contest.

It starts off with a deeply human and feminist science-fiction offering about a miracle, a tragedy, and the connection between the two, unexpectedly and delightfully followed by a clever romp with a vampire, a dragon, and a were-dog. Volume 39 begins with thought-provoking, powerful narrative and, story by story, weaves and builds in insight, inspiration, and wonder.

Readers of this volume will find themselves pulled in and captivated by the discovery of new worlds, the exploration of clever technologies, and the imagining of futures with complex problems. They’ll experience alien worlds, first contacts, clever and convincing AI, and life and death choices. Skilled storytelling and artful Illustration go hand in hand with the beauty and caliber of art included in Volume 39, coming together with the narratives in flawless union. The imagery lives up to the high bar set by the stories.

For readers, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future provides a singular opportunity. It is a veritable buffet of offerings from fresh new voices in speculative fiction, a genre that includes science fiction, fantasy and the less definable stories that skirt the borders between realism and fancy. The blind judging process ensures that each volume is composed of diverse new voices from around the world. The stories that win are themselves compelling, meaningful, and boast the forward thinking insight that speculative fiction is known for.

Writers and Illustrators of the Future volumes are uniquely suited for sharing among family members because it comes in a digestible style that is appropriate for middle grade readers. Volume 39 is no exception, with its flaming dragon bedecked cover and a collection of stories and illustrations that manage to uphold the same standard for excitement, adventure, and immersion.

Each volume boasts articles with exclusive advice and trade secrets for success in writing and illustration. Volume 39 in particular includes a very useful article on priorities, by Kristine Kathryn Rush, that outlines how to write (or meet other priority goals) without forsaking health or relationships.

Writers of the Future Trophies For aspiring writers and artists finding out about the contest for the first time and wondering how to be the next winner included in the Writers of the Future anthologies, picking up a copy of Volume 39 and reading it cover to cover is the first, most important step. It’s the most comprehensive way to learn your market, to get a feel for what kind of material is right for Writers of the Future and to learn from the previous winners, judges, and pros affiliated with the contest.

You may be wondering if the contest is as worthwhile as it sounds, or if all this excitement over a single anthology contest is warranted.

The short answer is: yes, get excited; entering the contest is free and easy to do, with very tangible rewards if you win. The long answer is still yes; setting your sights on getting into the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contest is one of the most worthwhile goals out there for an aspiring writer or illustrator.

The official website has an intuitive, easy-entry submission portal with all of the rules and guidelines displayed clearly. The support and free-training is invaluable for beginners as well as more seasoned writers teetering on the edge of pro-writing. On the website you’ll find a lively forum of over 10,000 writers and illustrators with active discussions, critique trades, support threads, and advice for winning the contest. There are posts by judges, editors, and past winners geared towards helping entrants build their knowledge and skills.

The website also features a free online writers training course that teaches the fundamentals of short story craft with articles and video lectures by legends like Orson Scott Card, David Farland, and Tim Powers. It’s free—have I mentioned that enough times yet? It’s broken up into manageable chunks, and you get a completion certificate at the end. Once you’ve registered, you can move through the course at your own pace or come back to it to revisit and refresh your memory.

Even the judging system provides more support and feedback than writers and illustrators can expect elsewhere, featuring Returned with Comments, Honorable Mentions, Silver Honorable Mentions, Semi-Finalists, and Finalist rankings, to show entrants their current level and progress.

With four entry quarters a year and three winners each quarter, writers and illustrators can use the contest as a quarter by quarter goal-marker for their own progress and benefit from multiple opportunities to win the contest. The culmination of winning is a free trip to Los Angeles for a week of workshops, networking, and hands-on mentorship with industry professionals, the whole event ending in a red carpet award ceremony and a professional book signing. Aspiring authors and illustrators have nothing to lose by entering the contest and everything to gain: practice, support, community, and, maybe, the biggest win of their career.

What are you waiting for?

By CL Fors


CL Fors CL Fors lives and breathes stories in multiple mediums: the written word, illustration in watercolor, acrylic, digital, and ink, and the creation of custom jewelry and other artifacts of story. She is an artist with a myriad of interests and experiences that inform and flavor her writing and illustrating. A multipotentialite, mother, author, and adventurer, CL is a science and science-fiction enthusiast with a passion for research based sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction in general. 

CLʼs debut novel, Progeny, is the first installment of the Primogenitor series. The second and third books in the series, Adaptation and Reunion. are available on Amazon and the fourth book Schism will be released soon.  CL also writes science articles and short stories and has articles published at Genetic Literacy Project and Midwifery today Magazine. Website: CLForsauthor.com


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Guest Post – Yoon Ha Lee: Tarot (and Other) Cards as Writing Inspiration Posted at 1:53 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

Yoon Ha LeeYoon Ha Lee is a Korean-American SFF writer. He has published short fiction in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine and elsewhere. Three of his stories have been reprinted in Gardner Dozois’ The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies.  Yoon’s new novel Nine Fox Gambit is out now from Solaris.


My first exposure to Tarot was through science fiction, specifically Piers Anthony’s books. I can’t remember which one–I think he used the imagery in a number of his novels–but I liked playing cards and I was fascinated by the symbolism. It wasn’t until I got my hands on Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber, however, that my interest in Tarot really took off–and it wasn’t just the novels, it was Erick Wujcik’s Amber Diceless Roleplaying.

In Zelazny’s books, the royal family of Amber can be called upon by their Trumps or portrait cards. Even better, Amber Diceless Roleplaying wrote up Zelazny’s major characters as potential non-player characters (NPCs) and included beautiful black-and-white illustrations of their Trumps by Michael Kucharski. (I have a crush on Corwin’s portrait.) The idea of having characters represented by cards never left me.

corwin_rpgOver the years I have amassed a very small collection of Tarot decks, from the grunge-flavored Darkana Tarot (the Wheel of Fortune is a revolver, and it has an extra card, the Badass) to Nathan Never’s science-fiction-themed Tarocchi del Futuro, and even a Tarot Ambre (a gift). At some point in the future I’m hoping to treat myself to a copy of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law’s Shadowscapes Tarot as well. When I’m stuck on a story, sometimes I dig one out and do a Tarot spread to help myself brainstorm.

One might consider this a very advanced form of fox-waxing. My favorite way to do this is to focus on a character so that I can get a sense of their story arc, especially in a longer work. Half the fun is poring over the set of cards and deciding what card should serve as the character’s significator. For example, when I was working on the first two hexarchate books, I thought of General Shuos Jedao as the Knight of Swords. Of course, then I went on to do a reading for him using an app where you don’t choose the significator, it just shuffles the whole spread, and freaked out when the Knight of Swords turned up in the “self” position anyway. I try not to be superstitious, but this doesn’t help!

example-charsheet-01I play pretty fast and loose with the spread, but sometimes the cards that look the most counterintuitive are the ones that make me think the hardest. Sometimes I reject what the spread tells me and go with something else. I mean, who’s going to stop me? Still, having a randomized source of archetypes to apply to my plots gives me a starting point.

As you can tell, I am not a Tarot expert; I do my best not to apply this stuff to real life. I often have to look up the meanings of the cards. But sometimes even that isn’t necessary–the pictures on the cards are enough to suggest to me what I want to do with my characters. It’s one of the reasons I collect different decks, because the art is different on all of them, and suggests different things to me.

I use a variant of this with collectible card game (CCG) cards, largely because my husband and I are sitting on a collection of them. (Misspent youth.) I pulled the ones example-charsheet-02with pretty, evocative art and put them in those plastic binder pages, arranging them to create a sort of associational portrait of the character. Here are some examples, mostly Legend of the Five Rings with a side of Shadowfist. Legend of the Five Rings works for me because it was one of the inspirations for the hexarchate setting, but you could probably find something out there for anything.

Other repurposed CCGs I have lying around include Blood Wars, Star of the Guardians, and Babylon-5 Wars. I imagine that if you write fantasy, you could get a lot of mileage out of Magic: The Gathering. My local game store sells old commons and uncommons for fifty cents apiece, and the beautiful thing about nabbing cards for the art rather than their play value is it’s not hard to find old, cheap commons that will do the job!