Recommended Read/Listen: “20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism” by Jon Padgett

PseudoPod 433: “20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism”

I absolutely guarantee the last couple twists are ones you ain’t gonna see coming, dummy. 

[photo credit: “Photo booth portrait of two clowns and a ventriloquist dummy” by oakenroad is licensed under CC BY 2.0. ]

Halloween Treats from Dave-o!!! 🍂🍁🎃👻🕯🤡🔪🥩💀

A handful of seasonally-appropriate tales:

“This Place is Best Shunned” 😱⛪️🦑

My latest dark tale, “This Place is Best Shunned,” is free to read on Tor.com RIGHT NOW!!!

Allie and Rooster are heading down to Asheville for Rooster’s new gig, a cushy stint as artist-in-residence at UNC. Rooster is more of a con artist than maker of art, but Allie doesn’t mind, because he’s good-looking, charming, and values what she is: a girl with a keen eye for abandoned places and a knack for getting into them. But when they stumble upon an old backcountry church—the perfect backdrop for Rooster’s latest project—they discover that some “abandoned” places have a knack for keeping themselves occupied.

(Amazing cover art is by David Palumbo!!!)

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Tardigrade Expiration Date ♬♫♪

Good friend (and maven of Arbor Teas) Aubrey Lopatin recently shared this song with me and reminded me I wrote this novella for her and her hubbie roughly one-billion years ago: Expiration Date.

In honor of this Season of Joy and New Beginnings, I offer this free read and song to you, my all my Best Belovéd Readers.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: OMFG! In late December a frozen tardigrade became the first ‘quantum entangled’ animal in history (researchers claim). If you’re a child of the 1970s, you no doubt appreciate the fact that this is the first ever successful creation of artificial extra-sensory perception (ESP) in an animal!!!1!

(Meanwhile, if you are a scientist or someone who read the entire article, you more likely appreciate that these researchers “did not entangle a tardigrade with a qubit in any meaningful sense”—but it’s still neat that they took a tardigrade down to nearly absolute zero and successfully revived it. Hearty lil fellas, right?)

Flashback Friday: Halloween Edition 🎃🦇🔪

A seasonally appropriate list of creepyscarry links:

"Don't Make Me Go Back, Mommy: A Child's Book about Satanic Ritual Abuse" ritual
I’m not making this book up, and it wasn’t a joke. I cannot stress this enough. It was a real children’s book real people bought without irony, intending to use it to help them teach their children about the realities of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

The Far-from-Obligatory Annual Award Eligibility Post

It’s that time of year again. If you’re the kinda person that nominates stories for the Hugo, Nebula, etc. Awards, I’ve got exactly one qualifying story for you to consider this year:

“All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal” (F&SF, July/Aug 2020)

(review, review, review)

If you are a person who might nominate stuff and need a copy, I can send you a PDF. Contact me.

Incidentally, I loved that art so much that I contact the artist (Alan M Clark) and bought the original charcoal-on-paper drawing that was the source. It’s amaaaaaazing! The original is 16″x20″. A 5″x8″ magazine cover cannot do it justice. Such a treat to have on my wall.

All Hail the Pizza King!🍕👑

The latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is hitting newsstands, e-readers, and mailboxes, and I’m pleased to brag that the Pizza King himself graces the cover (and my story “All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal” graces the interior).

Need your copy? Order online: paper or digital. Wanna review it on GoodReads? You can! (There is currently one review up, and the reviewer didn’t finish the story because it was “gross.” I respect that decision; it has a solid basis. Know your limits, my Dear Readers and Best Belovéds!)

THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

July/August, 71st Year of Publication

NOVELETS

  • “Spirit Level” – John Kessel
  • “All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal” – David Erik Nelson
  • “‘Omunculus” – Madeleine E. Robins
  • “The Monsters of Olympus Mons” – Brian Trent

SHORT STORIES

  • “Knock, Knock Said the Ship” – Rati Mehrotra
  • “Last Night at the Fair” – M. Rickert
  • “Bible Stories for Adults No. 37: The Jawbone” – James Morrow
  • “Madre Nuestra, Que Estás en Maracaibo” – Ana Hurtado
  • “A Bridge from Sea to Sky” – Bennett North
  • “Crawfather” – Mel Kassel
  • “The Staircase” – Stephanie Feldman
  • “The Shape of Gifts” – Natalia Theodoridou

POEMS

  • “A Quartet of Alphabetic Bubbles” – Mary Soon Lee

DEPARTMENTS

  • Editorial by C.C. Finlay
  • Books to Look For by Charles de Lint
  • Musing on Books by Michelle West
  • Film: Darkness Visible by David J. Skal
  • Science: What the Heck is an Analemma by Jerry Oltion
  • Curiosities: The Contaminant by Leonard Reiffel (1978) by Thomas Kaufsek

Cartoons by Arthur Masear, Arthur Masear, Danny Shanahan, Kendra Allenby, Nick Downes, Nick Downes

Cover: By Alan M. Clark for “All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal”

I’ve got a story in NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION—and it’s available now! (UPDATED)

[UPDATE 2019-11-25: I just saw Paul Di Filippo’s review of this antho for Locus, and so added a snippet of that below, because it’s insanely kind and flattering and I wanna crow about it.]

It feels a little odd to be a “new voice” in anything with so little hair atop my head and so much grey in my beard—but I’ll take it!  The publisher has been kind enough to include a section of my story “In the Sharing Place” to whet your appetite (here’s a link to all five previews stories).  Enjoy!

The New Voices of Science Fiction (from Tachyon Press)

Reviews

“Reminiscent of the weirdness of Ben Marcus’s The Flame Alphabet, “In the Sharing Place” by David Erik Nelson chronicles in vivid surreal fashion a post-invasion, post-collapse world where psychological counseling takes on dire new facets.…this is a killer collection, full of top-notch stories beautifully written and invested with much care, compassion and thought …Deploying the toolkit and concerns bequeathed by their literary ancestors, they are extending the reach of the genre not by plowing under everything that was built before and salting the earth, but by erecting new superstructures on old foundations—or perhaps new eco-communes in the shadow of dinosaur cities. It’s the way the field has always moved forward, and this volume gives plenty of hope that the future of future fiction is in good hands.”—Paul Di Filippo, Locus Magazine

“While readers may be familiar with many of the names and individual works here, having them together in one volume creates a stunning set of sf shorts. Highly recommended for all collections.“—Library Journal

“There are also stories that present unique dystopias such as the mist-haunted New York in Jason Sanford’s ‘Toppers’ or the mysterious outside world in David Erik Nelson’s ‘In the Sharing Place.’”—Booklist

“After some kind of alien invasion/apocalypse, children try to come to terms with the loss of their families ‘In The Sharing Place’, a thoughtful and ultimately a chilling story by David Erik Nelson. Much of the narrative takes place in the therapy sessions that happen in the Sharing Place and only slowly are details of the apocalypse revealed. It’s a very effective tale.” SF Crowsnest