Tag Archives: Phoenix Pick

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Phoenix Pick announces series of new author showcase books

Here’s some news from sf small press Phoenix Pick; they’re doing a series of books pairing up established names in the genre with newer writers. From the press release:

The Phoenix Pick program pairs a veteran author with a newer writer, each contributing a story for a single, stand-alone edition within the series. Each of the two stories may be set in the same universe, or complement the other in some other manner.

This project offers less-established authors a new venue to sell their stories and also provides them with an exceptional opportunity to have their work introduced to science fiction and fantasy fans by current masters in the field.

It allows veteran authors the opportunity to provide newer authors of their own choosing a distinctive platform to launch or re-ignite their careers.

Mike Resnick, the series editor, is considered one of the most distinguished writers and editors in the genre. He has been nominated for a record 35 Hugo awards and has won the award five times. He is first on Locus magazine’s list of all-time award winners, living or dead, for short fiction, and fourth on the magazine’s list of science fiction’s all-time top award winners in all fiction categories.

Good to see people still trying new ideas in the dead-tree sphere. As I’ve said before, I don’t think print media is anywhere near over, though it’s definitely moving into a twilight phase… and as mass market models fade away, there becomes space to try new things with niches. One to keep an eye on.

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Phoenix Pick nominations, er, picked

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Thanks very much to those of you who voted; we had a tie for second place, so to keep things fair and impartial from the editorial side I flipped a coin to decide between them. The Futurismic nominations for the Phoenix Pick Award are:

Best of luck to Sandra and Silvia! I’ll keep us updated as news arrives

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Vote late, vote often: last few days to choose Phoenix Pick Award nominees

Hey! I was going to shut off the comments for Futurismic‘s nominations for the Phoenix Pick Awards today, but there are only three replies. Three.

I mean, come on – I know for a fact that more than three of you regularly read the fiction we publish here. So show a bit of support for the writers, why not? And, yes, for Futurismic as a fiction venue as well: Chris and I may run this site predominantly for the love, but it’d be nice to feel that people cared enough to mention which story they liked best. Thirty seconds of your time, that’s all we’re asking here.

So please, go check the list of eligible stories, and leave a comment with your choices. You’ve got until Thursday evening, UK time, to make a short fiction writer’s day… and to make two editors feel they haven’t been wasting a lot of time and money for nothing.

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Help us out: which two Futurismic stories should we nominate for the Phoenix Pick Award?

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Readers of Futurismic fiction, your assistance would be appreciated: Phoenix Pick are running a competition for original science fiction stories published online between July 2009 and June 2010, and we need your help to decide which two stories we should send in.

A bit of background, here: the Phoenix Pick Award is a new prize, exclusively for sf published online, and is unique in that the stories for consideration have to be submitted by the editors who originally published them, rather than by the authors themselves. The prize money for the winning story – guaranteed at a minimum of $US650, no less! – will be split between the story’s author and its publishing venue.

Now, each publishing venue can submit two stories from the eligibility period for consideration, and that’s where we need your help.

We obviously think all eleven stories we published between July 2009 and June 2010 are awesome, or we wouldn’t have published them (d’uh!), and picking favourites would be no fun at all. So I figure we call on you lot, the readers, and crowdsource the choices – what could be fairer than that?

So, here are all the eligible stories, so you can refresh your familiarity with them:

To nominate your two choices, please list them in order of preference (i.e. favourite, second favourite) in a comment below this post*. You’ve got until Sunday 10th October to make your choice; on that day, I’ll lock the comments, count ’em all up, and announce the two leading candidates to be put forward for the Award.

[ * I looked into using an embedded poll gizmo, but none of them really worked the way I wanted them to, and at least with comments made here I can check by IP address to be sure no one’s stuffing the ballot! ]

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Free ebooks every month from Phoenix Picks

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I meant to mention this a few months ago, but life got in the way. Still, better late than never, so:

Like books? Like science fiction books? Like electronic editions of science fiction books? Like getting stuff for free? Sure you do! So go sign up for the Phoenix Pick monthly free ebook coupon. This month’s freebie is “Arkfall” by Carolyn Ives Gilman, which was nominated for this year’s Nebula Award for Best Novella.

Phoenix Pick also does handsome dead-tree editions of rare, reissued or just plain obscure science fiction titles… much more handsome than their rather spartan and old-school website might suggest, in fact. And they’re not spammy, either; with your download code each month, you get informed as to what else has been released, and that’s it.

No obligations, no pack drill. Free ebooks. Thought you’d wanna know.

[ Full disclosure: Phoenix Pick sent me a copy of The World Beyond The Hill by the Panshins for review (and, to my shame, I still have yet to get round to reading it), but I was in no way obliged to do the above plug. Just honestly wanted to share the freebies. ]