Tag Archives: Leonard Richardson

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Leonard Richardson launches Thoughtcrime Experiments

Heads up, writers! Leonard Richardson – the chap who wrote the rather excellent story “Mallory” that we published here at Futurismic last year – has decided to put together his own anthology, Thoughtcrime Experiments, and he’s looking for five  stories to populate it.

The full submission guidelines are on the Thoughtcrime Experiments webpage, but the basics are as follows: the stories should be between three thousand and ten thousand words in length, and accepted pieces will be bought for $200; Leonard would “prefer you send [him] a story you’ve already written and pounded the pavement for and acquired a couple rejection slips for.”

And as to style… well, this is why he’s asked us to announce it here at Futurismic:

I like science fiction at lot, especially science fiction set within fifty years of the present. It’s not as likely I’d pay $200 for a fantasy story, but if you’ve got a fantasy story set between 1959 and 2059, send it in. I’m not going to pay $200 for a horror story, unless it’s a really original parody or something.

More specifically, I like stories that engage with the pop culture of the past, present, or future. I like stories that use the alien to illuminate the everyday, or vice versa. I like hard SF that requires a degree to understand, provided it’s the computer science degree I actually have. I like farcical ridiculous gonzo pastiche.

So there you go. Check your trunk of stories and send something in – what have you got to lose? Good luck!

MALLORY by Leonard Richardson

A new month means a new story here at Futurismic … and this one has got everything.

Seriously – geek hackers and classic arcade games, electronic Darwinism and domestic espionage, venture capital and Valley-esque start-ups … and a healthy dose of intellectual property panic. Leonard Richardson‘s Futurismic début is quite a piece of work!

I should also point out for the benefit of the easily-offended that there’s a generous sprinkling of profanity in “Mallory”, right from the outset. Still keen? Good – you won’t regret it! Click on through and read the whole thing … and please leave comments for Leonard to let him know what you thought of the story.

Mallory

by Leonard Richardson

Vijay had been playing video games his whole life, but he’d never really become addicted to one until the first incarnation of Fuck Me. Adding an element of real-time strategy to the already-frenetic Gestalt Warrior combined construction, emergent behavior, and blob-themed violence in a way that both Vijay and the Selfish GAME found satisfying.

Continue reading MALLORY by Leonard Richardson