Search Results for: "written by David Steffen"

The Best of Clarkesworld Podcast

Clarkesworld has published some amazing stories. Like all markets, I don’t like every one of their stories, but when they do publish a story that I like, the story’s not just good, it’s great. It was not hard to fill this list. It was so hard that the entire top 5 are equally worthy of 1st place in my opinion. But ranking them a 5-way tie for first place would be rather wishy-washy and would sort of undermine the point of having a list. So I thought about it long and hard to decide on particular aspects of each story that I liked more than the others to come up with this final ranking.

MiniCon 46, Con Report

written by David Steffen Yes, con season is in full swing once again. As usual, over Easter weekend, Minicon has come to the Twin Cities. Charles Stross was originally scheduled to be the writer guest of honor, but family medical emergencies caused him to bow out (good news: according to Stross’s blog, the prognosis is … Continue reading MiniCon 46, Con Report

The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Podcast

If you’re looking for a new magazine to read, and you’re a fan of some quality worldbuilding, you’ve got to check out Beneath Ceaseless Skies. They have a neat little niche market, focusing on worlds that are “other” in some way, either a past time period (with speculative elements added in) or an alternate world; no contemporary, no futuristic.

Title Crafting

One of the aspects of the craft writing that never seems to get much discussion is the choice of title. Now, certainly there are lots of other things you need to work on, endings, the beginning hook, characterization, so on. And those other things are more likely to affect your chances at making a sale. But titles do matter. At the very least they can be the icing on the cake. At the most they can make the story itself more memorable and thus easier to recommend and discuss (always an important thing). Their value is less obvious and harder to measure.

The Best of Pseudopod 2010+

On November 9, 2009 I posted my very first “Best Of” podcast list, the Best of Pseudopod, which was based on Pseudopod episodes 1-167 and flash episodes 1-22. Well, I’m still listening and still enjoying myself, so I figured there’s no reason I can’t make another list. I expect this will become a yearly thing, and will usually cover everything within 1 calendar year. This one will be a tiny bit different because a bit more than a year has passed since my last, which is why this is 2010+. It will cover episodes 168-219, 60 stories total (because there are a few episodes with more than one story).

Noms: John W. Campbell (and Hugo)

Hello, everyone! I wanted to bring to your attention that this is the first year that I am eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. My eligibility opened up because of publication of my story “Turning Back the Clock” in Bull Spec #3, so I figured I’d pander a bit for nominations, and while I’m at it, Hugo noms.

Website Spotlight: Kongregate

I came across a very fun website recently, on the recommendation of Nathaniel Lee (of Mirrorshards fame). The site is called Kongregate and it’s an ever-growing collection of online mini-games. I’m not sure how I haven’t heard of it–it’s been around for a few years. Kongregate is more than just your run-of-the-mill game site. Not only are the games clever and fun,the site has an overarching Achievements system to make everything all the more fun. Most or all of the games are made by indie developers, and I love that this site provides a showcase for their abilities.

The Best of StarShipSofa

Now, keep in mind that StarShipSofa is a rather different format from the other podcasts I’ve reviewed so far. The other ones have been entirely fiction-focused, generally with an intro, the story, and the outro. This one goes for a more well-rounded aesthetic, which is good or bad, depending on what you’re really looking for. For the purposes of this list, I am only going to include the main fiction, and only stories which I did not first hear somewhere else. Not that there’s anything wrong with more than one podcast running the same story, I just want these lists to be about suggesting new fiction, so I don’t want to list the same stories over and over.