News You Can Bruise for 2009 March 3

Behold! After painful winnowing of the 25 stories we really wanted to publish, we've sent out acceptance notices to the authors of nine:

• "Goldenseed" by Therese Arkenberg
• "Quantum Tropics" by William Highsmith
• "Friar Garden, Mister Samuel, and the Jilly Jally Mints" by Carole Lanham
• "Single-Bit Error" by Ken Liu
• "Jump Space" by Mary Anne Mohanraj
• "Welcome to the Federation" by Mark Onspaugh
• "The Ambassador's Staff" by Sherry D. Ramsey
• "Daisy" by Andrew Willett
• "The Last Christmas of Mrs. Claus" by Alex Wilson

Barring unforseen catastrophe, that's the lineup. (A couple of the titles are working titles and might change, but I wanted to announce this ASAP.) These are the stories we couldn't say no to. They've all got great originality and execution. I'd put this anthology against an issue of a pro mag any day.

I'm surprised by the variety in the stories. I was expecting to publish maybe two fantasy stories; we're publishing four. Four of the stories are really funny, but none of them are "funny stories".[0] We're publishing a freaking cat story. A cat story that will kick your ass!

Sumana deserves enormous credit, not just for reading the slush pile and sending out over 200 mostly-personal rejections, but for working with me all the way to the final selections. She pulled one way, I pulled another, and the result was a balanced selection.

In addition to the stories, we've also commissioned pieces by five artists. Our instructions, such as they were, were "draw something awesome." The artists delivered. Here's what we've got:

• "Gaia's Strange Seedlike Brood" by Patrick Farley
• "Bio Break" by Brittany Hague
• "Times Square" by David Kelmer
• "Pirate vs. Alien" by Erin Ptah
• "Ninja contra Robot" by Marc Scheff

Go to the Thoughtcrime Experiments homepage for a teaser that includes a low-res version of "Gaia's Strange Seedlike Brood". David Kelmer also put a low-res version of "Times Square" up on his weblog.

[0] I originally wrote that I don't think "funny stories" are funny, but then I thought of some really funny stories we rejected in the final rounds, and realized I was being snobbish. A story can be incredibly funny and still suffer the "funny story" stigma, if there's not a strong plot. That's why Wodehouse's books blend in one's mind into a homogenous mush of hilarity.