Fiction River

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch, writers, editors, and teachers, and the folks behind the late and lamented hardback magazine Pulphouse some years back, have begun a new eAnthology (and trade paper) series.

Fiction River debuts next month, and is scheduled to publish a new title every two months thereafter, funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign that went really well. These are themed, and some of them will be edited by folks under Dean and Kris's aegis.

The writers listed for the first issue are mostly old pros, and I expect it will be an altogether well-written and enjoyable experience.

Eventually, if the series lasts, one of my stories will show up there. This is an off-the-wall wild hair tale about which I can't really say anything, even to defining what kind of story it is. 

Years ago, when Dean and Kris started Pulphouse, they asked me to write a story for them. I wasn't doing short pieces by then, having moved on to noveltry, but they kind of shamed me into it. So I did a loony tale about a middle-aged timber executive who gets into a car accident and when he wakes up, believes he is Tarzan. I even put the yell in, so when I read it aloud at cons, I could do that ...

Kris bought it.

So, every time I had another total-nutso idea for a story that I was sure nobody would buy because it was so off-the-wall, I'd write it and send it along to them. And there were some strange tales: A man whose body parts started turning invisible. Adventures with TV doctors, a vampire in bulletproof vest. A truck driving Lothario who runs afoul of a truck bearing male chrome bimbos on the mud flaps.  

Thong the Barbarian and the Cycle Sluts of Saturn ...

And later, when Pulphouse went away due to the odd way such things were marketed, Kris got a job editing The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, aka F&SF, for Ed Ferman, and I would send her the crazies. A man whose house kept changing back to the previous color after he painted it. A couple of old hippies who watch reality break down while they drink champagne in a hot tub. A couple of pre-pube boys who play poker with the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Finding Puff the Magic Dragon's bones in a cave ...

And so on. Really strange stuff. Shoot, I should do an anthology of my own stuff ...

Um. Anyway, I figured, when she turned one down, I could quit.

Unfortunately, she kept buying 'em ...

So when they announced the new project, I sent some money to Kickstarter, and then had another of my bonkers ideas, so I wrote it. Then had a second idea, and what-the-hell, I wrote that one, too. 

Dean has allowed as how he's interested in buying the first and maybe in another few months, the second one, too, once they get through their inventory, so there you go ..

There's a link in the list, or you can check out the website here.