I have been traveling lately, so I’ve been remiss in reporting that Lightspeed has reprinted my story, “Card Sharp,” in their latest issue (August 2019). They will be publishing the third story in the sequence, “All In,” in September, so now all three stories are available on the Lightspeed website. They don’t need to be read in order, but all three tell one extended arc. The stories and links are:
As usual, it’s been a long time since I posted here. And as usual, a lot has happened in the interim, so it’s a good excuse to dust off the blog and mention the most recent events.
One of the big writer items is that I sold a story to Lightspeed Magazine. “All In” is the third story in my Card Sharp series of weird western short stories, after “Card Sharp” and “Second Hand” and wraps up that storyline. I don’t know when the story will go up on the site, but I will update this site and shout about it on social media when I know more.
Working with the Lightspeed team is always a pleasure and I’m happy that I get to finish this series of stories (for now — there may be more down the road).
I haven’t seen it, but I got word this weekend that Wired magazine featured Lightspeed Magazine’s podcast as the Staff Pick for science fiction podcasts in their July issue. As part of that they picked a standout episode and the one they picked was my story, “Second Hand.” Lightspeed publishes so many great stories that I’m really chuffed that Wired singled out my story. Thanks to the folks at Brilliance Audio for putting together the narration. If you’d like to check out the podcast, you can listen to the narration here.
I guess I really should get to work on more stories in that universe, shouldn’t I…
As much as I hate doing this, the nominations are currently open for the Hugo Nominations. Members of the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Worldcons (voting members) are eligible to nominate works published in 2014 (more details here).
I don’t have a lot of eligible works from 2014 as I was mostly working on Falling Sky but Falling Sky is eligible in the novel category.
Additionally, my short story, “Second Hand”, which appeared in the Dead Man’s Hand anthology is also eligible in the short story category. “Second Hand” can be read in its entirety (or listened to) on the Lightspeed Magazine website.
If you liked either or both of those and felt them worthy of being nominated for a Hugo (and can nominate works) please feel free to do so.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed some positive reviews coming in for Dead Man’s Hand and for my story, “Second Hand,” specifically.
Over here M. J. Starling says “I love Rajan Khanna’s card sharp stories” among other wonderful things and let me tell you I will be flying high on those comments for weeks.
Also, at The Book Plank, they single out my story along with those by Tad Williams, Joe Lansdale, Christie Yant and Seanan McGuire. The “Second Hand” review ends with “Rajan Khanna has started to build a great premise in Second Hand that will hopefully be featured in more stories or a full length book!” which is encouraging (and I am definitely writing more).
Feedback, positive or negative, is sometimes so hard to come by with short fiction that it’s nice to get some. Especially when it’s so positive. Knowing that people are enjoying my fiction makes the writing all the more worthwhile. It also helps to keep going when things get tough.
Now, to work on the next story…