The tracks went up one row and down another, and in those rows the vua plants had been sheared off an inch or two above the ground. The raider had been methodical; it had not wandered about haphazardly, but had done an efficient job of harvesting the first ten rows on the west side of the field.
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Gimme the Loot! Virtual Money Laundering in Video Games
Not that the money is virtual—the money is all too real. Criminals have turned to loot boxes in video games as a way to wash money they don’t want the government to know about.
Thanks to a loophole in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, “nearly all” key purchases for loot boxes within the game have been used for money laundering, reports Vice.
Learn Scrivener in an Hour (In-Person Workshop)
If you’re a writer and happen to live in Austin, TX, I invite you to come out to Half Price Price on Sunday, November 17th at 3:30pm for an hour-long crash course on Scrivener—taught by me!
Paperbacks: Now Made in Canada!
I discovered while catching up on publishing news at The Digital Reader
that KDP Print is now making print-on-demand books in Canada.
And since that’s who makes and ships the paperbacks of my books, that means that my readers in Canada now get some extra perks when they order my paperbacks from Amazon:
An Orchestra of Exoplanets
This is the story seed for every space opera novel ever written, from George Lucas’ Star Wars to the milieu of Iain Banks’ Culture novels. (Guess what I’m reading right now.) How many of these exoplanets are actually habitable? How many are orbited by habitable moons?
“The Tunnel Under The World” by Frederik Pohl
Pinching yourself is no way to see if you are dreaming. Surgical instruments? Well, yes—but a mechanic’s kit is best of all!
Halloween Horror Story: “Wendigo” by M.G. Herron
After years of digging, anthropology student Blake Meier is about to strike pay dirt.
If all goes well, an interview with the Navajo chief will complete his doctoral thesis. It may also lead to the discovery of a lifetime.
But his advisor, Dr. Samarjit Chambers, has his own agenda. And unbeknownst to either of them, hidden horrors lurk in the ancient petroglyph they both lust after.
To what lengths will Blake go to satisfy his own desires?
“Wendigo,” by bestselling author M.G. Herron, is free on this website for one week only. The story’s also available as an ebook or paperback through Amazon.
Around the world, around the world
Well, that was fun! Yesterday I shared 5 Illustrated Pulp-Era Sci-Fi Stories with my email list and in 24 hours, 350+ people from all over the world came to read the stories.
Here’s the geographic distribution of page visits on the day of the email.
Getting old stories out of the house
“You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come in and live with you until they grow up and are ready to go. Don’t let the old ones stay there and grow fat and cranky and eat all the food out of the refrigerator. You have dozens of generations of stories inside you, but the only way to make room for the new ones is to write the old ones and mail them off.”
– Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
5 Beautifully Illustrated Pulp-Era Science Fiction Stories
Copyright is a double-edged sword. On the first edge, it’s amazing that after a certain amount of time, and under certain circumstances, every book, every story, every beautiful creature of the imagination that was ever created will enter the public domain, from which point they will be forever free for all to enjoy at no cost.
Dancing on the other edge of the blade, when it comes to classic SF stories from now defunct genre magazines, even when the stories are out of copyright they are often hard to find, expensive to obtain (in terms of time or money), and rarely available in a modern digital reading experience (phone, tablet, ereader, etc.)
With one exception.