HAPPY 500th DAILY CABAL!

The daily cabal, a blog of bite sized daily fiction which I contribute to, published its 500th story on Feb 13th.

Here's the official announcement:

Friday the 13th of February, 2009, a group of 13 science fiction and fantasy
writers called The Daily Cabal posted its 500th story online. The Daily
Cabal has posted a free, previously unpublished story of 400 words or less
every weekday without interruption since it launched on March 26th, 2007.



Most Cabal stories are either science fiction or fantasy. Recent stories
include "The Tungsten Lama’s Weekly Webinar," "Hollywood Goddess," "In the
Elevator with Albert Einstein," and "Math for Witches."



The Cabal is the brainchild of writer Rudi Dornemann and writer and editor
Jeremiah Tolbert. Its members are responsible for scores of professionally
published stories in addition to books, articles, and poetry. All 500 Cabal
stories published to date are available on the Cabal Web site at
www.dailycabal.com , and the group can also be found on Facebook.

The Daily Cabal was born almost two years ago and there have been changes to the lineup of writers since then. Some of us are on hiatus (or sort of) and there have been plenty of new additions, people bringing new ideas (and stamina) to a project that all of us believe in. We've gotten good reader response during this time and hope to keep on going until we run out of ink.

If you haven't stopped by before take the time to peek. There are 500 stories in the archives for you to browse through. That's a lot of microfiction.

Enjoy!

"Slow Stampede" mixed reviews

The March issue of Asimov's is out and "Slow Stampede" has gotten mixed reviews.

Lois Tilton gives me her first RECOMMENDED for this story.

Raj is a bandit, young, ruthless and ambitious to be the next Chief. His village makes its living by raiding the caravans of Swamp Elephants that travel through the Swamp where they live.

From the distance, they looked like Jesus-bugs skimming the mud, but Raj knew that they stood taller than the sequoias that anchored their roots hundreds of yards under the surface. The swampiphant's legs pierced the upper layers of silt, finding purchase further down as the mud served to stabilize their tremendous height.
But the hungry Merfolk also live in the Swamp, and must be reckoned with.

Colorful and imaginative worldbuilding makes this one entertaining.

RECOMMENDED

Garbled Signals has a less than enthusiastic review:

“Slow Stampede”, by Sara Genge, presents a finely-imagined world of bandits raiding caravans of immense “swamp elephants” on a low-gravity planet. The main character is well developed and very realistic, as a young bandit chafing at the authority of his tribe; but maybe he’s too self-confident and amoral to win our sympathy. He is also the only character to really be developed (perhaps reflecting his own self-centered point of view). The story ends with his marrying a character who has not been developed beyond a brief sketch. This, and other loose ends, makes the story feel incomplete. On the other hand, if this is an excerpt from a novel, there is plenty to build on here.

That one goes to show how hard it is sometimes to make unlikable protags work.

Another one:

"Slow Stampede" by Sara Genge is set in a world with swampiphants and Merpeople. Raj wants to be the Chief of his village and plots ways to do it. How things work out for him make for a nicely-told little story--

SFRevu

Overall, I'm pretty happy with what people have been saying about the story. I've finished the copyedits of "Shoes-to-Run" so that one should appear in Asimov's in a few months.

*Edited to add this revue by Colin Harvey, Suite101

Separating them is Sara Genge's 'Slow Stampede.' On an alien planet, Raj and his tribe eke out a marginal existence in a vast swamp also inhabited by cannibal merpeople, through which pass regular caravans of swamp-elephants ripe for the picking. Newcomer Genge skillfully depicts an exotic world peopled by ambitious youngsters, doddering elders and indulgent mothers. Recommended.

Benjamin Crowell's 'Whatness" also gets a recommended and Holly Phillip's 'The Long, Cold Goodbye' gets a highly recommended. Reading all these reviews of the other stories in this issue makes me look wistfully at the mail and wonder when I'll get my copies.

Overall, the issue seems to be sitting well with reviewers.