Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

Edited to add: The story has just been named one of four short fiction nominees for the Association for Mormon Letters Awards.

If you’re nominating for awards, I have a short story that I’m quite proud of that is eligible this year: “An Immense Darkness“, which was published in ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

Writing a novel takes many hours of work.  How many? Based on what Dean Koontz says, it takes him 6-12 months of working 10-11 hours for 22-25 days per month.  Let’s simplify and say 6 months * 220 hours per month = 1320 hours for a 100,000-word novel.  That’s 75 words per hour ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

My debut novel Unforgettable now has a release date: January 5, 2016. Not only that, you can now pre-order Unforgettable on Amazon
( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

I’ll be at Life, the Universe & Everything later this week. Here’s my schedule:

Thursday, February 12

• 9:00 AM - Building Different Economies / Politics: Eric James Stone, M. K. Hutchins, Meredith Skye, C. R. Asay, Daniel W. Willis (m)
• 12:00 PM - Writing Sci-Fi: Kevin H. Evans, ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

Although A Deepness in the Sky was published in 1999, I didn’t get around to reading it until recently. Vernor Vinge deservedly won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for it.  The novel includes one of my favorite portrayals of an alien society, and also portrays a fascinating ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

I have previously recommended Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories, which are like Jane Austen with magic.  Ironskin, by Tina Connolly, is Jane Eyre with magic.  I enjoyed reading it perhaps even a little more than I enjoyed reading Jane Eyre.

You can buy it from Amazon ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

I’ve known about EMP weapons for at least a couple of decades.  But reading the novel One Second After by William R. Forstchen really brought home to me how vulnerable our society is to such weapons (or even just a major solar storm).  Frankly, after reading this book, I favor ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

I was the head editor for the November 2014 issue of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show. Head on over and check out the stories I selected.

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

My story “A Sufficiently Advanced Christmas” is now available in A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories, edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Keith J. Olexa. Publishers Weekly gave the anthology a starred review, saying “This often amusing and frequently compelling ( Read more... )

Originally published at Eric James Stone. You can comment here or there.

The Martian, by Andy Weir, is the best standalone novel I’ve listened to so far this year.  Here’s the one-sentence summary: A MacGyver-like  astronaut stranded alone on Mars has to figure out how to survive until rescue can come.

I first heard of the novel from Daniel Burton’s ( Read more... )