Basking in the glow

Woo hoo! We're still basking in the glow of the awesome November 2024 issue of Electric Spec!
We had so many wonderful stories:

• AKA Jane Museum by Lane Robins
• An Equivalent Exchange by Jamie Hawley
• Just Fooling by Lisa Timpf
• The Delivery by Meenakshi Bhatt
• The Malicious Time Traveller's Dinner Party by Nigel Brown

Which was your favorite? So many great choices! I can't decide. :)

From Author Hawley

We're excited to feature "An Equivalent Exchange" by Jamie Hawley in our awesome November 2024 issue of Electric Spec. Jamie was kind enough to send us some comments.

---

This story’s first line came to me during a free write and remained unchanged throughout revision. I set out to write a story about a dragon falling in love with a human, but the thing I’m most proud of is the way this story highlights the many forms love can take, including a love of music, a love of collecting, and a love for our community, even after that community is no longer with us. I hope the story serves as a reminder that we can’t shoulder our burdens alone; by sharing our grief, we not only lighten the load, but we also grow closer with those around us. (The other reminder is this: when in doubt, listen to The Mountain Goats.)

---

Interesting! Thanks, Jamie! Be sure to check out "An Equivalent Exchange" and the rest of the stories now!

Awesome November 2024 Issue Live!

The awesome November 2024 issue of Electric Spec is live!
Thank you, authors! Thank you to our artist!
Thank you to the whole Electric Spec team!

Thank you, readers!
We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we did.

From Author Brown

We're excited to feature "The Malicious Time Traveller's Dinner Party" by Nigel Brown in our awesome November 2024 issue of Electric Spec. Nigel was kind enough to send us some comments.

---

The Time Machine by H.G.Wells (1895) is probably one of the most famous sf stories published, certainly one of the first, and remains my favorite sf story of all time. The core of the story doesn't concern time travelling, which Wells uses as a science-fictional device, but Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Darwin's On the Origin of Species... had been published in 1859, just 36 years before The Time Machine saw print, and Wells explored its implications for the human species using pioneering sf techniques that were a bombshell to the Victorian mind. When writing, I sometimes have trouble with titles, but in this case the title of my story came first: "The Malicious Time Traveller's Dinner Party" just popped into my head. Soon I realised that the 'Time Traveller' of the title was THE 'Time Traveller', Wells's own. From then on, the story wrote itself.

From movies, books and fiction of the day, we're familiar with the Late Victorian world of the 1890s, and my story is peppered with references that link to Wells's own life. I had the advantage, as well, in that the drapery store that Wells suffered to work in as a teenager, and that he later wrote about in his book The History of Mr. Polly.(1910), was located in the neighborhood where I grew up, in Southsea, in Southern England. By my day, sadly, it was long gone, but the elegant Victorian and Edwardian villas still remain, and retain in that part of Southsea the genteel air of Wells's time.

---

Interesting! Thanks, Nigel! Be sure to check out "The Malicious Time Traveller's Dinner Party" and the rest of the stories on November 30, 2024!

From Author Bhatt

We're excited to feature "The Delivery" by Meenakshi Bhatt in our awesome November 2024 issue of Electric Spec. Meenakshi was kind enough to send us some comments.

---

I always thought I would write cosy and comforting stories since those are the stories I gravitate towards as a reader. Yet every time I sit down to write a story, something chilling always seems to find its way into it.

This story started with a dream I had. The only thing I remember about the dream was the sight of lions prowling on a road. In the dream, I was driving a car. As I reached the top of a particularly high ascent in the road, the lions suddenly became visible as I looked down at the road ahead. I woke up shaken. The rest of the story grew from the sense of menace and terror that I felt.

---

Interesting! Thanks, Meenakshi! Be sure to check out "The Delivery" and the rest of the stories on November 30, 2024!

From Artist Candiotti

We're excited about our cover art for the marvelous November 2024 issue of Electric Spec. The artist Barbara Candiotti was kind enough to send us some comments about it:

---

"Embedded Memories" A technologically augmented humanoid stands on a pristine beach, viewing the craft from hence he came in the distance. The humanoid is part of a landing party evaluating the planet for colonization and DNA impregnation. The planet reminds him of pictures of Earth, where his distant ancestors came from.

---

Thanks, Barbara! Very interesting!
So, without further ado here's a sneak peek:

From Author Timpf

We're excited to feature "Just Fooling" by Lisa Timpf in our awesome November 2024 issue of Electric Spec. Lisa was kind enough to send us some comments.

---

Over the past year, I’ve been writing a number of flash-length fiction pieces, which is a new endeavor for me. Sometimes when I write short fiction in the 5,000-ish word range, I end up getting too convoluted. Flash fiction helps me keep it simple, and challenges me to use words economically. This is a skill that hasn’t always come easy. In one of my high school English classes, we had to condense written articles of several paragraphs into something much shorter, which challenges you to figure out what the main points are. I really struggled with this sometimes, and would grumble to my friends (in a rather animated fashion) about how much I disliked these exercises. Now, though, I’m grateful!

---

Interesting! Thanks, Lisa! Be sure to check out "Just Fooling" and the rest of the stories on November 30, 2024!