David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

My story “Galactic Stress” has been reviewed at BestScienceFictionStories.com (“it was filled with totally cool ideas that gave me gadget envy!”). I also received galley proofs for my story “Aggro Radius” in Gamer Fantastic.

I have a short essay in the latest “Mind Meld” at SF Signal. This one’s about taboos in SF. Also, I will be giving a talk at the Library of Congress at noon on April 9, part of their “What If…” series.

My story “At the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco’s Homebrew Gravitics Club” has been posted on the Reno in 2011 Worldcon bid website.

My story “Galactic Stress” has been published in Diamonds in the Sky, an online anthology that is free for everyone to read; I have an essay in SF Signal’s latest Mind Meld, on the topic “what books and writers have influenced you and what influences do you hope to have on future writers;” Space Magic has been reviewed in the April issue of Realms of Fantasy (“Levine is a multitalented author whose fertile, wide-ranging imagination is — as his title implies — equally at home in the fields of fantasy and science fiction”); my story “Firewall” has been translated into Chinese, in the magazine “SF King”; the February issue of Realms of Fantasy was reviewed in Locus, where Rich Horton called my story “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven” “a nice humorous story;” and I received payment for my story “Fair Play” from Circlet Press and galleys of my story “Midnight at the Center Court” from Witch Way to the Mall.

Lots of news this week. The December Internet Review of Science Fiction includes Greg Beatty’s long and thoughtful review of Space Magic (“this collection makes it clear that David D. Levine is a writer to watch”). The December Locus includes Gardner Dozois’s review of Transhuman (“Best story here is by David D. Levine”). I received my contributor’s copies of the February 2009 issue of Realms of Fantasy, including my story “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven” (I love, love, love the illustration they gave it). The audio version of “Sun Magic, Earth Magic” (ably read by BCS editor Scott H. Andrews) was posted at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A five-minute video of me blabbering incoherently, recorded by Bill Johnson of Willamette Writers at OryCon, was posted on YouTube. And I learned that Aeon Magazine, the next issue of which was going to contain my story “The True Story of Merganther’s Run,” is suspending publication, but the story is supposed to appear in an anthology, The End of an Aeon, some time in 2009.

I came home from World Fantasy Con to find I’d sold humorous fantasy “Overnight Moon” to anthology Strip Mauled, edited by Esther Friesner, and erotica short-short “Fair Play” to anthology Up for Grabs, edited by Cecilia Tan.

My story “Sun Magic, Earth Magic” is now available for everyone to read for free as part of issue #1 of the new webzine Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Space Magic has received its first review, a comprehensive and generally positive review in The Fix. Money shot: “I hope that the volume does more to make this very worthwhile writer better known to the reading public.”

I’ve been asked to join the faculty of the Iron Springs Writers’ Retreat (next June on the Olympic Peninsula); an interview with me has been posted on the Nebula Awards website; my bio has been posted on the website for Wordstock, so I guess my participation there is official; and Danny O’Brien, blogging about my SF in SF reading, referred to me as “The Ted Chiang of Toontown,” which is a mighty fine epithet if you ask me.

My SF in SF appearance was recorded for Rick Kleffel’s “Agony Column” podcast. You can hear it in 3 parts: Nick Mamatas reading his Carver/Lovecraft mash-up, me reading “Charlie the Purple Giraffe”, and the following discussion between us and Terry Bisson. It’s also available from iTunes.