Sunburst Award Shortlist Announced

Fresh off the press of Locus Online, the Shortlist of this years Sunburst Award, one of Canada’s biggest awards for speculative fiction, was released yesterday. What’s interesting about this year’s award is they added another shortlist of Young Adult titles in addition to the regular award. Unlike the Aurora Award, this literary award is chosen by a juried panel. The shortlists are as follows:

Aurora Award (Adult Fiction)

Double-blind by Michelle Butler Hallett
(Killick Press)
Darkness of the God by Amber Hayward
(Edge)
The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
(Warner Books)
Wonderfull by William Neil Scott
(NeWest Press)
Axis by Robert Charles Wilson
(Tor Books)

The following were honorable mentions given from the Aurora Award jury:

• The Book of Stanley by Todd Babiak
• Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
• Spook Country by William Gibson
• Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
• Ha’Penny by Jo Walton

Aurora Award (Young Adult Fiction)

Choices by Deborah Lynn Jacobs (Roaring Brook)
Retribution by Carrie Mac (Puffin Canada)
Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins Canada)
Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx (Viking Canada)
The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Novel by Drew Hayden Taylor (Annick Press)

The following were Honorable Mentions given from the jury for recommended YA readings:

• The Warrior’s Daughter by Holly Bennett
• The Twilight Box by Troon Harrison
• Baboon by David Jones
• Frost by Nicole Luiken
• Cry Wolf by Edo van Belkom

Xbiz World Magazine Purchases Article Submission

Last Friday ( May 30, 2008 ) just a few days after submitting my article “Porn 2.0: How Xtube Ruined Me For Playboy” to Nerve.com, Now Magazine, Xbiz Magazine, and Wired, I heard back from the senior editor of Xbiz World Magazine, Stephen Yagielowicz, who said they’d publish the article in both the print and digital editions of next month’s Xbiz World Magazine. Not only that, but Xbiz wants to keep me on their freelancer rotation as one of their Canadian writers at $250 an article. Since I’m being paid for the article I cannot post it on this blog but here’s an excerpt for those interested:

“Since the invention of recorded video in the late seventies, the mass production of video pornography has led to proliferation of sex and the creation of an industry. While printed pornography was always situated in the realm of harmless fantasy, video pornography promised something else, a hyper-reality of sorts, making sex appear sexier than sex itself and allowing us to indulge our voyeuristic desires. Yet over the last decade or so we’ve seen a gradual shift in the way people view pornography. The mpeg has greatly replaced the tangible video and DVD. Granted. But what we’re seeing happen is far greater than simply a change in media platforms or a shift in visual technology. What we’re seeing take place is a shift from ‘professional’ mainstream porn to the gritty realism of ‘amateur’ pornography, though not simply by virtue of its easy accessibility, as I’ll soon explain…”

Xbiz Premier magazine and Xbiz World magazine are based out of LA and is an American trade magazine for the adult film industry.

Choke Full Trailer Released

For those who are eagerly awaiting the release of ‘Choke’, the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s fourth novel you’ll be happy to know that the full trailer was released today. The film stars Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston and will in fact be released on September 26, 2008, not August 1 as previously indicated.

Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical reenactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke) and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever. The film is adapted from the best-selling, critically acclaimed novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

Article Submission “Porn 2.0: How Xtube Ruined me for Playboy”

In an ever increasing effort to get my work published I just completed and edited a 1,200-word article entitled “Porn 2.0: How Xtube Ruined me for Playboy”. Largely inspired by the recent South Park episode “Over-Logging”, the article dwells upon my experiences with internet pornography as a naive prepubescent junior high-schooler as well as how websites offering free, high-quality videos are changing today’s adult film industry. I’ve already pitched and submitted the article to four venues including Now magazine, Nerve.com, Xbiz, and Wired. If anyone knows of any other magazines that might accept the article for publication don’t hesitate to leave a comment. If nothing becomes of it I might post it here but for now I’ll just wait to here from the magazines.

For Xtube’s Homepage click here.
For Playboy’s Homepage click here.

On the Masthead of Hardware Merchandising Magazine

Well, now that my six-week internship at Rogers Media comes to a close I would like to personally thanks all of the people at Hardware Merchandising Magazine, Canadian Contractor Magazine, Canadian Grocer, and Pro Painter Magazine. As for any full-time jobs in the near future of publishing I’ve applied for a copy editing position at St. Joseph’s Media for Wish Magazine, a sales assistant position at HarperCollins, and an assistant editor at Plant Magazine, a trade journal dealing with factories and machinery.

The people at Hardware Merchandising magazine were kind enough to place my name in the masthead as a contributer. Hopefully, my name will also appear on the mastheads of Canadian Grocer and Canadian Contractor magazine, but I won’t be disappointed if they didn’t.

Rejected from Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine

Well, last week I received another rejection letter from Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine. About a month ago I submitted my newest short story, a 2100-word piece entitled ‘Miracle Child’, to four magazines (all of which are online magazine or accept email submissions). ‘Miracle Child’ is about
a ten-year-old boy in Texas whose mother was impregnated by a extra-terrestrial white light that descended on their family farm more than ten years ago. The story is told from the point of view of the child and written in a thick Texas dialect.

What I can honestly say is it was one of the most helpful and encouraging rejection letters I’ve received since I began sending out my short stories last September. She (assistant editor, Stephanie Ann Johanson) gave me helpful comments to improve the story (which were in fact true on second reading) as well as a list of great publisher websites that list other magazines that accept submissions.

Here is the actual rejection letter:

Hello David Halpert,

We received your story submission, Miracle Child, on April 12th, 2008. Miracle Child is the 4222nd submission received by Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine.

Miracle Child does not fit our needs, but thank you for giving us the chance to consider it.

There seem to be some inconstancies in Miracle Child. The first is the style of the storytelling gives the impression of someone that is an uneducated farm boy, but the story is supposedly being told by someone with an IQ of around 200, who is well read and has his Masters in Engineering from a credited University.

The main character talks about his Pa often drinking when he was upset and that the main character had only seen this once before, a few years ago when his granny died. That is a bit confusing, because at this point the reader doesn’t really know how far in the future the main character is telling us this story. If the main character had said that after this point Pa often took to drinking when he was upset, it might have worked.

It felt like the story was a bit mixed up on when the main character was telling us the story, and what he would know at the time of telling it. The idea works. The language works if main character is telling the story as it happens, but as the story is written it feels inconstant. The story has a lot of potential. It just needs a bit more work before sending it to the next publisher.

If you are looking for more publications to submit to, you might have a look at the publisher listings on these sites: www.ralan.com, www.quintamid.com/q/mdb/list, www.rimbaud.org.uk, www.laurahird.com/litmagcentral.html, www.duotrope.com.

Thank you for your submission,

Art director / assistant editor / artist
Stephanie Ann Johanson
Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine
4129 Carey Road
Victoria, BC, Canada, V8Z4G5
www.neo-opsis.ca
neoopsis@shaw.ca

I made the applicable changes to the story but until I receive some more rejections from the other magazines
(which include Strange Horizons, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and the Intergalatic Medicine Show Magazine) I submitted to I will not begin to submit to other print magazines.

Just another day in the life of an aspiring writer.

‘On the Danforth’ Magazine hits the shelves!

Well, it’s finally here. Every year the Centennial College Book and Magazine Programme releases two issues of its annual ‘On the Danforth’ Magazine, a community-based free magazine centered around the Danforth Area of Toronto, Ontario. Each student is assigned a specific task on the magazine (for instance, I was a fact-checker for six articles) as such the masthead for both magazines includes writers, art designers, copy editors, publishers, etc.

Similarly, all students were required to sell advertising to prospective businesses in the area in order to pay for the printing of the magazine (about $5000 per class) to which I sold $861 worth, the most from my class [refer to article here]. While previous issues were good, these ones have content that’s more specific to the Danforth Area (so our professors say). Nonetheless, it was a fun endeavor and a useful addition to my writer’s portfolio.

I’ll try to get some good PDFs of the actual print edition of the magazine, otherwise here are the websites.

Spring Issue 2008.
Summer Issue 2008.

Chuck Palahniuk’s Tour Does Not Include Canada

Just got this little tidbit off Chuck Palahniuk’s fan site otherwise known as chuckpalahniuk.net. It seems the tour date for his latest novel ‘Snuff‘ does not include Canada, despite the fact that his last several novels did have Canadian stops. I guess it’s a lot to ask for someone who has millions in royalties, a devoted fan base to travel for free on the publisher’s dime, but hey, that’s just my opinion. This was the official press release from the fan site:

I unfortunately had to make that news title as blunt as possible. I just heard back from Chuck’s Canadian publicist. And it turns out that Chuck will not be doing any tour dates in Canada for his Snuff.

Still no word on any European or Asian dates. Stay tuned though. I’m working on finding out.

His latest novel ‘Snuff’ will be released on May 20th, not that I was particularly thrilled about his last book.

Dorm Room Romance

Didn’t know what to post so I thought I’d post the first freelance article I ever published. This was for ‘Campus Life Magazine’s’ 2006 fall issue.

When it comes to things like romance, love, creating emotions, I do not have faith in men as a subspecies. It is the majority of us, remember, who believe that it is possible to get a woman into bed in five minutes if they could just find that one perfect pickup line. Romance is much more complicated than that, it is about slowly escalating a mood, tone, and atmosphere at just the precise moment. Imagine skating on the surface of a bubble, where one little misstep could cause it to burst.

For all the men reading this, do me a favor. Go home to your bedroom (or dorm room, if that be the case) and take a good honest look and answer me this question, “If I were a woman, would I feel comfortable in here?” While this may be a harsh – even embarrassing – question to answer, there are some easy affordable ways to tailor your boudoir to become the ultimate bachelor pad.

Smell:

• Don’t leave dirty clothes/laundry on the floor, buy a foldable laundry hamper and keep it – as well as your clothes – in the closet
• Avoid incense at all costs (unless specifically requested by your partner). Since women’s sense of smell is much more sensitive than men’s, this little tidbit can save for some embarrassing mishaps in the future.
• Pier I offers scented aerosol sprays and bottled liquid scents that come in a variety of slow-released yet mild aromas. These foster a relaxing feel and indirectly speak to your hygienic status.
• Always keep a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Febreze on standby. You never know.

Hearing:

• Music doesn’t hurt either. Classical music is okay, but comes off as a little cheesy. My personal favourite group to use is Portishead, a fusion group of jazz and intentional lo-fi sound. Other groups recommended are Enigma, Enya, Dido, Sade, Masari, and D’Angelo.

Taste:

• If you have access to any sort of fridge, have a plate of fruits pre-ready sliced. Strawberries, pineapples, kiwis, bananas, apples, mangos, and grapes are all acceptable choices. Chocolate is universally best with women, especially melted chocolate.

Touch:

• Buy a double bed if you don’t already own one, you are not ten years old anymore. It’s time to grow up.
• For wet massages, grape-seed oil works fantastic and can be purchased at any supermarket. If you don’t like that KY lubricant also works well.
• If wet massages aren’t your thing you can easily buy massage powders that absorb moisture and reduce friction, basically turning the skin to silk. It is also very hygienic for personal use.

Sight:

• Remove all comic books, science fiction, sports, and rock n’ roll related memorabilia from bookcases, desks, shelves, and walls
• Purchase a few items that accentuate your bedroom by giving it some colour and making it stand out (a piece of artwork, a bonsai tree, a decorative water fountain). This will help make the room look less uniform and drab.
• Buy some unscented tealight candles that fit in appropriate glass holsters to use at night. These are exceptionally cheap and will run you under twenty dollars.
• Switch to a dimmer switch as opposed to a straight incandescent light. Certain lights create certain moods. Fluorescent lights, for instance, give off a cold, sterile look.
• Empty your garbage container (again, fostering an atmosphere of cleanliness)
• Get rid of any unnecessary clutter around the room. Basically anything that doesn’t add to the romantic atmosphere. This could be books, garbage, clothes, papers, coins, knapsack, etc. Buy a slide out drawer for under the bed and shelving units for your closet. Cleanliness fosters respect for the woman, it shows that you care.
• Go to a department store and purchase a set of matching comforters, linens, and pillowcases to go with the décor. Make sure there are at least two pillows on the bed.

While readers may laugh at some of these suggestions, it is important to keep in mind that university, for many, is the transition point from adolescence to adulthood. Your bedroom is your castle. It is an expression of your maturity level and sense of style. At the very least you want to reflect that maturity and style to others.

Postmodernism and the Video Game (Part Five)

This is the part five of a five part series entitled ‘Postmodernism and the Video Game’.

Pastiche, Intertextuality & Genre Hybridity

“The writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds – they’ve already been invented; only a limited number of combinations are possible…in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles”[1]

Probably one of the oldest precedents in postmodern gaming, pastiche is a type of blank parody. To paraphrase Jameson, ‘satire without impulse, parody without laughter’. Intertextuality refers to the shaping of texts’ meanings from other texts. For instance, some examples of intertextuality in literature include:

• East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck: A retelling of the story of Genesis, set in the Salinas Valley of Northern California.
• Ulysses (1914) by James Joyce: A retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, set in Dublin.

  

While pastiche and intertextuality are more suited terms for literature, many examples appear within interactive gaming entertainments. Let’s take the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as our archetypal example. Indeed one of the more comical aspects of the game is that much of its cutscene storylines borrow from references to popular culture. These include but are not limited to Taxi, Red Dawn, Heat, Pulp Fiction, Scarface, and Carlito’s Way. The title ‘Vice City’ alone implies not only that the setting is a place of ‘vice’ but also makes fun of the popular eighties television show Miami Vice.

So how can we apply this to video games? The answer is genre hybridity.

One of the staples of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is its versatile gameplay. Indeed, the actions of the player (one Tommy Vercetti) include the third-person over-the-shoulder elements of shooting games; the combat system of traditional fighting games like Double Dragon and Streets of Rage; the driving elements of classics like San Francisco Rush, Crazy Taxi, and Road Rage; as well as the open-ended worldliness of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games like Everquest and World of Warcraft that allow the participant to explore a fully flushed out gaming environment.

This genre hybridity, however, is not strict to video games genres but can indeed cross mediums altogether. Take the Max Payne series and examine what formats construct the game. Max Payne combines the traditional tropes of hardboiled detective fiction, sketch drawings as cutscenes typically seen only in comic books, the voiceover monologues of the lead protagonist during actual gamplay (a technique normally suited for cinema), and the use of flashbacks as entire levels, a common technique used in television.

Since there are only a limited number of storylines to tell, our only method of inventing new styles of gameplay is to resurrect dead genres and reconstruct them to make something new. Narration evolves, gameplay evolves. Hardware merely progresses. Long gone are the days of two-dimensional side-scrollers and linear gameplay. The future of gaming is here and now.

July 2007

To read part one click here.
To read part two click here.
To read part three click here.
To read part four click here.

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[1] Taken from Frederic Jameson’s “Post-modernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (1984)