Note from the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency

I received this message that Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency is looking for authors! So check them out and see if they might be a good fit for you!

Dear listeners,

We’re writing to introduce you to The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency and to let you know we are actively seeking clients in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. We are a full service agency, representing writers at every stage of their career.

The agency opened in 1984 and has always had an interest in both genres. We’re privileged to represent a number of top talents in science fiction and fantasy such as John Scalzi, Karen Miller, Sharon Shinn, Gail Z. Martin, Ian Douglas/Bill Keith, Kay Kenyon, Mel Odom, and the recently signed James Cambias for whom we just sold his first novel. We are also proud to represent the estate of Gandalf Grand Master Award winning author Andre Norton.

Our success in this area is not confined to the adult market, either. The agency has negotiated publication deals for young adult fantasies by Karen Miller, Mel Odom, Sharon Shinn, and Ed Willet as well.

We are a very active, successful seller of translation rights with agents in all foreign markets and a track record of approximately fifty new licenses per year. We also successfully license film rights, audio-book rights, e-book rights and rights for publication in the United Kingdom.

The ideal submission for us is an introductory letter, synopsis and the first three chapters of manuscript. We welcome electronic submissions to fantasy AT ethanellenberg.com. We also welcome submission by mail with a self-addressed, stamped envelope for response. Please check our website (ethanellenberg.com) and follow the submission guidelines carefully.*

We remain upbeat, active and committed to the highest standards of professional conduct
and representation. We are members in good standing of the Association of Author’s Representatives and consistently receive high marks from all the top professional writers’ organizations. We look forward to your submission.

Sincerely,

Ethan Ellenberg, President
Evan Gregory, Associate Agent

Genres:

Escape Pod 356: Three-Quarters Martian

Originally appeared in On the Premises (2011)

Rated 15 and up for language

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:30 — 19.0MB)

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Three-Quarters Martian

By C.R. Hodges

The first man to walk on the moon was a hero to five generations. The first woman to walk on Mars was forgotten even before her boots plunked into the red dust.

“Hey,” a husky voice said in the dark.

I ignored her: the Swedish hockey team was calling to me from the sauna.

“Anna-Jing.” Same voice. A large hand grasped my shoulder.

I was losing my battle to recapture the fading dream.

“Wake up,” commanded a new voice in a rich brogue, “now.”

I took a deep breath, tasting the dust in the cool air, then slowly opened my eyes. Pulling the threadbare blanket around me, I sat up in my hammock.

Kaiza, the first and likely last aboriginal Australian to teach planetary astrophysics at Stanford, gently removed her hand from my shoulder. “Trouble in Florida.”

“The launch isn’t today.” I said, still groggy. Our resupply rocket was scheduled to lift off from Cape Lee in a week. We needed this one—the last launch, from Kazakhstan, had crashed in West Korea.

“There won’t be a fecking launch,” said Mick, our mission commander. He gestured at the wall screen, which snapped to life. Grainy footage showed a giant rocket lying on its side like a beached whale, next to a familiar gantry. A dozen old pickups were parked beyond the shattered nosecone. Scores of horses and four oxen grazed nearby, a web of cables and ropes leading back to the rocket. A horde of men and women in shorts and tank tops, flip-flops and baseball caps, were prying metal panels from the side of the rocket. Hundreds more lay dead on the ground, interspersed with the bodies of gray vested soldiers.

“Where are the pitchforks and torches?” I asked. No reply.

A helicopter arrived, ten commandos zip lining to the ground just meters from the camera crew. Seventy looters went down in the first minute, but then flight after flight of arrows from unseen archers decimated the commandos.

“Goodbye freeze-dried steak and potatoes,” said Mick.

“Goodbye replacement mini reactor.” I pointed at the four oxen dragging a sledge with a brightly marked container the size of a large desk.

“Gotta crank the thermostat down again,” said Mick. He lumbered off to make it so.

The last image we witnessed before a sword crashed down on the camera lens was a line of children siphoning kerosene from the rocket’s fuel tank into buckets. Goodbye civilization. (Continue Reading…)

Product Placement: the Next Generation

A few days ago, I came across this article on BoingBoing about author Holly Lisle and the issues she was having with getting iBooks to carry one of her how-to books because in it she mentions Amazon — which is one of the biggest revenue sources for self-published writers.

I think Ms Lisle’s story opens up a much bigger can of worms, and it starts with this: in the novel I’m writing, the main character uses a Kindle. What happens if I want to get my book in the iBookstore? Do I have to have her use an iPad instead? And, more importantly, how will that change the character?

I’m not thinking that Apple’s going to reject my book out-of-hand just for that reason, but it’s certainly conceivable, right? I mean, I might get a little leeway because, in Chapter Four, she does throw the Kindle against the wall in frustration*, but still — it could happen.

(Continue Reading…)

Announcing the third flash contest!

Our flash contest on the forums was so popular a while back that we thought we’d do another! It opens for submission on August 1 and you can read all about it on the forums!

The Escape Artists forum is proud to present the third official flash story contest!

Twice before the forum has hosted flash story contests to a resounding success. The last flash contest, which was divided into three sub-contests, one for each forum, lasted nearly six months from announcement until completion and featured over 300 story submissions between the three podcasts. It was a great experience for all but by the end people were clearly getting a bit fatigued. So, this time round, we decided to space things up a bit more, and we will be running separate contests for each podcast, with a few months for everyone to recharge their writing/voting batteries between.

So, without further ado, here are the official rules and regulations for the third Escape Pod flash story contest:

Film Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This review contains spoilers for both the filmed and televised versions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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Twenty years ago today, a film called Buffy the Vampire Slayer opened in theaters to unimpressive reviews (and only a 32% on the Tomatometer). At that point, no one could possibly have expected that Joss Whedon’s story about a California valley girl would morph into a television show that even today is still impacting fans in powerful and meaningful ways.

From the most humble beginnings, eh?

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 355: Grandmother

Escape Pod 355: Grandmother is an Escape Pod original.

Rated 13 and up for language

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:37 — 37.6MB)

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Grandmother

By Cat Rambo

Most people called her Phoenix. Her former crew used “Captain” before that and “Sir” afterward. Ruby and Ada respectively called her “mother” and “g’ma.” Her hair was silver – not white, but genuine, metallic silver, a long fall against her pale blue skin, the color of a shadow on a piece of willow ware, that made her seems ageless despite the century and more that lay upon her, not to mention all those decades of pirating.

They said she’d been the best slideboard rider of her time, and perhaps the best battleship pilot of all time, back before her parents and sister were killed and she turned rogue.

They said she had done terrible things in her pirate days.

They said she’d been ruthless in her rise to power, moving up the chain from god knows where, an origin she’d never, ever spoken of to anyone, not even her own daughter. She’d killed some captains, slept with others, called in favors and maneuvered and betrayed and seized power with a brutal efficiency that still underlay what now seemed a calm and orderly, rules-bound government that she and Mukopadhyay had created.

They said she had killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people — sometimes at a distance, sometimes up close, with knife or fist. They said she’d killed a crew member when the shuttle she was in needed its mass reduced and the man hadn’t even argued, just nodded and stepped into the airlock, never said a word as the door closed and the lock cycled, staring in at his captain as she stared back.

They said time had mellowed her. They said working with Mukopadhyay, even though he was crazy as a spiral comet, had mellowed her.

(Continue Reading…)

Alphas premiers tonight!

The second season of Syfy’s hit series Alphas returns Monday, July 23 at 10PM ET/PT with a deep roster of guest stars. New this season are Sean Astin, Lauren Holly, and Summer Glau, who was a fan favorite last season playing Skylar Adams, is returning for three episodes.

The new season picks up eight months after last year’s stunning season finale with the stage set for an explosive turn of events at the Binghamton facility (the Guantanamo of the Alpha world) that could have devastating, far-reaching consequences. Dr. Lee Rosen, having exposed the existence of Alphas to the unsuspecting public, finds himself discredited and imprisoned by a government desperate to cover up his stunning revelation. Some of the team have disbanded and without Dr. Rosen’s care and guidance, have regressed to their old, destructive ways.

Web Series Review: “Harry Potter and the Ten Years Later”

The following review contains spoilers for all seven Harry Potter books and the eight films that followed them. There are also minor spoilers for HPplus10, because when you only have a nine-minute episode it’s really hard to write a review without talking about the entire plot.

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The Harry Potter phenomenon has spawned countless fan-created works of written fiction, musical awesomeness, and re-cut music videos. It has inspired thousands of people to be more awesome than they might otherwise have been. And that’s good.

But now it’s over. The last film was released in 2011, and if you don’t subscribe to the EWE school of thought, we know what’s happening 19 years later: Harry and Ginny are married with three children, Ron and Hermione with two, Draco with one, and so on. However, lots of good fan-fiction* has changed the outcome of that epilogue.

Harry Potter and the Ten Years Later is the latest entry in that oeuvre, and, so far, it looks promising.

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 354: The Caretaker

First appeared in Digital Science Fiction Volume 1 (2011)

Rated 13 and up

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:07 — 22.8MB)

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The Caretaker

By Ken Liu

Motors whining, the machine squats down next to the bed, holding its arms out parallel to the ground. The metal fingers ball up into fist-shaped handholds. The robot has transformed into something like a wheelchair with treads, its lap the seat where my backside is supposed to fit.

A swiveling, flexible metal neck rises over the back of the chair, at the end of which are a pair of camera lenses with lens hood flaps on top like tilted eyebrows. There’s a speaker below the cameras, covered by metal lips. The effect is a cartoonish imitation of a face.

“It’s ugly,” I say. I try to come up with more, but that’s the only thing I can think of.

Lying on the bed with my back and neck propped up by all these pillows reminds me of long-ago Saturday mornings, when I used to sit up like this in bed, trying to catch up on grading while Peggy was still asleep next to me. Suddenly, Tom and Ellen would burst through the bedroom door without knocking and jump into the bed, landing on top of us in a heap, smelling of warm blankets and clamoring for breakfast.

Except now my left leg is a useless weight, anchoring me to the mattress. The space next to me is empty. And Tom and Ellen, standing behind the robot, have children of their own.

“It’s reliable,” Tom says. Then he seems to have run out of things to say, too. My son is like me, awkward with words when the emotions get complicated.

After a few seconds of silence, his sister steps forward and stands next to the robot. Gently, she bends down to put a hand on my shoulder. “Dad, Tom is running out of vacation days. And I can’t take any more time off either because I need to be with my husband and kids. We think this is best. It’s a lot cheaper than a live-in aide.”
(Continue Reading…)

Book Review: “Death’s Daughter” by Amber Benson

Okay, I’m not going to lie to you: I got myself a copy of Death’s Daughter by Amber Benson because, hey, Tara wrote a book.

Yes, I know, I know, the actor is not the character. And yes, I’ve seen other work Benson has written, performed, and directed. I was kind of expecting a certain type of novel, and to a certain extent, I did get it.

I also apparently stumbled into chick-lit. How did that happen?

(Continue Reading…)