Ahmed Writes

I have gone and joined the livejournal gang at http://ahmedakhan.livejournal.com .

My story, "Knock, Knock!", published earlier in the Australian print magazine, Skive, has been reprinted in their sister mag, "Skiveflash", which is a webzine as well as a downloadable magazine for mobile phones and pdas. Here is the link to the story: Knock, Knock! .

My critical essay, The Magic of the Rings is Temperamental , is now online at New Myths. Click on the link above, read the article and let me know what you think about it. ADDENDUM TO THE ARTICLE I have been receiving some very intelligent and interesting comments on my article and I plan to post excerpts from these comments right here as an addendum to the article. Those who enjoyed the article will definitely find enjoyment and information in these comments. "The serial publication of The Pickwick Papers was a hundred years before TLOTR was being written. Tolkien was addicted to reading and could easily have read it in his school library as a youth. I'll have to check if Snodgrass is anything like Fredegar Bolger, the fifth hobbit who stayed behind. (It's my personal theory that Neville Longbottom owes a lot in the last Harry Potter novel to Fatty Bolger and his resistance efforts on the home front while his pals were off in the wilderness.) But the clincher for the Pick...

The above story has been reprinted in the latest issue of "7th Dimension", in both print and web versions. Here is the link to the web version: Meaning of Life and Other Clichés . Now, I hope the title of this post does not invite some spam. The other day, when I mentioned this story in another post, I received a spam comment from some person about a book he has written which objectively explains the meaning of life. Don't go looking for that comment. I deleted it. Hence, the meaning of life still remains a mystery.

It has been ages since I updated my blog and therefore there is quite a bit of news to share: 1. My critical essay on Lord of The Rings, titled "The Magic of the Rings is Temperamental", will be appearing next month in the first issue of "New Myths" at NewMyths.com . 2. My story, "Synchronicity", has been published in Vulgata at www.vulgatamagazine.org . I am really happy about the publishing of this story because in spite of the fact that this is one of my stories that are very near and dear to my heart, I had a hard time placing it as this is one of those stories that don't seem to fit any known classification pigeon hole. [As an added bonus, I have found 2 more editors to be added to my list of good editors: Scott Barnes of New Myths and Melinda Selmys of Vulgata.] 3. My story, "Knock, Knock", will be published in the December 2007 issue of Skive, a print magazine. In fact the editor, Matt Ward, informed me that the cover of the magazine i...

Yesterday was the last day of fasting. Today, I celebrate Eid.

Provincial election day, here. And something funny happened to me. I just found out that some hacker somehow managed to use my email address to send emails to the local candidates. Thank God, the emails sent in my name are decent enough. Nevertheless, I will try to inform the candidates that that email was not from me.

The form rejection that I received today from "Defenestration" magazine was both stylish and funny. It came in the form of a haiku: Thank you for the stuff. With great care, we all read it. Sadly: not for us If one does receive rejections, wish they are this entertaining.

Today is the first day of fasting. Good wishes for the month of Ramadhan to everyone.

Found some new genre and mainstream markets through Duotrope (http://www.duotrope.com) and submitted 8 stories (7 reprints and 1 original) to 8 venues - the breakdown of the stories being: 1 SF, 2 fantasies, 2 mysteries and 3 mainstream.

Another story of mine has been published: this one at Anotherealm, here: The Pulsar And The Planet . Please read and comment.

My story, "Infringement", has been accepted for publication at "Mindflights". It is a short-short of only about 80 words. I will provide the link to the story once it is published. At 80 words, it should be an easy read. :)

Different color text, based on Jetse's suggestion. Also, a quote from Shakespeare has been added at the top. Click on the image to enlarge it and read the quote. I would like to thank Matt Hughes for pointing out the appropriateness of this quote to the theme of the anthology.

Here is the rough draft of the cover for "SF Waxes Philosophical". The cover design and artwork is by Laura Givens.

Since its publication in Interzone 211, I have been hungrily searching for reviews of my story, particularly the positive ones. So far, my searches have been amply rewarded. I felt like collecting the reviews here so that any time in future I felt particularly low about any of my writing projects, I could just re-read this post and get a boost. Here goes: Ahmed A. Khan's one-page short-short "Elevator Episodes in Seven Genres" delivers what it can reasonably promise given its concept and length, a playful piece on the slipperiness of genre boundaries, flitting from one to another between one sentence or paragraph and the next. In relating the simple story of a science teacher's vacation on the moon (that, of course, would be the science-fiction part), it tends toward the cute rather than the revolutionary, but the wry humor in the last bit made for a very satisfying cap to the tale. Tangent Online ...a rather sardonic piece Elevator Episodes in Seven Genres by Ahmed ...

Just heard the sad news of the passing away of one of my favourite Urdu writer: Qurratulain Hyder. Here is a link to a nice OBIT . Her novel, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire) , is one of the best novels (Urdu or otherwise) ever written.

...the last couple of weeks have been good. - Completed and submitted 2 new stories. - Complied with revision request for 1 story. - Recirculated 4 of my stories. And with that, I have all my unpublished stories (12, to be exact) in circulation.

I have just finished writing an SF story. It is titled "A Peace of Sorts" and runs to about 1500 words. I am quite happy with how this story turned out. I think I have done something right, and in just so many words too. Out it goes today, probably to F&SF. Let's see what GVG and JJA think about it.

Just completed and submitted a 1000 word story to the Mundane SF issue of Interzone.

Anotherealm often runs flash contests. I rarely participate but sometimes, the contest theme is so intriguing that I cannot resist. One such competition was run back in 2001. Jean Goldstrom, then editor of Anotherealm, came up with a starting sentence: It started out like any typical day in suburbia. Percolators perked, toasters toasted, garage doors opened to disgorge cars heading toward the freeway. Everything was beautifully ordinary, until the shadow passed over it changing everything in its wake. The writers would continue from this point and go every which way they wanted to go. Somehow, the sentence managed to get my creative juices flowing and I dashed off a flash (about 250 words) in the next 15 minutes and sent it to Anotherealm. And here it is: Until The Shadow... .

Those of you who had been following my old blog at http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.com know that I was editing an anthology of SF with philosophical underpinnings. The TOC of that anthology, SF Waxes Philosophical , has been finalised. Here it is in alphabetical order: Michael Bishop: Diary of a Dead Man Douglas van Belle: The Squirrel That Didn't Bark Paul Carlson: Waveform Sean Foster: Different and Again Different Ren Holton: Lords of Light Matt Hughes: Liw Osfeo and the Worm Luke Jackson: The Saving Power Ahmed A. Khan: The Shores of Id ( I have reasons for including one of mine. See below. ) Ted Kosmatka: The God Engine Marian Powell: Categorical Imperative Ian Shoebridge: The Day the World Lost Gravity Steven Utley: Chaos and the Gods Jetse de Vries: The Third Scholar Casey Wolf: These Old Bones Need it be said that I am extremely happy with this anthology? I have received excellent stories in spite of (or because of) the challenging theme. I have included one of my stories in...

Story time, again. This week's story is a little fantasy titled " See-Saw ". It was published in Anotherealm in 2003. At that time, it was one of the most commented upon story on the Anotherealm bulletin board. Ninety percent of the comments were highly positive. There were a couple of criticisms because of the negative way I portrayed masturbation in the story. Well (imagine a shrug, here), that was my take. And I have no qualms about it. Here is See-Saw .

A couple of months back, I had received a complimentary pdf copy of Baen's Universe #3 that I was supposed to review by end of June. Unfortunately, several factors intervened to prevent me from reviewing it on time but - as the saying goes - better late than never. So here is my review. However, the stories and features are too numerous to review all at once. So I am going to split the review over a few installments. In this first installment, I am going to review five of the eight SF stories. First, the generalities: The over-all look of the magazine is beautiful. The cover art, including the the font used, and the two column page layouts are quite pleasing to the eye. The interior, full-color art is breathtaking. It brought out the good old sensa-wunda feeling in me. Now the particulars: All The Things You Are - Mike Resnick A security officer investigates the bravado death of a man and finds that the dead man expected someone (a "she") to come to him in times of crisi...

I have decided that on the days that I do not have any news or views to share on my blog, I will be providing a published story of mine as a free read. I will also provide some background on the writing and publishing of that story. I plan to make this a weekly feature. Today's story is: DAY OF DUST . It is 1000 words long. This is my earliest SF effort, written when I was 19. I was always one of the people who have sympathy for the underdog. I was reading about Percival Lowell and the ridicule he faced due to his "canals" of Mars. As serendipity usually works, I read about Mariner 9 at about the same time. Things clicked and I thought of a way I could give Lowell a second chance. The story was published in Anotherealm in 2001. I was paid $10 for the story, but then, someone read the story and liked it and offered me $200 for reprint rights. Thus the story was reprinted in the FCAT Grade 8 Test Preparation book, in 2003. Here is a challenge: While you read the story, keep...

The very first review of my story has been posted at Tangent Online and the reviewer did have some nice things to say about my story. :)

I don't know how many readers of my blog are interested in Indian TV but I have to go into a cathartic rant about it anyway. Ekta Kapoor is the #1 producer of soaps telecast on Indian television networks like Zee, Sony, Sahara, Star Plus, etc. Some of her long-running and highly popular serials are: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thhee, Kajjal, Kkusum, Kutumb, etc. What's with all those K's? Ah! You noticed? K is her lucky letter. She is so much enamored with K that some of her serials begin with a totally unnecessary, un-phonetic (is there such a word?) double K. Ekta Kapoor should be congratulated for doing a fantastic job of turning the minds of her viewers (mostly women) to mush. If an alien ever tried to deduce about humanity from Ekta's soaps, this is what he, she or it would conclude: 1. Every one person in four will get total amnesia some time in life. 2. Every one man in five will go mad some time in life and his wife will bring him back to sanity. 3. Every one wo...

My story, "The Maker Myth", has been featured on the website of SF Canada, here . Please check it out and comment.

The almost-eternal question flares anew in the blog of Mathew Cheney and continues in the well-expressed and balanced response of L.E. Modesitt, Jr. It all started with Jason Sanford's essay in the New York Review of Science Fiction. Read more about this essay in Jason's blog . All the above mentioned blogs - and the comments following them - provide good reading to anyone interested in the F&SF genres.

Let me start my first blog entry at blogspot with a bit of good news - for me: My story, "Elevator Episodes in Seven Genres", will appear in Interzone #211, scheduled to be out in a week or so.