Random market information

I've been so snowed under by real life for the past few months that I've not bothered to look at markets at all. But I've got a bit of spare time this weekend, so I've been poking around. Some items of potential interest to self and/or friends:

Bywater Books writing contest -- $20 entry fee, first prize $1000 and publication, novels about lesbians (*not* a romance-only or erotica publisher, although they'll consider both). Deadline 31 October every year.

From ERA's collection of submission guidelines:
Better Sex erotic fiction contest -- no entry fee but you grant them non-exclusive publication rights, prizes from $100 up, 3000 words.

Sex in the City -- Maxim Jakubowski's new anthology series, each volume themed around a specific city, payment 75 pounds for 5-6000 words, deadline 1 November, snailmail submissions only. Primarily het, will consider bi, gay/lesbian will be a very hard sell. (I would *really* like to write something for this, but doubt I will manage to do so in time.)

Fishnet -- still going, but has recently changed length requirements. Currently paying 5c/word for short stories, any orientation.

Surprise anthology -- short stories, 100 word flash fiction and poetry. I could dig out that drabble I wrote years ago, and try it on them. Deadline 1 December 2009. Note that this is a brand-new publisher -- writer beware, as they ask for information that would be useful to identity thieves.

Book review: Harry Harrison -- Plague from Space

1978 printing, so presumably the original and shorter version of this novel, which has apparently been published at two different lengths and under several titles. First published in 1965, and thus dated in odd little ways -- not least being the lack of some 1990s-level consumer technology in a story set in a then near future where we have the technology to send a manned mission to Jupiter.

The story opens with that manned mission's return to earth in dramatic fashion, with an emergency landing right on top of Kennedy Airport in New York, one which wreaks havoc on the airport. Young emergency room doctor Sam Bertolli is part of one of the first ambulance teams on the scene, and is directed to the ship itself. Thus he is the first to encounter the sole survivor -- who dies within a few minutes of a deadly disease brought back from Jupiter.

There follows a medical mystery drama, as the city medical services follow standard quarantine procedures, and the situation escalates. Harrison does an excellent job of showing the hard decisions that need to be made and the human reactions -- the people desperate to protect their beloved animals from a vital culling programme, the people trying to cover their own backs in the political games being played, the conflicting priorities in the battle to prevent the disease from spreading beyond the city. There's a lot of good world-building detail about what the medical teams actually *do* in such a situation, rather than simple hand-waving. Unfortunately the mismatch between extrapolated technology levels and what we really ended up with can break suspension of disbelief for current audiences, in part because Harrison did such a good and careful job with this. But for all that it's dated in places, it's a good read, with a strongly drawn near-future world, some great characters, and a deadly serious task for them to do.

LibraryThing entry
Plague from Space (Sphere science fiction) at Amazon UK
Plague From Space at Amazon US