My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in September: Free Fantasy & SciFi.Seventy science fiction and fantasy books, available at no cost.Get your FREE copy of Passageway!“Philosophically, the universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we've got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it's one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it's countless other universes.”—Neil deGrasse TysonChosen by mystical warriors to protect a parallel Earth from a catastrophic future, a young man must push his mental and physical abilities to the limits if he is to help save mankind. As seventeen-year-old Darwin McQuaid flees high-school bullies, he is saved by an enigmatic stranger; an indigenous teenage warrior who was born 500 years in the past.Strong and powerful, Daruk possesses an intelligence that exceeds his rugged youthful appearance, and Darwin is drawn to learn more about him. Surprisingly, the high-school junior discovers that the mysterious warrior has a connection to an old family friend—an elderly indigenous shaman called Uncle His. As the physical attraction intensifies between Darwin and Daruk, the warrior reveals a secret—that he and Uncle His are Guardians of the Passageway and are destined to protect the crossroads of three parallel universes, three Earths, each 500 years apart.Discovering worlds he never knew existed, along with an untapped power within himself, can the young man become the warrior needed to defend this ancient world from corrupt invaders?Or will the death and danger of a more primitive time prove to be too much for this 21st-century teen?For over forty years, from 1978 until 2019, the Campbell Conference, named for the long-time Astounding/Analog science fiction magazine editor John W. Campbell, “provided a setting for intelligent discussion about SF.”Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Starting in the early 1980s, the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, directed by University of Kansas science fiction author and scholar James Gunn, hosted the conference. This included presenting, each year, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and eventually the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short story, the latter in honor of celebrated science fiction author Ted Sturgeon.The Sturgeon Award takes the form of a symbol combining a question mark and an arrow. It's a version of a symbol Sturgeon recommended to his readers to remind them of what he considered an important analytical process: “Ask the next question.” Few people have been able to articulate such sound and succinct advice for writing and reading good science fiction.Several events coincided to bring the conference to a close.Thanks for reading The Cosmic Codex! This post is public so feel free to share it.During her acceptance speech for the 2019 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Jeanette Ng accused Campbell of being a fascist, “[e]xalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonizers, settlers and industrialists.” She challenged the sf community to reconsider honoring him as it had in the past. Analog subsequently announced it would rename its award to the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction renamed the Campbell Conference the Gunn Center Conference.A year later, COVID-19 developed into a global pandemic, complicating in-person gatherings. But Gunn’s death the same year dealt a more significant blow to the future of the conference.In 2022, the KU faculty took over the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, which had previously been governed by a separate board of directors. Retaining the responsibility for presenting the Sturgeon Award each year, the Center replaced the Campbell Conference with the Sturgeon Symposium."Stars in Our Pockets: Celebrating Samuel R. Delany" is the topic of this year’s Sturgeon Symposium, honoring Delany’s “lasting impact on science fiction, speculative fiction, and literary criticism.” This seems appropriate, as Sturgeon is one of the sf writers Delany most recommends.The Sturgeon Symposium is scheduled for October 24-25, 2024, with both online and in person (on the KU campus) elements. The cost is only $25.00, with student and need-based fee waivers available.I plan to attend. Please join me if you can!Register here for the Sturgeon Symposium.Club Codex is reading and discussing The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith through mid-October.Follow along with my thoughts on this novel and contribute your own in the following thread:Click here for more details about Club Codex in 2024. Please join us!My latest novelette, “Long Night On the Endless City,” appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 26: Tomorrow’s Crimes:On the vast ring habitat Ouroboros, Jel ...
