Enter the dark and dismal dimensions of Sean Patrick Hazlett
I have a piece featured on John Scalzi’s Big Idea today. In it, I talk about the inspiration behind Weird World War III. You can check it out here.
In the picture above, I’m standing in front of my childhood home in Wilmington, Delaware on the Weird World War III launch date, October 6, 2020. It feels nostalgic to be at the place it all started. Weird World War III is my first traditionally published book as an editor or author. I’ve had short stories that have appeared in others, but this book is the first traditionally published project for which I was directly responsible and accountable. Without me, it would never have existed, but without others, it would have have gotten off the ground.
Author Tim Waggoner writes a blog post every time he has a new book coming out. I’d like to do the same, and what better time to start than now.
“Never forget where you came from.”
— Fred Collier
In my early twenties, a junior officer named Fred Collier gave me some of the best guidance in life. Right before he left the Army, he told a group of officers to “never forget where [they] came from.” For me, it was not only a call to be humble, but also it reminded me that nothing I ever accomplished was truly done on my own.
The experience of producing this anthology was no different. I am thankful that Toni Weisskopf at Baen took a risk on me as a first-time editor. Without Mike Resnick‘s guidance and support, this anthology would never have been possible.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Alex Shvartsman, and David Boop were instrumental in helping me deal with the business side of the anthology, sharing their knowledge of pitches, contracts, and editorial etiquette. Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Peter J. Wacks also produced one hell of a story, as did Alex Shvartsman.
Without Nick Mamatas, I would never have been introduced to writers and friends like T.C. McCarthy and Erica Satifka. Nick was also instrumental in graciously answering all my random editorial questions. And to top it all off, he wrote an amazing story for the anthology.
I am also thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with writers I am in awe of like David Drake, John Langan, and Mike Resnick. None of them needed to participate in this anthology, but I’m damned pleased they did.
I’m also grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to not only give Baen’s audiences stories from authors they know and love like David Drake, Mike Resnick, Sarah A. Hoyt, Brad Torgersen, and Martin Shoemaker, but also amazing authors with whom they might not yet be familiar like John Langan and Erica Satifka. I also really enjoyed the opportunity to work with many of the folks who appeared with me in Writers of the Future Volume 33 like C.L. Kagmi, Stephen Lawson, and Ville Meriläinen.
It was an honor to receive stories from other up-and-coming authors like Xander and Marina Lostetter, Brian Trent, T.C. McCarthy, Eric James Stone, and Deborah A. Wolf as well as extremely talented veteran writers like Kevin Andrew Murphy.
Throughout the journey of producing this anthology, I also got to collaborate with folks I’ve known for over thirty years like Greg Schauer, who runs Between Books in Wilmington, Delaware. Greg worked with Baen to set up one of only two of my signing events in this post-COVID world. It seems like only yesterday when I discovered his store as a twelve-year-old kid playing Dungeons and Dragons.
I would be remiss to not thank Corinda Carfora at Baen for helping me with all the marketing and coordination for birthing my book into the world. I’d also like to thank John Goodwin and the folks at Author Services for helping me set up interviews to promote the anthology. I want to thank Michael Wilson and Bob Pastorella at This Is Horror and John Scalzi for using their platforms to help me promote my work (Weird World War III is tentatively scheduled to appear on The Big Idea tomorrow). I am also grateful to have worked with Tony Daniel through a seamless and organized editing process. I also couldn’t be happier with the cover Kurt Miller delivered for the anthology. It truly captured the essence of Weird World War III.
“Life ain’t fair.”
— Theodore J. Hazlett, Jr.
It couldn’t have been a crazier year to launch this anthology, but it’s certainly been a weird one. Each month could’ve been a standalone geopolitical thriller: a once-in-a-century pandemic that swept through the United States, killing over two hundred thousand souls to date; one of the most contentious election cycles in US history muddied by conspiracy theories and Russian intrigue; the adverse economic impact of COVID-related business shutdowns driving the highest US unemployment rate in decades; civil unrest in major US cities resulting in the most costly riot damage in US history; Western wildfires causing billions of dollars and destroying millions of acres that turned the sky blood-red; increasing tensions between the world’s two most populous nations over the contentious Line of Actual Control in the Himalayan foothills; and now a proxy war between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Russia and Turkey lurking in the shadows.
My father gave me the best advice you could give a child to prepare for a world filled with such adversity and capriciousness: “life ain’t fair.” It was great advice because it’s not only true, but also it helps one steel oneself against the vagaries of life; to never count on good fortune. It taught me to make my own luck; to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
It was a long road to get to this point in my writing career. I’ve been writing and submitting stories since 2011, and it oftentimes feels like an endless stream of disappointment and rejection. In fact, unless you are one of the incredibly talented and lucky few, as a writer and/or editor, you should expect an astonishingly daunting number of rejections before you succeed. In my opinion, the only thing that separates a published author from an unpublished one is a published author never quits. Writers speak of this rejection so often it might be easily discounted as hyperbole. It’s not. My personal experience is empirical proof of it.
Since 2011, I’ve:
And yet I persisted. I didn’t quit. If I had thrown in the towel, I would have missed out on the joy of selling stories I created from nothing.
Since I finished and submitted my first short story on December 17, 2011, I’ve:
There’s still a long road ahead, but when I look back on the last 9 years, I’ve definitely made a ton of progress. And for that, I am thankful.
Working with authors I admire was one of the most rewarding experiences of putting together this anthology. Reading the stories they created really brought my vision for Weird World War III to life. If, after reading their stories, you’d like to see more from them, I’ve included a list of some of their current or upcoming publications you should definitely check out.
As for me, all I ask is that you: 1) buy a copy of Weird World War III using any of the links below and 2) post a review on Amazon (the more reviews Weird World War III receives, the higher Amazon’s algorithm ranks it). Thank you. And I hope you enjoy the anthology.
There’s a sneak peek of Weird World War III posted at ReadersEntertainment.com.
Be sure to check it out here.
Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the trade paper of the science fiction field, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. To date he’s sold 76 science fiction novels plus 3 mysteries, and 9 nonfiction books (all of them about writing or science fiction or both). He’s sold upward of 280 stories, and even a trio of screenplays. He’s edited more than 40 anthologies, and served stints as the consulting science fiction editor for BenBella Books and the executive editor for Jim Baen’s Universe. He’s edited Galaxy’s Edge Magazine and Stellar Guild Books for Arc Manor Books. He’s won 5 Hugos, and been nominated a record 37 times; he’s also won a Nebula and other major awards in the USA, France, Poland, Croatia, Spain, Catalonia, China, and Japan, and has been shortlisted for major awards in England, Italy, and Australia. His work has been translated into 26 languages so far. He was Guest of Honor at the 2012 World Science Fiction Convention.
His story, “The Third World War”, appears in the Weird World War III anthology.
As many of you know, Mike passed in early 2020, and I did not have an opportunity to interview him one final time for the Weird World War III anthology. So in lieu of that interview, I wanted to use this post to say
A legend in the genre, Mike always made a point of giving back to the science fiction and fantasy community by taking new writers and editors under his wing. I consider myself one of his “writer children” as do several of the authors in this collection. He was the judge who presented me with my award on stage at the Writers of the Future Contest. I owe a great deal of my publishing success to his mentorship and support. It is with both great pride and profound sadness that I have the honor and privilege of sharing one of his last stories in this anthology, my first as an editor. Mike’s advice and encouragement were instrumental in bringing this project to life. Without his guidance, this anthology would not have been possible. Fare thee well, old friend.
Each of the stories in this volume evoked certain themes and emotions that can sometimes be approximated with music. The below video is the editor’s best interpretation of the feelings and themes that this author’s story evoked. Please note that this is only the editor’s interpretation. The author did not know this portion of the blog post existed until the editor published it.
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Sarah A. Hoyt was born in Portugal and lives in Colorado. Along the way she engaged in all sorts of unlikely occupations, but writing might be the strangest of all. She’ published over thirty-two novels (probably thirty-four but she doesn’t feel like counting) with various publishers, and over one hundred short stories in magazines such as Analog, Asimov’s, Weird Tales and various anthologies. Her first published novel Ill Met By Moonlight was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award, her novel Darkship Thieves won the Prometheus Award, and her novel Uncharted (with Kevin J. Anderson) won the Dragon Award for Alternate History.
Her story, “Last Chance”, appears in the Weird World War III anthology.
Um…. I was born in Portugal. I came to the US first as an exchange student and met my husband, but since we were both 18 and liked each other, we spent an entire year fighting, after which I went back to Portugal. We reconnected by a fluke 4 years later and got married in South Carolina. Three years after that I was naturalized in Charlotte, NC. So, technically I’m from Charlotte, NC.
Not quite sure how to answer this. Until I was three I wanted to be a cat. Having realized it wouldn’t happen, I decided to be an angel. Having realized I needed to die for THAT, I decided to become a writer. However, in Portugal no writer lives from writing, so I decided to get a degree to support me… So, I’m a year short of a doctorate in modern language and literature, with emphasis on English and German. I also picked up French, Swedish, Italian and a bit of Spanish along the way. All gone now since 30 years ago I quit my last honest job as multilingual translator to become a writer. Well, English – my third language, actually, remains, and a bit of Portuguese, and French, but all the rest has left.
If this doesn’t answer the question, please ask again.
All of them.
Okay, not true. I don’t write men’s adventure or picture books.
However I make no promises.
Why? Well, they show up in my head and drive me insane until I pin them down to the paper.
Mostly, though, whatever the genre, I write stories about people.
Oh, dear. Probably “So Little And So Light” because it was very difficult to write and required diagrams, and also because it might be the most libertarian thing I ever wrote.
Robert A. Heinlein – I like his worlds and his people.
Giovani Guareschi – I really like his people.
Agatha Christie – mostly because her elderly women remind me of grandma, but also because I enjoy the way she writes murders without making everyone evil.
Jorge Luis Borges – because he used language beautifully and tackled big ideas.
Ray Bradbury – because he knew how to reach for the emotions and yank.
Fernando Pessoa – because he broke language to allow the meaning out.
I probably should stop now? But there’s a good half a dozen more.
Recommending myself would be crass. Again, the problem is an embarrassment of riches and it’s embarrassing because some of these people are personal friends now:
Should I stop now?
Oh, dear. So, when Dan and I were eighteen, just before I went back to Portugal, a car broke down on us in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. (It’s a long story, but that was weird enough as the car should not have broken down the way it did.) Being two kids out there alone, we were terrified. Then this very nice middle aged couple stopped and gave us a ride to a place we could call for help. They really were nice, but they kept talking as if WE were married, which was weird.
When we turned fifty we realized we looked a lot like those people. We have no explanation. We also don’t have a time machine.
Oh, dear. Talking back to guys with machine guns while all I had was an umbrella?
Throwing a shoe at the head of the representative of the USSR who came to talk at our 7th grade class? (Particularly crazy because I had purple socks on. I mean, middle-grade girl.)
Packing my bags and coming across the ocean for a year when I’d never spent a night away from home?
Marrying my husband when we had never dated and had been apart for 4 years?
However probably the one that takes the cake is writing books in my third language and expecting to be published.
When I was 33, I got pneumonia and spent 11 days in ICU. My kids were 1 and 4. But what really bothered me was all the books I’d never written.
When I’m depressed I like sweet and bland foods.
Space Opera, followed closely by Mystery (all sorts, from cozy to hard boiled.)
I don’t know. I mean in a pinch I’ll read anything (and have) but those are the ones I gravitate to most often. Though, of course, a really good author can get me to love other genres.
Denver, Colorado. Though I might have to leave due to problems with altitude as I age.
Um….
Portuguese because they let me write stories. But it was closely followed by history and physics.
Judging by most-often-re-read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Why? I just like it.
Now. Unless I could live in a better future.
Having been born in a house without heating, little electricity (one lightbulb per room), and with the bathroom outside, I feel massively spoiled living now. That’s without counting the fact that cars were a rarity, planes something that only the very rich used, and my mom laughed when I told her (at 5) I’d one day live in a house with running hot water. I like our creature comforts. Being comfortable gives the mind more scope.
Now, I’d love to have a look-a-scope into the past, to see say Elizabethan England, and such. But I wouldn’t want to live there.
Each of the stories in this volume evoked certain themes and emotions that can sometimes be approximated with music. The below video is the editor’s best interpretation of the feelings and themes that this author’s story evoked. Please note that this is only the editor’s interpretation. The author did not know this portion of the blog post existed until the editor published it.
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Through A Glass Darkly 