Flash This (Fiction)!

Flash This (Fiction)!

This week, I've embarked on an ambitious new project to write a flash story a day. So far, I've written two. Each one's between 800-1100 words long. I probably won't be able to keep this pace up, but I want to practice for next March, when I take Judy's Flash Fiction class.

Tonight, on to another story!

On another front, I was surfing Ralan.com yesterday and came across a sad announcement. Ellen Datlow's fine e-zine, SCIFICTION, is no more! The geniuses at the Sci Fi channel have discontinued it. What a shock! What a loss for both the SF reading community and the SF writing community. Though I never got to sell a story to SCIFICTION, I had hope up until now. It was the best-paying short fiction market in SF.

What brilliant folks, the Sci Fi Channel executives are? Have you seen the TRIPE they run on that network? Tonight they have something called Manticore, about a beast running around Iraq. Terrorists are behind raising it from the grave, of course! And the brave Americans must put it back in its place. Please!

On other SF fronts, LOST continues to do well. With the "tailies" and the "fusies" merging, the series seems more and more like a cross between Survivor and the computer game, MYST. Two tribes, mysterious "hatches" filled with buttons to press, films that hint at more information, and number puzzles. If this isn't MYST for TV, I can't think of what would be.

Invasion finally got its "sea legs" yesterday. We got to behold the glowing alien creatures in their golden glory. They remind me of a manta ray with tentacles. The part with the young, naïve deputy dismembering himself with a chainsaw (after the evil alien sheriff convinced him to do it) was chilling and priceless. "Dave" on the show remains its most memorable and entertaining character. I'm not just partial to him because my name happens to be Dave, either!

CBS just cancelled Threshold this week. I thought the show had promise. It was the fastest-paced, most accessible of the new SF programs this season. And the little person who played the linguist-hero was a riot! I hope he finds more roles, in longer-lasting venues. Maybe he can team up with Michael J. Anderson for a remake of The In-Laws.

Also, it seems Night Stalker has disappeared from the Thursday night lineup. Duh! It was up against CBS's strong Thursday lineup. All network execs are idiots, I have decided. The producers of Night Stalker screwed up too, when they substituted a young, angry Mulderesque character for the original, rumpled, Columbo-type guy. The show flattened out, sans the self-deprecating humor of the original 70s series. We already lived through seven years of The X Files, we didn't need a copy of it now.