Robot Melon

The new issue of Robot Melon is up.  It's very, very good.  I particularly liked "Childrey Merry" by Maria Anderson.  There are so many amazing lines in the story that it's impossible not to read it multiple times.  Jen Gann has a story, "Horsewoman" that's perfect, which I will now show every student of mine who writes a story about horses, to show them how to do it right.  And there is a poem by Juliet Cook which has the line, "Those fake moustaches don't help the robots look any more human-like."

I also have two short pieces up from my ongoing attempt to turn the rock opera, Tommy, into a novella-sized story.  I listened to that album constantly when I was in junior high and, this was before the internet, I didn't really have access to the overarching plot of the album (or the intelligence to figure it out on my own).  I couldn't tell who was supposed to be speaking and what the hell they were talking about and so I had created my own story of what was going on.  It was, not surprisingly, way, way off.  Like, not even close to being Tommy.  At all.

My favorite Who?  John Entwistle.  His nicknames were "The Ox" and "Thunderfingers".  And he wrote "Cousin Kevin" and "Fiddle About" from Tommy, which are the two most disturbing songs on the album.