“So happens this dog achieved the rank of colonel in the United States Army.”

June 15, 2009 1:12 PM

They were in the stairwell that led down to the commode, a dangerous place in its time, the Grand Central Station Men’s, but for different reasons. I saw the dirt tracks leading there, and I left the monkeys in the chandelier and followed them. I kept to the tracks careful as I could. There were pits and corrugations everywhere in the old tile, any one of which could hide a man killing gob of explosive. At my back I heard Spot complain: “Leave ‘em be, Blacks. We’ve warned ‘em, ain’t we? If they blow themselves up, it ain’t on us.”

UXO, BOMB DOG by Eliot Fintushel (single-link short fiction)
posted by grobstein (15 comments total)

Decent story marred by overuse of neologism. Next time, let's write a morality play that people can understand without a slang-dictionary nobody's written, OK Eliot?
posted by Fraxas at 1:47 PM on June 15

I'll come back to this: interesting site, not the bomb, necessarily, but thanks.

see what I did there? Didja see it? Didja? Didja?
posted by From Bklyn at 1:55 PM on June 15

I urge dog lovers to pay attention to the "BOMB DOG" in the title and calculate the risks of the story going to a place they'd rather not go.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:08 PM on June 15

I urge dog lovers to pay attention to the "BOMB DOG" in the title and calculate the risks of the story going to a place they'd rather not go.

Nah, it's safe.
posted by Krrrlson at 2:11 PM on June 15

Don't listen to him!
posted by grobstein at 2:11 PM on June 15

Is this like "Marley & Me," except with explosives?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 2:16 PM on June 15 [2 favorites has favorites]

See also CHIPS, WAR DOG, who single-handedly captured a machine-gun nest in Italy in WWII.
posted by grobstein at 2:20 PM on June 15

Seeing how every other site and print rag seems to be folding, I think it's a small miracle that Paul Graham Raven & Co. can publish new fiction every month.

Also, (blatant self-promotion ahoy) Futurismic gave me my first SF sale last year. That was cool.
posted by RakDaddy at 2:27 PM on June 15

Urgent News abut Bomb Dogs from the Day Today
posted by lalochezia at 6:06 PM on June 15

Seeing how every other site and print rag seems to be folding, I think it's a small miracle that Paul Graham Raven & Co. can publish new fiction every month.

Are they? The short SF mags are still chugging along, and there's no shortage of fiction websites on the sidebar. They also only publish one piece of fiction a month; the print mags do about twelve times that.

But hey: free is free, lasting since 2001 is more than a lot of those sites have managed, and they have stories by Marisa Lingen and David Walton and yourself, Mysterious Up and Coming Science Fiction Writer.
posted by Amanojaku at 7:45 PM on June 15

Apex is on hiatus. Talebones is turning into an annual anthology next year. Lone Star Stories is closing up shop. F&SF went bi-monthly after its March edition, and the Big Three's circulation has been on a downward spiral forever. There are signs of hope, but there needs to be a big leap in publication to keep things rolling and healthy.

Also, if you click on my username, you'll find my real name, which you could plunk into Futurismic's search bar. Self-linking just seemed a bit gauche.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:58 AM on June 16

Well, people have been forecasting doom n' gloom for the print mags for ... well, forever, like you said, so I'm not too worried about that, at least. And I'm so used to nobody listing any info in profiles that I didn't even think to do that. Thanks; I'm off to go enjoy your story.
posted by Amanojaku at 7:47 PM on June 17

I dropped into a bookstore not too long ago, and happened to pick up Analog and Asimov's and F&SF. They were all there, but they were all really disappointing.

I read and enjoy a few new SF novels a year, but it seems like the old prestige mags are 90+% crap. =(
posted by grobstein at 8:24 PM on June 17

Well, it's short fiction: the hit-or-miss element is kind of the nature of the beast. I find that typically, even if I thought those same issues were 90% crap, too -- and quality or personal preference between individual issues is another factor -- I doubt it would be the same 90% you didn't like, which seems kind of interesting. Anyway, they must be doing something right: Asimov's usually dominates the awards, Analog has the highest readership, and F&SF ... well, I just like F&SF, personally. I mean, they've run most of Gene Wolf's short stuff, so even if I don't like every story in every issue, it works out in the end.
posted by Amanojaku at 11:49 PM on June 18

In fact, I just realized we're having this discussion in a thread for an Eliot Fintushel story, who's published in Asimov's quite a bit.
posted by Amanojaku at 11:51 PM on June 18