Hey everybody, M. here.

It has been a busy couple of weeks here over at M. Stern Headquarters so I have not had a ton of time, but I wanted to share some quick updates:

Reviews of “Payload” online at Tangent and SFRevu
“Payload” got a very thoughtful, in-depth and insightful write-up from Tara Grimravn over at Tangent Online in her full review of the new Startling Stories. Check it out! If you haven’t read the story yet, this review just might pique your interest. The story also received some kind words from Sam Tomaino at SFRevu, so dig that one too!

And if you have not gotten your hands on the new issue yet, you can order a print copy from indie retailers like Bucket O’ Blood Books and Records, from the new Startling Stories website run by publisher Wildside Press, or if you want an electronic version to magically appear on your Kindle you can buy the e-book at Amazon.

I personally am as print-centric a fiction reader as can be, so I firmly encourage you to pick up a physical copy to keep on your shelf and impress your friends and family. That said, the more I think about it, the more it strikes me that it would be a slightly different experience to read this story in particular on an e-reader. What do I mean by that? You’ll just have to buy it and see…

Sign up for my e-mail list!
One other little thing is that I installed a sign-up box for an e-mail list over there on the right hand side of the screen. Why? Well, because at the moment most of the way I have been getting word out about my stories is on Facebook, and it seems like the site keeps adding hurdles to make it more difficult to promote legitimate stuff (while at the same time doing apparently as much as they can to facilitate scams, bad vibes, and all sorts of other things that are driving humankind insane).

Don’t get me wrong, I would definitely still appreciate it if you follow me on Facebook to stay in the loop, but I have begun to imagine what a post-social media world might look like and it seems it would be good to still be able to get the word out if one or more of the social media channels we have become dependent on becomes terminally unfashionable or craps out entirely.

So if you’re at all interested in getting dispatches from the strange and fantastic world of M. Stern direct to your email, drop your email address right in that box. It might also inspire me to start doing movie reviews regularly like I always tell myself I am going to.

Just in the past couple of months I have found myself signing up for more genre authors’ e-newsletters like this and I have to say there is something pleasant about receiving that kind of content directly. Maybe it is because social media just shows me a constant stream of the same memes and people arguing with bots every day. Maybe it is because 99.5 percent of the email I receive is spam so it feels nice to get something I actually signed up for. Either way I have found it introduces a small glimmer of surprise happiness into my day.

Anyway time to get back to the shit, hopefully I will have more news coming soon. Stay safe everyone!
-M.