Saturday, October 26, 2013

Two Links: A Call For Submissions And A Mystery Book Challenge

Via SF Signal I discovered Alex Dally MacFarlane's Call For Reprint Submissions: Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women.

The link will take you to the complete submission guidelines. What made me think this opportunity might be of interest to authors of SFR was the inclusive tone of the call:
I take a very broad definition of ‘science fiction’. If you feel that your work is at the boundary between science fiction and literary/historical/fantasy/other genres, please send it to me. (If you know that your work is, say, a secondary world fantasy about elves or a contemporary fantasy about vampires, please don’t waste my time.)

I want the anthology to encompass the full range of the world’s women, in the authors and in their stories. I welcome submissions from all women: women of all cultural and linguistic backgrounds, women of all countries, women of all religions, women of all sexualities, trans and cis and genderfluid women, women of all abilities, women of all classes.
Based on the above, it seems like Ms. MacFarlane would consider sci-fi romance reprints.

And now for the mystery portion of our show:

A Goodreads user alerted me about one reader's search for a book whose title she can't remember. The reader, Harpmary, provided an initial list of clues:
(1) Available in 80s or 90s in SF/Fantasy
(2) The book is not a "Gor" book, Outlander, Restoree, The Changwinds series by Jack Chalker, or Yargo.
(3) The author is a woman
(4) It is not part of a series - it is a stand alone book
(5) I have a vague recollection of the word "Karin" or "Kirin" or "Kyrin" or something like that in the title or possibly the name of the main character or the planet. But, searches on these words have been fruitless.
(6) The opening of the book is set in "modern" times - i.e. 20th century.
(7) The main character is a 30-something year old woman who is out jogging and gets transported to another world through a vortex. She finds herself as a pseudo servant on this planet. Character 'falls' for overlord of manor.
This book may or may not be SFR, but I was intrigued by the challenge and was wondering if any of my passengers might be able to pull a Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery! There are other clues in the thread. Thanks in advance if you can help out!

Joyfully yours,

Heather