Holiday spirit

What’s more in tune with the Christmas holiday than science fiction/fantasy? Flying reindeer, time travel, mysterious strangers hidden at the north pole?

Lightspeed Magazine is having a big bundle sale, with very good deals on back issues, and on the e-books they put out. Lots of good short fiction and anthologies.

If you’re interested in the writing of SFF, the How to Write Magical Words collection is available for pre-order. A group of writers started a blog about the business and craft of writing. There’s been a lot of very good material presented there, and the best of it has been collected into a book. Read the blog, buy the book.

I haven’t listened to it yet, but Jaym Gates and Erika Holt, editors of Rigor Amortis are interviewed on Get Published.

Edit: Completely forgot to include this, but you all know there’s a total lunar eclipse tonight in conjunction with the solstice, right? Visible across North America. It’s disappointingly cloudy here, but maybe it will clear up by the wee hours.

Some of my friends have been complaining about the overabundance of bad holiday music. I love Christmas music, but only for a week or two a year. Starting at Halloween is just too much, and by the actual Christmas holiday I’m incredibly sick of the old standards. But there’s plenty of good less-common holiday music out there, and I’m going to feature some of my favorites both here and at String Notes for the week leading up to Christmas.

Here’s a seasonal favorite to get you in the right frame of mind.