The Galaktika controversy

A surprising magazine cover
A surprising magazine cover
 
I kicked a hornet’s nest a week or two ago. Galaktika is a Hungarian SFF magazine, highly regarded there, with a substantial print circulation. Don’t feel uninformed; I’d never heard of it either until it showed up in a Google search on my name (vanity, vanity; yes, I know). Turns out, they’d translated and published my story, “Sinseerly A Friend & Yr. Obed’t,” as “Tisztelltel szolg’, egy barát” — without my involvement, permission, or even knowledge.

Well, I emailed the publisher to complain (still no response after almost three weeks and multiple resends). I contacted another author whose name appears on the same cover — his story had also been pirated. I posted about it on an online writers group I belong to; other writers reported their experiences; and now a Hungarian journalist has weighed in. The article is in Magyar, but there’s an English summary at the end.

It’s a big mess, for sure. But I hope that, in the end, Galaktika will reform — although the comment from the editor-in-chief suggests that that may be unlikely. But I can still hope, right?
 
UPDATE 31 MARCH: The Hungarian Globe website now has an English version of the original story, plus an update at the end.

Up and coming!

Hey boys'n'girls, be the first in your neighborhood to get one!
Hey boys’n’girls, be the first in your neighborhood to get one!

So there’s this new book out. Up and coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-eligible authors. There’s over a million words of fiction in it, and a bit less than 8000 of them are mine.

The John W. Campbell Award is for the best new SFF writer; it’s presented at the same ceremony as the Hugo awards, although it is not itself a Hugo. “New” is defined as making one’s first professional sale in the last two years; in this case, 2014 or 2015 — so this is my first year of eligibility. “Best” is defined by however nominators and voters choose to define it.

The anthology includes work by most of the eligible authors, some 100-odd of them. (For a complete list, see Writertopia.) It’s the result of a colossal, generous, and heroic effort by S.L. Huang and Kurt Hunt, and is available, free of charge, from now until March 31, the deadline for Campbell nominations.