Extremely Belated Linkage: Sandra has a story out!
Posted September 27th, 2008 by Howard TaylerToday’s score: Stamina Fail. Parenting Win. Husband Fail.
Sandra told me WEEKS ago that her short called “Stories That Bind” was up at The Lorelei Signal, an online magazine. I was supposed to link you to it BEFORE it vanished into the archives.
That happens on October 1st. See, honey? I didn’t wait too long!
If you like the story you can vote for it to be included in a print anthology. Quick! go read and vote! (Note: You really should read the whole issue before voting on a favorite. I’m just sayin’.)
Explore posts in the same categories: Home & Family, Random Linkage
September 27th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
a fine story sandra, you have my vote at the site.
“gunner”
September 27th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
surprisingly good. looks like the other tayler has talent too.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Sandra: When I read a good story, I don’t see words; I see images.
*Your* story, and one other, were the only ones who made me see images, despite the abrupt ending. One other thing: Those two stories also made me see *more* – more stories beyond what was written. So in my eyes, you’re just like the other authors I have admired – Eddings (both of them), J.K. Rowling, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony…. and now, Sandra Tayler.
Please don’t stop writing, Sandra. I hope you never run out of stories to tell.
Oh, and as of this writing, yours is #2 – behind the one other story I liked, _Sister of the Benevolent Gods_ (by Ripley Patton). Why did I like those two and not the others? Simple.
They had *happy* endings. The only difference was –
I voted for *yours*. :>
September 28th, 2008 at 6:20 am
WOW! That was great. I bow once more to a literary master (and Maker of Stories).
If only there were more…
If we as Schlock minions can do nothing else, I say we get you into the print edition!
September 28th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
voted for Sandra’s story, but “Simple Deception” and “Sister of the Benevolent Gods” were also very good. Hmm … think I have to go stuff the ballot box, Great Grandpa in Chicago wants to vote too ..
September 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
As long as Great Grandpa is still alive… ;-)
September 28th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Sandra: Read, voted for, $upported and *thoroughly ENJOYED* _Stories That Bind_ — great story and good artwork to boot. Thanks to you and Lee Kuruganti both!
Howard: Thank you for the link. Husband _save_!
zurk: So, which of the talented Taylers is the other? ;^)
September 28th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Well, he is from Chicago, so you never know…
September 29th, 2008 at 12:15 am
i’ve already told the local democratic party types, if i end up voting democratic after i die i’ll be coming up the handle of the shovel fighting.
“gunner”
September 29th, 2008 at 5:52 am
The link doesn’t work for me :(
September 29th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Great story. Simply great. As comrade Ketira said above – you don’t see words; you see images.
Here hoping to see more stories from Sandra soon!
September 29th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
[looks at voting bargraph]
*LAUGHS*
I don’t think there’s any fear of Sandra’s excellent story being published. Might want to look over some of the others now….
September 29th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
NOT being published, ack! :faceplant:
September 29th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I think it was fairly unethical to post that here, because you had to know that your readers were going to practically stuff the ballot box for her. :p
September 29th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Sorry, Sandra. I took Howard’s advice and decided that I had to vote for the vampire story. Yours totally rocked, I just had to go with my preference.
On the bright side, it looks like you’ve swept the decisions. Congratulations!
D.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
@Khiz: I shall expose your folly by the numbers.
1) Lorelei signal is an online magazine. Like most such entities, it thrives on attention.
2) Sandra has the ability to draw attention. Sure, mostly that comes through me, but it’s an ability nonetheless.
3) The other authors may or may not have similar ability. If they do, they’re fools not to use it. If they don’t, they can piggy-back on the attention others bring.
4) If there is a print edition, it will thrive on sales to fans. Authors who cannot draw attention to the book will not help it sell, no matter how good their story is. Authors who CAN draw attention to the book would do it (and themselves) a disservice to remain silent.
5) If there are better stories than Sandra’s (and I’ll certainly allow for that) then it is now obvious that they will not get the attention they deserve except through her. Unless the editors decide to scrap the votes of the last 3 days, her story becomes the lead that sells the book, and other stories become the gems that Sandra’s fans were perhaps not expecting to find.
In short, the vote is not an indication of which story is best. The vote is an indication of which story has the most fans, and is therefore more likely to sell anthologies. It’s a marketing tool, not a quality-control metric.
Now, If I’d told people to click today, and then click every day thereafter until the end of the month… THAT would be unethical.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
hmm…. thats somewhat disingenuous howard. anyone here really think that fans of a completely violent 25th or whatever century scifi comic are going to BUY a chick magazine ? anyone … ? didnt think so.
its not a marketing tool if your audience is geared to a different market. sure we’re happy to read the story and vote on it but unlikely to become repeat visitors of the lora-whatsit chick zine.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:50 am
@Sandra: The name fits it – the stories bind the siren as the story bound me as reader. And as your story ended, it left a trace and a memory to accompany me.
Thank you for sharing it.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:12 am
@zurk: Oh, you’re right. I forgot. Obviously people who like Schlock Mercenary cannot possibly enjoy romantic fantasy.
Have you even been reading the comments above? Folks read Sandra’s story and then read other ones! And even voted on them preferentially over hers!
I know, it’s painful to be disabused of incorrect notions you’ve been harboring, but the pain is good for you. Embrace wisdom, zurk.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:52 am
i don’t know why but the link has always been bad for me :-( even in different browsers. I get a default page that looks like a domain name holding page… I finally found the story in the Google Cache. tinyurl’d here if anyone else is having problems: http://tinyurl.com/4c2cde
September 30th, 2008 at 7:01 am
@cymon and MooseDrool: This is probably a DNS issue. The only way I can think of for the link to be working for some folks but not others is if the network of DNS servers don’t agree on the resolution of loreleisignal.com.
Sandra has had this problem with a site she loves to visit — it works from wireless hotspots, but not from home (and that points at Comcast’s DNS server for the problem.)
You can try browsing through a proxy site, or, as cymon pointed out, reaching into the Google Cache for the page.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Howard: Is zurk real, or is he your strawman sockpuppet?
MooseDrool, cymon: Odd. You posted 25 hours apart, and as cymon appears to have been more persistent, it looks like you were trying at the same time of day.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Comcast DNS? I’m sorry. If you plug an alternate DNS server into your router, you’ll be lots happier.
If there’s a bright side to Comcast, it is that they will eventually fix their problems. It only took seven years for them to be able to consistently resolve .US domains.
*sigh*
September 30th, 2008 at 8:10 am
@zurk: Buy it? Prolly not, my online discretionary book budget begins and ends with Schlock Mercenary.
Read and enjoy it though?
Absolutely! I have to admit that the overall high quality of the stories took me by surprise but I’m always happy to find something new, and good, to read. Especially when it’s free. I even passed the site on to a few friends I thought might enjoy it.
D.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:14 am
@Sam: zurk? A sockpuppet? I’d lose that sock in the dryer faster than you can say “lint burns.”
@Dev Dot Nul: Thanks for passing the site around to friends. That’s what teh intarwubs is 4.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:38 am
@Dev Dot Nul, @Howard….
For what it’s worth, I used Speakeasy’s DNS servers when I had Comcast (shudder).
Now I use speakeasy for DSL service, they’ve been good so far.
Feel free to try any or all of these as nameservers:
64.81.159.2
216.231.41.2
204.127.199.8
Comcast’s DNS used to time out resolving addresses on a semi-regular basis for me (like every 4-5 minutes for 60s) and their tech support was less than useless. These worked, but as with all advice, your mileage may vary.. I do not accept responsibility for your computer spontaneously reassembling itself into something resembling the interior of Schlock’s plasgun, etc…
September 30th, 2008 at 11:06 am
As compelling as the story about the gods was in its characters, Sandra’s story was far more interesting to me from a worldbuilding perspective. Immortal beings acting the way they do because of the stories mortals tell about them? Mortals with the power to make and change the stories? Priceless. It immediately sets my gears turning as to the implications and resultant nature of the world. I gladly give the story my vote.
Now, how did the story of the siren who weeps start…
September 30th, 2008 at 11:47 am
It is a DNS problem, but not the kind that you think. Neither comcast, nor anybody else’s ISP is at fault. The problem is that there should be no www in the address.
whois says that the authoritative DNS servers for loreleisignal.com are yns1.yahoo.com, yns2.yahoo.com.
These servers agree with my DNS server that the IP address assigned to loreleisignal.com is 68.142.234.37
However, there is NO IP address assigned to http://www.loreleisignal.com.
Therefore the correct URL should be http://loreleisignal.com/StoriesThatBind.html
The blame for this kind of error rests squarely with whoever maintains the Lorelei Signal’s web site.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I like the story.
I tried to post a comment explaining the dns problem. Maybe the comment was rejected because it had a URL in it.
It is not Comcast or any other ISP’s problem. The Yahoo DNS server is serving up an IP address for loreleisignal dot com, and it is the right address. It is also serving up www dot loreleisignal dot com as a CNAME for a long name starting with p6p. But it is denying recursive resolution on that long name. Therefore, attempts to resolve www dot loreleisignal dot com to an IP are failing.
If you remove the leading www dot from the URL that Howard gives, then you can get to the site.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I am a reader, I will read almost anything that stays still long enough for me to read.
this year:
historical non-fiction, historical fiction, historical romance, soft sf, hard sf, contemporary thrillers, mysteries (historical, contempoary, sf, fantasy), alternative history, fantasy, the sunday papers, technical manuals, humorous webcomic compilations.
… still can’t get into Frank Herbert though, never could.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
@Howard: “teh intarwubs is 4.” (sic) == literacy FAIL.
Please, please, please, don’t let that ooze over into SM.
Ewww!
D “please pass the hankie” .
September 30th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
@zurk: (again) Y’know, the more I thought about your comments, the more it bothered me. Anyone can click on a voting button but that doesn’t keep the entertainment coming.
So, as a result of you rubbing on a raw spot, I decided to toss a few bucks to the magazine, my favorite author, and Sandra too. After all, if not for Howard letting us know about his beautiful wife’s contribution, we’d all have missed out on some quality entertainment.
My checking account is a bit smaller now but I feel better for having let you convince me to do the right thing.
Thank you.
Seriously.
D.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
@Dev Dot Nul: I can has liturasy fail? Srsly, I shdlnt have mspelld intartoobs.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Howard: Well, I briefly wondered why you let him post here, but then it occurred to me that, if fake, he was an excellent strawman.
And now I see the effect he’s had on Dev Dot Nul…
rpresser: So why does the “www.” version work for me?
October 1st, 2008 at 4:46 am
huh….. well, the link worked for me – but I think part of that is Earthlink’s doing. *shrugs*
rpresser: hm…. maybe it’s time for me to do a bit of campaigning; if I can catch them at the right time, maybe I can get them to move their domain over to DreamHost (which is, if they’re paying, a LOT better than Yahoo! in the webhosting dept.)….
*sighs* Now you got me thinking of MY website, which needs upgrading. And if I can get two folks to host their sites at Dreamhost, I won’t have to worry about my spot going 404…..
October 1st, 2008 at 7:29 am
@Sam: I value free expression. Rest assured, I would not deliberately inject vitriol into this community in order to further any cause. I’d be happier if zurk left of his own accord.
But I can’t prove he’s not a sock puppet without opening my server logs to you and letting you see his IP address for yourself. That’s not going to happen.
Here are some cut-and-pastes, though:
zurk: 70.13.174.235, 99.203.47.31, 72.63.188.142, 173.4.22.166, 70.12.77.191 (dude gets around!)
me: 76.27.89.213 (home), 71.39.116.254 (hotel room in Idaho)
Sandra: 76.27.89.213
October 1st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Stupid text-only medium. I know of no punctuation mark or emoticon to convey incredulity. (The face from the Daily WTF logo would work, but I don’t think I can draw that with one line of ASCII, sideways or otherwise.) And now I can’t tell whether you really thought I actually suspected you of having a sockpuppet.
Huh. I just realised that’s an argument that comics are the best literary medium. Hey, I wonder if the Japanese already figured that out?
October 1st, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Today everything is working, even at the www dot address … I guess Yahoo cleaned up the DNS.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:25 pm
@Howard: *snerk*
@Sam: *snerk*
@zerk: *hurk*
Does that cover everyone who needs covering?
Coolie!
Now everyone butch up and throw a buck or three towards your favorite author at _Lorelei Signal_.
Much Grass.
D.
p.s. Seriously, Howard. Zurk couldn’t do any better as a foil if he were sitting on your lap with a monocle in his eye and your hand jammed up his keester to the elbow.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Huh. Guess I’m no longer on the white list. That or I’ve used another naughty word.
Sorry, Howard.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:43 pm
whats more amusing is that ive never been to kansas, idaho or missouri.
:)
for all howard knows i could be sitting in the house across the street from him. most large ISPs assign IPs from a nationwide pool. but youre right howard — i do get around. just a lot further than those states would imply. try 3000 mile trips every two weeks on average.