The latest SFX short story collection is almost upon us! If you're a subscriber you may already have it in your grasp. Pulp Idol 2008 officially hits newsstands tomorrow along with issue 175 of the world's biggest sci-fi and fantasy magazine. If you're one of the hundreds of people who submitted a story to the competition, you'll be waiting to see if you're named as one of those who got through to the final 50. Today, we're happy to oblige.
Of course, we've already announced the overall winner and the 10 runners-up here on the site. But here are the 39 other writers whose stories made it through the early stages of the competition to be in our top 50 long-list. The first 14 listed here made it through to a short, short-list of top 25 stories, so they can feel especially proud:
“A New Dawn” by Ian McCaig
“A Year in the Garden” by Alistair Baxter
“An Infusion of Culture” by Peter Irving
“Change” by Brian Feltham
“Cracks” by Karen Cripps
“Look What They’ve Done to my Brains, Ma” by Stuart Moses
“Not Other People” by Gruff Jones
“Retired Dad vs The World” by Anthony Pugh
“Sweet Tooth” by Justin Carroll
“The Once and Future King” by Rob Sharp
“The Storybook” by Sonia Stock
“They Said There Would Be Cake” by David Storey
“Warmth” by Paul Starkey
“What Are You Doing Right Now?” by Ian Pithouse
And these are the remaining 25 stories which did not make it to the very final shortlist, but made it through to the last 50 because of their quality:
“All Your Needs and Wishes” by Steven Ellis
“Angel Dust” by David Watkins
“Don’t Drink the Water” by Dan Tessier
“Dwelling Time” by Dave Joynes
“Eye of the Beholder” by Jeremy Winstanley
“Hopeful Monsters” by Morag Lewis
“Imprisoned” by Brian Creek
“Inside the Moon Ship” by Gary Bakewell
“Into the Blue” by Matthew Fudge
“Jeux Sans Frontieres” by Clarry McDonald
“Journey South” by Craig Phillips
“Just Another Face in the Crowd” by Paul Carey
“Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by Peter Vialls
“Lorna_02” by Emma Elder
“Magic is the New Black” by Thomas Rhys Haynes
“Passing Point” by Christopher Wilson
“Peaceful Coexistence” by Hailey Nash
“Schedule 47b” by David Bickley
“Snap” by Barry Bridges
“Super-Rich Patent Attorney Brutally Batters Impoverished Inventor” by Darren Humphries
“The Eye in the Jar” by Richard James
“The Labyrinth of Knives” by Colin Sinclair
“The Man” by Ian Hayles
“The Painter of Reality” by Ian Whiteley
“Thought Experiment” by Julia M Frith
Congratulations to all these writers, and of course to top dog James McGraw whose story "Charlie's Angel" will headline the collection. The book is being given away free with issue 175 of SFX, so that’s tens of thousands of copies out there on newsstands – what great exposure for all authors involved.
Thanks and well done to everybody who submitted stories this year. Don't forget, all but the winner himself are eligible to enter again next year if we run the competition again. In this year's book you'll also find an extract from the latest fantasy novel by RA Salvatore. This year's short story competition was sponsored by Dungeons & Dragons .
