Reading period closed

That’s it. The first stage, so to speak, of Rocket Science is closed. Officially, the reading period closed at midnight GMT on 31 October, but there’s little point in being a stickler about such a thing. So everything that was in my inbox when I got up this morning I’m counting as a valid submission. But no longer. Except, that is, for two people, who asked for extensions which I happily granted.

During August, September and October, I received exactly one hundred submissions. They breakdown as per the charts below:

I still have a number of submissions to work through, as well as some I’ve held back for a second reading. So if you’ve not heard from me yet, you will do in the next fortnight. You will also notice from the above graphs that I only received six non-fiction submissions. I only bought three of them, however. And I’d really like one or two more for the anthology.

So I’m going to extend the reading period for non-fiction only until 15 November 2011. I’m looking for anything to do with science and/or science fiction which fits in with the anthology’s theme of “authentic and realistic hard sf”. Everything else as per the guidelines.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll post analyses of the submissions – by setting, gender of protagonist, story type, etc. – and I hope to have a final table of contents ready to reveal by the end of November. I’ll also continue to post here on topics related to and about Rocket Science. So check back often.