It’s that time of year again where thoughts turn to holidays, winter or summer fun (depending on where one resides) and awards eligibility posts.
Okay, maybe not that last one. But it’s standard practice, so here’s mine anyway.
I’m in my second year of eligibility for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (formerly the Campbell).
I’ve had the good fortune of publishing several short stories this year:
“All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From” in Fireside Magazine.
You Snap into the procedurally-generated shithole you call a hometown, and a moment later the stench leaves you gagging. So many universes and yet, in almost every one, South Topeka smells like a family of raccoons died inside a middle school locker room.
“The Crafter at the Web’s Heart” in Apex.
Out this far, Traverse is sparse, mostly open space and two-meter-wide strands of web, almost all of it exposed. I could see all the way back to the heart of the city, where money and power gathers, where the towers of the skyline are dominated by Lord Mayor’s spire and the great needle of the Wise Ones’ Chambers. Hishonor keeps the coin flowing, while the Wise Ones practice their magics and do whatever it is ancient mages do. Which is mostly not practice magic, unless they like the idea of completing their transformation to an eagle or ball lightning or whatever it is each of them studies.
The whole of Traverse builds to its middle—or almost to the middle. I can’t see the center from out here, but I can feel the place where the orb is empty, where there is nothing but the Drop. Where, if you believe Ma’s stories, the Crafter herself once sat and fed on some unfathomable prey. Then she climbed a line up to the moon and left her labors behind.
Might be it happened that way. I can tell you, the Wise Ones didn’t shape the web, nor did the Lord Mayor’s money.
“This Next Song Is Called Punk Rock Valhalla” in A Punk Rock Future.
Like most of my tattoos, they seemed like a good idea at the time. On the back of my left hand, the Norse rune Algiz, life. On my right, the Hebrew word Maveth, death. What can I say? I was eighteen, playing guitar terribly for a local punk band, and trying to make peace between the traditions of my Jewish mother and my Nordic father.
They weren’t my most embarrassing tattoos, but they were the ones that got me killed.
“The Vixen, with Death Pursuing” in Maiden, Mother, Crone.
When I turn around, the pestimancer is behind me. He stands at the edge of the clearing, his head and torso wreathed in a shimmer as if soap bubbles were made of filth. His fingers blur at the edges, and bloatflies buzz incessantly around him. A gold amulet hangs from his neck, incongruous.
“The rebels should have sent someone else,” he says with that tar-voice. I sense him staring at me, though I see no eyes in the caverns of his face. A tilt of the head, then a rasping that I think is meant to be laughter. “You’re no rebel, just a coward. I saw it in your eyes, when I broke her.”
“Of Rabbits, the Boneyard, and the Other Place” in Then Again.
I call it the other place, but I’m pretty sure it’s just one of many, because things that don’t seem like they’re from the other place find their way to it. Maybe it’s like a subway station. You take tunnels to get there, and things seem to show up there from far away. Luggage with tags from foreign lands or from cities I can’t find in any atlas, exotic animals, even once a bottle floating down from the sky, a message inside written in a strange language I’d never seen. I’ve never found tunnels from the other place to anywhere else, though. Maybe I just can’t see them.
“Requiem Without Sound” in Escape Pod.
Evie is born into cold and silence. They know this, though they have only now gained consciousness, because their sensors report it. The memory of the station’s computer, which now forms part of Evie’s brain, tells them that their environment is very wrong. There should be movement. Sound. Life.
You can also find information about the stories I published last year and the ones that are forthcoming in my fiction bibliography.