My story, "So Glad We Had This TIme Together," is up on Apex in an issue that includes a lot of really good stuff from Gregory Frost, Sarah Dalton, and Jim C. Hines. I hope you'll check it out!
The story itself was my week six Clarion West story – with "Zeppelin Follies" getting published last year, that means I've only got one story, "I Come From The Dark Universe," left from that batch that hasn't seen the light of publication yet.
JB: I’m submitting my resignation, effective immediately.
*
I can hear the distant hum of the building’s heart, the slow steps of a janitor cleaning its chambers with wafts of…
What a fun story. Read it this afternoon thanks to the apex subscription. I loved it. It’s interesting that you’ve had this one around since Clarion. Just out of curiosity, did it sit in a drawer since then, or have you been submitting around in the meantime?
I’d stuck it aside, meaning to rewrite it, but then one day looked at it and thought, “Well, you know, actually, that doesn’t need much reworking.” It had been to a couple of markets before Apex, but then Lynne asked to see something when she took on the editorship, so I sent it along to her. 🙂
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Putting Stuff Up
In this steampunk short story, Pinkerton agents Artemus West and Elspeth Sorehs have been chasing their prey across the country. When they finally catch up near the outskirts of the Cascades, though, they find he's gone to ground in a mysterious house that once belonged to his mother, a famous inventor. What secrets hidden in the house will they discover -- and how will the house protect its returned son?I’ve been putting some stories up on Amazon and Smashwords – I’ve got close to 75 that could go up there, so it’s slow slogging but eventually everything will be up on Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords. Here’s the categories they fit into:
Altered America series: These are steampunk stories, and include Rappaccini’s Crow, which originally appeared on Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Previously unpublished Her Windowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart is part of that series, and so are two stories that are yet to come: “Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, Where Do You Wander?” and “Snakes on a Train”. You can see some of the images inspiring the stories here on Pinterest. Currently in progress is “Blue Train,” which takes place in this world although over in a France beleaguered by fairies, vampires, and werewolves.
Tales of Tabat series: These fantasy stories are set in a world I often write in, and so I won’t list all of them. Most have been previously published. Right now the only ones up are “Narrative of a Beast’s Life” and “How Dogs Came to the New Continent.”
Women of Zalanthas: I’ve written a number of stories based on Zalanthas, the world of Armageddon MUD, so I’ve put them together. Right now, stories up include “Aquila’s Ring“, “Karaluvian Fale“, and “Mirabai the Twice-lived“. Others to come include “Besana Kurac” and the title story from Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight.
The Villa Encantada series: None of these urban fantasy stories are up yet, but there’s a slew of them, primarily horror. Slightly related to them is previously unpublished horror story, “Jaco Tours.”
Another great cover by Mats MInnhagenJ.M. McDermott’s Nirvana Gates, a novella set in the world of the Fathomless Abyss, is now available for the Kindle and the Nook. If you enjoyed Tales from the Fathomless Abyss, you’ll be happy to find more set in that world.
One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about the project so far is the way different people use the same material. I’m working on finishing up the next novella in the series, A Cavern Ripe With Dreams. I think I’ve mentioned it before; it’s heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft’s “Dreams in the Witch House,” William S. Burroughs’ Junky, and Joe Lansdale’s The Drive-in Chronicles. Here’s the teaser from the beginning of it, which went out with Nirvana Gates.
An early memory. Was it his earliest memory or simply the earliest thing he remembered remembering? He wasn’t sure.
One morning his father woke him from a nightmare. He was still young, perhaps eight. His father squatted on his heels besides Bill’s bedroll and shook his shoulder. When he woke, shuddering and gasping from dreams of strangle-fingered demons, feeling his breath still in jeopardy, his father didn’t say anything, just beckoned to him.
He followed at his father’s heels, towards the world and the great tube that the city clung to. At the end of each tunnel the space widened considerably, leaving places where shelves and ladders and catwalks could be stretched. And beyond them all you could see the abyss itself, stretching downward and upward into darkness.
The air was full of something. What was it?
His father said, as Bill moved to the railing to see what was happening, “Sometimes the world opens and things fall in. Rarely do you see them. This is something you will remember all your life.”
The air was full of tiny, floating things. He stretched out his palm and kept it motionless long enough that one drifted to be trapped in his palm. A seed, a brown seed, and attached to one end a tuft of hairs, fine and feathery, carrying it along. Carefully he raised his hand, examined it more closely. The seed was so small, but ridges and swirls marked its surface and up close, it was no longer brown, but shades and gray and green and red that somehow blended together to create the impression of brown from just a few inches farther away.
He closed his fingers around it, meaning to keep it, but it was so small that it wafted away even as his fingers moved.
He’d only seen things fall into the abyss. But these, so light, sometimes moved upward or downward, sometimes tugged sideways as though snatched by invisible hands. Thousands and thousands of these, swirling through the air.
He and his father gathered a painstaking handful, picking them from crevices. Other people were doing the same. How often did you get something like that without cost, like a gift from the universe?
They picked up seeds, but they also stood for hours, watching it. Almost everyone in the city came to see it, even if their children had to carry them. People did not speak much, simply watched, as though storing it up. He grew bored and watched their faces. None of them looked at him. Even the other children seemed too self-absorbed to return his gaze, to notice that he was watching them. His mother arrived and paid them little attention, instead going to speak to the city council and offer her opinion of the event. Bill and his father stayed where they were and paid her no mind.
At last he saw the cloud beginning to thin and his father stirred. “You may never see another thing like that,” he said, regretfully. “Some people live lifetimes between Openings. Others see dozens, maybe more. You never know.” He took Bill for breakfast from a vendor, bitter tea and roasted bulbs that tasted of smoke. As they ate, fewer and fewer of the seeds fell but there were still some, hanging in the air.
He slept dreamlessly that night.
When he went to the edge again, the seeds were gone and the air was blank. Not a trace of them remained, even the tiniest fragment had been taken. For the next year everyone tried to grow the seeds into plants. They tried different levels of moisture, or heat, or light from the sunstrip, but nothing worked and the seeds remained inert. He wondered what they would have produced. He wondered how they had come here. What decided when the world would open up and take something in? What lay outside the closed opening?
What decided when it would open and close? It implied some sort of conscious force, he thought, but then again there were random things in the world, things that developed without purpose.
By Cat Rambo
2 Responses
What a fun story. Read it this afternoon thanks to the apex subscription. I loved it. It’s interesting that you’ve had this one around since Clarion. Just out of curiosity, did it sit in a drawer since then, or have you been submitting around in the meantime?
I’d stuck it aside, meaning to rewrite it, but then one day looked at it and thought, “Well, you know, actually, that doesn’t need much reworking.” It had been to a couple of markets before Apex, but then Lynne asked to see something when she took on the editorship, so I sent it along to her. 🙂