Five Ways
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WIP: Teaser from The Bloodwarm Rain, Part 2

Along Vera’s neck, on either side, are three round bits of grillwork, and when she comes in hard and fast, they scream, a whine that grates along all your nerves, even when you’ve heard it before.

They screamed now, and even muffled by the tents, they still forced Roto’s ears to flatten back, his whiskers tensed in an involuntary sneer and made me clamp my forearms over the sides of my head, muffling it. Shots barked out, then a rat-a-tat of semi-automatic followed by another like an echo. Vera’s own guns boomed.

There were screams.

I unfolded myself and started to rise. Roto yanked me back down just as a round of flying metal buried itself in the canvas bundle. If I’d stood, it would have decapitated me. We both stared at it. My ribs pulsed with ache and I realized I’d been holding my breath, I didn’t know how long.

There’s only so many ways for a group to attack you on particular terrain, and everyone had done exactly as they were supposed. The Bird Woman had a wing clipped, high and gouging the bone and all her children were fussing about her while Sieg bandaged it, the littlest with their heads buried in her skirts.

Bodies were slumped on the ground, five or six of them, but none of them were ours, so they didn’t matter. No one seemed worried about the post where the flashes of light had come from, so Vera must have taken care of those before coming down to us, as she was supposed to.

June was there with Vera, checking her over, fanning the long metal pinions out and examining them for wear and tear. The guns athwart her prow swiveled in two directions as though still alert, worried that something might happen. Pal was riffling that packs and pockets, but with little luck, judging by his expression, other than the pile of weapons slowly accumulating underneath the sign that read, “Trucks this way”.

Wren and two roustabouts who’d come on three towns ago were off to one side. On the road they didn’t smoke anything but jitter weed, and drank thermoses of strong black coffee, the good stuff, horded for when we were on the road.

Vera stirred as I went past, headed to bum a smoke from Wren. June turned, chuffing out a chuckle under her breath as she saw me.

“Miss Meg,” she said. “It’s just Miss Meg.” She patted Vera’s flank where she leaned up against it, and the war machine went quiet, though I could still feel its eyes on me.

“Good job, Vera,” I said, feeling daring. Most people didn’t talk to Vera. It was as though they forgot she could talk back. “Thank you for saving all our asses.”

June’s eyes widened, a tell so small I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been watching her.

Vera chirped. “You’re welcome,” she said, after waiting a few seconds to make sure the chirp was not returned.

Neesh had most of the livestock out for a graze and mostly a poop. He knew the more of it they did on the cracked asphalt of the plaza, the less he’d have to clean out of the trailers. I checked the mini-elephants over out of habit, from the summer I spent tending them, but they were all unharmed, and engaged in eating all the nasturtiums out of the circular flowerbed in front of the runs that had once been a rest stop building. Out of habit I looked to see if it was loot able, but places like that have all been scavenged away, decades ago.

I got to Wren, Roto in my wake, and at my outstretched hand and upturned eyebrows, she shook a smoke loose for me and tossed it over.

“How long’s the break?” I asked.

Wren shrugged. “Never too short, out here in this heat. Once we get further down, we’ll be out of the heat.”

“We push on then?” I pursued. Wren shrugged again. She was affecting herself a bit in front of the new hires. She was circus born and bred, they were newbies, but she was still unused to the sway she held as their temporary boss.

Her nonchalance made me a little hot under the collar. She acted so cool. But she’d surely been hunkered down under cover like all the rest of us.

She narrowed her eyes at me as though reading my mind. “Problem, Meg?”

I shrugged and would have left it at that, but she just wasn’t content to let it go. Angry heat spiked through me as she stepped forward, towering over me.

I stuck my hands out to repel her.

She reeled back as my skin burst into flame.

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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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Near+Far: Big Plans

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My life is filled with scraps of paper, all of them written upon.
As you may or may not know, I’ve got a short story collection coming out this fall, Near+Far. It’s all SF, and we’re using the Ace Double format for it: one side features all near-future stories; flip it over to find the far future ones.

I’ve been plugging away at a g’normous spreadsheet: compiling reviewers and book bloggers and interviewers and all that sort of stuff. Whew. So what am I doing to ramp up to publicize the book?

  • Finding reviewers interested in speculative fiction, particularly short stories.
  • Organizing a six week blog tour leading up to the book launch.
  • Organizing interviews and guest posts.
  • Writing a “How you can help” sheet to send to people who might help publicize the book.
  • Making give-away items using some of the interior art. They will be supercool!
  • Setting up podcasts for some of the stories.
  • Planning book-related events for September and October, including readings in Indiana and Maryland.
  • Working on some electronic stuff that is still Top Sekrit. 🙂

And then there’s getting the book together, too…It’s like a little circus, all contained on a single spreadsheet.

If you’re a blogger or reviewer interested in participating in any of that, please let me know!

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Who's the Mayor of Your Data?: What You Do When You Like Something on Facebook

Picture of a mask
Do you need to put on additional masks when dealing with the Internet, or should you present yourself in all your glory?
Recently I’ve been mulling over implementing a new policy with my social media practices. I’m thinking about calling a moratorium on likes and check-ins, pins and stumbles.

On the one hand — and this is certainly how the marketers eying all those tasty bits of data would like you to think of it — you are engaging in social expression, you are singing to the world with your own individual song made up of pop culture references and color preferences. You are bonding with that cousin in Colorado, that sister-in-law of a friend, or even your bff. You are finding the gems of the Internet and sharing them. For me as a writer, I’m (or at least I hope I am) continuing to build and deepen my fan base, so they’ll buy my books.

But the other hand is more sinister. You’re providing marketers with your data, telling them how to most effectively sell to you, letting them know what images, what songs, what memes have resonance for you. Talk about the ultimate consumer survey – this one’s as long and exhaustive as you care to make it. Everyone who uses Gmail (and I’m one of them) has more than once been spooked at how the ad in the sidebar seems to target exactly what you’re thinking of with a precision worthy of a Twilight Zone episode. Imagine if every ad getting served to you is precisely tailored to convince you that you need that particular thneed.

This worries me. We are imperfect creatures, our brains are easily tricked, and subliminal tricks can be played upon us. Oxytocin makes us more trusting, advertising surrounds us on an unquestioned daily basis, and we are, after all, predictable and manipulable creatures.

Or what would a game tweaked to our individual quirks be like? (I envision something for myself filled with Amazons, talking animals, an assortment of literary figures ranging from Geoffrey Chaucer to James Tiptree Jr., and pop culture references to children’s cartoons from the late sixties to early 70s.) Such a game, perhaps one formulated with by then automated algorithms of gripping narrative construction, would be awesome.

And on that sinister hand again, it would be so addictive. I say that as someone who gave at least three night a week to D&D all through my high school years, as a WoW player since the beta, as someone who laid a decade and a half of work on the altar of the entity known as Armageddon MUD, which has eaten lives, grades, careers, friendships, and even marriages over the course of its existence. The thought of a game more addictive than that terrifies me.

So while I’m not quite so worried about my data getting used nowadays, I do have concerns about the future and how my data footprint may someday be used. So what are strategies for dealing with this concern? None seem perfect, but three spring to mind.

  1. I can stop using these networks. I’m reluctant to do that, because I enjoy the experience. I like looking at Pinterest pins and seeing all the pretty colors. I like being able to see what my friends are up and who’s got new stuff out that I can help promote.
  2. I can introduce bad data into the mix. I can introduce some contradictory things in there, like saying I like licorice or Mitt Romney. Tracking that seems odd, but I’m capable of it, much like the friend who periodically buys items he doesn’t need with his shopping Advantage card, just to screw with the machine minds.
  3. I can use networks with a persona. I can figure out my alternate Cat Rambo. We all do this to some extent already – no one showcases all of their bad selves online except for the truly narcissistic and deluded.

So what to do? I guess the first step is realizing there’s a problem. What do you think, am I just being paranoid and should break out my tinfoil hat or begin preserving my precious bodily fluids from contamination? Or is this something we should all be thinking about?

(And if I die under mysterious circumstances in the next couple weeks, it only confirms the corporate assassins exist…)

Enjoy this musing on social media for writers and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

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