Two new flash stories + reprints and an audio reprint

Gack! How is it October?

I have been bad about updating, but have two new stories to share, as well as some reprints and an audio reprint from the past few months!

New Flash Stories

In “Failsafes,” which went live September 5th over at Nature Magzine, a scavenger in a post-apocalyptic future finds a hidden cache with long-lost technology that just might be the key to making people’s lives better — starting with her own. There’s also a bonus blog post which talks about my inspirations for the story, including musings on the Long Now Foundation, librarianship (of course), and the importance of the human element in the sciences.

In “Words I’ve Redefined Since Your Dinosaurs Invaded My Lunar Lair,” out October 1st in Flash Fiction Online, a super-villain confronts her nemesis — and calls into question the very nature of the good-vs-evil trappings of superheroics.

Reprints

My story “Raising Words,” about a young girl who struggles with her father’s changing identity in Yamato Japan, has been reprinted in Asian Birds and Beasts, an e-book anthology of stories from Insignia Press. This story was first published in now-defunct Penumbra eZine back in 2013. You’ll also find original and reprinted stories by Nidhi Singh, Amy Fontaine, Kelly Matsuura, Russell Hemmell, Lorraine Schein, Keyan Bowes, and Joyce Chng inside, so go grab yourself a copy!

I also have a reprint in another Insignia Press e-book anthology, Asian Science Fiction. This one features my story “Love and Relativity,” originally a Nature Futures story from 2015. Other authors in the anthology are Joyce Chgn, Nidhi Singh, Ray Daley, Holly Schofield, Jeremy Szal, L Chan, Vonnie Winslow Crist, so — again — consider purchasing a copy if you like Asian-inspired SFF.

Audio

Last, but not least, my story “Butterflies,” originally published in Spark in early 2014, has been podcasted by The Overcast. This one is about formal logic and the end of time, and I promise that’s more interesting than it sounds. It’s free to listen to on The Overcast‘s website, if you like podcast fiction.

Novel Update

Novel-wise! I have been going through and getting ready to make some major revisions to The Road that Spans the Sea, my in-progress epic fantasy set in a secondary world modeled loosely on early modern Japan. Only with, you know, blood magic and immortal sorcerers and pseudo-magical floating iron ore and reversed gender roles and stuff. I’m looking forward to digging into the edits, although I’m also mildly terrified! I gather that’s normal, though, for novel edits.

sub-Q Magazine

As I’ve mentioned before, editorial stuff at sub-Q is taking up a good bit of my time, too. I’ve recently revamped our submission guidelines, and we have some exciting stuff planned for 2019. If you like Interactive Fiction, or would like to try your hand at writing it, please keep us in mind!

Reprint: Captain Invincible

Captain Invicible

by Stewart C Baker

Captain Invincible’s downfall was he read too much.

Never saw the son-of-a-bitch without a book in his hands. Trash lit, usually—not even worthy of the name ‘Popcorn’.

Problem was, the Captain got a little too into them. I remember our last crisis, when The Tippler was threatening the water supply of the whole goddamn tri-state area.

All Captain I. wanted to do was finish The Torrid Stallion. He devoured it as I flew us to the Tippler’s HQ, gushed about it as we landed, kept trying to sneak glances during the firefights.

I’ll never be able to wipe those last minutes out of my mind—the Captain’s eyes watering up, his skin-tight suit torn from the gunfire, his final words an explosion of gore as he passed me the paperback: “Does Mary . . . forgive him at the end?”

May heaven forgive me for leaving him there without an answer.


This story first appeared in the January 2011 edition of Antipodean SF.


 


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