I have a new story out today in Nature Magazine’s “Futures” column, titled “Five Things I Hate about Phobos.”
Illustration for the story, by Nature‘s regular story artist Jacey.
The story’s about love and the potential of loss, and ultimately asks the question of whether our eventual but inevitable demise is a tragedy or somethinge lse. You can read it (and a brief author’s note) online here in all its glory: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03505-9
In the spirit of the listicle-style title, I’ve come up with what you might call “Five Things about Five Things I Hate about Phobos.” If you’re into that kind of meta stuff, read on!
So meta!
1. It’s set on Phobos
Look at this guy, such a charmer.
Okay, pretty obvious from the title, probably, right?
That’s Phobos the moon, not the personification of fear and panic in classical Greek mythology.
Mr Fear and Panic makes a cameo, though, at least sort of, with the narrator commenting on how messed up it is that anyone would actually want to live on a moon named after him.
A moon which, incidentally, has an orbit that will eventually decay so far that it will crash onto the surface of Mars or break up into tiny pieces around a hundred million years hence.
2. It’s my fifth appearance in Nature
Which I actually didn’t notice until I checked just now!
That makes the title — and this post — even more numerologically concerned, especially given my Discordian tendencies. And that’s yet another connection to Classical Greek mythology, given that Eris, the goddess of discord and strife, is Discordia’s principal deity.
Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
Most of my other stories appear in the sidebar on the Nature site when you read the current one, or you can dig them up from my bibliography here, as well.
3. It’s got nonstandard pronouns
One of the characters in the story, Tashi, uses zie/zir pronouns.
If you’re not familiar with these, they work just like any other pronoun. Zie is the singular third person form (like he or she), and zir is both the object (him/her) and possessive (his/hers) form.
Zie (often also spelled ze) is a gender-free pronoun most commonly used online, so you can think of it as similar to they/them. Although if someone uses zie, that doesn’t necessarily mean zie identifies as nonbinary, or even considers zirself “gender free” at all — and it definitely doesn’t mean you should use they/them instead when referring to someone whose pronouns are zie/zir.
4. It draws on traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas about impernanence
The word “wabisabi” is somewhat of a buzzword in English design circles, used to describe a sort of vague “imperfectness” that’s treated as a catch-all for a Japanese-inspired aesthetic.
Actually, though, “wabisabi” is two specific terms mashed together: wabi (侘び) and sabi (寂び). Because these words share similar elements aesthetically, they are often connected into a single word: wabisabi (侘び寂び)
To be fair, judging from the number of Japanese-language articles titled things like “The difference between ‘wabi’ and ‘sabi’,” confusion over this often-paired set of terms is rampant even within Japan. (Which makes sense. How many people can easily rattle off a clear explanation of art nouveau as a design aesthetic?)
However, although these words are often paired, and both have something to do with accepting impermanence, they’re pretty different terms.
So what does wabisabi mean, exactly? According to the article linked above, from Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shinbun, wabi is “the emotion you feel when things are calm and quiet,” while sabi is “the emotion you feel when something is old or withered.”
This 16th-century Korean tea bowl was repaired with kintsugi, a Japanese repair aesthetic where “breaks” are an important part of the object’s history — often mentioned as an example of “wabisabi.”
Those definitions match up relatively well with the ones in jisho.org (my favourite Japanese-English dictionary), where wabi is “austere refinement” or “enjoyment of a quiet life,” and sabi is “elegant simplicity.” Taken together, then, wabisabi can be considered a feeling conveyed by something that’s simple, calm, old, and withered. More generally, it’s used as shorthand (at least in English) for “imperfect” things, especially those which were broken and then repaired.
Although life on Phobos in my story isn’t exactly elegant or refined, it’s hard to imagine the life of space-dwelling people to be anything other than simple in the near future. And accepting that — along with the fact of our own inevitable demise — would be pretty important.
On the other hand…
5. Celebratory light show!
A central part of the story is a festival held by those living on Phobos. This festival involves electrostatic charges and corona discharge on the satellite’s surface — which are a real thing, at least according to this Nasa study from 2017.
A plasma globe, one type of corona discharge familiar to many US school children.
In the story, those living on Phobos gather on its surface and sing, holding hands around a crater in a ceremony called The Harmonia (remember Eris? Her Roman equivalent was Discordia, which is Harmonia’s antonym. Levels within levels, man! Levels within levels…).
The narrator of the story finds this uncomfortable at first, but although they don’t admit it in so many words, you can read between the lines and see that their participation in the ceremony is the point at which the story pivots from “I hate this place” to “I’d hate to see this place disappear.”
Do they get to the point of acceptance? Well, you’ll have to read the story yourself to find out.
SFWA just announced that the voting form for the 2021 Nebula Awards is open for business, which means it’s that time of year again: fiction awards season. As usual, I’m here with the stories I’ve had published in 2020 that are eligible for next years Nebulas, Hugos, Otherwise, and so on.
What have I got for you this year? Here are my three favourites from 2020, plus a note about the eligibility of works published in this year’s issues of sub-Q Magazine, which closed up shop in August of 2020.
Of course, you don’t have to be voting for the 2021 Nebula Awards — or any others — to read these. My main goal with sharing the stories is to help them find readers who will enjoy them!
If you don’t want to read about my process, here are just the details!
“How They Name the Ships” is a 750 word sci-fi story with my take on the space opera trope of AI ship names, but it’s really about identity, the power names have, and how to stay true to yourself when the society you live in won’t accept who you are. It was published in Frozen Wavelets in December, and can be read online here.
“Maricourt’s Waters, Quiet and Deep” is a 3,000 word science fiction story about restorative justice on a future Mars. It was published in No Police = Know Future from Experimenter Press in December of 2020, which can be purchased here.
“Five Things I Hate about Phobos” is a 950-word science fiction story about love, entropy, and wabisabi (also on Mars). It was published in Nature in December of 2020 and can be read online here.
“At the Edge of a Human Path” is a 5,000 word fantasy story about shape-shifting foxes, politics, and power in ancient Japan. It appeared in the 87 Bedford Historic Fantasy Anthology in May of 2020, and can be read online here.
“Against the Dying of the Light” is a 1,000 word sci fi story about dementia and caregiving. It appeared in Flash Fiction Online in May of 2020, and can be read online here.
“Scenes from the End of a World” is a 1,000 word sci fi story about finding a fresh start amidst a disaster. It appeared in All Worlds Wayfarer‘s June 2020 issue, which can be purchased here.
sub-Q Magazine was an online magazine of interactive fiction which published its last issue in August of 2020. The pieces in it from this year can be played online here (the first 9 entries), and while the magazine as a whole isn’t eligible for any categories in the 2021 Nebula Awards, it is eligible for the Best Semiprozine category in the Hugos.
New: “How They Name the Ships”
The Somsei Republic name their Ships after important historical figures (usually male). The Ucchou Federation gives Ships use-names like any other citizen, and let them select their own personal names. The philosophical alien Kfuul and the brutal Kháos Empire follow their own rules for ship names, as always. Even the repulsive, symbiotic Brakm have a specific way of naming the Ships they have scavenged.
Aala has scratched out a living for themself as a petty thief and pickpocket in the glittering, turbulent spray cast up by the endless waterfalls of Marineris City, where profit is king and men like Vasilis are its loyal, vicious servants. Kirsi, on the other hand, comes from Maricourt, where community, equity and compassion hold sway.
The most Aala ever hoped for in Marineris was to slip through the cracks, to avoid Vasilis’s wrath and out of the local law enforcement’s damp and dreadful holding cells. But all that’s all behind them, now, as they travel to Maricourt with Kirsi–who, for some reason, doesn’t think they’re scum and wants to spend actual time with them.
Maricourt and Kirsi between them give Aala more hope than they dare to admit, but theft is the only way they know how to survive. Will a change in surroundings lead to a happy ending, or will a slip back into old habits ruin their run in Maricourt before they ever had a chance to start?
If you want to find out, you’ll have to read “Maricourt’s Waters, Quiet and Deep,” out now in No Police = Know Future, edited by James Beamon and available here from Experimenter Publishing.
New: “Five Things I Hate about Phobos”
“Five Things I Hate about Phobos” is about love and the potential of loss, and ultimately asks the question of whether our eventual but inevitable demise is a tragedy or something else.
It’s got nonbinary pronouns, romance, wabisabi, and a celebratory lightshow. Also, it’s set on Phobos, Mars’s erratic larger moon, which is doomed to either break apart in the atmosphere or fall to the surface a hundred million years from now.
Image from Tsukiyoka Yoshitoshi’s “100 aspects of the Moon” woodblock series. (PD)
My short story “At the Edge of a Human Path” follows K, a shape-shifting fox living in ancient Japan, as she tries to stop her mother from guiding the Yamato clan toward a culture of war and domination of the kingdoms around them. K finds an unlikely ally in Soga no Yoshitsuki, a Yamato man who suspects her mother, but can the two of them succeed in ousting her?
(87 Bedford Historic Fantasy Anthology, May 26 2020, 5000 words.)
About the story
This story is set in 6th century Yamato Japan (or at least, an approximation of what Yamato Japan was generally presented as being like in medieval Japan), but the core of it actually comes from a medieval French/English folk tale motif called The Loathly Lady.
In Loathly Lady stories, a man (usually a knight) ends up marrying a hag with supernatural powers and a hideous appearance, usually described in excrutiating detail. The stories are generally comedic in nature, especially the one I used as my main model, “The Weddynge Of Sir Gawen And Dame Ragnell,” which sees Gawain tasked with finding out “what women really want” to save King Arthur from having his head removed as the result of Yet Another Stupid Act of Kingly Disregard of Other People’s Property.
Way to go, Arthur.
Charlemagne and Geoffrey of Bouillon are all “Seriously Arthur, can you just stop.” (PD)
Anyway, Gawain spends a year going all over England and getting hundreds of different answers (because, surprise, women are not a monolith!) and ends up with the answer sovereignty after promising to marry the hag, who knows the “correct” answer for reasons. (You can read the original online at TEAMS Middle English Texts, if you like!)
“At the Edge of a Human Path” mashes up the loathly lady motif with one of my favourite shapeshifting yokai: foxes. In Japanese folklore, much like European animal tales, foxes have a reputation for trickers, and in early modern times their reputation was somewhat malicious. But in earlier stories, they could be helpers, guardians, and even the servants of Inari — one of Shinto’s principal gods/spirits.
This story won the Judith Merrill short fiction contest in 2017, but this is its first appearance, so it is eligible for the 2021 Nebula Awards, Hugos, and anything else which determines elegibility based on year of publication. More importantly, though, I hope you enjoy reading it!
“Against the Dying of the Light”
In “Against the Dying of the Light” (Flash Fiction Online, May 1 2020, 1000 words), Alyssa takes her aging mother to a facility researching a cure for dementia. Although she doesn’t find one, she finds something almost as important: how not to burn herself out as she helps her mother navigate her end of life as an individual with her own desires and needs.
About the Story
With a title that’s shamelessly lifted from Dylan Thomas’s famous poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” and a setup that sounds like it’s ripe for yet another SFnal dystopia about the Evils Of Technology As A Cure For Something ™, you might expect this story to be cynical, depressing, and angry—especially since the first words of the line in the poem are “Rage, rage.”
While I can’t deny “depressing,” I tried very hard to work against the cynicism and the tpyical SFnal tropes and come at this from a place of compassion and realism. I also tried to work very hard against the even more pernicious, real-world trend where people with disabilities—whether that’s dementia or any other kind—are treated as problems to solve or as infants to pacify, rather than as actual people. “Science/magical cure” is a bad trope for a number of reasons, okay?
A futuristic hospital imaging system. (PD from pxfuel)
On a lighter note, selling this story to FFO in particular amused me. Why? Because for a couple of years, I read slush for FFO and one of the things that annoyed me the most were all the stories about Alzheimer’s that tried to be “clever” by starting and ending with the character going through the exact same situation, often word for word.
As you might guess by the quotes around “clever,” I did not think they succeeded, and just found these stories immensely frustrating. I’m not casting judgment here, by the way. These stories may have been cathartic experiences written by people trying to process the loss of a loved one to what is a horrible disease.
From a storytelling perspective, though, they featured characters who would grow and change over the course of a thousand words, some in ways that were excellently written. And then the end would appear, and all of it didn’t matter. Argh!
I wrote this partly as a response to those stories, curious if there was a way that I could compellingly tell a story about a dementia sufferer that didn’t follow that pattern. You can be the judge of my success!
At 1,000 words, “Against the Dying of the Light” is eligible for the short story category in the 2021 Nebula Awards and any other award that bases its categories on length.
Scenes from the End of a World
Issue front cover.
“Scenes from the End of a World” follows JT, a survivor of an impending apocalypse, as they struggle to deal with their feelings of guilt for those left behind. As the generation ship they’re now on board departs its doomed planet, will their encounter with a woman their own age start the healing process, or just make them feel worse?
(All Worlds Wayfarer, June 2020, 1,000 words)
About the story
In the long ago and far away, I was part of an online writing group called Liberty Hall. Rather than just being another writing group, the idea behind Liberty Hall was that you would only have 60 minutes to write and submit a complete piece of flash fiction based on a prompt. It was intense, and although I didn’t always get finished stories out of it, the practice definitely helped hone my flash fiction skills!
Although Liberty Hall hasn’t existed for several years now, earlier this year some friends and I tried a similar exercise for a few weekends. This story is one of the results, growing out of prompts that featured the end of the world and finding someone new.
As this was its first appearance in print, “Scenes from the End of a World” is eligible for best short story in the 2021 Nebula Awards, and other awards as well.
sub-Q Magazine
sub-Q was a magazine of interactive fiction (part story, part game) that ran from August of 2015 to August of 2020. I was fortunate enough to be the editor of it from late 2017 through to its final issue this year, and it was a fun thing — if a time-consuming one.
Although it isn’t around any more, it did have a number of releases of new (interactive) fiction this year, many of which are themselves eligible for the 2021 Nebula Awards game writing category, the Hugo Awards’ newly announced video game award, and the XYZZY Awards (the annual interactive fiction awards).
“Whatever you want me to be” by Laura De Stefani
If you’re new to interactive fiction, or just want something new to play, go check them out the magazine’s back issues here: https://sub-q.com/back-issues/
I’m especially proud of our 2020 issues, when we really got into our stride as a magazine, with games by Ken Liu, Monica Valentinelli, and a serial by Sharang Biswas. Not to mention our cover art (pictured at the right) by artist and game designer Laura de Stefani, who you should go follow on Twitter right now.
Finally, while sub-Q itself isn’t eligible for anything in the 2021 Nebula Awards, it is eligible for the Hugo Best Semiprozine award.
Phew.
That’s a lot of stuff from 2020. Even if you’re not reading for any awards, I hope you’ll take a look at what I’ve written this year, and that you like what you see if you do!
Insignia Stories, a small publisher specializing in stories with an Asian setting or focus, is running the Horror Matsuri blog tour in celebration of the spookiest time of year.
This post is my contribution, a reprint of my flash fiction piece “Blood-stained Letters Found in a Roadside Shrine on the Outskirts of Kyoto,” originally published in Syntax and Salt in 2017.
As a bonus, at the end of the post you can find a link to my free interactive fiction, “Untitled Noppera-bo Game”—a yokai-inspired take on everybody’s favourite game about a chaotic goose.
Blood-stained Letters Found in a Roadside Shrine on the Outskirts of Kyoto
by Stewart C Baker
Dear Madam,
I must apologize for the lengthy break in our correspondence prior to this letter. With the death of Councilman Yamazaki under such bloody circumstances, I felt it best to avoid attracting notice to myself for a while.
However, I have not been idle after Yamazaki’s passing. Indeed, I have learned of an even graver danger to all of us who are not human and who call this place our home. Mere tanuki that I am, I have nonetheless taken upon myself the task of ending this threat—if, that is, you would deign to help me once again.
Have you heard, I wonder, of a certain popular essayist named Ishida? His works have never been friendly to Yamazaki’s efforts on the council, and yet I have found that he as well is fully aware of this hidden world through which we move. Worse, he too is a hunter—though I could not learn whether he hunts out of avarice or if he nurses some unspoken need for vengeance.
This morning, after Ishida had left his home at the usual time, I took human form and let myself in through his kitchen door with ridiculous ease. Secreted away in his under-floor storage area were trophies that made me shudder.
Here, in brief, is what I found:
A yellowing copy of Illustrated Night Parade of One Hundred Monsters, with a strip of white silk marking the beginning of the section labeled “changing beasts” and with crosses through the entries for inugami, tanuki, and bakeneko. A circle has been inked around the entry for fox.
Two badger pelts, rolled up and tied with red twine soaked in honey.
The desiccated corpse of a small dog with elongated paws, dressed in a red-and-blue festival happi.
Five bifurcated cat tails.
One clay jar filled with tanuki testicles, shriveled and dried like beans
This last find, in particular, set terror coursing through me. Was Ishida, I wondered, the hunter who had killed my family in our den, all those years ago? I must confess I sat there in the dimness of his storage area for far too long, paralyzed with memories. It was only a memory of you, Madam—of your warm breath gentle on the nape of my neck days later as I wandered, lost and alone through the forest—that brought me back to myself. That allowed me to renew my dedication to our mission.
I know that, after the prominence of Yamazaki’s death, you too will be reluctant to draw attention to yourself. But is it not you, Madam, who has taught me the importance of striking before we are struck? Always, through the years you have cared for me, you have taught me to shed the terror of my youthful trauma. It is only through your love and benevolence that I have gained the strength to enact vengeance against those who would harm innocent creatures like ourselves.
I implore you, Madam: aid me once again in making the city safer for our kind.
I remain, as ever, your loyal servant,
T.
Dear Madam,
Our friend the essayist left home this morning in the company of a woman who reminded me somewhat of you. She had vulpine features and long, reddish hair, and wore the most resplendent silk kimono I have ever seen. Our friend, as well, was more finely dressed than his usual threadbare kimono, wearing instead a finely-cut Western-style suit of black-and-grey. As they walked away, he laughed and took her by the arm as tenderly as though she was his newly-wedded wife.
Astonished as I was by his sudden change in company and behavior, I did not let it distract me from my purpose. I snuck once more into his kitchen, intent on retrieving the remains in his possession and giving them a proper burial.
But it seems, alas, that our friend has been cleaning house. The under-floor storage area was as deserted as my childhood den; the only thing I found was a single page from the Night Parade, crumpled in a ball in one corner. When I smoothed it out, I found that it was the entry for fox. Our friend must have been in a terrible hurry to remove it from his book, as the poor beast’s picture was torn quite in half—its head was missing entirely.
I swear to you I left no trace on my previous visit, Madam. There is no possible way our friend could know I have been here. No way that he could know I have reached out to you for help.
All the same, I grow uneasy. What would you have me do?
Your servant,
T.
Dear Madam,
I was most distressed to hear that the woman in the last letter matches your sister’s appearance. So distressed, indeed, that I could not wait for morning to investigate: I crept into our mutual friend’s home while he was sleeping and breathed powdered leaves into his eyes to ensure he would not wake.
I will not prevaricate: Your sister is dead. I found her skin stretched out on a rack in our friend’s back room, her tails brushed to a glimmering sheen.
And that is not the worst of it. In checking the under-floor storage area, I discovered the following:
A beautiful silk kimono, folded neatly and tied with its own obi
A letter addressed in your own hand, unopened
Six fox kits with their heads smashed in, as yet unskinned
I am sorry for your loss, Madam, but we have no time to mourn. We must act, lest these atrocities continue.
At the same time, we cannot risk another violent and bloody death like Yamazaki’s. I beg of you, allow me to use my knowledge of Ishida’s habits in working out a subtler plan of attack. I will provide details in my next letter, which I will place in this shrine tomorrow evening just before sunset.
Yours in sympathy and hopes of justice,
T.
Dear Madam,
I will start this letter with a question: Do you remember, five years ago, when you pulled me from my family’s den? A vicious human hunter had murdered the rest of my littermates—along with my parents—and I alone survived.
That, at least, is what you told me, and I had no reason to doubt you. You fed me, cared for me, taught me to survive in the forest and the city both. And if you focused overly much on the killing of hunters, I did not think it strange. It was only a year ago, when we first turned our focus onto Yamazaki, that I began to suspect you were lying.
Yamazaki, more so than any of the other hunters we had hunted, was obsessed with neatness. His trophies were whole, his collection impeccably ordered, and the sites where he enacted his murders were mostly untouched. And yet, my earliest memories consist of wanton slaughter, of blood and gore in every corner in the den I had called home.
But even if I doubted, there was nothing I could prove, and even if they had not killed my parents they were hunters all the same. And then, just after Yamizaki’s death, Ishida drew me in and captured me. I feared the worst, but much to my surprise he did not harm me. Instead, he fed me, cleaned my wounds, and brought to bear upon me all the reasoning he wields so well in his essays.
Do not mistake me: He did not deny his occasional hunts. But he insisted that he hunted only to protect those creatures—human or otherwise—who could not protect themselves from those creatures who would harm them. Creatures like foxes, he told me, who often kill food they cannot eat, just for the joy of it. Who can be seen dancing in the forest after their meals, coated in the blood of the dead, giddy with slaughter. He had been watching a fox for some time now, he said, and could show me the proof of it.
Yes, Madam. Your own sister was the one who convinced me to betray you. We tracked her to the den of a family of weasels, where I witnessed for myself the blood, the chunks of matted fur which lay about the place as though storm-scattered. Thus it was I came to learn that you had killed my family. Thus it was that I learned, at last, how I could enact my revenge.
Do not try to flee after reading these words; I am afraid it is far too late. Already Ishida must be sneaking up behind you, garrote and dagger at the ready.
Goodbye, Madam, and may my poor departed siblings earn some measure of peace from your passing—a passing that I pray will be long and painful, and as bloody as that which met Councilman Yamizaki not so long ago.
T.
Bonus Interactive Fiction!
If you’re in the mood for more early modern Japanese spookiness, check out this short web-based text game I wrote for last year’s EctoComp.
It’s been a while since I last updated, but I have a few new publications to announce!
First, a bittersweet story about long-term care, memory loss, and mother-daughter relationships.
In “Against the Dying of the Light,” from Flash Fiction Online’s May 2020 issue, a woman must balance caring for her mother with reporting on a cutting-edge surgery that’s supposed to be nearly miraculous. But as the saying goes, if something seems too good to be true…
Next up is “At the Edge of a Human Path,” a story that features:
Ancient kami!
Shapeshifting foxes!
Politics, power, and greed!
A strange and hopefully compelling mashup of 6th-century Japan with the comedic middle English ballad The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle!
All this and more can be found in my 5000 word fantasy story “At the Edge of a Human Path,” out now in 87 Bedford’s Historic Fantasy Anthology, which published in June, 2020. You can purchase a copy of the anthology direct from the publisher at https://87bedford.com/2020/05/25/historic-fantasy-anthology/ for the low price of $5.
And last, but not least, a cutemeet set against the end of the world!
Wait, maybe an exclamation mark sets the tone wrong for that one…
In any case, my story “Scenes from the End of a World” is up in the June 2020 issue of All Worlds Wayfarer. Features non-binary characters, a budding romance, and… well… what it says on the cover.
Right now I’m doing the Clarion West Writeathon, which is always fun.
In May/June, I wrote the first draft of a 30,000 word novella looking at the Akō Incident, more commonly known in English as the tale of the 47 rōnin. My take on the story focuses on the trials of Sengoku Hisanao, one of the shogun’s chief castle inspectors and the person in charge of the official investigation and response to the rōnin attack on Kira Yoshinaka. It also features (of course) telepathic extraterrestrials who exist as beings of pure thought.
I’m planning to shop it around when I’ve made a few more revisions, so hopefully will have news to share about it in the future!
I did finally finish up a revised draft of the novel I’ve been working on as well, and am going to dive back into that soon now that I have some beta reader feedback to look at about what needs fixing.
A strange and hopefully compelling mashup of 6th-century Japan with the comedic middle English ballad The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle!
All this and more can be found in my 5000 word fantasy story “At the Edge of a Human Path,” out now in 87 Bedford’s Historic Fantasy Anthology. You can purchase a copy of the anthology direct from the publisher at https://87bedford.com/2020/05/25/historic-fantasy-anthology/ for the low price of $5.
When Dr. Z. tells L3 to protect her daughter Innusha, the quantum computer is determined to do so no matter the cost. But when Innusha issues a different, contradictory request, the computer finds itself stuck between yes and no, one and zero. What’s a computer to do? Fortunately, with quantum physics there’s more than just a binary…
Here’s an excerpt:
Only one of my optical sensors is online, and through it I see that Dr Z has aged: that more lines than before spider the edges of her eyes, that her hair has turned slightly more white. Someone is with her, a younger person my memory banks do not recall.
“Hello, L3,” Dr Z. whispers. “I’m glad I was able to retrieve you. I need your help.”
How is the project? I want to ask. Why did you wait so long to awaken me? But the answers to both of these are obvious, and I don’t wish to bring her distress.
“Of course,” I say instead. “Anything.”
“My Decohering Heart”
If you want to find out what happens–and maybe learn a little bit about quantum physics along the way–you’ll have to read the whole story over at Quantum Shorts. (P.S. Thanks to Vylar Kaftan, David DeGraff, and Emily Randall for the physics check!)
I was lucky enough to have that story reprinted again recently in a beautifully-designed anthology edition of some of the judges’ favourite stories from Quantum Shorts.
The cover of the anthology. (My story is represented by the red button!)
And the best part is that the anthology–like all the entries to their contest–is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, so you can download it for free and share the stories you find there however you wish, so long as you don’t sell them, let people know who wrote them, and don’t modify them.
My story “The Mother of Sands,” first published in Tales of Mystery, Horror and Suspense from Chuffed Buff Books, is now out in Beyond Steampunk from Old Sins Publishing.
My story, “Kuriko,” is a roughly 7500 word story about a living mechanical doll (からくり人形) trying to survive late 1600s Japan, and features down-on-their-luck samurai, drunken lords, and other unsavoury 時代小説 style characters. It was inspired mostly by a visit to the Ohno Karakuri museum in Kanazawa, Japan back when I lived there for half a year in 2005. Well, that and binge-reading Yoshikawa Eiji and Shiba Ryotaro.
I first wrote this story waaaay back in 2009(?) or 2010 for a writing contest on Scribophile , making it one of my earlier stories in terms of when I wrote it. When the (mangled, disjointed, subpar) first draft didn’t place in that contest, I reworked it and expanded it (too much) and submitted it to Writers of the Future, where it was my first entry and earned me my only semi-finalist. (In fact, it was the only story I ever submitted that earned me more than an honorable mention, up until my story “Images across a Shattered Sea” won first place on my last qualifying entry in late 2015.)
After I got my semi-finalist critique from former judge K.D. Wentworth, I lopped about 1/3 of the story off the front and revised it some more, then sent it out on submission, where it’s come close at a few places (including earning me a non-published contest win at Spark: A Creative Anthology).
I’m pleased to have finally sold it to a great publisher like Guardbridge!
Interestingly, I actually submitted this story more than 2 years ago (June 11th, 2015—I checked!) to Guardbridge’s greatMyriad Lands anthology. Since it was over the length the editor wanted and also Japanese-themed and he had too many of those, the editor said he’d like to bump it to a planned anthology of stories by Japanese and non-Japanese authors set in Japan. (The anthology has changed its focus a little and doesn’t include many Japanese authors, apparently due to a lack of response when the editor tried to solicit submissions–a bit disappointing.) Fast forward to October of 2016, and I had received an official acceptance, and in December I signed the contract.
