The ninth and final installment of my novella “The Guild of Swordsmen” is now up at Silver Blade. This is the first time I’ve had a story serialized, so it’s been fun seeing each successive part come out (even though I knew what was going to happen).
For anyone who’s been waiting to read it until the entire story was available, here are the links to each “chapter”:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Featuring His Divine Majesty the Emperor Valtseharu Tahevas, Fifteenth of that Name. Plus more swordfighting action from Lida.
In which the authorities respond to last night’s tavern brawl.
But are they genuinely concerned about one more bar fight in a restless city? Or is Lida being singled out for some other reason?
Click here to find out.
In which we learn what some of Merolliay’s “friends” think about the Imperial Guard contest, and what they want him to do about it.
Again, at Silver Blade.
For a limited time, I’ve added “Clear Skies in Pixieland” to the Free Fiction page. Enjoy! (You can still purchase the Kindle edition here for $1.29 if you prefer that format.)
Part 3 of “The Guild of Swordsmen” is up at Silver Blade. Featuring a tavern brawl and a sex scene!
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I finally had a chance to read the other stories in the Imaginarium 2012 anthology, the one that reprinted my story “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” from Aoife’s Kiss. There are a lot of great stories in here! I think my favorite was Madeline Ashby’s “The Education of Junior Number 12″, about androids who fall in love with humans (although that simple description fails to convey the wonderful characterizations, and the thoughtful portrayal of the sort of effect this might have on human relationships).
I also loved Geoffrey W. Cole’s “On the Many Uses of Cedar”, a story reminiscent of Groundhog Day in which the reader’s sense of who the villain is shifts from the easy assumption implied by the opening; Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer’s “Laikas 1″, about a woman inexplicably followed by a growing pack of feral dogs; Gemma Files’s “Signal to Noise”, about an ex-CIA agent who seems to be sending messages to his former boss from beyond the grave; Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “A Puddle of Blood”, a very unusual vampire romance; Derek Kunsken’s “To Live and Die in Gibbontown”, with its intelligent macaques, bonobos, and gibbons in an apparently post-human world; and Ada Hoffmann’s creepy “Centipede Girl”.
Imaginarium also includes poetry, and while I don’t know poetry well enough to feel I can speak intelligently about it, I especially liked Peter Chiykowski’s “The Cinder Girl” and Carolyn Clink’s “10 Things to Know About Staplers” (although I’m not sure the latter is actually a poem; I’m not sure what to call it, really).
Imaginarium 2012 is the first installment in what is expected to be an annual anthology of the best Canadian speculative fiction and poetry (“speculative” being an umbrella term for science fiction, fantasy, and horror). For those of you who, like me, grew up in Canada, don’t worry: it isn’t all slow, meditative work about the bleakness of the vast Canadian landscape. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) There are stories in the anthology set in the Canadian wilderness, while others take place in South America, Africa, Europe, or the Middle East. According to the anthology editors, Canadian speculative fiction simply means “speculative fiction written by Canadians”; if there was any other measure of “Canadian-ness” used to select stories, I couldn’t see evidence of it here.
Imaginarium is still available, either directly from the publisher, or from any of the major online retailers.
I just released my story “Clear Skies in Pixieland”, originally published earlier this year in the first issue of Nine, as a Kindle e-book for $1.29. I’ve been charging 99 cents for the other individual short stories, but this one’s longer. I noticed that someone already bought a copy, even though it’s been up less than a week–thank you, whoever you are!
Here’s a description, lifted from the Amazon page (I wrote it myself, so I’m allowed to do that):
It didn’t take Chris long to learn the dark side of his summer job: trapping pixies, fairies and other small creatures in a magical forest for sale to wealthy collectors. He’d have quit if he didn’t need the money. Now, after a disastrous expedition, only Chris can rescue the man who hired him. But does his boss deserve to be rescued? And how can Chris ever pay the terrible price the pixies have demanded?
I enjoy writing fiction more than I enjoy writing promotional blurbs.
Unfortunately, the editors of Nine decided to stop publishing the magazine after the 3rd issue. I was sad to hear this, but I’m glad that they gave it a try and helped some great stories find a good home.