hard deadlines

Hypertext or print, it's all about science fiction.

Umbrella Men

Cover of the Jan/Feb F&SF

An 8,800-worder now appearing on the cover of the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Not entirely sure whether it's my first fantasy story, secret history, magic realism, or hard sf. Here's a peek:

When the first verdict was announced in the Rodney King case out in Simi Valley, the old man wandered the streets of New York with the Umbrella for two days straight. From East Flatbush, out through Bed-Stuy, back across the Queensborough Bridge and up to Harlem, then into the Bronx, always with his umbrella up, despite mild spring sunlight and cautious, curious stares. His feet were blistered and his arm muscles twitched in exhausted agony. But there were no riots in New York.

"There are some shadows that are only developed in darkness," the boy said to his parents. Alonso exchanged a smile with Mimi that the boy did not catch. He surprised them like this so often that it was no longer, well, a surprise. João was preternaturally intelligent for a ten-year-old, and Alonso was sure it was the Umbrella's doing...

There's also a web site out there that may have some relationship to the text...

And what a beautiful cover painting by Mark Evans. You can see more of Evans' work at his web site, including some of his working sketches for this cover. Very cool. cloudmover.net

Coverage in RI media: ProJo, Sakonnet Times, Portsmouth Patch

In progress

Fist of the Ape
My 2009 NaNoWriMo project, currently undergoing revision. See the prologue here.

Explore the backlist...

(Nothing But) Flowers
Actually, this one is not so much a story as an occasional fiction, written for a very specific audience, halfway between homage and pastiche and larded with sly winks and intertextual references. My plan after using it for its intended purpose was to make only the most cursory attempt at selling it (as one is obligated to, if one follows Heinlen's Five Rules) and then cc-license it, which is the only appropriate thing to do with something written as a wedding present for Cory Doctorow and Alice Taylor.

You can read it online or download as rich text here.

What? You haven't read Cory Doctorow's work? Don't waste another minute here. Go download some of his amazing stories.

Keyboard Practice...

Visit F&SF on-line for print and electronic options.

The January 2005 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction featured a novelette, Keyboard Practice, consisting of an Aria with diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with two Manuals. Set in a near-future with ubiquitous podcasting, the story chronicles a classical piano competition and borrows structural elements from from Bach's Goldberg Variations and American Idol. Oh, and there's an artificially intelligent piano, a canon, an NTSB transcript, and maybe — just maybe — a ghost.

This story was a finalst for the Sturgeon Award, appeared on the 2005 preliminary Nebula® ballot, and was a Locus Magazine recommended read. Read it online here.

Prefer audiobooks? You can now download it here. (It's a novelette, so even with good encoding, this two-hour clip is still about 60mb.)

You can read an interview with me on SciFiChannel.com: 'Keyboard' Channels Bach.

The Ashbazu Effect

Check it out at Amazon.com

A short story called The Ashbazu Effect appeared in the DAW Books anthology ReVisions in August, 2004. Edited by Julie Czerneda and Isaac Szpindel, ReVisions is a collection of alternate histories of technology, including stories by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, Mike Resnick, and Peter Watts.

Drawing on the work of media theorists Marshall McLuhan, Robert Logan, and Elizabeth Eisenstein, Ashbazu explores what might have happened if the printing press were invented somewhat earlier than 1456.

Read it here.

Jigoku no mokushiroku
Winner of the 1996 Theodore Sturgeon Award for best sf short story, Jigoku has been translated into several languages. The title, which loosely means "the symbolic revelation of the Apocalyse" was suggested by the Japanese movie poster for Apocalypse Now

Read it here.

Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse
One of the early hypertext novels published by Eastgate Systems, and reviewed in the New York Times, this work is currently available only for the Macintosh. However, work is progressing on an updated, Web-centric 2.0 version.
Read more »

The Planes, a decoupled monomeric hypernarrative
Originally written as a series of lexia to be included in a collaborative hypertext in a special issue of the journal Writing On the Edge, the story is available on-line in a compilation of early hyperfictions.
Check it out in The New Media Reader »