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fantasy fiction novelette Tales from the Subcontinent

further news from the subcontinent

Actually news from Aveng, a small country on the far tropical southeastern coast of the great continent from Fejz—birthplace of the mother of “Two Dead Men”’s narrator and the site of his decade’s exile.

Last evening I wrote the last line of a draft of “The Oily Man.” My third subcontinental tale turned out somewhat longer and quite a bit stranger than I had envisioned when I set out in response to an invitation: stories of incubi for a forthcoming themed anthology. That was in May, when I began. Four months. Four months.

At any rate, I completed the draft and e-mailed it off with grave misgivings to the editor who had said he wanted it by early July. I expected him to say the first two thirds were bloated, the conclusion unexpected, unjustified, inconclusive, ambiguous, and odd, the whole probably salvageable with a good deal of work.

Next thing I knew I was downloading a contract.

Ha-hrrm. Well. Shows how well I judge my own work. A few little bits he wants expanded—he objects to late-Regency/early-Victorian euphemisms (he’s correct, too; if the story’s a period piece the period is at least two centuries earlier)—wouldn’t bleach be anachronistic? (yes)—if I can get it up from 9,100 words to an even 10,000 he’ll be just as pleased. But I’m meant to understand “The Oily Man” will appear in a volume working-titled Handsome Devil due from Prime Books late next year. Steve tells me Handsome Devil will also include a fine tale by Tanith Lee, who gave You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home such a spectacular blurb.

The narrator of “The Oily Man” is the disappointing youngest son of a merchant family of Trebt. In the latter years of that world’s Age of Discovery, Trebt is one of the subcontinental states to have established trade concessions with the queen on the Jade Stool of Aveng. After a scandal, the narrator is packed off on a seven-month voyage to the Avengi port of Folau. An elder sister he hasn’t seen for a decade is already established in Folau, married into a local family.

Within a month of arrival, the young man finds himself surrounded by incomprehensible political maneuvering. The merchant-adventurers resident in the subcontinental enclave at Folau are friendly rivals but rivals nonetheless. Offshore in quarantine are representatives of subcontinental superpower Sjolussa, late to the southeastern sea trade and jealous of the smaller nations’ privileges. (It’s not a spoiler to note that Sjolussa will annex Aveng and its neighbor states about a century later.) The queen in the capital three weeks’ trip away bestows her favors capriciously. Adherents of the throne-sponsored religion quarrel with followers of enigmatic philosopher-saint the Kandadal.

Then our narrator is surprised in his bed by an amorous demon, who may have been set upon him by an enemy. Or a friend.

Also there’s a duel. A courtesan of ambiguous gender who knows things. A shipwreck.

The theme song of “The Oily Man” is this track from Ivri Lider’s Mishehu Paam, a song that gives me the shivers.

Now back to work on the fourth tale from the subcontinent…. Oh. Wait. A collection of stories to lay out and two novel MSs to copyedit. Dammit.

No. Wait. Time for bed.

Categories
short stories spec fic Tales from the Subcontinent

news from the subcontinent

It’s just been confirmed that “Two Dead Men,” second-written of my tales from the subcontinent, will appear in the Fall 2012 issue of Icarus alongside a new story by that capricious sodomite Hal Duncan and who knows what all other wonders. Apparently not (yet) the editor/publisher, who a week ago was still scouting to fill the issue. “As soon as the next rejection note comes in,” I told him, “you can have that war story you liked.”

I’ve mentioned the subcontinent a few times—most recently the day before yesterday. It’s a major geographical/cultural/political feature of a secondary world I conceived in primitive form last winter on an early-morning walk through the snow along Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, and continue to develop piecemeal as stories require. I wanted a world much like our own but with more opportunities for the miraculous. In the present day of that world, people use their smartphones to navigate unfamiliar cities, drive cars and motorscooters, read novels (in print and on electronic devices), watch movies…and interact with uncanny forces and beings. The subcontinent serves as an analogue for Europe: a fractured patchwork of small and medium-sized nations that fight far above their weight on the world stage.

“Two Dead Men” takes place in the subcontinental city of Fejz, rebuilt after a devastating civil war (parallels with the Bosnian war obvious and intended). An expatriate survivor of the siege of Fejz returns ten years later, not because he believes in “closure” but because the government and his relatives do. In the unfamiliar new-old city, he discovers something different—better? more valid?—different and personal and numinous.

Categories
Ivri Lider music recommendation The Young Professionals

hear this

Thursday 2 August was my late mother’s birthday. She would have been eighty-six. Also my imaginary friend Rusty Shirazi’s nineteenth, who shares Lee Jeffers’s birthday for reasons I’ve enumerated before. I was preoccupied with freelance work all day, though, and shamefully forgot the duple occasion.

Friday 3 August, yesterday, my muse of the last four or five years Ivri Lider released his sixth full-length studio album, Mishehu Paam (Somebody Once). Naturally I bought and downloaded it right fast. I’ve been w.a.i.t.i.n.g. His last, Beketzev A’hid Batnu’ot Shel Haguf (The Steady Rhythm of Body Movements), came out in 2008! I mean, the last four years haven’t been entirely barren of Ivriana—his side project with Jonny Goldstein, The ¥oung Professionals, is tremendous fun—but, well, Ivri’s solo work broke my ten-year-long writer’s block.

And so, how is it, the new album? Admittedly, Ha’anashim Ha’chadashim (The New People, 2002), the first album I downloaded, will always be the sentimental favorite and Beketzev A’hid Batnu’ot Shel Haguf on first listen made me wish to die, on second to live forever. So Mishehu Paam had a lot to live up to. The title track was promising: the video hit YouTube in May.

Heartbreaking visually, musically and vocally powerful.

The remaining twelve tracks? Took a couple of listens to creep up on me. No standout that’s going to displace “Ha’anashim Ha’chadashim,” “Al Kav Ha’mayim,” “Sfarad,” or my god “Bo” from the 2002 release or basically every track from the 2008 from my affections, but really. Yes. Yes.

Here’s the second video, “Mazal Tov Israel,” a doubtless terribly topical (if one understands Hebrew) collabo with Mooke.

Added to the soundtrack for the three stories I’m working on: “The Oily Man,” a tale from the subcontinent first mentioned back in May and Still. Not. Done. Dammit; another, as yet untitled, subcontinental story; and the fourth Liam story, “…and the Changelings.” And for the on-going revision of the novel in which Rusty Shirazi plays such a central part. (Happy belated, Rusty!) And the designing and the editing and the designing and the proof reading.

Exhausted, that’s what I am. Help me out, T¥P!

Categories
BrazenHead fantasy novella spec fic

Time Will Be! declares the Head of Brass

An unveiling: The cover of the third BrazenHead novella, due this November, The Grigori by Joshua Skye.

The Grigori is a chilling dark fantasy set in contemporary Pittsburgh, where a good cop and a teenage runaway encounter something, someone, awe-inspiring and terrible in the ruins of a derelict hotel. After reading Josh’s haunting tale, you’ll never feel the same way again about e-mail forwards of saccharine angels or news reports about meth addicts.