Posts tagged with "novelette" - Faerye Net

"Small Towns" available to read online!

2013-01-30T07:56:54+00:00

Because I am not the sort of person who likes to hear half a story myself, I don’t like putting others in that situation. Therefore, when I chose to read my novelette “Small Towns” at the SFWA Northwest Readings this month, I decided to plop the full text online for everyone to finish reading, whether they made it to the event or not! It’s a very different sort of story from “Conditional Love”, the other story I’ve made available online, and I like the contrast quite a bit.

“Small Towns” is a historical fantasy novelette, first published in the January/February 2012 issue of F&SF. Thanks to the kind offices of my co-protagonist Ryan Grove, it’s available as a web page or you can download the PDF or ePub file.

Here’s the teaser for those who didn’t make it to the readings:

Small Towns
When Jacques Jaillet was a small boy, he brought home a pocketful of sand from the seaside and dribbled it slowly onto the floorboards of his little room. He made long avenues and cottage roofs, rows of shops, garden walls, a church with a fragment of shell for the tower. Then, for no reason he could later recall, he took a deep breath and blew it all away, the shapes and the order, the grains themselves skittering under the baseboard, gone forever.

When Jacques returned to his market town in 1918, past his middle years, it looked as if here, too, a monstrous child had finished playing and had blown the town, the streets, the houses and shops from the face of the Earth.

Go and read the rest!

"Long Night on Redrock" is on newsstands!

2012-05-09T23:49:54+00:00

The July 2012 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is out on a real or virtual newsstand near you! My novelette “Long Night on Redrock” is the cover story, with art by Tomislav Tikulin!

Note: The table of contents mistakenly lists “Long Night on Redrock” as a short story — it’s a novelette, I promise. A very long one, at that!

“Long Night on Redrock” is different from my previously published science fiction in many respects: it’s by far my longest published work, and it’s set on a different planet in the far future, just for starters. It was an enjoyable challenge to write, and I’m really excited for readers to see it. Please, get out there and read it! Especially if you love space marines. (What am I talking about, everyone loves space marines!) You can read a short teaser in this earlier blog post! Or if I had you at “space marines”, go get a copy!

Getting a paper copy: Traditional newsstands often carry Asimov’s. Many Barnes & Noble locations carry it, but it’s best to call ahead if you’ve never seen it at that particular store before. You can’t miss it, it’s the one with the awesome lion roaring, and my name on it!

Getting a paper copy in Portland: If you’re local, you can shop local at Rich’s Cigar Store, which carries Asimov’s in their extensive magazine collection. The main store on SW Alder has the most copies. Also, the main store will ship magazines to out-of-town customers — just give them a call if you’re in a fix.

Getting a digital version: Asimov’s is available in kindle edition and several other formats — in case you, like my characters, live in the future.

"Long Night on Redrock" is the cover story for the July Asimov's!

2012-04-24T12:43:52+00:00

Remember my novelette, “Long Night on Redrock”, which will be appearing in the July 2012 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction? It is the cover story for that issue!

I discovered last week that science fiction and fantasy illustrator Tomislav Tikulin had done a painting titled “Long Night on Redrock” which was clearly an illustration of my story, and yesterday I received confirmation in the form of contributor copies in my mailbox.

If you’d like to see the full painting, take a look on Mr. Tikulin’s website here — it’s pretty gorgeous.

I’ve never had my name on the cover of a magazine before, let alone had my story named and illustrated on the cover. I’m over the moon! If not over the titular desert planet of Redrock. Which is in that painting. Along with my main characters. And certain other story elements. On the cover of Asimov’s. Sorry, still getting used to this!

The issue should be arriving in subscribers’ mailboxes or on their Kindles soon, and it’ll be on newsstands May 8. I’m really excited about this story, which is again a little different from most I’ve had published. Read the teaser in my original post and look for it in the July issue! On the cover!

Interview about "Small Towns" on the F&SF blog

2012-02-10T15:50:11+00:00

I was asked to do an email interview about “Small Towns”, my novelette currently available in the January/February Fantasy and Science Fiction. Assistant Editor Stephen Mazur has posted the interview over at the F&SF blog.

I was really glad to have the opportunity — writing this one was interesting and unusual, and I hope readers are interested in the extra information.

Go and see!

"Small Towns" on shelves in January/February issue of F&SF!

2012-01-03T16:29:21+00:00

My first published novelette, first published fantasy, and first published historical fiction are all out on newsstands today and they are all the same thing: “Small Towns,” published in the January/February 2012 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!

I hope all my stories have their own flavor, but this one is particularly idiosyncratic and I’m quite proud of it.

Here’s the beginning, to whet your appetite:

Small Towns
When Jacques Jaillet was a small boy, he brought home a pocketful of sand from the seaside and dribbled it slowly onto the floorboards of his little room. He made long avenues and cottage roofs, rows of shops, garden walls, a church with a fragment of shell for the tower. Then, for no reason he could later recall, he took a deep breath and blew it all away, the shapes and the order, the grains themselves skittering under the baseboard, gone forever.

When Jacques returned to his market town in 1918, past his middle years, it looked as if here, too, a monstrous child had finished playing and had blown the town, the streets, the houses and shops from the face of the Earth.

I hope you’ll go out and buy the magazine at your local newsstand or Barnes & Nobles. Portlanders, Rich’s Cigar Store has copies!

Edited 1/13/12: F&SF is available for Kindle, as well!

Novelette sold to Asimov's: "Long Night on Redrock"

2011-10-19T18:26:51+00:00

I am overjoyed to announce my second novelette sale! This one is far-future science fiction, and it will appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Many thanks to my lovely readers! It wasn’t hard to find them for this piece, because it turns out everyone loves space marines. Even retired ones.

Here is a teaser of my novelette! You’ll know more about where to find the rest of it as soon as I do:

Long Night on Redrock
“If you’re exploring the town, you should stop walking,” Peder Finn called down from his porch. The stranger, a fair-haired man bent under a backpack, paused at the gate. Peder pegged him for an offworlder. A dozen telltales said as much; from his low-topped shoes, likely to let in sand, to his unshaded eyes, without tanned-in squint or sunglass marks. It was almost aynid harvest, a suspicious time for an offworlder to come visiting.

The man took in the dusty yard, where Peder’s children had lined and stacked rocks into an imaginary city and set a carved toy horse on an overturned bucket to reign. Finally his gaze settled on Peder, who had paused in carving another toy, a long strip of synthwood still hanging from his knife.

Peder produced a noncommittal smile. “Nothing that way you want to visit.”

Firsts! (In which I make another sale)

2011-07-14T19:26:06+00:00

It’s not easy opening a securely closed envelope while carrying the rest of the mail, a set of keys, and a plastic bag full of Chinese takeaway. But sometimes it’s worth it! Teasing open this particular envelope yielded me an acceptance letter from none other than The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, more commonly known as F&SF!

This sale marks several firsts for me. It’s my first fantasy sale ever, and my first novelette sale! (For those of you not up on our obscure lingo, that means it’s longer than my previous short fiction sales — over 7500 words.) It’s also my first sale to this excellent magazine.

The novelette in question is called “Small Towns”, and it’s set just after World War I in Europe. So I suppose it will be my first published historical fiction, as well! I am proud and excited — thanks to everybody who read this story and believed in it, especially my critique group and Ryan!

As soon as I know more about when this story is coming out, I’ll pass it on here. À la prochaine!