Another Story in Interzone: Spin of Stars

I've got another story in the current issue of Interzone (Issue 260), the UK's longest running science fiction magazine.

It’s called The Spin of Stars – one of my favorite short stories in a manuscript currently in-progress. Each story in the manuscript features an encounter with a changeling type creature (maybe the same one). They all take place in North Florida, in many different time frames. Conquistadors, carnivals, prison executions, veteran hospitals. The Spin of Stars is primarily set in the ‘60’s. 

And the illustration in Interzone by Richard Wagner that accompanies this story is 
Kickass. 

Illustration by Richard Wagner

You can order one copy and/or subscribe directly to Interzone (scroll to the bottom of the page to order one copy). Or you can buy a digital copy from Weightless Books (eventually - it hasn't shown up for sale there yet). You can also find copies in various bookstores around the US. Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, it's available at Hastings. 

Issue #260 (Sept/Oct 2015) includes work by John Shirley, Priya Sharma, Jeff Noon, and C.A. Hawksmoor. The opening paragraphs and accompanying illustrations can be seen below.

Weedkiller by John Shirley
illustrated by Richard Wagner



The squid balloon was hovering over East L.A., a mile past downtown. The sky was like a gray steel lid, as it usually was. Venter’s observer was hovering just under the thickest layer of haze from the sea’s gradual evaporation. Venter remembered, in childhood, L.A. had been famed for its clear, sunny days. Now the palm trees were shriveled and brown from lack of sun.


Blonde by Priya Sharma
illustrated by Martin Hanford



“When did you go bald?”
Only Clarice would ask such a forthright question.
“Leave her alone.” Jake drains his beer. Only he would dare contradict his sister.
The clock hands have gone from late at night to early in the morning. Jake’s bar is empty of customers. The staff, who are sitting round the table, fall silent, intent on their drinks.
“It’s okay,” Rapunzel says. “I was sick and it all fell out.”
Her scalp is shiny, every follicle devoid of life. Nor does she have any eyebrows. Or hair elsewhere for that matter.
“What colour was it?”
“Blonde.”
There’s a pause, then laughter.
Jake nudges her. “You’re a joker after all.”
She knows what he thinks of her. That she’s vague and evasive and hasn’t a clue what’s going on most of the time.
“Lucky you’re beautiful enough to be bald,” he adds.
Rapunzel touches the nape of her neck where she feels most exposed and tries not to smile.


No Rez by Jeff Noon
illustrated by Dave Senecal 



Waking   the same   every morning,                   into darkness
The darkness        of the eye
Waiting for   the day to      kick in, the first little

pixel


Murder on the Laplacian Express by C.A. Hawksmoor
illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe



“It’s all right,” Shai Laren said as Anselm swung down into the driver’s cabin of the Laplacian Express. “I’m almost sure I know how to fly this thing.”
Anselm stepped through the haze of bitter smoke pouring from the split control panel, almost stumbling over something obscured underneath it. “Where’s the driver?”
Shai didn’t look up from what was left of the controls, but the iridophores in her skin rippled blue and green with irritation. “I believe you have just found him.”


The Spin of Stars by Christien Gholson
illustrated by Richard Wagner 



The high desert night stretches out on all sides of the Jeep. Beyond the limits of the headlights, I can feel how the dark space curves away from the earth, folds in on itself, over and over, producing the billion stars that move across my windshield. There are moments, bumping over this dirt road, when I can feel the Pleiades star cluster above me; hundreds of stars spinning, keeping time. Real time – where past and future twist around each other; where beginnings and endings converge…