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…

 

New Story in Interzone: Angel Fire

I've got a new story in the current issue of Interzone (Issue 258), the UK's longest running science fiction magazine. 

The story is semi/distantly/vaguely related to my Service Economy series. But don't let that put you off (if you're dedicated to capitalism). A vision of the near future, maybe tomorrow; the descent of someone living in the stratosphere (financially). Hedge-fund managers and apocalyptic angels. The usual.   

In the US you can order a single digital copy of the issue from Weightless Books or subscribe directly to Interzone. You can also find copies in various bookstores around the US. Here in Santa Fe, it's available at Hastings. 

Issue #258 (May/June 2015) includes work by T.R. Napper, Julie C. Day, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, and Malcolm Devlin. Brief snippets below.

a shout is a prayer / for the waiting centuries by T.R. Napper
illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe



I’ll give you a roll of barbwire
A vine for this modern epoch
 Climbing all over our souls 
That’s our love, take it, don’t ask


“Any food?” asked Phuong.
“No food,” replied the woman.
“Rice, old rice, bamboo shoots. Anything.”
“No food.”
“I have a child. We haven’t eaten in two days.”
“We all have children. Here, take some water.”
Phuong reached out in the darkness, a smooth, cool wooden ladle caressed her hand. She fumbled for the bucket, filled the scoop with water, and held it out for her daughter, who grabbed it and slurped noisily. Phuong felt for Trung and passed the scoop to him. He rested his hand on her shoulder as he drank. Her skin tingled at his touch, familiar, yet always new. Then she took her turn, cracked lips and swollen tongue welcoming the cool stream of water.

The Re'em Song by Julie C. Day
illustrated by Jim Burns



Of course, leaving was easy.
“The same damned people, the same damn trees, even the same damn work, all our God-fearing lives. Do you really think we would have married if there’d been even a handful to choose from?”
Jaw bones and sections of vertebrae hung from the rafters of their house. Ribs and phalanges contained in carefully sewn skins were piled outside, waiting to be shipped off. And always there were the horns calling from somewhere deep in the woods.

Doors by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
illustrated by Richard Wagner



It had been three months since I’d taken my brother anywhere. The last place we’d gone together was our mother’s funeral. Since then Zack had been difficult, more so than usual, refusing to put on his shoes, shushing me when I asked him to do his chores, even screaming and pounding his fists when it was time to drive him to the recycling facility where he sorted paper as part of a program for developmentally disabled adults.

Angel Fire by Christien Gholson



1: Newark to St Louis

35,000 feet over Pennsylvania and we’re finally above the brown film of smog that enshrouds the east coast. To the west, billowing up out of the white horizon, I can see a thousand-armed dancing Nataraja, braiding his hands into a slow-turning column; a cumulo-castle thousands of yards wide.

I am that thousand-armed shape-shifter. My wealth has been created out of thin air – hedge funds, arbitrage, global macro strategies; jargon and numbers in the ether. My kind doesn’t actually do anything. There’s no product: no violin crafted, no corn grown, no poem created, no pipes plumbed, no cement foundations poured. The stupid bastards back in the cheap seats hav­en’t a clue.


Her First Harvest by Malcolm Devlin
illustrated by Vince Haig



Nina’s dress was made from synthetic silk; it was a pale silver grey which shone even in the thin phosphor lighting of Aunt Caroline’s dressing room. Nina stood side-on to the mirror and twisted so she could see her back more clearly. The dress hung open from her shoulders, sweeping down in smooth symmetrical curves to meet in a discreet bow above her waist. Her exposed back struck her as looking unhealthy and pale in the thin blue light; her crop was barely more than a thick rumple of texture across her skin. It looked barely more valuable than heat rash.

Bopa-lalla. 

Enjoy.