Spec fic in August
The Past #
My story “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade” is now live at Tor.com. It was edited by the brilliant Ann VanderMeer and features an amazing piece of Julie Dillon cover art.
It actually went live on July 30th. I just didn’t have time to blog about it until now.
Here’s the teaser blurb:
Generation after generation, engineers have maintained the barricade, a shield that protects civilization against Turbulence, this strange force that destroys both minds and machines. As Turbulence grows ever more intense and the barricade begins to fail, can Ritter live up to the demands of his father, an engineer the equal of any hero in the Five Great Classical Novels, as they struggle to prevent this civilization from falling like every civilization has before it?
The Present #
Kaleidoscope, an anthology of diverse YA speculative fiction, is now available in the US, UK, and most of the rest of the world. (It will be released in Australia on October 1st.) Edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios, it includes my time-traveling figure skater story, “Double Time”, as well as terrific stories by great writers including Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.
There will be a book launch at LonCon 3, 1:30-2:30pm at the Book Launch section of the Library at ExCel.
Here’s the teaser blurb:
What do a disabled superhero, a time-traveling Chinese-American figure skater, and a transgender animal shifter have in common? They’re all stars of Kaleidoscope stories!
Kaleidoscope collects fun, edgy, meditative, and hopeful YA science fiction and fantasy with diverse leads. These twenty original stories tell of scary futures, magical adventures, and the joys and heartbreaks of teenage life.
Featuring New York Times bestselling and award winning authors along with newer voices:
Garth Nix, Sofia Samatar, William Alexander, Karen Healey, E. C. Myers, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Ken Liu, Vylar Kaftan, Sean Williams, Amal El-Mohtar, Jim C. Hines, Faith Mudge, John Chu, Alena McNamara, Tim Susman, Gabriela Lee, Dirk Flinthart, Holly Kench, Sean Eads, and Shveta Thakrar
The Future (uture… uture… uture…) #
I just recorded a narration of “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” for EscapePod. Yes, this is different from the narration I recorded for StarShipSofa. It’s more or less the same text, but the reading is not rushed, and there are no subliminal birds tweeting in the background. (Actually, the pacing may now be a little too not rushed. Good narration is hard…)
August is “Hugo Month” at EscapePod. This narration should go live in a week or three. (I’ll drop a note when that happen.)
Listen to both! See which one (if any) you like better!