Author: Henry Szabranski

I exist.

The Ghost In The Scroll

Happy to announce my story “The Dragonmaster’s Ghost” is up at issue #4 of Fantasy Scroll Mag. What are you waiting for? Go read it now!

“Ghost” is a sequel to “The Clay Farima” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #128), and the third story to feature the world and characters first introduced in “The Edge of Magic” (included in Fantasy For Good, just out this month).

The canonical order of the three “Mevlish the Mighty” stories:

The Edge of Magic
The Clay Farima
The Dragonmaster’s Ghost

I’m still considering if the Near and Far Kingdoms or Mevlish will feature in more stories. I have no doubt they could. But I do wonder if they should.

Let me know what you think, either here or on the Fantasy Scroll Mag site.

That’s my final published story for 2014, which brings the total to five. Two fantasy stories, two science fiction, and one horror. Sounds about right.

“The Dragonmaster’s Ghost” (Mevlish #3) – Fantasy Scroll Mag, December 2014.
“The Edge of Magic” (Mevlish #1) – Fantasy For Good – Anthology, Nightscape Press, December 2014.
“Kella Vector” – Perihelion Science Fiction, November 2014.
“Within Without” – Lakeside Circus, August 2014 (also available as a podcast).
“Animus” – Horror D’Oeuvres, June 2014.

“Into The Vortex”, photo by Rick Holliday.

#SFWApro

The Edge of Magic

The first story featuring my wizardly character Mevlish the Mighty is published today in the all-round awesome charitable anthology Fantasy For Good. Still can’t quite believe my story is in the same volume as works by some of my childhood writing heros, authors who inspired my own writing. It’s a very strange feeling! And raising funds for such a good cause too, close to the hearts of many of the readers as well as the contributors. Huge kudos to Richard Salter, Jordan Ellinger, Trent Zelazny, Jennifer and Robert Wilson for bringing it all together.

In “The Edge of Magic” I knew I wanted to write a classic-style fantasy, but with a gritty edge, and a strong female lead. No way Kaffryn was going to let herself be pushed around by her troubled spouse Mevlish. The original idea developed from a swirl of questions: What would happen if two powerful mages disputed custody of their child? Who would win? And what if magic followed a law similar to Newton’s universal gravitation? Would there be a Roche limit equivalent, a region where the strength of magic would tear you apart? What would lie beyond that limit and would anyone ever be able to breach it? In “Edge” and its sequels I try to explore, at least in part, some of these questions.

I hope readers enjoy the story, just one amongst thirty varied and diverse tales in this great anthology. I hope it raises lots of money for Colon Cancer Alliance.

#SFWApro

Fantasy For Good: ToC Announced

Received the galleys for “Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology” today and I’ve got to say it looks awesome. The release date has been set for 9th December 2014 and the Kindle edition is available to pre-order already. The trade paperback from Nightscape Press will also be pre-orderable soon (see links below).

All proceeds from the sale of this anthology go directly to Colon Cancer Alliance, a charity dedicated to the prevention of this deadly disease, as well as funding research and supporting patients who suffer from it. Having now read the moving foreword by the editors Richard Salter and Jordan Ellinger, the introduction by Trent Zelazny about his father’s silent battle with this cancer and the very important lessons he’s drawn from it, hearing about the involvement of Jay Lake and others touched by this terrible disease — it’s very much clear this anthology has been created from the heart. I hope it does really well and raises a hell of a lot of money for CCA.

Here is the table of contents. I’m humbled and feel privileged to be a part of it.

Table Of Contents
“Horseman, Pass By – An Introduction” – Trent Zelazny
“The Edge of Magic” – Henry Szabranski
“Annual Dues” – Ken Scholes
“The Kitsuneís Nine Tales” – Kelley Armstrong
“Elroy Wooden Sword” – S.C. Hayden
“In the Lost Lands” – George R.R. Martin
“Worms Rising From the Dirt” – David Farland
“Snow Wolf and Evening Wolf” – James Enge
“Knightís Errand” – Jane Lindskold
“Languid in Rose” – Frances Silversmith
“Green They Were, and Golden-Eyed” – Alan Dean Foster
“Golden” – Todd McCaffrey
“Mountain Spirit” – Piers Anthony
“Moon Glass” – Megan Moore
“The George Business” – Roger Zelazny
“Only the End of the World Again” – Neil Gaiman
“Lenora of the Low” – Marina J. Lostetter
“Trufan Fever” – Katherine Kerr
“Undying Love” – Jackie Kessler
“Dancing With the Mouse King” – Carrie Vaughn
“Showlogo” – Nnedi Okorafor
“The Bluest Hour” – Jaye Wells
“Pandal Food” – Samit Basu
“Loincloth” – Kevin J Anderson and Rebecca Moesta
“Man of Water” – Kyle Aisteach
“Bones of a Righteous Man” – Michael Ezell
“Timeís Mistress” – Steven Savile
“Little Pig, Berry Brown and the Hard Moon” – Jay Lake
“The Grenade Garden” – Michael Moorcock
“Sand and Teeth” – Carmen Tudor
“The Seas of Heaven” – David Parish-Whittaker

Kindle editions can be pre-ordered here:

US Pre-Order Link: http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Good-Charitable-George-Martin-ebook/dp/B00NJY4GUE

UK Pre-Order Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantasy-Good-Charitable-George-Martin-ebook/dp/B00NJY4GUE

Australia Pre-Order Link: http://www.amazon.com.au/Fantasy-Good-Charitable-George-Martin-ebook/dp/B00NJY4GUE

Germany Pre-Order Link: http://www.amazon.de/Fantasy-Good-Charitable-George-Martin-ebook/dp/B00NJY4GUE

Canada Pre-Order Link: http://www.amazon.ca/Fantasy-Good-Charitable-George-Martin-ebook/dp/B00NJY4GUE

Pre-Orders for the Trade Paperback edition will be available soon the Nightscape Press webstore: http://nightscapepress.wix.com/store

If you do the Goodreads thing, you can add it to your “To Read” list here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23167420-fantasy-for-good

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Being Good Is Not Enough

Here are a few verbatim excerpts from some recent rejection notes I’ve received for different stories from different markets. Hopefully the editors and first readers who wrote them don’t mind — any advice or encouragement they take the time to send is always gratefully received. But it just goes to demonstrate that having an editor or slush reader like or even love your story isn’t enough. As well as being flawless, the fit and timing have to be just right.

Note: I’ve omitted the inevitable qualifiers, the list of perceived faults and deficiencies, the particular reasons the submission wasn’t appropriate for that market at that time, etc…so the skew here is obviously to the positive.

“This is well written, and riveting. The characterization is strong, the ending is just right. Your descriptions and narration were great…A beautiful story, expertly told…”

“I think this idea has great potential and I hope it finds a home. Your story made it quite far in our process and I’m sorry to let it go.”

“This is a perfectly good story…”

“… this piece is fantastic. Absolutely amazing. I really enjoyed the read…I loved this story — and I really do: the prose, the idea, the pace — …”

“…This is a very fine piece of sf…”

“…all the staff agreed that this story was very good…”

“…It had good imagery and the prose is fluid, so you can write well for sure…”

“This is a good story and I enjoyed reading it…”

“This has an inventive setting and the main character is interesting, and there are some beautiful bits of prose…”

So if all the above are true, what, then, does it take to achieve a sale?

Research the market you’re submitting to. Read what it publishes. Always follow the submission guidelines. Don’t forget that any story can always be improved: carefully consider the advice given, even if it can sometimes be contradictory (different editors have different tastes, target audiences, and visions for their market). If a common criticism emerges from different readers then take particular note…in the end, you can’t buck the market.

And always take this piece of advice to heart, because very few of my published stories sold to the first market they were submitted to, or to a market I had never been rejected from before:

“Please consider submitting to us again. Best success selling this story elsewhere.”

Brain The Size Of A Star System…

“…and they ask me to calculate what?” (Apologies to Marvin the Paranoid Android fans.)

My flash story “Within Without” is now up at Lakeside Circus. There’s also a podcast version, read by the inestimable Don Pizarro. Various beta-readers commented on the machine-like quality of the “voice” in this story, yet Don manages to inject both a sense of gravitas and escalating urgency to his performance. I’m really pleased with it.

“Within Without” features a Matrioshka Brain, a solar-system sized calculating engine, facing an existential crisis. The story arose from a prompt requiring the use of frames — a story set within a story set within a story, etc. In the end I didn’t write anything like that at all, but instead used a nested structure. And even that was drastically abbreviated. So basically I utterly failed at satisfying the prompt criteria. Still…as to the story itself, you can judge for yourself.

A spiral structure in the material around the old star R Sculptoris. ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. Maercker et al.

A visualization of a spiral structure in the material around the old star R Sculptoris. Not a matrioshka brain at all. No.
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. Maercker et al.

Aslant

July. An uneasy, humid heat pervades the land. As far as I’m aware, no stories of mine are going to be published this month. (This is not something unusual.) Instead I’m concentrating on writing new stuff. Trying to finish off works in progress that have been stewing for months. Blasting out new ones before they get a chance to atrophy. Making sure the word engine stays ticking over. Making sure I keep looking at the world…aslant.

Dawlish Pier, photo by Henry Szabranski

I See Faces In Things. Don’t You?

Pleased to announce my dark flash story “Animus” has been accepted by Horror D’Oeuvres.

I wrote this story whilst tossing and turning in bed with flu, so that may explain some of its hallucinatory fever dream vibe. Combine a high temperature with a writerly imagination and all sorts of strange visions may result. Once I was laid up with tonsillitis and I still clearly remember the weird fish that swam across the ceiling during my illness. And a fever wasn’t always required before I started to “see things”. As a child I was taken to the doctor because I claimed disembodied faces floated about my bed at night and stopped me from sleeping. A course of placebo sugar pills later and the apparitions faded away…or so I assured my worried parents.

Nowadays I hardly ever hallucinate. Apart from the boys’ toys (which are always chattering away to us and to each other), I haven’t heard common household items speak to me for a good long while. Although I admit I do hear voices emanating from my phone from time to time.

“Animus” will “go live” later this month, at 12 EST on 20th June (to be more or less exact). A site subscription is required to read the full story.

Update: “Animus”‘ is now live at the http://www.horrordoeuvres.com site.

Fantasy Circus Or Lakeside Scroll?

Happy to learn a couple of stories have been accepted in the past few weeks. “Within Without”, a hard(ish) SF flash piece at Lakeside Circus, and a 5K story “The Dragonmaster’s Ghost” at Fantasy Scroll Mag. The latter is the third and very probably final instalment in the “Mevlish The Mighty” sequence of tales that started with “The Edge Of Magic“ and continued in “The Clay Farima“. I’m really pleased all three found good homes and readers can follow the whole saga (if they wish!).

Pure coincidence, but the current Issue 1 cover at Fantasy Scroll Mag by Jonathan Gragg is actually a pretty good match for the theme of “The Dragonmaster’s Ghost”. More details about this story and “Within Without” closer to their publication dates.

Happy Easter

Been a while since my last post. Reason being…there’s not much news on the writing front. Various pokers in the fire, none ready to withdraw yet. Past two weeks spent in Cornwall, the last week in the Lizard, the most southerly part of the United Kingdom, a peninsula surrounded on all sides by coves and cliffs and harbours and beaches, each day spent at a different one. Glorious. My body and mind are still recovering.

Kynance Cove

Fantasy For Good

Very pleased to announce my story “The Edge Of Magic” will be included in the upcoming charitable anthology “Fantasy For Good”, edited by Richard Salter and Jordan Ellinger, published by Nightscape Press. Net proceeds will be going to Colon Cancer Alliance.

The anthology’s contributor line-up includes some of the best known names in fantasy writing. Frankly, I can’t believe I’m sharing a ToC with these people: Michael Moorcock (I grew up reading Elric, Corum, Von Bek, et al: they’re a part of my writerly DNA), Piers Anthony (again, I grew up reading early “Xanth” novels, “Kirlian Quest”, “Blue Adept”, etc.), Alan Dean Foster (before “The Empire Strikes Back” was more than an improvised twinkle in George Lucas’ eye, the only Star Wars sequel that existed was Foster’s “Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye“), Neil Gaiman, Nnedi Orokafor, Carrie Vaughn, Jay Lake…the stellar list goes on (see more here). Oh, and there’s also some guy called George RR Martin, who’s recently enjoyed some modicum of success with a popular long-form tale involving dragons, knights and zombies — but to me, he’ll always be the author of “A Song For Lya“, “Sandkings“, “In The House Of The Worm”, “The Way Of Cross And Dragon“…some of my very favourite SF stories.