Oh! What a Tangled Web (Part 2)

Pleased to announce my story, “Witch of the Weave” — featuring the further adventures of Percher and Skink in a world of colossal weave constructs — is out now in Clarkesworld Issue 159. This is the second time my work has featured in Clarkesworld, and I’m hugely relieved the first time doesn’t appear to have been a fluke.

But hold on. “Further adventures,” did I say? Of Skink and who? And what’s this about Part 2? Where’s Part 1? Did I miss something?

Let me explain.

I hope “Witch of the Weave” is able to stand on its own merits, but it’s very much a story built on the foundations of an earlier one. There’s an old adage that you should throw away the first scene of any story, or first chapter of any book you write, as these are most probably unnecessary scene setting and authorial “throat clearing” that will get in the way of the reader and the story. Well I don’t know if I would always agree with that, but there’s certainly an element of truth to it. However, it seems a bit extreme to throw away a whole story. Luckily, if you want to find out how Percher and Skink first met, and what those “clevers” and Motherman references are all about, the prequel story to “Witch of the Weave“, “Climbing the Motherman“, should be out Spring next year in DreamForge Magazine Issue 5. Then you can judge for yourself how much authorial throat clearing is going on.

In the meantime, I’m busy trying to finish the next Percher and Skink story. Certainly helps to know the first two found a home.

Clarkesworld 159 cover art: “Halo” by Derek Stenning

Dream Translation

Just received photos of my story “The Veilonaut’s Dream” (originally published at Clarkesworld and subsequently in Best of British Science Fiction 2018) sent by the staff at Chinese magazine Science Fiction World Translations, whilst I wait for the physical copies to arrive. I’m really chuffed, as this is the first time any story of mine has been translated — and for one of the biggest markets there is. “The Veilonaut’s Dream” really has turned out to be the little story that could. (The fantastic magazine cover is the image of “Cheela” from Robert L. Forward’s Starquake, apparently.)

Venom Tidings

News that my story “Against the Venom Tide” will be included in the forthcoming anthology “Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue”, edited by the amazing trio of Sheree Renee Thomas, Pan Morigan, and Troy L. Wiggins.

It’ll appear alongside works by Linda Addison, Nanna Árnadóttir, Maurice Broaddus, adrienne maree brown, Heather Byrd, Christopher Caldwell, Jaquira Diaz, Rylee Edgar, Lyndsay Gilbert, Shel Graves, Andrea Hairston, Maria Eliza Hamilton-Abegunde, Jamey Hatley, Kate Heartfield, Nalo Hopkinson, Danian Darrell Jerry, Jacqueline Johnson, Naila Moreira, Susana M. Morris, Ama Patterson, Cecilia Quirk, Erica Ruppert, Shawn Scarber, Rion Amilcar Scott, Marie Vibbert, and Jasmine Wade.

This anthology looks to be fantastic. Until it’s out… (looks to be late 2021, now) feast your eyes upon the astounding cover art by Stacey Robinson.

Into The Blue

After a long hot week at work it was terrifically cool to come home and find contributor copies of Best of British Science Fiction 2018 waiting for me on the doorstep. Both the hardcover and paperback volumes are fantastically well produced, and I’ve have to say I still can’t believe I’ve actually got a story in them even though I can see and touch them “for real” now.

Many thanks, again, to Donna Scott and Ian Whates at NewCon Press. It’s a real shame I can’t be at the launch at Dublin Worldcon (on Saturday 17th August from 5:30 to 6:30), but if you can make it, please do — and say hi to all the amazing folk there.

“Best Of British Science Fiction 2018”, cover art by Les Edwards, cover layout Ian Whates, editor Donna Scott

Who’s In The House?

Georgina Bruce is in the house, that’s who!

Something a little different here. An author interview. And what an author!

I first “met” George on the Online Writers Workshop more than a few years ago, where it very quickly became clear her writing was beyond standard critique. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to read some of her work before it got published and won awards, and it’s a very great pleasure to get a chance to interview her here about her new short story collection, “This House Of Wounds”.

“This House Of Wounds”, cover art by Catrin Welz-Stein and design by Vince Haig

This House of Wounds has been generally available in print for a few of weeks now. How does it feel like to have your first collection out there in the world? 
 

Terrible! I mean, brilliant! I mean, I don’t know really. It’s been unofficially out for a while now so I mainly just think everyone is sick to death of hearing my endless pleas to buy it.

How did you decide which stories to include and what order they should appear? Did you outsource curation entirely to Undertow or did you have a particular vision of your own?
 

I sent them a selection of stories, and from that Mike [Kelly] and Carolyn [Macdonell-Kelly] picked out what they wanted for the book. I withdrew one story at a late stage because I decided it just wasn’t good enough. When it came to the order of stories, I totally abdicated all responsibility for that to Mike and Carolyn. I didn’t feel I had enough distance or perspective to see how it would come out. Mike had a kind of vision of the overall book that I just didn’t. I trusted him to create a coherent collection, and he did – in some ways I think it has become more than the sum of its parts.

On re-reading the stories in House of Wounds did you find yourself struck by any recurring images or themes in your stories that you hadn’t noticed before?
 

There is a lot in my stories that is about abuse and trauma, and processing that abuse and trauma. I don’t think I realised quite how much that was a concern until I saw the stories put together. There’s also a lot more violence than I would have laid claim to! The weirdest thing is when reviewers pick up on themes and imagery that I never even noticed. Obviously readers bring a lot to a book, but still. It’s almost like I am a whole different person than I thought.

Do you have a particular favourite story or one you particularly wish to highlight? What is it that makes it your favourite?
 

I really, really love Kuebiko, and I’m proud of it. It’s kind of a puzzle (I like puzzles) but all the answers are there, it can be pieced together. I don’t know if readers will come up with the same answers I had in mind, but the blanks are there to be filled in. It’s a kind of a game about a story, or a story about a game, or both, and I love how it sort of folds in on itself. I’m really fond of stories where the structure is part of the telling. They are super hard to write but that’s part of the fun. It’s the one story I really want people to enjoy – although quite a few readers skim over it, probably wondering what the hell I’m going on about.

What is your favourite short story by another author, and why? (Okay, that’s unfair. There can be more than just one!)
 

For the past few years, I’ve taught ‘Darling’, a very short story by Padrika Tarrant, to my students and I think it’s a really wonderful story. It’s so shocking. She drags you into the perspective of a very marginalised individual and it’s powerful. My students are always quite polarised in their responses: they either love it or hate it, but they all find it very disturbing. All I hear for weeks is, “Oh my god, Georgina, what is wrong with you?” 🙂 I also teach Priya Sharma’s ‘Egg’ which is wonderful for getting students to emotionally connect with a piece of literature. I usually give that to my nursing students and they are thrilled by the medical references, too! ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’ by Pamela Zoline is one of the great pioneering feminist short stories that made science fiction a better genre for everyone. It’s weird and experimental, a bit of a puzzle, a bit wobbly in terms of genre; the world of the story is a sort of product of the internal state of the character, a woman who is falling apart. It’s exactly the kind of thing I love! Another story I think about a lot is ‘Ad Astra’ by Carole Johnson. It’s just a whole world unto itself, and it’s very strange and sorrowful, and everything that science fiction should be. 

Many reviewers have commented on your unique “voice”. Is this something you work on, the effort hidden like swan’s swimming legs, or is it simply emergent from who you are and how you write?
 

This is difficult to answer because I don’t think I really know what ‘voice’ means, or what people mean when they talk about it with regard to my writing. What I do when I write is try to be very open and connected to myself and to the voices of the characters, and I don’t try to control what’s happening until I’ve got most of a draft. I just let the story go wherever it wants, often just following the imagery until I find the story underneath it all. My characters tend to hide stories, they are ashamed or in denial, so you have to trick the story out of them. I usually spend a lot of time rewriting and editing before I’m happy with a story, but I try not to overwrite and kill the initial spark. Sometimes that means leaving in something clumsy or raw. You have to have confidence to do that – when I was first writing, I wanted it all to be perfect and that would kill the emotion.

What responsibility, if any, do you think writers (should) have?
 

What responsibility do any of us have towards one another? We have to try to be honest, and we have to serve something other than ourselves. Beyond that, I think writers have a responsibility to defend freedom of speech. A key indicator of fascism is when academics and writers are stopped from speaking or publishing. This is happening more and more and I sometimes see writers celebrating that and think, what’s wrong with you? Read a bloody history book.

This House Of Wounds is dedicated to “the lost, and the lonely” — do you have a particular reader or audience in mind when writing, or do you write solely to satisfy your own muse?
 

I never really have anyone particular in mind, but since the collection was published I realised that 17-year-old-me would be my ideal reader. I think This House of Wounds is entirely perfect for super-angry, disenfranchised, alienated and passionate teenage girls.

What other material can your fans expect from you in the next few months and years? What grand ambitions do you harbour?

I’m working on a novel and also a memoir, though at some point one of these is going to take over the other. Neither of them are anywhere near publication. In terms of ambition, I’d love to have more readers! And I’d love to have more time to work on different kinds of writing. I started out in screenwriting and I’d like to get back to it at some point. I don’t know – when I was younger I had ambitions to win awards and be remembered as one of the world’s greatest writers, etc. Now I’ll just be happy if I don’t end up eaten by cats. I don’t have a cat so hopefully I’m safe on that score.

[Note: Georgina’s story “White Rabbit“, included in this collection, has won the British Fantasy Society award for best short story.]

“This House Of Wounds” is available directly from Undertow and also from all standard online book purchasing venues. If you’re a super-angry, disenfranchised, alienated and passionate teenage girl — or even if you’re not! — you should rush out and buy this brilliant collection now.

The Motherman Is Coming…

…in December 2019. Probably.

[Edited to add: looks like this will now actually be sometime in 2020.]

DreamForge Magazine has accepted my story “Climbing the Motherman” and it’s currently slated to appear in issue #4. Really pleased by the news, as this is one of my favourite stories. (I say that every time, am I right? But this time I really really mean it!)

The original inspiration was “The Willow Man” sculpture created by Serena de la Hey, which we pass quite regularly on our way to/from our summer holidays in the West Country. One night I dreamt it was infested by tribes of feral humans… as you do.

Anyway, glad to see this story found a good home. More about it later in the year.

“The Willow Man”, photo taken and processed by yours truly.

Best of British SF 2018

Somewhat unbelievably, I find one of my stories in the table of contents of the NewCon Press Best Of British SF 2018, edited by Donna Scott and to be published this August. First time one of my stories has featured in a best of anything, and not only that, look at this super-talented lineup of writers…

Multiple lifetime ambitions achieved here, including sharing a table of contents with Al Reynolds, of whom I am a fan, and who was also a fellow first year Astronomy student at Newcastle University (Hi Al!).

That sound you’re hearing? Me going “Ouch!” as I keep trying to pinch myself awake out of this dream…

Best Of British SF 2018:

Chasing the Lightship by Les Edwards

On The Origin of Giants

My story “On Ohab’s Land” is out in the Spring 2019 edition of Kaleidotrope. No it’s nothing to do with whales. Here’s a taster:

Grass stubble crunches beneath Ohab’s feet as he approaches the giant. The long, dry summer has baked the hayfield a deep golden brown, and late-blooming poppies sprout from between the ridges of cracked mud, nodding like amiable premonitions of blood as Ohab passes by. The last wisps of early morning mist have burned away, and crows, unfazed by the giant’s presence, flap lazily between the barrel-trunked oaks that dot the field’s perimeter.

Don’t ask me how many attempts it took to get that first paragraph just so. Many. Many attempts. No really. If you have a figure in mind for the number of revisions then I’m pretty sure it’s too low. Yes. Even that figure. Waaaaaay too low. And I’m still not sure about the extra comma or the two instances of “Ohab”. Yes, these are things that give me sleepless nights.

The story’s first-pass name was “The Origin of Giants”, a rather grandiose title from under which it could never really escape. Although “Land” deals more or less with the physical origin of giants (in this story world), it nowhere near adequately approaches the origin of true giants, those not of merely physical stature… for that you’d be better off reading something like Jose Pablo Iriarte’s The Curse of Giants. So the title had to change, and the story had to find a new heart… which I think it does, at the end. Probably it’s too optimistic of me to consider Ohab a suitable case for redemption, but in order to be a writer you really do have to put aside the pessimism now and again. Do I believe that change for the better — for people and the world — is possible? Sometimes. Yes, I really do.

“Giant” by Saryth Chareonpanichkul

The Good of Fantasy for Good

The folks at Nightscape Press and anthology co-editor Richard Salter recently shared the news that Fantasy for Good has so far raised at least $10,000 for the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. Which is absolutely fantastic — but you know what? It doesn’t need to stop there. The anthology is still for sale and it’s full of timeless tales by some of the biggest names in fantasy literature, so if you haven’t got a copy yet (or two, or more) it’s not too late to help this great book raise even more funds for a really worthwhile cause.

Also. Look at that cover. It’s worth the price alone.

Repeated Sins

The anthology Sins and Other Worlds, edited by Eric S. Fomley, is now out in e-book and print format, available from the retail arm of the world’s most popular cloud computing platform provider. It contains a reprint of my dark little flash story In the Maze of His Infinities, first published by Perihelion SF.

Table of Contents

  • The Plague – Ken Liu
  • The Far Side of the Wilderness – Alex Shvartsman
  • The Last Racist – Laird Long
  • Floating in My Tin Can – Gerri Leen
  • Tough Crowd – Holly Schofield
  • Nothing – Douglas Smith
  • The Memory Ward – Wendy Nikel
  • About Time – Mike Murphy
  • God State – Michelle Ann King
  • Tugship – Russell Hemmell
  • When There’s Only Dust Left – Jeremy Szal
  • Angels Behaving Badly – Rhonda Eikamp
  • The Dust Bathynaut – Dennis Monbauer
  • A Fully Chameleonic Foil – Christi Nogle
  • The Service Call – Ed Ahern
  • The Sin of Envy – George Nikolopoulos
  • Flies – Robert Silverberg
  • Between Two Distant Shores There Lies Space for an Ocean of Troubles – Jez Patterson
  • Death, Where is thy Sting? – John H. Dromey
  • Last Long Night – Lina Rather
  • Apocalypse Beta Test Survey – Gregg Chamberlain
  • In the Maze of His Infinities – Henry Szabranski
  • Most Valuable Player – Eric Choi
  • Benchwarmer – Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn
  • The Cyclops – James Dorr
  • Remembrance Day – Liam Hogan
  • The Eye Patch Protocol – Vaughan Stanger
  • Once Was Lost – Alan Baxter
  • The Assassin Program – Christina Sng
  • The Plan – Mike Murphy
  • Stewardship – Holly Schofield
  • Walls of Nigeria – Jeremy Szal
  • Whom He May Devour – Alex Shvartsman
  • Event Cloak – Ken Liu
  • Job Qualifications – Kevin J. Anderson