The Ones Who Come at Last in Lightspeed; A Recommendation for Kerstin Hall's Asunder; The Future of this Newsletter
The Ones Who Come At Last in Lightspeed
The Ones Who Come at Last is up in Lightspeed Magazine. It is a sequel of sorts to A House by the Sea, my first published story. It is, in fact, a bit older than that.
In 2017 when I met Rachel Swirsky and she took it upon herself to convince me that I could write fiction professionally, one of the first things she did was ask to see my old writing. I sent her a bunch of stories from the previous decade—the early form of the Great Sweet Sea stories, which were originally conceived as ancillary material for a fantasy role-playing game; a still-unpublished novel about navigating post-singularity bureaucracy; and a triptych of fanfiction stories about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (which included early forms of both A House by the Sea and The Ones Who Come at Last). “This is good,” she said, about A House by the Sea. “You should send it to Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction.” I did, and they bought it, and that was my first professional fiction publication. (I had published fiction before, but only in connection to friends’ or my own role-playing game work.)
After A House by the Sea was published and got a positive response, I had to decide what to do with The Ones Who Come at Last and third piece. I decided that I should probably wait for a while before pursuing publication, because I didn’t want to get a reputation as “the writer who does all the The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas fanfiction.” Recently I decided that probably five years was a sufficient interval, so I dusted off The Ones Who Come at Last and revised it extensively and here we are.
I am glad, to have taken the time with the story. The revisions certainly helped. It is an important story to me, and I think it was worth it to get it right. It does mean that it is being published in a literary, political, and social context which is now far removed from when I first wrote it, but that is ultimately the fate of all fiction. I can only hope that it means something to you, as it does to me.
Reccommending Asunder by Kerstin Hall
Asunder by Kerstin Hall is my favorite fantasy novel of the year, and probably my favorite fantasy novel for a long while. It is a story about an isolated former runaway (now an adult) who sold her soul for the ability to speak to the dead, not for any spiritual or personal reason, but simply as a means to eke out a living. Through a mistaken moment of kindness, she ends up with an aristocrat from a neighboring empire living inside her shadow. The rest of the plot unfolds from there.
Like most of Hall’s work, it is beautifully written and full of striking, terrifying imagery. But it has a mature cohesiveness that I think puts it far above the rest. There is amazing prose, yes, and beautiful imagery. There is also unrelenting horror—supernatural, political, and interpersonal. There is incredibly detailed, exquisite world-building—Hall has imagined not merely multiple forms of magic, but how they intersect and how their intersection fuels the civic and political infrastructure of the setting.
But the horror, the prose, and the world-building never overwhelm the core of the story, which is about finding grace and love even in the midst of a brutal struggle for survival in an uncaring, dangerous world. It made me laugh (bitterly, joyfully) and made me cry (bitterly, joyfully). It made me late to a doctor’s appointment because I was unable to put it down.
It has a demon with an infant’s face in his crotch who somehow manages to be even creepier than that. It has a beautiful moment of grace and compassion at an elephant-themed tourist trap.
Just a wonderful book. You will not regret reading it.
No forthcoming stories
The structure of this newsletter has finally run up against my choice to de-emphasize short fiction and emphasize novels. For the first time in many, many years [1] I have no forthcoming fiction publications. There are a few stories still circulating, and I’m sure that I will be writing more short fiction eventually, but it does leave a bit of a conundrum about how to handle this newsletter, which generally only updates if I have a new story available to read.
What would you like? I could remain quiescent until I have something to announce. I could use this space to “reprint” some fiction that has previously only be available in offline anthologies. I could try to revive my essays on writing (I have things to say, but less confidence in saying them these days.) While I can’t promise anything, if you’re up for letting me know what your interests are, I would certainly appreciate it.
[1] I think. I haven’t checked this. It’s possible there was a brief gap a little while ago.