Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #105, the Fourth Anniversary issue, goes live today with “Cursed Motives” by Marissa Lingen and the newest Lord Yamada story, “Three Little Foxes.” It’s free to read, but if you’re inclined to support the magazine, that would be okay too.
This is going to be a sort of general update post. It’s not that a lot is happening, but some things are happening, things that, for a change, don’t have a lot to do with the daily grind of getting all the things done that I have to get done before I can do the things that I wanted to do in the first place. If you understand that—and I’m betting that most of you do—you’ll get how even a few changes can nudge the needle past So? all the way to Hey! Worth Noting.
First of all, after floundering for a bit (okay, five months), I’m starting to make some headway on the sequel to Black Kath’s Daughter. I still have a long way to go, but forward motion, believe you me, is an improvement. And if everything works out the way I think it’s going to, I’ll finally make a proper connection between the Amaet who was the bane of Tymon’s existence in The Long Look with the Amaet who is the creator of The Arrow Path and the bane of Marta’s existence in Black Kath’s Daughter. And vice versa, truth be told. The working title is: Power’s Shadow. Subject to change, being a working title and all.
The Yamada novel (To Break the Demon Gate) is still on track at PS Publishing for release early next year. So is the Prime Books collection of Yamada stories, Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter. One interesting thing when working with a smaller publisher is that sometimes you actually have some input into the cover design. Not always, but sometimes. I found the image we used for the first mockup of the Yamada collection, but the consensus (and I agree with it) was that it was both too modern and too “horror.” Yes, there are demons in the Yamada stories (and ghosts, and youkai, and…well, lots of such things, and anyone who’s read them knows that already) and they can be dark at times, but definitely not horror, so that’s not going to work. We’re still looking for something with the right atmosphere, and finding just the perfect thing is going to be tricky. When the cover is set I’ll put it up here as soon as the publisher okays it.
A couple of final notes—“In the Palace of the Jade Lion” from Beneath Ceaseless Skies #100 got a Recommended from Rich Horton in the October Locus Magazine. It’s not as if that’s the first time I’ve gotten one, but it’s always cool. And the most recent Yamada story, “Three Little Foxes,” is due to go live up at BCS in the next few days. I’ll post a link here when that happens.
Okay, so it’s more of a self-serving announcement. Maybe we need a new desgination for that. Maybe SSA? Anyway, here’s the deal–Scott Andrews at Beneath Ceaseless Skies has just released The Best of BCS, Year 3. Here’s the ToC:
From the BCS web site: “The Best of BCS, Year Three features such authors as Richard Parks, Garth Upshaw, Margaret Ronald, Matthew Kressel, Geoffrey Maloney, and World Fantasy Award-winner Steve Rasnic Tem.
It includes “Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin” by Adam Callaway, named to Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2012, edited by Paula Guran, as well as three stories named to the Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2011 and four given Honorable Mention in Year’s Best Science Fiction 29, edited by Gardner Dozois.”
Special offer going on– buy The Best of BCS, Year Three from Weightless Books between now and Oct. 19 and get a free copy of Best of BCS, Year One or Best of BCS, Year Two.
You can also pick it up at all the usual places, Amazon, B&N, Smashwords…..here’s the thing–proceeds from the sale of The Best of BCS, Year Three go to pay BCS authors and artists for their work and keep the magazine going. Two subjects near and dear to my heart, it has to be understood.
Okay, commercial over. Thanks for your patience.
I noticed several other contributors announcing the receipt of their copies of Ghosts: Recent Hauntings yesterday. I also know that all mail coming here has to pass through the city PO before it’s sent off to the outposts, which adds a day’s delay, so I was reasonably sure that my own copies were waiting for me at the PO Box today. Sure enough.
My story’s in here somewhere. Let’s see… Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Hand, Jeff Ford, Tim Powers, John Shirley, Peter Straub, Joe R. Lansdale, James Van Pelt, Nisi Shawl, Ekaterina Sedia, Steve Rasnic Tem, Melanine Tem, Sarah Monette, Maureen McHugh, Margo Lanagan…ah! There it is, “The Plum Blossom Lantern.” Nestled safely(?) between John Langan and Stephen Jones. Paula Guran’s managed to collect quite a few talented people in here. Not sure how I managed to sneak in, but it’s too late to check tickets now.
Well, whether I deserve it or not, that story does. It’s one of my favorites of my own ghost stories, and I’ve written quite a few. See what ya’ll think. And you might as well read the rest of those guys while you’re in there. Just sayin’.
“I am human, and nothing human is strange(meaning: irrelevant) to me (puto = I consider).”
The quote’s been attributed to everyone from Martial to Maya Angelou, but Terentius probably said it first, in the context of a play where a character uses it as justification to butt in where he really doesn’t belong. So much for the clarity of context. Anything that survives in a proverbial form outside of its original context is no longer bound by it and takes on its own shades of interpretation. Today the proverb means just what it says: “I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.”
Anyone who writes books and stories set in cultures not their own (practically anyone who writes sf or fantasy) is eventually going to get this, and whether it’s from someone “well-meaning” or an internet troll, it amounts to the same thing: “How dare you?” As in: “How dare you write from a NA viewpoint or use NA mythology as a springboard because you’re not NA, or Japanese, or Chinese, or Thai, or Mayan, or Spanish, or Basque, or Masai…” That includes the legendary or mythological past and any syncretions and accretions thereunto. Sometimes they will grant that it’s okay for a Westerner to write about ancient Greece even though most of us 1) Are Not Greek and 2) Don’t know any more about the REAL ancient Greece than anyone else does.
It doesn’t matter who it comes from, it’s pure rubbish from start to finish. We’re all human, which is one thing we all share and why we’re more alike than different even when we’re very different indeed. Which is absolutely not the same thing as saying “people are all alike.” They are most emphatically not all alike. Anyone who’s done even basic reading for historical and cultural context can figure that out, and if that doesn’t work then all they have to do is take a good look around. If that simple fact still doesn’t sink in, then they need to take up a different avocation. Continue reading
Richard Parks 