Category Archives: Folklore

Going, Going, Gone

Posted on by

Three days ago, Amazon listed two copies of The Heavenly Fox for $19 each direct from them. As of yesterday there are still two listed, only one’s listed new at $197 and the other is listed used and priced at $99. Yeah, good luck getting those prices, but it does demonstrate something I was rather anticipating—The Heavenly Fox has sold out it in both published states. There was a 100 copy signed, numbered and DJ’d run, which sold out several months ago. I checked with the publisher and, sure enough, the second, unsigned state has also sold out. Since both were limited runs I’m not too surprised. I’m just glad it didn’t take longer.

I’ll know in a few days who it lost the Mythopoeic Award to, but in the meantime I’m getting used to the fact that, for the first time in about five years, I don’t have a single book in print at PS Publishing. Good thing the Yamada novel is coming out from them next year.

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

Posted on by

3rd Story CollectionAs the saying goes, there are some things you’re better off not knowing. Like how sausage is made, if you really like sausage. Still, if anyone’s curious (didn’t say you were. said “if”), here’s where the title of my third story collection came from:

In 1905, Lafcadio Hearn published a collection of pieces on Japanese legend called “The Romance of the Milky Way and Other Stories.” Including therein were several tanka written on the legend of the Weaver and Herdsman (also called the Romance of the Milky Way) from an 8th Century Japanese poetry volume, the Manyoushou. Here’s Hearn’s translation of one:

Amanogawa

Ai-muki tachité,

Waga koïshi

Kimi kimasu nari

Himo-toki makéna!

[He is coming, my long-desired lord, whom I have been waiting to meet here, on the banks of the River of Heaven…. The moment of loosening my girdle is nigh!]

When I decided to do my own take on the Weaver and Herdsman legend, choosing a title was the easy part. So credit where credit’s due: Thanks to Mr. Hearn, and the ancient poets of the Manyoushou.

From Kudzu to Shizu

Posted on by

This is an account of a trip to Memphis my wife and I made several years ago. It’s relevant for the simple reason that it was my first real introduction to the artifacts and history of ancient China, and at least some of the interest I’ve developed over the years for Asian themes can be traced directly to it. Not to mention stories like “Golden Bell, Seven, and the Marquis of Yi,” (Black Gate, Nov. 2000) “Palace of the Jade Lion” (coming up in Beneath Ceaseless Skies next month) and my Mythopoeic Award finalist novella, The Heavenly Fox. Sometimes research is an Adventure. Continue reading →

Meanwhile, Back at the Emperor’s Palace…

Posted on by

Opinions are divided about series, both at the novel and short story level. Readers love spending time with characters they already know and like, but some purists think they’re the death of the genre (in which case sf/f has been dead for a loooong time). One accusation that’s leveled at series, novel and story length both, is laziness. “Once the background is established and you’re familiar with it, that’s half the work. You’re doing paint-by-numbers after that.”

Yeah. Right.

Continue reading →

Excerpt – The Heavenly Fox

Posted on by

I’m trying something new for the blog–snippets. Today’s post is an excerpt from The Heavenly Fox (PS Publishing 2011). To frame this bit,  the fox vixen Springshadow has successfully brewed and and imbibed (how often do I get to use that word?) the Golden Elixir of Immortality, and now she’s awaiting the results with her friend, a Taoist immortal named Wildeye and the goddess/bodhisattva Kuan Yin who showed up unannounced for reasons of her own:

     Springshadow stood up. Her form was somewhere between fully human and fully vulpine; a transitional form that gave her human hands and other aspects of humans that were useful, without fully surrendering her fox senses, and she’d used it often. Only now there seemed to be more to it. Several “mores,” actually.

     “My tail feels funny.”

     “Say rather your tails, girl,” Wildeye said, and started counting.

     “You’re a Heavenly Fox now, Springshadow. Look up,” said the goddess.

     Springshadow looked up. There, in the distant sky far beyond the clouds, far beyond the mortal world yet clearly visible, clearly reachable, was a magnificent floating city with towers of gold and walls of the finest jade.

     Wildeye gave a grunt of triumph as he finished his count. “Nine! And each as magnificent as the last.”

     “What are you babbling about? Nine what?” Springshadow said, unable for the moment to take her eyes off of Heaven and the floating city.

     “Tails, of course,” he said.  “Yours.”

     That finally got Springshadow’s attention. She quickly glanced behind her like a courtesan checking her appearance. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing, but she finally saw what Wildeye saw–fox tails.

     Nine in all, and all, as Wildeye said, belonging to her. Attached.

     “Nine?!”

     “Nine.” Wildeye nodded in grudging respect.  “You have to admit,” he said, turning to the goddess, “that’s pretty damn impressive.”