Category: Short Stories

Short Story Sale: The Empty Throne

Sale announcement: my historical fantasy short story “The Empty Throne” will appear in The Sunday Morning Transport!

Lea would never lower her head like the other refugees. She hadn’t bowed before her father’s summonings despite all the threats and promises of Heaven, and she wasn’t about to start for earthly tyrants.

This is a story of Jewish myth and magic in the aftermath of the failed 1848 Hungarian Revolution. In every generation, we live in a world where the causes of justice and freedom face setback after setback, despite all the promises of Heaven. Yet still we live, and still we fight, and sometimes we manage to find reason for faith; no matter who stands on our side, or against it.

This story has quite a history to it. I first drafted “The Empty Throne” in 2015, and it collected a historic 56 submissions along the way. But I never stopped loving and revising it, and in spring of 2023 I got it into the shape it needed to find an amazing home. For all you writers out there: some stories are worth believing in, no matter how many times you have to help them back up onto their feet.

Watch this space for a deep dive into this story’s background and research when it emerges sometime in 2024!

Short Story Sale: Development Hell

Sale announcement: my science fiction short story “Development Hell” will appear in Nature (Futures)!

The third best thing about hell is explaining to the new kids why it’s so glitchy.

This story is about being stuck in a digital hell for brain-uploaded copies… but not a good hell, the kind with bespoke torments and genuine malice. No, this is the kind of hell produced by programmers on crunch, where you might be tempted to change things up by clipping through a wall and falling until your altitude value overflows.

This story is also what happens when you open a random book to find a writing prompt and stumble upon one of the most bonkers sentences in one of Iain M. Banks’ weirder novels, and decide to turn it into a flash-length dark comedy.

Get stuck in Development Hell sometime in the next year!

Publication: Driftwood

The September/October 2023 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact arrived in my mailbox yesterday, with a copy of my science fiction short story “Driftwood!” You can buy the issue online, or subscribe in digital or print editions.1

Val is a drone operator on a commercial mining-colony expedition, in orbit over the world they plan to make into their home and their living. The very last thing she wants to find is vague, ambiguous, chemical evidence of extraterrestrial biology.

The drone’s telemetry scrolled up the side of my windowscreen, number after number building toward an answer, overlaid on the live view of Driftwood’s longest mountain range. One set of numbers blinked yellow, alongside an unfamiliar symbol. I paused the scroll. At the screen’s edge, my husband’s videocall continued in thumbnail, volume down low. I expanded the image to a size I could see. “I gotta run. Something’s going on with a geo drone.”

This is the same issue where I have a Biolog writeup as the Featured Author. And even more importantly, Driftwood comes with its own illustration! I love Eli Bischoff‘s choice of illustration and how he executed it.

Check below the fold for a high-res view of the art, and some spoilery details on the story’s scientific inspiration.

 

 

 

First, the Eli Bischoff’s illustration in all its full-resolution glory:

I knew Driftwood was going to have an illustration, but until I opened up my Analog delivery I didn’t know what the art might be – and when I saw this, I thought “hah, PERFECT.” One of the story’s most important images is a piece of in-story artwork, and I’m delighted to see a real artist’s vision of it!

This story came into existence when an astrobiologist friend was visiting us, and I asked him, “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve read lately?” He pointed me right toward this: the concept of the Molecular Assembly Index. Even if the life is totally foreign, there are ways to assess the likelihood of a molecule coming from life vs. non-life.

I do think this story is as realistic a “first contact” scenario as we’re likely to get. Molecules and hints, their true nature obscure. And people at the point of contact who have a very different set of incentives. Here’s hoping they find a solution that is feasible, genuine, and preserves the universe’s wonder!

Publication: The Things You Can Maintain Yourself

My science fiction short story “The Things You Can Maintain Yourself” is free online for all to read today in issue 159 (August 2023) of Lightspeed Magazine! I’ve wanted to publish in Lightspeed for my whole writing career, so I’m excited to appear on their table of contents alongside so many other excellent stories.

“The Things You Can Maintain Yourself” is a flash-length story about car repair, individualism, and a post-post-climate-change world (in a good way). The self-reliant call of the open road is fundamental to the American mythos, but some things you can maintain yourself, and other things take a community.

Jill wiped xylem from her gloves and closed her car’s leafy hood. She’d kept Snapdragon on the road for almost twenty years, and if the world would leave her alone, she could keep him alive for five more, easy.

It wouldn’t, and she couldn’t. No amount of repairs today would spare Snapdragon from the weeding, or her from the pain of uprooting a thing she loved.

You can read my story for free online, or buy the issue 159 as an ebook for $3.99 from the publisher, BN.com, Amazon, Kobo, or Weightless Books; or get an annual subscription to Lightspeed – with twelve months of story-packed issues like this one – for $35.88

More notes (with spoilers) below the fold.

I first wrote this story in a 2021, to a writing challenge based around images. This is the image that called to me, and became the seed of TTYCMY:

A person with flowers blooming in p[lace of their head, and a hammer in their hands.

This art appealed to me for two reasons: the burst of plants and flowers out of a drab outfit and concrete wall, and the hammer in the figure’s hands. It looks to me like, in the art, the person is freeing themselves, knocking a hole in the wall to free their vibrant spirit. For this story, I interpreted the two parts separately: a bloom of overflowing life, and the burden of a dripping hammer.

Destruction is often a part of life, but that doesn’t make the price feel any less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publication: Here at the Freezing End

It’s June 15, which means time for you all to read my latest science fiction short story: “Here at the Freezing End” it out in the latest issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact! You can buy the issue online, or subscribe in digital or print editions.1

This is a short little piece about a stranded expedition, about surviving – and dying – on a frozen world cut off from all hope of supply. On knowing who you can help, and who you can’t, and how to do a job when it’s as futile as it is important.

This story is inspired by the many years I spent as a member of the National Ski Patrol. In my younger days I served at a busy Vermont alpine ski resort, where we provided first aid and transport to the injured every day, and trained ourselves for the mass casualty events that we hoped we’d never see. (And thankfully, at least in my case, never did.) Later in my life, I served for a year on a backcountry ski patrol in Oregon, where injuries were rare, but would require hours of hauling toboggans along trails in cross-country skies or snowshoes.

Both of those experiences inform this story. Triage, and search & rescue. Cold snow and the savage sweaty heat of exertion.

May none of us be so doomed as the protagonists of “Here at the Freezing End.” But if life feels that way sometimes, may we find as much purpose as they do.

Short Story Sale: For Every Bee, a Hive

Sale announcement: my science fiction short story “For Every Bee, a Hive” will appear in Analog Science Fiction & Fact!

This is the story I read an excerpt of at the Space Opera Themed Reading at Worldcon 2022 (Chicon 8): The story of Tamar, cyborg salvager, scraping out a life on the edge of an AI-dominated solar system. When her ship is crippled by a mysterious new weapon, her only source of aid is a lonely little piece of her people’s most dangerous enemies: an element of an AI swarm.

Didn’t matter why the AI wanted to connect. Didn’t matter whether the AI wanted at all. Only mattered what she wanted.

The free humans had survived all these centuries by adapting. By taking new technologies into themselves and becoming what they needed to be. And now she needed to be a survivor.

“For Every Bee, a Hive” is also my examination of what it might mean for humankind to enhance itself with cybernetics: the opportunities we have for technology to improve the way we function by supporting, not replacing, the brains that we have. And my exploration of the Found Family trope in space opera – and how that yearning for family parallels an AI swarm’s dream of growth.

Watch for “For Every Bee, a Hive” in Analog Magazine, likely in 2024!

Publication: The Work-Clock

My gaslamp fantasy short story, “The Work-Clock,” is out today in Sunday Morning Transport!

This is the story of Apprentice Inspector Zek, who just wants to keep his job fixing the air-conditioning runes in the industrialized prison for the Evil One. Excuse me, the for-profit industrialized prison for the Evil One.

Funny thing. The world would bleed and die without an apprentice inspector to keep the Temple Works running, but didn’t mean the job paid well.

The story is free to read, but you can also get a free 60-day subscription to the Sunday Morning Transport here. Check it out, and consider supporting all the fine sources of short speculative fiction out there!

More story notes below the fold, will contain spoilers.

Continue reading Publication: The Work-Clock

Reprint: Machines in Motion

Late breaking 2022 reprint! The anthology Holiday Leftovers anthology (B Cubed Press) is out today with my short story Machines
in Motion. It originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of the now-defunct magazine Hybrid Fiction. I’m delighted that my gritty little tale is back online where the world can read it. Get yourself a copy, and support the
small presses that keep SFF publishing alive & scrappy!

This story is not about your Christmas-style holidays. It is about Shabbat, the weekly Jewish holiday of rest. But it has a dark and intimate angle on Shabbat, and on having the grit to do the work we choose, for better or for worse.

Also steampunk military fiction, because hell yes I write what I want.

Eszter spent her first battle in breathless fear, not of some errant shell or cannonball, but of the engineers.

For further story notes, check out Machines in Motion’s original publication post!

2022 in Review & Awards Eligibility

Another year, not just come and gone, but survived and conquered! I only published 2-3 original stories in 2022, but I sold a lot of pieces (13 acceptances, including 7 reprints, 5 originals, and 1 that didn’t become a sale), so expect a bumper crop of short fiction from me in the next year or so. This year I only produced a couple of new stories, because a most of my time has gone into science, parenting, and the Cyborg Space Opera Cold War Spy Novel, which is currently at about 62k words.

If you’re just here to learn where to find me in the Decaying Social Media Hellscape, scroll on down to the bottom.

Otherwise, if you’re looking for some stories to enjoy, or reading for SFF awards, I’d love to share these 2022 publications with you!

Original Stories

  1. A Start to Judgment – Kaleidotrope, September 2022 (epic fantasy, 1500 words). Guilt, self-recrimination, messing with Chosen One tropes. CW: suicidal ideation.
    • “Arsha plays the role expected of her, though she’s known for years how their rebellion will end.”
    • Reviewed by Maria Haskins and Sam Tomaino
  2. The Successors – Shoreline of Infinity, December 2022 (science fiction, 1900 words). Immortality, death, robots grieving for humans.  One of my most neuroscience-inspired pieces, as detailed in the story notes.
    • “Sandarac knew he should call himself lucky to watch his human die and reawaken. Most androids never got a human at all, let alone the chance to lose one.”
    • If you can’t afford to buy the issue of SoI, contact me for a private copy of the story.
  3. [Not Nebula-eligible in 2022]: A Living Planet – Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Jan/Feb 20222. First contact, loneliness. Based on the true story of being The Martian’s Husband.
    • “Be the sturdy rock of home, the planet’s solid ground awaiting her return.”
    • PDF version available here, other formats on private request

Reprints

  1. Conference of the Birds – Dreamforge Anvil, Fall 2022 (science fiction, 3900 words). AI and distributed minds. Another one of my neuroscience-heavy pieces, I wrote a whole article about the underlying science.
    • “No program-layer could predict what a human might do, but Surveillance Hub could see everything that mattered.”
    • Original publication: Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Jan/Feb 2021
  2. Eight Reasons You Are Alone – Flash Fiction Online, June 2022 (science fiction, 900 words). Conscience and self-definition.
    • “If I asked you what kind of person you are, you wouldn’t know the answer.”
    • Original publication: Nature Futures, November 2021
  3. Machines in Motion – Holiday Leftovers anthology, B Cubed Press, December 2022 (steampunk, 4200 words). Grit, engineering, sacrifice.
    • “Eszter spent her first battle in breathless fear, not of some errant shell or cannonball, but of the engineers.”
    •  Original publication: Hybrid Fiction (defunct), Sep 2020.

Other Award Recommendations

If you’re nominating for the Hugo Awards, I hope you’ll consider Escape Pod for Best Semiprozine. We’ve put out a lot of great stories, and been at the vanguard of Escape Artists’ efforts to do right by our authors in every way we can.

Also, please consider our co-editors Mur Lafferty & Valerie Valdes (as a two-person team) for Best Editor Short Form!

Social Media

Twitter has been the writers’ mainstay for many years, but it’s currently undergoing… challenges. I’m still over there for the foreseeable future, but I’ve also staked out a presence on Mastodon and (to a lesser extent) Instagram. I technically have a Facebook page but it’s rarely active, mostly just updates. You can always check my Linktree page for secondary/new places that might arise. But the best way to keep up with news about my stories & science is via my mailing list, right there in the sidebar!

Publication: The Successors

My science fiction short story “The Successors” is out today in Shoreline of Infinity 33!

Sandarac knew he should call himself lucky to watch his human die and reawaken. Most androids never got a human at all, let alone the chance to lose one.

A short story about grief, and transformation. About the impossibility of human immortality, and what the AIs will do after we’re gone.

This is one of my most neuroscience-inspired stories. The explanation isn’t very spoilery: it only “spoils” the premise, which is fully spelled out in the first page or two. Nevertheless, I’ve hidden the details under the fold just in case.

Please consider supporting all the fine magazines that bring excellent short fiction to the world, and buy a digital or paper copy today!

Continue reading Publication: The Successors