Garden

"Garden" -- a musical and narrative collaboration between dark ambient musician Nanohex and myself -- is out now at Kalpamantra Records.

This is an instrumental album with a story, or a science-fantasy piece with a soundtrack; either way sound and story are meant to be experienced simultaneously, so the narrative was divided up into ten sections, and should be read (by clicking on the lyrics button) while listening to the corresponding album track.

Lake Oreyd

"Lake Oreyd" is out at Metaphorosis Magazine, in the March issue, which has a beautiful cover inspired by my story.

The lake’s still surface was a golden quilt. The churches which amassed along the shore over the centuries now had their fossilized features balanced between day and night. A most sacred moment. The eyestalks, V-shaped like the chalice from which the Savior had drunk her poison, framed the setting sun, the tails like the scepters with which she’d been prodded to trial facing the rising moon.

One intake of breath, the sun dipped down, pulling the moon up, and the alignment was broken.

The podvodnya sank; my ears popped as we descended, and looking out the thick, round window it seemed as if the lake’s waters darkened in hue with each blink of the eye. When we neared the bottom some hours later, all was pitch black. The vessel’s searchlight turned on to sweep below us.

Corroded broken pipes lay in the sediment, barnacled and covered with algae. Our podvodnya crawled the lake’s bottom, much like benthic creatures of the past must have when they sought the source of God, tentacles sifting through silt, clawing at mud, chasing away eels which sparkled in the dark.

We could see only within that circle of pale light: our window to His underwater Kingdom.

(Read the whole story.)

Reprint: Boxes, Basements

"Boxes, Basements" has been reprinted in Eunoia Review, and can be read online for free.

The story originally appeared in L'Éphémère Review.

Boxes, Basements

"Boxes, Basements" is part of the new Issue of L'Éphémère Review, entitled Epoch.

The entire issue can be downloaded for free here.

When I opened my eyes my feet were the feet of a baby: I wore red baby shoes with thin blue stripes and white soles.

I looked at my hand. Cracked skin, veins branching out on the back of it, the hand of a grown man. Odd to see it without the black needle between forefinger and thumb, useless.

I got up (I'd been sitting cross-legged in the middle of the street, who knows how long) and walked toward the sidewalk as cars skidded, honking, drivers gaping at me from side-windows with their hands as if screwing in light bulbs before their faces.

I am perfectly fine, I thought, just transported. The record player. From the box in the basement.

The Curve

"The Curve," a story about innovation, discovery, and sorting algorithms, is out now in Issue #37 at NewMyths.com.

The despondent professor watched her students file out of the classroom. When the last one disappeared into the hallway crowd, she turned to the scrawled equations on the blackboard, arms crossed.

Big O notation, algorithmic complexity. As far as ultimate lessons go, she thought, she could’ve done much worse. Her eyes followed the mathematical expressions downward to their beautiful conclusions. She sighed, wiped the board clean.

Marinne sat down, stooped over her desk, when a gentle knock came on the door frame. 

...continue reading.

Interview: Siv Delfin

A short three-question interview with me is available on The Future Fire's Facebook page.

My story "Siv Delfin" appeared in The Future Fire #38 in October.

Siv Delfin

"Siv Delfin" -- my detective SF novelette set in Vasilegrad, the capital of an alternate universe Balkan Federation -- is out now at The Future Fire (Issue #38).

Siv Delfin.

 

The nightclub in Bobinki Rid nestled in a baroque building once part of a tobacco tycoon’s estate, now owned by a branch of the Bug-eyed, where the first sample was found. The police chemists called the drug a depressant, a memory-suppressant, fear inhibitor, mighty curious molecule, a self-replicating wondrous African import, foaming at their mouths at the thought of studying it further—but to Claire it was yet another criminal thread managing to weave itself in Vasilegrad’s warp-weft, remaking her city, one strand at a time, from within.

Siv Delfin. The crime scene gave the drug its name.

Read the story.