Science Fiction and Fantasy

Note: I fear I only update this page sporadically. You might be able to find more current information on my blog.

 

Books:
 

My novel Yseult was published in German (hardcover) in January 2009 as Flamme und Harfe by the Random House Germany imprint Penhaligon. It is a retelling of the legend of Tristan and Isolde.

 

The Dutch translation appeared as Isolde in the middle of 2009. It was followed by two book club editions, from Bertelsmann and Weltbild.
 

The Italian came out almost the same time as the paperback published by the German imprint of Random House, Blanvalet.
 

When I got the English rights back, I brought the novel out as an ebook for Amazon Kindle, adding a subtitle: Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur. While in my version of the tale, Arthur is Dux Bellorum rather than king, I doubt if many people on the lookout for Arthurian literature are using Arthur Dux as their search term. :)

A paperback version of the novel is in planning; I'll announce it on my blog when it's available.
 
I recently completed a novel in the same world, Shadow of Stone, which I did my best to write as a stand-alone book. A number of the characters are the same as in Yseult / Flamme und Harfe, but seeing as the love story of Tristan and Isolde ended tragically in the first book (given the literary antecedents), the plot of Shadow of Stone takes a different direction on a number of levels.

 

Awards and nominations:

My short story "Mars: A Traveler's Guide" (F&SF 2008) was nominated for a Nebula in 2009. I am very happy to have lost to my friend Nina Kiriki Hofmann, who lives in my old hometown of Eugene, Oregon, and is a member of Wordos, an excellent writing workshop of which I am proud to be an honorary member.

The Italian translation of my novella "Looking Through Lace" ("Il linguaggio segreto") won the Premio Italia in 2007 for the best work translated into Italian. The following year I was Writer Guest of Honor at Deepcon in Fiuggi.

"Looking Through Lace" also made it onto the short list for the Tiptree award and was nominated for the Sturgeon Award for the best short fiction of 2003.

 

Short fiction:

* "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Monkey," Daily Science Fiction, Feb. 2012.

* "Faces of Nefertiti," Times of Trouble anthology (forthcoming)

* "To Act the Witch," Tales of Moreauvia, Vol. 1, No 3 (2010)

* "The Bleeding and the Bloodless," Giganotosaurus, Nov. 2010.

* "Woman in Abaya with Onion," Fantasy Magazine, June 2009.

* "In the Middle of Nowhere With Company," Abyss and Apex, April 2009.

* "On the Shadow Side of the Beast," Apex, January 2009.

* "Troy and the Aliens," Abyss and Apex, Oct. 2008.

* "Ghosts of Dead Ideas," Renard's Menagerie, Oct. 2008

* "Act of Conviction," originally published Helix #9, Summer 2008, now available at Transcriptase.

* "If Tears Were Wishes," Abyss and Apex, January 2008.

* "Mars: A Traveler's Guide," Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 2008

* "Hobdale," (with Jay Lake) Fantastic Whitby, Liz Williams and Sue Thomason, eds. (2008)

* "Incipit" (with Jay Lake) The New Book of Masks, Forrest Aguirre, ed. (2007)

* "Far Side of the Moon," Ideomancer, June 2007

* "The Leaving Sweater," Strange Horizons, June 25, 2007

* "Roger Lambelin," (with Jay Lake) Realms of Fantasy, Oct. 2007

* "The Other Side of Silence," Futurismic Jan. 2006.

* "Return to Nowhere," (with Jay Lake) Jigsaw Nation

* "The Old Man and the Sneakers," Farthing April 2006

* "Sailing to Utopia," Flytrap, May 2006

* "Schwarze Madonna and the Sandalwood Knight," (with Jay Lake) Realms of Fantasy, June 2006

* "Triple Helix," Ideomancer, June 2006

* "A Handful of Dust," Forgotten Worlds, Issue Two

* "Feather and Ring," Asimov's August 2006

* "Exit Without Saving," Futurismic, August 2006 -- Included in Rich Horton's Science Fiction 2007: The Best of the Year

* "The Big Ice" (with Jay Lake) Jim Baen's Universe, Dec. 2006
-- Included in Gardner Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction for 2006

* "Blink," Albedo One 32 (2006)

* "Rainmakers," Asimov's, June 2005.
- Included in the anthology Prime Codex.

* "Happily Ever Awhile," Strange Horizons, June 20, 2005.

* "Dragon Time," Fantastic Companions Julie Czerneda, ed., 2005

* "Rivers of Eden," (with Jay Lake) Futurismic, July 2005.

* "Revenge in the Funhouse," TEL : Stories, Jay Lake, ed. 2005.

* "A Debt to Collect," Northwest Passages, 2005.

* "Visiting Bad Town," (with Jay Lake) Ion Trails, August 3005.

* "The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Home From the Stars," (with Jay Lake) Scifiction, Sept. 29, 2005.
- Included in Gardner Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction for 2005.

* "Scraps of Eutopia," Nine Muses, Deb Layne and Forrest Aguirre, eds., 2005.

* "Shadow Memory," Marsdust, April 2004

* "The Tiresias Project," Futurismic, July 2004

* "King Orfeigh," Realms of Fantasy, Oct. 2004

* "A Serca Tale," NFG, January 2003.

* "Looking Through Lace," novella, Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2003.
- Besides an award and some nominations, it also has the distinction of being taught in a college course. Talk about a reversal -- some of the stories being treated with my novella are things I used to teach in my college courses back when I was still in academia.

* "Wooing Ai Kyarem," Andromeda Spaceways, Dec. 2003

* "Princes and Priscilla," Strange Horizons, April 8, 2002.

* "Latency Time," Asimov's Science Fiction, July, 2001.

 

Hyperfiction

* Cutting Edges: Or, A Web of Women
This one too has seen a certain amount of attention.  

* Joe's Heartbeat in Budapest  

* "Triple Helix," Ideomancer, June 2006  

 

In the works

    Right now I'm working on a novel in multiple timelines, Fragments of Legend, loosely based on the Nibelungenlied and the theory that the most German of German epics was written by a woman.
 

Completed novels in rough draft include:

* Chameleon in a Mirror is a time travel novel based on the life of Aphra Behn, the first professional woman writer in English. My fascination with Behn goes back almost twenty years, and I also maintain the Aphra Behn Page.

* The Shadow of Stone, a follow-up novel to Yseult / Flamme und Harfe. While the background plot arc of Yseult was the story of Arthur and his companions at the battle of Caer Baddon, in Shadow of Stone it is the events leading up to the Battle of Camlann.

* The Alchemist's Apprentice. (YA) London, 1672: The scientific revolution has not yet occurred, chemistry is a hobby for hacks, and alchemists such as Sir Darian Childe are the magicians of the age. In this alternate Restoration, Darian discovers the principle of transmutation, the recipe for gold -- and unwittingly creates a world in which magic has been set free. His discovery puts both him and his young apprectices Anne and Felix in mortal danger, and they must uncover the identity of their enemies before those same enemies can murder them and steal the secret which is only beginning to change the world.

* In the Shadow of Helios, a kind of alternate history / fantasy, the premise being that Greece was never swallowed by the Roman empire and remained the dominant culture for several hundred more years. In a world in which the Colossus of Rhodes never fell and the Roman Empire never existed, Kalandra, a Mage of Prophecy and wife of the Archon of Rodos, learns of a personal betrayal that will plumet her world into war. It's set on Rhodes, where I spent two wonderful vacations, starts out with a ton of sex, and ends up with magic.