{"id":2611,"date":"2013-08-25T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2013-08-22T10:31:38","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T15:31:38","slug":"rayguns-over-texas-preview-jessica-reisman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2013\/08\/25\/rayguns-over-texas-preview-jessica-reisman\/","title":{"rendered":"Rayguns Over Texas preview: Jessica Reisman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cover<\/a>

Cover by Rocky Kelley<\/p><\/div>\n

As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of\u00a0Rayguns Over Texas\u00a0<\/em><\/a>at\u00a0LoneStarCon 3<\/a>\u00a0(aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s selection comes from\u00a0Jessica Reisman<\/a>‘s\u00a0\u201cThe Chambered Eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jessica Reisman\u2019s imaginative\u00a0coming-of-age tale introduces a truly\u00a0alien society. Sebira, a mind reader in a\u00a0traveling show, fears for her future as her\u00a0abilities go awry.<\/p>\n

My flash gear earned looks. I wore colors that ached in the\u00a0peripheral vision, mirrors and holo-bead designs in my layered\u00a0rags; the show performers all made sure to be a walking advert for\u00a0Gamboges Vivant when we hit public places.<\/p>\n

A woman walked by me with her gaze down, a worried expression\u00a0tightening the lines of her face. \u201cIt will be today,\u201d I said, easy and\u00a0just ever so singsong. I can\u2019t really tell you what else I sensed, but I\u00a0sensed, and I read what I sensed. \u201cToday \u2014 and in your favor, don\u2019t\u00a0worry.\u201d Her wary expression dissolved into a smile as she took in my\u00a0appearance and what I was saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him,\u201d I said next, to a tall, thick man in the coverall of a maintenance tech, \u201ctell him that you love him.\u201d He colored over and\u00a0ducked his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys, a seer!\u201d a boy called to his pod and three of them gathered\u00a0round me. Seers is what people call reader-teller performers. We\u00a0don\u2019t see, though, we sense, and then interpret. I found something\u00a0in each of them, in their bearing, and in the things that connected\u00a0them, and gave them the happy news that the fourth member of\u00a0their pod, back in cr\u00e8che for tests, would be fine and with them\u00a0again soon.<\/p>\n

Readers, we only read what\u2019s there to be read, but isn\u2019t by most\u00a0folks. We should just be called understanders, or interpreters, or\u00a0something. Calling us seers is just to make us grand and magic for\u00a0the show.<\/p>\n

I read a bunch more folks, singles and pods, as they came by,\u00a0spreading the word about the show as I did. When Gilley came to\u00a0collect me I was starving and euphoric.\u00a0It isn\u2019t like that for every reader. Some get sad, or so tired they\u00a0have to sleep. I love it. Hassif\u2019s like me and Mika gets sad, but in what\u00a0she calls a luxurious way, so she kind of likes it; Ben, though, always\u00a0sounds a little insane. It\u2019s like he thinks he\u2019s reading the world, or the\u00a0air. We use it in the show, but it makes the rest of us nervous.<\/p>\n

There are stories about readers \u2014 one member or an entire pod \u2014\u00a0that\u2019ve gone wrong, their genesets a sequence off from stable. Mad,\u00a0ill, broken \u2014 taken back to a sector cr\u00e8che and never heard of again.\u00a0Reader pods weren\u2019t common; the geneset was, at that time, one of the\u00a0most experimental.<\/p>\n

Gilley handed me a spiced fish bun. The Wulf-cart, loaded with\u00a0vegetables, oil-paper packets of fish and seaweeds, sacks of grain and\u00a0spices, and a big jar of honey, rolled behind her with its rope tail swaying.\u00a0Something pale swam through the corner of my vision, like a fish\u00a0tracing a figure in the currents of the air. I brushed a hand over my
\neye, pushed my hair back, but my hair is dark, not pale, so it wasn\u2019t my\u00a0hair I was seeing from the corner of my eye. It came again, a graceful\u00a0creature of lace and almost-there color describing a figure that tried\u00a0to say things to me, in that place between my forehead and the back of\u00a0my shoulders where reading happened.<\/p>\n

Then it was gone and I dismissed it as we walked back through the\u00a0train yard, a maze of inlets, docks, float tracks and seatrains, great\u00a0hulking supply movers and sleek but ornate hotel cars from out of the\u00a0east, coral frames and cuttlefish skins, all festooned with seabirds, the\u00a0sky above full of their flight and cries.<\/p>\n

We were coming around one of the scuffed heavy supply engines,\u00a0rocking slightly at its mooring, when pain pulsed through me, just\u00a0below my stomach.<\/p>\n

I made a noise and Gilley said \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHurts,\u201d I said, pressing a palm over the pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou ate too fast,\u201d Gilley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always eat fast,\u201d I said; another sling of pain down through my\u00a0middle and into my thighs made me whimper.<\/p>\n

By the time we got back to the show grounds, just beyond the main\u00a0train yard, my thighs and arms were trembling. The show was bright\u00a0and alive with activity in the full morning light, the sea an endless\u00a0shifting beyond.<\/p>\n

I ignored everyone and everything and headed along the dock\u00a0to my pod\u2019s train car. Hassif was still there and I just mumbled\u00a0something to him, feeling like I was going to die as I dove for my bunk\u00a0and curled into a tight knot.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help. Polyps and mollusks, <\/em>I cursed in my own head, what\u00a0is wrong with me?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excerpt of \u201cThe Chambered Eye\u201d \u00a9 2013 by Jessica Reisman.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of\u00a0Rayguns Over Texas\u00a0at\u00a0LoneStarCon 3\u00a0(aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day. Today\u2019s selection comes from\u00a0Jessica Reisman‘s\u00a0\u201cThe Chambered Eye.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-rayguns-over-texas"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n