Two of my stories came out on the web this month, which means you can read them in the privacy of your own home without anyone knowing you’re one of those reader people.
The first story, Pioneers and Indians, came out in Fusion Fragment #4. It’s the beginning of a sprawling near-future epic, a roughly-planned anthology-slash-novel in the same vein as Accelerando or the Martian Chronicles.
The world that this describes grows out of my experience with radical groups in Austin. I was trying to imagine a scenario where the hippies actually won. There’s a lot of criticism of American consumerism and the culture of speed, loneliness, and overwork. But there’s not that many fleshed-out images of how an alternative lifestyle and a parallel economy might actually work. But then if you remove the bullshit from society, it’s just human nature to try and put a lot of it back.
Oh, and the location that’s described in this story actually exists. I camped there when I was canoeing the Mississippi.
When I emailed out the publication announcement for Pioneers and Indians(sort of like a birth announcement, but there’s less money involved), one of my writing colleagues was surprised that Asimov’s hadn’t published it. Well, Asimov’s had the chance, as did ten other markets. It took five years to bring this story to market. And I’m glad that Fusion Fragment took it. Hopefully it will stay up for years, bringing in the eyeballs.
The second story, that just came out today, has no particular meaning or context. It’s just sci-fi flash that’s kinda funny. Gimpbomb Enters Room follows our protagonist through an ordinary evening in a chilling futurist dystopia of online chat.
My original draft had the most depressing ending that I could imagine, so I’m glad that Mr.Marschalk had me re-write it as something a little more upbeat. I don’t know why I always try to make the endings bummers. Maybe it’s because my parents loved me, thereby leaving me desperate for angst and enui.