Serial Novel, Part Three

It starts to snow, and the world retreats. The light becomes spectral, indistinct will-o-the-wisps, and the buildings lose their geometric definitions. The road vanishes beneath a layer of white paste, and the cab's headlights make the snowfall glitter as if we were plunging into a rain of needles.

The cabbie leans forward and peers up at the blank sky. "Here it comes," he whispers. He sits back in his seat and shakes his head at the radio. "Just like you said . . ."

The woman's voice doesn't react. She continues, unabated, with her recitation. "2 12 5 1 11 26 5 18 15 . . ."

He nods once, and slows the cab to a stop. He twists his head to fully look at me, and I see the broken edge of his left cheek. Beneath the craggy surface of his skin, he seems to be jeweled. Rhinestones and diamonds, emeralds and pearls. "We're here," he says, nodding to the world outside the cab.

Part Three of The Oneiromantic Mosiac of Harry Potemkin is now available.

03.01.2007 @ 09:07 AM

The Jennifer Morgue review

"Eventually, serial characters find themselves growing hoary and out of touch with their time. Having passed the half-century mark, James Bond is no exception. A relic of the cold war, Bond has become an anachronism is this hyperkinetic, 24-7 world, and it is difficult for us--jaded, cynical, and information-saturated--to view his antics with the requisite level of disbelief. To rescue a character from this dismissive ennui, there are two options: strip away the bloated infrastructure and reboot the series (ably managed by 2006's refreshing Casino Royale with Daniel Craig) or embrace the canon as gospel and transform it. The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross's sequel to 2004's The Atrocity Archives, abstains from such a reworking: while it continues to mash up H. P. Lovecraft mythology and Gizmodo-ready geek speak, it is also thoroughly possessed by the archetypal spirit of Bond."

Full review at Strange Horizons.

02.13.2007 @ 07:08 AM

Serial Novel, Part Two available

"It's an opiate distilled from Blackleaf 23," he says. "The hallucinogenic side effects are quite fortuitous. A paralysis rooted in the patient's own psychosis is a much more effective method of population control." He smiles, and I see that his teeth are silver-plated. "The human mind is quite willing and able to fuck itself. We just have to nudge it a bit."

"Nudge it how?" I was familiar with Blackleaf, but not the 23rd expression. The earlier distillations were classified as psychotropics, but they were innocent of implied purpose. They were receptor drugs, not influencers.

"The twist of that strand is the key to UR-Gnosis," the physician says. "And it is a trade secret. Part of our intellectual property." He nods to the woman holding my wrist. "I have to give you a double dose now because you asked."

Part Two of The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin is now available.

02.02.2007 @ 07:10 AM

Hypertext Novel @ Farrago's in 2007

Farrago's Wainscot -- an exhibition of weirds, an almanac of experimentation and decay -- is exhibiting The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin, a novel-length hypertext experiment. Broken into twelve parts, it will run through 2007. Here's a teaser from "The Explanation," the argument of the book.

"My name is Harry Potemkin, and I am a black market oneirologist. The field of study--oneirology--is just a tiny stub on the tree of psychiatry, which suits us just fine. Our work is too sublime and too strange for mainstream journal publication. Not to mention the outrage our psychopharmacological methods would incite.

I used to be a licensed therapist, not a full Doctor of Psychiatry, but licensed enough to have an office, a couch, and be able to tell my patients that their time was up just as they were about to reach a critical psychological breakthrough. That was part of my frustration too, by the way: the intrusion of time and society into the healing process.

I wanted to help people, and I started by helping myself. Do you know the difference between a psychonaut and an oneironaut? The psychonaut studies himself. The oneironaut . . . well, it wouldn't do to admit to you that I experiment with the dreams of others, would it? Such an admission would certainly stain my credibility. "

Read it here: Harry's Journal

12.31.2006 @ 09:49 PM

Jigsaw Nation review

"Rising out of the political and cultural turmoil of the 2004 US Presidental elections, Jigsaw Nation is a themed anthology about secession. The basic launch point for these nineteen stories is that the country has split into Red and Blue states -- the geopolitical landscape has been redrafted by way of religious and cultural differences into a patchwork of territories. The writers, for the most part, see these barriers as arbitrary, peopling both sides with sympathetic characters whose traits and actions undercut the split that has turned their neighbors into their enemies. Their view of recent political events varies, however, as some see the political dichotomy of 2004 as a shallow and ultimately facile disagreement (they look back to the issues of the Civil War for a more deeply rooted cause for separation), while others treat the 2004 election as the beginning of an Orwellian descent into martial strife and jackbooted thuggery." Full review of Jigsaw Nation at Strange Horizons

10.22.2006 @ 09:39 PM

Paragaea Review

"Roberson's love for the pulps is readily apparent in his massive world-building. His characters stumble upon, walk past, and run through nearly every pulp convention you can think of, and therein lies the ultimate frustration with Paragaea." Full review of Chris Roberson's new book at Strange Horizons

08.03.2006 @ 05:45 AM

River of Gods review

"Whether it be the asexual nutes, the Avatars of Mr. Nandha's god gun, the aeais who populate the techno-tronic framework of society, or the whispering data flow that haunts Aj, the strange supra-reality of the divine is deeply at work in River of Gods." Full review of Ian McDonald's new book at Strange Horizons

06.13.2006 @ 09:18 PM

writing

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.

THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.

SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.

LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.