Stories in Progress
"Why do writers write? Because it isn't there."--Thomas Berger
This list tends to grow outdated with frightening rapidity, and my active projects shift from week to week, day to day.
Aspect of Sword (working title)
When he woke, Kien could not remember which way was up, the number of fingers on each hand, the word for yes and the gesture for never. He could not remember whether the infinity of endless counting outweighed the infinity of distances between two points, how many heartbeats it took to dismantle a onegun even when his fingers were slippery with oil and sweat, the names of his nearsisters who had died when the battlebridge Shine journeyed into winter near foreign stars.
Sf involving social psychology and large-scale social engineering, mixed with lots of paranoia. Frighteningly, some of my speculations on context/environment and inculcation of ideas bear an uncanny resemblanc educational theories I've learned. I overhauled the setting in a failed attempt to write space opera; what came out is interesting, just not space opera. Projected dedication: Paul Huwe.
Battledrift
At the sensors' first chirring, the starship sounded like any other fragment of battledrift, strident with the threat of weapons never disarmed, edges and shrapnel jagged with the memory of past, unpatched wounds. Lynx Kiter tilted her head, listening to the datastream and almost missing the keen dissonances that signaled a living ship. It was an easy thing, here at the juncture of Uguisu's Conquest and the Invasion of Rapalle, where only a finer ear than hers could disentangle the two.
Military sf intended as a stand-alone "sequel" to "Echoes Down an Endless Hall" (F&SF Apr. 2000). Battles in space leave remnants, in more ways than one. Projected dedication: Alex Winbow.
Banners (working title)
It stood without standing, did the wall. Men who lived and died in the silklands knew it as the Sign of the Cage. None of the hundredmen would live and die more than a shadow's throw from the Cage, though, and none of them called it anything but the wall, for all that no stones scarred the ground, locked together in an embrace deeper than bone, and no towers guarded its approaches. Nevertheless, its shadow stretched across the Peninsula of the Crescent like the promise of law, or death, or other things too great for single soldiers to compass, casting its fingers over river and across ravine with little heed for geographical boundaries.
A tentative fantasy novel under development based on the premise that if you're going to have archetypes, you might as well really use them. A woman walking away (from whom?) in the snow, black hair trailing behind her...
Between Two Dragons (working title)
Yen, you have to come back so I can tell you the beginning of your story. Everything is classified: every soldier unaccounted for, every starsail deployed far from home, every gram of shrapnel...every word that might have passed between us. Word of the last battles will come tomorrow, say the official news services; but we have heard the same thing for the last fistful of days. And what is tomorrow, after all, but a morning after darkness?
Military sf, despite the working title. War between two nations, Cho and Yamat; one of the few soldiers with the capability to rally Cho's forces may already have been damaged beyond repair. Projected dedication: Prof. Barry S. Strauss and my parents.
Birdcrumbs
She watched the woodcutter's children during their first walk in the woods. The pebbles in Hänsel's hand shone white as the moon, bright as the noon, as he dropped them; when night came, and their parents had not returned, the pebbles led HŠnsel and his sister Gretel back home. Ah, she thought, they will escape the witch. And so it was, and in the passing of days, famine receded from the land.
Revisionist fairytale flash based on Hänsel und Gretel, an exploration of ecological niches, and a meditation on starvation. Thanks to Barbara Friend Ish, Mrissa, Jacqueline A. Lott, my sister, Margaret Ronald, Lisa Mia Moore, and Scott Andrews.
Bone and Chalice
He did not remember a time when the city had not been burning, no matter what his senses told him, or the dry pages of his history said. In his dreams the smoke made of the sky a funeral shroud. In waking, the wind smelled of ash, the buildings of angry flame. Everything was washed in orange and amber, flickering, shadows cinder-edged. And for all that, it never burned him. He wished it would.
I started this for National Novel Writing Month 2006 and circumstances intervened (I had guessed that they would), but in the meantime, it sucks to be an ex-paladin illegal surgeon wandering around with a spare soul.
Braided
There lived a man in the tower and he had no eyes. The birds of the sky came to him and he knew them by the beats of their wings. The sun in the sky traveled its white road and he knew it by the heat of its breath.
Fantasy with nods toward Mesopotamian mythology. Thanks to Margaret Ronald, Jacqueline A. Lott, Oyce, Elizabeth Burdick, and others for their encouragement.
City of Herons
It is not a place to nurture herons, this city at the crossroads of four nations and a river. Mai-quen guards the bridge that spans the terrible waters, and raises or lowers the unrusting chains in the river as the season's diplomatic relations dictate. Mai-quen is also known throughout the four nations and beyond as the City of Herons; its seal bears the heron's sharp beak and sinuous neck, the heron's wings outspread in flight. It is not a name that anyone has questioned, until now.
A fantasy fragment that I started scribbling under the influence of Paul Arena's summer Italian class at Urban Scholars. Many thanks, Paul.
Clockwise Shadows
In the darkness I heard the clocktower strike two, then five, then eleven.
I was the only one who heard the two deep tolls, the five dark tolls. For a moment, as I blinked into the streetlights slanting from the window, I thought I stood in a keep at the boundaries of dream and death, waiting for the bells to swing from light to darkness and back again.
Sf that originated as a college satire involving mecha, videogames and launching clocktowers. You'd think it'd be easy to keep lighthearted but no, it turned into a postapocalyptic secret war, on a twisted future Earth, and since STEP (which triggered my speculative educational theories) and reading Kuttner's The Dark World it's taken a darker turn. Thanks to my sister, Joe, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who made me write a proposal for the thing; to Charles M., Stacy C., M.F., Josh Rosenthal, Jeff Jones, and those who came to the reading of the first chunk.
Projected dedication: For the gamers and the RUPH crowd; for the people behind the pumpkin; and most of all, for the fellow student who told me I'd made his day when I said to him, as we walked by a scaffolded McGraw Tower, "It looks like it's gonna launch, doesn't it?"
Cutting Corners
Ten nameless ships plus their nameless carrier. Not much of a fleet but, as the captain said, it was all we had. I was sure that, in other Haussen bases, newly reassigned personnel were staring at their own ships and scratching their heads--or shivering in dread--at the idea that a human might pilot these things.
Military sf inspired after thinking about the economics of war. Not that I know anything about real economics, but it was the principle of the thing. I was reading Dunnigan's Digital Soldiers and thinking, What happens if the government can't afford all the new high-tech toys? Thanks to Rilina and my sister.
The Dead General
Lisse Sub-Rhaeon did not, at first, connect the message with the conquest and annexation of her homestation, Rhaeon, by an enterprising mercenary state-without-anchor. The message was not addressed to her or to Rhaeon. It had appeared simultaneously at several starflight hubs, addressed to no one but everyone, and occasioned much speculation. Even Lisse, brooding over her new [refugee] status on Blackwheel Station, had noticed it.
Sf, in a conjunction of strange influences: cellular automata and Conway's Game of Life, Keegan's Mask of Command and Face of Battle, and a messed-up roleplaying/space opera dream. (I'd say you had to be there, except...) I blame Wheelock's Latin for the names, and myself for the inevitable mangling. Thanks to my sister.
The Game of Black
Formerly with the working title Silly Space Opera (SSO).
Each of the empire's systems in guarded by a sun-cannon; each of the flagships in the emperor's service wields a sun-cannon; and the greatest sun-cannon of all guards Chindal. Alone it bears a name: Death's Desire. No one ascribes any needless symbolism to this name.
So I thought: What if I based a space opera on Joseon Korea? And had alien bird-based stardrives? And a runaway emperor? It has a setting. It has a plot. I just need to focus myself on this one long enough to write it. Of course, it keeps wanting to turn into quasi-anthropological notes crossed with Cthulhu in space.
Ghost Banners (working title)
Five. No, four. Four had to be enough.
Anjen's hands trembled under the silken weight of the ghost-standards. She didn't even have time to choose. She wasn't supposed to be in the deeps of the old fortress anyway, where they were forbidden to go without the sword-lanterns to light their way, but the fortress was falling, and she thought she might be the only one left.
A fantasy collaboration with my sister. It's moved in some strange and wonderful directions. Needs reining in.
Goodnight Story
She peeked out from under the covers while her father, dark-haired, smiled at her. Beyond him, in the doorway, stood a lamp: tall, bright, with a smile that was either all on or all off.
Fantasy, mostly, about goodnight stories and a lamp and travelling to the moon. Thanks to Mrissa, Charles M., and my sister.
The Graffiti Game
Sae Streven considered Graffiti a wasteland world, a wayward world, a pyre for dead wars amid words, words, words. This was only expected. Streven had been born on Graffiti.
Sf about a vast, vast war, a young man who has no choice but to leave home, and a tactical linguist. I am going to have too much fun with this premise.
Mask and Glove
It was on the Night of the Starbird, when stars fell out of the sky like a bright rain of feathers, that the starwind carried away the executioner's voice. He did not realize what had happened until the next morning, when he opened his mouth to reply to a summons from the Pale Fortress and silence gusted out, momentarily cutting through the messenger's courtesies. At the time, all the executioner had noticed was an ephemeral tugging, like a whisper of silk across his skin.
High fantasy; even, God help me, quest fantasy, influenced by fragments of Western mythologies and oddments of math. It contains pieces of story excised from older drafts of Paper Knives, but is another world entirely. An executioner who has sacrificed all but the barest shreds of self finds himself traveling with a woman whose brother he is duty-bound to kill, and that's just the beginning of the complications. I wrote a whoppin' chunk of this while eight months pregnant, not that that's enough reason to go through pregnancy again. Projected dedication to Hunter and Target.
Nevernight
She was the Nevernight, the dreadnought that had led countless battles and decided countless more. In times of extremity, she had altered the maze-winds by which starships found their fates. No captain had bannered her for the past thousand years.
Sf. Originally a space-opera-in-an-envelope, in fact. Thanks to Kate Nepveu.
Obscura
The first time I met the man, I didn't realize he wasn't a photographer. I was fourteen, maybe with a notion of flirting with him. The bus stop was busy that day; just a little harmless risk. I was playing games like that because love was overrated, lies were sweet, all the things I told myself when I couldn't sleep at night.
A man with a camera. A girl with a grudge. Thanks to Mrissa and Fialka. Projected dedication to Hannah Wolf Bowen.
Paper Knives
Formerly Origami Souls, except I changed numerous names. Or should I switch it back?
His shadow was wandering again. It was a habit that irritated Kite as often as it bemused him. The shadow paced the floor restively, a lean, dark shape unfettered by Salt's own stillness or the jeweled colors of light that slanted from the stained-glass windows. Bad enough, he thought, that he was a foreigner in Harafa, the City of Tears, which he had chosen for his exile; that the Harafai looked askance at the absent adulthood tattoos beneath his eyes no matter how properly his veil was arranged; that he carried a vaesaczen as his blade of office and not a peace-knotted scimitar. But no: his shadow, severed like that of any Qenaren magistrate, unnerved his visitors. If it refrained from making sudden movements when he was obliged to meet with superstitious Harafai, it might even be an advantage.
A fantasy novel set in a world that is neither West nor East, in the midst of a burgeoning industrial revolution, amid two nations haunted by the echoes of a past battle that nobody won. Naracze, one of my conlang projects, is the language spoken by most of the characters. Nearly complete, with an outline and synopsis.
Thanks to Chymera; the Critters, especially Rupa K. Bose, Jouni Karhu, and Beth Bernobich; Jesse Stephen Bangs and many conlangers; my sister; Josh Rosenthal; Alex Kay; Carlos Castillo-Garsow; Riemannia; Lisa Mia Moore, Andrew Willett, James Macdonald, and Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Viable Paradise VIII; Rilina; Oyceter; Sam Kabo Ashwell; Geoff Cohen; Sherwood Smith; Kate Nepveu; Peter Berman; Geoff Cohen; Ariel; Keilexandra; J.C. Runolfson; and Helen Keeble.
Swanwatch
Officially, the five exiles on the station were the Initiates of the Fermata. Unofficially, the Concert of Worlds called them the swanwatch.
Sf about suicide art and music. Thanks to Sam Kabo Ashwell, Keilexandra, Yune Kyung Lee, and Helen Keeble.
The Territorialist (working title)
It looked to be a promising day when the bones at the back of the room began to shake. Captain Jenus hadn't seem that alarum in years. He would have preferred not to start now. "Find Wrack," he said to the nervous assistant. Wrack was, despite her erratic wanderings, his best lieutenant when it came to odd occurrences, and anything involving the bones was going to be odd.
Action fantasy, also known as the Manly Prose Experiment. (I'll explain someday.) In a city named Spine, where magic is dangerously modular, the guards have to put down a rogue territory. Thanks to Sam Kabo Ashwell and the BRAWLers.
Unsing the Siege Unending
Four hundred years ago, at the Siege Unending, the two greatest generals of opposing factions--Chain, the Blind General, and master artificer Raveline the Decadent--betrayed every precept of war in destroying the sustaining World Axis. The armies, the garrisons, the towns established around the Siege all perished. And, observers believed, so did the traitors.
Four hundred years have passed, and only isolated orreries have kept night from colliding with day, winter with summer, death with birth. The survivors, led by Bronze the Horologer, have begun aligning the orreries in an attempt to regenerate the World Axis. But a fatigueman named Rust and a veteran bannerman's descendant, maskbreaker Rain, are determined to sabotage the project, for they foresee the resurrection of the Siege Unending--and there are already signs that Chain and Raveline have returned with new faces to complete their toll of destruction.
Space opera. That's from the synopsis; came up with the idea for a past NaNoWriMo, although I didn't end up participating. Yeah, I'm crazy.
Warbird Rising
The first time he woke after dying, they told him his name. He believed them.
The second time, he had learned better. "I can't be Jenner Morgenthal," he said, sitting up on the cold infirmary bench, flexing his hands and wondering if the skin beneath the synthetic gloves was the same color it had been the last time. Memory suggested yes. Paranoia suggested no. "For one, he's been dead for over fifty years. Everyone knows that." But he hadn't, that first time. "For another, he died in the heart of a star."
Science fiction. A left turn: I've put the old story with this title back in the recycling heap and started a new story: a space opera about a "murderers' legion."
Where the Heart's Rivers Run
Stolen mules. Cooked mules--though the thieves' stew had smelled appallingly appetizing. Taxes on foreigners who carried (visible) weapons. The "bandit's tax" on foreigners who carried no (visible) weapons. Directional tabus that obliged unwitting travellers to detour days out of the safe, obvious bridge crossing and risk themselves on a rickety, unrepaired crossing. Religious tabus that resulted in arcane duels...
After all their mishaps, Tseya had forgotten that something as trivial as her partner's shadow could also get them in trouble.
Semi-sword-and-sorcery concerning Kite and a former assassin named Tseya after the end of Paper Knives (although given the continuity glitches, they're off in their own alternate universe). What happens when two exiled, homesick travelers are given an opportunity to return, at a price?
The Winged City
When General Minkhir came through the city gates, Chukash saw the emblem of conquest in her hand. This time it took the shape of a bronze crescent drenched in blood. Horns blared from the city's battlements as Minkhir led her guard from the White Road. Chukash fell in beside her, holding a basin to catch the dripping blood. The trees to either side of them were straightening, the gray-brown limbs flushing to a warmer, green-tinged hue, but the street was as dry and dusty as it had been before the general's departure.
Epic? fantasy in a parched city from the viewpoint of a man of clay with a handprint within him, among other mysteries. Thanks to Aliette de Bodard, Kiz, Mrissa, and the BASFW.
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