New Collection: Transfusion and Other Tales of Hope

I have a new collection of short fantasy fiction, just out from Book View Cafe. And am quietly, quiveringly proud of it. I hope you'll enjoy it, too. You can download a free sample from the BVC site.


Here's the skinny:

The vampire has known only evil since he was made, until an unlikely friendship reconnects him with life… Two women mourning two dead mothers tread the boundaries between grief and obsession… A ghoulish spirit haunts a refugee in Renaissance Venice… A healer discovers a dying man with the heart of a dragon on her doorstep… Two boys travel back in time to discover the true nature of Tyrannosaurus rex… A mother vampire, struggling to raise two vampire children in Hollywood, encounters her biggest challenge yet: the PTA.

From the ancient Indus Valley to post-apocalyptic California come fourteen tales of love, redemption, and hope…and occasional humor.

[links] The vampire squid and other cool things

Yes, there really is such a thing as a vampire squid, and it's even cooler than the name suggests.

A ‘living fossil,’ the vampire squid inhabits the deep waters of all the world’s ocean basins at depths from 500 to 3,000 m. The species is a soft-bodied, passive creature, about the size, shape, and color of a football. It has a dark red body, huge blue eyes, and a cloak-like web that stretches between its eight arms. When threatened, the squid turns inside out, exposing rows of wicked-looking ‘cirri.’

Bats are pollinators, too. And a lot more cuddly than bees.

The birds and the bees may rule the daytime, but as soon as the sun sets, it is the bats that get to work pollinating. Worldwide, over 500 species of flowers in at least 67 plant families rely on bats as their major or exclusive pollinators.

Marella Sands on "Stonefell Gift" in GIFTS OF DARKOVER

On a wondrous planet of telepaths and swordsmen, nonhumans and ancient mysteries, a technologically advanced, star-faring civilization comes into inevitable conflict with one that has pursued psychic gifts and turned away from weapons of mass destruction. Darkover offers many gifts, asked for and unexpected. Those who come here, ignorant of what they will find, discover gifts outside themselves and within themselves. The door to magic swings both ways, however, and many a visitor leaves the people he encounters equally transformed.

Gifts of Darkover will be released May 5, 2015, and is now available for pre-order.

Here is Marella Sands on her story, "Stonefell Gift."

What was your introduction to Darkover?

I believe it was the novel Hawkmistress.  I was fascinated with the world and with the magic and started reading all the Darkover novels I could find.  While I liked them, the later time periods didn’t quite capture my imagination as much as the earlier Hundred Kingdoms era. But what I really wanted to read about was even earlier, during the Ages of Chaos. What were the breeding programs? What disasters led them to be abandoned? What were clingfire and bonedust? Who founded the Towers? Stormqueen! assuaged my curiosity a bit, but I wanted more. So when the invitation came to write a story for Gifts of Darkover, I knew instantly what time period I wanted to write about, and what the subject would be.

“Stonefell Gift” takes place as the Comyn are starting to exert control and eliminate the breeding programs. Three of them come to Stonefell and discover how tragic the consequences of lethal genes can be.

If I have the opportunity to write again in the world of Darkover, I am sure I will revisit the Ages of Chaos. There must be untold numbers of stories of that time that would lay bare the reasons the Compact was deemed necessary for the survival of everyone on Darkover.

What have you written recently?

I have tried my hand at different things, such as a fiction novel called Snows of Kansas. It’s about a young man who returns home to take care of his dying mother after many years away, only to discover that the truths he always believed about his small town upbringing aren’t very true after all.

And I am shopping around a horror story called Night Shift, With Music, which is set in one of the Munich Leichenhauser (waiting mortuaries), where the citizens of the city left their dead for several days before burying them. They did this because people feared being buried alive and wanted to ensure no one would suffer that fate. Living people could tour a Leichenhaus for a small fee; Mark Twain was one of the more famous people to do so. My story tells of an attendant who falls in love with a visitor to the Leichenhaus, and the consequences to both of them when the object of his love catches the plague.

Thunderlord snippet - A Ball At Scathfell

Please remember that this is a work in progress and drafts have a habit of changing drastically from inception to finished book.

From Thunderlord Chapter 14

“Damisela Alayna?” Lord Scathfell rose to his feet and faced her, one hand extended. “Will you accord me the privilege of the first dance?”

Even if she had not been delighted with the opportunity to dance, she could not have refused. Such an honor – to be selected by the lord of the castle himself for the first dance! Ellimira would have been beside herself. And with such an introduction, it would not be improper for any of his guests to follow suit, would it?

Alayna placed her hand in his and followed him to the center of the dancing area. His fingers closed around hers, exerting pressure to conduct her to where she was to stand. She had heard of how a skillful male dancer could guide even the most inexperienced lady through complicated patterns, but never before had she had the sensation of moving effortlessly in time with the music. She’d attended dances enough at home, crude, rollick affairs compared to a ball like this. They could all dance, of course, simple reels for the young folk and promenadas for the elders. These movements were like the finest spidersilk to their homespun.

Oh no, now the musicians were playing the final cadence. The lines of dancers paused, men and women facing each other. Lord Scathfell bowed, but not so low that she could not see his smile or the brightness in his eyes, surely mirroring her own. She recovered enough to execute a curtsy that would have done Ellimira proud, and masked her disappointment as he escorted her back to her seat.

[poetry] Jim C. Hines rhapsodizes the Hugo Awards

From Jim C. Hines's excellent LJ comes this reflection on this year's Hugo Awards kerfuffle. Enjoy!

Three Hugos for Mil-SF and their space marines;
Seven for the grimdark-lords in their halls of blood;
Nine for mortal fans doomed to blog;
One for Neil Gaiman on his dark throne
In the Land of Worldcon where the Shadows lie.