Friday, February 23, 2007

THE SITUATION

PS Publishing will publish my long story The Situation as a stand-alone in spring of 2008. I'm very excited to be working with PS, since they do some of the most interesting covers and books around. The Situation has everything: incompetent managers, backstabbing coworkers, a giant grub creature, a fish with a human face, and a lot more besides. I think it's one of my best stories.

BTW--Luis Rodrigues is working on a wonderful new WordPress template for me and I should be moving there from Blogger sometime in the next month. For this reason, I am doing mostly short posts for now. But I will be blogging about the Oscars--check here tomorrow for more information on that.

Jeff

PS The writers whose stories we've accepted for the pirate anthology now stand at: Jayme Blaschke, Rachel Swirsky, Carrie Vaughn, Sarah Monette, Elizabeth Bear ("Zee Bear! Zee Bear!"), Kage Baker, and Howard Waldrop, with more to come in the next week...


Excerpts from "The Situation"...


One day I could have sworn I heard a sighing sound coming from the darkness that was the high ceiling of my office. The ceiling almost seemed alive. I told myself I was paranoid, but that afternoon I felt a vast wind and a huge black manta ray detached itself and flew out of my door and into the shadows. Such a creature was beyond Scarskirt’s skill level, or even Leer’s. It had to be reporting back to the Mord.

*

My Manager forced me to put my beetle in my own ear, a clear waste, and an act that gave me nightmares: of a burning city through which giant carnivorous lizards prowled, eating survivors off of balconies and window ledges. In one particularly vivid moment, I stood on a ledge as the jaws closed in, heat-swept, and tinged with the smell of rotting flesh. Beetles intended for the tough, tight minds of children should not be used by adults. We still remember a kinder, gentler world.

8 Comments:

At 11:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hurrah! Pete rocks, and picks the best damned stuff around.fahng4Cu

 
At 12:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

PS does indeed rock. I just finished Illyria, by Elizabeth Hand, and it was simply incredible.

The Situation sounds like it takes place in an office setting. Man-eating Xerox machines? The TPS Report That Time Forget?

Can you give us any more deets?

Ian Rogers

 
At 12:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It does take place in a kind of office setting. It's very surreal. References are made to a broken-down world outside of the company. The narrator is trying to come to grips with a very odd and toxic situation. There's no descriptive cover copy yet.

I think it's unlikely you'd read the story and not find the back of your skull blown out by the end, though. If that helps.

Paul--Nick Gevers is the guy who took it, along with Pete.

JeffV

 
At 12:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nick is excellent as well, although I haven't talked to him too much. Mostly I've had conversations with Pete. Really nice guy, too.

Sounds like a great book- can't wait to read it.

And Ian- just read Illyria last month and loved it as well. Very heart breaking. ANd beautiful.

 
At 12:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul -- I had heard of Elizabeth Hand before, but it was that story that brought me to her work. Afterwards I went out and bought a bunch of her books. And then I came upon her novella, The Least Trumps in YBFH. I love finding a new favorite author and then discovering their work in books I've owned for years.

Jeff -- Sounds like it's going to be a goodie. For some reason I love stories set in offices. Probably because I work in one. Doesn't matter if it's a comedy or a horror or a fantasy tale. I'll be looking forward to it.

I liked your comment, btw, about getting the back of my skull blown out. When I read it I pictured the cover of the book, designed to look like some sort of office training manual, with your comment at the bottom done up like a cross between an author endorsement and a warning note.

Ian

 
At 11:51 PM, Blogger Jason Erik Lundberg said...

Conga rats, Jeff! PS is simply awesome.

 
At 5:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, I mean, I wasn't trying to toot my own horn, just trying to describe the story. It's just it's a surreal tale with very charged images, but anchored to the most basic and comprehensible of human motivations. Which is why I'm excited about it.

I also hope to have news soon about the story Cat Rambo and I have been working on, "The Surgeon's Tale".

JeffV

 
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