Archive for February, 2008

Stupid Plague

Posted by Michael Livingston in Homelife on February 11th, 2008

It seems my plague has returned. I spent a good chunk of the day with the shakes, a nagging tickling cough, and a deep core body ache.

Yippee.

It’s becoming clear that the only thing that will get me better is rest, something I generally refuse to submit to on principle.

But, since tomorrow is my 9:30am to 9:30pm teaching day, I’m biting the bullet and canceling two classes while holding out hope for making the third, a 2.5-hour graduate seminar.

Man, I hate canceling classes. Even just writing that makes me want to renege and go anyway.

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Protected: Four Shards of Heaven: Chapter 9

Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on February 10th, 2008

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Measurements in Rome

Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on February 10th, 2008

Ruler Dealing with distances in Ancient Rome is tough. Their measurement system isn’t the same as ours, and will anyone know what I mean if I refer to something by cubits or millaria? Likely not.

The hardest thing to this point has been reporting the distance between two ships (this in chapter 9, which is almost done). Luckily, I found that one of my old favorite web resources — www.convert-me.com — includes Ancient Roman along with all the other conversions I utilize it for. Using that got me an appropriate distance between ships in passus (the Roman “yard” or “meter”). While that’s not great, 125 passus equals a Roman stadium, which isn’t a bad imagistic approximation of the required distance (it’s just over 600 feet) in the western mind. So that’s what I’m going with for now. The two ships are a stadium apart.

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Shimmer Coming Soon

Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on February 8th, 2008

From the blog of the esteemed Mary Robinette Kowal (it’s her birthday today!), this:

The cover and table of contents for the next issue of Shimmer. This is the “Art Issue,” featuring stories composed to match art — as opposed to the regular art-composed-to-match-fiction setup — and it just happens to include a story of mine (based on a gorgeous drawing by Sandro Castelli).

Here’s the opening of my piece, “A Very Young Boy with Largely Clipped Wings”:

The spring rains of late September were so thick off the salty bay that Pelayo, walking home from the rabbit warrens, didn’t see the little boy in the mud until he’d very nearly stepped upon him. The child, naked but for the bony stumps protruding from his back, which had looked to Pelayo for all the world like the wind-bared stalks of thornweeds until he noticed the fact of their rooting upon the boy’s exposed skin, seemed to be asleep. Arms outstretched like a fallen mime of Christ, he lay face down in the gloppy muck, and Pelayo would have thought him dead were it not for the gurgling of the soupy earth around the sides of his head and the slow rise and fall—perceived once Pelayo stopped to examine him through the foggy downpour—of his rain-splattered back. …

Anyway, if you don’t already have a subscription to this magazine, GET ONE. Seriously. Right now. Go. It’s consistently the best source for short speculation fiction out there.

Besides, you’ll then be able to find out how this story ends!

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