Archive for category Fiction

I’m told that Black Gate issue #15 is now in press. The cover is on Black Gate‘s website, and, well … I’m not surprised that it’s pretty awesome. One of the many things I love about this magazine is the extraordinary artwork it features both outside and in.

This issue features my latest piece of fiction to hit the stands: “Purging Cocytus,” which combines a look at cryogenics through the lens of Canto 34 of Dante’s Inferno.

Reminding folks about this new release seems like a great time to let you know that back-issues of Black Gate are currently on sale. Supplies are limited, but if you order now you might yet get your hands on issue #9, which features my retelling of Beowulf, “The Hand That Binds.” Sherwood Smith, reviewing it for Tangent Online, had this to say about it:

“The Hand That Binds” by Michael Livingston is my favorite story of the issue. The general outline of Beowulf’s tale is known; what we see here is a taken from the point of view of an outlander bard named Widsith. Beowulf is not quite as irresistible as is the Matter of Britain for writers over the past several centuries to try their hand at. It’s a remove more distant for us to comprehend, and too frequently modern retellings are stiff, self-conscious, or disagreeably modern in tone, barnacled with nuggets of scholarship (or error). I am no early English scholar, but I found this tale convincing, beautifully told, and moving. To my eye, Livingston found that balance between being comprehensible yet avoiding anachronism, and although the Geats’ and Danes’ customs seem almost alien, the emotions still rang true.

And James Enge (himself a wonderful author), opined:

The story makes a nice complement to the original Beowulf and also to John Gardner’s Grendel.

Go get ‘em!

I mentioned in my last post that a writer’s first publication is an incredible moment.  As someone who writes both in the academic sphere and the fiction sphere, I can honestly say that the fiction sales are especially wondrous.  Academic writing — at least for me — is professional.  It’s business.  But fiction writing … well, that’s personal.

My own first fiction sale was to Black Gate Magazine. I’d been writing fiction for years, but I’d never really thought seriously about what to do with it. I didn’t know how one managed to get published, and I was highly uncertain whether my work was even remotely publishable.
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I actually sold “Purging Cocytus” to Black Gate Magazine several years ago. They’ve been so backlogged that only now is it coming out.

I’ve quite the soft-spot for Black Gate. After all, they bought the first short story I ever sold: my Beowulf-retelling, “The Hand that Binds” (though my first story to appear in print was the piece that shortly thereafter won Writers of the Future, “The Keeper Alone”). As any writer will tell you, that first sale is quite special.

Clearly, the publisher and editor of Black Gate, John O’Neill, has good taste. Sure enough, I’ve quite enjoyed reading (and supporting) the magazine over the years. They print a lot of terrific Fantasy fiction, with high production values. Their artwork is always top-notch.

Here, for instance, is the awesome bit of artwork that will accompany my piece:

Original Artwork for "Purging Cocytus," by Kent Burles

Awesome, isn’t it? The artist is Kent Burles, and the massive creature he has depicted, if you don’t recognize it, is Dante’s Satan: my story, which is honestly a bit more horror than fantasy, combines a look at cryogenics through the lens of Canto 34 of Dante’s Inferno.

Seriously.

You can read all about it in the next issue of Black Gate (coming, I’m told, around February), but here’s a teaser snippet:

-x-x-

Io non mori’ e non rimasi vivo:
pensa oggimai per te, s’hai fior d’ingegno,
qual io divenni, d’uno e d’altro privo.
– Dante Alighieri, Inferno XXXIV.25-27
[“I did not die and I did not remain alive: think now for yourself, if you have wit at all, what I became, deprived of both.” -- trans. Robert M. Durling]

The key pieces of Danny’s dream were no different than they had been before. There was the great plain of ice with its resident horrors. There was the old man, his ever-present guide on these forays. And there was the wind, the terrible constant roar of frosted breath that whipped his clothes into torn and tattered banners that tugged and pulled at him like phantom hands intent on pulling them back, back away from the depths of the abyss. These pieces of the dream were the same. It was only the specifics that were changing, that shifted each night as the dream unfolded the next stage of their nightmare journey.

On this night, the old man at his side was leaning heavily into the fury, his finger pointing forward through the flurries of fog and snow and his voice rising above the gale: “Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni!” The words momentarily shifted and swung in the boy’s mind as they defused and molded into understanding: “The standards of the King of Hell go forth!”

Danny peered through the thick air, trying to discern something there. The biting wind stung his eyes, and they began to water. With numb fingers he tried to wipe away the tears before they froze upon his cheeks.

There. Up ahead. There was . . . something.

His eyes hurt, but he had come so far — and had seen so much — to gain this place that the pain mattered very little to him now. His hands shook and his eyes throbbed in their sockets, but still he stared into the fierce wind. And slowly, foot by foot, the storm melted back and shapes formed out of the gloom.

Danny remembered having seen a windmill on one of the family’s trips to a farm. He remembered how the massive blades turned in the easy breeze of an Indian Summer; he remembered how lazily they cut the air and how their purposeful movement at once haunted and fascinated him. The same image met his eyes now at the edge of the sinister fog: great sweeping shapes turning under unseen volition, slicing through the mists.

Danny shivered from the touch of something colder than the wind and moved to stand behind the old man again. Only then, relatively protected from the harsh elements, did he close his eyes and let the tears come.

The old man stayed still for a time, his body solid as a rock promontory beaten and railed against by waves of fury. He let Danny take a few moments to catch his breath before he placed a bony hand upon the little boy’s shoulder to tell him that it was time to go.

Danny nodded and wiped at his half-frozen cheeks. The press of his fingers against his flesh caused a dull pain beneath the skin, and he wondered if he would ever again feel truly warm. But there was no time to contemplate the pain of the journey. His doubts and his fears, he pushed them to the back of his mind even as he stepped out from behind his guide to stand once more against the full force of the gale. He had no time for such things. After all, the Devil was waiting.

-x-x-

To read the rest, buy the magazine!

A few years ago, on a lark, I sent a short story of mine to the Writers of the Future contest.  I wasn’t new to writing stories — I’d been screwing around with fiction on my own since I was a lad — but I was certainly new at trying to publish them. I knew nothing about how to do it.  One night at a pub (The Old Toad in Rochester, NY), a more informed friend of mine told me about Ralan.com, a website that aggregates market information for speculative fiction stories, and poring over it the next day I found an entry for this Writers of the Future contest that had no entry fee but thousands of dollars in awards.

I was a little uncertain at first due to the contest’s association with L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology), but the tiniest bit of looking at the contest website revealed that it was judged by some of the greatest living writers of fantasy and science fiction. Hubbard’s interest in supporting young writers struck me as an issue entirely independent from any religious issues. And with that kind of prize money …

Well, for the cost of postage, I didn’t see much of a downside.  So I sent in my story, a 14,000-word beastie that was eventually reviewed thus on Amazon (this still gives me goosebumps):

Michael Livingston provides what I thought was the best story of all in “The Keeper Alone.” In a story reminiscent of Robert Heinlein’s “Orphans of the Sky,” what happens when the sole keeper of a space ark saves someone whose pod has malfunctioned? It is stories such as these that keep me reading science fiction. . . . This book is worth purchasing. There are a few stories that I was less enthused about, but the winners in this book, particularly the last story, ["The Keeper Alone,"] will make you feel good about the purchase. — amazon.com

To say I was shocked to win would be an understatement. And I was even more shocked to find out I also got an all-expenses paid trip to a week-long workshop with those famous judges, culminating in a black-tie awards ceremony and book signing. (Most folks know these things, but I was writing in a total vacuum.) Our year the Big Event was held in Seattle, and it was an incredible experience.

It was also meticulously filmed.  The contest folks had hired a video crew to follow us around, documenting the whole thing Survivor-style.  Crazy.

That documentary — at last we get to the point of this post — is now on YouTube, along with a video of the “highlights” of the black-tie extravaganza itself.  It’s an awesome walk down memory lane for me. The video is in three parts, with yours truly appearing first in the second one at around the 1:08 mark (though I show up a quite a bit for the rest of it).

Documentary Part 1:

Documentary Part 2:

Documentary Part 3:

Awards ceremony highlight reel:

Quite a walk down memory lane. And awesome to see so many old friends again via YouTube!

I had no pressing work to do yesterday, so at long last I had the opportunity to read over my completed draft of Shards of Heaven. I wanted to give it another once-over before making a big agent push this year. I meant to do it months ago, but I’ve been tied up with Brunanburh.

You know what, though? I think the novel is pretty good. I was actually moved a couple of times, which is a darn fine feeling. On the other hand, I’ve scribbled corrections throughout the manuscript, including a mighty mark through the Prologue. ‘Tis going the way of the dodo.

After that, though, I’m moving on. Time to start querying this one — something I intended to have done long before now.

So I decided, somewhere on the long trip out West, that Shards of Heaven needed a glossary. Nothing on a Tolkien scale, mind you, but at least a basic historical who’s who, since the majority of the novel’s characters — even bit players — are based on real people.

The glossary, I’m pleased to say, is complete.

While I’m tempted now to immerse myself in Gate of Hell, the sequel to Shards — yes, some significant work was done on it while I was away — I’m finding myself more interested in two other novel projects: one the heavy revision of a completed fantasy novel and one the significant expansion of my award-winning science fiction story, “The Keeper Alone.”

Which one will I settle into, I wonder?