BOOKS

Angels Among Other Things

Angels Among Other Things

Nine tales of speculative fiction, two of them never before published:

- A Very Young Boy with Largely Clipped Wings
- The Keeper Alone
- Dr. Williamson and the Master Speed
- The Angel of Marye’s Heights
- At the End of Babel
- The Hand That Binds
- After the Song is Sung
- The Catch of the Day
- Gnome Season

This collection has a little bit of something for everyone, from a retelling of Beowulf to a story about an angel at the Battle of Fredericksburg, from an amusing hunt for garden gnomes to a warning about the dangers of time-travel. Also included is “The Keeper Alone,” an emotionally-draining and award-winning novelette about a man trapped on an interstellar voyage.

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SHORT STORIES & POEMS

Listed by Title, now with reviews and occasional recordings!

Nota bene: The length categorizations below (short story, novelette, etc.) follow the Nebula award guidelines established by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Not that I’m, um, hoping to be nominated for a Nebula Award or anything like that.

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The Angel of Marye’s Heights

"The Angel of Marye's Heights"

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

An angel’s hope lies in the all-too-human despair of Fredericksburg. Paradox Magazine 11 (2007), 14-18. [Short story: 5,500 words.]

Award:

2007 Recommended Reading List for Short Stories. — Dave Truesdale’s Best of 2007 List, Black Gate Magazine.

Snippet:

Gabriel had his breath again and O’Neill pulled him up and shoved him forward, up the slope. He became aware of other shapes in blue on the slope around them, trudging with their shoulders hunched and their heads down, moving as if they were walking through a hail storm. O’Neill seemed to be urging them onward. Every heartbeat a man would fall, but Gabriel could not hear them screaming. Like the others, he lowered his shoulder and started to wade forward against the tide of sulfurous smoke and angry, hungry lead.

Reviews:

With brutally vivid detail, the reader is made part of that terrible push up the half-mile hill into the Confederate artillery, and the aftermath, and unexpected grace. The story’s strength is in the rock-solid research made real, the surety with which Livingston creates distinctive characters before they are blown apart. — Sherwood Smith, The Fix

Michael Livingston does in his Civil War story “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” exactly what I feel Chris Cevasco is looking for in Paradox: taking a documented historical event and examining it from a different perspective. This is not a “What If?” tale, as many Civil War speculations tend to be. The “Angel,” from history, is a Southern soldier at the battle of Fredricksburg who risked his life to bring water to the dying strewn about after the massacre. The “Angel” in Livingston’s story isn’t the water bearer; he’s an actual angel masquerading as a Northern soldier, one who knows what’s about to happen. — Robert J. Santa, SFReader

[Issue rated "Very Good"] . . . Michael Livingston sets “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” during the Battle of Fredricksburg. The angel Gabriel seems to be inhabiting a Union soldier of the same name, but there is more to the title than that. — Sam Tomaino, SFRevu

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The Catch of the Day

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

"Catch of the Day"

First contact: a fly-fisherman in Montana catches something he did not intend. Shimmer Magazine 2.2 (2007), 26-42. [Illustrated by Sandro Castelli.] [Short story: 7,000 words.]

Snippet:

We must have seemed an odd pair standing and laughing in the middle of the Bighorn: me in chest-high waders, a fishing vest covered in drying flies and all manner of little gizmos and gadgets that are supposed to make you a better fisherman, and a ratty old John Deere baseball cap; him in his yellowy scuba-space outfit, his pressurized arm nudging mine, and the sun glinting brightly off the bubbled swell of his head. We both realized how odd it must have looked, I think. It took us awhile to stop laughing. I heard Julie laughing, too.

Reviews:

“Catch of the Day” by Michael Livingston is reminiscent of Men In Black with its dark humor and gritty what-ifism treatment of an alien invasion. . . . [T]he story was a joy to read. — Donna Watkins, Tangent Online

If you’re not subscribing to this magazine, you’re missing a real gem. . . . Highlights include . . . Michael Livingston’s “Catch of the Day” . . . an unusual first contact story, but quite interesting. — Chris Gerrib

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Dr. Williamson and the Master Speed

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

"Dr. Williamson and the Master Speed"

Location, location, location: time travel is only part of the equation. Nature Magazine 443, no. 7109 (21 September 2006), 370. [Short story: 950 words.]

Snippet:

“When we all got to work, Al kept bragging about having just completed a time machine,” said Dr. H.T. Zhang, another of Williamson’s colleagues at the institute. “We figured it was his attempt at an April fools’ prank, but he was insistent it was true and so we all argued about it. Things got pretty intense when Sanjay [Patel] said Al was ‘not even wrong.’” Leitner believes that it was Williamson’s intention to prove his colleagues wrong by using his device in order to join them, and himself, for lunch once more.

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Gnome Season

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

"Gnome Season"

Who hasn’t wanted to put a bullet through the head of one of those happy little garden gnomes? Shimmer Magazine 1.4 (2006), 46-59. [Illustrated by Mary Robinette Kowal.] [Short story: 5,000 words.]

Snippet:

“Teddie, Boy-o,” Gramps would drawl through his dentures, “you gotta be careful round them critters — gnome-folk, I mean — bite and scratch you if you don’t get a drop on them.”  And then he’d tell me how he saw his first gnome out on the farm when he was eight, learned to shoot when he was nine, got his first gun for his tenth birthday, and felled his first gnome two weeks later on a Boy Scout trip up in Missouri.  Scouts were different in those days, I think.

Listen to it:

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Reviews:

Michael Livingston contributes the dark, endearing story, “Gnome Season.” To tell the truth, Livingston did much more with a story about hunting live garden gnomes than I expected. Wrapped around an intense (and often amusing) urban hunt for gnomes is a wild treatise about parenthood, expectations, and the scars of a lifelong resentment. . . . This is an effective, weird story that is the hallmark of what makes Shimmer good. — Jason Sizemore, Tangent Online

The new issue of Shimmer is an excellent one with a very good crop of stories. It is also very nicely designed for a small press publication. . . . In “Gnome Season,” Michael Livingston gives us a story about a young boy who finds out his grandfather isn’t crazy after all. . . . Shimmer really stands out in the small press magazine field and is well worth subscribing to. — Sam Tomaino, SFRevu

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The Hand That Binds

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

"The Hand That Binds"

Hrothgar’s secretly Christian court bard becomes witness to the arrival of a man unlike any he’s ever met: Beowulf. Black Gate Magazine 9 (2005), 82-106. [Illustrated by Matt Hughes.] [Novelette: 12,100 words.]

Snippet:

Widsith remained outside in the night for a few minutes longer, listening to the howling on the wind and to Aethel’s quiet recitation inside. She was singing of a wolf and of woods, but even then Widsith was beginning to know that her song was not for him. She was singing of the Geat. She was singing of Beowulf.

Reviews:

“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. — Sherwood Smith, Tangent Online

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

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The Keeper Alone

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

"The Keeper Alone"

In L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 21. Ed. Algis Budrys. Hollywood: Galaxy Press, 2005. Pp. 472-517. [Illustrated by Olga Madiar.] [Novelette: 13,900 words.]

Award:

Winner, International Writers of the Future Contest.

Snippet:

David never could get used to dying.  The swift prick of the needled sequencer administering the lethal infusion was no different than any of the thousands of injections that he had received in his lives, and the first sensation of approaching sleep was no different than the feeling of falling asleep that he had experienced on so many other occasions in this life.  None of that bothered him.  It was the pulling away that he never could get used to.

Review:

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

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Prime Codex: The Hungry Edge of Speculative Fiction.

Anthology of fiction from the Codex Writers’ Group. Ed. Lawrence M. Schoen and Michael Livingston. Philadelphia: Paper Golem Press, 2007. [80,000 words.]

Review:

Prime Codex is full of the best kind of surprises: great stories from authors you’re just beginning to hear from. This anthology can stand next to any ‘Best of’ in the field. Full of fresh thinking, innovative writing, and outbreaks of staggering beauty, Prime Codex should be at the top of your to-be-read pile. — Jay Lake, Winner of the 2004 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

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Purging Cocytus

"Purging Cocytus"

Cryogenics through the lens of Canto 34 of Dante’s Inferno; whose soul is in grandfather now? Black Gate Magazine 15 (2011), 231-40. [Short story: 7,100 words.]

Snippet:

Danny thought about what it would be like to see him again in the morning.  Would he look any different?  Would he smell any different?  The previous summer their dog had gotten sick and gone missing.  They had put up fliers in the neighborhood, little pleas for information printed on cheap yellow paper and tacked up to lightposts with staples.  But no one had called.  And it had been Danny, playing with his friends out by the wooded ditch, who found her rotting body.  He remembered how bad she had smelled, and how strangely bloated she had looked.  Perhaps his grandfather would be the same.

But Grandfather isn’t dead, he reminded himself.  Not anymore.

Reviews:

Horror, in a setting that is more SF than fantasy. Danny’s grandfather has been in cryonic suspension but is now revived and has been returned to the family. On the day of the revival, Danny began to have horrific nightmares about crossing the landscape of Dante’s Inferno, guided by an old man. Readers know this is not simply the child’s imagination, as the old man quotes Dante in both Italian and Latin and the scenes are directly from the epic as well. … This is strong stuff, as is the conclusion, all in support of the author’s theme that death is not to be denied. — Lois Tilton, Locus Online

In this horrific tale whose setup borders on science fiction, Danny’s grandfather has been in cryonic suspension but is now revived and has been returned to the family. The fantastic enters when Danny begins to have nightmares that the reader gradually recognizes as echoes from Dante’s Inferno. Powerfully and beautifully written, the story propels the reader, as well as Danny, to the inexorable and irresistible end. Again the theme of death and beyond comes up, this time with very dark overtones. — Sherwood Smith, SF Site

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A Very Young Boy with Largely Clipped Wings

— Available in Angels Among Other Things.

"A Very Young Boy with Largely Clipped Wings"

Written to accompany Sandro Castelli’s artwork (not reproduced here): It’s not enough that Pelayo and Elisenda don’t know what to do with dead angels; what do they do with a flightless little boy? Shimmer Magazine 2.4 (2008), 16-25. [Illustrated by Sandro Castelli.] [Short story: 3,500 words.]

Snippet:

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.

Review:

The next story in the issue is “A Very Young Boy with Largely Clipped Wings” by Michael Livingston, inspired by the art piece “Cherub” by Sandro Castelli and riffing off of Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” In fact, the story starts with a quote from the García Márquez, setting up an expectation of magic realism that is not disappointed. Walking home one day, Pelayo encounters a child laying in the mud, a child with the stumps of wings protruding from his back. Pelayo takes the child home to his wife, Elisenda. There, they bathe the child and reveal yet more strangeness, namely his too-wide mouth and too-round head. At first, they keep him in the house, but when his attempts to fly shake the floor and threaten to send an oil lamp spilling, they move him to their shed, where they’re already keeping an old man they’d found years earlier, an old man with wings of his own.

“A Very Young Boy With Largely Clipped Wings” is a story rich with detail, taking the evocative central image of “Cherub” and spinning it into a tale of the rediscovery of hope. The titular boy is determined to fly, and his attempts re-awaken the dreams of those who live with him. Lyrically understated, Livingston’s writing nonetheless conjures fully realized characters and a strong sense of place. Crab nets and chickens, mud and brooms, are elements that ground the story even as they are each imbued with magical possibilities by the events of the plot. — J. C. Runolfson, The Fix

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The Waters of Normandy

In On Our Way to Battle: Poetry from the Trenches. Ed. Samantha Henderson. Carnifex Press, 2006. P. 6.

Award:

Honorable Mention. — 2006 Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (ed. Datlow et al.)

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More to come . . .