Bibliography

Listed more or less in publication order, now with reviews and occasional recordings! Updated 24 March 2008.

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 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 (a write-up of my WotF experience can be found here).

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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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.]

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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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.]

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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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.]

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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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The 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.]

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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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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The Angel of Marye’s Heights

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.

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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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.]

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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Purging Cocytus

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

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More to come . . .