"Hope Immortal" and "Solo"

I know what you are thinking. That Katz guy is a great writer, but where are the spaceships? Can he even call himself a Science Fiction fan? Well, I have good news for you, my SF-demanding (and totally not hypothetical) reader: the SF has arrived. The year’s end saw not only one but two of my Science Fiction tales hit the (e)shelves.

First up is my story “Hope Immortal” in Earthbound Fiction’s Dark Stars anthology. What's it about? Well, we start with dear Naryk waking up, alone, on a ship hurtling through space. And the air is running out. I'll give you the first small section as a little sampler:

Naryk woke and could not breathe. He was pressed against an unyielding barrier, 

and black spots danced against a darker backdrop in his eyes, like stars. He realized he 

was standing up, his hands crossed over his chest and his legs tight together.

There was a button, wasn’t there? Men in crumpled uniforms had told him, told 

all of them, about a button. 

What button?

There was no air. His fingers were intertwined, and he didn’t have the space to 

separate his hands. He was dying; he would die here in the dark, alone.

His hands were wrapped around the button, that’s where it was. A button for 

emergencies right beneath his intertwined fingers. 

He pushed it.

The glass slid away, and a hissing filled the air, a lone harbinger of sound almost 

unbearable after the silence that had come before. Naryk fell into a new world of light 

and pain.

Alone.

I wrote "Hope Immortal" a long time ago, but I think that it's held up extremely well, and I hope that you do too. Of course, it's not the only piece in the anthology. For your three bucks, you also get tales by Samuel Mae, Deborah Walker, and a whole host of others.

Then there is the matter of "Solo," which is a quirky little piece that I quite like. Interstellar Fiction has it up to read, and for free, so there is really no conceivable or earthly reason to not pop over right now and devour every delectable sentence of the thing. It is, to give the briefest possible account I can, a Science Fiction reenactment of Lovecraft's themes that aims to both effectively execute them and to be downright silly and a great deal of fun throughout.

Enjoy!

Publications and News

I have a few announcements I've been meaning to make, some of them for a damn sight longer than I should have. So making today's post a nice spewing of them seemed like a nice Christmas present to get my To Do list.

The first category is publications. Since I've last discussed the matter, I've had two stories accepted. The first is "Defiance and Darkness," a Horror piece that has been snapped up by Space and Time Magazine. "Defiance and Darkness" represents a curious dead end for me. It was the first story I ever wrote intending to submit once it was done, and I wrote it in a style unlike that which I used for anything before or after. I quite like how it turned out. One of my close friends, and the fellow who's read more of my work than anyone else, considered it his favorite for a long while.

In the last few days, "Defiance and Darkness" was joined on its perch by "Solo." "Solo" is a Science Fiction tale that lies somewhere between quirky and Lovecraftian. This one is to appear in Interstellar Fiction.

Of the other two that have been slotted for publication for quite a few months now (which is to say, "Painting Nothing" and "Hope Immortal"), I can confirm that movement is indeed being had on both fronts. The two should be out for you to read before all that much longer.

Then there's the matter of Fungi, an anthology that I have nothing in but that, in my role as an Editorial Assistant over at Innsmouth Free Press, I did do some promotion towards. The book's got stories by a list of contributors that boasts VanderMeer, Mamatas, Bairron, Strantzas, Tobler, Pugmire, Tidhar, and more. If your tastes match up even vaguely with mine, I'd say that's a list that simply cannot miss.

Finally, I would like to direct everyone's attention over to The Arkham Digest. Its author, Justin, contacted me before going live and, though I did fire off a response or two, he has no doubt realized how absolutely atrocious I can be with emails sometimes. I apologize once more for that, Justin. Hopefully you'll forgive me if I tell all those folks reading this that The Arkham Digest has been posting varied, enjoyable, and insightful commentary since it debuted. He even has a Fungi review!

Publication v5

The good folks over at Earthbound Fiction have snapped up my story "Hope Immortal" for their upcoming Dark Stars anthology of Science Fiction. This is really, really cool for a number of reasons. First, and by far the most important, is the obvious I-just-got-published-and-soon-people-I-don't-know-will-be-reading-and-hopefully-enjoying-my-work thing. This one, though, does have some nice bonuses. "Hope Immortal" is the first story I've sold that is not horror, nor flash (I love horror and flash fiction, of course. Just nice to branch out a bit.). And it's actually the oldest story I had up on submission, the first one that, looking back, was all there. I'm looking forward to getting to link to its published form.