Category: fiction

Unwritten Fragment of Basho’s Second Death Poem (“Last Words” Series)

Posted on by Stewart

Not much in the way of commentary this week, since (1) I think the genesis of this one should be fairly obvious and (2) do you really want to see me talk about haiku for 500 words?

Unwritten Fragment of Basho’s Second Death Poem, Pulled Half-Finished from His Mind and Brought Forward in Time to the Twenty-Third Century at the Moment of His Last Breath

by Stewart C Baker

No more journeying
I rest—

I said no commentary, but I guess you really have to know what Basho’s last recorded poem was for this to make sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D#Last_years

On a semi-related note, I’m pondering writing a short story (and/or a piece of interactive fiction!) about a sort of magicianly warrior group who uses spoken haiku sort of like spells to create literal changes in the fabric of reality.

It sounds weird, and probably would be, but it also makes an odd kind of sense. Haiku’s all about juxtaposition. And the idea of a haiku “cutting” to create worlds is sort-of almost canonical! As I explored in a previous story.

On an unrelated note, don’t forget to guess which title in Writers of the Future is mine! You could win a signed copy of this year’s anthology.

Win a signed copy of Writers of the Future, volume 32 (plus, info about the wotf32 website)

Posted on by Stewart

The incorrigibly English Matt Dovey and I (although mostly Matt) have put together a website for volume 32 of the Writers of the Future anthology, which will feature a story I’ve written (the title of which cannot yet be shared).

The site features author information, illustrator information, blurbs and snippets for each story, and general information about the anthology, as well as where you can pre-order it.

Hooray!

So go check it out: Writers of the Future, volume 32.

Some time in the next few weeks, the site will be updated to feature thumbnail illustrations for each story, as well as information on which 1st place winners wrote which story.

I’d be interested to see if anybody can guess which is mine from the 4 titles featured on the “Stories” page.

In fact! Let’s do a little giveaway.

Everyone who wants to can leave a comment on this post with the title of the story you think is mine, based on the little blurb and synopsis included on the wotf32 website. You can comment with your Facebook, Google, or Twitter accounts, or with a Disqus account if you have one. Or you can comment as a guest if you don’t have any of those.

I’ll give everyone who guesses correctly 3 entries, and everyone who guesses incorrectly 1 entry, and will then randomly select one entry and mail that person a copy of the anthology signed by me and maybe a few other authors/illustrators (depending on if I can get my hands on a suitable copy during the workshop in the first week of April).

So giveaway! Much excite! Wow!

Direct links to the 1st-place stories:
Star Tree

Images Across a Shattered Sea

Squalor and Sympathy

The Sun Falls Apart

I’ll announce the winner on Thursday, April 14th here on the blog. If you want to be sure you don’t miss it, you can sign up for updates using the little “follow” button on the bottom-right-hand corner of the browser window.

(A few details:
1. I will never share subscriber e-mails with anyone, and you’ll get roughly 1 update e-mailed to you per week in the mean-time.
2. Shipping on the signed copy will be free but may be really really slow if you live outside the continental US of A.
3. You will have to give me your address at some point to receive the signed copy, should you win.
4. I will happily purchase a Kindle e-book version of the anthology for the winner instead, if they prefer.
)

Song of a Whale, Translated into Human Speech by Dr Hananakajima’s Machine at the Moment of its Harpooning (“Last Words” series)

Posted on by Stewart

Since August, I’ve been trying out Tempest Bradford’s challenge of limiting my pleasure reading to things not written by cisgendered straight white males.

My reading habits skew female in any case, and I have favourite authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Ted Chiang, so this isn’t much of a stretch for me. But it has led to me reading some excellent novels I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise, like Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds and Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy (which I wish I had read long ago because it is astounding).

Anyway, while I might post more about that experience at a later date, I mention it today because this week’s “Last Words” post is inspired by Somtow Sucharitkul/S.P. Somtow‘s Starship and Haiku. Which I’m surprised I never found earlier because come on. Haiku! I write those.

Song of a Whale, Translated into Human Speech by Dr Hananakajima’s Machine at the Moment of Its Harpooning

by Stewart C Baker

Painsharping… Swimdeep…

As for Starship and Haiku, it was an interesting read, if a bit dated. Never mind that, in the book, WWIII destroyed most of humanity in the early 2000s. I felt like parts of it ran afoul of the Asian as Alien trope (oddly, considering its author is Thai) in ways that probably would not be considered okay today and in ways I couldn’t quite figure out was intentional subversion or something to be taken at face value.

Allusions to Mishima—not to mention the haiku, which included fun riffs on stories from Basho biographies—on suggest that Somtow is pretty well-read in Japanese culture, anyway, which was nice. But there were times when the text seemed to unironically describe Japanese people as “inscrutable” and that’s kind of…? And the Japanese are literally descended from whales (spoiler) which means that characters in the novel (Japanese and otherwise) are constantly talking about how they are literally alien compared to everyone else on Earth. Which uh…

Anyway. It has whales. And whalesong.

And it made me feel strange when I finished reading, which is a good indication that it succeeded as a SF novel on some level even if I found the racial aspects of it problematic and its depiction of Japanese culture a bit too early-Shōwa to ring true in describing a Japan set in 2023.

Benefit of living in the future, I guess.

Bonus!

For a more recent story about a Japanese girl and dolphins (close enough to whales, right?), check out Henry Lien’s excellent “Bilingual”, which is free to read on his website.

Another Bonus!

Although this is a huge tone mismatch with this story. The name Hananakajima has been shamelessly lifted from the wonderfully bizarre Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san, the first episode of which the bravest among you can watch in regrettably low quality here.

Pi Day Guest Post by Aaron Moskalik: The Last Words of the Platonic Form Circle While Trying to Compute Its Own Diameter (“Last Words” series)

Posted on by Stewart

And hooray, another guest post!

Today’s “Last Words” post is written for us by the mathtastic Aaron Moskalik in celebration of Pi day. (This makes Aaron the second person to remind me that Pi day exists, after my wife mentioned it to me the other day. I am a failure as a nerd!)

Without further ado, then:

The Last Words of the Platonic Form Circle While Trying to Compute Its Own Diameter

by Aaron Moskalik

Now, rounding Pi to three…

Math jokes! Math jokes are the best jokes.

You can see more math-related magicianry on display in “Division by Zero,” a comparatively long (100 word) story by Aaron over at Specklit, or in any of the Eric the Circle cartoons created by Mandle Brat, which is Aaron’s pseudonym on that site. (This pi-themed strip is a good one.)

Guest Post by Matt Dovey: The Last Words of Henry McIntyre, Gentlemen, Scholar, and Dinosaur from a Misogynistic Time (“Last Words” series)

Posted on by Stewart

Today we have a special treat: a guest post in my “Last Words” series!

Author, friend, Englishman, and fellow Writers of the Future volume 32 winner Matt Dovey sent this my way back in January with permission to publish it when I needed a weekend off. This is much appreciated this weekend, as not only was it my eldest child’s 6th birthday, but I have been in back/neck pain for most of the past week due to an unfortunate incident with a herd of transmogrified bovines, a feather duster, six gallons of dayglo purple ink, and one surprisingly small cucumber.

Uh. Where was I?

Right!

I was just about to present to you all…

The Last Words of Henry McIntyre, Gentlemen, Scholar, and Dinosaur from a Misogynistic Time, upon Underestimating His Wife Mildred’s Capacity to Operate Her Own Invention and Blundering in Where He Wasn’t Needed, Actually

by Matt Dovey

No, Mildred, pull this first—

Very English, what ho?

The first of the month just happened to mark Matt’s first fiction publication (Woohoo!) so if this tickled your Guernsey, then head on over to this month’s issue of Flash Fiction Online, where you can read “This is the Sound of the End of the World,” a lovely piece of space opera filled with lies, propaganda, and a heck of a chorus.

Also featured is Shannon Peavey’s “Millepora”, a tale of transformation and coral, as well as two other fine stories.

n.b. No Guernseys, cucumbers, or other living beings were tickled or otherwise maltreated in the making of this blog post.

Response of Elaryn Qo, Xenopediatrician, to Enja Liharr, Ritual Midwife of the Outer Reaches, upon Being Told He Should Not Remove a Newborn Starbeast from its Mother’s Fiery Teat

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Response of Elaryn Qo, Xenopediatrician, to Enja Liharr, Ritual Midwife of the Outer Reaches, upon Being Told He Should Not Remove a Newborn Starbeast from its Mother’s Fiery Teat

by Stewart C Baker

Nonsense! Give him here.

I have nothing clever or amusing or interesting to add this week. Alas!

(Except that it is possible we will have a guest post next week, maybe.)

Word-Analogues Transmitted by Interdimensional Entity SquolGkmly-99rb After Being Warned Its Portal Would Close on its Neck-Analogue (“Last Words” series)

Posted on by Stewart

HEY so look it’s Monday! It’s… Monday… afternoon?

And I was supposed to post a new entry in the “Last Words” series this morning?

OOOPS.

No wait, here it is! And it’s totally thematic and appropriate that it was late. In no way did I hurriedly write this entry in a few minutes of panic because I completely forgot about this thing until just now.

Not at all.

Word-Analogues Transmitted by Interdimensional Entity SquolGkmly-99rb After Being Warned Its Portal Would Close on its Neck-Analogue if it Did Not Retract its Head-Analogue from this Dimension, to Which it had Travelled to Eat Sushi

by Stewart C Baker

I still have plenty of—

Anyone want to guess what that last word-analogue would have been if I did not have a 5-word limit per story the Entity had not been so hilariously tragically cut short? Er, poor choice of words there, perhaps.

(Hint: it rhymes with “rhyme.”)

Influences and gags! Because it’s no fun if I don’t explain them:

[body part]-analogue – I used to play this game called Kingdom of Loathing. It’s pretty fun. (And also the reason I first started writing haiku, but don’t tell anybody or you’ll ruin my haiku cred.) More to the point, there are various creatures in it like the Comma Chameleon who do not have actual body parts in all situations. As such, when canned combat dialogue which mentions those body parts appears, these beasties are described as having (e.g.) a “mouth analogue” instead.

WTF? – What is even going on in this bizarre little story? Don’t ask me. But it might have something to do with Jonathan Rosenberg’s hilarious and bizarre webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse.

Sushi. Mmm… Sushi…

Final Words of João Eduardo Santos Tavares Cavalcante, the Galaxy’s Greatest Lover (“Last Words” series)

Posted on by Stewart

Heeey! It’s Valentine’s Day!

What better way to celebrate than with an early installment of my five-word-story series, “Last Words”?

Okay, there are probably dozens of better ways. But I’m not going to let that stop me.

So, without further ado:

Final Words of João Eduardo Santos Tavares Cavalcante, the Galaxy’s Greatest Lover, after Being Told that Skin-to-Skin Contact with the Hrrga was Immediately and Excruciatingly Fatal, and that Making Love to Their Ambassador Was a Terrible Idea.

by Stewart C Baker

My love makes me invincible.

Ah. Love!

Hey! You can now pre-order Writers of the Future 32, featuring a short story by me.

Posted on by Stewart

As I am pretty sure I have announced multiple times already, I was a first place winner in quarter 2 of the Writers of the Future contest last year.

Well, now it’s this year, which means the book will be coming out soon and my story will be in it.

Indeed, thanks to fellow Writers of the Future winner J.W. Alden‘s eagle eye, I can share some exciting information: Writers of the Future volume 32 is now available for pre-order.

So if you’d like to buy a copy of a book with a short story in it by me (not to mention stories by a bunch of great writers), now’s your chance: Pre-order Writers of the Future volume 32 on Amazon.

There are a lot of awesome stories in the anthology (I’ve read quite a few!), and it will have fantastic art as well—although I haven’t seen any of that yet.

Plus it has a really spiffy cover:
Writers of the Future Volume 32 cover image

Message Intercepted by SETI Immediately Before Neutrino Detectors Worldwide Picked up the Triple Supernova of Gliese 667. (“Last Words” series)

Posted on by Stewart

Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, the sequel to Hugo-award-winning The Three Body Problem posits a field of studies called cosmic sociology which would explore the ways in which civilizations interact on a scale the size of the galaxy.

Spoiler alert: Not very nicely.

This week’s story plays with the same idea.

Message Intercepted by SETI Immediately Before Neutrino Detectors Worldwide Picked up the Triple Supernova of Gliese 667.

by Stewart C Baker

If anybody’s listening—Run!

Much as in Cixin Liu’s novels, this little storylet shows life in the universe to be a scary, tenuous affair. Hyper-advanced spacefaring societies lurk in the darkness between the stars, just waiting for newly technologized societies (like us, or the unfortunate Gliesians) to reveal themselves so they can destroy them and keep their own foothold in the galaxy secure.

Is that how things would actually turn out, if we ever were to be contacted by extra-terrestrial life?

I hope not.

And I don’t think so.

But I guess only time will tell… (Although the chances of meaningful contact at all is pretty slim, given the time scales and distances involved. As several hypothetical solutions to the Fermi Paradox argue.)