For forty-seven years Barry has been running from the memory of the still-crisp melody that haunts him whether he’s awake or not and everything that happened then. When he does sleep, he dreams of lights, red, orange, and white that set the landscape on fire. That experience from his early childhood permeated his entire life thereafter, and dozens of later encounters reinforced a sense of otherness that kept him from assimilating properly into adulthood and society. His mother had done all she could for him though she was plagued by similar demons and the tragedy of her widowhood. They were both lonely and alone but they had each other. 

When his mother died, she left him the remainder of her inheritance along with most of the life insurance which he then used to live almost entirely off the beaten path. He’d never been able to sustain an intimate relationship other than with his memories and the dreams that found him every night. Normally he felt trapped as he drove all over the country, but lately he was feeling cornered. It started when he was on his way home from a gathering of almost friends, others who had similar experiences but he’d met no one who’d actually been Away like him. 

It was almost midnight, the sky was cloudy and the half moon was low in the sky, but it was wrong. Too yellow and on the wrong angle. The heavy clouds above made it look like it was a pizza cutter coming through the bottom of a thick crust. Three days later, at dusk, there was an unusually brilliant light in the same part of the sky, where there shouldn’t have been a star, or a planet, hanging motionless, commanding his attention. He pulled over on the highway, got out and took pictures with his aging burner phone. When he looked at them at the house he’d rented for the last three months, there was no unusually bright light. There was no star. That’s when the uncertainty that had been creeping along the edges of his awareness was replaced with dread.

Barry knew they were coming again.

Hi. I’m Jason and I write science fiction that might be best described as ‘art house’ if anything.* You can find my books here.

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ORGAN OF RECORD: MASQUE

Words have been happening! Work is proceeding! Yay! For those just joining us here, this book started its life as a short story that I kept thinking about. How did the main character get to that point? What happened that turned him so bitter? What might happen after the ending?

So I wrote another short story exploring the aftermath, allowing forgiveness that would mean the MC could move forward. Both stories had an ounce of strangeness to them that I kept thinking about long after they were released into the wild. When it came time for me to collect my shorts into the A MAP OF THE PROBLEM volume, I combined them into one story and added a bit for continuity and that triggered more thoughts. 

Then, a few years later, as I was planning what would become my All the Devils Are Here series, I still had an itch to really explore more about the character, his life, and the pain he’d been through and knew it would easily connect to Walt’s story in ENVOY. I thought, “Hey, I’ll write a novella and get to do all these things!”

So, once ENVOY was out in the world I turned my attention to expanding the two short stories (which was now really one) and fleshing out the characters. This was so much fun that when I finished the first draft of MASQUE, I had about 48,000 words that left a lot of room for more exploration. I thought maybe I could trim a bit here and there and keep it a novella, put it out and move on, but my brain said, “nope, keep going.” The second draft was about 60,000 words and it still wasn’t satisfying enough. I wanted to know MORE.

Well, what was once a couple of short stories has grown into a full-fledged novel and I’m not even to the point of the original tales yet as I approach 60,000 words written. This is the longest sustained work in over a decade and I’m having the time of my life doing it. I’m imagining the final product will be somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 words.

To be clear: it’s taking longer because I have less time to write. My day job has taken more time and brainspace than when I began this book and I’m aiming for a late spring release which I think is still realistic at this point. However, I’m not marrying myself to a schedule. Writing takes as long as it takes and it’ll get out there when it’s ready and not before. I’m working hard on the craft here, taking time with the characters and sometimes making them more interesting later in the story requires going back and seeding those details earlier. 

It’s not the easiest way to write and it’s not my normal process, but it’s how this book is working out. While I’d hoped to have it out this year I’m not disappointed I didn’t make it. The book is better with each draft and I’m lucky I’m an independent author and not beholden to publishing schedules at this point. I’m good with that.

If you’re awaiting this not-quite-a-sequel, I’m sorry it’s taking so much time. My output is about half what I am used to because of Life. Despite that, you can count on the fact that I am working on it steadily, every day, and there’s forward progress every single day.

I’m grateful for your patience.

Mail Call

I realized a week ago that this year I’ve spent more money on books than I have on booze for the first time in decades. I’m searching out all kinds of reading material despite having a massive To Be Read shelf and it’s a blast finding something that I didn’t think was ever going to be available.

Getting a copy of Michael Moorcock’s THE METATEMPORAL DETECTIVE was one of those serendipitous moments that every collector lives for. It only got one printing, never made it to paperback, and can range in price from the mid-$20s to $60 or more.

My copy arrived in what can only be described as near-mint or new and my cost was at the extreme low end of that range. This was the third try after the first two were lost in shipping from England.

This book came out in 2007 and I read it from my local library then but never bought a copy. (My financial situation was very different then and I wasn’t buying many books besides my regular comics, which I’d trimmed dramatically at that point.) While the mystery story pastiches are just that, it’s the fun of imagining Elric of Melnibone as a Professor Moriarty analogue that works for me. I’m well-acquainted with Moorcock’s Multiverse and love Jerry Cornelius, Ulrich Von Bek, and Oswald Bastable as well as Elric and other aspects of the Eternal Champion so it was nice to meet Seaton Begg and others in this book as they work against and around Monsieur (Elric) Zenith.**

I could write a lot about Moorcock’s works, their overlapping realities and intersecting moon beam roads, but here I want to point out that the John Picacio painting that adorns the cover is spectacular. The portrait of Elric is everything I expect of the character and the brandishing of the black blade Stormbringer with the Dashiell Hammett-styled Begg superimposed over it is just a perfect representation of what to expect inside. Picacio’s work is stunning and if you’re a fantasy or science fiction fan you’ve probably seen it before. Check out his website.

At Capacity

Here in the United States we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday. Everything shuts down for most of the day with the exception of some grocery stores and convenience stores in my town and business slows to an uphill in molasses crawl. Sometimes it’s warm, sometimes it’s not. This year we might get some snow and rain and if the high temperature climbs out of the 30s it’ll be a surprise. Every year since 2013 I say something along the lines of:

I am grateful for the air in my lungs, the love in my heart, and ideas in my head. I’m also grateful beyond belief for the ability to put my ideas out in the world and that they are received well by others who find them. 

And where that came from was an incident that is best described as “massive bilateral pulmonary emboli with the burden heaviest on the left” which is something I’ll never, ever forget. It was a significant event that was a real wake up call with every detail burned into every fiber of my being.

As we head into this year’s holiday season there’s quite a bit to be worried about. Personally, I have some health things that I need to deal with before they become real concerns but the larger world is careening into a spin that I’m not convinced will be controlled. I’m not going to say I’m not worried, but I’m trying to stay positive. When I was slowly dying in the emergency room because blood clots were clogging up my lungs – which no one suspected for a long time because I was “too young” for it to be that – they worked to figure out what was wrong with me and the nurse kept asking me my name and birthdate.

”You’re doing that to make sure I’m lucid, right?”

She smiled and replied, “Nope. I’m doing it to be annoying.”

Sasha was a real hoot and a great nurse. Breaking the ice like that, keeping me calm and upbeat was a big deal and a huge help. With that, I was able to keep my wife calm and we weathered the worst of everything and I went home a couple days later with a new lease on life. Literally. By the way, nurses saved my life and I will tell anyone who listens they are the heart and soul of every medical facility. They deserve our respect.o

I’m not saying the next few years aren’t going to be difficult and that there won’t be some spectacularly disastrous things that happen, but we can weather the worst of it and come out stronger and (hopefully) smarter on the other side. Listen to the folks trying to keep your spirits up but recognize the underlying cause of the distress and do something about it. 

And remember to take some time to be grateful for the important things in your life. So here’s this year’s version of my gratitude post:

I am grateful for the air in my lungs, the ideas in my head, and the love in my heart. I’m also grateful beyond belief for the ability to put my ideas out in the world and that they are received well by others who find them. The laughter I get to share with my closest friends and unity of cause with my colleagues are important to how I see the world and without them the world would be much darker. So I lift my head to the light and feel the heat on my face and let it warm me all the way through. I am grateful for all this and more, the little things especially.

Take care of yourself. Eat until you’re full then go back for dessert. Take a nap. Read something, watch something, listen to something and enjoy the experience. Savor it. Take a walk, take a deep breath, and about halfway on your path stop, close your eyes, and listen. That right there? That’s what I’m grateful for. The sounds of life.

I’m also deeply grateful for each of you who read here, who’ve bought my books this year and I don’t take that for granted. We are in this together.

Happy Thanksgiving and I’ll see you when I see you.

*I’ll write more about the Art House distinction in my next post. 

**I’m deeply fascinated with Moorcock’s Una Persson who shows up in stories across his Multiverse almost as often as Elric. 

Postscript

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