Daniel Ausema's Blog, page 13

Pre-order The Silk Betrayal now!

If you watch this space closely, you may have noticed a new tab showing up above (or in the list of tabs on the mobile version): The Silk Betrayal!

The Silk Betrayal is a story of magic and revolution in a caste-based society.

Or in a slightly longer form:

Pavresh hoped to master the intricacies of arcist magic. Instead, he finds himself entangled in the city's events. While princes scheme against each other for power, revolutionaries plot against them all to overthrow the rigid caste system. Poets try to inspire change with heretical words, while militants plan more forceful action. A woman born to the princely class, rendered untouchable by a disfiguring accident, sees in revolution a path to a better life. All these strands meet at the home of Chaitan, the elderly master magician from whom Pavresh wishes to learn.

In such an environment, betrayal is inevitable. When loyalties conflict, how does one decide whom to betray?

It is the first book of the Arcist Chronicles, but it stands alone. What is arcist magic? What's the story beyond this novel? Who are the characters, and where does it take place? I'll have some more posts coming up to answer all those questions.

You can pre-order this book in print (for a discount!) now, here: Guardbridge Books online store. It will ship in early December, at which point the price will revert to its normal cost, and the print book will be available from other online stores as well. Ebook versions will follow later.

"Learning the Language of Denshin"

This poem was published earlier this week in Polu Texni. One definite inspiration for the poem was the works of Milorad Pavic. He was a Serbian author, most famous for The Dictionary of the Khazars, which is a fascinating book. After reading it a decade or so ago I went out and looked for any others of his books I could find. I always appreciate playfulness in stories, or at least things that strike me as playfully intriguing, where the play trips you as reader into other ideas or images. One of the ways Pavic plays around with language that I always liked had to do with describing the way a particular person spoke or even the way a particular language or dialect is different from others. So sometimes you distinguish one character from another by how they pronounce their consonants or how they don't pronounce their vowels. And sometimes their accents are compared to things that...make no logical sense yet have an allusive quality that often felt pitch-perfect despite logic.

There are other things at play here--Italo Calvino, even a hint of Lemony Snicket, as well as the story-based approach to language learning that I use to teach--but Pavic's way of describing the way his characters talk is a definite part of this poem.

Another new story available, "The Desert Cure"

Mythic Delirium's fall 2017 issue came out last month, but as always they release the stories and poems online over a three-month span so those who don't subscribe/buy a copy can still read them. So my short story "The Desert Cure" is now available to read online.

This story has a special place for me. There are many stories I've heard about my ancestors--in fact two of my grandparents wrote down chapbook-like accounts of their own childhoods and a third for their life after they married that they gave to all the kids and grandkids. So I mashed a bunch of those stories and others together in this very surreal take on immigrating to a new land.

One that's especially intrigued me is of my great-grandmother who immigrated at a young age to New Mexico territory because the doctors thought the dry air would be better for her TB-infected lungs. "The Desert Cure" is one of two short stories I've written about such a situation (the other is perhaps even more Weird/New Weird than this surreal one...and is currently unpublished).

So give the story a read, enjoy its story of immigration and uncanny gods, and then subscribe to Mythic Delirium to get the rest of the fall issue.

Three Days of Unnamed Silence

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Tangent Online has a generally positive review of the story already up, though more plot summary than anything else. Key line: "This shift in view point cleverly mirrors the central idea of how society strips us of our identities. It is a clever and unusual tale..." I'll take that.

So give the story a read. And then keep the WYRM's Gauntlet in mind next year when it comes around (it's been October into December previous years but was a bumped forward a couple of months this year).

The Patterns of Cloth and Dreams released!

This novella is on Amazon now!

What's the story here? In the original series, Chels always wondered about how her mother's connection to the spire singer Derran. There were reasons why I didn't want to get into that question within the series, but I knew it was a story that was much more than just them meeting up on Derran's perch in the city.

So a few years ago I decided, with a friend's urging, I decided to see what more I could write about Chels's mother, Nalariana. From the series it's known that she's Neshini and that she immigrated to Spire City some years before Chels's birth, but not as a child herself.

It's also known that the land of Nesh has been growing steadily colder over the years, that much of the land, by the time of the series, is no longer inhabitable. No doubt that was already beginning to happen when Nalariana decided to leave.

So that's where the story began. As I knew would happen, Nalariana--or Nalra as she sometimes called herself--quickly became a vivid character in her own right. And her journey of self discovery was one I found fascinating.

Is it steampunk?

Well, the industrial revolution is beginning by this time, but it is a generation before the other stories, and the country where it takes place is much more at the periphery than Spire City is. So it feels a little less steampunk while still exploring the ideas of change and development that interest me in steampunk. At the same time there's a definite quest fantasy (where the quest is one of personal discovery) feel to the story as Nalra travels northward.

Whatever you want to call it, give it a read and enjoy!

The Patterns of Cloth and Dreams

More Spire City--coming soon!


More details about this novella next week, but for now admire that awesome cover art.

Hunting Nazis

Earlier this summer I caught up on a Spanish drama that a number of my fellow Spanish teachers use for their classes, El Internado (The Boarding School, in English). An excellent story in general (though not appropriate for my school situation), but one scene in particular jumped into my memory last weekend, and I went back to rewatch the scene.

[Some spoilers below]

Fermín is a a jokester who's been in the school since before the first season, working as a cook. By now it's the final season, so we know his full story: that he's been undercover at the school, and his real purpose is to track down Nazis who came to Spain after World War II and still exert their influence in mysterious and deadly ways. He's easily one of my favorite characters in what's a pretty sprawling cast.

In this scene, he's exploring the secret passages with a soldier who has a complicated history with the secret organization founded by the former Nazis. We as viewers know more than Fermín, that Lt. Garrido was on their side until he got trapped behind a quarantine, but we aren't totally sure yet whether he's helping the students who are trapped or still hoping to betray them to get back in the good graces of the organization.

Anyway, Fermín is giving Garrido a hard time about never joking. Garrido doesn't answer directly, just asks if Fermín does his work out of some sense of vocation.


Fermín answers, "Well, man, the cooking—that relaxes me. But this hunting for Nazis, that's more for fun."


You can see the episode (with English subtitles if you need it) at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2sqx4x (the whole series may also be on Netflix--it's been on and off since I started hearing about it from other teachers, and I don't have Netflix myself to check). The key scene is about 28 minutes in.

May we have many more Fermíns these days...

Story, poetry acceptances

Thrilled to have sold a story, "The Desert Cure," to Mythic Delirium.  It's a very personal story, in a very weird way...

Also pleased to have sold two poems to Polu Texni, "Ostracizing the Blacksmith," and "The Language of Denshi." I will post links to all when they are available.

Two poems published

I have a poem in each of the most recent SFPA publications:

"Naming the Trash Moons" is in issue 25 of Eye to the Telescope (free to read online). This is an SF poem I wrote specifically on the theme for the issue.

And "Some Things Overlooked" is in Starline 40.3, which can be purchased at that link (or if you're a member of SFPA, you get the issue for free). This is also an SF poem, of landing on a new planet...with a touch of horror underneath that arrival.

Give them a read, and check out the other poems in each as well.

Spire City sale!

I'm participating in Smashwords' July sale. A ton of books are on sale or free at Smashwords for the month, including all three of the full season bundles.

So Season One: Infected is completely free.

Season Two: Pursued is down to half price.

And Season Three: Unwoven is also at half price. That means you can get the entire series for less than $5. If you haven't gotten around to reading the books, then this is a great time to do so. Or a great time to buy copies of the series to give to friends.