"Cloud" in Asimov's Science Fiction

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I'm in print again! This time, it's "Cloud" in the November/December issue of Asimov's Science Fiction.

I'm afraid the cover is a little misleading. "Cloud" is not a hard-science tale of survival featuring an astronaut descending through the atmosphere of a gas giant, reliant only on quick wits and a vacuum suit. Alas. After seeing the artwork, I can't help feeling a little guilty about that. Maybe I should write that cover story someday.

Nevertheless, I am proud of the story. It wasn't easy creating a world that exists on the surface of an enormous cloud with New York City at its very peak. In fact, it took me a couple of years to write--or, rather, to discover exactly why I was writing a tale of World-as-Cloud. But it came out well, I think, and now readers have the opportunity to make up their own minds about it.


And today's diagram . . .




I've mentioned before that a common development in recent-ist literature is the fantasy novel where the hero/heroine one by one acquires a surrogate family. If you doubt this is a real thing, just take a look at Phil and Kaja Foglio's ongoing online graphic novel Girl Genius (you can find it here) and count the number of allies currently surrounding her.

I did something similar with The Iron Dragon's Mother. (I could hardly avoid it, given that it has a substrate of commentary on what fantasy is and should be.) But I flipped it by using the myth of Inanna as a structural model for the second half of the novel. When the Goddess Inanna descended to the underworld, she had to lose, one by one, her armor, her sources of power, her clothing, and, ultimately, her life. Only then could she rise again.

This chart (a timeline reading from top to bottom) was a first effort to catalog what Caitlin had gained and lost over the course of the novel. It's only when she's lost everything but herself that she can find a proper resolution to the novel.

Mind you, when that resolution arrived it came as a surprise to me. But given all that Caitlin had paid for it, it was the only one that made sense.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again. If you're going to be at Capclave this weekend, be sure o say hello.


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