It's Alive! The Beast of Tara

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Look what came in the mail today! The January/February 2022 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. Which contains my most recent story, "The Beast of Tara."

This story is the second in what I'm calling The Retrocausality Trilogy. The first story was "Dream Atlas," Which appeared in the March/April 2021 issue of  Asimov's and the third is "Reservoir Ice," which will be in a forthcoming issue. 

Never throw out anything. Especially ideas.

Here's how the story begins:

The night watchman at what the crew laughingly called “the dig” was a hard man named Finn MacDougall and it was clear from the start that he had a past. “With this one, you needn’t worry that your equipment will do a walkabout,” the man from the Institiúid Seandálaithe na hÉireann who recommended him had said. “When word gets around that he’s on the job, there’s not a villain will come within a mile of Tara.” And, indeed, it was true that so far we’d had no trouble.

 The idea was one I had in the mid-Seventies, years before I made my first sale. The research for what the Hill of Tara looks like was conducted in 1982 and 2019  and I began the actual writing late last year.

 We shall write... no story... before its time. 

And as always . . .

I'm on the road again. This time, predictably enough, to Washington D.C. for Discon III, the World Science Fiction Convention. 

I promise I'll take all possible safety precautions.

And since you asked . . .

 Here's my schedule:

 

Friday 7:00 PM    1 Hr          Blue Room                  Writing Short Fiction   

 

Friday 8:30 PM    1 Hr          Congressional On-Site Vie  Imaginary Book Club                             

 

Saturday 11:30 AM  1 Hr          Diplomat Ballroom          552        Short Fiction Expanded   

 

The Imaginary Book Club is, I believe on-site virtual.

 

And if you're at the con and you see me, be sure to say hello!

 

 

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