With the retro anthology
Old Mars scheduled for release in three days time, the publisher has posted the first fifty pages
here.
Since my story, "The Ugly Duckling," starts on page 35, its first half is included in the free-read excerpt.
I'm pleased by the story, for two reasons. First, I was not supposed to be included in the invitation-only antho, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. But one of the initial invitees apparently dropped out, and I was asked shortly before turn-in date, if I could fill in. I was delighted to do so.
The second reason: I wanted to write a Mars story that had some of that wondrous sense of mood and tone that I remembered from my reading of Ray Bradbury's stories back in my teens and early twenties. I wanted it to be an homage to one of the favorite authors of my youth, and would have been delighted if he'd read the story and approved of it. But I had just gotten started on the first draft when word came that Bradbury had died.
So now it wasn't an homage; it was a tribute.