I just got the pdf galley proof of “For Solo Cello, op. 12″ which will appear in the March/April issue of Cosmos. Pretty! Full page art! In color!

Internet Review of Science Fiction reviewed our autumn issue of Shimmer. Many thanks to all of our authors and artists and hearty congratulations to Silvia Moreno-Garcia, whose story “King of Sand and Stormy Seas” got a recommendation from Lois Tilton.

A man’s life comes full circle as he returns to his origins. When he was only a fisher boy, the sea had given him a gift.

The blade was blue with fine letters spelling conjures of protection. Once Lysander had taken the sword to a magician. He told Lysander the writing on the sword predicted that the man who wielded the weapon would become a hero. The magician, it turned out, had been a charlatan.

A nice depiction of the contrast between dreams and reality, and the pain of disillusionment.

Recommended

Hey, I thought you might be interested in checking out my art in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest’s eighth issue. I illustrated “A Place of Snow Angels” by Matt Wallace.

I say illustrated, this is almost all digital and the compositing of four different photographs. The largest is one I took of the glacial lagoon in Iceland. The other four are the dogs, the man and the child. I did some painting to blend them together and then textured the whole thing.

Pick up a copy and see how they came together. It’s on page thirty-three

We had planned on rehearsing yesterday, but spent the day doing errands or repairs instead. Today was much better. Joe and I both had meetings, but we were able to get some time in the evening to run the show all the way through. There are some rough spots, but most of it is where we are inventing business. Remember I told you that each team adds something to the show.

Today was also the first day to do the show with sound and lights. Joe set most of it up before I got there. Here he is taping down a cord to a light so that we don’t trip over it.

We do the voices live and some of the music as well. Here is Joe banging away on the jembe drum at the top of the show. During the rest of the show the music will be on a tape, since we’ll both have our hands full. We use a foot switch to start and stop the tape.

Different people have different feelings about the use of pre-rocorded sound tracks. Some companies will record the voices as well as the music. Having seen and performed both ways, I vastly prefer doing it live. If something goes wrong, and something always will, a tape will keep going, but a live actor can cover for the problem. Plus you can connect with the audience more.

I have zero memory of this one. What makes me laugh about this is that right now I’m designing The Arabian Nights for McCarter Theater and they just finished building a show called Lookingglass Alice. Ah…when worlds collide. How did my fifteen year old self know?

Sinbad was in his new palace, wandering around and wishing he had something to do when a messager from the Emperor came.

“My lord, my lord!” he cried.

“Yes, yes,” Sinbad said, “What is it?” He tapped his foot impatiently.

“My lord,” the messenger cried again. “The Emperor is ill and needs you to fetch an ingredient for his cure!”

“He does!” Sinbad leaped joyfully. “What can I fetch of him?” Sinbad thought of jeweled cups, genies and phoenixes.

“A jabberwock head,” the messenger replied.

“A what?” Sinbad looked at the messenger for an explanation.

“The jabberwock with jaws that bite and claws that catch. It lives in the Tulgey Wood and has eyes of flame,” the messenger said.

“And how may I kill this beast?” Sinbad inquired.

“With this vorpal sword.” The messenger handed him a gleaming blade.

Sinbad held the sword. “Wow…” he said. “I’ll do it.”

Sinbad set off and looked for his maxome foe a long time. After a while he got tired, so rested he by the tumtum tree and stood awhile and thought. “Why am I doing this? Is it for the fun? Naw…the glamour? Naw. I’ve still got glamour leftover from the last adventure…the girls? Yes!!!”

While he stood in uffish thought, the jabberwock with eyes of flame came whuffling through the Tulgey Wood and burbled as it came. He took his vorpal blade in hand and chopped off the jabberwock’s head.

Then he went galumphing back to the Emperor. When he arrived back, the lights were off and no sound was to be heard. “Alack, alas,” he cried in anguish. “I stood in uffish thought too long and now the Emperor is dead!”

He stepped across the threshold and heard the sound of 1,000 matches being lit. The room filled with light and to his joy, he saw the Emperor standing there. “April Fools!” he cried, and showered the bewildered Sinbad with gold.

The End

I think the April Fool’s ending is only marginally better than “And it was all just a dream,” but I like the way I used the text from “Jabberwocky.” So does this count as slipstream or straight fantasy or fanfic?