Lois Tilton at IRoSF reviewed Clarkesworld, which includes “Clockwork Chickadee.”

The chickadee hatches a plot with the live mouse, but it’s hard to believe that the sparrow would have been so foolish as to fall for their trick. I don’t think the chickadee is very nice.

Hee hee. I don’t think the chickadee is very nice either.

Scott M. Sandridge at The Fix reviewed Clarkesworld Magazine, #21, which included my story “Clockwork Chickadee.”

…don’t let the surface innocence of the story fool you. Kowal delves into shades of gray and exposes the grayness in a fairy-tale style trapping often used (at least in modern times) to compare the usual black-and-white view of morality. All these reasons and more make this story well worth reading.

Shortbits reviewed Clockwork Chickadee and closed with this line.

This is a fun little steampunk parable whose apparent moral lesson (pride comes before the fall) is somewhat subverted by the cold, calculated nature of Chickadee’s schemes.

What’s interesting to me is that I thought about putting an actual moral at the end, but decided not to because it defused the story. I asked some early readers what moral they would put and they all said, “Well clearly it’s [x].” Except [x] was different for every one of them.

So, now I’m curious. What do you think the moral of the story is?

This month, Clarkesworld magazine is offering my story, “Clockwork Chickadee,” as one of their two fiction offerings. Plus, “The Secret in the House of Smiles” by Paul Jessup, and non-fiction by Ekaterina Sedia, Jeff VanderMeer and Neil Clarke.

The teaser:

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

The story is available in two flavors, written or read aloud. Clarkesworld is offering audio fiction now, and my story kicks that off.

They’ve got a comment thread, so do let them know what you think.

Clarkesworld does the very smart thing of making electronic advance review copies available for the magazine. Joe Sherry at Adventures in Reading reviewed “The Clockwork Chickadee” and includes what is my now my favorite compliment ever.

The story is, in turn, playful and charming, well thought out and deliberate, and Kowal appears to have written her own version of an O Henry story.

It works.

O’Henry was really my first love in the world of short stories. Sure, I’d read others and enjoyed them. Really, my first love should have been Ray Bradbury, but I think O’Henry captured me because his stories were deceptively simple. There were no elements of wonder, like Martians or rocket ships, just people living ordinary lives. And then, with one turn of phrase, he could change the entire meaning of everything you’ve read. When people want to write twist endings, what they really want is to write an O. Henry story.

Take a moment and go read “The Skylight Room.”

Clarkesworld Magazine just posted a preview of the June cover art, which will have my story “Clockwork Chickadee” in it. I am thrilled to be sharing the issue with this creepy art by Eli Effenberger.

Yesterday, while working at the theater, I ran to an internet cafe so I could check on the status of a prop I’d ordered. Two things popped up in my email.

1. Your account has been suspended.

2. An IM from Neil Clarke asking if I’d like to sell him “Clockwork Chickadee.”

So, while I’m on the phone with technical support, I’m also having a conversation with Neil about the story. See, the funny thing is, that I didn’t submit “Chickadee” to Clarkesworld. I sent it to Fantasy Magazine. Yeah… A week or so back, I had a conversation with Cat Rambo, editor, about how she liked the story but had reservations about anything clockwork, because she’s expecting a deluge of them due to the Shimmer Clockwork Junglebook issue.¹ But she liked the story, so she showed it to Sean Wallace, who then showed it to Neil and they decided to move the story to that venue.

This is, I think, the most roundabout way that I’ve ever seen a story of mine take, but I couldn’t be more delighted. It’s due out in June.

1. To which, I’m not allowed to submit anything because I’m on the staff [↩]

I think I wrote almost all of this story on the subway. 2500 words of clockwork.

It’s in a password protected post, but it’s the usual password. Don’t know what that is? Drop me a line and I’ll tell ya.

And here’s the teaser.

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

He took no pains to conceal his contempt for those who could not. When his mechanism spun him around and around overhead, he twittered — not even a proper song — to call attention to his flight. Chickadee kept her head down when she could so as not to give him the satisfaction of her notice. It was clear to her that any bird could fly if only they were attached to a string like him. The flight, of which he was so proud, was not even an integral part of his clockwork. A wind-up engine hanging from the chandelier spun him in circles while he merely flapped his wings. Chickadee could do as much. And so she thought until she hatched an idea to show that Sparrow was not so very special.