A virtual appearance and a new story next week!
Hey there, friends, it’s been a hell of a ride, hasn’t it? I’ve gotten so unused to good news that I feel a little dizzy, but in the past few days we’ve seen a blow dealt to Trumpism and now news of a promising vaccine candidate from Pfizer. And Scott and I are taking advantage of global climate destabilization to go to the beach… in November.
We’re going to head out to Cape Ann, near one of the places where my story “On Safari In R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera” takes place, and walk on the sand and maybe get a clam roll if any of the clam roll places are still open.
This will be the furthest I have been from home since last November, and I admit I’m feeling a little weird about it. Odd, when we used to make a 2-hour-each-way drive to Fall River monthly, and this is about the same distance. (The drive was for our Pathfinder game, which now takes place in Discord.)
Speaking pf On Safari, those of you who have been with me for a while will remember it from Livejournal days. It’s the story that took me thirty years to write, and I thought of the title and first line in 1989, when I was 17 years old and playing in John Goodrich’s Call of Cthulhu game.
Well, John is now a horror writer and it’s probably mostly his fault that I won my second Hugo Award (for “Shoggoths in Bloom”) because the sensibility of his games all those years ago has definitely infected my attempts to deconstruct Lovecraftiana.
Anyway, it took me thirty years to find the missing plot pieces, and it will be out November 18th at Tor.com and (I believe) in ebook.
Also next week, on Thursday November 19th, I will be appearing with my pal Max Gladstone in a virtual event for Odyssey Bookshop, my local bookstore. You can register for the event in advance and order books at the link up there.
Hah, Margaret Atwood’s Remote Signing Device is looking less silly these days, isn’t it? Well, if she does turn out to be a prophet, remember that the Republic of Gilead fell, and The Handmaid’s Tale is presented as a historical document. (I think. It’s been almost thirty years since I read it. I read it around the same time as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and A.S. Byatt’s Possession and somehow I can’t think of one without thinking of the other two. Even if Atwood’s name doesn’t end with a double T.)
That’s it for now! Talk to you soon.
Best,
Bear