Spoiler Space: "Another Country"

I spent a lot of time wondering how to write about refugees. I was a high school teacher for about ten years, and during that time I taught a lot of Somali students (there's a large Somali community in Ottawa.) What I found was that there was often a big difference between how the boys and girls did in school: the girls, typically thrived, seeming generally happy and well-integrated and often excelling academically; the boys, on the other hand, quite often seemed as though they weren't really there – they weren't discipline problems, generally, but they were very disconnected from school both socially and academically. There were probably a lot of reasons for this, but I think one of them was that they had different feelings of what was expected of them: the girls were allowed to succeed, but among the boys there was a sense that there being in Canada was only temporary, and that succeeding here would be almost a betrayal of their duty to eventually return home and rebuild their country.

I wanted to explore this dilemma – the tension between wanting to succeed in your new country and your duty to your home country – but but I felt uncomfortable writing about Somalis (or any group of real-life refugees) for a number of reasons: partly because I didn't feel it was my story to tell, but also because I wanted to write something that was more broadly about the personal question than this specific situation. It wasn't until I read Robert Charles Wilson's A Bridge of Years, in which a man from our time seeks refuge in the 1960s – and a soldier from a dystopian future flees to our time – that I got the idea of reversing that and having the refugees come from the past. Even after that, though, the story was slow to come, and it was only when I realized that Geoff should himself be a prefugee that it finally came alive for me. (I had to fudge my Latin a bit because of that: “Galfridius” is not a real Roman name but a latinization of the name Geoffrey. I also fudged the whole verbs-at-the-end-of-sentences bit, which wasn't actually how Romans talked but gave the prefugees a distinctive speech pattern and was a bit of an in-joke for fellow Latin students.)

Sources:

Paul Veyne et al, A History of Private Life, Volume 1: From Pagan Rome toByzantium.

The “mice” dish really exists; I got it from Jane Renfrew's Roman Cookery, but you can get a recipe at http://eirny.com/2013/03.

All Latin in the story comes courtesy of Mr. Savage's Latin class at Glebe Collegiate Institute though, as always, any mistakes are my own.

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On the racks: "Rules of Engagement"

So it looks like the April/May issue of Asimov's is out, containing my story "Rules of Engagement." Two reviews are already up too, and both are pretty good: Sam Tomaino at SFRevu calls it a "good, solid story" with "a shattering conclusion" while it's one of just two Recommended stories in Lois Tilton's early March short fiction reviews at Locus.

Here's the first page of "Rules of Engagement":

A Reporter At Large

It was not much of a fight, as bar fights go: not even enough to get Kevin Bishop, Tony Cervantes and Tom Hollis thrown out of the bar in which they had spent the afternoon and evening of July ninth. The three soldiers had been drinking at The Swiss Bar and Grill, a bar popular with college students on weeknights but largely taken over by military on weekends, when their implants relax the usual restrictions on alcohol. Bishop, Cervantes and Hollis had served together in the 23rd Infantry Division of the 2nd Infantry Brigade (more often referred to as the 23-IN), mostly in Somalia and Yemen, and two of them were still on active duty. Fire team Chinook had survived the worst that the war and al-Shabaab could throw at them, but before long two would be in prison and one would be dead.

 

The immediate cause of the fight was money. Bishop, who had ordered the last two rounds, had revealed that he was unable to pay his share of the night's tab. The entire 23-IN had been flush with back pay when they had come home from deployment in Yemen, bringing a welcome stream of money into the city's bars; it was not unusual during that period for John Pratt, The Swiss's owner, to make two or more bank runs per night, each time with a duffel bag full of money. (Soldiers in the 23-IN pay for almost everything in cash, due to a widely-held belief that their implants track direct payments.) Two months later the money was beginning to run out, and for Bishop – who was no longer receiving combat pay and was also making regular payments to the city's ghat dealers – it already had. 

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Lightning-quick post, with new extra lightning quickness

So, there have been a... lot of things happening, which at the same time make it hard to find time to do a blog post and also important to do so.

As a lot of people know, it's been a pretty active time for SFWA. At the moment I'm getting lots of e-mails around the @SFWAAuthors Twitter account, which is good: if you're an SFWA member (or even if you're not) and you want your voice to be heard, please e-mail me and the rest of the Board. Because the matter is still under consideration I can't really say much more about it right now, other than to say that before too long my position on it, both as a Board member and a member of SFWA, will be clearly and unambiguously stated.

Two other bits of news, somewhat more cheerful: first, "The Last Islander" has been selected as the anchor story of Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. I thought this story was a bit overlooked when it came out (relative to my other stories, that is; I'll let other people decide how it rates in terms of short stories in general) so it's nice to see it get a second chance. Second, I've sold my almost-novella "Rules of Engagement" to Asimov's Science Fiction. It's a pretty nifty bit of near-future SF, if I do say so myself, with guns and drones and neural implants and all the action that "The Last Islander" and "Holdfast" didn't have, and then some. I'm not sure when it's coming out yet, but the contract arrived a week after I got the acceptance which may mean it'll be gracing shelves and ereaders soon.

Lightning, away!

Ottawa, Ad Astra, Aurora

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

And so ends a month of pretending to be a real writer! First was my reading at the Toronto ChiSeries where I was proud to be part of a lineup including Peter Watts, Kari Maaren and Kate Story. I had a good time and for once I was able to stay late and hang out with people. Then came Ad Astra which started, for me, with a panel on The Walking Dead that led, somehow, to jokes about Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey and Venn Diagrams. (If there's a bad Venn Diagram joke, I haven't heard it.) Later the same night was my reading with Matt Moore. The room was nearly full and I got to read "Beyond the Fields You Know," a story from my upcoming collection which only one person in the room had seen before; Matt read his great story "Delta Pi".

About five seconds before I give up on my Kobo

The next morning I had panels on two different flavours of alternate history and then went to do my turn at the Bundoran table. This is the first time we've had a table at Ad Astra so it was as much about building awareness as selling books; fortunately we did sell more than a few books, and it was gratifying to have people come looking for my book after they'd seen me on panels. Saturday night was the launch of "The Salt and Iron Dialogues" as well as the e-book of "Blood and Water" so I got to read alongside Kate Heartfield, Derek Kunsken, Ryan McFadden and oh, yeah, Julie Czerneda!

Then with just a day to recover I got to help launch ChiSeries Ottawa. Matt Moore was once again to blame, though this time I wasn't reading with him but with Violette Malan and Charles de Lint. We couldn't have asked for a better turnout and the audience was great. (Thanks to Jonathan Crowe for taking the pictures you see here.)

Last up: There are three days left before Aurora nominations close. I haven't done any particular promotion of the two stories I have that are eligible, but on the off chance that you plan to nominate and haven't yet done so I'll just remind you about "The Last Islander" (Asimov's, September 2012) and "The Afflicted" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2012).

Now back to reality!

Views and reviews

Two new reviews over the interwires today. The first is of "The Afflicted" in Fantasy Literature, which describes it as "a zombie story that manages to be a touch original, likening zombies to those suffering from senile dementia (the first sign that one is starting to turn in his world is an inability to think straight). One becomes a zombie only gradually in this world, just as Alzheimer’s patients tend to fade away slowly. The parallel makes this story more painful than the usual zombie story, in which zombies are nothing but cannon fodder; here, they are people first." The second is a review of "The Last Islander" at Tangent, where reviewer Bob Leishman says "Matthew Johnson tells the story of a displaced people and he does so particularly well," concluding simply "I liked this story."

On the racks: "The Last Islander"

The September issue of Asimov's, which includes my story "The Last Islander," is apparently now available more or less everywhere, and it's already gotten a nice review from SFRevu, which calls it "a beautiful, lyrical tale of loss and acceptance that I enjoyed thoroughly." Here's the first bit of it:




Saufatu stood neck-deep in the water, watching the dawn arrive over the great empty ocean to the east. He raised the coconut shard in his right hand to his mouth and nibbled on the flesh, enjoying the mixture of sweet and salty flavors, then quickly glanced over his shoulder at the shore. He knew before looking that there would be no-one there: even Funafuti, the biggest of the Eight Islands, was nearly always empty except on Independence Day. Here on Niulakiti, the first of the islands to sink, he had never seen another soul.

He turned back to the sea, took another bite of his coconut and frowned. Something was out there. He squinted, trying to make out the dark smudge perhaps a half kilometer out towards the horizon. It looked like someone swimming, or rather thrashing at the surface; suddenly he remembered what he had put out there, realized what was happening, and pushed himself out into the waves.

It had been a long time since he had been swimming, but a childhood spent in the sea had inscribed his muscles with the necessary motions. He inhaled and exhaled salt spray with each stroke, getting nearer and nearer to the man – for he could now see that it was a man, dark-haired and tanned but unmistakeably white – who was struggling for his life. The snout and fin of the grey reef shark, rising and falling from the water as it fought to draw the man down, completed the picture.

Saufatu reached the man a few minutes later, closing his mouth to avoid inhaling the bloody water. The man looked pale, but surprisingly composed given what he had just been through. He put his right arm around Saufatu’s shoulder and kicked his legs weakly.

"Not that way," Saufatu said, shaking his head. "Past here it’s all algorithmic. Just let me pull you."

The Summer of George

I got back from a short trip to Montreal (just fine, thank you; it was the boys' first time there, and we went to see the animals at the Biodome and the mummy at the Redpath and ate Portuguese grilled chicken and lots of french fries) to find the September issue of Asimov's in the mailbox. From what I can glean it's not yet in stores, so I'll hold off posting a teaser for the story, but I wanted to draw your attention to the cover...

... could it be? Yes, I think it is: my name on the cover. (My first time for Asimov's and only my second-ever time being cover featured on any magazine that doesn't list all of its contributors on the cover.)

Guess I need to start writing some more stories, huh?

Three sales to the wind

Some of you may have noticed it's been a little quiet around here lately, the result of an unusually busy work schedule and the arrival of our new little guy; in fact, I recently realized that I didn't have a single original story out this year. Fortunately, 2012 is already looking a lot more positive: first, my story "The Last Islander" will be coming out from Asimov's, probably sometime in the spring; second, I made my first-ever sale to Fantasy & Science Fiction, my story "The Afflicted,"; and finally I have a non-fiction piece coming in Clarkesworld on the role of food in fantasy and SF, probably in late spring. Keep checking in and I'll keep you posted!

Have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!