Clockwork Phoenix 5

by Brennan, Marie

  About “The Road, and the Valley, and the Beasts,” he writes, “The core of this story has hopefully ended up being the characters and how they deal with living in a mostly unknowable world. However, it started with the image of an old, mysterious road and the beings that use that road. A lot of fantasy deals with ancient architecture that has survived to the ‘present day’ of the story, and that’s something which has always fascinated me.”

  * * *

  Rich Larson was born in West Africa, has studied in Rhode Island, and worked in Spain, and at twenty-three now writes in Edmonton, Alberta. His short work has been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Award and appears in multiple Year’s Best anthologies as well as in magazines such as Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Apex Magazine. Find him at http://richwlarson.tumblr.com.

  He tells us, “I was inspired to write ‘Innumerable Glimmering Lights’ after reading about liquid oceans under Europa’s ice crust. The idea of sapient life evolving in a similar situation, underneath a physical barrier that blocked out the sky and stars, was really interesting to me. It might be a huge turning point for an aquatic civilization to become aware of outer space for the first time. Four Warm Currents was conceived as a sort of Copernicus figure in that way, permanently reordering their known universe.”

  * * *

  Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham. She’s the author of The Clockwork Dagger (a finalist for the 2015 Locus Award for Best First Novel) and The Clockwork Crown from Harper Voyager. Follow her at http://bethcato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.

  About “The Souls of Horses,” she had this to share: “When I was in fifth grade, I won a school district library essay contest by saying I wanted to write books about the Civil War and horses, maybe even from the horse’s point of view. Here I am, almost twenty-five years later. I feel like ‘The Souls of Horses’ is the story I have been waiting for all this time. It took me that long to know how to tell it. I think my inner child is pleased.”

  * * *

  On weekdays, Mike Allen writes the arts column for the daily newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia. Most of the rest of his time he devotes to writing, editing, and publishing. He’s the editor of Mythic Delirium magazine and the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies, and the author of the novel The Black Fire Concerto as well as the short story collections Unseaming and The Spider Tapestries. He has been a Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and has won three Rhysling Awards for poetry.

  If you read Mike’s introduction, you may recall him mentioning that he likes to hide things in his bio notes at the back of the Clockwork Phoenix books. Yet this time he did nothing of the sort. He left not a hint that the Clockwork Phoenix series might be his bid to recreate or even improve on the fantasy compilations that blew his mind open when he was just a kid, Terry Carr’s and Martin H. Greenberg’s A Treasury of Modern Fantasy being the most guilty of all culprits. Nor did he suggest that Clockwork Phoenix could simply be viewed as the prose version of the offbeat, theme-linked mix of provocatively crafted words he and his coeditor Anita Allen had already been assembling for years in the form of their poetry journal, Mythic Delirium. (Now that Mythic Delirium also includes prose, the metaphor no longer smoothly maps.) It certainly never crossed his mind to reveal the delight he’s taken over the years in the various expressions of puzzlement he’s read as readers and reviewers have pondered what makes a story right for Clockwork Phoenix.

  (He does know what makes a clockwork phoenix tick, but he’ll never tell.)

  Mike did include that he still can’t believe how lucky he is, that his particular variety of artistic weirdness connects so strongly with so many. He’s also bloody lucky to have such a beautiful and creative soulmate in his artist wife Anita. (And he concedes that the entertainment provided by mutt Loki and felines Persephone and Pandora also constitutes a form of luck.)

  You can follow Mike’s exploits as a writer at http://descentintolight.com, as an editor at http://mythicdelirium.com, and all at once on Twitter at @mythicdelirium. You can also register for his newsletter, “Memos from the Abattoir,” at http://tinyurl.com/abattoir-memos.

  Acknowledgments

  The campaign to create Clockwork Phoenix 5 easily constitutes the most ambitious and complicated project I have ever tackled. Individual projects that were in themselves laborious and time-consuming doubled as sprockets fitted into the workings of the beast, interlocking to animate a greater whole. With so much to keep track of, I’d best just apologize up front to anyone I unintentionally leave out.

  Thanks first and foremost must go to Anita Allen, my wife and cocreator, who (as she has done with every volume) arranged the stories in the order they appear in this book. She helped me sort through more than 1,300 submissions, both by reading stories as they came in over the transom and offering feedback on the finalists. She also made jewelry, etched tumblers, and even canned jars of jam to broaden the range of rewards we could offer in our Kickstarter campaign to fund this book. She used her editorial eye to arrange the stories in several of the other books put up as rewards, such as Mythic Delirium volumes one and two, my collections Unseaming and The Spider Tapestries, and C.S.E. Cooney’s collection Bone Swans. Finally, she supplied treasured advice, sanity, support, and love every single step of the way.

  Thanks to Paula Arwen Owen for her gorgeous cover art for this book, for the new Clockwork Phoenix emblem, and for coming up with rewards of her own to help bring the anthology into being, such as decals and signed prints; and more thanks to her and her husband Kevin for their unflagging shows of support. (I think as the Kickstarter campaign came down to the wire, Paula and Kevin were at least as stressed as Anita and I were.)

  I must shower gratitude on my nagini liege, Shveta Thakrar, for the amazing job she did copyediting this anthology on short notice, and for the many evenings she lent this editor an understanding ear. She received help with the former task from Francesca Forrest, whom I also owe a huge debt of thanks, not just for offering her novel Pen Pal and hand-decorated bottles as bounty for Kickstarter backers, but also for helping me keep my digital magazine Mythic Delirium running (more or less) without a hitch in her capacity as the ’zine’s copyeditor.

  On the Clockwork Phoenix side, my assistant editors Cathy Reniere, Sally Brackett Robertson, and Sabrina West, all veterans of volumes past, helped me stem the relentless tide of story submissions. Meanwhile, Christina Sng, my new assistant digital editor for Mythic Delirium, provided invaluable and timely help producing the magazine amidst the tumult.

  Catherynne M. Valente, Laird Barron, C.S.E. Cooney, and Paul Dellinger all graciously agreed to let me offer their fiction as special rewards. In addition, several more accomplished wordsmiths stepped up during the campaign to add to the goodies: Nicole Kornher-Stace, Rachel Swirsky, Marie Brennan, John Grant, and Patty Templeton. Ken Schneyer proffered sage advice and his skills as a critiquer, plus the chance to get tuckerized in one of his deftly written stories. Thanks, too, to Neil Gaiman, both for signing his poem in the tenth-anniversary Mythic Delirium issue and for sharing that special issue’s availability as a prize with his fans.

  A shout-out goes to Carlos Hernandez for organizing a Reddit Ask Me Anything promotion with practically no lead time, with additional tips of the hat to Benjanun Sriduangkaew for explaining the lay of the land and to Claire Cooney, Francesca Forrest, Margo Lea-Hurwicz, and Paul Barnett for getting the conversation started.

  Alex Shvartsman, Lynne and Michael Thomas, Bill Campbell, C.S.E. Cooney, and Rose Lemberg were all kind enough to suggest to the backers of their own worthy projects that they should take a gander at mine. Jeremy Holmes set aside a precious chunk of time from family and gaming to co-script and shoot the campaign’s video, and Dan Stace provided timely and vital tech
nical wizardry on multiple occasions.

  I don’t know how I could have gotten through this without the cheerful signal boosting of the many contributors to the first four books in the Clockwork Phoenix series and the new incarnation of Mythic Delirium, not to mention previous subscribers and Kickstarter backers. Here’s where I’ll single out Rose Lemberg again, whose incredibly creative suggestions made during our very first Kickstarter are still paying dividends the third time around.

  Let me also bow in awe and appreciation to a special muse whose contribution is one of the most crucial of all. You know who you are. We’ll do dinner soon.

  And now a curtain call, the other person who gets the award for both “Most Giving” and “Most Crucial”: Elizabeth Campbell. None of the wonderful things that have happened in my writing, editing, and publishing career over the past five years could have happened without her.

  Finally, my everlasting gratitude to the backers of the Clockwork Phoenix 5 Kickstarter campaign, both to those few who have chosen to remain anonymous and the many fine folks whose names are listed below.

  Danny Adams

  Seth Alcorn

  Cristina Alves

  Jenise Aminoff

  Erik Amundsen

  Scott H. Andrews

  Anonymous

  Eagle Archambeault

  Asymptotic Binary

  Daniel Ausema

  Ashley M Baldon

  Rayne Banneck

  Barbara Barnett-Stewart

  Andrew Barton

  Robin Bayless

  Bec

  beentsy

  Chris Bekofske

  Beth Bernobich

  Martin Bernstein

  Deborah Biancotti

  Edith Hope Bishop

  Carina Bissett

  Chris Bissette

  Chad Bowden

  Lisa M. Bradley

  Kelly Braun

  Romy Brizak

  Samantha Brock

  Cathy Brown

  Terri Bruce

  D Burkett

  Charlie Byrd

  Elizabeth Cady

  Patrick Cahn

  Dan Campbell

  Autumn Canter

  Anthony R. Cardno

  Paul Cardullo

  Castle KleinHouser

  CGJulian

  Carolyn Charron

  Matthew Cheney

  Neal Chuang

  Ian Chung

  Sara Cleto

  Jessica Cohen

  Alicia Cole

  C.S.E. Cooney

  Fred Coppersmith

  Cathy Cordes

  Aleph Craven

  Jennifer Crow

  Vida Cruz

  Dana

  Sean Dannenfeldt

  Jeanne Davidson

  Rob Davies

  David Davis

  DB

  DeadWriter

  Benet Devereux

  Alexandra Dimou

  Zach Drager

  B L Draper

  Shana DuBois

  Jeff Eaton

  David Edelstein

  Hisham El-Far

  EnricoB

  Gary Every

  Lennhoff Family

  Matthew Farrer

  Joanna Fay

  C.C. Finlay

  Ellen Fleischer

  Sam Fleming (ravenbait)

  Kori Flint

  Victoria Sandbrook Flynn

  Francesca Forrest

  M. J. Francis

  D Franklin

  Alis Franklin

  Dina G.

  Ken Gagne

  Joanna Galbraith

  Kurt C. Garcia

  Gwynne Garfinkle

  Gavran

  M. E. Gibbs

  Andrew Gilstrap

  The Goblin Queen to Whom Mike Allen Owes Fealty

  Brady Golden

  Richard Gombert

  Jeremy M. Gottwig

  Jenny Graver

  Alicia Graves

  Cathy Green

  Arthur Green

  A. T. Greenblatt

  Liz Grzyb

  Carol J. Guess

  Stephanie Gunn

  Amy Gwiazdowski

  Daniel P. Haeusser

  Kathleen T Hanrahan

  AJ Harm

  C.R. Harper

  Benjamin Hausman

  Edie Hawthorne

  Kate Heartfield

  Bran Heatherby

  Andy Heckroth

  Samantha Henderson

  Michael L. Hicks

  Cameron Higby-Naquin

  Woodrow “asim” Hill

  Erin Hoffman-John

  Joseph Hoopman

  Simon Horn

  Lauren Hougen

  Margo-Lea Hurwicz

  J.M.

  Izlinda Jamaluddin

  Shawna Jaquez

  Paul y cod asyn Jarman

  Arun Jiwa

  John Philip Johnson

  Glenn A Jones

  Michael M. Jones

  Jules Jones

  Rachael K. Jones

  Melanie Joy

  Ranti Junus

  Max Kaehn

  Andrew Kaye

  Keffy R. M. Kehrli

  Brian Kitchell

  Jeremy T Kizer

  Yoshio Kobayashi

  Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

  Barbara Krasnoff

  Matthew Kressel

  Lace

  Nat Lanza

  lauowolf

  Shiyiya LeCompte

  Yin Harn Lee

  Y. K. Lee

  Sandi Leibowitz Zoe Lewycky

  Joanna Lowenstein

  C.S. MacCath

  Alex Dally MacFarlane

  S.M. Mack

  Kate MacLeod

  Alex de Jarem Mandarino

  Tommi Mannila

  Susana Marcelo

  Kevin J. “Womzilla” Maroney

  Arkady Martine

  Michael J. Martinez

  Robin L. Martinez

  Melanie Marttila

  Michelle Matel

  D. Elan McAtee

  Elizabeth R. McClellan

  Lynne A. McCullough

  Ian McFarlin

  Ian McHugh

  Lynette Mejia

  Chris Mihal

  Kara Miyasato

  Virginia M Mohlere

  Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

  Diane Severson Mori

  Brooks Moses

  Andreas Muegge

  Simo Muinonen

  Vic & Zoe Munoz

  Tricia Psarreas Murray

  Paul Muse

  Paul Nasrat

  Craig Neumeier

  Andrew Nicolle

  Richard Novak

  Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

  Erica Pantel

  Tiago Becerra Paolini

  Dominik Parisien

  Chuck Parker

  Chelle Parker

  Rhonda Parrish

  Susan Patrick

  Helene Pedot

  David Perlmutter

  Sasha Pixlee

  Amanda Power

  Sara Puls

  Brian Quirt

  rachaar

  Rivqa Rafael

  Adam Rains

  Jeff Raymond

  The Reinhardts

  Catherine Reniere

  Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert

  Julia Rios

  Aaron Roberts

  Martin Roberts

  S. Brackett Robertson

  Karen Robinson

  K.A. Rochnik

  Lauren Roy

  Anastasia Rudman

  María Pilar San Román

  Amy Scheiderman

  Ken Schneyer

  Rebecca Schwarz

  Nick Scorza

  Gopakumar Sethuraman

  Katherine Shan

  Patti Short

  Sita

  Mike Skolnik

  S Sloyan

  Charles Smith

  Andrea Smith

  Gregory P. Smith

  Cat Sparks

  Spidere

  M
ary Spila

  Margaret St.John

  April Steenburgh

  Erica Stevenson

  Ian Stockdale

  Amy H. Sturgis

  Robert E. Stutts

  summervillain

  Jonah Sutton-Morse

  Rachel Swirsky

  SwordFire

  Tanbiere

  Judith Tarr

  Natalia Theodoridou

  Dave Thompson

  Tibicina

  Tibs

  Chris Tierney

  Tiggerperson

  Trentmw

  John S. Troutman

  Anne Tweed

  amber van dyk

  Dave Versace

  Viktor With a K

  Jetse de Vries

  Ray Vukcevich

  Lauren Wallace

  Brittany Warman

  James Weber

  Sarah Lynn Weintraub

  Eric Wells

  Sabrina West

  Tom Whiteley

  Brontë Christopher Wieland

  Tor André Wigmostad

  Ollie Wild

  Connie Wilkins

  Meg Winikates

  Cliff Winnig

  A.C. Wise

  Jessica Wolf

  Navah Wolfe

  Greer Woodward

  Xewleer

  Isabel Yap

  Alan Yee

  yo

  Gretchen Zelle

  Books by Mike Allen

  Novels

  THE BLACK FIRE CONCERTO

  (also available in trade paperback

  and audiobook)

  Story Collections

  UNSEAMING

  (also available in trade paperback)

  THE SPIDER TAPESTRIES

  (also forthcoming in trade paperback)

  Short Fiction

  SHE WHO RUNS

  SLEEPLESS, BURNING LIFE

  STOLEN SOULS

  THE SKY-RIDERS (with Paul Dellinger,

  also in trade paperback and audiobook format)

  THE QUILTMAKER

  Poetry

  HUNGRY CONSTELLATIONS

  (also available in trade paperback)

  As editor

  MYTHIC DELIRIUM

  An International Anthology of Prose and Verse

  (with Anita Allen)

  MYTHIC DELIRIUM: Volume Two

  (with Anita Allen)

  CLOCKWORK PHOENIX

  Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

  CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2

  More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness