Tag: novelette

New Edition of “The War on Hormones”, Year in Review, and More!

Francis BassLeave a comment

I’ve got a bunch of little announcements to make so I’m throwing them all together in this post, roughly in descending order of importance.

Free Zines!

As promised, here is the 4th and final zine of 2023! This one is a re-issue of a novelette I previously published as an ebook, “The War on Hormones.” It’s about pharmaceutically asexual teenagers at a performing arts high school, and I wrote it when I myself was in 12th grade. Despite or because of this, I think it holds up! I had fun rereading it, anyway, and only made a few minor edits for clarity. I also cut the afterword to keep it a more conveniently printable length.

This new zine edition is free! Just email me at Francis.R.Bass [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll send you a copy. You can also still buy the old ebook version on Smashwords if you want to throw me some money.

Also, if you would like any of the zines I’ve previously released, now is your last chance to get them for free, with free shipping!

To wit, that is:

  • “Cartographer,” a grotesque fantasy about a person lost in the colossal corpse of their god, and the mapmaker they always end up returning to. (LOW STOCK)
  • “Masters of the Wine Printers Guild,” an economic fantasy about a conspiracy of apprentices who decide to defy the masters and print their own wine;
  • “Is Magic School Still Worth It?”, a fantasy short story about trying to put a price tag on our nobler aspirations (i.e., magic.);
  • And “Fires Burn Forever in This World,” a short story about a city where the antiquated practice of leaving firefighting to private insurance companies has persisted right up to the modern era..

If you missed out on one of these before, or if you really liked one and want another copy to share with a friend, let me know! Going forward I will be charging for my zines like the mercenary wretch I am. So get them while you can, orders close Jan 1st.

Year in Review

It’s been a pretty quiet year on the magazine front, but a big year for self-publishing stuff. There are all those zines of course, and also a new collection of short stories which I released as an ebook, Stories About Kids Stealing Things. The book collects seven stories about people with very little ability to control their own lives, and no ability to control the world at large. They are going to try anyway.

It’s also probably the coolest cover I’ve ever made.

I wrote a very long and very negative review of The Parable of the Sower. I mean, I wrote plenty of other reviews this year, but I think this one came out really well, and even if you don’t care about the book, the review gets at some of the things I find lacking in dystopian fiction. If you only read one of my posts from this year, read that one.

No new publications in magazines this year, but I did have one reprint—my story “The Mechanical Turk Has a Panic Attack” appeared on Escape Pod! This is a story I really love, and it was great to have my work appear in such a prominent institution of contemporary short sci-fi.

Not much other than that! I am still writing this fucking novel, the one I mentioned I’d started back in April. It is about 2x the length I expected it to be. I will hopefully have the first draft finished in January, and then can spend the next year writing short stories. I like writing novels, and I honestly think this one is going to come out amazing, but I think I am just too artistically promiscuous to write long projects like this one all the time. Like I cannot imagine committing myself to another novel right after I finish this one. So I’m looking forward to being a narrative slut next year.

Public Domain Day

Public Domain Day approaches! Each year on January 1st, Public Domain Day, I celebrate by releasing one of my works to the public domain. Last year, some friends and fellow artists joined me in this, ceding some of their works as well. If you would like to do the same this year, let me know so I can link to the work you’re ceding in my post! The work can be a song, a photo, a short story—anything you’ve made and would like to release forever to the commons.

For more info on Public Domain Day, you can check out my page on it, or the post from last year.

Happy holidays, see you January 1st!

New Publication: Cartographer

Francis Bass2 Comments

Hey, it’s a new novelette! It’s actually pretty old, but I’m finally getting around to publishing it, and you can get it now on Smashwords!

Also, if you would like a physical copy of this thing *for free,* I will be posting some details about that on Twitter shortly (edit: Here.) Or you can email me and I’ll let you know about it when I’ve got the details figured out. Essentially: I have been very intrigued by zines and cheap printing lately, and I think sometime in the future I would like to incorporate that into how I sell my stories. Having a little booklet is, I think, so much nicer than staring at a screen. Turning a page rules, and scrolling ceaselessly does not (unless you are using a physical scroll maybe.) For now, I just want to do this as a proof of concept, so I will be charging the low price of *nothing* for a physical copy of this novelette. Though if you want to show your support by also buying a digital copy, I will certainly not stop you.

Here’s the synopsis: Si Muue is lost in the colossal subterranean corpse of their god. Separated from their family, their memory deteriorating, they arrive at the home of a cartographer just in time. The cartographer, Lio P, draws them a map in exchange for a detailed account of their travels through rotting innards and cavernous bones. However, the two disagree on the shape of God: Lio P believes God resembled a godson, like him, while Si Muue believes God was not like any mortal race, but was a mixture of all of them.  

And when Si Muue ventures forth, they soon become just as lost as before, and return to the cartographer. Again they receive a new map, and again they are lost, over and again, until their memories are all a confused mix, and they can’t tell dream from reality, and it seems they will never escape this decaying underworld.

“Cartographer” is a grotesque fantasy, a story of torment, survival, and despair. Lost in bloody darkness, the only way is forward.

CW: Violence

New Publication: Yellowknife

Francis BassLeave a comment

“Yellowknife” is now available at Amazon and Smashwords! (And because I’m participating in Smashwords’s Authors Give Back sale, for the next couple days you can get it free from Smashwords!) For anyone who’s read my story “The Wisdom Goddess Star,” this novelette is set in the same world, though with a different group of characters.

yellowknife-c-1Inspector Naval is not that sort of inspector. He examines safety code violations, claims of mismanaged funds, workplace accidents. He is not a private eye, he is not a detective, he is not a genius of deductive reasoning. But Mars has scarcely any law enforcement, so when Margaret Hoehn turns up dead at an International Martian Program facility, Inspector Naval is the best the IMP can send.

Margaret Hoehn died at Yellowknife, an isolated research base mainly dedicated to studying the extraterrestrial bacteria found there. It was in the room containing this very bacteria that Hoehn was found dead from CO2 poisoning. In such a small facility, with constant surveillance footage ruling out most suspects, there’s a narrow pool of people who could’ve killed her—or maybe it was suicide, or just an accident. Regardless, Naval is still out of his depth, and he’ll have to adjust to the peculiar rhythms of life at the small, insular colony if he’s ever going to find out what really happened.

In addition to the novelette, this publication also includes an afterword by the author about how a mystery fiction class and research on Antarctica influenced the writing of the story.

New Publication: Red, Her Hand

Francis BassLeave a comment

Wow it’s been a while since one of these, but here we go, “Red, Her Hand” is now available at Amazon and Smashwords! (And because I’m participating in Smashwords’s Authors Give Back sale, you can currently get it free from Smashwords!)

RHH-c-1“Now the real power isn’t predicting the future. The real power is predicting the prophecy.”

Gailee is a poor girl living in the Predestined Empire, where prophecies, written centuries ago by cloistered prophets, dictate all law and governance. Gailee provides for her family by working as a transcriber in one of the courts that interprets these prophecies, and as a straw dealer to noble kids. Tuuqoi, one of her buyers, is a young noble fated to become a prophet soon, whose most daring transgression in life is steaming straw with Gailee. His life takes a turn for the roguish when Gailee, overcome by a sense of calling, enlists his help to fulfill her destiny and become a prophet herself.

In addition to this novelette, this publication also includes an afterword by the author about the inspirations that mixed together to make this story.

New Publication: ChannelCon ’30

Francis Bass2 Comments

Right on time for convention season, my new novelette “ChannelCon ’30” is now available on Amazon and Smashwords!

0016d89f1aa203ded0e47304488df88d16e3c368With hours and hours of old movies entering the public domain every year, in the near future curators emerge as a new kind of content creator, culling all this old material and selecting personal favorites to livestream on their channels. Lindsey Xong and Amber Smith are two such curators, Amber focusing on finding movies, and Lindsey focusing on commentary and abridgment. Together, the two form Amber Linz, an incredibly popular channel, poised to sign a major deal to to get exclusive access to old movies a year before they enter public domain. To announce this deal and to engage with the curator community, the two go to ChannelCon, the biggest, greatest curator convention in the world.

But almost instantly, it’s clear that ChannelCon is coming apart at the seams, beset by the growing division between purists (who stream content completely unedited) and cureditors (who stream abridged or even completely remixed movies.) As retaliations and acts of sabotage escalate, the two sides seek to claim either Amber or Lindsey as their own, driving a wedge between the duo and jeopardizing their deal. Finding out which side is perpetrating all the chaos is not only important for purists and cureditors—it could also be the only way to save the Amber Linz deal, and Amber Linz itself.

In addition to this novelette, this publication includes an afterword in which I discuss the real world inspiration for this story, and how little fandom and conventions have changed in the past 80 years.

New Publication: The Wisdom-Goddess Star

Francis BassLeave a comment

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! My novelette, “The Wisdom-Goddess Star,” is now available on Smashwords and Amazon. It has nothing to do with love or romance, but neither does St. Valentine (possibly), so it works out. Here’s the synopsis:

twgs-c-2Alexander Irving. First generation Martian, born to Patricia Irving and Peter Leung. Studied journalism at the newly founded University of Mars, a petri dish for “human journalism,” a new style of journalism to compete with AI reporters. Moved to Phobos upon graduation and joined the staff of The Light, the premier news organization of Mars’s largest satellite. Reported primarily on the working class of Phobos—technicians, repair crew, service workers—and always felt he was missing something. The grit of real journalism, investigative journalism, the kind which humans still do in the mud and shadows of Earth.

2 Pallas. Third most massive asteroid in the solar system, the newest acquisition of the International Martian Program. Its colonization is the first major IMP project to make use of the Per Aspera Ad Astra program, recruiting a thousand new members from working class, low income, secondary education backgrounds. Due to its highly eccentric orbit, Pallas only nears Mars once every 2 years—making it the most isolated colony in the IMP.

Pallas gives Irving the opportunity he’s looking for, to probe deep into a colony from which AI cannot harvest data, as the colony still lacks a long-range communications relay. When Irving arrives, he shortly discovers that Pallas’s isolation may be the intentional work of the local governor, and he endeavors to discover what exactly the governor wants to keep hidden from the rest of the IMP.

In addition, the publication includes an afterword in which I discuss how a school superintendent election, a dysfunctional novella, and a few English classes influenced the creation of this story.

New Publications: “Calamcity,” and “De.mocra.cy” Audiobook

Francis BassLeave a comment

We’re well into summer now, so I’ve just published a summery novelette about a topic that I just can’t leave alone: climate change in Florida. A couple years ago, I posted two pieces of research on beach nourishment—that research was done for this story.

Minolta DSC“Calamcity” is set in a not too distant future, when beach erosion has accelerated dramatically due to rising sea levels and increased hurricane activity—but a new breed of bioengineered living shorelines appears to be a perfect solution to hold sand in place. To oversee a test-run of this technique, Joseph Lopez joins his brother Steve on Cape Dodd, a Floridian beach that has been battling erosion for years under Steve’s management. Joseph just wants to bring back the large, stable, sunny beaches of his youth, and provide a nice vacation house for his aging parents. But as Joseph and Steve find, Cape Dodd is in for a rough summer of constant hurricanes and mysterious mass die-offs of the living shoreline.

You can get “Calamcity” on Smashwords or Amazon.

Also, I’ve just released the audiobook for “De.mocra.cy,” a short story about symbolic protest, gangs, and regulation in a democratically run MMO. The audiobook is written and performed by me, so if you enjoyed my production of The Absolute at Large, you should enjoy the performance of this story. The audiobook is available for digital download on CDBaby, on Audible and iTunes. You can listen to a sample of the audiobook in the video below. And you can listen to some outtakes and moments of silliness from the recording session in the video below the video below.