YES, because it’s been a while. And these have actually been out for a while. But I swear, I’m developing an aversion to updating this damn thing.
ANYWAY. Here’s what they are:
Shape Without Form, Shade Without Color (Tor.com)
This is a weird, dreamlike, not very clearly explained piece of darkness. It’s also heavily autobiographical, and really it’s more a look into my particular state of mind during a really rough part of a really rough year. It’s about mental illness more than anything else – and I think that’s one of the reasons why, it seems to me, the reactions to it have been fairly polarized. I don’t usually like to talk about reactions to my own stuff, because I don’t like the possibility that I’m giving the impression that I go after negative reviews. I try to not engage negative reviews at all, ever, because it’s a really really bad idea in addition to being a dickish thing to do. But there are things about some of the reactions I saw that I found both interesting and frankly troubling, and I did talk about it some in a thread on Twitter. Which seemed to strike a nerve with a lot of people, in a good way.
I’ll probably write a longer post about this, assuming I can get my act together, but basically the reactions I saw fell, for the most part, into two categories: “I didn’t understand this/this didn’t make any sense/this wasn’t really a story and therefore I disliked it” and “yes, yes, this is exactly how it feels.”
Which, in retrospect, isn’t very surprising. Again, I might – I want to – talk more about this at some point in the future.
AND
eyes I dare not meet in dreams (also Tor.com)
This was originally written for a society and technology blog – Cyborgology – that I used to semi-run with some friends, and it wasn’t even originally a story, per se. It only became clear to me after the fact; it was (and is) an explosion of anger that had been building for a while, about… Well, if you read it, it should be pretty obvious. A particular favorite deceased (or possibly “deceased”) character of mine makes a cameo appearance; those people who know the fandom side of my life will probably spot her.
Y’know, I didn’t even think it was that good at the time. I now think it’s one of the better things I’ve written. Like “Shape Without Form” it isn’t so much an actual story in the traditional sense. As I said, at heart it’s a rant.
I think it’s a fun rant tho.
