BU L L SP E Ca magazine of speculative fictionFICTIONMELISSA MEAD

URI GREY

GWENDOLYN CLAREPAUL CELMER& KAOLIN FIRE

GRAPHIC SHORTCLOSED SYSTEMBY MIKE GALLAGHERPART 2 OF 4

FEATUREDFIREFLY RAINBY RICHARD DANSKY

INTERVIEWSJOHN KESSELHOPE LARSON& DEXTER PALMER

$8DURHAM, NCISSUE #2SUMMER 2010

& POETRY & ART & REVIEWS & MORE

ISSN 21 52-5242 is publ ished quarterly by BULL SPEC / PO Box 1 3146 / Durham, NC 27709 / United States

[+1 .877.867.6889] and is copyright © 201 0 BULL SPEC & its contributors. Find it in your local book shop!

In print, Bull Spec is publ ished as ISSN 21 52-5234 and deposited at the United States Library of Congress.

Burning Catalonian Bull photo original ly by Stuart Yeates, used and avai lable under a Creative Commons

BY-SA 2.0 l icense. Last Soundtrack Bleeding Cowboys font used by permission. EAN barcode by [milk.com].

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S31

56 8

23

COVER ARTTHE ROCK Vladimir Krizan

FICTION4 ECHOES OF THE BOUNCING BALL Paul Celmer

8 BY THE DRAGON’S TAIL Kaolin Fire

11 HIRASOL Melissa Mead

1 9 THE OTHER LILA Gwendolyn Clare

23 THE SAD STORY OF THE NAGA Uri Grey

GRAPHIC SHORT31 CLOSED SYSTEM Mike Gallagher Part 2 of 4

POETRY38 THE SPEAR OF THE MOMENT David M. Harris

/ DEATH COULD NOT PART THEM Helen R.

Peterson / MOTHER’S GARDEN Reggie Lutz

39 THE TORTURER’S BOY J.P. Wickwire

FEATURES27 FIREFLY RAIN Richard Dansky ≈ Excerpt;

Interview by J.M. McDermott

43 IMAGINING THE HUMAN FUTURE John Kessel

≈ Essay; Interview by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

54 BONESHAKER Cherie Priest ≈ Review by Joseph

Giddings

56 THE DREAM OF PERPETUAL MOTION Dexter

Palmer ≈ Review by Natania Barron; Interview by

Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

59 MERCURY Hope Larson ≈ Interview by Samuel

Montgomery-Blinn

EDITORIAL40 WHAT IS SPECULATIVE FICTION?

DEPARTMENTS36-37 HAPPENINGS

62-63 CONTRIBUTORS

ADVERTISEMENTS7 PANVERSE PUBLISHING

10 ESCAPE ARTISTS

18 NORILANA BOOKS

21 AETHER AGE

26 APEX BOOK COMPANY

35 BAEN BOOKS

41 TACHYON PUBLICATIONS

42 SMALL BEER PRESS

64 PYR

Bull Spec is edited, designed, & published by Samuel Montgomery-Bl inn. To learnmore visit [bul lspec.com] or email [bul lspec@bullspec.com] with your questions

and comments. Printed by Publishers Press in Shepherdsvi l le, KY, United States.

Document layout created in Scribus with additional text editing performed using

OpenOffice.org and additional image editing performed using GIMP and Inkscape.

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

43

THISFILEISLICENSED

PHOTO BY ALEKSANDR AND NATALIA FEDOSOV

WHEELER’S SHIP BACK TO EARTH LAUNCHED IN NINE

minutes, but he had a promise to keep. He raced down a crowded

corridor, briefcase banging against his knees, and stopped in front of a

little starport kiosk crammed between a pretzel shop and a newsstand.

“Excuse me,” Wheeler said. “I’m looking for something. For my son.

He’s six.”

“A souvenir?” said the shopkeeper, blinking as if just awakened from a

very long sleep. He spoke in polite and nearly unaccented English.

“Yes, but something special. And I’m in a hurry.”

Lately it seemed to Wheeler that he was always in a hurry. He had not

been feeling like his old self either, especially on this trip that had taken

him to a far corner of the galaxy he had never been to before.

The shopkeeper’s smile was a faint path in a merry tangle of wrinkles.

For some reason the face seemed familiar to Wheeler. Of course, when

one had been to so many starports they all seemed to blur together. But

irritation shook those thoughts out of his head as he watched the mad-

deningly slow hands of the shopkeeper carefully place two boxes on the

BULL SPEC—ISSUE #2

ECHOES OF THE BOUNCING BALL

BY PAUL CELMER

“THE SHOPKEEPER’S SMILE WAS A FAINT PATH IN A MERRY

TANGLE OF WRINKLES. FOR SOME REASON THE FACE SEEMED

FAMILIAR TO WHEELER. OF COURSE, WHEN ONE HAD BEEN TO

SO MANY STARPORTS THEY ALL SEEMED TO BLUR TOGETHER.”

5

“THE FUTURE’S DARK. I CAN TELL THAT

from just your shimmer.”

Kith glared at the Teller, his tall dark robes and shin-

ing crystals. “A feeble mind could say that, seeing me.

I’m ruined. Tell me what’s to come, so I can provide for

my wife and daughter.”

The Teller shrugged. “You’re to die, Kithshar.”

“Sure, and I know that, too. I’ll spend this coin else-

wise if you’re not more forthcoming.”

The Teller took Kith’s hands in his own, and peered

deep into his eyes; Kith flinched at the touch, shy of his

BY THE DRAGON’S TAIL

BY KAOLIN FIRE

“SURE, AND I KNOW THAT, TOO. I’LL SPEND

THIS COIN ELSEWISE IF YOU’RE NOT MORE

FORTHCOMING.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOEY JORDAN

9

BULL SPEC—ISSUE #2

mangled hand, the mining accident which had driven him

to this desperation. Then he was numb, toe to crown,

though he was sure his hair stood on end. The Teller’s voice

came deeper, and Kith knew it to be ritual. “I share light

with you, a beacon in the darkness. Do you hear it?”

Dark, numb, yet somehow cold, Kith could hardly be-

lieve there was a room surrounding him; a hint of brim-

stone came to him, just stronger than the jasmine that had

suffused the room moments before.

“Do you hear it?” The voice compelled.

Kith didn’t, and shook his head—or tried to. The fight re-

leased a tone, golden, sure, a beacon—yes. He nodded, and

it came easy. “Yes,” he spoke.

“Yes.”

Kith could hear the smile in the Teller’s voice. Brimstone

was stronger now, and he felt fire dancing around the cold,

twixt the numbness.

“The dragon’s tail. You’ll seek it, and die—or be reborn.”

Kith coughed, incredulous, as his body returned to him.

“A quest? That’s not my destiny! I have no such thoughts.

My wife, my daughter, that’s all since—”

“You came here, and asked.” The Teller’s voice was tired.

“That is all it takes to send you on this path—your choice

alone. As strange as it may seem, a ray’s path is always

straight. Take it or leave, I’ll not argue my fee.”

“Better coin spent on food than this kind of play!” Kith

turned and strode towards the door when the ground

shuddered. He tossed a glance back at the Teller who in his

gaze denied any complicity with the earth. Kith grunted,

but threw payment to the Teller. It disappeared into the Tell-

er’s cuffs as if it never was.

Kith stepped into the street, shutting the door behind

him. He took several slow, deep breaths, calming himself.

The street seemed normal. Either the ground’s movement

had been a trick of the Teller, or it had been just the usual

grumbles of the volcano. Why assume anything different?

But dragons—surely not dragons. It was not the time of

year.

Doubting with every fiber of his soul, he still found him-

self walking towards the mountain.

The climb was torturous, the worse by far for his

crippled hand. The air was sharp and cold, and his lungs

burned when he finally crested Earth’s Mouth, unaccus-

tomed to the rarity of it. Climbs he could do, but he was

used to depths, not heights.

The castle lay well below him, guards facing outwards

over the city, not interested in a lone man skulking away

from their demesne. There would be no dragons, he was

sure; but Kith would face his death, whatever it be, dragon’s

tail or sommat else.

Sommat else it would surely be—but there was an odd

darkness seeping from the rim, an almost liquid smoke ob-

scuring the depths. Kith traced the alchemic symbol of

light, for luck, then dipped his hand into the smoke. It was

warm but insubstantial. He cupped the darkness in his

hand but it faded when he tried to lift it.

The ground shook again, stronger. Kith barely kept his

footing. Crouching to fours, he tucked his head down as

flint fairies burst up through the smoke. A scream, a roar,

cacophony—the antithesis of a golden tone—billowed the

smoke upwards, and a flash too fast for him to discern blew

through, spreading it further still. A dragon? A dragon

made that roar?

Kith leaned in, trying to see through the miasma, and at

the same time struggled to peer into the sky after whatever

had shot out.

A second burst freed his feet from the earth and he was

enveloped in darkness; brimstone filled his mouth and nos-

trils. He coughed and spun, and a third burst passed

him—pain scorched along his right arm from its passing.

He screamed and the brimstone ripped his throat as it

left him; his lungs fought for clean air but none was to be

had. All he had to do was grab a dragon’s tail. All he had to

do.

So he grabbed with his good hand—but there was noth-

ing there. Three dragons gone out of dozens if they were all

leaving, but how long could he fall?

Then some moment of prescience, a flash, gold or cop-

per, perhaps a trick of the light, and he grabbed again—pain

seared his palm but he held, though it nearly took his arm

off. His arm was numb, or in too much pain, but he forced

it to hold as if it were some limb not his own. Clamping his

teeth at the pain, he grasped with his other hand. He could

barely force that hand to clasp with the burns to his arm,

but the tail’s jerking helped clench it tight; the tail shook

and shuddered but he was caught as well. The dragon’s

scales were barbed.

Kith held on for life or death and wondered at rebirth.

Would he heal just for having touched the dragon? Or was

there a more complete rebirth to come?

The dragon fought to shake him off and fought for

flight. It flew low, and his boots scraped the volcano’s side,

but still the dragon’s scales held his hands. The dragon

banked up, then left, and Kith swiveled along with wounds

that dug deeper still, dripping blood.

It entered a dive, then, more fearsome than he’d believed

possible; its cry shredded the air and it bellowed sulfurous

flames that melted the stone bulwarks below them, digging

a grave for them both. Its feet clawed at the air as if fending

off invisible attackers and Kith had a moment to wonder

what was happening, what was driving the dragon to such

madness—but then he was flying through the air without

support; the moment, and the dragon, had passed on.

Another cry, a scream, rent the night, and Kith realized

it was his. Flesh ripped, and bone; then a sudden impact,

and the shrieking silence of deafness. People rushed

about—rushing to, rushing away; he’d been flown back to

the city, and there were fires all around. A building had

broken under his fall, but he was alive.

He had flown with a dragon.

Kith forced his eyes to survey his hands. They were

gashed to the bone, and he was missing at least one finger,

but in his flesh was the essence of his rebirth. One dragon

scale—a living dragon scale, shimmering with all the colors

of the sun. That was enough to buy into a borough and be

done with the mine. Truly, though he could never work

again, maimed still and now missing at least one finger

more—he would never need to. He rejoiced, hobbling home

through the wreckage, that he could provide for Jin and

Mirra, whatever apocalypse befell his world. ■

KAOLIN FIRE—BY THE DRAGON’S TAIL

KAOLIN FIRE’S “BY THE DRAGON’S TAIL” WAS FIRST SELF-

PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE CROSSED GENRES “POST A STORY

FOR HAITI” PROJECT. THE PROJECT COLLECTED LINKS TO

SIMILARLY SELF-PUBLISHED STORIES WHICH WERE CONTRIBUTED

IN THE HOPES OF ENCOURAGING DONATIONS TO CHARITIES

INVOLVED IN THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE RELIEF EFFORTS.

THE GROUND STOPPED SHAKING. FROM SOMEWHERE ABOVE

and behind Hiera’s Sorrel, a voice spoke.

“…the centaur herd needs thinning anyway,” it said. The colt, his front legs

trapped in a hole, couldn’t turn to face the speaker. He tried to get up and

bolt, and screamed as his broken front legs gave way.

“Branson, hush,” said another, gentler voice. “This one’s young and other-

wise healthy. I’m going to try something.”

Something stung the colt’s arm, and he tumbled into darkness.

&

Fear returned first. Hiera’s Sorrel lay on his side, breathing hard. This wasn’t

grass beneath him. The air smelled wrong, acrid and harsh. His chest heaved,

but beyond that, he couldn’t feel anything. He tried to roll onto his front, but

hands restrained him. He threw back his head and blew and whinnied. No one

came.

“Steady. Easy there,” said the gentle voice. The words were almost like

spoken Herd language, with strange echoes and hissing sounds overlying them.

“Lie still. Do you understand me?”

HIRASOL

BY MELISSA MEAD

“WE WILL GIVE ME MY OWN NAME WHEN THE

GRAIN HEADS OPEN. NOW I AM HIERA’S SORREL.

FOR MY DAM, AND MY COAT.”

11

BULL SPEC—ISSUE #2

12

MELISSA MEAD—HIRASOL

“Yah,” he answered. The voice reassured Hiera’s Sorrel. It

was a confident, female voice, an Alpha Mare’s voice. He

lay still.

“Are you in pain?” the voice asked Hiera’s Sorrel.

The nothingness frightened him worse than pain, but he

couldn’t honestly say it hurt. Or if it did, the pain was too

distant to matter. “Nah.”

He stole a glance from the corner of his eye. The speaker

was a two-legs with wrinkled skin and soft white hair.

Hiera’s Sorrel stiffened. The two-legs spoke again, slowly,

calmly, and moved in front of him. Her voice came from

her mouth sounding like gibberish, and echoed back from a

collar around her throat in words he could understand.

“You’re safe. I’m Doctor Sanchez. You were badly hurt,

and my assistant Branson and I brought you here to help

you.”

“Heyyo, Dok Torsonn Sheds. Where is the others?”

“The other centaurs? I’m afraid they ran off.”

Away from danger. Good. “Why I cannot run?”

The two-legs huffed out a breath, as though bothered by

stinging flies. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. You’re

stable now, but the grafts didn’t take the way I’d hoped, be-

cause of infection. I had to amputate. Quite extensively, I’m

afraid.”

Hiera’s Sorrel twitched. “Ampootate?”

She sighed again. “Do you have a name? What shall I call

you?”

“We will give me my own name when the grain heads

open. Now I am Hiera’s Sorrel. For my dam, and my coat.”

“Hirasol?” She looked so funny, mouthing at his name,

that Hiera’s Sorrel chuckled and decided that she spoke well

enough, for a two-legs.

Dok Torsonn Sheds smiled, briefly. “Hirasol, ‘amputate’

means to remove a body part that’s too badly injured to

function. You were very badly hurt. The only way to save

you was to amputate everything below your waist.”

Understanding began to creep in.

“I’m very sorry. Branson modified a prosthesis for you,

but you’ll need to heal before you can begin using it.”

Hiera’s Sorrel twisted to look back over his hindquarters,

and saw only tubes and wires snaking out from under flat

white cloth. Panic spurred his heart, but nothing respon-

ded. Forelegs, hindquarters, his splendid tail—all gone. He

squealed and tried to buck with what little body he had left.

The primates held him down and stung him until he slept.

&

He couldn’t sleep forever, and what remained of his body

was too strong to die. The young male, Branson, grudgingly

brought him bowls of hot porridge. Dok Torsonn Sheds

coaxed him to eat it, and nudged him away from dark

thoughts the way an Alpha mare would have herded him

away from a concealed snake. She coaxed Hiera’s Sorrel to-

ward life with promises of sunlight and open sky beyond

the white curved walls of this strange place. That promise

was all that kept his spirit from fleeing when he saw the

tubes and coils spilling from his truncated body, and Dok

Torsonn Sheds showed him the machine meant to replace

muscle, bone and hoof.

“Dok Torsonn Sheds, that body is only half. We are not

two-legs.”

“I know. Equine prostheses simply don’t exist yet.”

“Put on more legs. And rest of body. And tail.”

“They would only add weight, not function.”

“We need them.”

“Hirasol, you’ll run faster without them.”

He looked away from the snaky tangle, toward her. “I

will run?”

“If you work hard, and get strong, and practice, you

could. But first you have to let me fit the prosthesis.”

His spirit shied from it, but sunlight from the window

called him back. He stared toward the window while she

worked, fitting tubes and wires into the machine, binding

the strange object below his chest.

“Hirasol? Does anything hurt?”

“Nah, Dok Torsonn Sheds.”

She smiled. “It’s Doctor Sanchez. Doctor.”

“Doctor. Doctor Sun Sheds.”

“That’s better. Can you feel anything when I do this?”

She pressed the bottom of the machine’s foot, and Hiera’s

Sorrel jumped.

“Makes prickles in the first belly.”

“And now?”

“Prickles moved sideways. Not so strong.”

“Excellent! With practice you’ll learn to sense terrain—

what kind of ground you’re walking on, so you’ll be less

likely to trip and fall.”

Hiera’s Sorrel winced. “Trip and fall again, I will have

nothing left.”

“That’s one advantage of the prosthetic—it’s nearly un-

breakable. Can you make a knee bend? Use your abdomin-

al muscles.”

He strained until he was drenched in sweat. The artificial

foot slid back a few inches.

“Excellent! Hirasol, you’re doing amazingly well.”

He grinned, baring his teeth, and flung himself off the

bed. The doctor yelped and tried to pick him up. Hiera’s

Sorrel butted her hands away. Branson came running and

stood in the doorway with his arms folded, watching with a

predator’s stare.

“Hirasol! What are you doing?” said Doctor Sun Sheds.

“Let me help you back into bed.”

“Nah, Doctor! We must run. Run or die.” Get up and

I STEP OUT OF A PORTER BOOTH IN THE OVERHEATED LOS

Angeles station and reach up to peel off my winter coat. That’s when I real-

ize something’s wrong with my hand—it feels numb and prickly, and the fin-

gers aren’t quite responding the way they’re supposed to. Weird. I don’t recall

circulatory problems being listed among the possible side effects.

“Uh, ma’am?” It’s the porter operator, standing a few feet away at his podi-

um. His hands clutch the sides of the control panel, knuckles white.

“What?” I snap, irritated with his staring.

The operator swallows. “Excuse me, but… I think there’s been an error with

your teleportation.”

He looks down at my hand. So do I. It has a sixth finger protruding out

from the index knuckle.

He called it an error.

&

We’re supposed to be meeting to discuss what sort of settlement we want from

the porter company, but we both bring a lawyer of our own. I have some more

pressing concerns, and I bet she does, too.

We sit down on opposite sides of the conference table. She’s wearing a pin-

stripe skirt suit that looks aggressively fabulous on us, and jealousy flares in

my chest. It’s my suit. The lawyers share an uncomfortable glance.

Her lawyer opens a folder of paperwork and clears his throat. “Before we

can proceed, we’re going to have to establish different legal identities for you

both.”

“I’m the original,” the other Lila says. “Put her down as the second one.”

She lifts a too-familiar finger and points at me.

I dig my own neat-trimmed fingernails into the seat cushion of the meeting

room chair and keep my jaw locked until the flash of rage passes. The other

Lila is wearing my stubborn face, dark eyebrows furrowed, and I wonder if I

am, too.

“Technically, no,” I argue, once I’m confident that I can keep my voice

steady. “If the porter hadn’t malfunctioned, I would still exist and you

wouldn’t. So doesn’t that make me the primary Lila?”

The teleportation industry brags that the risk of disintegrating at your de-

parture point and failing to reintegrate at your destination is a million to one.

Statistically speaking, that’s better than flying, better than motor vehicles by a

laughably enormous margin, and after all it’s instantaneous. Who doesn’t like

THE OTHER LILA

BY GWENDOLYN CLARE

“HE CALLED IT AN ERROR.” TheOther

Lila

19

ART BY REBECCA CAMFIELD

THE SAD STORY OF THE NAGA

BY URI GREY

I THINK IT WAS WEDNESDAY WHEN I MET THEnaga. I was going back from uni and there she was,

standing by the side of the road, holding three thumbs up

and looking quite miserable. I decided to give her a ride.

Good thing I was driving alone, because her huge tail took

up the back seat and its tip lay on my shoulder. I can’t say I

wasn’t flattered.

“So,” I said to the naga, “what brings you to our fair

city?”

BULL SPEC—ISSUE #2

23

R I C H A R

Durham game designer and author Richard Dansky’s first original novel, Firefly Rain, is

appropriately billed as a “North Carolina ghost story.” Read on for an excerpt from the novel

and an interview with Dansky on writing, life, publishing, and game design by fellow Wizards

of the Coast Discoveries author J.M. McDermott.

DANSKY

27

“Starred Review… a supernatural thriller that effect-

ively breathes life into one of the genre’s staples—the

haunted house.”

— Publishers Weekly

FIREFLY RAIN

byRichardDansky

Gallery Books

EXCERPT: CHAPTER 1 , SCENE 3

THE DRIVE TOOK TWO DAYS. I COULD HAVE

made it in one but didn’t see the need. The truck with

the rest of my belongings was following well behind, follow-

ing the sort of route that let it leave earlier and arrive later

than I would, without any way to check on it in between.

In practical terms, that meant that there wasn’t any sort of

schedule for me to keep, which was the sort of practicality I

liked. I hadn’t called ahead to let Carl know I was coming

and I liked it that way. There was a vague notion in my

head of drifting back into town and making as light an im-

pression as possible. Maybe I could be gone before anyone

noticed I’d come.

Ten o’clock had come and gone by the time I turned off

of the state route and found my way through the little town

called Maryfield. Mother and Father’s house lay on the oth-

er side of it, well outside the city limits, and driving straight

through was the only way to get there. There were more

lights and shops than I remembered, but not many, and I

didn’t feel like stopping to consider the differences further.

Two days on the road had me bone-tired. There’d be time

enough to explore later, if I felt the need.

A quick left onto Harrison Farm Road led me right back

out of town and into the dark. The road had been mostly

gravel when I was growing up; now the asphalt extended

farther, and the houses and street lights with it. But soon

enough the last of the lights faded behind me. The town

had crept closer to the house, but it still had miles to go be-

fore it was knocking on the door—my door, really. For that

I was thankful, and there was a smile on my face as I drove

off into the dark.

The road narrowed to one lane of hard-packed gravel,

bounded on each side with a drainage ditch. Strangers had

trouble with the road if they drove it after dark; watching

neighbors winch station wagons back up onto the road had

been a common pastime in my youth. I knew it, though,

knew it well enough to take in the landscape as I drove. I

could see the outlines of the trees that lined the road and

not much else. The only things visible beyond them were

the lights from the few houses I passed and the fireflies in

the fields.

It was going to be a good summer for them, I could tell.

Already the ground was thick with gold-green light, and the

air above the fields danced with those cold sparks. It had

been a long time since I’d seen fireflies in that kind of

abundance—Boston isn’t partial to that sort of thing—and

for a moment I was tempted to pull over and catch one in

my hands. Then I thought about the two stones standing

out past the pine trees and the empty house waiting for me,

and all temptation fled.

The driveway came up on me suddenly, and I had to jam

on the brakes to avoid overshooting the turn. Only the

mailbox on the side of the road had let me know where the

driveway was, and even then I’d nearly missed it. A dark

house set well back from a dark road on a dark night is easy

to miss, I told myself, and then I realized how truly dark it

was. Even with the sky mostly clear and a half moon shin-

ing down, the house I called mine was just plain wrapped in

shadow. It had the look of a place that had gotten used to

being ignored and liked it that way.

FEATURE—RICHARD DANSKY—FIREFLY RAIN

28

APRIL

6 Richard Dansky’s novel FireflyRain is publ ished in a newpaperback edition (Gallery)

7 Tommy Lee Edwards’ comic TURF is publ ished (ImageComics, story by Jonathan Ross)

14 John Kessel discussed Wicked at The Regulator Bookshop

MAY

1 Richard Dansky’s short story “The Mad Eyes of the HeronKing” is publ ished in the anthology DarkFaith (Apex

Publications)

7 Mur Lafferty is announced as the new editor of the sciencefiction audio podcast Escape Pod

11 David Drake’s novel The Legions ofFire is publ ished (TorBooks)

22/23 Author, blogger, and technology activist Cory Doctorowreads and speaks at the Cary Barnes & Noble and Chapel

Hi l l ’s Flyleaf Books

25 Stephen Messer’s novel Windblowne is publ ished(Random House Books for Young Readers)

25 Natania Barron’s short story “A Dear, Lovely Thing” ispubl ished in Faerie Magazine #20

27 Lisa Shearin’s novel Bewitched& Betrayed (in her Raine

Benares series) is publ ished (Ace)

27 Michael Jasper’s webcomic In Maps & Legends is

publ ished (Zuda Comics, art by Niki Smith)

JUNE

8 Alexandra Sokoloff’s novel BookofShadows is publ ished(St. Martin’s Press)

9 Mark Van Name’s novel Overthrowing Heaven (in his Jon &Lobo series) is publ ished (Baen)

1 5 David Drake, Kelly Gay, James Maxey, Lisa Shearin, andMark Van Name held a science fiction and fantasy panel at the

Cary Barnes & Noble

23 Mur Lafferty’s “multimedia fiction project” HerSide isavai lable from Lulu (photographs by J.R. Blackwell)

30 Dale Mettam launched his comic Battle Smash vs. TheSaucermen From Venus at the new Ultimate Comics Prime

location (Viper Comics, art by Armando Zanker)

H A P P E N I N G S

36

Happenings aims to keep track of publications by writers of speculative fiction

in the greater Raleigh-Durham area, along with events of local interest.

H A P P E N I N G SJULY

1 Issue #1 9 of the North Carolina LiteraryReview toinclude a review of recent science fiction by North Carol ina

authors entitled “Other Times and Places and Down Home”

20 James Maxey’s short story “Where Their Worm DiethNot” to be published in the anthology Masked (Gallery)

AUGUST

1 Gwendolyn Clare’s short story “Driving X” to be publishedin the anthologyWarriorWisewoman 3 by Nori lana Books

3 Mark Van Name’s novel Children No More (in his Jon &Lobo series) to be published (Baen)

5-8 The North American Science Fiction Conventioncomes to Raleigh as “ReConStruction”

24 John Claude Bemis’ novel TheWolfTree (in his TheClockwork Dark series) to be published (Random House

Books for Young Readers)

31 Kelly Gay’s novel The Darkest Edge ofDawn (in herCharlie Madigan series) to be published (Pocket)

SEPTEMBER

7 David Drake’s novel What Distant Deeps (in his Lt.Leary series) to be published (Baen)

And look for the Bull Spec #2 launch party soon!

James Maxey and Lisa Shearin listen as Mark Van Name talks about Children

No More at a five author panel on science fiction and fantasy on 15 June.

When you put a phrase like “speculative fiction”

on a magazine and then proceed to try to tell

someone about said magazine, the first question is

nearly always: “So… What is speculative fiction?”

For some, it means “something a little more liter-

ary than science fiction and fantasy” or to at least a

minimum “not that pulpy and/or old-fashioned

stuff.” For others, and to some extent for me, it

simply means stories which are driven by the ques-

tion: “What if?”

In the case of Bull Spec, “speculative fiction” is

primarily used as an umbrella term to cover science

fiction, fantasy, and a few more genres around the

edges, like supernatural and superhero fiction, alternat-

ive history, and so on. Instead of trying to connote an

exclusively literary approach, it runs the gamut from

pulp to academic experimentalism, from slipstream to

steampunk, from ghost stories to sword and sorcery

to military science fiction to… well, I hope you get

the idea.

It also implies an inclusive approach to something

else, perhaps orthogonal to genre: format. Too many

compelling stories are missed by readers of prose fic-

tion who ignore graphic fiction. Similarly, too many

breathtaking images are missed by readers of graphic

fiction who ignore the visions which can be illumin-

ated in prose. And both groups are largely ignoring

the amazing storytelling going on in the stories in and

the settings behind interactive fiction.

Meanwhile, all three of those forms are perhaps

dwarfed, at least in terms of an audience, by cinematic

fiction—thoughWorld ofWarcraft may yet give

cinema a run for its money. Screenplays and plays can

carry a story to new audiences in new ways, unbound

by the printed page. Musicals can bring these stories

to vivid, spectacular light, such as the solidly fantast-

icalWickedwhich came to Durham this spring.

Further afield, is there any doubt that The Nutcracker

ballet can be called speculative?

Poetry and song, even instrumental music, can

each tell wonderful stories, bringing dreams a little

more into focus without losing the essence of what it

is that makes them dreamlike. Lastly, paintings or

photographs can tell a story worth far more than a

thousand words. Their weight might be more easily

measured in worlds.

So tell a story, whatever the genre, whatever the

format. Tell it the best that you can tell it, to as many

people as will listen, or read, or view. It is not simply

in the telling that tales have life; a story lives in the re-

ceiving, and the thinking—and the retelling.

And if you also ask, “What if?” Well, you will get

no complaints from me.

Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Editor & Publisher, Bull Spec

Looking for Part 1 of Mike Gallagher’s “Closed

System”? You can order back issues of Bull Spec in

print or PDF or start a back-dated subscription at

[bullspec.com]!

Bull Spec’s Samuel Montgomery-Blinn at Durham’s 2010 Bimbé

Cultural Arts Festival on 22 May.

40

EDITORIAL—WHAT IS SPECULATIVE FICTION?

I am a science fiction writer, and a professor of Americanliterature. As an undergraduate I was an astrophysics ma-

jor who discovered, to my chagrin, that tensor calculus was

not my friend, and to my surprise, that my talents did not

lie in the sciences as much as in the humanities. Yet the sub-

jects of this conference have been the center of my interest

since I was a teenager. I am very glad to be here, honored to

have been invited to speak to you, and only hope I have

something to say that may prove worthwhile after all that

has been put before you in the last three days.

I am going to talk a bit about science fiction’s vision of

the post-human condition, and its ethical implications. I in-

tend to get at this by telling you about some books.

At North Carolina State University I teach a course in

the history and development of science fiction. This

semester I assigned some works by H.G. Wells and W. Olaf

Stapledon, and I’d like to begin by exploring what those

two writers had to say about the human future.

It strikes me that you might have done better to invite

H.G. Wells to speak to you today—but I understand that,

unfortunately, he is otherwise engaged. Wells spent his en-

tire public career and much of his private life speculating

about the human future, and his writing laid the founda-

tion for much of what science fiction has had to say on this

subject in the last 100 years. As a young man, he studied

biology under Darwin’s disciple and defender Thomas

Henry Huxley, and the vision of evolution that was opened

to him at that time informed everything he wrote for the

IMAGINING THE HUMAN FUTURE

UP, DOWN, OR SIDEWAYS

BY JOHN KESSEL[A TALK GIVEN IN 2001 , AT A CONFERENCE

SPONSORED BY THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF

SCIENCES AT THE FIELD MUSEUM IN CHICAGO]

43

BULL SPEC—ISSUE #2

J O H N K E S S E L

I S

an author, a playwright, a professor, a critic

A T W O R K

Having won his second Nebula Award in 2009 for his novelette “Pride and

Prometheus,” North Carolina State University professor John Kessel has an eye for

speculative fiction and well-considered ideas as to the questions such fiction can and

perhaps should ask. From speaking at conferences from Medellín to Edinburgh, to

his work as a writer, professor, and anthologist, Kessel is on a mission “to raise the

respect level and the literary level of science fiction and fantasy.”

48

Interview by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Photographs by Vanessa Reyes

Mr. Frankenstein bowed but said nothing. He had the

darkest eyes that Mary had ever encountered, and an

air of being there only on obligation. Whether this

was because he was as uncomfortable in these social

situations as she, Mary could not tell, but his diffident

air intrigued her.

— From “Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel

You’ve written and edited several things recently, but

let’s start back in 2001 with your essay “Imagining the

Human Future.” Since 2001 there’s been nearly a decade

of additional research on the science side and additional

writing on the science fiction side. Have you followed

along on the idea of a post-singularity perspective?

The essay is a talk I gave at the National Science Founda-

tion’s conference at the Field Museum in Chicago on “Ima-

gining the Human Future.” I talked about the Singularity,

which has been talked about in science fiction for 20 years

now. Victor Vinge wrote an essay about this in 1993, when

he originated the term. The idea is that there’s going to be

some time in the next 30 to 40 years a moment when ma-

chine intelligence exceeds human. Other people include in

that some bio-engineered changing of the human genome.

But there’ll be some point at which the human race, or the

human experience, will be altered, beyond which we cannot

see what things will be like. So my essay was taking that

idea but also talking about the history of science fiction and

the idea of evolutionary or conceptual leaps, looking at

them in the context of morality.

I gave this talk about a month and a half after 9-11. And

on my mind was the fact that technologically we have ad-

vanced immensely fast in the last 200 years. Morally and eth-

ically… not so much. Many people—I’m not the first—have

raised the question about whether we can handle the

powers that are given to us by advancing technology with

the kind of hominid evolutionarily restricted ethical capa-

city. H.G. Wells and others talked about this as a problem.

So I thought, “Could there be a moral or ethical singular-

ity as well?” I’m not completely a cutting edge person as re-

gards to the technology of artificial intelligences and things

like that. And I have to say that despite the fact that I gave

this talk I’m kind of a skeptic about the Singularity. Such

things as Moore’s Law—which says that computing capacity

doubles every 18 months. You see, I have a problem with

that. I was a physics major, and whenever someone comes

up with a term they call a Law… I want to know—a Law is

something that is inherent in the natural of the universe.

Like the Law of Gravity. It’s a law that can’t be violated, it’s

not a matter of opinion. It’s not dependent on our state of

technological development. Physical laws are physical laws.

Moore’s Law is not a physical law. It’s just something some-

body observed about the local advancement of processing

technology over a period that goes back maybe 20 years.

Well, that’s not a Law. If you extrapolated the top velocity

that a human being can travel at, starting in 1900 and going

up to 1965 or 1970, the top velocity a human being could

travel at in 1900 was maybe 100, 120 miles per hour in a

railroad train. By 1970 we could go 25,000 miles an hour, go

to the moon. So if you extrapolate that trend right now

we’re going 60 times the speed of light. O.K., that’s not a

law. So, Moore’s Law, I think, is B.S. I’ll say that right now.

All you computer people: Moore’s Law is B.S. And so the

idea—if the singularity depends on Moore’s Law, I’m skep-

tical. You mentioned that Vinge himself has wondered,

“Well, what would happen if the Singularity didn’t occur?”

You actually put forward a great story on that front,

“Calorie Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi, in your Rewired an-

thology. His novel The Windup Girl, which is a continu-

ation of that story, imagines directly that scenario of “If

the Singularity doesn’t happen, all these other stuff hap-

pens.”

Right, and Bacigalupi is a skeptic about our ability to deal

with the results of our technological advances. I don’t

know. I hope we can advance enough to be able to—you

know, the Singularity is sort of an apotheosis, the idea that

somehow our problems will be solved because intelligences

greater than our own will take care of it. I hope it happens.

I hope that those intelligences are ethically more advanced

than we are. But I don’t know, it’s not been our history.

So, I haven’t really kept up with the latest things. I’ve

been reading the science fiction, and a lot of science fiction

is—there’s been a lot of science fiction that’s tried to deal

with the Singularity or the post-Singularity world. Things

like—you mentioned Charles Stross. His Accelerando stor-

ies, they’re really cool, I really like ’em. Cory Doctorow—a

lot of other writers have tried to deal with this. My friend

James Patrick Kelly has done some post-Singularity stories.

I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s definitely worth

speculating about. I just read Bruce Sterling’s novel The

Caryatids, it came out the end of last year. It didn’t get

much talk, but it’s pretty interesting. It’s set in the late 21st

century, and it deals with extrapolating a lot of the diffi-

culties we’re having now, environmentally and technologic-

ally, and politically, into this future. Which is a mess. It’s a

post-catastrophe future, where civilization hasn’t collapsed

by any means, but the people are struggling to deal with the

consequences—but Sterling does not postulate any kind of

godlike super-intelligences that save our bacon. In the story,

we’re stuck with what we’ve got.

You’re coming to Durham in a short while to give a talk

BULL SPEC—ISSUE #2

49

like watching someone else play a video game on a really

nice setup). Video games as a medium are still (I believe) in

their infancy, and so their narrative beats are still a lot like

the narrative beats of books and movies—in most cases, we

still have to pause in the middle of what we’re doing to read

several blocks of text, or watch a cutscene. There are a few

games I’ve played that almost completely integrate narrative

and gameplay into a successful hybrid, though—Ico and Shin

Megami Tensei: Nocturne among them. But I’m coming to

think the drive to include narrative makes games suffer

more often than not.

You’ve revealed through your Twitter feed your contin-

ued interest in gaming, from “enjoying” Nintendo’s DSi

XL, to complaining about the reticence of “video game

final final bosses [to] ever reveal their super-powerful

‘true form’ ” and characterizing the Hades area of God of

War as “actually malicious.” How did your passion for

games start, and what makes a game hold your interest?

How did my passion for games start? With the original

Bard’s Tale game from Interplay, which I played on the Com-

modore 64. I spent much of a summer between school years

making maps of its dungeons and towers on quadrille paper.

What makes a game hold my interest? Any of a number

of things. I like fully realized game worlds, for one, but

those are so prohibitively expensive to create that they’re

few are far between (and so time-consuming for me that I

have to restrict myself to one of those games every year or

so). I spent a lot of time with Fallout 3 last year—I wasn’t in-

terested in the plot, really, but I liked wandering around the

landscape with my character, doing occasional sidequests

and looking at things. I’m looking forward to getting into

Red Dead Redemption, but haven’t had time yet.

I’m also a sucker for almost anything that involves level-

ing up characters and tweaking statistics. (Like many, I’ve

lost hundreds of hours to Diablo II.) I also like games that

have elaborate menus; I like character screens with lots and

lots of numbers. I’ve played several of the Nippon Ichi

games (Disgaea; Phantom Brave; Makai Kingdom; etc.).

They’re basically like playing spreadsheets—their mechanics

are like parodies of the mechanics of other RPGs—but if

that’s the sort of thing you like, they can be ridiculously en-

gaging.

Games of world conquest like Civilization and Europa

Universalis also scratch that same itch for me, if I’m in the

mood for something more intellectually challenging.

And I like games without any pretense to narrative,

games that tend toward abstraction. The choice to abandon

narrative entirely can free a game to do things it couldn’t

achieve otherwise. I really enjoyed Demon’s Souls last year,

which has almost no narrative at all. No cutscenes to get in

the way; no interruptions to gameplay so the boss can ex-

plain his motivation for evil. But it’s genuinely terrifying at

points, in a way that I didn’t think a video game could be to

an adult. The near-total absence of narrative works to make

the game completely immersive.

You’ve been blogging your way through the La Fura

Dels Baus staging of Wagner’s Ring cycle for Tor.com.

Giant robots and cranes? Is this steampunk on stage or

something much more strange?

I just finished watching the final act of the final opera in

that cycle, and… I’m not sure what it is! But I liked the ex-

perience of viewing it, and I can see myself watching it

again. It was sort of a re-imagining of Wagner’s series of op-

eras (which are themselves based on German myths and

folktales) as science fiction, and it was notable for its use of

iconography lifted from science fiction movies—Fritz

Lang’s Metropolis, of course, but also StarWars and (I’m

pretty sure) Battlefield Earth. It didn’t always work well for

me as a staging (though the performances were excellent).

But when I was annoyed by it, I was annoyed in interesting

ways, and I appreciate that. Many SF and fantasy movies

borrow from Wagner liberally in their scores, so an SF ver-

sion of the Ring can be seen as returning the favor, in a way.

What’s next, after 14 years of “Perpetual Motion”?

I’m working on another novel, slowly but surely. I don’t

want to say much about it now, except that it’s not going to

be much like The Dream ofPerpetual Motion—the setting’s

different, and it’s turning out to pose a different set of chal-

lenges for me. It’s taking me in new directions, and after

having spent an awfully long time with my first novel, it’s

nice to stretch a bit and change things up. ■

PHOTOS BY BILL WADMAN58

INTERVIEW—DEXTER PALMER

Hope Larson is an illustrator, cartoonist, and writer who grew up in and is currently practi-

cing her crafts in Asheville, North Carolina. Her graphic novels include Salamander Dream,

Gray Horses, Chiggers, and the recently-released Mercury, inspired by her time in rural Nova

Scotia. Her work appears in the anthologies Flight (2005), Comic Book Tattoo (2008), and

Geektastic (2009), and her awards include the 2006 Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent

and the 2007 Eisner Award for Special Recognition. She recently announced that she is work-

ing on an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

Interview by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

CHIGGERS

Simon & Schuster/Atheneum

59

HOPE LARSON

C O N T R I B U T O R SNatania Barron (review, The Dream ofPerpetual Motion, p. 56) is a writer with a penchant for the

speculative; she is also an unrepentant geek. She holds a BA in English/Writing from Loyola Uni-

versity Maryland and an MA in English with a concentration in medieval literature from the Uni-

versity of North Carolina at Greensboro. In her spare time she cooks, bakes bread, drinks coffee,

crochets, blogs, plays guitar and ukulele, and enjoys nature. Find out more about her writing at

[nataniabarron.com].

Rebecca Camfield (art, “Naga”, p. 23) is a fantasy artist who loves to draw dragons and currently

lives in Scotland. To see more of her work, visit [chaosia.deviantart.com].

In addition to writing science fiction, Paul Celmer (story, “Echoes of the Bouncing Ball”, p. 4)

works as a contract technical writer and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Go As-

sociation, a non-profit organization that promotes the teaching of the ancient Asian strategy game

of Go, and is head of the local Go club in Durham. He has lived in the Triangle area for over 25

years, including attending both the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and North Caro-

lina State University in Raleigh, where he earned a Master of Arts in English. Currently he lives

in Garner, North Carolina.

Gwendolyn Clare (story, “The Other Lila”, p. 19) is a New Englander transplanted to Durham.

She has a BA in Ecology, a BS in Geophysics, and is currently working to add another acronym to

her collection. When she’s not living out of a tent in the desert or a hammock in the rainforest,

she enjoys practicing martial arts and writing speculative fiction. Her short stories have sold to

Asimov’s, theWarriorWisewoman 3 anthology, and Flash Fiction Online, among others.

Aleksandr and Natalia Fedosov (photo, “Wing of a Dragonfly”, p. 4) are artists and photograph-

ers living in a small town near Moscow, Russia. To see more, visit [deingel.deviantart.com].

Kaolin Fire (story, “By the Dragon’s Tail”, p. 8) is a conglomeration of ideas, side projects, and

experiments. Outside of his primary occupation, he also develops computer games, edits Greatest

Uncommon Denominator Magazine, and very occasionally teaches computer science. Find out

more at [erif.org].

What can be said about Mike Gallagher (story and illustration, “Closed System”, p. 31)? You

could say he graduated IUP with a BFA in drawing/printmaking. You could say he has made

hundreds of t-shirt and tattoo designs. You could say he has self-published a comic and was the co-

creator on RUIN, a three issue mini-series. He also has had several comics published in antholo-

gies. He even designed a gated community. But none of this speaks as loud and as proud as his art!

Joseph Giddings (review, Boneshaker, p. 54) spends his days performing feats of heroism as the

Network Administrator at a behavioral health company in Greenville, NC. At night he’s a super-

hero to his wife and two-year-old son. When he’s not saving the world from crashed hard drives

or rescuing lost toy pickup trucks, he’s playing video games, watching TV, writing, or defending

his vegetable garden with his spear and magic helmet.

62

BARRON

GALLAGHER

FIRE

CELMER

C O N T R I B U T O R SUri Grey (story, “The Sad Story of the Naga”, p. 23) is a game writer, translator, humanist, Twit-

terist, and storyteller from Israel. His work has been published in numerous magazines including

Dungeon, Dragon, and Signs & Portents. He plays D&D with kids for a living and thinks he’s got

the best job in the world. He lives in [urigrey.com] and rather enjoys the view.

David M. Harris (poem, “The Spear of the Moment”, p. 38) was an editor with Dell Books, Bel-

mont-Tower Books, and Byron Preiss Visual Publications, and did a bunch of freelance work for

nearly everyone in the science fiction field. He is the author, with Harry Harrison, of Bill, The

Galactic Hero: The Final Incoherent Adventure, a few published short stories, and some published

essays and poetry. Now he mostly teaches college English.

Joey Jordan (illustrations, “By the Dragon’s Tail”, p. 8) is a freelance illustrator of fantasy and sci-

ence fiction who draws and paints out of Washington state. To see more, visit [joeysrealm.com].

Vladimir Krizan (cover art, “The Rock”) is a digital and matte painter whose work also serves as

the cover art for Panverse Publishing’s Eight Against Reality. He lives in Slovakia and you can see

more of his art at [sketchboook.deviantart.com].

Reggie Lutz (poem, “Mother’s Garden”, p. 38) is a sometimes Pisces, sometimes Aquarius, and

frequently both depending on which chart you are looking at. Her novella “Fork You” was pub-

lished in Panverse One.

J.M. McDermott (interview, Richard Dansky, p. 28) is the author of two novels. Last Dragon, his

first, was #6 on Amazon.com’s Year’s Best SF/F of 2008, and was shortlisted for a Crawford Prize

for first fantasy. The second novel, Maze, will be out in Spring 2011 from Apex Books. Watch for

news at [jmmcdermott.com].

Melissa Mead (story, “Hirasol”, p. 11) lives in Upstate NY. Her stories have appeared in places

like Sword & Sorceress and Electric Velocipede. She’s been writing for years, and thanks to the

Carpe Libris Writers Group she’s starting to get the hang of it: [carpelibris.wordpress.com].

Helen R. Peterson (poem, “Death Could Not Part Them”, p. 38) is the managing editor ofChop-

per Poetry Journal out of New London, CT, with work in the upcoming issues of Southword

Journal, Foundling Review, Literary Tonic, The View From Here, and poeticdiversity.

J.P. Wickwire (poem, “The Torturer’s Boy”, p. 39) has seen her poetry published in Vicious

Verses and Reanimated Rhymes, a zombie poetry anthology edited by A. P. Fuchs, and her specu-

lative short fiction has been published inWhispering Dragons Digital Magazine. She lives on a

short mountain in the small town of Germantown, NC, and is a “book skeptic” at

[dailymonocle.blogspot.com].

Have a story to tell? Visit [bullspec.com] for full guidelines, but in short: $0.05/word for new fic-

tion and poetry; $0.01/word for previously published works; [submissions@bullspec.com].

63

GIDDINGS

PETERSON

HARRIS

GREY