Life is not fair

I’ve just got an email (well, actually it was last night, but at the speed my brain moves, that counts as ‘just’) informing me that I’ve sold two stories to the estimable Shawna at Realms of Fantasy. Mmm. Stoooories . . .

The two are Leviathan’s Hooks, and Long is the Shadow. (Originally, this was Long is the Shadow of the Moonlit Hills) but I thought the shorter one was snappier. The title of the other comes from Cans’t thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? (it’s in the Bible, dumbass), and has nothing to do with the story at all. Except tangentially. Maybe. Kinda. Well . . . I don’t know, really. It’s that kind of story.

I wasn’t sure RoF would take Leviathan’s Hooks actually; it’s got some nasty horror in it. Not on-screen, but nasty anyway.

SFFworld.com has a nice review of my story Wreathed in Wisteria, Draped in Ivy:

“Wreathed in Wisteria, Draped in Ivy” is an Oriental-themed story by Euan Harvey.  It’s made up of tales within tales within a letter that implies an even larger tale above all.  The letter tells of one man’s discovery and pursuit of never-ending life.  He follows the trail through many hardships and battles and eventually comes to know the secret of avoiding death.  All of this is done in pursuit of vengeance he seeks to serve on someone he refers to only as Noble Lord.  This is a fun quest fantasy outside of the more typical medieval setting, and all the more interesting for it.  RECOMMENDED.

You can find the whole thing here.

I’m finally feeling well enough to start writing again. Nearly two weeks after operation, and nearly a month since I was making steady progress. Back to the grindstone now. And I’m probably going to start by cutting the last 10,000 words I wrote and starting the last act again. Time not writing has given me a perspective I didn’t have when I was slaving over the draft, and I can see the problems–which were the reason why I slowed down on the draft even before the op.

It’s funny how the unconscious mind can see problems in a narrative well before the conscious part of the mind realizes what’s going on. I was having problems writing my daily quota of words for some time before the op, and I think now it’s because I’d planned the middle of the novel very carefully, but left the end sketchy. And of course, it being sketchy meant I was writing to fill a quota, not writing to tell a story. Stephen King claims to uncover the story as he writes, but I can’t tell a story unless I know what the story is. I’ve spent the past two weeks since the op thinking about the part where I was stuck, and slowly moving from despair at how shit my draft was, to feeling hopeful about it, to feeling excited about writing again. But I only realized what was wrong with the story over the past couple of days.

Basically, the last 10,000 words on the novel draft have been sketching, but now I know what the picture needs to look like.

Adventures Fantastic has reviewed the June 2011 issue of Realms of Fantasy. They liked my story:

Euan Harvey’s “Wisteria” was the highlight of the issue for me, and not just for the great illustration.  It was the closest thing to sword and sorcery in the magazine, and one of the few where the action wasn’t solely emotional or internal.  The structure of the story, with nested narratives, will require attention, so I don’t recommend this one right before turning out the light at bedtime.  Harvey had a story in the previous issue, and I have to wonder if he’s going to go for a hat trick and get one in the next issue.  I hope so, because his stories seem to be more to my taste than most of the other stories in the two issues he’s been in.

Ah, yes, that illustration is awesome. I still haven’t got my contributor copies yet, but I can almost smell them now . . .

From Tangent Online (who are blasting through their ‘to do’ list):

Euan Harvey’s “Wreathed in Wisteria, Draped in Ivy” is a quasi-transcript of a historical document from Han dynasty China, which has been passed down and redacted and edited by at least two different individuals. This might appear to evoke Umberto Eco’s work, but Harvey eschews the metafictional route, instead using the narrative framework of the story-within-a-story simply to give his straight-up historical fantasy/horror story a few more layers for the reader to unwrap. The skill with which he crafts his tale ensures that you’ll enjoy unwrapping those extra layers, and revealing the pattern of the whole. The central story is that of Yu Kung, who, having been told by a sorcerer that he will die in three days, decides to defy death and ends up paying a hefty price for doing so. He tells a Baron his story, and the Baron tells someone else, who writes it all down for a reason that makes sense by the conclusion.

A well written fantasy that elegantly evokes its time and place, weaving mythology into a personal tale of men trying to direct their own fates in a world that asks that they not. The tyranny of their Emperor begins to reflect the tyranny of time and fate.

Could it be . . . ? Is it . . . ? The Tangent Online Seal of Approval? It is! Woot! Cheer! [Applause]!

This is the first review I’ve gotten from them which is positive all the way through. (Apart from possibly the bit about Umberto Eco, but as the reviewer used ‘eschew’, I’m willing to grant a generous degree of license.)

This at the end as well:

A solid issue with no standouts, though Bobet, Mock and Harvey’s offerings impress in their own quiet ways.

Mmm. I impress in quiet ways. Mmm. Shh!

Tangent Online is running a few months behind reality. They’ve just posted a review of the April 2011 Realms of Fantasy:

“By Shackle and Lash,” by Euan Harvey, tells the story of a mysterious prisoner with blue eyes like the warm harvest days of summer. Kemal and Wahid are men of the Mukhabarat, a sort of police organization that serves the Shah, but they abandon their duties and are sentenced to work in the dungeons. It is here that they come across the woman in cell Alef seven. She is weak and sick and has recently soiled herself, but she has her eyes and a mouth that tells the men things they cannot remember and cannot disobey. I am unfamiliar with folk traditions from the Middle East, so it very possible I am missing references; I do know, however, that the story stands on its own. It has a hypnotic quality that should not be denied.

Which is an okay review, I guess. I’m never entirely sure what to make of Tangent; they seem kind of out of step with other review sites. (And generally, they don’t seem too keen on my stuff.)

My story Wreathed in Wisteria, Draped in Ivy is in issue 100 of Realms of Fantasy. It’s just been reviewed by Lois Tilton at Locus Online:

This title seems like it should belong to the Bobet story above, but in fact the author is only using the vines to drape a tomb in this dark historical fantasy of revenge and undeath in Han dynasty China. It is in the “ancient manuscript” mode, the text redacted in places for good reasons the reader will discover by the end, and the narrative is triple-nested. Its core is a tale told by an old, old man.

The ancient’s beard reached down past his chest. His face was shrunken, cheeks fallen in, skin deeply wrinkled. His eyes had sunk deep into his head, and now they peered out from caves under thick eyebrows of bushy white.

In his youth, he had set out for the imperial examinations and in one village encountered a demonic sorcerer who predicted that he would meet death in three days. The young man suspected extortion and refused to pay the fee for warding off this fate. And death did come to him, sent by the sorcerer, but he managed to defeat it three times. It will not come again.

This is a horror story, and an effective one. The author connects his narratives well, including redactions and notes by both author and a later editor, which all combine to complete and enhance the tale. The story does not require specific knowledge of the historical figures mentioned in the text, which I find just as well, given the variations in translation and transliteration that can snare the uninformed. Yet the author writes with sufficient authority about this setting that I hesitate to point out that the imperial examinations would not have been established by the time of Yu’s youth, if I have understood the author correctly.

I think she’s right about the imperial examinations. But, um, [footshuffle], ah poetic license? Yeah. That’s it.  Otherwise, I thought the review was pretty good.

Another review of my story “By Shackle and Lash”.

The Shackle and Lash,” by Euan Harvey, is another in a recent series of fantasy short stories and novels to take advantage of the rich culture of Arabia for a setting and a magic system. In this tale, two members of the Mukhabarat are demoted to prison duty when they run from a Hand of Afaz. We are told little about the Hands, or why these brave men fled; that adventure is merely the starting point for a tale of a mysterious blue-eyed prisoner who abides in unspeakable filth but carries in her eyes cloudless summer skies and the smell of hay. What this prisoner does to the two men makes a story worth reading.

Sounds like she liked it, which is good.

From Adventures Fantastic:

“By Shackle and Lash” by Euan Harvey:  A disgraced soldier is demoted to assistant gaoler and given the task of emptying the slop buckets of the prisoners.  It turns out there’s a cell that isn’t always there, and its occupant has been imprisoned a really long time.  Those to whom she chooses to appear are changed.  The author implies the story takes place in the far future, when oceans are mostly gone and the population has moved into the sea bottoms because the formerly occupied land areas are no longer inhabitable.  This, along with “The Sacrifice”, is one of the two longest tales in the issue, and my favorite.  It is the closest to sword and sorcery that’s to be found here.

Nice to hear, and glad to see the worldbuilding is catching people’s attention.  Personally, I think the story is definitely sword and sorcery, but I can see how opinions might vary on that. There’s a fair amount of sorcery, but not a great deal of . . . swordery? Swordplay? Swords? Hm.

Slow but steady. Now up to 74,000 words. Also outlining a possible submission for the Black Library’s open submissions period. (More here.)