New Story Coming: Heaven's Bounty
Today the Kickstater for Folkloric has opened. My next story, “Heaven’s Bounty,” will be featured within it. It fully funded in under an hour, so this is def happening. :) If you would like to read Heaven’s Bounty as soon as it’s available, as well as 15 other great folk-horror stories, click the link!
About Heaven’s Bounty
This is my first overtly biblical tale. Way back in my teenage years I loved Vampire The Masquerade. Like many nerds, I read the source books more than I actually played the game. One particular book, The Book of Nod, recast the story of Caine and Able in a way that is impossible to unsee once you’ve seen it. But it was too short. It was so fascinating I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I wanted to do more with the premise. It stuck with me for well over a decade, and finally gave birth to Heaven’s Bounty.
This is one of the hardest-to-place stories I’ve ever written, but I had so much faith in it. I would not give it up. I’ve written some stories that, after a few rejections, I’ll reread and go “Oh, yeah, this has a fundamental story-failure, and I don’t even see how I could fix it. It’s just not good.” and then they get exiled to The Basement of Deformity And Shame. Heaven’s Bounty was not such a story. Not only do I know it’s a fundamentally solid story, but I got a lot of personalized rejections that said the editor liked the story but felt it wasn’t right for their venue.
This always makes you wonder “Why is it not right for them?” And it’s hard not to think “Well, the story is suggesting that maybe the Abrahamic religions are worshipping a Lovecraftian Horror and that’ll anger some readers, and for what benefit?” I feel ugly thinking things like that. I know this industry published some incredibly blasphemous and religion-challenging works in the past, and I’m proud of it for that. Me saying “I didn’t get published because of the religion thing” is just whining and making excuses. On the other hand, the social landscape has changed, and now publishers are more likely to be punished by their peers for religious insensitivity than lauded for non-reverence. Pushing against religion is a fight of the previous generation, no one is looking for that kind of thing anymore. Especially not from one of those old New Atheist types.
What I’m saying is I’m very happy with the Sentinel Creatives editorial team, and proud to be part of their efforts. They’re taking a chance on me, and I appreciate the hell out of that.
The story of course has a rationalist spin on it, because how could it not? I think rats reading it will find a fun new handle for ways to make biblical myths more coherent when trying to reconcile them with observed reality. Which, let’s face it, is half of what rationalist fanfic is all about. :) I think EA animal welfare people will also find something of interest here? But I’m not sure, it’s hard for me to model them well.
The Product
Back to the pitch! The Kickstarter contains a number of cool extras, if you’re into those. There’s an original soundtrack, for example. Also, two of the stories in the anthology were picked to get the full audio drama treatment, with backing music and sound effects and all. And Heaven’s Bounty is one of them!!! I didn’t even know that until the kickstarter launched! And the stretch goal to unlock it has already been met!! So, yeah, even more reason to go over there and check it out right now. I can’t wait to hear it myself. :)