Behind the Mask
by
Kelly Link, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Cat Rambo, Lavie Tidhar and others
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
Behind
the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors
Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah
Pinsker, Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large and others. It is partially,
a prose nod to the comic world—the bombast, the larger-than-life, the
save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the more
intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The
regrets and longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view of
the world that can only be experienced from behind the mask.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Behind
the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors
Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah
Pinsker, Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large and others. It is partially,
a prose nod to the comic world—the bombast, the larger-than-life, the
save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the
more intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes.
The regrets and longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view
of the world that can only be experienced from behind the mask.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT from Madjack by Nathan Crowder
Her father died during the second verse of
“River to Home,” right as Omar hit the flourish that served as a preview for his post bridge solo. She felt it like a sudden swelling
in her heart, an explosion of emotion that she almost choked on before instinct
directed it out, into the audience. By the time they reached the chorus,
everyone within thirty feet of the stage was sobbing.
Atlas McVittie, seasoned rock musician that
she was at the ripe age of thirty, didn’t drop a note.
The band knew something was wrong. They’d been
with her through thick and thin, from the shit clubs and storage unit rehearsal
space to the contract with Goblin Records. Eight
years of broken promises, collapse, and hopefully a phoenix-like rebirth.
They thundered through the rest of the set and
only did one encore, though everyone agreed the crowd deserved two. But Atlas
was the lynchpin in the band. She was the one people
came to see; the tempestuous daughter of the self-styled glam rock ‘god who
fell to earth,’ the Madjack. If Atlas was off, the band was off. It helped that
Frankie, their road manager, was waiting in the wings prior to the encore with the phone call confirming what Atlas McVittie already
knew.
Atlas was in a daze post-show. The rest of the
band had a few drinks in the green room then went off to an after-hours place
that Cleveland, the drummer, knew about. Frankie bundled Atlas up under her heavy wool topcoat, the vintage Russian army
thing she’d picked up in a flea market when she was still in high school, back
when she and Frankie had met. Atlas let herself be herded out the back and into
her friend’s toy-like car, shiny and blue like an
Easter egg. They drove in silence around the late-night Cobalt City streets,
aimlessly, no direction in mind.
When they drifted from the corridors of steel
and glass towers in downtown, north towards Moriston, Atlas finally spoke up.
“Head up towards Clown Liquor,” she said, impulsively
but clearly.
Frankie raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow
and shot Atlas a curious look from beneath her spider-like bangs. “Where are we
going?”
“The Olive.”
Frankie said nothing but continued on where
Atlas directed, and minutes later they pulled into
the lot of a generic Cup-o-Chino coffeehouse where The Olive used to be. Atlas
leaned forward in the seat, as if heightened scrutiny would turn back time.
Finally, defeated, she sank back in her seat. “Do you remember this place?”
“I remember you,” Frankie said. A wistful
smile appeared then vanished. “You had never sung for anyone but me. And I
convinced you to do karaoke. First time you sang for strangers.”
“Ever,” Atlas said quietly.
“Ever,” Frankie agreed. “And you never stopped. You started writing music and
formed the band within a year.”
“My dad . . .” Atlas started. Her voice caught
in her throat, and sadness filled the car like an invisible wave of force.
Frankie gasped, breath stuck in her chest, a sensation like she was drowning in emotion. She gripped
Atlas’s arm hard through the coat and the waves of emotion calmed. “Jesus,
Atlas.”
“I’m sorry. I thought I knew the limits on the
emotion thing, but it’s like the training wheels blew off tonight. I’m finding that what I thought was ten is more like two or
three.”
“So that was how you knew?”
“And I saw him,” she started. She replayed the
memory, the sun behind her father, Brian McVittie, making a halo of his white
hair. His hand stretched down to her, and he was
speaking. An indistinct, alien garble. Emphasis, quite possibly, on the alien
part. “It’s pretty confusing.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Featured author bio:
Nathan Crowder is a Seattle-based fan of little
known musicians, unpopular candy, and just happens to write fantasy, horror,
and superheroes. His other works include the fantasy novel Ink Calls to Ink,
short fiction in anthologies such as Selfies from the End of the World,
and Cthulhurotica, and his numerous Cobalt City superhero stories and
novels. He is still processing the death of David Bowie.
All other author bios:
Kelly Link is the author of
four short story collections: Get in Trouble, a
finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, Pretty Monsters, Magic
for Beginners, and Stranger Things Happen.
She lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Seanan
McGuire lives and writes in
the Pacific Northwest, in a large, creaky house with a questionable past. She shares her home with two enormous blue
cats, a querulous calico, the world’s most hostile iguana, and an assortment of
other oddities, including more horror movies than any one person has any
business owning. It is her life goal to
write for the X-Men, and she gets a little closer every day.
Seanan is the author
of the October Daye and InCryptid urban fantasy series, both from DAW Books,
and the Newsflesh and Parasitology trilogies, both from Orbit (published under
the name “Mira Grant”). She writes a distressing
amount of short fiction, and has released three collections set in her
superhero universe, starring Velma “Velveteen” Martinez and her allies. Seanan usually needs a nap. Keep up with her at www.seananmcguire.com, or
on Twitter at @seananmcguire.
Carrie
Vaughn is best
known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf
named Kitty, who hosts a talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged,
the fourteenth installment of which is Kitty Saves the World. She's written several other contemporary
fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of 80 short stories. She's a contributor to the Wild Cards series
of shared world superhero books edited by George R.
R. Martin
and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic
childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.
Cat Rambo lives, writes, and
teaches atop a hill in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications
include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld
Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction. She is an Endeavour, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award
nominee. Her second novel, Hearts of
Tabat, appears in early 2017 from Wordfire Press. She is the current
President of the Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of America. For more about
her, as well as links to her fiction, see http://www.kittywumpus.net
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the Jerwood Fiction
Uncovered Prize winning and Premio Roma nominee A Man Lies Dreaming (2014), the World Fantasy Award winning Osama (2011) and of the
critically-acclaimed The Violent Century
(2013). His latest novel is Central
Station (2016). He is the author of many other novels, novellas and short
stories
Kate Marshall lives in the Pacific Northwest with
her husband and several small agents of chaos disguised as a dog, cat, and
child. She works as a cover designer and video game writer. Her fiction has
appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Crossed Genres, and other
venues, and her YA survival thriller I Am Still Alive is
forthcoming from Viking. You can find her online at katemarshallwrites.com.
Stuart Suffel's body of work includes stories published by Jurassic London, Evil Girlfriend Media, Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine, Kraxon Magazine, and Aurora Wolf among others. He exists in Ireland, lives in the Twilight Zone, and will work for Chocolate Sambuca Ice cream. Twitter: @suffelstuart
Michael
Milne is a writer and teacher originally from Canada, who lived
in Korea and China, and is now in Switzerland. Not being from anywhere anymore
really helps when writing science fiction. His work has been published in The Sockdolager, Imminent Quarterly, and
anthologies on Meerkat Press and Gray Whisper.
Adam R. Shannon is a career firefighter/paramedic, as
well as a fiction writer, hiker, and cook. His work has been shortlisted for an
Aeon award and appeared in Morpheus Tales
and the SFFWorld anthology You Are Here:
Tales of Cryptographic Wonders. He and his wife live in Virginia, where
they care for an affable German Shepherd, occasional foster dogs, a free-range
toad, and a colony of snails who live in an old apothecary jar. His website and
blog are at AdamRShannon.com.
Stephanie Lai is a Chinese-Australian writer and occasional translator. She
has published long meandering thinkpieces in Peril Magazine, the Toast, the Lifted Brow and Overland. Of recent, her short fiction has appeared in the Review of Australian Fiction, Cranky Ladies
of History, and the In Your Face
Anthology. Despite loathing time travel, her defence of Dr Who companion
Perpugilliam Brown can be found in Companion
Piece (2015). She is an amateur infrastructure nerd and a professional
climate change adaptation educator (she's helping you survive our oncoming
climate change dystopia). You can find her on twitter @yiduiqie, at stephanielai.net, or talking about pop culture and drop bears at no-award.net.
Aimee Ogden is a former biologist, science
teacher, and software tester. Now she writes stories about sad astronauts and
angry princesses. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Daily Science Fiction, Baen.com, Persistent Visions, and The Sockdolager.
Sarah Pinsker is the author of the 2015 Nebula
Award winning novelette "Our Lady of the Open Road."
Her novelette "In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind" was the 2014
Sturgeon Award winner and a 2013 Nebula finalist. Her fiction has been
published in magazines including Asimov's,
Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny, among others, and numerous
anthologies. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, Spanish,
Italian, and Galician. She is also a singer/songwriter with three albums
on various independent labels and a fourth forthcoming. She lives in
Baltimore, Maryland with her wife and dog. She can be found online
at sarahpinsker.com and twitter.com/sarahpinsker.
Keith Frady writes weird short
stories in a cluttered apartment in Atlanta. His work has appeared in Love
Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology, Literally
Stories, The Yellow Chair Review, and The
Breakroom Stories.
Ziggy Schutz is a young
queer writer living on the west coast of Canada. She's been a fan of
superheroes almost as long as she's been writing, so she's very excited this is
the form her first published work took. When not writing, she can often be
found stage managing local musicals and mouthing the words to all the songs.
Ziggy can be found at @ziggytschutz, where she's probably ranting about
representation in fiction.
Matt
Mikalatos is the
author of four novels, the most recent of which is Capeville: Death of the Black Vulture, a YA superhero novel. You
can connect with him online at Capeville.net or Facebook.com/mikalatosbooks.
Patrick Flanagan
- For security reasons, Patrick Flanagan writes from one of several undisclosed
locations; either—
1) A Top
Secret-classified government laboratory which studies genetic aberrations and
unexplained phenomena;
2) A
sophisticated compound hidden in plain sight behind an electromagnetic cloaking
shield;
3) A decaying
Victorian mansion, long plagued by reports of terrifying paranormal activity;
or
4) The
subterranean ruins of a once-proud empire which ruled the Earth before recorded
history, and whose inbred descendants linger on in clans of cannibalistic
rabble
—all of which
are conveniently accessible from exits 106 or 108 of the Garden State Parkway.
Our intelligence reports that his paranoid ravings have been previously
documented by Grand Mal Press, Evil Jester Press, and Sam's Dot Publishing. In
our assessment he should be taken seriously, but not literally. (Note: Do NOT
make any sudden movements within a 50' radius.)
Keith
Rosson is the author of the novels THE MERCY OF THE TIDE (2017, Meerkat) and SMOKE CITY (2018, Meerkat). His short fiction has appeared in Cream City Review, PANK, Redivider, December,
and more. An advocate of both public
libraries and non-ironic adulation of the cassette tape, he can be found
at keithrosson.com.
LINKS:
Book
Page: http://meerkatpress.com/books/behind-the-mask-a-superhero-anthology/#mbt-book-purchase-anchor
BUY LINKS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interview with Nathan Crowder
Where are you from?
I was born and raised in cowboy country, spending most of my
life in a town in the southwest corner of Colorado where the cornerstone of the
economy was tourism and the college. We had a good-sized Latinx population, and
were close to several reservations, the Navajo Nation being the largest, and
that helped shape a lot of my world view. My dad was big into architecture and
existential philosophy, and was a librarian for the college. That was pretty
influential for me as well. I even wanted to be a librarian for several years
as a result.
Tell us your latest news?
I’m almost done with the current edit pass on my Gothic high
fantasy novel Of Rooks and Ravens
that is due to be released by Razorgirl Press this October. I’ve been
developing the world it’s set in for almost 20 years, so I’m really excited to
finally be sharing it with the world. It follows a young academic who is forced
to flee the only home she’s ever known when an ancient god reawakens. Under the
reluctant mentorship of a military history professor (and possible spy), she
gets caught up in plans to retake the city of Ravensgate and punish those
responsible for its fall.
When and why did you begin writing?
I started writing poetry, shortly followed by short fiction as
early as age 11 or 12, and then tried my hand at a novel when I was 13. As for
why? I guess it’s because no one told me I couldn’t. I read everything I could
get my hands on, and I loved story. There’s no barrier to creating your own
story. All it takes is a pencil and paper. It didn’t matter that almost
everything I wrote for years was just garbage. You have to suck for a long time
before you get good at something. And I’m glad I got it out of the way when I
was too young to really care.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I liked to think I was a writer even when I was cranking out
clunky garbage on a borrowed typewriter at age 18. But I didn’t really own it
until someone who wasn’t invested in my feelings read something of mine and
said it was good. That was my creative writing teacher in college, Red Bird. He
liked two of the stories I wrote for his class well enough I was emboldened to
send one into the school’s literary journal where it was published. That was
it. That was the moment.
What inspired you to write your first book?
I’d given up trying to write novels, in fact, had taken a long
break from writing for a few years, when I suddenly started getting serious
about short fiction again. My wife at the time convinced me to try a novel. I’d
been running a superhero RPG for friends and had a story I really wanted to
tell that didn’t lend itself to the game format—too broken up, too many solo
pieces. So I wrote it as an experiment, more or less. Just something for my friends
who were involved in the game. And it came out much better than I could have
expected. It’s still my longest novel to date. And it spurred all of the Cobalt
City fiction that came after.
what would you like my readers to know?
The story and character of Madjack are set within the Cobalt
City universe, in which I’ve written several novels and published a handful of
anthologies. A few other author friends are also writing fiction in the
setting. I’m working on a new Cobalt City novel now and hope to have this draft
done this summer for a release by year’s end. And I have a Patreon where I do
an original Cobalt City short story every month.
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