The current issue of Black Static opens with my historical fantasy, “Barbary.”
I began to smoke mummies on the advice of a pharmacist off Pacific Avenue. His was an almost derelict alley-way shop, the sign faded, the bills in the window brown and curling. Several times I had to step like a Lipizzaner in the lane over inebriates or dragon-chasers, and I couldn’t imagine how such a frail old geezer passed daily to and from his business unmolested. For all I knew he never left and slept under the floor, subsisting on unguent and rose water. And for me — well, the risk of a blackjack or a knife between the ribs was a lesser injury than my chronic disorder.
One reviewer at Tangent said the story is “very well-done, spooky and disturbing … The prose is realistically archaic without being awkward or stiff,” while another wrote that it “twists to a perfect ending.” Author and fellow cider-swiller Matthew Dent noted, “it was the peculiar and slightly archaic way in which it was written — fitting the plot like a glove — which fascinated me … An excellent piece of fiction.”
I’m grateful for the kind praise! Artist Ben Baldwin created an amazing accompaniment to the story, seen above. Thanks to him as well.
Alas, while Black Static is available at the Waterstones in every burgh’s High Street, I have no idea how you buy it outside of the UK. You can wait for the Kindle version — though I don’t know when that will be available — or purchase a hard copy off the publisher’s Back Issues page once the next issue is out.
