My new book in the big leagues
Well isn’t this lovely. The Toronto Star reviews The Gates of Polished Horn in its roundup of new science fiction — Alex Good’s review is quite insightful and worth a read!
Though I will add, there’s a few lighthearted stories in my collection too! Or, at least stories that have a few laughs to distract from the approaching doom of the datasphere. 🙂
The title for Mark Rayner’s whimsical yet unsettling collection of stories comes from the poet Homer’s notion that dreams come to us having passed through different gates depending on whether they’re true or not.
It’s a tricky poetic trope that fits with the way Rayner plays with the question of what’s real. His stories are like thought experiments, with imagined and reimagined histories (we begin with a time-traveler dropping in to witness the death of Socrates) and settings where technology, consciousness, memory and dreams all sort of blur together in a manufactured “datasphere” or “mediascape.”
You can read the whole of The Roads to Dystopia here.
I also see this as a big win for my publisher, Donovan Street Press. Joe’s imprint is in its freshman year, and having a book alongside presses such as St. Martin’s, Forge and Scribner’s is a real achievement! Congrats to Joe and the whole team, including BiblioFic Designs for a beautifully executed cover.
And the book is a steal! $5 (Canadian) for the ebook, C$19.99 for the paperback! (Around $3.75US/$14US.) And yes, there is a hardcover coming!