Danse Desirable

Story List!

Christine — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:25:28 +0000

Dear me. I can’t believe I haven’t had a story list up on my site. Well, there is one there now! See it just above, to the right of the About page link?

By the way, four of the six stories listed on the Stories page are FREE. (My personal favorite is “Fear of Darkness.” I think it’s a good “taste” of my steampunk fantasy world–the same world that Beauty in the Beast takes place in! Also, the audio version is brilliantly narrated by the talented Angel McCoy and Philip Pickard.)

Interview with “M”

Christine — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 06:37:37 +0000

Over the last year, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a whole boatload of fun, interesting, and amazingly talented people on-line. I’m discovering that social networking really is just that! Ya meet someone cool, and they know this other cool person, who knows this other cool person…

In that spirit, I’d like to introduce you to my most recent acquaintance, M. I had the pleasure of being partnered with her during Magen Toole’s Summer Session Interviews, a super-fun interview exchange that I first learned about from Berit Ellingsen (who I also met this year!).

M startled me into laughter more than once with her responses. She’s smart and full of quirky wit, and I found her voice downright addictive. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did!

—

Full of wit and practical wisdom, science fiction writer M. Raoulee takes some time to discuss her work, her dolls, her beading, and everything else in between. — Megan Toole

1. What, primarily, do you write?

Trashy science fiction and fantasy, often with a side of porn and/or snark.

1A. Science fiction and fantasy! There’s a large genre. Any favorite subgenres?

Well, right now I have an interest in slice-of-life science fiction, which I would like to take a moment to blame on Hitoshi Ashinano. I’ve written a lot of adventures the past few years, and I guess I felt like something a little more mellow. I say adventure, but I’m not much of an epic person. There’s just something that burns my toast about “YOU ARE THE ONE WHO MUST DO A THING, YO.” I’ve always wondered about what the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary worlds are like. In my hands, the answer appears to be “ridiculous”, but I’ll take that.

As for what I’m doing writing non-epics in the most epic-prone genres ever, I’ve never been accused of doing things the easy way. And I’m fine with other people writing epics and such. Can you imagine a world with no high fantasy battlefests? I don’t WANT to.

2. Where, primarily, do you write it?

In the fearsome hell-dimension which exists in the back of my sock drawer! Well, I wish. I have an antique vanity facing a window and one of those laptops that’s so huge as to be thoroughly UN-portable. Oh, and all this stuff is in the room I rent, to the right of a shelf full of dolls and a painting of the human incarnation of fluorite.

3. The question I hate to answer, but love to ask: are you a pantser…or plotter?

Why? That is a good question! I used to be a hardcore pantser. Genius of spontaneity and all that. And sometimes, if I have a deadline, I will still pants the everyloving crap out individual scenes. But, as a pantser, it wasn’t very often I saw the ends of stories and I much too gradually came to realize I was never going to get anything done without something resembling an outline.

I have to be able to physically move plot points around which results in these OneNote tabs that look like QED worksheets. For very long, complex stories, sometimes I resort to taping colored notecards to my closet door.

4. Who are your primary inspirations for writing?

I am going to take a moment to excerpt a conversation I had with GreenJudy about that very thing.

> Corny as it may be, things come to me in dreams. Often, I’m dimly aware
> that I’m dreaming and have the some say in what’s going on. I can ring
> room service for a movie, but I only get to pick the genre.

> Or, I’ll overhear a thing. “That is a phone that has seen better days”.
> What of this phone? I beheld not the phone. But, my brain wanted to know
> about the phone and filled in some info on it’s own. This is where my
> most nonsensical notes hail from.

> But, more and more, I find myself engineering scenes. I want to
> accomplish X. What is the best way to do this? Oddly enough, this is
> where a lot of my jokes come from, [when I'm not pantsing them].

> All three of these states have to balance out for a good scene (and I do
> outline by scene).

> Say, the T-rex story. I was dreaming about doppelgangers and soldiers and
> Umi no Aria, only things went horribly wrong, as tings are wont to do.
> This stuck itself to some of my notes that had been otherwise
> languishing. And then I thought: this is a great excuse to write about
> miniature dinosaurs as pets. How would I work one in? You know what would
> be funny? If one SAT on the main character and made T. Rex noises in his
> face. Wait, what noise does a T. Rex make? And then, I posted in LJ [posing that question].

> Plotting and writing work like this for me.

> Plotting makes more stuff / writing walls off the new stuff / revising
> purifies the stuff.

> I think it’s like making vodka and being hopelessly bad at it.

4A. I think I’m going to frame “Plotting makes … purifies the stuff” and hang it on my wall! That’s the essence of writing for me, right there. And what about literary role models–who are yours?

Well, I already ended up name-dropping one before you asked. Oopsie. I want to disclaim before I say anything else that I think there’s a difference between liking a book and looking up to the author. Meaning I dig a whole lot more books by a whole lot more writers than I’m about to list.

-Umberto Eco: “I felt like killing a monk”. Is there ever any better reason to turn out a massive tome of a novel? Plus, he writes what he damn well pleases, which is what he knows, which may well be everything awesome ever.

-Mark Danielewski: Supreme lord and master of fucking with the audience.

-Hagio Moto: Created to shonen-ai genre in comics and otherwise made a career of filling women’s comic magazines with hard sci-fi and comics about ballerinas if she damnwell felt like it.

-Tanith Lee: has written more imminently readable books in her life than most companies put out over their entire existences.

5. Can you tell us a bit about your current work-in-progress? (Or works-in-progress, whatever the case may be.)

Let me see. I have a novel I keep meaning to revise with some modicum of seriousness, but it weighs about ten pounds and I have, in fact, killed scorpions with it. In the drafting department, the T. rex story ate a bunch of my other outlines, so I have this cute little soft sci-fi slice-of-life tangle of stories going on and very little desire to move on at this point. Oh, and there are two pet ideas which follow me around: the serious one and the not serious one. The serious one I did try to write once and botched. I have no idea how to even outline the not serious one due to a certain prevalence of lying and alcohol.

5A. Well, if you’re going to make us wait that long for literary goodness…do you at least have a prize snippet you’re willing to share?

Is it Tuesday? No? Well, here’s one anyway.

Later that evening while he waited for some bread to rise, Nel emailed Tasso at his “best for social agendas” address, to see if there was anything he absolutely wouldn’t eat. He would never have the chance to do as much with a restaurant patron, but he figured: now, while he could. Now, before he’d mentally assembled a menu.

Tasso wrote back almost at once, and it was then that doubt crept up on Nel. Just a little doubt, no more harmful than a dropped fork, but well-founded just the same.

I like: black olives, green olives, red olives, items which contain any of the aforementioned olives.

I don’t like: bran; things that taste how grass smells; breakfast cereal; foodstuffs produced by members of the Musa genus.

And here where Nel had bet himself that likes would be all about pizza, Chinese and Bereit lunchboxes (Bereit still flinging its cheese-drenched cuisine across the galaxy despite a heavy backlash in the culinary world).

Musa turned out to bananas.

That, and the request he’d started out with? Not much to go on.

What really threw him though was the part about grass. Nel knew how grass smelled: he lived in the middle of some pretty serious grass. But, he couldn’t translate that aroma into a taste. He’d been trying to work on that skill. In fact, he’d probably been working on it when he should have been studying for algebra. It got to annoy him that while he knew what Tasso was getting at, he couldn’t have expressed it better than Tasso already had.

So, he clattered down the outside steps of his apartment complex and made his way across the parking lot to the communal yard where he got down on his hands and knees, and shoved his face in the grass for a big, gushing smell of the stuff.

His tongue reacted to the scent. Stirred, though there was no taste per se.

The grass smelled remarkably like grass.

“Nel?” came Ms. Chicklace’s voice, and Ms. Chicklace’s pink and black flats intruding on the grass he had engaged. “Are you alright?”

“It’s for school,” he sighed. “I got this hypothetical client who doesn’t like the taste of suburbia.”

“Ohhh. In that case, I would make sure not to hypothetically serve him macaroni out of a box. That’s about the most suburban thing ever,” and she laughed a little, one shoe brushing the other. “Not that you’d dream of it.”

“I gotta start somewhere. Hey, did anybody loose their keys?”

6. What is your goal or dream for writing?

I’ve wanted to be published since I was nine. Failing that, I would at least like to leave behind a readable version of the not serious pet outline above. Why? Because heroic atheist lesbians, that’s why.

7. Well, that’s a great reason! Your profile says you write in the nude. Is this a metaphor for baring yourself to the world through your writing? Or am I just looking too far into that?

Even as I type this, my pants are on the other side of the bedroom! It’s hot here. I don’t have much of a choice. But, I do have a problem expressing myself verbally. The mind and the mouth do not sync up for me. It’s not as bad as it used to be since I’ve had people INSIST on getting to know me lately. I still get a hell of a lot more across in writing.

8. Ya know, we Floridians believe in something called “A/C”… Besides writing, you seem to have quite a few other creative pursuits. Can you share some of these with us?

I absolutely cannot stand to do nothing. I go stir crazy if I can’t be making or doing something. But, I only have so much space, so miniatures work for me. Well, I have been beading more human-sized items lately, but I still sew around 1/4 scale most of the time. Also, I was raised in a family where everyone cooked, so I love-love-love to cook. My favorite thing to make is literal soup du jour where I grab whatever we’ve got and try to turn it into tasty soup. I also make killer risotto. Seriously- it’s got about a half pound of butter in it. Don’t eat it and then got get a blood test.

Some other media I’ve messed around with include Friendly Plastic, Angelina Film and plastic canvas. If I get in the mood or there’s a special occasion I will do cartonnage, which is those fabric-covered boxes from your grandmother’s bathroom. Great results, but you will trash daylights out of your workspace.

8A. Friendly Plastic, Angelina Film, and plastic canvas? These sound like great band names…but something tells me they’re not musical groups.

I would listen the hell out of a band called Angelina Film.

Friendly Plastic, also known as Polycaprolactone, is a plastic that’s moldable at 140F. Fantastic Plastic from back in the 80’s was similar, but everyone may rest assured the newer version is less carcinogenic. In fact, it may have medical applications. Anyway, you can dye it, get ink all over yourself and use it to make miniatures or cabochons.

Angelina Film similar to cellophane. You heat it, it sticks to itself and gets all iridescent. The fun part comes when you glue it to an armature first. Oh, but there’s lacquer involved too. Lots of lacquer. Everywhere. Still fun though.

Plastic canvas works up like gigantic scale cross stitch, but you can make three-dimension things out of it too. Say, doll furniture. I know that particular application had some fans in the late 80’s, early 90’s. This material in particular may be dismissed as tacky, but anything’s tacky in the wrong hands.

8B. Do you find that any of these other pursuits fuel your writing? Do any killer soups du jour show up in your stories?

I did actually end up writing a character who beaded into one of my Halloween porn fests. Very sparkly bonking ensued. And I THINK The Soup That We Don’t Talk About in one of my more current projects may be a relative of one that got all weird on me the other day. Protip: frozen pork and frozen giant chicken breasts may be indistinguishable in the depths of the freezer.

9. Tell us a little bit about your dolls. Do you build them? Just their accessories? Both?

I have a collection of Asian Ball-Joint Dolls, otherwise known as those overpriced resin things. I do not have a theme for my collection. Oh, you know, now that I think of it, I know what my pantsing went into. Anyway, I do like fantasy-themed dolls, but I don’t buy those exclusively. Also, a lot of writers will get dolls to represent their characters. I have two out of two dozen, and one is actually a reverse character doll- I based the way the character looks on the doll. The rest? They don’t need refining and motives and backstories. They just need tiny dashikis and to be hung in palo verde trees for pictures. I did try to build one at one point, but it went badly.

10. And I need to know about these beading kits you’re putting together.

Oh, my goodness. I should get you some coffee or something. Long story alert.

These people who have INSISTED on getting to know me are all regulars from my local bead shop. I had not had any corporeal friends in years before I met them. Originally, I would just stop into this shop occasionally for doll props, but they wore me down and got me having conversations and making human-sized things.

The economy still being made of suck and fail, we decided we would invent some kits for our bead store to sell online so it can stick around. And we would do it with Tila beads, which are square, have two holes and make for a pain in the ass 99% of the time. I had this idea that I would use them to make bigger, ornate square units that could be assembled in different ways. This went over way better than I ever thought it would. I ended up teaching it to a bunch of people, who did their own takes on it.

Two months later, we’re tentatively expecting three design variations in five colorways each once we get the directions finished and the materials together. I have learned so much. I mean, everything from how to write good directions to the fact French Brittany’s turn into balls when they lie down. It’s really been an wonderful, though occasionally frustrating, experience and you had better believe I am going to pimp the living daylights out of these things once we have them to sell.

Oh, and I got put in charge of naming the different colors, which has been LOLerous because everything I know about naming fashion items I gleaned from 80’s Avon catalogues.

CD: M., thank you for joining me! It’s been a real pleasure! And greatest of luck with those bead kits. Is there a link we’ll be able to find them at when they’re available?

Oh, thank YOU. I’ve really enjoyed this exchange myself. And goodness knows I need some luck. Anyway, the kits should be available online at http://www.cosmopolitanbeads.com/. I’m trying to set it up that people who order online and mention Shipwreck Light get at least a special thank you note. Lynda kinda shot down my free porn idea.

How to Hack Your Dragon, a Biopunk Tale

Christine — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 22:48:42 +0000

I try to make no secret about it: I love ‘punks. Steampunk. Cyberpunk. Biopunk.

Biopunk? Yeah. Biopunk. You know, genetic engineering, living computers, machines that growl instead of rumble. Biopunk. Possibly the nearest and dearest of all ‘punks to my heart–no disrespect to steampunk or cyberpunk intended.

Really, nothing can replace the absolute awesomeness of steamy brass machinery or of chrome-plated VR tanks, but I’ve always been interested in the most complex and magical machinery of all (incidentally, also the squishiest): living creatures. Punch cards and data chips are great, but what about strands of DNA? What sort of profound changes can we make with technology–and ourselves, and the world–if we learn to code in A’s, T’s, C’s, G’s, and U’s?

I’m not sure, but there’s been a lot of speculation–and I can only imagine. I mean, what if we could craft custom pets? Purchase DNA modifications? Make computers out of bacteria? (Scientists are starting to do this already.)

I tackle these “what-ifs” in my newest short story, “How to Hack Your Dragon.” (Yeah, hack as in computer hack. Not hack the way a dragonslayer hacks.) It’s available now in the print anthology Growing Dread: Biopunk Visions. (Ebook soon, I hope?)

For your reading pleasure, I’ve included the cover and the first scene of my story below. Enjoy!

After the smoke haze cleared and all the partygoers had gone, he led her down the darkened street toward the stable. She laughed as he wove.

“I warned you not to hack your mets,” she said. “You’re going to give yourself alcohol poisoning.”

He ignored her gentle reprimand. “You’re gonna love her. You’re gonna love her,” he repeated, over and over again.

“I’m sure I will. Hold on.” She grabbed his upper arm as he careened toward a mailbox.

With a toothy grin, he stumbled into her and encircled her waist. “You’re gonna love her,” he breathed into her ear.

Salome squealed with laughter and pushed away. “Stop that! I’m sure I will, if you stop slobbering on me, you beast.” She bared her delicate fangs in irony. Travis had reloaded his original human genome three years ago and hadn’t added a single thero mod since. Though she adored his hazel eyes and cropped sandy hair, she sometimes missed his shaggy wolf tail and the ears that tickled her thighs when he nibbled her down there.

At ten stories high, the stable loomed shoulders above the sleeping houses. Square landing platforms spiked its upper stories, each like a concrete tongue under a shuttered aerie entrance. Inside the ground level foyer were the familiar smells of animal musk and earthy dung, straw and brimstone.

“Where you going?” asked Travis, as Salome reached for a door to the right of the entry. She looked over her shoulder at him, one graceful leg poised mid step. He admired the rounded calf and slender ankle as he added, “I’ve moved up in the world.” He chucked his head toward the elevator and offered her his elbow.

She took it. “What happened to Pearl?”

“I traded her in.” He avoided looking at her. Salome had been fond of his doe-eyed kirin.

They rode the elevator to the eighth floor in silence. The hallway they stepped into was empty and quiet, save for the muffled groans of a restless mount. Feather particles and glittering shed scales dusted the floor.

He led her to a door near the end of the hall and pressed his thumb to a security pad. The door opened to a long room. Cubbies, mostly empty, lined the walls, and black leather tack hung from an industrial-sized hook. Against the right wall gaped the dark, square window of a stable stall. Its chest-high door was closed and locked. Farther on, the long room ended in a pair of closed double doors–the flight entrance

“A private aerie?” Salome asked, looking about.

Travis grinned. “They’re all private. You should know that. Oh! You don’t fly. You’ve been old enough for two years, so sometimes I forget.”

Her ears flattened to her skull and she smacked him across the shoulder. “I’m afraid of heights.”

“Typical cat.” He laughed and ducked her next swing fluidly.

At the sound of their voices, a large, dark head stretched from the stable, its muzzle long and tapered.

“Oh,” said Salome. She stepped forward and stared for a long while at the creature in the stall, grooming her catgirl tail idly. One slender tortoiseshell ear turned back. “Just a basic mount? You couldn’t buy yourself something better for your 25th birthday?”

Travis smiled indulgently. “Nothing basic about her when I get done.”

“She’s going to take a lot of work,” said Salome. The dragon on the other side of the door stared at them blandly–a standard build with sooty grey hide and two short horns like a goat’s. It blinked its wet black eyes and whuffled at Travis’s shirt sleeve, recognizing its new owner by the scent that had been hardwired into its memory, then lifted its ridged nose and snuffled curiously at the air in front of Salome. Its breath was surprisingly cool, and Salome raised a hand to feel it. “Not even a fire breather?”

Travis hung on the door and draped an arm over the serpentine neck. “What, are we going to war?”

“Har har,” said Salome, with a sideways look. “Intelligence level?”

“Three-year-old.”

She snorted. “Could you have gotten her any dumber? Don’t answer that. Well, you’re going to have to do a lot with this one to impress me.” She patted the smooth hide of its neck. “Are you going to add scales?”

“Nope.” At her dubious look, he added, “Plenty of dragons don’t have scales. And be prepared to be impressed. The dragon you see before you now is not the dragon you will see in a few days. She’ll be able to outsmart a seven-year-old, and you’ll see why I ordered smooth hide.”

The dragon sought with a long black tongue for Salome’s hand. Nose wrinkling, she pulled it from reach. “It’s one thing to hack your dog to act like a cat. Where do you plan to find the code to jack up its intelligence? You don’t plan to write it yourself, do you? You’ll be in very big trouble if you uplift her.”

Travis placed a finger aside his nose and jabbed upward with his thumb. “Neighbor’s got a new Celarus Gryphon. Latest brain build. If the thing had fingers, you could teach it to play chess. But perfectly legal intelligence.”

Salome arched one carefully shaped eyebrow. “…Which you won’t be obtaining legally,” she added, dryly. “Blood sample?”

“Hell, no! Thing would bite my arm off. And its aerie is locked. I’ve got a different plan.”

“And just what is your plan?”

Travis, leaning heavily on the wall, smiled. “How am I supposed to impress you if I tell you my secret?”

Salome flicked a dried fleck of yogurt from her tail. “Right. No plan, just as I thought.”

“I have one,” he protested.

She reached forward to scritch between the dragon’s horns. It hummed and pushed into her hand. “I’ll give you one week.”

“One week,” agreed Travis. He snagged her waist and licked the paper thin edge of her ear. “You won’t be disappointed.”

I’m Still Alive

Christine — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:00:39 +0000

…I’ve just been busy. And a tad bit neglectful. But I’ve been writing. And I’ve been busy blogging elsewhere, as you’ll see below.

A few things I wanted to share:

1) The topic of last Friday’s #steampunkchat on Twitter was queer steampunk, featuring the editor of recently-released SteamPowered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories. Bonus: A whole slew of steampunk romance authors were present. I had an absolute blast. You can read the transcript here.

2) It’s Steampunk Romance & Erotica month over at Steampunk Scholar. (Squee!)

3) And the thing that’s been sucking all my time: The Biopunk Reader, a blog dedicated to the biopunk subgenre of science fiction. Don’t know what biopunk is? Read my explanation here. But I’ll give you a hint: it involves whole lot of biotechnology, and a whole lot of punk. ^.~

I’ve got some plans for later this month. Until then, cheers!

Love, fangs, and fur. :)=

–Christine

Island of Icarus, an M/M steampunk romance

Christine — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:56:52 +0000

Island of Icarus, my first novella, is now available now from Carina Press! I’m going a little crazy studying for final exams, so excuse this post’s briefness. Alas, I have nothing profound to say save that I’m super excited, and if I had more energy I’d be dancing right now!

Field Journal of Jonathan Orms, 1893

En route to polite exile in the Galapagos Islands (field work, to quote the dean of my university), I have found myself marooned on a deserted tropical paradise. Deserted, that is, except for my savior, a mysterious American called Marcus. He is an inventor—and the proof of his greatness is the marvelous new clockwork arm he has created to replace the unsightly one that was ruined in my shipboard mishap.

Marcus has a truly brilliant mind and the gentlest hands, which cause me to quiver in an unfamiliar but rather pleasant way. Surely it is only my craving for human companionship that draws me to this man, nothing more? He says a ship will pass this way in a few months, but I am welcome to stay as long as I like. The thought of leaving Marcus becomes more untenable with each passing day, though staying would be fatal to my career…

Read an excerpt here.

Read a prelude/”deleted scene” here.

Check out my interview over at The Galaxy Express!

Available now from:

Carina Press

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

~~~

Here’s what the advanced reviews have to say:

Island of Icarus is a study of man, of determination, and of creating one’s own fate. Although initiated through someone else’s will, Jonathan’s growth through the novel gives him a spine to make his own decisions and the confidence to follow through. – Between the Covers

The growth of a relationship between Jonathan and Marcus is sweet and I liked how it seemed to develop organically – Culinary Carnivale

The language is both anachronistic and authentic, creating the Victorian era not only from telling us that is the time period, but by showing the mannerisms that held fast at that time. – Book Addicts

A final element that appealed to me as a reader is the characters. With Marcus it’s the acceptance he has of himself, what he needs, and the self assurance that he has. – Lily’s Reviews

Very nicely done and one I’ll be keeping to reread later. — @Kathy_Collins on Goodreads.com

Steampunk Arms

Christine — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 07:50:39 +0000

So, I went looking for a clip of the Castle episode, “Punked”–specifically, the steampunk arm. Alas, I could not find it, but I did stumble upon these:

Arm wrestling! Of course, what else would one do with such a bad-ass mechanical forelimb?? (Love the gears, by the way.)

And pirate + steampunk + arm = awesome. :) (I just want to know what’s up with the random wine opener, ha.)

Loving this picture from the steampunk exhibition in Oxford:

For more about steampunk prosthetics, check out this post at The Galaxy Express!

Love, fangs, and fur :)=

–Christine

Free Steampunk Reads

Christine — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:47:02 +0000

Free reads rock. Free steampunk reads rock socks. (They certainly rock mine! ^_^ ) Here’s a running listing of all of the free steampunk reads that I am aware of. Check back for updates! And if you know of any stories that I missed, please drop the link in the comment section and I’ll add it!

Enjoy!

Stories by me:

Pushing the Bell #1: Regarding the Events of One Sherlock’s Scandalous St. Valentine’s Day

Pushing the Bell #2: That Dratted Affair with the Dream Engine

Fear of Darkness

Marcus

Steampunk Magazines and Story Databases

Steamypunk.net

Steampunk Magazine

Novels & Serials

Arcadia Snips and the Steampunk Consortium

Tales of the Brass Griffin

Stories from Beneath Ceaseless Skies

(I haven’t read all of these, so if I’ve inadvertently included anything non-steampunk, please drop me a line and I’ll remove it.)

A Serpent in the Gears by Margaret Ronald

The Guilt Child by Margaret Ronald

Memories in Bronze, Feathers, and Bone by Aliette De Bodard

Kreisler’s Automata by Matthew David Surridge (technically clockpunk?)

Clockwork Heart, Clockwork Soul by Kris Dikeman

Six Seeds by Sara M. Harvey

On the Transmontane Run with the Aerial Mail Express by B. Gordon

The Curse of Chimere by Tony Pi

Misc.

A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman (not steampunk, but totally appropriate; warning, it’s a PDF)

Marcus, a “deleted” scene from Island of Icarus

Christine — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:50:20 +0000

A cold drop of water landed on my cheek, awakening me. The thunder of rain against tin—high-pitched and unmuffled by walls—greeted my ears, and a damp breeze brushed past, the air warm but the spray of rain cool. I had fallen asleep in my outside workshop again. Wincing, I lifted my sore cheek from the table and unfolded my arms, wiping the moisture from my face. From the way my neck ached, I gathered I had not moved an inch since passing out last night. I turned my head tenderly, finding some resistance but pleased that my muscles had not kinked.

I looked up in time to watch another drop of water gather and fall from the roof. It glistened and then burst as it hit the notebook spread before me. Ah, the leak. I had forgotten again to fix that.

For the past two days the rain had kept me inside, and I wondered if it would soon let up. As my small store of smoked fish and native fruit dwindled, so did my energy. I would need to forage soon, and I preferred not to do that in the rain. Stranded and alone on a deserted island off of South America, a slip in mud or a bout of pneumonia could mean my death.

The notebook in front of me was open to an incomplete clockwork schematic. I regarded this with pursed lips. The water drop had blurred the ink lines of one small group of gears—the precise part of the design that had been giving me trouble. An uncapped pen lay beside the notebook where it had fallen from my unconscious hand. No matter how hard I stared, I was no more inspired by the sketched gears and cogs this morning than I had been by candlelight. I closed the notebook and slid it from the leak’s line of fire.

Last night’s candle had long since melted to a shapeless, hardened glob of wax. I grunted my displeasure. Another candle wasted, and I probably would not be seeing another shipment of them for months. A butter knife lay nearby, the one I sometimes used as a makeshift screwdriver. “Good morning,” I muttered to myself as I plied its blade to the table, scraping wax from wood. My voice, as always, sounded odd and flat to my ears. I customarily greeted myself every morning and night, lest I forget how to form words. Often, I spent months without talking to another human being. The traders who brought me goods stayed for a day at a time, never longer, and their English was broken.

I swept the wax shavings into my hand and dropped them into the tin can at my elbow. The can was almost full of wax scraps. One day, I would melt them down and teach myself the art of chandlery, but as long as the little gears on my schematic eluded me, I hadn’t a mind for it.

Stretching, I scanned the length of the metal apparatus sprawled on the second table behind me. Brass limbs half unfurled, slender steel feathers barely thicker than foil. The mechanical wings were beautiful, but they lacked a heart. Until I finished my design for the motor that would power them, they were little more than a sculpture. My explorations with steam power and electricity had proven fruitless. Clockwork seemed a reasonable alternative, but I was stuck on the details.

I had spent the previous day fixated on my design—flipping through books, pacing between the tables in my workshop, hunching over the notebook—but I had gotten nowhere with it. Having reached an impasse, my mind turned to other matters this morning. Namely, hunger. Glumly, I watched the rain beyond the roof. No, the rain would not let up anytime soon, and I had nothing left to eat. I donned my oiled duster, settled my hat onto my head, grabbed my rucksack, and walked out into the steady downpour.

Two paths led from my little cabin—one to the beach, one to the woods. I took the latter, tromping over the saturated ground and through foliage that sagged and dripped. Over the last year and a half, I had trampled a network of winding routes through the dense vegetation—with a bit of imagination, they could be considered “trails.” I followed the route to my favorite fruit trees, where I paused to bite into the soft, succulent flesh of a piece almost too ripe. I gathered a dozen firmer pieces into my rucksack, silently thanking the indigenous island birds, who had first demonstrated that the fruit was edible.

Fueled by the juice, my mind returned to matter of clockwork. I saw it in the rise and fall of the broad leaves as they bent under the weight of water and rose again once it had dripped from their pointed tips, like water-powered levers. I saw it in the descent of raindrops and the sway of branches. Energy passing from one thing to the next: movement, tension, release.

These visions preoccupied me as I wandered to the lake where my ducks lived. I found them gliding placidly over the water and waddling along its banks, at home in the rain. They were common ducks, nothing native to the island. Like me, they were recent transplants. Crouching, I watched them for a while, envisioning the spreading and folding of their wings as mechanical apparati and seeing in my mind’s eye how the joints of the wings would communicate to their spine and perhaps their legs, all one interconnected machine. Each part separate, yet connected.

When the rain began to find its way through the chinks in my duster and drip over my skin, I collected eggs and returned to the cabin. That evening, the rain grew into a storm that shook the walls. After rescuing my notebook from the leaky workshop, I toiled over the schematic, but my thoughts brought me nowhere—they had simply become a gear that continued to turn and turn in my mind, unconnected to any other part, just rotating on its own to no effect.

For a time, I watched the rain fall past the window and quelled the itch to scurry out onto the beach and scour the shore for treasures washed up by the storm. Even a good piece of driftwood—something smooth and shapely that sparked my creativity—would do.

“You will be no good if you catch pneumonia in that downpour,” I reminded myself in a mutter.

The clock read a quarter past ten when the rain slowed. The thunder had long since rolled off into the distance and faded into a low murmur. Almost trembling with cabin fever, I slipped on the duster and stepped out into the drizzle, donning my hat and closing the door in the same motion. If I did not take a break from my design, I feared I might use the notebook to kindle a fire in the stove.

The beam of my dynamo lamp sliced a narrow path through the darkness, highlighting the rush of falling rain drops. The island night was blacker than black, and trees blotted out the stars for much of the walk, but I could have found my way to the beach with my eyes closed. Its chorus of waves drew me to it like a guiding song.

Upon reaching the shore, I laughed. Fragments of wood planking, flat and jagged-edge, littered the sand. Not gnarled pieces of driftwood, but proper bits of real ship’s salvage. I toed several pieces with my boot before moving on, searching out more interesting specimens. My lamp’s beam shot through the rain and disappeared into the murky distance, lighting the length of the shore. At the light’s farthest reaches, I thought I saw a large dark shape.

As I approached, the form grew more distinct. Long, thick—a canon, perhaps, or some cast off machinery. But what I believed to be bent metal struts were human limbs. The shape resolved into a man, face down in the sand.

With a cry, I dropped to my knees by his side. The dynamo lamp tumbled from my hands and landed on the sand, spraying its light over the ground and casting the man in harsh, bright angles and long shadows. I rolled him to his side and groped for a pulse. My breath hitched at the feel of his cool skin. Too late—I was too late. But then I sensed a faint throb, thready under my fingers. A fragile promise of life.

I hardly noticed the rain as I ripped the duster from my shoulders and wrapped it around him. I hooked the lamp with my fingers and scooped the man into my arms, stumbling with his weight as I stood. He was heavier than I expected, and my arms—though toned from my active island life—burned already. I went jerkily over the sand, footfalls quick but unsure. The sound of my breath was harsh, punctuating the drone of rain.

I stumbled blindly down the path to the cabin, tripping over tree roots and rocks. Rain plastered my shirt to my skin. By the time I sighted the glow of light through the cabin’s window, my arms were numb. A surge of energy carried me to the door of the cabin. I shouldered it open with a bang and strode to the bedroom door, toppling books and pots to the ground in my wake. I dropped the man onto the bed, heedless of the saltwater and the sand. My arms trembled when I released him, and I fumbled with numb fingers to light the gaslamp. It cast an even yellow glow over the room, and for the first time, I had a proper look at the stranger’s face. Dark hair, straight eyebrows, a square shapely jaw.

The blood drained from my face. Alexis.

But no, this was not my ex-lover. Though he had Alex’s same serious eyebrows, this man’s nose was too soft to belong to my dear chemist. The forehead was too compact, the cheekbones too round. Still, emotion crashed in my gut.

I approached the bedside slowly. His skin was pale from shock, and I wondered if he had lost blood—and how much. He could die if I did not move quickly. Yet, at the sight of his damp, tangled hair, I could not shake the memory of late-night baths with Alex, my lover’s dark hair almost black from wetness. The stranger’s lips, as shapely as if they had been carved, were tinged blue. They were parted slightly, innocently. One dark lock of hair had dried to his temple, accentuating the curve of his cheekbone and framing the jawline below. A strong, hard chin belied the softness of his other features.

I hesitated as I reached toward him, struggling with the impulse to cup the side of his face and run my thumb over the smooth bow of his lower lip. I shook my head. “You are a doctor, man,” I chastised myself, peeling the duster from his chest with shaking hands. Adrenaline coursed through me—a chemical cocktail of animal attraction, surprise, and a physician’s fear of losing his patient’s life. I watched the rise and fall of his chest. His breaths were shallow but even, and he was in no apparent respiratory distress. I set my jaw and tried to ignore the way his linen shirt clung to his broad shoulders. A dark shadow stained one of his pant legs—probably blood. I would need to get him out of his clothes to see to that—and fast.

I sprinted through the rain to retrieve my shears from the workshop. The quick run cleared my head and brought me back to myself. Blood, yes. I would need clean linen for bandages and possibly a needle and a bit of catgut for stitches. I needed to remove those wet clothes and sheets from his body and pile him under dry blankets. If he survived the night, I would need clean water to bathe him tomorrow. No, no “if.” Under my ministrations, he would certainly live to see the morrow.

I rolled the edges of the duster back to reveal his upper extremities. At the sight of his right arm, I froze. A bark of surprised laughter escaped me. The forearm was made of metal—an impressive clockwork prosthetic that was at least twice the girth of his left arm. The model looked very similar to one I used to install for my patients back in Maryland, but the hand seemed much more dexterous and clever, nothing like the clumsy claw I remembered.

How do you work? I wondered immediately. A burst of excitement buoyed me.

I shook my head tersely to clear it. “No, not now.” With quick cuts, I snipped the pants from him, my gaze fixed on the shears. Along the shin, clotted blood had glued the material to his skin. I fetched a pail of clean water and trickled some slowly onto the leg as I gently teased the cloth away from the wound underneath. It was a nasty laceration—not terribly deep, but long.

I sponged clean water over the broken skin until I could see the pink flesh of the wound bed. Fresh blood welled up and ran down the curve of his leg in tiny streams. Quickly, I tore one of my clean sheets into bandages and wrapped these tightly around the leg until I saw no more red. I released the tense breath I had been holding and rocked back on my heels.

Three years—it had been three years since I left my surgical practice in the United States, but still my skills came easily to me. The sight of blood still caused my breath to catch and my heart to quicken. I cut the rest of his clothes from him, scanning his body for further wounds and attempting—but failing—to look past the soft plane of his lower abdomen and the tangle of short, curly hair between his legs.

“There is another place you differ from my Alex,” I joked nervously with the unconscious man as I gently rolled him to his side. “You are larger. Bravo.” As I turned him, I was careful of the bulky prosthetic and the brace that secured it to his upper arm.

I gathered the damp clothes and soiled linens into a tight pile behind his back and rolled him to his other side, pulling them free and dropping them in a heap on the floor, a trick I had learned from a nurse. I held the prosthetic against his side lest the weight of it pulled his limp arm to the bed and twisted his muscles. My heart sank at the sight of corroded metal, snapped springs, and bent gears. The ocean had destroyed it beyond repair. Softly, I wiped the salt water and dried blood from his skin and placed my last clean sheet beneath him. He did not wake. At last, I pulled three blankets over his body, propped the crushed prosthetic on a pillow, and slumped at the bedside, drained. His breathing seemed deeper now, more like the breath of a sleeping man than a man nearly drowned.

I relaxed and drifted into reverie, gaze resting on the stranger’s face and remembering the man who had taught me the passion of true love. I could still remember the smell of Alexis, the way one stubborn lock of hair would always fall into his eyes, usually when he was focusing on a beaker of volatile chemicals in his hand. Had it been four years already? It seemed like only yesterday that I received the short, formal letter from him informing me that he was to be married to a woman and that he would see me no more. A year and a half of love, gone just like that. I tried to imagine him with a wife and a family, and my mind conjured up a daguerreotype of four smiling people: a slight woman, a babe on her hip, a boy at her feet, and a stunning, sharp-featured man—Alexis.

Turning aside the old pain, I leaned forward to inspect the stranger’s clockwork arm. It was attached to the flesh just below his elbow and was secured by a brace that caged his upper arm and shoulder. “A pity it’s broken,” I murmured, touching the junction of metal and flesh with my fingers. A minute’s exploration revealed the release mechanism to me. Carefully, I disengaged the prosthetic from his arm. Three narrow hooks stuck out from the smooth stump of his arm like claws. I knew these were attached to his tendons, and they articulated with three hooks inside the prosthetic, allowing him to control its movement. I nodded my head. Yes, a clever design much like the ones I was familiar with back home.

“Such a pity,” I repeated, cradling the prosthetic as I looked over it thoughtfully. “My friend, you’ve been through much. I can’t fix this for you, but I wonder…” I gently flexed the stiff joint of the elbow and spread the fingers of the hand. I leaned forward to stare at them. A picture show of clockwork parts flashed through my mind: gears, cogs, washes, and springs—where I could find them in my workshop, how I would arrange them into an arm. “Yes, I do believe I can build you a new one.”

I strode to the bench in front of the cool fireplace, cleared a pile of books from it, and lay the prosthetic down. Excited, I ran to the workshop to find my box of tools. Piece by piece, I dismantled the broken arm, jotting notes as I went. As I worked, I nodded and murmured to myself.

An image came to me—a gear, a gear that I had missed in the schematic of my wings’ motor. I jumped up and paced the room. Yes, I had not known how to place that piece in my design, but there it was on the bench, mounted on the partially-dissected prosthetic—just the arrangement I had been searching for to complete the mechanism that would make my wings fly. Hands trembling, I knelt to sketch a drawing in my notebook.

I looked wonderingly at the stranger, whose chest rose and fell peacefully. “My mysterious friend, my ghost of Alexis, you’ve brought me the solution I’ve been searching for.”

I toiled over the clockwork into the early hours of the morning, until I finally fell asleep sprawled over the bench, pen in hand.

~~~

Island of Icarus is available November 29 through Carina Press.

November 29th Release!

Christine — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:44:16 +0000

Less than two months until the release of my debut novella, ISLAND OF ICARUS, and I’m excited and nervous. Here’s a sneak peak:

Field Journal of Jonathan Orms, 1893

En route to polite exile in the Galapagos Islands (field work, to quote the dean of my university), I have found myself marooned on a deserted tropical paradise. Deserted, that is, except for my savior, a mysterious American called Marcus. He is an inventor—and the proof of his greatness is the marvelous new clockwork arm he has created to replace the unsightly one that was ruined in my shipboard mishap.

Marcus has a truly brilliant mind and the gentlest hands, which cause me to quiver in an unfamiliar but rather pleasant way. Surely it is only my craving for human companionship that draws me to this man, nothing more? He says a ship will pass this way in a few months, but I am welcome to stay as long as I like. The thought of leaving Marcus becomes more untenable with each passing day, though staying would be fatal to my career…

Over the next month and a half, I will be releasing 4 free stories (all steampunk!) in celebration of ICARUS’s release. You’ll be able to read them on the web and on your ebook reader (and eventually there’ll be a print anthology), so everyone can have their love any way they choose. ^_~

I’m already starting to post some of the cover art up at my Tumblr, Whispers From Trees. Enjoy!

Loves, Fangs, and Fur. :)=

A quick hello

Christine — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:16:44 +0000

Just wanted to shoot a quick hello out into starry cyberspace. This poor page has been sitting untouched for more than three months now. Once edits began on my first novella, Island of Icarus, I was awful busy for a while!

Things are settling down now. Icarus has a November 29th release date. Everything’s all done (including the blurb and the cover–which are gorgeous!)…but now the promotion starts! I’m excited and dizzy.

I will admit another reason for my silence is that I am absolutely intimidated by blogging. Here I am–a writer!–and I am afraid I don’t have anything good to say! Oy. Will have to work on my confidence, yeah?

So, I’m still sweeping and organizing things here at www.christinedanse.com, but in the meantime, please check me out:

On Twitter. I’m @dansedesirable. I update semi-frequently.
On Tumblr. http://whispersfromtrees.tumblr.com/ I try to get a new post up every other day or so. Nothing earth-shattering–just a blog to prod my muse, really. Little fragments of fiction and other interesting doo-dads.

Love, fangs, and fur! :)=

–Christine