The Year of the Three Monarchs

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I'm in Russia!  The plane touched down in Ekaterinburg just after a rainstorm ended and the sun came out.  There was a rainbow in the sky and my friend Boris Dolingo, who picked us up, said, "You were greeted by rain!  In Russian that's a good meaning."

Now I'm sitting in the Bolshoy Ural Hotel, reading the new translation of Roadside Picnic, and there's music in the park across the street.  Aelita starts tomorrow and I am content.  I'll do my best to find time to blog about it.

Meanwhile, here's my latest publication.  The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, edited by David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman, plonked down on my doorstep half an hour before I left Philadelphia, and it contains "The Year of Three Monarchs," three linked short-shorts written by yours truly.

There's an interesting story behind it:  I donated three unwritten short-shorts to a charity auction and Jacob Weisman ended up high bidder.  I'd specified that the winner got both the original typescripts and the right of first publication and control over them for something like three years before the rights reverted to me.  Jacob told me he was embarrassed by how cheaply he'd gotten the rights, but that's okay.  It wasn't his fault that other people weren't feeling generous that day.

Read the book, though.  It looks great!  And when you read my stories, reflect that they could have been yours.

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