Excerpt

Archived Posts from this Category

September 8, 2014

From “A Humble Ant” by Ethan L. Baum

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

Excerpt from the WHPL interview of J. Sturgis Tarboski on August 17, 1985.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me a little bit about your latest book, The Othering of Deerton, out this month from Giraudoux & Strauss of New York. It’s the story of strange object infiltrating a fictional small town with unpredictable and often horrifying effects.

TARBOSKI: Horror is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? Perhaps from another perspective it’s not horrifying at all.

INTERVIEWER: How do you mean?

TARBOSKI: Imagine some of your better ant poisons. It tastes delicious, so the worker ants carry it back to the nest to share. And it poisons them all, poking holes in their exoskeletons so they die of dehydration or causing them to leak hemolymph–their blood–from their joints. To the ants, that is a catastrophe, a horror. To us, it’s cause for celebration. No more ants.

INTERVIEWER: Are you saying that’s he central thrust of The Othering of Deerton? Something trying to eliminate people in the same way that one would eliminate ants?

TARBOSKI: Not at all. The ants could be carrying food contaminated by a nuclear test back to their nest. They die in the same way but there’s no agency there–we don’t care that they die, but we weren’t trying to kill them. My point was only that in The Othering of Deerton we are the ants, and that–to me–is the real horror of the piece. We’re not used to being the ants.

INTERVIEWER: Could you talk a little bit about your influences in this latest work?

TARBOSKI: Of course. A lot of my peers are cagey about influences; I think they like to seem themselves as fonts of universal genius. Me, I think that it’s disingenuous. If nothing else, influences serve as a nice reading list for people that liked the book.

INTERVIEWER: So what’s your reading list for The Othering of Deerton?

TARBOSKI: Well, anyone can probably see the influence of the Strugatskys, whose Roadside Picnic came out from MacMillan about a year before I started writing, and which I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s to them I owe the central conceit, the effect of the utterly alien on the familiar, though they dwell much more on the aftermath while I am much more in the moment.

INTERVIEWER: They are Soviet authors?

TARBOSKI: That’s right. There’s something wonderful about Soviet science fiction. Ants working for a different queen, if you will. I count a lot of foreign influences on this latest book…lots of different queens, if you will.

INTERVIEWER: What are some others?

TARBOSKI: Well, Borges of course, but he’s in everything I write. I’m trying to learn Spanish so that I can read his works in the original Spanish and perhaps send him a letter. But I think the biggest influence on The Othering of Deerton is probably the late French filmmaker Auguste Des Jardins. I met him in 1975 in New York at a press junket, and I had the opportunity to speak with him at length about his masterpiece, Les trois Juliets. Are you familiar with it?

INTERVIEWER: I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it.

TARBOSKI: You’re missing out. It’s a brilliant, brilliant movie. A French woman finds that there are two other women with the same name, same family, same history, and same face living near her in Montmartre. You might have heard about how Des Jardins supposedly found triplets to play the Juliets; some people still think he did the whole thing with trick photography. In any case, like any fan I asked Des Jardins point-blank what the truth was: why were there three Juliets? Were any of the theories about the film true?

INTERVIEWER: What did he say?

TARBOSKI: He said that he didn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: How could he not know if it was his own film?

TARBOSKI: I asked the same question, and he said that it was the most liberating part of creativity. In the real world, there is cause and effect. But in fiction, in fantasy, you can have effect without cause. Your audience will always find a cause, and their cause will be better than any you could ever dream up; by making your effects compelling, you incite them to find ever more beautiful causes.

INTERVIEWER: Interesting. So if I were to ask you where all the strange items in The Othering of Deerton come from, and what their purpose is, what would you say?

TARBOSKI: I don’t know, I’m just a humble ant.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 7, 2014

From “The Ceramic Bridge” by J. Sturgis Tarboski

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Dr. Richat, the local medical examiner who doubled as a practitioner and occasional surgeon at Deerton General Hospital (people still called it that even though it’d been Infrared Health Systems for nearly 20 years) kept a tight ship. Everything was locked and labeled, signed and sealed.

His assistants were a different matter entirely. They didn’t last long, reeled in by the high pay but quickly reeled out by the long hours and Dr. Richat’s imperious nature. Tina Hedstrom was at the night desk when Caleb and Fay arrived.

“Twenty bucks,” Tina said in response to Caleb’s plea. It was a week’s salary for either of them, but they scraped it together even if a quarter of it was in change. Tina unlocked the door and returned to her magazine nestled snugly between the covers of Grey’s Anatomy.

Joshua’s body lay in a drawer, but Caleb did his best to put it out of his mind. The effects lockers were a room away; in a bigger town, the stuff might have been kept in the police station. Caleb had a hunch that since the Deerton PD shared a building with the library that they thought the stuff was safer in the hospital annex.

Clutching Fay both to support and be supported, he opened the “J. Kwaterski” locker. The torn jeans and filthy t-shirt were Joshua’s beyond a shadow; Caleb was sure he’d seen them dozens of times, but in here, like cast-off lizardskin…it was horrifying.

Joshua had a few coins and a driver’s license in his wallet, but it was mostly frayed duct tape. Some tobacco-stained lotto tickets that had been kept for use as rolling papers, a braided leather belt, and…

“That’s it,” said Fay. “That has to be it.”

Caleb hefted the item at the bottom of the locker. It was heavy for its small size and wrapped in newspaper. Through a few tears, he glimpsed a cool beige surface with what vaguely resembled crackle glaze. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Fay sadly. “He said it was going to make him a ton of money.”

Caleb stretched a hand out to unwrap the object. It looked like a small coffee cup with thicker walls than he’d ever seen. Moisture glistened on the inside, and there were three perfectly circular handles evenly spaced around the outside. Caleb balanced it on its newspaper rind with one hand. “It doesn’t look that valuable to me.”

Fay’s brow furrowed. “He said it had a covering, like rubber…I guess it must have come off. I think he might have put some water in it?”

Shrugging, Caleb spat into the cup. Fay recoiled, but a moment later she shrieked as a blue light flashed from within the object with an intense ozone smell. The liquid had crystalized into something that looked like an uncut gemstone, sparkling under the harsh florescents.

“Holy shit,” Caleb cried. “Holy shit! Did you see that, Fay? Did you-”

In his excitement, Caleb brushed one of the ceramic handles with his hand. He pulled it back violently as if burned, and then clutched at his chest with a piercing shriek. The cup clattered to the floor, and Fay joined the screaming as she saw red flowers of blood blossoming all over Caleb’s torso, soaked up by his shirt.

By the time Tina rushed in from the front desk, seconds later, Caleb was on the floor in a spreading puddle of his own fluids.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 6, 2014

From “Tarboski’s Paincup” by Kirc Sobania Stupp

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“All it takes to turn the real into the unreal is the slightest of twists.”

That was the advice of J. Sturgis Tarboski to any young turk writers that approached him about his secrets. And secrets they were: he had an unbroken string of relatively successful science fiction stories and novels spanning the 1950s to the 1980s, the longevity of a Heinlein or an Asimov but with a far grittier sensibility. Where other writers concerned themselves with spaceships and ray guns, galactic wars and the like, Sturgis Tarboski wrote stories set in a recognizable, if often out-of-phase, mid-century America. Where other writers used a modern setting as a springboard for social criticism or utopian/dystopian dreams, Sturgis Tarboski preferred to focus on his characters.

He might have been considered closest to Vonnegut (but for the two men’s long-running enmity stemming from a fierce elevator argument over religion and politics) or a Bradbury (but for Tarboski’s fierce dislike of Bradbury’s longtime friends Forrest J. Ackerman and Gene Roddenberry). And, hagiography aside, it’s a little disingenuous to pit Sturgis Tarboski against such luminaries; a dedicated attendance at science fiction and fantasy conventions and legendary openness to fans helped mask the fact that he was successful and comfortable in the upper tiers of the genre’s minor leagues.

He’s probably best-known for his 1978 short novel The Othering of Deerton which describes the slow infiltration of a fictional small town by powerful artifacts of unknown origin and the unpredictable effects that were wreaked thereby. It shows a certain degree of influence from other authors, most prominently the Strugatsky brothers, but is unique in that it is told entirely through found artifacts–transcripts, interviews, depositions, newspaper articles, and the like.

The bizarre “painbridge” is perhaps the most noteworthy artifact in Tarboski’s story. Appearing like an unnaturally heavy ceramic mug with three radial handles, it has the curious and horrifying effect of violently killing whoever touches it with bare skin while causing an exact duplicate of that person to appear somewhere in a 5-mile radius exactly 19 minutes later. The struggle over the “painbridge” and its use dominates the latter part of the book, which ends with the item lost in a collection of actual novelty coffee mugs owned by a local eccentric. “Painbridges” of later fiction, including the Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits revival episodes, featuring a “death cup” and a “duplicup” respectively, can be traced directly to Tarboski.

Upon his death at age 80 in 2013, Tarboski–who had never married and outlived most of his close relations–asked that the contents of his estate be auctioned off to “fellow writers and fans.” Accordingly, his executors arranged an auction to correspond with the interval between the 2014 Nerdicon and 2014 SciCon conventions. The first item up for bid? A ceramic cup with three handles inside a plexiglass box.

There were no takers.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 5, 2014

From “The Cobbler Fence” by Bebe Fent Colcher

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“You have to understand,” said Marie, “it was all just me trying to get these wild kids under control. I told them that if they brought me peaches that I’d make them peach cobbler.”

“Middle school kids can be a little nuts, it’s true,” said Officer Carruthers, clucking his tongue softly. “So they brought you peaches?”

“Yeah, a whole sack,” said Marie. “They ate the cobbler just fine, but then they asked if I could make more if they brought more peaches. They said they wanted to take the cobbler home to their folks.”

The officer raised an eyebrow. “How many did you make?”

“Abut fifty,” Marie said helplessly. “By the end I was teaching them how to make it themselves.”

“And it never occurred to you to ask where the peaches were coming from? You never saw the news stories about Abbott Orchards being repeatedly robbed by unknown perpetrators? About the suddenly thriving trade in petty drug dealers being paid in cobbler?”

“I swear, officer, I had no idea the kids were using me to launder their peaches,” Marie cried. “I thought they were calling me ‘the peach cobbler fence’ as a term of endearment!”

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 4, 2014

From “Mystery at Iron Point Light” by Smitty Poyner

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“You’ll be responsible for basic upkeep for two weeks–nothing complicated, mostly buttoning the lighthouse down for winter. The list of chores and instructions is in the kitchen.”

That suited me just fine; I’d volunteered to live and work at the old decommissioned Iron Point Light to be free from distractions, after all, to unplug and disconnect and do a digital purge. “What about tourists?” I asked.

“It’s past the end of the tourist season, so you likely won’t get anyone coming by. But if they do, you’re to show them around, take them out to the rockpiles, and try to solicit a donation or sell them a t-shirt.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The rockpiles?”

“You’ve never heard of ’em? They’re the biggest draw for the Iron Point Light aside from the lighthouse itself.” Oscar rubbed at his nose. “You can see them from here.”

I looked through one of the front windows. The gentle sandy slope to the beach was full of small shrubs and gently bent grass, but at various points in the water and on the beach there were standing piles of lake-smoothed rocks.

“Do the tourists make those?” I said.

“What does this look like, Mission Point?” Oscar scoffed. “We don’t get enough tourists for that, and the water’s ice cold. No, the piles are one of the mysteries of the lake. they just appear and disappear as they will.”

“Has…anyone ever tried to investigate it?” I said eagerly.

Oscar fixed me with a harsh glare. “That’s a hole you don’t want to be going down, kid. Best stick to your duties.”

I knew at that moment what I’d be spending my two weeks doing: shedding a little light on that very mystery.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 3, 2014

From “Ashman’s Secret” by S. A. S. Manchester

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , |
Leave a Comment 

Lebedev and Novikov had entered the United States using false papers prepared for them by the KGB, taken from Finns captured and executed during the war. Their mission was simple: learn more about Dr. George Ashman, an engineer from Southern Michigan College.

His house was on the outskirts of a town called Hopewell, virtually abandoned since Ashman had no family or close kin. Distant relatives might arrive to divvy the belongings up at some point, but for now no one had realized that the old engineer had gone.

Lebedev let himself in through a back door using a lockpick while Novikov kept watch. The lock had apparently come with the old house; the KGB men could have opened the door with a hatpin. The house was in desperate condition, with boxes of files and technical drawings strewn everywhere. Entire rooms were abandoned to clutter. But when Novikov, who had trained as an engineer himself, examined the items, he shook his head.

“Junk,” he said. “Basic aerodynamic equations, and the books are all written for laymen.”

“Keep looking,” Lebedev said. “He was trying to find plans for military aircraft in Europe; men who do that do not trade in simple equations.”

Indeed, the KGB had found Dr. Ashman in Czechoslovakia, asking after parts and technical schematics for the Avia S-92, a version of the fearsome Nazi Me 262 fighter jet. He’d been going to various aircraft factories involved in advanced technical designs at the close of the Great Patriotic War and asking for whatever plans or drawings he could get his hands on. In the chaos of postwar Europe, he’d actually gotten much of what he asked for.

That’s why the KGB had picked him up in Letňany, why they’d shipped him to Moscow, and why they’d interrogated him with “enhanced methods” until he’d died. The stubborn Ashman had refused to say one word to them; that was why Lebedev and Novikov had been dispatched on their fact-finding mission.

“More junk,” groused Novikov, kicking over a tower of notes and popular aeronautical magazines. “And nothing to shed any light on why this stupid American was after airplane schematics.

Lebedev had just opened the door to a large windowed room on the house’s second floor when he paused. “I think I’ve found out why,” he said softly. When Novikov came closer, he threw the door wide.

A forest of model airplanes, skillfully built, hung from wires as afternoon light washed over them.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 2, 2014

From “Weimar Momentum” by Marcia Portman-Gehwagen

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , |
Leave a Comment 

“Künstler’s report, and those we are receiving from the polizei, confirm what we had heard. This young man Weber, for whatever reason, has become untethered from the universal laws of gravitation.” General Friedmann of the Reichswehr laid a stack of freshly developed photos, newspaper clippings, and even a roll of newsreel film on the table.

The various foreigners of the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control examined them curiously. “An artifact, no doubt, of your late Kaiser and his experiments with chemical warfare,” sniffed the French representative.

“How can we be sure these haven’t been faked?” replied his British counterpart. “That this isn’t some fresh treachery, as when you Bosches sank your own skips at Scapa to keep them out of our hands?”

“Imagine the potential, if accurate, to be weaponized,” whistled the Italian. “A whole squadron of troops untethered…why, for them, the Alps would be no barrier at all!” The American and Japanese council members mumbled in support.

“All of you, listen!” Ordinarily the Council could not be swayed by Friedmann’s words, but this time they all turned to acknowledge him. “The Reds are actively seeking him as we speak.”

This observation silenced all at the table. Much as the august military figures desired any such power for themselves, they wished it denied those they viewed as their implacable enemies.

“What,” said the Frenchman icily, “is to be done about that? Do you need troops?”

“The last thing we need is more of your troops, making another grab for land and spoils,” growled the Italian.

“We have the troops. Brave men, highly trained and well-equipped veterans.” Friedmann paused for the Allies to grouse about his troops having been trained in the slaughter of their countrymen, but they were silent. “I must ask you permission to deploy the Reichswehr in full force. Police and paramilitaries have failed.”

Silence.

“If you wish this aberration Weber and his power falling into the Reds’ hands, of moving east where you’ve no more ability to follow than I, by all means remain silent,” said the General. “I have full authorization from the Reichspräsident to act, but unless you give me the tools to do so, measures will fail as they have already.”

“You have your authorization, sir,” said the British representative quietly. The others nodded. “Use whatever measures you feel prudent so long as your men are back in their barracks by the first of the month.”

Friedmann nodded graciously and handed a pre-written telegram to his adjutant: DEPLOY REICHSWEHR TO ZONE OF INTEREST STOP ELIMINATE ANOMALY AND ANY RED SYMPATHIZERS STOP ANY AND ALL MEANS AUTHORIZED STOP.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

September 1, 2014

From “An Exchange” by “Che” Axegann

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , |
Leave a Comment 

The gentleman, well-dressed, sat conspicuously alone. His age was difficult to determine, though his hair had clearly been dyed. Sandy and Alice decided to approach him in the hope of bumming a few free drinks (no matter which way he swung).

They made pleasant unremarkable chitchat for a bit until a waiter approached, asking for drink orders. A pregnant pause followed during which, by all rights, the gentleman should have offered to buy some drinks. Instead he ordered one only for himself, and endured further awkward silence until it was delivered.

Finally, Alice broke the quietude. “I wouldn’t mind a drink myself,” she said.

“I could go for one as well.”

“I’m sure the waiter will be back around,” the man said. “If you make sure he sees your tip in cash when you flag him down, the service will be very prompt and very courteous.”

Sandy and Alice shared a look. Why did he have to make things more difficult that they ought to have been?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the man. “Did you want a drink as well?”

“Thank you,” Sandy and Alice said as one.

“Let me tell you something first,” said the man. “When I was your age, and I won’t tell you how long ago that was as I’m sure you could guess, I used to try and bum free drinks off of the sad old men and sadder old women who I used to see here and there. The way I saw it, we were in an exchange of services. I listened, and in exchange I drank. They were listened to, and in exchange they bought.”

Sandy and Alice glanced nervously back and forth.

“Now that I am older, I am not sure it was such a great deal, or that I was nearly as clever as I thought I was,” the man continued. “But I feel I’d be dishonoring the old ways, my old ways, if I flatly told you to buy your own damn drinks. So therefore, I’ll make you a wager if you don’t mind. Win it, and all your drinks tonight are on my tab. Lose it, and take your leave.”

His tab looked to be a hefty one; Sandy and Alice readily, if warily, agreed.

“Excellent,” the man said. “Now, tell me one thing about myself that I have told you in the half-hour we’ve been talking.”

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

August 31, 2014

From “The Four Kinds of Depressives You Meet at Casino Bars” by Isaac Kindsun

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , |
Leave a Comment 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look more miserable among more joy,” said the barkeep. “And that means a lot, coming from someone in a casino.”

The man looked up from his drink. “What’s the usual sort of misery you get in here?” he asked quietly.

The barkeep nodded thoughtfully. “Compulsives upset at losing more than they could afford and taking a dive on a few drinks on op of it, just when they could stand a little more judgement, not a little less. Older folks on lonely daytrips from the home, hoping the sights and sounds will make them feel a little less used-up and a lot more alive. Horny weirdoes so starved for someone to flirt with they’ll lose three figures and up, plus tab and tip, for the privilege.”

A nod. “What would you peg me as?”

“Well, you’re too young to be retired and you haven’t tried to flirt with me, so I’d guess that you’ve lost a fair bit.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” laughed the man ruefully. “Suffice it to say that I don’t do well under bright lights and bright sounds at the best of times, and this isn’t the best of times. I haven’t gambled a cent or paid for anything but this drink, and I still feel like I’ve lost more than I’ve ever had.”

“I suppose that begs the question of why you’re here, then,” said the barkeep. “Most people that don’t go in for flashing lights or beeps normally give a casino a wide berth.”

“It’s a distraction,” the man said. “Being annoyed and terrified and shy…at least it’s something to spice the sadness up a bit.”

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

August 30, 2014

From “The Dying of Deerton” by Godfrey Dentino

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , |
Leave a Comment 

In their idle moments, many wondered what old man Cummings saw in Deerton to justify his largesse. Certainly, no one begrudged him his investments in the town; the new town hall and modest civic auditorium bore his name, as did the new high school and middle school. The roads were better, and many of the grand old lumber baron houses that had been quietly going to seed were now maintained and rented by Cummings’ stand-ins.

The old man rarely granted interviews and rarer still were his visits; he preferred to have himself represented by an associate whenever something new bearing his name opened. Some people blamed the time he had been mobbed by reporters coming out of Deerton First United Methodist Church for his personal divestiture in the town (even as his monetary investiture increased).

But, in one of the final interviews recorded before his death, Cummings had the following to say from his summer home in Hopewell:

“I gave that my old hometown might have a future,” he said, “and I never returned because I knew, in my heart of hearts, that to have that future, the rosy past which still ties me to that place heart and soul would have to perish forever. I’m glad to have arrested its decline, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t recognize it anymore.”

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!
 

« Previous Page — Next Page »