This story appeared in the October/November 2014 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. It was written through the end of June into the second week of July 2013 (with a break during which I finished another jazz-centric SF story, which isn’t yet published); that is, I wrote this a few months after I started living in Saigon. If you enjoyed this novella, I hope the story notes below only add to that enjoyment.  And if you haven’t checked it out already, you may also enjoy my previous jazz-SF novella from Asimov’s, “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” Reviews: “For fans …

“The Rite” appeared in Bibliotheca Fantastica, edited by Claude Lalumière and Don Pizarro, and published by Dagan Books in late June 2013. There are many ways to buy the book listed here. Incidentally, the book was published just a couple of weeks after the centenary of “The Rite of Spring,” the orchestral work discussed in the story. (The premiere and world-famous riot happened in Paris on 29 May 1913.) That’s kind of cool! Background: When I started studying music at the University of Saskatchewan, my exposure to “classical music” had been limited to the Schubert, Schumann, Bach, and Mozart that …

“The Bernoulli War” appeared in the August 2012 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. It received an Honorable mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois, and was reprinted in Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013 Edition. A funny thing happened on the way to the publisher… No, really. This story was all but accepted in mid-2011, but there was some issue with the way the characters were named. Originally, I used strings of characters from various writing systems: Khmer, Chinese, Hangeul, Greek, Roman, Sanskrit, and so on. For example, the iterations …

“Empty of Words, The Page” appeared in Black Static 27, the February/March 2012 issue. I’ve been a fan of the magazine almost since its beginnings (I missed a few issues at the start), and I am proud that Andy Cox gave the tale a home there! One of those things that’s very hard to get a handle on in writing — much more, I think, than in music — is the effective development of a unique, highly personal voice. Some of my writer friends somehow quite naturally seem to have done it (or maybe they just make it look natural), …