The Seldom, №5

The Flaws in Fairyland & Pushing Our Cruise Ships

I’m tempted to believe that literature arises from human imperfection. If we had perfect retention, we’d never have needed cuneiform tablets to supplement our memories, and thus perhaps there’d be no writing at all. If we had just the right word for everything, we’d never have needed metaphor. If we could mind-meld to communicate wisdom perfectly, we’d not have needed to invent parables or allegories to pass along hard-earned learning. Our storytelling and our writing arises from workarounds for things we cannot do.

Perhaps.

In the tradition of periodicals whose names indicate their frequency of publication (Publishers Weekly, The Atlantic Monthly, Lapham’s Quarterly…), I bring you The Seldom. My name is Dale Stromberg, and you’re receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it, or else because the newsletter fairy, fluttering over you as you slept, purloined a tooth in exchange for it. 

(Not you tonguing your teeth now to check.)

Mæj

My high fantasy novel Mæj is now available to preorder. But don’t rush off to buy it until you’ve read the rest of this news.

You, sternly: “I had no intention of rushing off to buy it in the middle of the newsletter.”

Anyway, there’s been a slight change to our publication plans: tRaum Books will release the novel on 21 October 2024. That’s about a month later than the date I announced last time.

Why the delay? The publisher and I agreed that it would afford more time for early readers and trade publications to review the book. Which dovetails to an Ask:

Would you like to review Mæj? Because if you have got this far into the newsletter without succumbing to the siren song of preordering, you might consider instead getting a free advance review copy (ARC). In exchange, you’d agree to post an honest review on any of the usual websites, such as Goodreads, Storygraph, or LibraryThing. 

If you’d rather pay with money:

• The paperback is available for preorder at Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. 

• The ebook will soon go up for preorder on Itch.io and Gumroad; for now, you can only preorder it on Amazon.

Speaking of early reviews, here are a few things people have said about Maej so far:

“At once an ambitious, densely plotted adventure, a commentary on gender and class, and a linguistic tour de force, this is a true work of art.”

—Rachel A. Rosen, author of Cascade

“The plot is a delightful Rube Goldberg machine, elaborate and surprising, filled with political intrigue, action, twists, tragedy, and even a touch of romance.”

—Briar Ripley Page, author of Corrupted Vessels

“Stromberg wields the pen of a poet and the mind of a craftsman, creating an intricate puzzle-box of a book.”

—Ryszard Merey, author of Read and Then Burn This

Recent reads

Since the last Seldom I sent you, I’ve read a few books I can recommend you. 

(The links below are to my reviews; those on Medium are “friend links” which sneak you past the paywall.)

• Ryszard I. Merey, A Father for Lilja – As in much of Merey’s fiction, what is and what should be blur at the borders in this nuanced story of messy relationships. As one character declares to another, “There is no ordinary way to love.”

• Ibrahim al-Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone – A magic-laced portrayal of the sere majesty of the desert and the lonely few who lovingly fear it, and fearfully love it. The version I read was translated by May Jayyusi & Christopher Tingley. 

• June Martin, Love/Aggression – A phantasmagorical and oftentimes hilarious carousal traversing gloriously messy relationships and surreally metamorphosing buildings and bodies. Zoe is so unhinged, she’s anti-hinged.

• Briar Ripley Page, New Eden – A queasy portrayal of a stifling colony of religious separatists after an apocalypse. This novellette is included as a bonus track in the tRaum Books reissue of Page’s novella Corrupted Vessels.

News

Here’s a bit of what’s going on with my writer friends and with me:

Friends

Sci-fi author (and Maej cover artist) Rachel A. Rosen recorded an episode with the Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi podcast about queer science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The podcast she co-hosts, Wizards and Spaceships, also released an episode on first-contact stories.

Zilla Novikov appeared on an episode of This Book I Read to talk about Rachel A. Rosen’s novel Cascade, and ended up talking about a whole lot else too.

Maej publisher tRaum Books recently released the aforementioned Love/Aggression by June Martin, its cover adorned with a blurb from no less redoubtable a figure than Gretchen Felker-Martin herself.

Rohan O’Duill has been busy promoting his forthcoming sci-fi novella Cold Blooded, the second instalment in the Cold Rush series. He’s got a Kickstarter in the offing for a special illustrated hardback edition. He published a roundup of sci-fi with working-class heroes (which aptly describes Cold Rush too) on Shepherd. And he was interviewed about procrastination on the Writers Not Writing podcast, which you can listen to or watch.

Shauna Lawless released the UK paperback for The Words of Kings and Prophets in June, and just a few days ago her ebook novella Dreams of Sorrow dropped. Dreams of Sorrow should be read after The Children of Gods and Fighting Men and The Words of Kings and Prophets since it is “book 2.5” in the Gael Song series.

Me

I’m afraid I’ve been doing a fair amount of nothing. 

I continue to look for a home for my novella Gyre, a more literary, less adventuresome story than Maej. We’ll see if any small presses bite. I keep wanting to squee at you with good publishing news, and the publishing world keeps denying us this pleasure.

My work-in-progress, a sci-fi novella about interstellar prospectors and sea monsters, is sitting lonesome on my computer, wondering why I haven’t worked on it in a while. (I’ve been tired.)

I’ve also been meaning to start a series of readings of the pieces in my collection Melancholic Parables. (Substack gives you the option to release audio as well.) My computer doesn’t like me and will only record audio at a sound quality so poor it’d actively offend listeners. You would be aghast, gentle reader. The machine and I have fought to an impasse, so reply to this email if you’d like to buy me a Mac.

Something old

In case you’re interested, MoonPark Review included my story “Tayy al-Arḍ” in their issue №15 back in spring of 2021. You can read it here. (It’s also included in Melancholic Parables.)

I wrote an early version of this very short piece and thought it was an itty bit clever. That’s not exactly praise. The story was the sort of thing you’d write, but maybe not the sort of thing you’d read. If that makes sense.

My favourite part of the published version—a short passage which, in my mind, lends the piece all its meaningfulness (to the extent it has any)—was missing from that initial draft. It was only during the revision process that my undependable brain noticed the idea-shaped hole in the story.

I feel that such things (spots in a piece when an author surprises themself) end up being that author’s favourite spots. You reread them after a while and smile and say to yourself, “I wrote that? You don’t say.”

Maybe you’ll like the story. Here’s that link again.

Sharing is caring

If you know anyone who might like to get on the mailing list for this newsletter, I hope you will tell them about it.