R. Jean Mathieu's Innerspace

SF/F, sociology, some recipes. Updates every other Friday.

Category: prix aurore

2023 Year in Review…and Eligibility for 2024

31 December, 2023 /

Been a Hell of a year, hasn’t it? Then again, so was the entire Trump administration.

My year opened with a double-embolism and ended with a gout attack. In between came the slow-motion loss of my day job and the resulting chaos bringing my rhythm of writing, editing, mailing, remailing, updating, hustling crashing down around my ears.

But still, we goddamn got things done. My story, “The Voluntolds of America,” hit the shelves in November in the pages of Reclaiming Joy, from WriteHive. I qualified for the SFWA. Lyra turned one. I sat down with Ann LeBlanc and with Ai Jiang. I hosted a panel at the Nebulas. And I published. Not just reprints, either.

Some of them are fresh and eligible for the most prestigious awards in speculative fiction.

Here’s what’s eligible for prizes and awards in 2024 – note them down and write them in. Who knows? We just might win.

I got two Quaker articles published, “A Quaker Rosary” in Western Friend and “A Friend with Taoist Notions” in Friends’ Journal. Western Friend called me back for an interview on their podcast even. One reader reached out about my thoughts on martial arts in the meeting-house, and that article will be coming out in 2024. And that wasn’t the only one – no less than Matt Selznick interviewed me for Sonitotum.

Speaking of podcasts – I launched Solidarity Forever: The History of American Labor, with notes right here on R. Jean’s Mathieu’s Innerspace. This is the soup-to-nuts labor history in this country, the bloodiest labor history in the developed world, from 1619 to 2024 and beyond. And if you don’t like that labor history, go out and make some of your own!

I have Doña Ana Lucía Serrano …to the Future! out under review by agents, I have stories in the mail, and I have a new novel, The Thirty-Sixth Name, a YA Jewish fantasy swashbuckler, open in Word. I have stories to tell, and a voice to be heard.

And, oddly enough, I feel like 2024 will be a pretty good year.

Eligibility: The Voluntolds of America

“Voluntolds of America”

Eligible for: Hugo Award, Nebula Award
Genre: Science Fiction
Subgenre: Solarpunk as fuck
Publication: Reclaiming Joy
Publisher: Inked in Gray LLC
Link: Amazon.com, Goodreads
Category: Short Story
Voted “Most Uncomfortably Relevant” by the people I read it to!

Eligibility: Cambermann’s Painter

“Cambermann’s Painter”

Eligibility: Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Locus Award
Genre: Steampunk
Subgenre: Satire
Publisher: FedoraArts Press
Link: Amazon.com, Goodreads
Category: Flash
Voted “Most Too-Clever-By-Half” by a small collection of randos!

Eligibility: The Man Who Shot Lü Dongbin

“The Man Who Shot Lü Dongbin”

Eligibility: World Fantasy Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award, Hugo Award
Genre: Fantasy
Subgenre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: FedoraArts Press
Link: Amazon.com, Goodreads
Category: Short Story
Voted “Most Mathieuvian” by my wife!

Eligibility: Fire Marengo

Fire Marengo

Eligibility: Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award
Genre: Science Fiction
Subgenre: Sea Story/Solarpulp
Publisher: FedoraArts Press
Link: the Innerspace Newsletter (free with signup)
Category: Novelette
Voted “Most Entertaining to Listen To” by several local writers!

Eligibility: Lost Signal

“Lost Signal”

Lost Signal, by R. Jean Mathieu. Cover art by Melissa Weiss Mathieu.

Eligible For: Shirley Jackson Award, Bram Stoker Award
Genre: Horror
Subgenre: Psychological Horror
Publisher: FedoraArts Press
Link: Amazon.com, Goodreads
Category: Short Story
Voted “Most Likely to Make People Listen for Darkness” by one beta-reader!

Lost Signal, by R. Jean Mathieu. Cover art by Melissa Weiss Mathieu.

“Lost Signal,” by R. Jean Mathieu

31 December, 2023 /

This last story of the year is a proper Nouvel’An scary story, fresh from the northern snows. Dare you tune into the “Lost Signal”?

Cover art, Melissa Weiss Mathieu.

“This is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” Brian confirmed. Then he confirmed something else: “Identify.”

“I am …Russian Robin.” It sounded like his voice, but through a vocoder, or fed back through AutoTune. Something was deeply wrong with the Siberian.

“What is your high-tech RF installation there, Russian Robin?” Brian asked, thinking fast.

“Never mind that stuff.” Russian Robin had avoided cursing. “You must listen to me, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. You must hear me.”

Something in the way he said it – “you must hear me” – caught Brian’s attention. What new mystery was this?

“Do you still have that station on your other machine?”

“No.” Brian lied. He turned the volume down low. Just low enough he could still almost hear her voice, pleading for him, behind the banal list of numbers.

Fourteen. Twelve. Seven.

“Good. I think it is listening to us.” Here Russian Robin spoke in a hiss. “I ask you, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: what if there is nothing back of the station?”

“What?” Brian blinked. “Repeat, Russian Robin, please repeat.”

“I repeat: what if there is nothing behind Jelly Baby? No government. No warm bodies. No transmitter.”

“Then how do we hear it?”

“Perhaps it is alive.” Russian Robin hissed so Brian’s ears popped.

Brian, I love you…Brian Coban, where are you?!

A late-night radio DJ in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, Brian Coban is determined to crack the mystery of the rogue numbers station broadcasting from somewhere in the land of the midnight sun. But the station holds more secrets than he bargained for – a series of secret numbers to one, a mysterious, haunting song for another. And for Brian?

A woman’s voice, calling out to him.

With the help of his two friends across the Arctic, Brian is dead set on triangulating, tracking, and unraveling the secrets of the station and discover what it truly wants – and why it knows his name.

If you enjoyed the suspense and mystery of the movie Frequency, you’ll be sure to love this chilling tale of the price of obsession…

Buy “Lost Signal” today!

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