Political Science
Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 6:09 pm
Athena had encouraged me to announce this when the time came... I'm having a SF story come out in the July/August issue of Analog. I don't know when it will hit the bookshelves, but I just got the author's copy a couple of days ago. When I know for sure it is available, I will post that information.
My contract understandably won't let me post the full story for six months after it officially appears, but I suppose it's okay to post a teaser--after all, it might encourage people to buy the issue! (Otherwise you can wait until next year when I can post it on my website.) So here is the opening:
"Political Science"
“Professor Park? Um, I’m here to help you escape?”
Howard Park raises his head, an act that exhausts him. He’s tired, so tired of arguing. The voice, which rises uncertain and clumsy like a baby bird’s first flight, comes from a junior DHS agent standing in the doorway to the holding cell. She looks like a schoolgirl, so very young, with freckles and Nordic ghost-blonde hair, and a dark suit too large for her petite frame. Park squints, and remembers she sat in on some of the sessions, saying nothing, elbows tight against her sides, her efforts to be inconspicuous a distraction.
“You’re going to help me escape,” he says in a beaten-down tone, although they haven’t touched him. Yet.
“Um, yeah?”
Park squints at her. “May I ask why?”
“Um,” the junior Homeland Security agent says, and shifts back and forth on her feet. Nothing else comes out.
It’s some kind of trap or trick, Park thinks. He sighs, stands unsteadily. “Fine, let’s go.”
A panicked look flashes on her face. “Um, what you were saying, it really made me think, see, my mom, she needs this medicine—no, wait, it’s my sister, she needs this medicine, from Canada? but she can’t get it because of the Buchanan Act...”
Park rubs at his temples. A headache has begun to bang on the inside of his skull. We’re running out of time, he thinks, and I get handed a game of charades. “Excuse me. Are we going or not?”
She nods. “Okay, um, this way, sir?”
** PS -- sometime later this year, or early next year, I will have a very different story also coming out in Analog
My contract understandably won't let me post the full story for six months after it officially appears, but I suppose it's okay to post a teaser--after all, it might encourage people to buy the issue! (Otherwise you can wait until next year when I can post it on my website.) So here is the opening:
"Political Science"
“Professor Park? Um, I’m here to help you escape?”
Howard Park raises his head, an act that exhausts him. He’s tired, so tired of arguing. The voice, which rises uncertain and clumsy like a baby bird’s first flight, comes from a junior DHS agent standing in the doorway to the holding cell. She looks like a schoolgirl, so very young, with freckles and Nordic ghost-blonde hair, and a dark suit too large for her petite frame. Park squints, and remembers she sat in on some of the sessions, saying nothing, elbows tight against her sides, her efforts to be inconspicuous a distraction.
“You’re going to help me escape,” he says in a beaten-down tone, although they haven’t touched him. Yet.
“Um, yeah?”
Park squints at her. “May I ask why?”
“Um,” the junior Homeland Security agent says, and shifts back and forth on her feet. Nothing else comes out.
It’s some kind of trap or trick, Park thinks. He sighs, stands unsteadily. “Fine, let’s go.”
A panicked look flashes on her face. “Um, what you were saying, it really made me think, see, my mom, she needs this medicine—no, wait, it’s my sister, she needs this medicine, from Canada? but she can’t get it because of the Buchanan Act...”
Park rubs at his temples. A headache has begun to bang on the inside of his skull. We’re running out of time, he thinks, and I get handed a game of charades. “Excuse me. Are we going or not?”
She nods. “Okay, um, this way, sir?”
** PS -- sometime later this year, or early next year, I will have a very different story also coming out in Analog
