--A Zoo in the Jungle--
This is a tech-heavy, puzzle story about a planetarium discovered on the Moon--something one might expect to see in Analog Magazine. And indeed it was first published there in the June 2007 issue. One of the protagonists in the story is Russian. I've noticed that most (if not all) of my stories with Russian major characters get picked up for reprint (in translation) in the fine Russian SF magazine, ESLI. This story was no exception. --The Engulfed Cathedral-- In my car a few years ago, I sat entranced by a piece of music I'd not heard before: an orchestral version of Claude Debussey's' La Cathédrale Engloutie', usually rendered in English as 'The Sunken Cathedral'. I could feel the water flowing through the nave, hear the muffled church bell breaking the silence of the deep, see the fish swimming with their scales reflecting the reds and blues from the stained glass windows. Later, I wrote a SF tale using that image. I'd intended to call it 'The Sunken Cathedral' but found that Harlan Ellison had written a story called 'Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral', so I changed 'sunken' to 'engulfed'—which seems rather closer to the French. I wonder if Harlan had also been captivated by Debussey's piece. One of the main characters in the story is deaf. In the course of my research, I attended a symposium at Cornell about Deaf Culture, and even tried to learn some ASL (American Sign Language). I don't remember much of it, but I can still sign 'pizza'. The story first appeared in Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Analog Magazine |
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