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Fiction and Excerpts [7]
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Fiction and Excerpts [7]

The Devil in America

Tue Jul 18, 2023 8:30am
Edited by: Ann VanderMeer
5 Favorites [+]
, || To celebrate Tor.com’s 15th Anniversary, we’re reposting some gems from the more than 600 stories we’ve published since 2008. Today’s story is “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson. Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.

The Devil in America

Tue Jul 18, 2023 8:30am 1 comment 5 Favorites [+]

To celebrate Tor.com’s 15th Anniversary, we’re reposting some gems from the more than 600 stories we’ve published since 2008. Today’s story is “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson, edited by Ann VanderMeer and illustrated by Richie Pope. “The Devil in America” originally published in 2014 and was a finalist for the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Locus Award. This novelette is included in our special anniversary bundle, Some of the Best from Tor.com: 15th Anniversary Edition, available to newsletter subscribers for a limited time.

Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.

Like some other stories published on Tor.com, “The Devil in America” contains scenes and situations some readers will find upsetting and/or repellent. [—The Editors]

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Read Kai Ashante Wilson’s “The Devil in America”

Tue Jun 2, 2020 1:00pm 9 Favorites [+]

Art by Richie Pope

Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.

Like some other stories published on Tor.com, “The Devil in America” contains scenes and situations some readers will find upsetting and/or repellent. [—The Editors]

Read More »

The POC Guide to Writing Dialect In Fiction

Wed Nov 2, 2016 10:15am 19 comments 20 Favorites [+]

The author who writes dialect as an insider, as a native speaker, but who faces the disadvantages of being a POC outsider in the publishing context, needs a different answer concerning How to Use Dialect Well in Fiction than an author writing from the opposite condition. In other words, this essay could consider the needs of white or POC writers, but not of both and still be brief.

I’m Black American, while you may identify as biracial, Desi, or Chicanx. You may not be American at all, but instead multilingual and living in Sri Lanka, Brazil, or France. The term “person of color” obviously can’t do real semantic justice to such a zigzagged bounty of backgrounds. It’s a nonce-word that’s stuck around too long, but I don’t have anything better. Who and wherever you are, I ask that you translate and imagine as necessary when I speak from my particular black experience.

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Glimpse the World of A Taste of Honey

Thu Oct 13, 2016 9:00am 6 comments 5 Favorites [+]

Long after the Towers left the world but before the dragons came to Daluça, the emperor brought his delegation of gods and diplomats to Olorum. As the royalty negotiates over trade routes and public services, the divinity seeks arcane assistance among the local gods.

Aqib bgm Sadiqi, fourth-cousin to the royal family and son of the Master of Beasts, has more mortal and pressing concerns. His heart has been captured for the first time by a handsome Daluçan soldier named Lucrio. in defiance of Saintly Canon, gossiping servants, and the furious disapproval of his father and brother, Aqib finds himself swept up in a whirlwind romance. But neither Aqib nor Lucrio know whether their love can survive all the hardships the world has to throw at them.

Kai Ashante Wilson’s A Taste of Honey—available October 25th from Tor.com Publishing—is a new novella in the world of The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps. What follows is not a traditional excerpt, but instead is a related work of short fiction that offers a glimpse of the characters and world his novella evokes.

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Strange Antecedents: A Personal Appreciation of Margo Lanagan’s Novels

Tue Sep 1, 2015 10:00am 5 comments 7 Favorites [+]

This is the story how one of my favorite novelists, Margo Lanagan, first came to my attention. Lanagan is a “writer’s writer,” which means the many excellences of her work have a great deal to teach the rest of us writers. I’ll talk some about that too, how new fiction comes to be assembled from the building blocks of prior works.

Sometime in 2010, I became aware of the controversies raging in a corner of the science fiction/fantasy bibliosphere I knew nothing about: young adult literature. “YA is wretched, poor stuff, and the young people reading it will be ruined for good books!” “No! YA is the long-awaited return of joy, action and clarity to fiction, and, indeed, the salvation of us all!” “Actually, it’s the adults who shouldn’t be reading YA. O shame, shame, shame!”

Wow, I thought: with the opinions all so extreme and contradictory, I’d better read some of this YA stuff like pronto, and see for myself! So I bought three YA fantasy titles that were getting a lot of buzz around then, and began reading.

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Series: That Was Awesome! Writers on Writing

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps

Tue Aug 25, 2015 10:00am 1 comment 3 Favorites [+]

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors’ artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight.

The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive. The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.

Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, a striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery. Available in paperback, ebook, and audio format September 1st from Tor.com! Warning: This excerpt contains explicit language.

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The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps

Mon Jul 13, 2015 9:00am 9 comments 4 Favorites [+]

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors’ artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight.

The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive. The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.

Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, a striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery. Available in paperback and ebook September 1st from Tor.com!

Read More »

The Devil in America

Wed Apr 2, 2014 9:00am 10 comments 30 Favorites [+]

Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.

Like some other stories published on Tor.com, “The Devil in America” contains scenes and situations some readers will find upsetting and/or repellent. [—The Editors]

This novelette was acquired and edited for Tor.com by consulting editor Ann VanderMeer.

Read More »

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