Draco campestris

[truepenny]

My story "Draco campestris" is up (with awesome illustrations from Mack Sztaba) at Strange Horizons.

This was an Artist's Challenge piece that took me at least two years to figure out how to write, and I'm going to go ahead and confess that I'm really proud of it.

It's free, because SH is like that. So go read!

Comments

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Wow . . . just, wow. That is an awesome, gorgeous story.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[heathwitch.livejournal.com]

That is one amazing story. Thank you. *hugs*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading it!

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Wow: That is so layered and textured and riddled with its own enticing hints and unsolvable puzzles. Thank you.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading it!

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Now I want to visit the Museum.

(And, of course, all museums have strange mishapen children who you never see during the day, and dragons in the closed wings.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. Of course.

This story is, in part, a result of my love affairs with the Kunsthistorische in Vienna and the Field Museum in Chicago.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Vienna, but the Field has completely swept me off my feet. It plays a very prominent role in the story I just finished (rather more so than the dinosaurs, actually).

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Yes, you got that one right. Well done.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I figured out when I was done with it why it had taken so excessively long to write.

[mikaelbard.livejournal.com]

wonderfull !

it has more interesting ideas in it than most novels.


were you taking from the german or the dutch ?
mynheer seemed to be a take on the german, tho i could also see the dutch meneer as a base, but mevrouw seems clearly dutch.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

And to answer your question: Dutch.

"Mynheer" is the way I've always seen it spelled, although what books I was reading with Dutch people in them I now couldn't tell you.

(And, no, I am not competent in either German or Dutch.)

[mikaelbard.livejournal.com]

your welcome,

i look forward to reading your novels. i've used them in a window display already and own the 1st one.
it's very high on my list to actually read.

do you think you'll do more work set in the world of your short story ?

i suspected it was dutch.
interesting, it must have been an old spelling or trying for an old spelling at least. it'd been mijnheer at a guess. y is borrowed in dutch words. it's ij there.

( sorry, this is the point when writing a blog i tend to give lessons.)

partly i was curious if you were implying a dutch/german future/alt history.
( i.e. there was i scfi novel i somewhat remember that had all the streets on mars call -strasse.)

thanks for replying and best of luck with your writing career.
mb

[j-luc-pitard.livejournal.com]

Just read it and love it. The story flows like a dream from one topic to another, but the museum is the main character to me. Lovely!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

re: draco . . .

[(Anonymous)]

has musical visuals for me, if one can 'see' music--

Pictures at An Exhibition, by Moussorgsky

--in hushed grey whispers, while the dragon eyes shine in reflected silence--

very nice.

Penny

Re: draco . . .

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

"Pictures at an Exhibition" is not a bad choice at all.

[channe.livejournal.com]

That's a really great story.

Thanks for writing it.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, and not a little creepy.

(Also, D. anthropophagi. Snrch!)