Professionally published fiction
Sometimes I completely make up stuff and somebody buys it. It's a good feeling.
Some samples to taste here
Are you too alien if nothing can touch you? Are you too soft if too much does? Don't worry — you're only human. “Action Figures” is my “The New Yorker story,” a little jazzier stylistically, somewhat edgier than my other work.
This story's genesis points directly to a theater production I attended, an evening of one-act plays by David Ives. In his comic play "Mere Mortals," three hard-hatted construction workers sitting on a girder high above a city dialogue wittily about fantastical things. This particular production was memorable enough, Ives' script more so, and the scene stayed with me. For "Action Figures" I created my own construction guys and the rest unfolded surprisingly, albeit not quite as comically.
“. . . Well sustained by a fascinating narrative conceit, this isn't a story I would necessarily have thought to see in Realms of Fantasy,
with its hip, modernist, urban feel, but it works beautifully as a chronicle of human hopes, failings, and the overwhelming influence of godlike figures swarming high above.” — Jay Lake, Tangent Online
A novelette, “The Nature of the Beast” reveals the hidden
history behind the big screen's most famous interspecies romance.
“The Nature of the Beast” by Mark Bourne is my favorite story....
...The story intercuts between the real past, the movie's world, and
the present. A bonus, perhaps, is the memory-overlay of the
current Kong film by Jackson, but the story does not require those
added images for its polysemous effect. Bourne’s
writing—his ear for thirties dialogue, his splendid transitions
between film, present, past, layers of different realities and
fantasies—is strong enough on its own....”
— Sherwood Smith, Tangent Online
“Brokedown”
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
The
first published and still one of the most popular. Got my first fan
mail as a writer for it. And it's the first story to show elements that are becoming recurring
items in my "oeuvre," things some poor English major will squeeze a
Master's thesis out of decades from now: a protagonist who is an actor
or similar performer, references to the Alice and Sherlock Holmes
tales, and a southern setting or flavor.
The diner is real. It's called the Old South and it's on Highway 64 near the outskirts of Russellville, Arkansas. Try the pie.
Among my favorite pieces of fan mail, ever, came this via email from a Vietnam vet:
"Hello Mark.... I just finished reading 'Brokedown' and wanted to tell you what a wonderful experience it was to read it. Although I can appreciate all the tragic stories so widespread nowdays, a tale full of love, kindness, and hope is a rare and wonderful thing not to be taken lightly. In return I thought I'd attach a story I wrote about an experience I had hoping that you find it worth reading. Wishing you the very best!"
Attached was his touching and insightful account of a wartime incident that he had experienced in Vietnam and the lifelong perspective shift it gave him.
"Brokedown" has been reprinted in the Russian magazine Supernova, which I have here on the shelf next to my
desk. Not only is Russian a language pleasing to my ear, Cyrillic looks
quite striking on the page too. However, I wonder how “Brokedown,” with
the distinctive regionalism of its language and characters, translates
culturally. Superbly, I hope. Perhaps it adds a layer of exoticism that
might not exist for American readers.
Interestingly, my other Ozark story, “Mustard Seed,” was also picked up for a Russian publication.
“The Case of the Detective's Smile”
Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg; DAW Books
One of my personal faves, blending my fondness for Sherlock Holmes with my appreciation of a certain other noteworthy Victorian literary figure. Of my stories so far, this one has proven the best suited for public readings.
In The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (Carroll & Graf, 1997), the editors' survey of other recent Holmes books presents a description of Sherlock Holmes in Orbit that reads: “It includes the excellent story 'The Case of the Detective's Smile' by Mark Bourne, which is so delightful that it ought to be true.”
“Detective's Smile” has appeared in some non-English language editions since its original book publication. It's been reprinted in Russian. In Parisian bistros, you might find someone reading “L'énigme du sourire du détective” in Sherlock Holmes en Orbite or, more recently, in the French magazine Fiction. And a Spanish magazine described its translation as “absolutamente delicioso.” I don't know what that means, but it sounds good when said aloud.
I'm pleased to note that this story is part of the Honors English Advanced Placement Writing syllabus of Shippensburg University. Study hard, everyone.
And I'm honored that “Detective's Smile” has been added to the Wold-Newton Chronology (January 1898), where it's in glorious company indeed.
“Boss”
Alternate Tyrants, edited by Mike Resnick; Tor Books
How did the Perseid Meteor Shower of 1928 lead to Al Capone becoming America's President-for-life (and beyond)? This story plays on my notions of a Karmic Cosmic Butterfly Effect — the tiniest causes can ripple out into some really big effects. It also let me play around with my fondness for Studs Terkel's collections of oral memoirs.
So this one I like quite a bit. And so did the New York Review of Science Fiction, where Don Webb singled it out in a lengthy review, dubbing it a “gem,” “the one you buy the book for,” the type of story you thrust into the
hands of those who claim to hate science fiction, and one that deserved to be reprinted many times. So here's hoping for the reality of reincarnation.
Addendum: “Boss” was published in '97, so of course the President Bush mentioned therein is #41. How was I to know then that a few years later parts of this story would become even more disturbingly resonant than I had intended?
“What Dreams Are Made On”
Full Spectrum 5, edited by Jennifer Hershey, Tom Dupree, and Janna Silverstein; Bantam Books
The movie Shakespeare in Love is a favorite DVD in our house. Though very different, naturally, from this novelette, the movie possesses certain historical similarities to “What Dreams Are Made On.” Seeing Shakespeare's theater and his fellow players alive on the screen made me realize that I did a pretty good job with related material in this story.
“What Dreams Are Made On” was reprinted (slightly revised) in the 4th edition of Literature and Ourselves: a Thematic Introduction for Readers and Writers. A college textbook published by Allyn & Bacon/Longman, Literature and Ourselves is designed for courses in second-semester freshman composition and intro to literature.
Within
the 1564-page collection, among the Virginia Woolf and Geoffrey Chaucer, nestled there between Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Vonnegut, Poe, cummings, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Joyce, Oates, Eliot, O'Connor, and other deep-hitters, “Dreams” joined the thematic section called Imagination and Discovery, the fiction segment of which also includes Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Ray Bradbury, and Louise Erdrich. An honor indeed.
About Full Spectrum 5:
“Among the handful of sf anthologies that consist solely of previously unpublished fiction, Full Spectrum reigns supreme. As the title suggests, the anthology's contents cover a broad range of cutting-edge sf and fantasy, and the editors give special consideration to innovation and craftsmanship.... All 28 stories exemplify the best in imaginative short fiction and together serve as a reliable indicator of the leading edge of sf and fantasy.”
— Booklist
“The most important original anthology series in the field.” — The Washington Post
First time I killed somebody, in this case the main character. This was the first of my stories to earn several Nebula Award recommendations, missing the Preliminary Ballot by a hair — a near-miss repeated with subsequent stories. Always a bridesmaid, etc.
“Mustard Seed”
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
My sort-of homage to the late, great Clifford Simak, this look at religious
prejudice and conversion received a keen review in Locus magazine (“...A timely comparison to the film Contact,
which may be substantive by the standards of movie sci-fi but pales in
comparison to the issues routinely tackled by prose SF such as this”).
It also appeared on Locus's Recommended Reading list.
Like “Brokedown,” this one has been reprinted in a Russian magazine, which, while wonderful (Spasibo vam!), does have me curious about what they think of the setting and people therein.
Enter “Being Human,” my contribution to the flurry of stories wrapped around nanotechnology, which hit a brief but memorable saturation level in the early 90s. Of course, you can't change technology without changing other things too. Some things, however, will remain familiar to us for a long time.
“Being Human” attracted some pleasant attention when it came out. It made the Top 10 list in the Asimov's Readers Poll, has been translated for several foreign markets, and for a while was something of a hit on the Internet. Folks have asked me if there will be any more stories set in this milieu. I think so. It has fun possibilities. Stick around and see.
Page 121 of Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction (Powell's • Amazon • Oxford University Press), cites "Being Human" as the earliest pro fiction source for "morph v. [abbr. of metamorphosis or metamorphose] to transform a physical body into another shape." Such lexicographic coolness.
“On the Road of Silver”
Chicks in Chainmail, edited by Esther Friesner; Baen Books
My
serendipitously muse-like wife Elizabeth deserves credit for triggering
this story. When Esther Friesner asked me to be in her new anthology,
my first thought was “Humorous Tongue-in-Cheek Satirical Feminist
Sword-and-Sorcery isn't my usual shtick.” However, willing to take a bull by the tail and look it in the eye,
I accepted her offer. So there I was, stuck at my office desk for a
long time trying to come up with a plot worth playing around with.
Nothing clicked. Until. Elizabeth, possessor of our family's sole green
thumb, entered the house from our backyard garden. She was clad in full
gardening gear head to toe. As if arrayed for battle. She was cursing
the existence of the Pacific Northwest banana slug. I had my story.
One
of my favorite reviews of this story, calling it a
“wonderful read,” appeared in the newsgroup alt.shoe.lesbians. And I
was paid what may be the primo Internet compliment. A total stranger
grabbed a sentence from this story (“Charm oozed from him like yogurt
through a colander”) and for months used it as a sig file in her
newsgroup postings. It's the only time — to my knowledge — that my name
has appeared simultaneously in alt.sex.bondage, alt.torture, and alt.cooking.vegetarian.
Chicks in Chainmail was such a success that the publisher asked for a sequel. So the next volume, Did You Say “Chicks”?, followed suit and included a novelette called “Like No Business I Know” (see below).
“Like No Business I Know”
Did You Say “Chicks”?!, edited by Esther Friesner; Baen Books
This one has become a fan favorite. What's more appropriate for a sequel to Chicks in Chainmail than
a sequel to “On the Road of Silver”? Okay, this one
isn't strictly a sequel, though the main character of “Silver”
is among the supporting cast of “Business.” This time, a popular
syndicated TV fantasy series is in trouble, and the denizens of Faerie
decide to help out (and catch a famous mischief-maker to boot). Xena fans take note.
And here's someone's nice tip of the hat.
Mars Dust & Magic Shows
“Meet
the girl who became a beautiful dirigible; the housewife who led an
army against an evil empire; the author who really wrote the great
works of western literature — these are but a few of the
fascinating people who inhabit the worlds of Mark Bourne. Featuring
eleven stories, Mars Dust & Magic Shows provides a glimpse
into the secret lives of Sherlock Holmes, William Shakespeare, Al
Capone, King Kong, and dozens of lesser-known heroes, monsters, and
players. Climb aboard, and find out why authors, editors, and readers
are calling Mark Bourne 'a gifted story teller,' 'a wonderful read,'
and 'absolutamente delicioso.' ”
Scorpius Digital Publishing approached me about collecting my previously published short fiction in an ebook edition. Hence Mars Dust & Magic Shows, which brings together all the stories from “Brokedown” to “Like No Business I Know.” David Delamare provided the splendid cover art.
Mars Dust & Magic Shows is available for purchase from
and other fine vendors.
Think of Mars Dust & Magic Shows as Volume 1 of my published short fiction, at least until a print collection comes along. It also includes a new “value added” piece published there only (so far):
“Baby Talk”
A humor piece. Came out rather well. So what if it's cute and short. My wife says I am too.
In the works
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E.L. Doctorow
Okay, I'm working on it. Stay tuned. You're gonna love it.
Other fun stuff
Comics: Not Just Mickey Mousin' Anymore
Being quite fond of the TV series Firefly and its follow-up movie, Serenity, I was pleased as all get-out when the invitation to contribute to Serenity Tales arrived. (It's also hosted at Webcomics Nation.) Serenity Tales is a collection of free, downloadable comic-book stories, homages, pastiches, and plain ol' good clean fun inspired by the Firefly/Serenity 'verse and visualized by various talents working in ink and pixels.
My three contributions so far:
Yarn, illustrated by Neal Skorpen
Take My Love, illustrated by M.E. Russell (forthcoming)
Diversionary Tactics, illustrated by David Stroup
Of course, it helps quite a bit to be already acquainted with the characters and whatnot, but either way dive in and enjoy the rest of the offerings there too. “Shiny.”
A Star is Bourne*
On a related note, I was the “astronomical consultant” for Vonda McIntyre's novel, Star Wars: The Crystal Star. In payment I received my very own alien star
system, Markbee's Star, right there in chapter 6. The fourth planet there is home to the Zeffliffl, seaweed-like folk inhabiting the shallow seas surrounding the smaller southern continent. Thanks, Vonda.
*(Groan, yes, I know.)
