As we continue the series of blog posts which began here, in order to say goodbye to the Magical Menageries series as they begin to make their way toward being out of print continues with us revising Sirens. Unlike Fae it hasn’t been a decade since this one came out. But still…
If you haven’t got your copy of it already now is absolutely the time because soon it will be impossible. Here are some handy links for that:
OR buy it direct from my publisher — World Weaver Press. They have the ebooks discounted and are offering free shipping on the paperbacks they have in stock.
And then here are some excerpts and ‘Ten Year Updates’ from some of the contributors of Sirens. Give it a read, it’s fun to see what people have been up to since their stories were included in this anthology.
Excerpt from “One More Song” by Eliza Chan:
After Mira closed the door the selkie shed her skin, leaving the mottled grey fur in a heap like stepped-out-of work clothes. Mira handed her one of the many robes hanging on the hat stand and kept her eyes on her blue and green rug, only catching glimpses of the woman’s bruises. There were purple marks the size of fingers on her legs and red, raised lines across her back. Mira blinked rapidly, her hands already clenched into tight fists as she tried to keep her rising anger from bursting its banks.
“How can I help you, Ms…?” Mira asked.
“Iona, just call me Iona,” the selkie said, knotting the robe tightly at her midrift. She winced visibly and her eyes darted up. Mira moved to her drinks cabinet, deliberately turning her back so the other woman didn’t have to look her in the eye.
“I need help. I, my husband, well you can see his handiwork. I asked for a divorce, I tried to go to the police. They wouldn’t take listen. Said I was only on a spousal visa so…”
Mira handed Iona the mug. She clasped her hands around the porcelain like it anchored her.
“I assume he has some leverage?”
The client nodded, tucking her hair back so Mira could see a ragged hole where her right ear should have been—a void of darkness as if that part of her had simply ceased to exist. “He cut a patch out of my skin. I can’t swim far, not out of the city at any rate, or I’ll drown.”
What has changed for you since Sirens came out?
Ten years eh? What a decade we’ve had!
“One More Song” which I wrote specifically for your Sirens anthology call stayed with me long after the story was done. I really loved this idea of a semi-submerged urban city and seafolk living alongside humans as second class citizens. The characters and world evolved beyond recognition in the many many iteration that happened in-between, but the seed of inspiration for my debut novel Fathomfolk was planted in that short story. Fathomfolk was published last year by Orbit and hit the Sunday Times bestseller list at number 1. It was an Illumicrate pick and book 2 Tideborn,which concludes the duology, is coming out this March 2025. Another short story of mine “The Tails that Make You” was nominated for a British Fantasy Award a few years back. I think I’ll always write about women reclaiming their own stories in mythology or folklore in one form or another. My next novel, Harbour of Hungry Ghosts is slated for 2026 and I like to call it Buffy the Vampire Slayer in mid 19th Century Hong Kong fighting monsters and colonialism. I’m still writing occasional short stories also. The short story indie presses, editors and readership gave me my first break and is where I found my people and I will never forget that.
Excerpt from “The Fisherman and the Golem” by SAmanda Kespohl:
Despite his best intentions, a flicker of gold caught his eye at the edge of the market. He turned his head and saw a pen of vacant-eyed maidens milling around like grazing sheep. In their midst, a blue-robed wizard extolled their virtues to passersby.
“Lonely, are you?” he crooned to a freckled teenager who stood gaping at the wandering women while his mother haggled at a neighboring stall. “My golems make for pleasant company.”
Before he could answer, the young man’s mother rounded on him with a swat, scolding and hurrying him away while his ears blazed crimson.
The wizard sighed and turned to a harried housewife hustling her two children past. “And you, miss? Need an extra hand with your housework? Golems excel at simple tasks!”
“As if I had the coin to spare!” the woman huffed, hardly sparing him a glance.
The wizard reoriented on a fat, balding man in a butcher’s apron standing nearby. “How about you, sir? Their bones may be wood, their flesh clay, but they’re real enough to your hands and eyes to pass. That’s the beauty of illusion, dear sir—all the charms of a real woman without all the fuss!”
The butcher hesitated, eyeing a buxom brunette who was meandering around the limits of the pen. Then her skirt got hung up on a post and she fumbled, baffled, to free herself. Scowling, he went on his way.
The wizard shook his head and walked over to disentangle the brunette. While he was preoccupied, Ged sidled nearer, his gaze fixed on a golden-haired golem standing at the edge of the pen. While the others shifted and rambled, she was still, her hands resting lightly on the wooden slats that kept her caged. At a glance, her face was as empty as any of the others, but there was something almost wistful in the set of her lips.
“Ah, you like that one, do you?” the wizard crowed, swooping in like a buzzard to a corpse. “She’s new! Just turned up in the pens yesterday. I assume my associate did the work. The craftsmanship is unquestionable, yes?”
What has changed for you since Sirens came out?
Since Sirens was published, I’ve published a few other short stories. Most notably, in 2017, “How Death Came By His Soul” was published in The Death of All Things, a Zombies Need Brains anthology. I received the high compliment from one reader that my story made her cry in public. And in 2020, “The Naga’s Mirror” was published in an anthology called Hear Me Roar that was edited by this really cool lady you might have heard of. Otherwise, I’ve been doing lawyer things and working on a novel about a family of sorcerers who compete in magical tournaments. I’ve also taken some writing workshops. In fact, I’m about to start one in March. However far I’ve come since I started writing my first novel when I was a kid–a silly story about children who find a magical bridge to a land of dragons–I can always learn more. Oh, and I’ve been reading. Because of course I have.
As I say, it simultaneously feels like a long time and an incredibly short one since these books came out, but I really enjoyed this look at what some of the contributors have been doing in that time — I hope you did too!
Let me save you the trouble of scrolling all the way back up for links to pick up your own copy of Sirens if you haven’t already. Here they are:
