P H Lee

In last year's post, I noted that I was going to have less publications in 2023 because I had less sales in 2022. Boy was I right!

I published three short stories in 2023:

How to Serve the Dead: A Confucian Alternate History, in The Cosmic Background
Ji Lu asked how to serve the dead. "You are yet unable to serve the living," Confucius replied. "How can you serve the dead?"
Ji Lu then asked about death. "You do not yet understand life," Confucius replied. "How can you understand death?"

The Greatest Home Run in Baseball History, in Strange Horizons
I want to tell you that this doesn’t matter, even though that would probably only make things worse. I want to say that this doesn’t matter because I love you, that it doesn’t matter because we’ll just get some takeout that we can’t afford, that it doesn’t matter because we’re going to break up in a year and eventually we’ll learn to communicate and become good friends, but most of all I want to tell you that this does not matter because forty-nine years from now Basal McMurdo is going to hit the greatest home run in baseball history.

Megabot vs. The Lingering Trauma of Parental Abandonment, in fuckit #15.
"It's not just me!" she says to Bot Blue. "Do you realize you're literally the only member of the team that has any parents at all?"

I sold five stories in 2023, higher than three in 2022, but nowhere near the peaks of 2020 and 2021. I think that, given that I'm trying to finish a novel every year, five is a pretty comfortable average place for short fiction. I do want to try to transition to novels (my big writing accomplishment this year was finishing and submitting what I think is my most accessible, commercial novel to date), but I don't want to leave short fiction behind entirely.

2024 is going to see the publication of some stories that I'm frankly a little scared about. But I am trying to transition to a psychological and career place where I have to worry less about getting dog-piled on twitter and more worried about expressing what I want to express through art. We'll see how that goes.

I am continuing to embrace the fact that no one reads Dreamwidth and considering it a strength.

I published ten short stories in various venues in 2022:

This Story is Called "The Transformation of Things" in the Xenocultivars anthology, then reprinted in Zooscape. A parable about a redwood tree that wants to become something else, some specific thing that it cannot put a name to. Has guest appearances from a dimetrodon Buddha and the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou.

The Honest Fox, or, A Truth Shared is Not a Truth Lost in Lightspeed. Part of my "Tales of the Great Sweet Sea" series, this is a parable about a fox who, alone among all foxes, is honest and kind. A story about finding your place in the world, and learning that anxiety is not the same thing as decency. Quite different from the other Great Sweet Sea stories, because it is actually a parable from the "far and sunward lands" which has been adapted to local tastes.

An Ill-Fated Girl Meets an Ill-Fated Man in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A doomed romance in a magical Qing dynasty leads to tragedy not only on a personal scale, but throughout the empire. A bit of a tribute to "The Dream of the Red Chamber," my favorite novel.
(Also, my first publication in a "big three" print magazine! Cool!)

The Turnip, or, How the Whole World Was Brought to Peace in Lightspeed. A story about two brothers, one poor and clever, the other rich and selfish, and the enormous turnip that comes between them. A retelling of my favorite Grimm's fairy tale, with a slight addition onto the ending.

A True and Certain Proof of the Messianic Age, with two lemmas in Fantasy. A version of Rabbi Akiva's parable of the fox and the fishes, from the Talmud, but retold as it might be remembered by an entirely digital, post-singularity society. Yes, it's another talking fox parable. I will never stop writing talking fox parables.

How the Crown Prince of Jupiter Undid the Universe, or, The Full Fruit of Love's Full Folly in tor.com. Once upon a time, The Crown Prince of Jupiter happened to glance at a miniature portrait of Esmerelda, Princess of the Sun, and full hopelessly in love. But was that really such a good idea? A lovelorn planetary romance about the foolishness of romantic entitlement, with cameo appearances by some of my favorite science fiction authors.
(My first story with tor.com! Yay!)

The Tragic Fate of the City of O-Rashad, in Lightspeed. A prophetic warning about the dangers of transgressing divine edicts. Particularly, the divine edict regarding military spending as percentage of GDP.

To my daughter, in the dark of the moon, in Lightspeed. In a bizarre and alien world, a warrior women gives some advice to her young daughter before heading off to a foolish and almost-certain death.

Two Megabot stories, in fuckit issues #11 and #12. What if the Power Rangers were in group therapy? What if the Power Rangers were really good at group therapy? (Not actually the Power Rangers for various reasons.)

I sold just three stories in 2022, down from thirteen in 2021 and ten in 2020. This is, to a degree, expected. Through a combination of things, 2020 and 2021 represent a career peak for short fiction sales which I'm probably never going to reach again, both because I no longer have a two decade backlog of unsold short fiction to polish, and because I am shifting my priorities to focus more on producing books (novels and novellas and collections) rather than standalone short fiction. Nonetheless, it does feel at least a little bit disheartening.

(no downer scale ratings for these yet, but may edit the post to include them later.)

"It hurts that you don’t recognize me, your own familiar that you made from a part of your own soul.... I push through the hurt and speak to you, saying, 'This is not a story you are reading. This is actually happening, and it’s actually happening to you.'"

Experimental RPG fans might find a lot to like here.

Aside note: is there anyone reading this who actually gets benefit these posts. I have a bunch of sites that I post stories on and I wanted to check to see if this one is active at all.

The Garden Where No One Ever Goes in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

A tragedy about cross-communal romance in a fantasy version of Medieval Sicily.

My magic has always been difficult, complicated, messy. But in the garden, when I’m with you, magic is so simple that it seems to happen on its own.

Ann-of-Rags in Lightspeed.

A fairy tale about a little girl, her magic doll, an evil witch, and a dark forest.

“Don’t cry, my lovely girl, for I have other friends amongst the nighttime animals, and surely one of them will come to our rescue. But this time, you must do exactly as I say, or else surely we are lost.”

Five Courses on Ganymede is up at Nature: Futures. It's a short dialogue set in the first locavore restaurant on Ganymede.

If you've ever thought that my stories are too bleak, too sad, or too dark, this one's for you.

The title of this story-- "How the Emperor of All Space and Every World Awoke to the True Nature of Reality, and Why it Didn't Matter" doesn't fit into the Dreamwidth subject line.

Anyway, the above-title story is out on Escape Pod. Listen to the narrator do some cool voices and try his best to pronounce the discordant cacophony of proper nouns.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It had all seemed so simple, five months ago in the governor’s mansion with his uncle. Shenkong Bian was a hardship posting without the hardship. He’d be eligible for promotion in only two years, and with a glowing reference from His Lordship besides. Shenkong Bian had no taxes to collect, no levies to maintain, no peasants to murder each other in their incomprehensible dialects. It was even at an unusual transit point—an opportunity to really use all the physics he’d studied at the academy.

All he had to do was keep his nose clean. No repeats of the incident...

My story about imperial magistrates, vacuumorphic languages, and the problems of first contact is up on Clarkesworld.

I'm really proud of this story and I hope you'll like it as well.

I have finished the G+ import. You can go look through my archives or my "G+ Import" tag to see what's there.

Per request of +Charles Seaton +Abi Stokes Nighthill

If you stop playing the game except where indicated by the rules, you lose.

Every day, when you wake up, start to think of a thing you have or do that you do not want, need, or love. What is it in your life that is the most superfluous? At the end of the day, give that thing up. If it is a physical object, destroy it or give it away. If it is a behavior or activity, don't do it anymore.

As time goes on, you will discover that it is harder and harder to come up with things that you do not want, need or love. Keep going.

Eventually, you will run out of things that you do not want, need, or love. At this point, you may choose to stop playing the game. If you do so, you have won the game. Otherwise, continue.

From now on, every day when you wake up, start to think of a thing that you have or do that you neither need nor love. What is it in your life that is most superfluous? At the end of the day, give that thing up. If it is a physical object, destroy it or give it away. If it is a behavior or activity, don't do it anymore.

As time goes on, you will discover it is harder and harder to come up with things that you neither need nor love. Keep going.

Eventually, you will run out of things that you neither need nor love. At this point, you may choose to stop playing the game. If you do so, you have won the game, defeating all players who stopped at a earlier point. Otherwise, continue.

From now on, every day when you wake up, start to think of a thing that you have or do. At the end of the day, give that thing up. If it is a physical object, destroy it or give it away. If it is a behavior or activity, don't do it anymore.

As time goes on, you will discover it is harder and harder to come up with things you have or things you do. Keep going.

Eventually, nothing will remain.
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