New novella launches at Hub, or read it here!

My novella, Marco and the Red Granny, is live at Hub Magazine! You can subscribe to the podcast for free, or read it here on my own blog (I’m setting up a new donation system, with neato giveaways. Check it out!)

From the official Marco site:

By bringing back the patronage system, a new alien species has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, and Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname “Mollywood.” These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate other senses than simply sight. When someone asks a starlet, “Who are you wearing?” she could as easily say “J.K. Rowling” as she could “Gucci.”

Every creative person in the world wishes for a patronage. It’s quite competitive.

Marco wanted one, once. But then his girlfriend got one and shuttled off to Mollywood for fame and fortune, and Marco stayed home, waiting for his own patron. After several years, he gave up entirely. His career faltered. His agent dumped him. And then, one morning, he gets a call. At last he has a patron, at last the aliens want him. But he’s about to find out that an artistic patronage isn’t what it was in the good old days, and that the only friend he’s made, a tiny old woman who’s the star of a blood sports reality series called The Most Dangerous Game, has secrets of her own.

Art by Cheyenne Wright, narrated by Tom Rockwell. Here is a peek of the first chapter:

“Who are you wearing?”

The scream to the posing starlet draped in deep red silk, even on the tinny cellvid, cut through Marco’s hangover like an angry rhino slipping on oil. “Sycophantic specks,” he muttered, fumbling for the mute button on the phone. He rubbed his forehead with his palm, trying to will away the clumsy, dull pain.

“Goodness gracious, is that Janet Omaha? Who’s she wearing?” the old woman next to him on the shuttle leaned over, breaking all sorts of personal space rules by putting her hand on his shoulder and breathing Juicy Froot Loops gum in his face. He winced.

“No idea,” he said.

“I’d heard they were coming out with a Ernest Hemingway/Gertrude Stein line of clothing, two contrasting lines, but I think those in House Magenta will be wearing Cory Doctorow now. They’re getting into the early 2000s authors,” she said. “Will you turn it up?”

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