Another sci-fi map. I’m not  as pleased with this as the one for A Boy’s History of the World—I was playing around with Adobe Illustrator, which I fail as yet to understand. Will redraw it, I imagine, when/if the project gets going again.

A PDF with better detail is available.

As noted elsewhere, I wrote my first science-fiction story in over a decade and only s-f story of the nineties for Robert Silverberg & Karen Haber’s Universe 3 after two older stories appeared in Universe 2. Despite my being deeply out of practice at s-f (and deeply committed to other projects), the first draft of “Composition with Barbarian and Animal” came so easily and quickly that I don’t properly recall anything about it. I think the title came first—with a half-remembered nod to Brian Aldiss’s Malacia Tapestry (which appears to be out print: how can that be?)—and the first line: They brought the animal to me because it was the prince’s favorite and it was broken.

Bob asked for a number of revisions—make the planet more alien, please, and the characters’ motivations clearer, and try not to make it much longer—before offering a contract and a pleasant cheque. Two years later, when my elder brother (who introduced me to s-f in the first place, bless) happened to be visiting Boston, we noticed Universe 3 in a bookstore window somewhat before I received my contributor’s copies.… 2 had been a simultaneous hardcover/trade paperback—I was surprised and saddened to see 3 a mass-market pb, guessing (rightly, it turned out) the publisher’s lack of faith in the franchise. Universe shutdown.

Gardner Dozois, in his Year’s Best Science Fiction, singled out “Composition” as “probably the best” story in Universe 3, although “perversely slow moving” (the quotes are from memory), but didn’t reprint it, dammit. There may have been reviews but I didn’t see them.

I never meant it to go any further. “Composition” was complete in itself as far as I was concerned. But at some point after returning to New England from desert exile a few years ago, I happened to be complaining (again) to my bestest friend about my endless writer’s block and happened to suggest s-f might be a way out, if only I could come up with an idea. Now, Dawn claims to dislike s-f, but “I always loved your story about the animal,” she said, “it was so imaginative. I think you should write more of that.”

Out of desperation more than expectation, I reread “Composition” after not thinking much about it for ten years. This time around, it was immediately apparent that, although it stood up well enough on its own, it really wanted to be the first chapter of a novel. Full of enthusiasm (not as much as the first time, however), I came up with a title, The Barbary Roads, for the book and a new title, “The Prince’s Animal,” for what was now Chapter 1. I drafted Chapter 2, started Chapter 3 … and the block descended again.

But I haven’t given up! I know two or three or four events I want to cover in the continuing narrative; I know who Gaspar will finally resolve to adopt; I know pretty much how the book should end; I know The Secret of the Kanstarmik. Possibly I know too much and that’s the root of the problem right there. One can but wait and fret.

The Barbary Roads

1. 1. The Prince’s Animal
   

   

   Chapter 1 previously published in earlier form as “Composition with Barbarian and Animal” in Universe 3, ed Robert Silberberg & Karen Haber. New York: Bantam Spectra, 1994. Cover art: Michael David Ward.
   

2. 2. A Wider World
   

3. 3. A Famine in Massapès (unfinished)

NOTE 26 July 2009 (updated 6 August 2009, 10 August 2009, 28 September):

“Composition with Barbarian and Animal” has been selected for reprint in Things We Are Not, an as-yet-untitled anthology of queer science-fiction stories edited and published by Christopher Fletcher of the ’zine M-BRANE SF, due in September or 15 October 2009. The table of contents and cover art may be seen here, along with a contest announcement and other info. Details on pub date and where to buy to come. Pre-order here and receive a bonus one-year, twelve-issue subscription to M-Brane SF free!

As a courtesy to Chris and the other authors, I have taken down the PDF of the first chapter of The Barbary Roads lest it cannibalize anthology sales.