Art by Hugo Award winning artist Jim Burns for the second Plague Birds story "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues." See below for more artistic interpretations of my Plague Birds universe.
Good news for fans of my Plague Birds stories: The novel has been accepted by Apex Books and is tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2021.
Many thanks to Jason Sizemore and Apex Books for accepting it! In addition, many thanks to all my Patrons for supporting my writing.
Plague Birds is set in the far future and is the epic tale of a young woman betrayed into becoming one of her world’s hated judges and executioners, with a killer AI bonded to her very blood. While the novel is science fiction, it reads much like fantasy and is weird and dark.
For those who haven't read these stories, the first one — "Plague Birds" — was published in the acclaimed British magazine Interzone, where it won the magazine's annual Readers' Poll. The story was subsequently translated into a number of languages (including Czech and Chinese) and was the subject of a well-received podcast on Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine.
The following year I wrote a sequel called "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues," which was also published in Interzone. Translations of this story were published around the world while its podcast edition was named a finalist for the 2012 Parsec Awards. "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues" is not part of the novel and functions as a stand-alone tale in the universe. I’m considering releasing this story on its own once Plague Birds comes out.
Above and below are illustrations by different artists of the Plague Birds characters. Note there’s a lot of artistic license here because the characters, for example, don't wear skin-tight leather clothes or look like vampires.
The original publication of the first "Plague Birds" story in Interzone. Cool art by Ben Baldwin, although there are artistic liberties. (Meaning no red leather skin-tight suits in my story or novel. Sorry.)
Artwork from the Chinese edition of the original Plague Birds short story. And no, the main character doesn't let her shirt fly up like that in the original story or the novel. Definitely artistic liberties at work again.