Although he practically invented the modern short story, Poe’s crepuscular and eccentric and somewhat fusty work does not seem to attract the worshippers it once did, when, say, Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch deliberately invoked him. Even postmodern horror writers—horror being what Poe is generally remembered for—seem to have put him on a dusty shelf. So I was very intrigued when I learned of a book project that involved taking one of Poe’s fragmentary story beginnings and playing with it in any manner the author chose. I signed up right away, determined to channel Poe into a kind of SF/cosmic horror vein. The words flowed surprisingly easily, and I like to think that the ghost of Poe—who often visited my hometown, Providence—sat like a bodiless raven on my shoulder as I wrote. The Days of Other Light [based on a fragment by Edgar Allan Poe] Ingeniero watched the transphotonic packet Oriole depart the surface of Skyfire. Lifting off lightly from the airless tinted desert of the planetoid, the sleek interstellar ship swiftly became lost against the hectic, coruscating, panchromatic backdrop of radiance that formed the famous celestial vista that had inspired this worldlet’s name.
What do You think about Shuteye For The Timebroker?
