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On the Road: Tor/Forge Author Events for January

Tor/Forge authors are on the road in January! See who is coming to a city near you this month.

Susan Dennard, Windwitch

Sunday, January 8
Book People
Austin, TX
2:00 PM
Also with Alexandra Bracken.

Monday, January 9
The King’s English Bookshop
Salt Lake City, UT
7:00 PM
Also with Alexandra Bracken.

Tuesday, January 10
Barnes & Noble
Los Angeles, CA
7:00 PM
Also with Alexandra Bracken.

Wednesday, January 11
Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Portland, OR
7:00 PM
Also with Alexandra Bracken.

Thursday, January 12
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
7:00 PM
Also with Alexandra Bracken.

Friday, January 13
Kepler’s Books
Menlo Park, CA
7:00 PM
Also with Alexandra Bracken.

Sunday, January 15
Parnassus Books
Nashville, TN
2:00 PM

Monday, January 16
Spellbound Children’s Bookshop
Asheville, NC
6:00 PM

Tuesday, January 17
Main Street Books
St. Charles, MO
7:00 PM

Wednesday, January 18
Anderson’s Bookshop
Naperville, IL
7:00 PM

Sunday, January 22
Books-a-Million
Beverly Hills, MI
2:00 PM

Heather Graham & Jon Land, The Rising

Tuesday, January 17
Bank Square Books
Mystic, CT
6:00 PM

Thursday, January 19
Barnes & Noble at Warwick Center
Warwick, RI
6:00 PM

Friday, January 20
Barrington Books Retold
Cranston, RI
6:30 PM

Saturday, January 21
Wakefield Books
Wakefield, RI
12:00 PM

Saturday, January 21
Books on the Square
Providence, RI
4:00 PM

Sunday, January 22
Stax Discount Books
Marlborough, MA
11:00 AM

Tuesday, January 24
St. Louis County Library – Weber Road Branch
St. Louis, MO
7:00 PM

Thursday, January 26
Murder on the Beach
Delray Beach, FL
7:00 PM

Friday, January 27
Vero Beach Book Center
Vero Beach, FL
6:00 PM

Saturday, January 28
Books-A-Million
Kissimmee, FL
2:00 PM

Sunday, January 29
Winter Park Public Library
Winter Park, FL
2:00 PM
Books provided by the Writer’s Block Bookstore.

Kim Liggett, The Last Harvest

Wednesday, January 11
Half Price Books
Oklahoma City, OK
7:00 PM

Friday, January 13
Book People
Austin, TX
7:00 PM
Also with Chandler Baker and Neal Shusterman.

Nisi Shawl, Everfair

Friday, January 6
The Book Bin
Salem, OR
7:00 PM

Carrie Vaughn, Martians Abroad

Tuesday, January 17
Tattered Cover
Denver, CO
7:00 PM

Thursday, January 19
Old Town Library
Fort Collins, CO
7:00 PM
Books provided by Old Firehouse Books.

Sunday, January 29
Jean Cocteau Cinema
Santa Fe, NM
1:00 PM

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On the Road: Tor/Forge Author Events for November

Say No More by Hank Phillippa Ryan Alien Morning by Rick Wilber Extreme Makeover by Dan Wells

Tor/Forge authors are on the road in November! See who is coming to a city near you this month.

Shannon Baker, Stripped Bare

Tuesday, November 15
New Life Presbyterian Church
Alburquerque, NM
7:00 PM

Tina Connolly, Seriously Shifted

Monday, November 7
Powell’s Books
Beaverton, OR
7:00 PM

Monday, November 14
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
7:00 PM

Tuesday, November 15
Corvallis-Benton County Library
Corvallis, OR
4:00 PM

Wednesday, November 16
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
7:30 PM

Todd Fahnestock, The Wishing World

Saturday, November 12
Second Star to the Right Bookstore
Denver, CO
2:00 PM

Leanna Renee Hieber, Eterna and Omega

Monday, November 14
Little City Books
Hoboken, NJ 07030
7:00 PM
Also with Nisi Shawl

Mary Robinette Kowal, Ghost Talkers

Tuesday, November 8
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
7:00 PM

Wednesday, November 9
Murder by the Book
Houston, TX
6:30 PM

Thursday, November 10
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
7:30 PM

Sunday, November 13
Borderlands Café
San Francisco, CA
3:00 PM

Michael Livingston, The Gates of Hell

Sunday, November 20
M. Judson Booksellers
Greenville, SC
4:00 PM

Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway

Monday, November 21
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
7:00 PM
Also with Dan Wells

Malka Older, Infomocracy

Saturday, November 12
The Harvard Coop
Cambridge, MA
7:00 PM

Hank Phillippi Ryan, Say No More

Tuesday, November 1
Brookline Booksmith
Brookline, MA
7:00 PM

Wednesday, November 2
Murder on the Beach
Delray Beach, FL
7:00 PM

Thursday, November 3
Vero Beach Book Center
Vero Beach, FL
6:00 PM

Friday, November 4
Concord Festival of Authors
Concord, MA
7:30 PM
Also with Peter Swanson, Thomas O’Malley, and Douglas Graham Purdy, moderated by Kate Flora

Sunday, November 6
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
2:00 PM

Monday, November 7
Tattered Cover
Littleton, CO
7:00 PM
Also with Laura DiSilverio

Wednesday, November 9
Mystery to Me Bookstore
Madison, WI
7:00 PM

Thursday, November 10
Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Oakmont, PA
7:00 PM

Thursday, November 17
New Bedford Art Museum
New Bedford, MA
6:00 PM
Also with Peter Abrahams and Hallie Ephron
Hosted by the New Bedford Free Public Library

Friday, November 18
Jabberwocky Bookshop
Newburyport, MA
7:00 PM

Monday, November 28
Bookends
Winchester, MA
6:00 PM
Also with Jerry Thornton

Nisi Shawl, Everfair

Saturday, November 12
Book Riot Live
New York, NY
2:30 PM

Monday, November 14
Little City Books
Hoboken, NJ
7:00 PM

Dan Wells, Extreme Makeover

Tuesday, November 15
Little Professor Book Center
Homewood, AL
5:30 PM

Wednesday, November 16
Volumes Bookcafe
Chicago, IL
7:00pm
Also with Mary Robinette Kowal and Wesley Chu

Thursday, November 17
Jean Cocteau Cinema
Santa Fe, NM
7:00 PM
Also with Bracken MacLeod and Robert Brockway

Friday, November 18
The King’s English Bookshop
Salt Lake City, UT
7:00 PM

Saturday, November 19
Borderlands Books
San Francisco, CA
5:00 PM

Sunday, November 20
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
2:00 PM

Monday, November 21
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
7:00 PM
Also with Seanan McGuire

Rick Wilber, Alien Morning

Friday, November 4
Books at Park Place
St. Petersburg, FL
5:00 PM

Friday, November 12
University of South Florida – St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg, FL
6:00 PM
Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading

Sunday, November 13
American Bookbinders Museum
San Francisco, CA
6:30 PM
SF in SF – also with Nick Mamatas

Monday, November 14
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
7:00 PM

Wednesday, November 16
Old Firehouse Books
Fort Collins, CO
6:00 PM
Also with Kevin Anderson

Thursday, November 17
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
7:30 PM
Also with Gerald Brandt

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On the Road: Tor/Forge Author Events for October

tor-Everfair-2 forge-Stripped-Bare Stranded by Bracken MacLeod

Tor/Forge authors are on the road in October! See who is coming to a city near you this month.

Shannon Baker, Stripped Bare

Monday, October 3
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
7:00 PM
Also with William Kent Krueger

Tuesday, October 4
Book Carnival
Orange, CA
7:30 PM
Also with William Kent Krueger

Thursday, October 13
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
7:00 PM
Also with Kevin Wolf

Blake Charlton, Spellbreaker

Saturday, October 1
Borderlands Books
San Francisco, CA
3:00 PM

Todd Fahnestock, The Wishing World

Saturday, October 29
Tattered Cover
Littleton, CO
6:00 PM

David Lubar, Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies

Saturday, October 22
Let’s Play Books
Emmaus, PA
4:00 PM

Bracken MacLeod Stranded

Tuesday, October 4
Barnes & Noble
Framingham, MA
7:00 PM

Friday, October 7
Jabberwocky Bookshop
Newburyport, MA
7:00 PM

Wednesday, October 12
Mysterious Bookshop
New York, NY
6:30 PM

Hank Phillippi Ryan, Say No More

Saturday, October 29
Turn the Page Bookstore
Boonsboro, MD
12:00 PM
Also with Nora Roberts

Nisi Shawl, Everfair

Sunday, October 2
Borderlands Books
San Francisco, CA
2:00 PM

Monday, October 3
Cellar Door Bookstore
Riverside, CA
6:00 PM
Also with Nalo Hopkinson

Kristen Simmons, Metaltown

Tuesday, October 4
Books and Company
Beavercreek, OH
7:00 PM

Simone Zelitch, Judenstaat

Tuesday, October 18
Penn Book Center
Philadelphia, PA
6:30 PM

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New Releases: 9/6/16

Here’s what went on sale today!

Chapel of Ease by Alex Bledsoe

Chapel of Ease by Alex BledsoeWhen Matt Johanssen, a young New York actor, auditions for “Chapel of Ease,” an off-Broadway musical, he is instantly charmed by Ray Parrish, the show’s writer and composer. They soon become friends; Matt learns that Ray’s people call themselves the Tufa and that the musical is based on the history of his isolated home town. But there is one question in the show’s script that Ray refuses to answer: what is buried in the ruins of the chapel of ease?

The Dark Talent by Brandon Sanderson

The Dark Talent by Brandon SandersonAlcatraz Smedry has successfully defeated the army of Evil Librarians and saved the kingdom of Mokia. Too bad he managed to break the Smedry Talents in the process. Even worse, his father is trying to enact a scheme that could ruin the world, and his friend, Bastille, is in a coma. To revive her, Alcatraz must infiltrate the Highbrary–known as The Library of Congress to Hushlanders–the seat of Evil Librarian power. Without his Talent to draw upon, can Alcatraz figure out a way to save Bastille and defeat the Evil Librarians once and for all?

The Dread Line by Bruce DeSilva

The Dread Line by Bruce DeSilvaSince he got fired in spectacular fashion from his newspaper job last year, former investigative reporter Liam Mulligan has been piecing together a new life–one that straddles both sides of the law. He’s getting some part-time work with his friend McCracken’s detective agency. He’s picking up beer money by freelancing for a local news website. And he’s looking after his semi-retired mobster-friend’s bookmaking business.

End Game by David Hagberg

End Game by David HagbergRetired CIA assassin Kirk McGarvey faces the most formidable adversary of his long and storied career in End Game by David Hagberg.

Langley is experiencing a series of gruesome murders. The CIA’s own headquarters should be the safest spot on the planet, but a highly professional, violently psychopathic assassin, who hideously disfigures his victims, strikes without mercy.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

Everfair by Nisi ShawlEverfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “owner,” King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Stripped Bare by Shannon Baker

Stripped Bare by Shannon BakerKate Fox is living the dream. She’s married to Grand County Sheriff Ted Conner, the heir to her beloved Nebraska Sandhills cattle ranch, where they live with Kate’s orphaned teenage niece, Carly. With the support of the well-connected Fox Clan, which includes Kate’s eight boisterous and interfering siblings, Ted’s reelection as Grand County Sheriff is virtually assured. That leaves Kate to the solitude and satisfaction of Frog Creek, her own slice of heaven.

NEW IN MANGA

Citrus Vol. 5 by Saburouta

Non Non Biyori Vol. 5 by Atto

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Representing My Equals

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Everfair by Nisi ShawlWritten by Nisi Shawl

The voices of Everfair are many. I wrote it from eleven characters’ viewpoints, so the novel showcases many different spiritualities. Fabian socialist Jackie Owen is an atheist and proud of it. USian “Negro” missionaries Martha Livia Hunter and Thomas Jefferson Wilson are of course Christians–at the book’s start. King Mwenda relies on his bond with his “spirit father” and thus on his practice of local indigenous traditions, while his more cosmopolitan favorite wife, Queen Josina, has adopted some of the ways of the Yoruba nation. When Josina shares her esoteric learning with European Lisette Toutournier, it transpires that Lisette’s relationship to spirituality is more distant than that of her tutor. Tink, aka Ho Lin-Huang, also relates less than fervently to his religious practice, choosing a path matter-of-fact acceptance of the propitiousness of certain moments, numbers, and so on. And for the rest of Everfair’s main characters, spirituality plays roles of even less significance.

How did I dare to hope I’d do justice to all this variety of focus and intensity with my writing?

I began with the knowledge that I couldn’t.

My exploration of ways of “Writing the Other” (both as an author and a teacher) has shown me that it’s best to accept the likelihood of failure from the get-go. And then to endeavor to win anyway.

I have friends who are atheists, and I’ve read atheist essays and treatises, so I used those influences to model Jackie’s atheism. I’ve participated in Yoruba-derived ceremonies for decades, and, again, I’ve read about Yoruban and other animistic religions. That experience, those books and articles, contributed to my depiction of Josina’s spirituality–and to my depiction of East Congo and Central African belief systems as well.

Because while I loathe the sort of lazy writing that equates, say, Angolan and Ethiopian cultures when those two countries lie approximately 2000 miles apart, I do think that congruencies (as opposed to exact equivalencies) exist between different African cultures. They undoubtedly exist between different non-African cultures; why should this one continent be exempt from that sort of interlinkedness? True, when formulating these congruencies you have to take additional factors into account such as climate, terrain, and neighbors. You have to avoid assumptions and question what your sources accept as obvious. But as difficult as doing such things may seem, you should persist in developing these congruencies–especially in cases where millions of people have died, silencing the majority of firsthand witnesses by rendering entire stretches of the countryside you want to describe into skeleton-filled graveyards. As occurred in the Congo under the watch of Leopold II of Belgium.

While writing Everfair, I drew connections between what I knew about, what I extrapolated from that knowledge, what had been recorded, and what was lost. I imagined. I dreamed. I prayed to the orisha. I received their answers. I listened to them.

Here’s one example of what resulted: a scene in the book’s first half in which a prisoner is being interrogated. His interrogators pay more attention to the divinatory scratchings of a hen eating grain than to his lying answers. I based the scene’s action on a chapter in a book by English anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard. But I changed it in several respects, since foreign anthropologists’ informants often deliberately misrepresent their own culture to outsiders–not to mention the fact that these outsiders often misunderstand informants’ statements due to their own prejudices.

Another story element, disabled orphan Fwendi’s “cat-riding,” owes its existence to my growing familiarity with the “Man-Eaters of Tsavo.” As I researched my novel’s setting, I learned that in the late 1890s a pair of unusually large lions hunted and consumed workers on the Kenya-Uganda railway. Local speculation about the Man-Eaters’ supernatural provenance noted their supposed ties with indigenous royal family members and the legendary ability of certain individuals to control and direct lions. I imagined that ability and those ties to be a bit more widespread, and adjusted the nature of Fwendi’s mounts to match her milieu.

When I found primary sources, I used them. Maps, photos, news stories, music, and more contributed to my understanding of the philosophies underpinning my characters’ diverse worlds.

Though decimated, the peoples of the area where I set Everfair weren’t totally wiped out. Descendants of the historical figures who inspired many of my characters exist to this day. They can–and probably will–critique my attempts at creating a vivid, moving, and above all, plausible fictional version of their ancestors’ lives. Expecting that, I’ve done my best to create this fictional version with real respect. I’ve been told that the gaze I turn on my characters is “level.” Your gaze is always level when turned on an equal. All these characters and the people they represent are my spiritual equals.

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Follow Nisi Shawl on Twitter and on her website.

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On the Road: Tor/Forge Author Events for September

tor-Everfair-2 forge-Stripped-Bare teen-Dark-Talent

Tor/Forge authors are on the road in September! See who is coming to a city near you this month.

Shannon Baker, Stripped Bare

Wednesday, September 7
Boulder Bookstore
Boulder, CO
7:30 PM
Also with Kevin Wolf

Thursday, September 8
Old Firehouse Books
Fort Collins, CO
6:00 PM

Tuesday, September 20
Bookworks
Albuquerque, NM
6:00 PM

Wednesday, September 21
Op. Cit. Books
Taos, NM
11:30 AM

Saturday, September 24
Barbed Wire Books
Longmont, CO
3:00 PM

Sunday, September 25
Hampden Hall
Englewood, CO
3:00 PM

Tuesday, September 27
Barnes & Noble
Cheyenne, WY
4:00 PM

Wednesday, September 28
Books-a-Million
Rapid City, SD
6:00 PM

Thursday, September 29
Tattered Cover
Littleton, CO
7:00 PM
Also with Kevin Wolf

Friday, September 30
Barnes & Noble
Pueblo, CO
4:00 PM

Robert Brockway, The Empty Ones

Saturday, September 3
Village Books
Bellingham, WA
7:00 PM

Blake Charlton, Spellbreaker

Wednesday, September 14
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
7:30 PM

Max Gladstone, Four Roads Cross

Sunday, September 4
Decatur Book Festival
Decatur, GA
5:00 PM

David Hagberg, End Game

Sunday, September 4
Decatur Book Festival
International Covert Ops Panel, with David Hagberg, Bret Witter, moderated by Alice Murray
Decatur, GA
5:00 PM

Thursday, September 8
Bookstore 1
Sarasota, FL
7:00 PM

Kij Johnson The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

Thursday, September 15
Kansas University, Jayhawk Ink Lounge
Lawrence, KS
5:30 PM

Sarah Porter, Vassa in the Night

Sunday, September 18
Brooklyn Book Festival
Magic and Mayhem in New York
Brooklyn, NY
4:00 PM

Sunday, September 25
Oblong Books
Also with Danielle Paige
Rhinebeck, NY
4:00 PM

Monday, September 26
Books of Wonder
Also with Kerri Maniscalco
New York, NY
6:00 PM

Thursday, September 29
One More Page Books
Fall for the Book YA Panel
Also featuring A. J. Hartley and Carrie Jones
Arlington, VA
7:00 PM

Cherie Priest, The Family Plot

Tuesday, September 20
Barnes & Noble
Chattanooga, TN
7:00 PM

Thursday, September 22
Star Line Books
Chattanooga, TN
6:00 PM

Brandon Sanderson, The Dark Talent

Tuesday, September 6
The King’s English Bookshop
Salt Lake City, UT
6:00 PM

Nisi Shawl, Everfair

Tuesday, September 6
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
7:00 PM

Friday, September 9
Malvern Books
Also with Christopher Brown
Austin, TX
7:00 PM

Saturday, September 10
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
2:00 PM

Monday, September 12
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
7:30 PM

Tuesday, September 13
Eso Won
Los Angeles, CA
7:00 PM

Monday, September 19
A Room of One’s Own
Madison, WI
7:00 PM

Wednesday, September 21
Nicola’s Books
Ann Arbor, MI
7:00 PM

Friday, September 23
Charis Books & More
Atlanta, GA
7:30 PM

Kristen Simmons, Metaltown

Tuesday, September 20
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
Crestview Hills, KY
7:00 PM

Thursday, September 22
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
Lexington, KY
7:00 PM

Friday, September 23
Anderson’s Bookshop
Also with Paula Stokes
Downers Grove, IL
7:00 PM

Paula Stokes, Vicarious

Thursday, September 22
Left Bank Books
St. Louis, MO
7:00 PM

Friday, September 23
Anderson’s Bookshop
Also with Kristen Simmons
Downers Grove, IL
7:00 PM

Fran Wilde, Cloundbound

Tuesday, September 27
Barnes & Noble
With Chuck Wendig
Philadelphia, PA
7:00 PM

Anne A. Wilson, Clear to Lift

Thursday, September 22
Coronado Public Library
Books provided by Bay Books
Coronado, CA
6:00 PM

Simone Zelitch, Judenstaat

Saturday, September 3
Decatur Book Festival
Decatur, GA
12:30 PM

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Sneak Peek: Everfair by Nisi Shawl

Amazon-1 Poster Placeholder of bn- 31 ibooks2 70 indiebound-1 powells-1

Everfair by Nisi ShawlEverfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britain join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “owner,” King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Nisi Shawl’s speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.

Everfair will be available on September 6th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

Burgundy, France, July 1889

Lisette Toutournier sighed. She breathed in again, out, in, the marvelous air smelling of crushed stems, green blood bruised and roused by her progress along this narrow forest path. Her progress, and that of her new mechanical friend. Commencing to walk again, she pushed it along through underbrush and creepers, woodbine and fern giving way before its wheels. Oh, how the insects buzzed about her exposed skin, her face and hands and wrists and ankles, waiting to bite. And the vexing heat bid fair to stifle her as she climbed the hillside slowly—but the scent—intoxicating! And soon, so soon, all this effort would be repaid.

There! The crest came in sight, the washed-out summer sky showing itself through the beech trees’ old silver trunks. Now her path connected with the road, stony, rutted, but still better suited for riding. She stood a moment admiring the view: the valley, the blurred rows of cultivation curving away smaller and smaller in the bluing distance, the sky pale overhead, the perfect foil for the dark-leaved woods behind her and by her sides. Not far off a redwing sang, cold water trickling uphill.

She had the way of it now: gripping the rubber molded around the machine’s metal handlebars, she leaned it toward her and swung one skirted leg over the drop frame. Upright again, she walked it a few more steps forward, aiming straight along the lane, the yellow-brown dust bright in the sun. The machine’s glossy paint shone. Within the wheel’s front rim its spokes were a revolving web of intricacy, shadows and light chasing one another. Tiny puffs of dust spurted from beneath the black rubber tires.

She raised her eyes. The vista opened wider, wider. The road laid itself down before her.

Up on the creaking leather seat. Legs drawn high, boots searching, scraping, finding their places . . . and pedal! Push! Feet turning circles like her machine’s wheels, with those wheels. It was, at first, work. She pedaled and steered, wobbling just once and catching herself. Then going faster, faster! Flying! Freedom!

Saplings, walls, and vines whipped by, flashes of greenbrowngreengrey as Lisette on her machine sped down the road, down the hill. Wind rushed into her face, whistled in her ears, filled her nose, her lungs, tore her hair loose of its pins to stream behind her. She was a wild thing, laughing, jouncing over dry watercourses, hanging on for dear, dear life. Lower, now, and some few trees arched above, alternately blocking the hot glare and exposing her to it coolwarmcoolwarm, currents of sun and shade splashing over her as she careened by. Coasting, at last, spilling all velocity till she and the machine came to rest beside the river.

The river. The comforting smell and sound of it rushing away. Out on the Yonne’s broad darkness a barge sailed, bound perhaps for Paris, the Seine, the sea beyond, carrying casks of wine and other valuables. Flushed from her ride, Lisette blushed yet more deeply, suddenly conscious of the curious stares of those around her: Ma de moi selle Carduner, the schoolmistress; and Monsieur Lutterayne, the chemist, out for a promenade during his dinner hour or on some errand, seizing a chance to vacate his stuffy shop. Flustered, she attempted to restrain her hair into a proper chignon, but at only sixteen and with many pins missing, this was beyond her skill. She began furiously to plait her thick blond curls, and the others moved away.

At last she was alone on the riverbank with her mechanical friend. She tied her plaits together, though she knew that momentarily they would slither apart. She stroked the machine’s stillgleaming handlebars, then leaned to fi t her forehead at their center, so. “Dear one,” whispered Lisette. “How can you ever know how much you mean to me? Who would not give all they could, everything they had, in exchange for such happiness as I have found with you?”

Sans words, the front tire’s black arc responded to her whispers with visions. It preached to her of motion, of travel, of the mysteries dwelling beyond this sleepy, provincial village.

“Ah, yes, and one day, my dear, one day . . .” She raised her head and gazed out again at the river, at the barge now nearly gone from view. “One day we shall venture out and see for ourselves what it is the world holds for us.”

Boma, Congo, December 1889

Horror.

The Reverend Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Wilson could think of no other word to sum up what he had experienced on this trip. Even now, alone in the quiet, white- walled room provided him by his host, he heard their cries, he saw their wasted bodies, their eyes bulging large in their thin faces, pulsing with defeat, hopeless as marine creatures stranded on a desolate beach. He smelled them, their sores running with blood and infected matter where chafed by their chains at neck and wrist and waist and ankle. Smelled the sweat of their fear, the fear that made them lift up and carry burdens half their malnourished weight till released by death. Smelled their abundant corpses rotting by the trail in the tropic heat.

This land was to have been Heaven.

Restless as ever, he abandoned his seat on the narrow cot to unshutter the room’s one window. A breeze brought some relief from the day’s fierce temperatures. Even up here, on the capital’s plateau, a Pennsylvanian such as himself found the Congo “ Free” State’s equatorial climate hard to withstand. But he should not complain.

Or not on his own behalf.

A tapping at the door. He opened it on a child of eleven, the house hold’s primary servant— a boy named Mola, he recalled. “ ’Soir,” the boy slurred in French. He entered, bearing with him

a tray, the meal his master offered in lieu of the repast shared by Boma’s white residents at the hotel near the river below.

The Reverend Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Wilson would not be welcome at that hotel, for he was not white.

The dishes on the tray held vegetables, the ever-present manioc, and stewed meat of some sort—probably from a fowl or goat. No doubt this was what Mola himself would sup upon, and Thomas made sure to tender the boy his thanks as effusively as his limited French allowed. When he was alone again he placed the tray beneath his cot, the food untouched. His journey upriver to Stanley Falls and then back here to the port of Boma had entirely wrecked his appetite.

The wine he also set aside, to aid him later in seeking sleep. He drank instead a gobletful of water from a crystal decanter, then set that on the sill to cool and turned again to his work.

To the horror.

At forty a veteran of three wars, Thomas had seen and survived much. Though no more than a child at the American Civil War’s onset, as soon as blacks were allowed to fight he had enlisted and seen action. That must be why his sojourn here in the Congo was affecting him so adversely, he told himself sternly. His reaction was not illness, not pain and anguish, but anger: righteous indignation that the evils of slavery, which he had staked his life to eradicate from the face of the Earth, had sprung up once again. Unprotested and, what was worse, unremarked, they had met him everywhere he journeyed in this supposed Utopia.

A pair of thin pillows lay over his traveling desk, incompletely concealing it. He retrieved it and drew forth the manuscript of his open letter to King Leopold, monarch of this realm and soi-disant benefactor of its benighted native population.

“Good and great friend,” the salutation read. “I have the honor to submit for your Majesty’s consideration some reflections respecting the Independent State of Congo, based upon a careful study and inspection of the country. . . .” So far, he had written five pages and not yet named a third of the atrocities he had been forced to witness. The whippings, the murders committed so casually as if a form of sport, innocents dismembered—Thomas’s gorge rose, but he settled nonetheless to his self- appointed task.

Keeping his intended audience in mind, he aimed for a tone of forthrightness that yet maintained discreet silence on the more repulsive details of what he had discovered. The open letter would

be published in his paper, The Commoner, and also as a standalone pamphlet; perhaps in boards as a small book, on the Continent. There he would find support for such an enterprise, translators. . .

The light dimmed rapidly, but not till he heard the clattering ratchet of the steam- driven trolley climbing Boma’s cliffs did Thomas cease his efforts. That noise, he knew, presaged the arrival of his host, the Anglo- Flemish trader Roger Morel. Thomas didn’t trust him, didn’t trust anyone who profited from Leopold’s reign. He packed away his open letter and went to meet the trolley at the platform mere yards from Morel’s villa.

Four cars comprised the steam train’s entire length. Their iron fuselages had been painted a brilliant yellow with gaudy red, blue, and green trim. This jaunty coloring and the fortuitous semblance of a face in the alignment of their doors and windows lent the cars a charming air much like the illustration in a children’s book. Thomas at first had succumbed to this charm and to the undeniable romance of such a small machine so beautifully built—until his peregrinations brought home to him the human cost involved.

Beneath the leafy serrations of a grove of palms the cars disgorged themselves of their riders, black- clad white men replacing their hats and stepping carefully down the platform’s wooden stairway. Morel bared his head again in salute to his visitor. Exchanging meaningless pleasantries, the two returned to Morel’s home.

Mola took his master’s hat and gloves at the door, handing him a glass half- filled with a greenish liquid. Thomas made as if to return to his room, considering his social obligations for the evening met, but Morel would have none of it. “No, no, my friend, I insist,” he said, indicating with his drink the sitting room’s best chair.

Ensconced perforce on its cushioned mahogany, Thomas accepted from Mola a second glass. He sipped the unknown beverage with his customary suspicion as the boy slipped from the room. It was faintly bitter and contained no alcohol he could detect.

“So.” His host had assumed a seat on the divan. He crossed his legs and clasped his hands over one knee. “You leave the day after the morrow?”

“Yes.” There were other colonies to explore, perhaps more truly paradisiacal, more suited to providing his colored brethren a new home. The ship would stop for Accra and Dakar, and he intended to travel from there to Tunis, Cairo—“That is my plan.”

“I advise you to change it.”

Thomas looked at Morel inquiringly. His eyes held a warning gleam that overrode Thomas’s mistrust of him. Thomas set the harmless glass down on the side table with a steady enough hand and spoke: “I fail to take your meaning, sir.”

“Ah. You have no confidence in me. That is well.” Morel nodded as if confirming a pet theory to himself, his chin doubling. “You are being watched. You must leave to night and go—elsewhere. A different route, more direct.”

A different route? “To where?” No use attempting any further to dissemble.

“To England.”

Not home. “Not to America?”

“In England you will be safe—enough. But this continent—there are large stakes, and the holders of those stakes are at every hand. During supper this evening I overheard enough, my English being supposed more imperfect than it is, to warrant giving you this warning.”

Morel stood. “As well, I have a— a commission of sorts—If you will allow me to retrieve certain papers I wish you to convey—” He left and returned with a sheaf of documents—bills of lading, figures in long columns, maps. Thomas read them in growing dismay. Here was proof, if such would be needed, of what he had witnessed. Proof and beyond proof . . . The scope of the problem far exceeded what he had seen with his own eyes. Not thousands but tens of thousands were doomed unless the abominations practiced so freely in the Congo Free State were to cease, and cease now.

Copyright © 2016 by Nisi Shawl

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