Candlemark & Gleam is known for finding exciting new voices and empowering neglected ones. An equally integral part of our vision is to give starships to astrogators who come from worlds other than the Anglophone West. One of these talents is Christine Lucas, who ambled over to Athena’s Astrogator’s Logs blog a decade or so ago, resulting in a steady friendship and literary collaboration ever since. So it’s an immense pleasure to be able to tell lovers of mythic fiction that Christine has chosen us as the harbor for the digital publication of her story collection Fates and Furies.

When her feline overlords permit it, Christine weaves tales of historical fiction in all its subgenres. Born and raised in Hellás (aka Greece), now a retired Air Force officer, she has had her work appear in several online and print magazines, including Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and Pseudopod. Her short stories have also appeared in highly acclaimed anthologies: “Dominion” in Tails of Wonder and Imagination (Ellen Datlow editor, Night Shade Books) and “Ouroboros” in The Other Half of the Sky (Athena Andreadis editor, Candlemark & Gleam). Her Northern-dialect story “A Thousand Waves from Home” won the first-place award in the Athens FantastiCon 2017 and she was a finalist for the 2017 WSFA Small Press Award.

All of Christine’s works carry strong undercurrents of myth and magic, whether they unfold in Minoan Crete or the dusty valleys of Mars. One staple of her fiction is women’s invisible work and its Atlas-like function of holding up the world. Another, a major chord in Hellenic folklore and history, is how to face Death the Hunter. Christine’s stories are ballad-like in their ellipses and strobe-like glimpses of half-forgotten and –ruined, yet ever-potent presences and artifacts. Here is the list of stories that will appear in Fates and Furies, though the definitive list may change slightly:

Act 1: Paying the Boatman
— Dues Owed
— On Marble Threshing Floors
Act 2: The Tree of Knowledge
— What Now, Callisthenes?
— Ouroboros
Act 3: Crone-Woven Tapestries
— Lady of the Crossroads
— A Thousand Waves from Home

We expect to show Fates and Furies to the world within 2019, along with vibrant launches from other crewmembers of the Candlemark fleet. Keep this frequency open!

Image: Karyátidhes, Akrópolis