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 award-winning author 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.
All of Christine’s works carry strong undercurrents of myth and magic, whether they unfold in Minoan Crete, Byzantine Anatolia or the dusty valleys of far-future Mars. Her stories are ballad-like in their ellipses and glimpses of half-forgotten and –ruined, yet ever-potent presences and artifacts. So it’s an unalloyed pleasure to show our readers the cover of Christine’s upcoming story collection Fates and Furies. The stunning mosaic that graces the collection’s cover, embedded in the deep sea-blue background created by Alan Caum, perfectly distills the collection’s essence in both appearance and backstory.
This unique mosaic, titled The Personification of the Sea, is in the Church of Apostles in Madaba, Jordan, a city in continuous existence since the Bronze Age. The Madaba mosaics date from the 5th to the 7th century, among the few to survive the successive iconoclast sweeps in that part of the world. I’m immensely grateful to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Mt. Nebo, and The American Center of Oriental Research (which promotes interdisciplinary research with emphasis on archaeology in the region) for graciously giving me permission to use this deeply resonant image as the visual representation of Christine’s collection.
As a reminder, here’s the TOC of Fates and Furies:
The Tree of Knowledge
— What Now, Callisthenes?
— Ouroboros
Paying the Boatman
— The Last Dues Owed
— Lady of the Crossroads
— On Marble Threshing Floors
Crone-Woven Tapestries
— A Thousand Waves from Home
— Leaping over Summer Bonfires
We expect to show Fates and Furies to the world in mid-December 2019, along with vibrant launches from other crewmembers of the Candlemark fleet. Keep this frequency open!
