More Lamora

More and Rumors of More: 3 October 2024

This week marks the release of Grimdark Magazine #40, celebrating the magazine’s tenth anniversary, and it features a short story by yours truly. The first-ever Gentlemen Bastards short story, in fact, presented in two parts (the first available now, the second in GDM #41, which I believe will come out in January)— it’s called “Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent.” It follows the misadventures of Locke, age thirteen and a half, across a miserable summer spent working as a bar-back in one of Camorr’s more colorful underworld taverns.

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There was a place in the alley where the odorous slops and shards of daily proceedings were to be set, which was Locke Lamora’s job, until the mess could be hauled up the crooked stairs and around the block to the public dross-yard, which was also Locke Lamora’s job. This was never done before the sun was long-buried and the Falselight glass bled of illumination, so every awkward step chanced a painful adventure. Here in the Dregs light was not so cheap that folk would gladly waste it on the eyeballs of passing strangers. One might catch a break from boat-lanterns on the canal, or from cloudless moonlight, but more often one tripped, on stone or trash or bodies. Muttering curses at his own feet in the middle of the night was also Locke Lamora’s job.

How refreshing, then, to find Cyril and Vilius out back wrestling with a corpse while the thin band of sky over the alley was still hazy blue rather than starry black.

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If you’re yearning for a return to Camorr, this is not a chance to be missed. Individual issues of GDM are $4, and if you’d like to see the good folks at GDM rewarded for soliciting this from me, then absolutely order it with all haste by clicking here— you’ll also get a pile of other stories from writers like Anna Smith Spark, Mark Lawrence, Cat Rambo, and Christopher Buehlman, plus loads of non-fiction, interviews, etc.

There’s further news of Bastards-related items, including novellas and my first set of signed bookplates (artwork to be revealed Friday, October 4th) at my website:

http://www.scottlynch.us/

I have recently sold my third short story of the year, though I’m not sure I can talk about it yet (but soon, soon for sure, as it’s slated to be published this year, as far as I know). If you’d like to know how I’m getting along with anti-anxiety medication, I would just point to the fact that before selling three stories this year so far, I previously sold six in thirteen years. Let that be (touch wood) an omen…

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May this note find you well! May you love anything in life as much as our cat Duncan loves getting extremely in the way when my wife and I do yoga in the living room: