A while back I had an idea for a story. It was going to be about pilots racing solar skimmers over the surface of the sun. That’s about all I had when I started, and I kept it loose on purpose because I wanted my collaborator to be able to provide a lot of input into the story. When I had the kernel of the story in mind, the first person I thought of to collaborate with was Steve Gaskell, a Clarion classmate of mine. I write about pretty much only fantasy when it comes to novels, but I do like to stretch my science-fictional muscles in short stories. Steve, however, is a great writer who writes mostly science fiction. His style reminds me a lot of Robert Charles Wilson and Robert J. Sawyer.

I was really glad when Steve agreed. We started brainstorming and writing without putting any restrictions on the characters, the setting, the length of the story. We just wrote, sending the text back and forth, each of us adding, editing, deleting as we saw fit. There were times when we disagreed, but those few times were vastly outweighed by the number of times we agreed. The story gelled nicely, I’d say, and I feel fortunate to have had this experience, because I think the story that came out of it turned out wonderfully. I’m very proud of it.

Here’s the description of the story:

Strata is a stand-alone novella written by two Writers of the Future Award winners: Bradley P. Beaulieu and Stephen Gaskell.

It’s the middle of the twenty-second century. Earth’s oil and gas reserves have been spent, but humankind’s thirst for energy remains unquenched. Vast solar mining platforms circle the upper atmosphere of the sun, drawing power lines up from the stellar interior and tight-beaming the energy back to Earth. For most of the platforms’ teeming masses, life is hard, cramped—and hot. Most dream of a return Earthside, but a two-way ticket wasn’t part of the benefits package, and a Sun-Earth trip doesn’t come cheap.

Kawe Ndechi is luckier than most. He’s a gifted rider—a skimmer pilot who races the surface of the sun’s convection zone—and he needs only two more wins before he lands a ticket home. The only trouble is, Kawe’s spent most of his life on the platforms. He’s seen the misery, and he’s not sure he’s the only one who deserves a chance at returning home.

That makes Smith Pouslon nervous. Smith once raced the tunnels of fire himself, but now he’s a handler, and his rider, Kawe, is proving anything but easy to handle. Kawe’s slipping deeper and deeper into the Movement, but Smith knows that’s a fool’s game. His own foray into the Movement cost him his racing career—and nearly his life—and he doesn’t want Kawe to throw everything away for a revolt that will never succeed.

One sun. Two men. The fate of a million souls.

You can sample the opening chapter of the story by downloading the files here:

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Or you can purchase the full story for your Kindle or Nook:

Thanks, everyone. We hope you enjoy the story.

This review actually came out early in the year, but I missed it, but the review is rather complimentary of my story, "Foretold," so I thought I'd post it:

Today, Beneath Ceaseless Skies released the second and final part of my Thousand and One Nights-style novelette, “From the Spices of Sanandira.” And don’t forget, Beneath Ceaseless Skies is holding a giveaway for two copies of The Winds of Khalakovo. All you need to do is comment on the story (details are at the end of the text).

You can find the story here (along with a link to Part I), but here’s a short excerpt:

I sprint up the rocky ridge from the Night Wind, dragging the Prince with one hand. My legs burn. I cannot catch my breath, but fear drives me on. One moment’s hesitation and the beast will be upon us.

The ehrekh attacked just before we reached the fort—perhaps anticipating that we sought shelter there. The ship now lies ruined against the sand, her left skis torn free, a gaping hole in her hull where the ehrekh tore through.

A thud falls upon the earth behind me. Breath exits lungs with a sickening wheeze. The ehrekh roars. A scream is cut short.

When I glance back, the look in the ehrekh’s jaundiced eyes as he stands over a bloody mass of limbs is one of satisfaction, of calm knowledge there is nothing we can do to prevent our deaths. It kills three more men, the rahib among them, before we reach the fort, and then it retreats, emitting a rumbling chuckle.

The fort is a broken and useless thing for any large force, but it is enough for our haggard band. We huddle in a room with no ceiling and three standing walls. I stare in shock at what the ehrekh has left us. The Queen, her son, and seven men, including me.

We have flint and steel, which we use to build a fast-burning fire from the brittle scrub brush that litters the fort’s interior. Five men stand guard with the only weapons we have left. Somewhere in the darkness, the ehrekh harroons something close to a laugh.

Part 1 of my novelette, "From the Spices of Sanandira," is now live at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Part 2 will be released later in the month, and also—drumroll, please!—BCS is holding a giveaway for two copies of The Winds of Khalakovo! Details for the giveaway are here. 

This is an interesting story from the perspective of my evolution as a writer. I wrote the first draft of this way back in 2005. It was after I'd been to the Writers of the Future workshop and award ceremony, and I'd decided I wanted to tackle a larger short story. It's been through quite a few revisions since then, but what I find interesting is that the seeds of Winds are in this story, at least some of them. Read it, and you'll quickly see what I mean.

I've also been mulling taking this world and expanding on it for a novel. One of my favorite book series as a teen was the Thieves World series. I loved Sanctuary, this massive city in the armpit of the Rankan Empire. It was so filled with everything I like in my novels: intrigue, magic, politics, thieves. Armies, gods, mages. I just ate that stuff up. I took much of what I remembered from Sanctuary and created Sanandira. It's not a copy. I don't remember it well enough to do that. But it's certainly an homage of sorts. It's a world I like, and one that I'd like to delve into more to see what comes of it. I'm not sure yet whether it'll blossom into a fully fledged novel, but I think it might…

In any case, enjoy. I'm very pleased to have the story out there, and I hope you like it too.

BoomTron recently reviewed Steampunk'd, which includes my story, "Foretold." It's nice to see a review talk a little bit about each story in the anthology. Too often they gloss over the individual stories, mentioning only a few. This one was very complimentary of "Foretold":

“Foretold” by Bradley F. Beaulieu was probably my favorite story in the anthology.  In the frozen north of Europe, mining crews use gigantic mechanical arachnids to mine meteorites.  They employ astronomers in order to predict where the meteorites will fall.  Since the materials are extremely valuable,  piracy is an issue, and secrecy about where the next fall is predicted is of the utmost importance.  Maks is one of the astronomers, and he has an apprentice whom he never seems to allow to work by himself.  Maks claims that it’s because his apprentice makes too many mistakes and is too unfocused, but his fellow crewmembers believe it’s more likely that Maks is simply frustrated because his apprentice seems to follow his own methods rather than the ones that Maks has taught him.  The crew is attacked for a recent haul by pirates, and the apprentice is kidnapped. Maks survives and realizes that his apprentice must be rescued because the boy has a far more important role to fill than simply being a mere astronomer.

Today's mood? Well pleased…

I just received some exciting news.

In conjunction with the release of The Winds of Khalakovo in Poland, my story "Flotsam" will be translated and published in Nowa Fantastyka, a Polish fantasy magazine.

I'm very pleased that this particular story was chosen. "Flotsam" was my first professional sale, and it won a Writers of the Future award back in 2004. It's one of my favorite stories. It was written while I was still with the Online Writing Workshop, and in fact, was written in response to one of the writing challenges that Jodi Meadows was running back in the day. The challenge was to write a story where one of the sense is taken away. I chose sight, and thus the main character is blind. It was an interesting challenge to remove one of the most heavily used sense from an entire story, and as I've found with other stories, when you're forced into a box in certain areas, you actually become more creative in others. Rather than restricting you, these limitations tend to push you in your craft. That was definitely the case with "Flotsam."

I'm really excited to have not only a novel, but a short story translated to Polish as well. It has a certain synchronicity to it. Also, this marks the first translation of one of my short stories.

Na zdrowie!

Gareth D. Jones over at the SF Crowsnest just reviewed Steampunk'd, a Steampunk anthology edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg. It contains my story, "Foretold," and Gareth had some nice things to say about it:

We head off to Russia, with Bradley P. Beaulieu in ‘Foretold’, aboard a steam-powered mining machine looking for meteorite strikes to collect. It’s a rugged life, well described with good characterisation, conflict and world-building and makes a refreshing contrast to the more usual settings.

There are a lot of cool stories in the anthology, including "The Nubian Queen," that Paul Genesse is getting a lot of attention for. He's even got the first half of it available as a podcast on his website.

If you're hankering for a bit of Steampunk, I would definitely consider giving it a read.

Wow. That was fast.

Errant Dreams has a review of Steampunk'd up already, and the reviewer had some very nice things to say about my story:

Bradley P. Beaulieu’s “Foretold” is a highly original and unusual take on the steampunk genre, involving auguries, meteorites, pirates, and Russians. 

Steampunk'd, an anthology from DAW Books, is being released today. It contained my story, "Foretold," which tells the tale of a Russian augurist and his apprentice. As they travel with their kapitan in their land walkers, it is not the threats from the pirates or the rival miners that worries them most, but the two very different futures that they see before them.

Friend and fellow author Paul Genesse has a story in Steampunk'd as well. He's recorded an introduction to his story, and it's a good introduction for what the stories in the anthology will be like. He recorded it with Annie O'Connell-Torgersen, who is an acclaimed voice over artist and a friend. She's married to Brad Torgersen, a sci-fi writer and a Writers of the Future winner.

Back Cover Copy:

Science fiction is the literature of what if, and steampunk takes the what if along a particular time stream. What if steam power was the prime force in the Victorian era? How would that era change, and how would it change the future?

From a Franco-British race for Kentucky coal to one woman’s determination to let no man come between her and her inventions . . . from an attempt to turn lead into gold which has far-reaching implications to a reporter’s cross-country airship journey to cover the story of a scientist out to tame the desert’s heat . . . from the hunt for a near-extinct creature to an attempt to rid Europe of the fey . . . from “machine whispers” to a Thomas Edison experiment gone awry, here are fourteen original tales of what might have been had steam powered the world in an earlier age.

Stories by:

Bradley P. Beaulieu * Michael A. Stackpole
William C. Dietz * Jody Lynn Nye
Donald J. Bingle * Dean Leggett
Stephen D. Sullivan * Matthew P. Mayo
C.A. Verstraete * Paul Genesse
Mary Louise Eklund* Marc Tassin
Skip & Penny Williams * Robert Vardeman

I'm very proud of this story. It's got a strong Thousand and One Nights flavor to it. I'd like to some day write a novel or a series of novels set in this world, or one very much like it. For now, though, we have Spices, which is a story about two men, a voiceless orphan they've raised, and their shared history of shame and pain that was born in the desert.

The story should appear early next year-ish, but I'll post more once I hear a more definite publication date.