I’m excited to link to Tor.com, which has reprinted my Nebula-nominated novelette “Fields of Gold!”
http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/03/fields-of-gold
Woo!
The beginning of the story as possible teaser:
When Dennis died, he found himself in another place. Dead people came at him with party hats and presents. Noise makers bleated. Confetti fell. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
His family was there. Celebrities were there. People Dennis had never seen before in his life were there. Dennis danced under a disco ball with Cleopatra and great-grandma Flora and some dark-haired chick and cousin Joe and Alexander the Great. When he went to the buffet table for a tiny cocktail wiener in pink sauce, Dennis saw Napoleon trying to grope his Aunt Phyllis. She smacked him in the tri-corner hat with her clutch bag.
Congratulations from one who has aspirations of his own. Also, allow me the opportunity to thank you for hosting the illuminating discussion of Heinlein. Yes I know it was two years back but I only just came across it while doing some research on the old coot. Particularly stimulating were the exchanges over Farnham’s Freehold. I read it as a kid shortly after its publication and the only thing that keeps it from being the worst book he every wrote is all the bilious, self indulgent nonsense that followed The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. It’s ironic, considering that what attracted me to him in the first place was his ability to envision a future in which racism was relegated to a relic of the barbarous past. Of course I was born in the deep south in 1956, so any expression of anti-racism, however flawed, was spiritual sustenance.