Tales from the Ninth World

Tales from the Ninth World is now available! The collection features three new stories set in the Ninth World, as well as a sample from the Numenera corebook (which just went off to the printer two days ago).

Here’s what you’ll get:

• The Smell of Lightning (by Monte Cook) explores one of the weird and wonderful places of the Ninth World. 
• The Taste of Memory (by me) is a tale of addiction, love and loss, set in Kaparin, a city by the sea.
• The Sound of a Beast (Monte and I wrote this together) is perhaps my favorite of the three, and is so full of weirdness that I wouldn’t know where to begin explaining it. As Ray Vallese says, it will show you why you should “always carry an umbrella while traveling in the far-flung future.”
• A sample of the final Numenera corebook (Note: you’ll get three formats upon purchase; in order to preserve the beautiful formatting of the corebook, it’s only in the PDF version, so be sure to check it out).

To give you a glimpse, here are the openings of each story!

(The Smell of Lightning):

Faber awoke to the sounds of the castle growing again. He lay in his bed, listening to the creaking and moaning of metal and glass and materials he didn’t have a name for. The air grew colder, and he detected that strange odor again—like the smell of lightning, if there was such a thing. Pulling the blankets closer around himself, he closed his eyes tightly and tried to force himself back to sleep.

At breakfast the next morning, Faber sat at the grand table of polished culat, which glistened like gold. Moretta always kept it looking like the day it had arrived from the craftsmen in Westwood. His mother, Ladra, and his father, Naranial, had already finished their meal. His father glared at him from over the stack of books in front of him, but only for a moment. The scowl, the shaggy sideburns, and the wide, bald pate made his father look almost like an abhuman. An abhuman with a jeweled eyepatch. His father turned his attention back to the book he’d been reading. Still, a moment of his father’s one good eye studying him and finding nothing of approval was enough to make the young man’s heart sink.

(The Color of Memory):

Marseyl waited in an old byway, desperately trying to keep the stink of sea sweat and dying fish from assaulting her nose. It was hotter here than it should be this time of year, the sun’s slant making her sweat through her last wearable shirt. She side-stepped into the shade of the building, letting the temporary cool wash over her until she shivered.

A man dressed in the faded crimson of the Redfleets strode by her without giving any indication that he’d seen her, carrying a dripping sack that reeked of the deeps. Water splattered against the stones near her feet. Sighing, she shadowslipped sideways, but too late, the liquid marking the toes of her worn boots.

(The Sound of a Beast):

Since this morning, when I woke up with a damn caffa grub hanging off my neck, I’d been daydreaming about killing Palmer in his sleep. The only thing stopping me was I couldn’t figure out the best way to do it. Sometimes I favored the quick blade across his snoring throat. Other moments, I imagined drugging him and rolling him into the fire. Once in a while, I thought I might just throw him to the next creature that attacked us in the dark. Mostly, though, I dreamed of transforming in the shadow of night and dragging him off to the wilds with my claws in the tender bits of his belly.

~

Hope you enjoy your visit to the Ninth World. Bring an umbrella and your knowledge of the weird, and you should be just fine.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

~