Overview
Chloe N Clark's Patterns of Orbit spans genres, perspectives, and styles to articulate contemporary uncertainties in a rapidly changing world. Steadily gazing into and across the uncanny valley, Clark examines those jarring or subtle shifts in familiar stories, writing light into dark, and offering slivers of hope despite the longest of odds. Successfully navigating a potent concoction of science fiction, folktale, and horror this collection of literary, character driven stories combines the accumulated forces and darker natures of those genre elements, unleashing the terrors of alien fungi, forest demons, and interplanetary specters upon her characters. However, while these characters, capable and intelligent, face off against their prescribed monsters, it is their existential misgivings on the state of their worlds or conditions that will leave an indelible mark on the reader. An impressive entry in the literary/genre hybrid canon, this collection offers a satisfying read to the connoisseurs of both genre and literary fiction. So, be bold. Take a swim through the anti-gravity. You are sure to be captured by Patterns of Orbit.
Related collections and offers
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781936097470 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Baobab Press |
| Publication date: | 04/04/2023 |
| Pages: | 166 |
| Sales rank: | 115,934 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Long in the Tooth
The lesson is obvious.
There will always be wolves in the woods. The woods will always be deep and dark. Anyone who strays from the path will always be punished. No matter that the forest floor was flooded with moss, so deep and green, so soft beneath the feet. No matter that there were flowers that only grew in the shade, such delicate buds. No matter how easy it was to follow the song of a bird without realizing. No matter that paths are not always easy to keep oneself upon.
The lesson is as old as time.
If you meet a wolf, he will always try to trick you. His teeth can only be sharp. His growl is one that is meant to get caught in the throat. It sounds like thunder if you listen closely. And you count, and you count before you remember that thunder follows lightning and not the other way around. You are waiting for disaster and its already come. What are you counting until?
The lesson is simple.
You taught the ones you love to keep themselves safe without telling them that’s what you were doing. You’d glance from side to side when crossing a street, hurry your feet when going past shadows, tell no one your whole name at first. Such simple things to learn: our calculations of what we must do to survive. No one told you how all those additions, things to remember, could also feel like subtractions. How the wolf might still be waiting—a multiplication of time and distance and fear. How the division at the center of the lesson was always going to equal yourself.
The lesson is universal.
The wolf is always a wolf. The wolf sharpens his claws every day with every step. Sometimes the wolf is a tiger. Sometimes the tiger is a hyena. Sometimes the hyena is a monster, creeping out of a cave. A castle. The lake behind the house. The wolf is everything and nothing. The claws are so sharp. The teeth are so quick. Sometimes even you are the wolf. You don’t realize it until you are old. You see it in the mirror, the way you shift and pace, like an animal caged. How much the running you have wanted is screaming under your skin, in your bones. Your claws are no longer sharp. You’ve spent so much time in the shadows cast by staying in the light.
The lesson is empty.
You walk in the woods, slip free from the path. The smell of the earth greets you after the rain. It is so deep and so dark and so easy to fall inside of. Was there ever a path to begin with? You can’t find it now. It’s all just moss beds and twisting roots and the flitter of bird wings and the rush of feet scurry scurrying. You could stop for a rest. You could wait for a traveler. You can taste it almost. All that you leave behind. There will always be wolves in the woods. You know this. You’ve found them after all.
Table of Contents
ContentsThere is the World Within this Window 1
A Sense of Taste 5
Even the Night Sky Can Learn to be a Fist 13
The Waves Hear Every Promise You Make 15
The Day Lasts Longer the Further Away You Are 25
A Place You Know 27
This Skin You Call Your Own 31
Swingman 35
Buoyancy 39
Who Walks Beside You 41
Out in the Dark 51
Simultaneity 63
Wearing the Body 65
Long in the Tooth 79
Even the Veins of Leaves 81
Run the Line 93
Accidental Girls 97
Underwater Even Bells Sound Like Bodies 111
Static 113
Red as the Night Sky Burning 135
Supernova 137
Jumpers 139
Shapeless 149
The Ocean is Not Empty 157
We Are Still 165
So Far The Distance 167