Kate MacLeod

Writer of science fiction and fantasy

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Kate MacLeod

Publication Day for The Mars of Malcontents!

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My second novel The Mars of Malcontents is out today! It’s available in eBook and print at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords among other places. This isn’t a sequel to Mitwa; they take place in the same future but in different places with different characters. Here is the back of book description for you:

Valentina knows how to live in the community spread throughout the old mining caves under the Martian ice cap. A violent place in a forbidding climate, but home for her and her brother.

Until she wakes from a coma to find her brother gone. Her father thinks her incapable of following them back to the equatorial cities.

He underestimates her – her stubbornness, her courage and her inventiveness. But she underestimates the cold, airless surface of Mars.

A journey from the polar ice cap to the Martian equator? Not enough to stop Valentina. Not with her brother on the line.

I hope you check it out!

“Taren and Keui” now up on Persistent Visions!

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My short story “Taren and Keui” is now up on Persistent Visions. I love the artwork they chose to accompany it, the colors are perfect for the mood of the story I think.

I found it funny when I posted this on Twitter that it asked me if I wanted to translate the Haitian Creole. The title is actually mangled Mandarin and Cantonese respectively. In both languages the word for he and she (and it) are the same (spoken, there is a difference when written down). In Mandarin this is tā, which felt too short so I added ren which means “person”. Keui or keoi or köü depending on the romanization is the same in Cantonese.

I had this story in my head for more than a year but couldn’t figure out a way to approach it that didn’t feel way preachy. Once I came up with using the pronouns as their names everything clicked and the entire story came out of me in one long afternoon. It was one of my more satisfying writing experiences and I’m glad it found such a wonderful publication home (after oh so many rejections). I hope you enjoy it!

The Intergenerational Tree available for preorder

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My novella The Intergenerational Tree is coming out on February 28 in digital and print. You can preorder the ebook at Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo and will be up on Nook and other sites as well as in print on 2/28. At about 60 pages it’s the perfect length for an afternoon’s read. Here’s a synopsis:

Humankind has reached the end of its adolescence. The time has come to leave our solar system nest and see what the rest of the galaxy has to offer.

Marie Marguerite has also reached the end of her adolescence, and she is ready for the great adventure of life on a generation ship heading to a neighboring star.

But a well-meaning relative she has never met destroys her plans, leaving her alone on a dying space station as all her friends take off without her. What can she do, left behind in humankind’s past?

The Intergenerational Tree is a science fiction novella with a generous side of gothic romance, all wrapped around a young heroine who must rely on her own brains and a dash of snark to put her life back on track.

Marie Marguerite has prepared all her life to travel on a generation ship. What will she do when the ship and all her friends leave without her?

A Very Formal Sort of Dog

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Last summer one of the open lots on our deadend dirt road was finally sold and during the fall we watched this little patch of land become dominated with really quite a hideous McMansion. Well, some people are into that I guess. They also wisely erected a pole barn between their house and the house next door that looks like a lot of places I remember from my childhood in Tennessee, rusted out cars and miscellaneous garbage everywhere with the yard gone to weed. (To be fair, their front yard is an open field they keep mowed, so only these new people have to see their hording).

They moved in at the beginning of December and being we only get a few hours of daylight this time of year, neither my husband nor I have met them as yet, although the neighbor between the two of us has told us all about them.

I have, however, met their dog.

When you were little, did you ever meet a kid at the playground who was way too dressed up, who wanted to play but really couldn’t do anything because his mother told him not to get dirty? I’ve met a handful of versions of this kid, and looking back they were probably there vising relatives for a funeral or something, but it always made an impression on me, the strangely formal kid with the neatly combed hair, wearing clothes just short of being a suit, standing and watching the other kids and not getting dirty.

This dog is like that kid.

He first came over when they were moving in, a cold bunch of days. I was out with my own dogs before dawn, not yet wearing my glasses, and this dog is big, but black all over so he gave the three of us quite a start. Tachi, my 40-pound pit bull mix, promptly hid behind my legs. (She is still quite visible standing behind me; she’s not fooling anyone). Mugen was more willing to meet the new guy, but the other dog just stood there, perfectly straight, a bright blue collar around his neck and the hair on his head looking like a carefully coifed pompadour. He acted like his mother had told him not to get dirty.

He looked like the sort of dog who would have a human name like Steve or Theodore (definitely not Teddy).

We met him a few mornings after that, always very early and never with his humans about. Mugen only got upset the day we went outside and this dog was waiting for us on our back porch. He’s not territorial about our yard, apparently, but the porch is not for just anyone to use. I had to shove Mugen back in the house until I had shooed Steve away.

Since then the neighbors got their invisible fence installed and I haven’t seen Steve again. At least until last Saturday. He must have chased a squirrel out of his enclosure and couldn’t get back in because he was wandering around and around our yard in the middle of the day. My husband was out shopping and I was on the treadmill and saw a flash of black in the corner of my eye. I was startled – how had Tachi gotten outside? – then both my dogs started barking and I knew it was Steve. Steve ran around to the backyard as my husband pulled in, then ran back to the front yard when I tried pointing him out to my husband.

Now I had described this dog to him thoroughly, formal pose, neatly arranged hair, bright blue collar like a bowtie, probably named Steve. But his owners must have called him home because he had quite disappeared.

So now my husband things I’m imaging him. And yeah, I’m probably projecting on him. I do that with people too, fictionalize everything about them based on first impressions and then get confused later when I actually meet them because the fictional version seemed so real. It’s a thing.

But man, you should see Steve. He’s quite a dog.

Movie flashbacks

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The other day Facebook did that thing where it shows me a post I made years ago, this one describing how Mystic River was the most upsetting thing ever and left me a snotty sobbing mess at the end. I’m sure it would still have that effect, I’m not going to test that theory, but it’s no longer the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen. No, that honor goes to Amores Perros by Alejandro González Iñárritu (director of Birdman and The Revenant more recently). And just this week I’ve had reason to flashback to that one way too much.

(Spoilers ahead. It is a fantastically well done movie I highly recommend seeing for yourself, the first thing I ever saw Gael García Bernal in and I love him in everything. Bookmark this post, go watch the movie, then come back. And now that you’re a weeping snotty mess too…)

OK, there are multiple plot lines in Amores Perros. The owner listening helplessly as their dog trapped and lost under the floorboards is attacked by rats is quite upsetting enough, but that’s not the scene that haunts me. No, the really upsetting story line is about the older man, a squatter in an abandoned building living with a dozen or so strays like a big canine family, all piling on the bed together to sleep. He takes in a dog that used to be a pet but has recently been used in dog fights. He was so successful in the pit that the guys losing their money and dogs have shot him and as he’s bleeding in the backseat of the car his owner crashes. The people are pulled free but the dog is ignored by all but the old man, who brings him home to his dog family, patches him up and cares for him. Then he goes out and while he’s out the dog does what his previous owner had trained him to do: kill all the other dogs. The man comes home to see all of his dogs dead or dying, the lone dog looking up at him with an “aren’t I a good dog?” look on his face.

Yeah, brutal.

But why I was remembering it just this week in particular is another story. One of our cats recently died, and we decided rather than get another cat we’d get another dog. We haunted the American Humane Society website and watched for likely dogs, looking for something female and less than a year old. The dog we settled on was 9 months old but over 40 pounds already. I was worried she was too big, but she was such a lover. My husband had seen her already but when I came to meet her and the two of us approached her kennel she rushed forward like she knew him already. She came when called, sat on command, and was so cuddly, a total sweetheart. She had been a stray who had had a run-in with a porcupine she was still healing up from, because an interesting back story is important.

We brought her home and introduced her to Mugen in the neighbor’s yard, neutral ground. They sniffed each other and Mugen was a little freaked out because she was so big but she didn’t seem bothered at all. Then we brought them in the house and things were still cool. I gave them both a treat and they regarded each other as they chewed. Mugen went to hide the rest of his for later, then came back to see the new dog. I guess he got too close, she didn’t growl or anything she just lunged at him and put her mouth on his throat in that killing bite I knew so well from that movie. She backed off when I told her to and never broke the skin, but man. Those flashbacks. In an instant she was a whole different dog to me.

We tried to smooth things over the next few days but clearly this sweetheart of a dog had a whole Jekyll/Hyde thing going on and had no patience for my active (frankly, a bit of a spaz) rat terrier. We tried separating them in different parts of the house with a baby gate, but she was a brute and could knock that gate right down.

So we had to take her back. Hopefully someone else takes her in. In a lot of ways she was a dream compared to my little spaz, so mellow when he wasn’t around, cuddling, tail wagging the entire time she ate, standing patiently at the door waiting for the leash and walking calmly beside you. I almost think she was too mellow for me, but she will make someone else a perfect dog, provided they don’t already have a spazzy little dog. (We never introduced her to our cat Spike at all.)

We have 90 days to pick out another puppy. I’ll definitely be going for something smaller than Mugen this time, at least one that is currently smaller so I’m not stuck with breaking up a fight by coming down on the underdog since he’s the one who knows my commands (he got sprayed with so much water trying to keep him from upsetting the big dog). And this next one will have a much slower introduction. The whole thing was very upsetting, feeling like we let that sweetheart of a dog down because we’d all fallen in love with her (not the least my eldest who was surprised to find not all dogs hate him like ours kind of does).

I spoiled big plot points for Amores Perros, but I didn’t tell you how it all ends. It’s one of my favorite movie endings ever, one that is uplifting but not overly optimistic. It’s perfect by not promising more than feels possible for that man and that dog. (And I didn’t tell you everything about that man, not by a long shot). If you like viscerally intense movies, check it out.