When a lowly jeweler in ancient Egypt finds an enormous yellow diamond lodged in the clavicle of a Nile river crocodile, he strikes for riches, selling it to the richest man in Memphis, a living god, the Pharaoh.
Then the Pharaoh demands more. So begins a terrifying descent into greed, madness, and murder, with diamonds for all, and diamonds in all, and the blood-red eye of Ra ascendant.
Bone Diamond is a collection of 9 weird and surreal stories, filled with sky-painting giants, gods of the mud, and a world where East can die. It features 5 stories previously published in pro-level magazines- Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Kaleidotrope, Ideomancer, Podcastle, Something Wicked.
Contents:
1) Bone Diamond
2) Caterpillar Man
3) The Tonsor's Son
4) The Mud Girl
5) Flatland
6) The Orphan Queen
7) Sky Painter
8) Leanna Drew The Moon
9) Death Of East
Praise:
- "The dark insanity in this story develops out of greed and terror and self-loathing, until all healthy logic in one person is destroyed. Human life becomes as expendable as filthy Nile water. A very satisfying ending." - Sherry Decker, Tangent Magazine.
- "... a beautiful bittersweet fairy tale, set in the modern day." - Sam Tomaino, SF Revu.
- "Wow. Horrifying and compelling and poignant. This one is going to stick with me." - Kim, Ideomancer.
About the author:
Michael John Grist is a 33-year old British writer and ruins photographer who lives in Tokyo, Japan. He writes strange, twisty fiction, in both fantasy and sci-fi genres. See more at www.michaeljohngrist.com.
Excerpt:
I discover the first bone diamond in a hunk of crocodile clavicle, lodged between the foramen and articular process. I had meant to simply facet the bone tip's lamellar weave, that it might, once polished, dove-tail into a brooch that some high lady in the court might wear to the arena flooding.
Rather, I find a diamond, at least thirty carats in size. It is the most extraordinary bright yellow, like amethyst but glowing hot within. Allory would have loved it.
I take it to my lathe and polish it on corundum, brute it with emery, and at last heat it over a sulfur jet as though it were a citrine. Its yellows melt, whirl, and blaze as though afire inside.
I sit atop my cankerous clay rooftop and hold it up beside the sphere of the moon. Of the two, my bone diamond shines the purest, the brightest, as though the sun risen at night over the slums of Memphis.
I do not know then that it will be the end of everything I know.
Michael John Grist is a British science-fiction & fantasy author, and ruins photographer who lives in Tokyo, Japan. http: //www.michaeljohngrist.com - His short stories have been published in Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Andromeda Spaceways, Ideomancer, Kaleidotrope, as well as in numerous other publications. He typically writes heroic science fiction and epic fantasy with a dark, surreal humor. He also explores and photographs the modern ruined buildings of Japan, known as haikyo (AKA urbex), driven by a childhood spent re-enacting the adventures of Indiana Jones and the Goonies in the fields behind his house. Now that he's grown up, this kind of 'exploring' may seem a bit of a silly thing to do (as one friend pointed out- 'they're just dirty old buildings'), but the appeal of photography, travel, and yes, still adventure, keep him coming back for more. Some of the 70 or so locations he's visited include abandoned theme parks, military installations, ruins of the sex industry, and ghost towns. - He has contributed haikyo articles and photography to books, web magazines, encyclopedias, print magazines, and is featured in the award-winning haikyo documentary movie Silent Visitors. Michael was born in Manchester, England, to an American mother and British father. He was raised in Bolton, where as a kid he wrote snippets of fantasy stories and explored the horse's field behind his house. Nothing much has changed since then, except the snippets became full stories and the horse's field got a whole lot bigger. In his childhood summers he visited his family in Kentucky, where he learnt how to make s'mores, enjoyed night-time hay-rides, and worked in his uncle's bike shop. In his late teens he worked at a summer camp for disadvantaged kids in Massachusetts, and after graduating high school in the UK he went (glutton for punishment, yes) to high school again, in Indiana, on an exchange program for two semesters. It was there that he first took creative writing classes, and started work on his first novel (which is now maturing on his hard drive like a fine wine). He also took a Greyhound trip around the country (six days and nights on a bus), which reinforced his thirst for exploration. Now he enjoys the odd game of squash and badminton, working out in the gym, going to ruins, and of course writing stories and novels. He lives in a central Tokyo apartment with his wife and their pet King Frog, and works as an English lecturer at university.
