An Epic in Verse - guest post from Mary Soon Lee

An Epic in Verse

Mary Soon Lee

Once upon a time, fantastical epics were written in poetry: the Epic of Gilgamesh (about four thousand years old), the Iliad (about three thousand years old), the Mahabharata (about two thousand years old), Beowulf (a mere thousand years old). Nowadays, however, we expect our epic fantasy in prose, often as a series of hefty volumes. But in 2013, I started writing a group of poems that grew into my own epic fantasy, The Sign of the Dragon, which tells the story of King Xau, chosen by a dragon to be king.

Why did I do this? It was almost an accident. I meant the opening poem to be a standalone piece. Except I was drawn to the boy in that poem. So I wrote another poem about him, and another, and another, until, three years later, I had over three hundred poems that together made up Xau's story.

I said that it was almost an accident, but writing the tale in individual poems suited me well. My youngest child was eight years old when I began. I wanted a writing project that would fit neatly into school days. Happily, I could usually complete a poem before it was time to pick up my children. Often I could get the laundry done as well. So writing my epic in verse was a major advantage for me. As for how it affected the tale itself…

Firstly, I should be clear that The Sign of the Dragon is not like the epics I mentioned earlier. It is mostly written in free verse, without rhyme or meter. And I think there's very little chance people will be studying it thousands of years from now!

Breaking the long story into poem-sized pieces gave me flexibility. I could switch from one character's perspective to another. I could zoom in on a particular battle, or a moment in that battle, or show that same moment from multiple perspectives. I could zoom out to an overview, or skip past months between one poem and the next. I could switch styles. (Yes, there are even some rhymed poems and haiku nestled in the book.)

Here, for instance, is a short poem about how news of an enemy invasion arrives, before the next poem switches to King Xau's thoughts as he rides off to war. This is the only time in the book that either Pigeon Six or the pigeon girl are mentioned.

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Pigeon Six

(first published in Uppagus)

Pigeon Six: no rank,
no name beyond her number,
but she the soldier sent
with news of the invasion.

Pigeon Six: no honors,
her message all that mattered
to any but the pigeon-girl
who cleaned her empty perch.

---

A conventional novel can also present dozens of different perspectives or switch styles, but I think it takes more skill on the writer's part, as well as more concentration on the reader's part. The break between poems in itself signals a change, such as a shift in mood or a jump in time.

Breaking the story into poems also made it easier to write the tale out of sequence, and so allowed me to gradually work out the story's shape. For example, soon after I began, I wrote several poems about a demon, then later I went back and inserted a whole war before the demon ever appears.

One poetic device that I deliberately used was the epithet, following in the footsteps of Homer's wine-dark sea and swift-footed Achilles. So King Xau is sometimes called Horse Boy, and his first enemy is "red-haired, red-handed in war." I'm fond of repetition, plus it lets readers track characters without having to memorize every name. Some of the epithets are straightforward—"captain of Xau's guards" or "the young king"—yet can still be helpful. In hindsight, I wish I'd used epithets more extensively.

I loved being able to switch point of view! Unsurprisingly, we see Xau's perspective. And we also see from the perspective of his enemies, his bodyguards, his sister, his wife, his chief advisor, soldiers, a stable boy, a minstrel, a cleaning woman, a dragon, a monster, a cat. That was a great delight to me.

I think the switches in point of view had one other effect. They let me write about a character who was, or so my family warned me, too perfect. Xau spends most of the story doing what he believes is the right thing, no matter the personal cost to himself. This is exactly, precisely how I wanted Xau to be. Yet staying inside Xau's head all the time would make the story rather one-note. Shifting to his enemies, or seeing him from the point-of-view of one of his companions, hopefully adds flavor. I say "hopefully" because sometimes there's a gap between intentions and the end result. Of all the things I've written, The Sign of the Dragon is the one that means the most to me. But that doesn't guarantee readers will love it.

An ebook edition of The Sign of the Dragon appeared early in the pandemic, but it was only in 2025 that the first print edition was published. It's a chunky book, nearly six hundred pages, and contains forty wonderful illustrations by Gary McCluskey, two of which are shown here.

I will close with two short extracts showing very different points of view. First, one of Xau's enemies, and then the royal cat.

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(From Vengeance, first published in Star*Line)

They think her nothing, think her beaten,
think the dungeon holds her in.

But hers the will which woke the dead,
hers the wrath, the wolves' wild tread.

They think that's her: defeated, lamed,
thrown to the floor, tethered, tamed;

think her trapped, her limbs bound tight,
think the blindfold stops her sight.

---

Permissible that the king pauses,
pushes away paper and brush,
bends down to stroke
behind her ears.

Later, she will inspect his desk.
Items may need to be rearranged.

---

Mary Soon Lee’s The Sign of the Dragon has a book page with blurb, reviews and more samples, and can be ordered from Amazon or other good bookstores.

Mary Soon Lee is also the author of three poems, “Alien Armada”, “Not for Sale, Used Asteroid, One Owner” and “What Heroines Read” in past issues of The Future Fire.

New issue: 2025.72

“As climate movements, we’re often almost bullied into this belief that as soon as we talk about anything but emissions we’re losing sight of our actual issues. But as climate activists we need to stand up for democracy, we need to stand up for the truth.”

—Luisa Neubauer

Issue 2025.72

Short stories

• ‘Minotaur’, Jaime Gill - art by Toeken
• ‘Featured Exhibit: Drop in a Bucket’, Ziggy Schutz
• ‘Safe in a Malachite Storm’, Devin Miller - art by Carmen Moran
• ‘All That Water’, Eris Young - art by Barbara Candiotti
• ‘Turnabout’, Ana Wesley - art by Joel Bisaillon

Novelettes

• ‘Cupernicity’, B. Morris Allen - art by Katharine A. Viola

Poetry

• ‘Unformed’, Veda Villiers - art by Melkorka
• ‘Raised’, Deborah Harford - art by Melkorka

Download e-book version: EPUB

Micro-interview with Jonathan Olfert

We’re joined for this week’s micro-interview by Jonathan Olfert, author of “Whiskey Mud” in The Future Fire #71.

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Art © 2024 Cécile Matthey

TFF: What does “Whiskey Mud” mean to you?

Jonathan Olfert: I guess at the level past 'no institution will ever love you (back)' and 'elephants are people too,' it's about how our level of intelligence waxes and wanes, and how frightening it can be to be less intelligent than you were yesterday, with worse judgment. Maybe that's not a universal experience but I think it's a pretty common fear that we don't really talk about.

TFF: This is the second futuristic elephant story you've put in TFF; would it ever be possible for us to start treating the other sapient species on our planet as equals?

JO: Equal in dignity maybe, at an individual level, but I'm enough of a cynic about institutions writ large to say no. I think the main common element of those two stories is that although Chalt and Sara travel farther than any of their species ever have, it's always on others' terms and mediated by others' opinions of their limits and possibilities and dignity.

TFF: If you had to invite the protagonist of your current work-in-progress to dinner, what would you cook for them?

JO: That would be the turncoat tithe collector Ander Carmora, wandering the red-grass prairies between the Churchlands and the Five Deserts, and he'd be ravenous for anything that's not roast jackal. I make a decent lentil curry off the Curries With Bumbi channel, so let's roll with that.

TFF: What is the most important thing to remember about writing?

JO: I mean, 'never pay a submission fee' is evergreen, but I'll go with 'cut yourself some slack, your best day's tomorrow.'

TFF: What are you working on next?

JO: I'm just wrapping up that story and I'm starting to feel the itch to write another one. Seeing a few Carmora stories come out over the next year will probably light a fire under me. And since most of those stories stem from my feelings about authoritarianism, I'm guessing I won't run short of inspiration anytime soon.

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Extract:

Hanging from thirty-seven cables in his nutrient tank, Chalt missed the churning skies of home. The billion metal shards in low orbit, just barely too small to see individually—even with thick lenses—made the starscape wriggle. The whole sky sloshed around from dusk to late morning. If you saw the moon in daylight, its dusty craterscape itched and twinkled as LEO debris skidded past.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Microinterview with Rachel Rodman

We welcome Rachel Rodman, author of the poem “Two Hybrids” in The Future Fire #71, for a brief chat in the microinterview series.

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Art © 2024 Fluffgar

TFF: What does “Two Hybrids” mean to you?

Rachel Rodman: I love hybridization.

The most exciting kind of creativity combines elements that are infrequently combined. I also love the stylistic challenge of merging objects and identities from different sources: Froggie’s sword + the runcible spoon; a winged creature + a half-amphibian who hunts dragonflies, pooling their talents to survive a long journey through the sky. (Many more examples can be found in my recent book, Mutants and Hybrids, which was published by Underland Press.)

“Two Hybrids” is also exciting to me because it feels like a breakthrough. It is one of several projects that began as a short story. For a very long time, I worked and reworked these pieces, getting nowhere. Eventually, however, it occurred to me to convert these failed stories to poems.

After that, things went quickly.

TFF: What are you working on now?

RR: More poetry. More short fiction.

I am also working on a long-form, “quantum fiction” project. In quantum fiction, events are both happening and not happening. When one outcome occurs, so does its opposite. (An early example of quantum fiction is a story called “Schrödinger's Fever,” which was published in Why Vandalism?) Quantum fiction is non-linear. It is internally contradictory. Within this genre, the usual stylistic divisions don’t make sense.

Poetry? Prose?

When my writing feels most authentic, these categories stop mattering.

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Extract:

When her parents die,
she converts
the pea-green boat
to
a pair of prosthetics—
wooden extensions of her own wings
(which are only half sized).

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Microinterview with Sebastian Timpe

Sebastian Timpe, artist of “Deep Sea Baby” and cover artist of The Future Fire #71, joins us for this week’s microinterview.

Art © Sebastian Timpe 2024

TFF: How did you go about illustrating “Deep Sea Baby”?

Sebastian Timpe: This was a very interesting piece to approach from a visual perspective, it had two stories going in it and one of them is a conversation with no visual elements attached. After reading it once I knew the first illustration had to be the white flowers in the lungs. It was such a striking visual. For the second illustration I decided to do a travel poster because the vacation aspect of the location seemed very important to the story.

TFF: How do you go about visualizing the truly alien?

ST: I use a lot of reference material in my work so visualizing something outside our world is very difficult. I prefer to play with strange versions of our reality, like the jellied mushrooms or the indigo sky.

TFF: Is there a difference for you between creating artwork to order, and composing purely from your own imagination?

ST: For me the deadline is the largest difference. Working on my own projects I'll often pick them up and put them down on a whim/when the inspiration strikes. Creating artwork to order means I have to actually finish it!

TFF: What or who would you most like to draw, paint, sculpt or photograph?

ST: I've just gotten into Dragon Age so I will probably be doing some fan art in the future.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Microinterview with Vanessa Fogg

We’re delighted to chat today with Vanessa Fogg, author of “That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck” in The Future Fire #71.

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Art © 2024 Ellis Bray

TFF: What does “That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck” mean to you?

Vanessa Fogg: To me, this story is about the masks/skins that we all wear. The ways we pretend to better fit in, to get along, for status and popularity and ease of living and maybe even (for some people) sheer survival. And it’s also about the psychic costs of living that way.

TFF: What are you working on next?

VF: I admit that I’ve been blocked for a few months now. But I’m trying to write a short (and maybe satirical?) horror piece now, and I’m excited about some earlier stories I wrote that should be coming out in 2025 or so—including a tale about a Faerie prince touring our modern world and going viral on social media, a story about the search for immortality (based on Chinese myths and legends), and what I think of as a little weird horror piece where a Eurydice-figure talks her lover into the Land of the Dead.

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Extract:

You are thirteen and in the shower when you find it. A hard, dangly little thing, like a tag, stuck to the back of your neck. It’s stuck just where your neck bones merge into your back, between your shoulders. Reflexively, you try to brush it away, swat it off, as you would to a bug. It stays stuck. Hot water sluices over you, and the thing is slick and hard to grasp, but you manage. The thing feels like metal. It’s small and rectangular, and there’s a little round opening at the top, where the tip of your finger fits.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Microinterview with L.E. Badillo

Today our old friend L.E. Badillo, artist of “In the Field” in The Future Fire #71, dropped by for the next installment in our microinterview series.

Art © 2024 L.E. Badillo

TFF: How did you go about illustrating “In the Field”?

L.E. Badillo: “In the Field” had some nuclear fallout vibes and I tried to portray a toxic atmosphere humans could not directly interact with. I tried representing this with a yellowish background and smokey textures.

TFF: What else are you working on now?

LEB: Besides my artwork, I'm exploring interactive fiction with programs like Inky and Twine. Hopefully, I can join a team and make a game or at least release some small games in the near future.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Micro-interview with Faith Allington

We’re joined today by Faith Allington, author of “Deep Sea Baby” in The Future Fire #71.

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Art © 2024 Sebastian Timpe

TFF: What does “Deep Sea Baby” mean to you?

Faith Allington: The title comes from Marika Hackman's haunting cover of the song “I Follow Rivers”; the longing in it really resonated. From a character perspective, my story is about familial love and grief, how these can change the landscape of ourselves until we are unrecognizable. From a plot perspective, it's about our planet's changing climate and a future where humanity is no longer the dominant species.

TFF: If we encountered an alien intelligence (from another world, or from an undiscovered part of our own), would we ever be able to communicate with them?

FA: I think humans can be excellent at communication, and once we got over the shock, we could find a way to communicate with them. Assuming they'd want to talk to us.

TFF: What are you working on next?

FA: I'm revising a feminist horror novel so I can query it, and in the meantime, working on a short horror story about a young woman who gets a summer internship at an unusual new cemetery.

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Extract:

The sea is glassy and lustrous with moonlight when Johanna arrives. The vacation town of Fairhaven’s only hotel crouches on the shore, bold lines blurring to ghostlike in the dark. The air is pure salt, corroding her skin and etching her lungs as she watches the indigo horizon.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Micro-interview with Cécile Matthey

Cécile Matthey, artist of “Whiskey Mud” in The Future Fire #71 and TFF’s in-house artist, joins us for a micro-interview.

Art © 2024 Cécile Matthey

TFF: How did you go about illustrating “Whiskey Mud”?

Cécile Matthey: Another story involving elephants ! Of course, I couldn't resist drawing them. I found a lovely photo of two elephants lying in the water, seemingly having a conversation. I used it as a model for one of the illustrations. The second illustration was more complicated… I wanted to show Chalt as a brain, in his pool of nutrient fluid. But I wanted it to look pretty… As I often do, I turned to the natural world. Given the shape of the elephant's brain, the idea of a sort of seashell came quite naturally. As for the cables, they were suggested to me by the water lilies, whose very long stems plunge deep into the water. The two fish are a wink: they are called ‘brain fish.’

TFF: Can you tell us about an artist whose work you're particularly enjoying at the moment?

CM: It's a writer: I fell in love with Pierre Pevel's book Les enchantements d'Ambremer. The story takes place in a refreshing Parisian steampunk universe, packed with classic references, reminiscent of Maurice Leblanc (Arsène Lupin), Jules Verne, and of the finest adventure films. There is a whole trilogy, called Le Paris des Merveilles. I have seen it has even been "translated" into comic books. I'm definitely going to read one!

TFF: What else are you working on now?

CM: I am working hard on my collages. I have the opportunity to exhibit them next year in a local bookshop. It's quite a challenge! (Some examples can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/caeciliana/53155901622/in/photostream/.)

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Micro-interview with Shelly Jones

We welcome Shelly Jones, author of “In the Field” in TFF #71, for a short chat about her story, aliens, writing and cosy mysteries!

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Art © 2024 L.E. Badillo

TFF: What does “In the Field” mean to you?

Shelly Jones: My day job is as a professor at a small college. I wrote “In the Field” thinking about how future AI/robotics might change my day to day life as an educator. I am forever fascinated by the persistence of life, of the ways we can continue despite the world crumbling around us. I am also interested in the ways we need to pivot and re-define what's been in front of us the whole time as a method of survival, of resistance.

TFF: Would you like to meet aliens from another world?

SJ: While I don't believe in little green men versions of aliens, I do believe there must be some kind of other life out there in the vast beyond. If they ever encountered earth, I hope they'd find humans to be kind and empathetic creatures.

TFF: What is the most important thing to remember about writing?

SJ: To be persistent and remember to just get words on the page. You can always go back and change those words, find shinier, prettier, more perfect words—but you can't if there are no words to begin with.

TFF: What are you working on next?

SJ: A bit of a shift in genre! I'm working on my cozy mystery series about a board game shop owner and her femme gaming group. If you like nerdy, game-related puns, look for the first in the series, which debuts in Fall 2025.

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Extract:

The professor pulls down a shoebox of cassette tapes from the bookcase. Her office is full of boxes like this on every shelf, stacks in the corner waist-high. Her life’s work: collecting the voices of people who no longer exist. I look at the delicate ribbons loose in their cartridges and consider that my ancestors were once made of such crude materials, reels of magnetic tape spooling their thoughts.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

Micro-interview with Devan Barlow

Devan Barlow, author of the poem “A Moon Witch Seeks a Shell” in The Future Fire #71, joins us for the first in this season’s micro-interviews.

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Art © 2024 Melkorka

TFF: What does “A Moon Witch Seeks a Shell” mean to you?

Devan Barlow: This poem is part of a series of lunarpunk pieces I’ve been writing about these moon witches. Each piece helps me sort out a little more about the setting and the characters, and in this instance gave me the chance to combine two of my favorite things—lunarpunk and sea creatures.

TFF: What is the most important thing to remember about writing?

DB: Keep reading—and reading things that aren’t the genre you’re working in.

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Extract:

On the opposite shore, I hope
another moon witch
convinces a mollusk our cause is just
Sometimes, the most difficult conversations are those
between witches upon the same moon

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.

My Augmentation: A Look at Star Trek: Discovery’s Airiam

Guest post by Jordan Hirsch

[CW: mental health issues]

Picture it: a Family-Feud-style board. Steve Harvey at the mic. A studio audience silent and waiting. The question: what comes to mind when thinking about Star Trek?

Survey says: space, utopia, starships, Vulcans.

Mental health? [X]

Disability representation? [X]

Bodily autonomy [X]

While these are good answers and cases could be made for each of them when looking at specific episodes, none of the above have historically been major themes in the long-running franchise.

But let’s rewind from the 23rd century back to 2018.

The past six years have been some of the hardest of my life. I won’t go into too much detail, but between religious trauma, broken relationships, and losing what I thought was my dream job on top of the ongoing pandemic, the necessary civil uprising here in Minnesota after George Floyd was murdered, and the general despair of our political climate, my mental health plummeted. This manifested in depression and anxiety disorder, which my nervous system translated to vertigo-like symptoms, digestion issues, some agoraphobia, and probably other things I’ll realize down the road weren’t normal for me.

I don’t share this laundry list of experiences for pity, but for context and solidarity with anyone who might be dealing with something similar.

It took more than two years to discover the above symptoms were due to my anxiety disorder, after finally seeking medication during a ten-day, unrelenting panic attack. I was prescribed an SSRI, and let me tell you, I wish I’d started it so much sooner. At the time, though, I experienced what I now know so many others have when starting medication for their mental well-being.

Was I a failure? Weak? Would I be taking these pills for the rest of my life?

Would I even be myself while on these meds?

Should I survey 100 people to see what they said, top 6 answers on the board? Thankfully, answers for me lay elsewhere.

Star Trek: Discovery, which just wrapped its fifth and final season a few months ago, reignited the franchise when it came on our screens in 2017. In many ways, it truly went where no Star Trek had gone before. From the first on-screen canon gay couple to re-designed Klingons to darker and grittier storylines, Discovery paved its own frontier.

Other Trek series have dipped their toes into themes of mental health before, in episodes such as “It’s Only a Paper Moon” of Deep Space Nine, “Extreme Risk” of Voyager, and season 3 of Enterprise. However, these arcs were contained, leaving little to no lasting effects that would come up for characters later in the series. Discovery, however, tackled these issues with multiple characters over multiple seasons, and one in particular has made a lasting impression on me as I’ve navigated my own health.

Airiam is a quiet and steady member on Discovery’s bridge. Unfortunately, for most of the first season and half, we don’t get to know much about her. She’s dutiful, she’s smart, she’s dependable. She has friends on the ship, and she’s even third in command. She also has a tragic backstory.

When returning from eloping, Airiam was in a tragic shuttle accident that damaged most of her body and killed her husband. To stay alive, she had to be cybernetically augmented, with most of her body needing to be artificial. Now, Airiam’s brain can’t store memories properly, and when her artificial storage reaches capacity, she has to choose which memories to delete and which ones to keep.

None of this stopped her, however. She still pursued her Starfleet career, she still spars and trains with shipmates, she still rocks at board game night.

Airiam lives on her own terms, and (spoilers) heroically, she dies on her own terms as well, sacrificing herself after becoming infected by a malicious AI.

We see a lot of on-screen deaths in Discovery, but we rarely see any post-death ceremonies. However, we do get to see Airiam’s funeral, and during that time, her crewmates share what she meant to them, speaking of her impact, her resilience, her loyalty, and her outlook on life.

However, it was what Airiam’s friend and Discovery’s pilot Keyla Detmer said that puts my own sentiments into words: “[Airiam] showed me that my augmentation didn’t make me an imitation of myself. It made both of us new, that there could be a future.” You see, Keyla had been injured in the Klingon War, losing an eye and having her own augmentation.

Her words cut right to my core as I questioned if starting medication would alter my identity.

The analogy isn’t perfect; they never are. But what is perfect is the way this character gave me permission to need my own augmentation, the way she assured me I’d still be me, even while on medication.

My SSRIs aren’t permanent like Airiam’s augmentations. I can change my dose, stop taking them, choose something else with my doctor’s advice and supervision. But even if they do need to be a tool in my toolbox for the rest of my life, that doesn’t mean that I’m less myself. That doesn’t mean I’ve failed or I’ve forsaken all or part of who I am. On the contrary, I’m more myself than I’ve been in a very long time.

Would I have made it here without Airiam?

The optimist in me likes to think so. But I owe the Star Trek: Discovery writers and creators and the two actresses that played Airiam (Sara Mitich and Hannah Cheesman) so much for making this journey easier for me. For helping me embrace what proper medication could do for my brain, my body, my life. For showing me that an augmented me is still entirely me. For giving me permission to, once again, live life on my own terms.

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Jordan Hirsch’s poetry chapbook, Both Worlds, is available from Bottlecap Press (https://bottlecap.press/products/both).

Jordan Hirsch writes speculative fiction and poetry while occupying the ancestral and current homelands of the Dakota people, Mni Sota Makoce. She is a recent graduate of Concordia University’s MFA in Creative Writing program and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. You can find more of Jordan’s work on her website (jordanrhirsch.wordpress.com).