New fiction! "Eruption"

Anathema Magazine #2 is now up, which means my latest short story, "Eruption" is now up and available for reading online! 

I wrote "Eruption" in Week 3 of Clarion, under Andy Duncan. For some reason all the stories that day were somewhat of a similar theme: mine is essentially a misandrist utopia (I call it my #killallmen story); another classmate wrote a misandrist dystopia (in which boys are locked in a giant enclosure for a certain time); and a third wrote a somewhat misogynist attempt to establish a utopia free of women (but in ways that also harmed young men). It was a day. 

This story combines two ideas I had floating about: the story of a woman slowly succumbing to mental degradation, which surfaces a lot of terrible memories about the founding of her city, and a story of an underground slave people rising up to destroy their oppressors. It is inspired partly by this 1906 illustration by William Balfour Ker and a dream I had:

with added "the floor is..." meme
I've never read the novel that the illustration is supposed to be for, but I might sometime in the future. 

#killallmen as a hashtag often gets criticized or derided by men as being misandrist, boohoo feminists are showing their true violent colours. MRAs often ignore the reason why it's a joke. I wanted to think through what it would mean to actually carry out a genocide of an entire gender known for its violence and oppressive history, what it would take, what kind of consequences there would be. The establishment of a utopia is never an uncomplicated thing.

I hope you enjoy "Eruption"! 

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