What do a sentient house, a fan fiction writing robot, a security unit, and a Pelican have in common? An enemy, that’s what. Delighted to share that my novelette Black Ice Burning has been published in the November issue of Clarkesworld and is now free to read online. This is only my second publication at Clarkesworld, and it feels just as special as the first. Not just because Clarkesworld is one of my favorite SFF magazines, but because a) it’s a novelette, my longest piece to be published that is not a novel and b) it’s my only original publication of the year, hahaha.

It was a great year for reprints and translations, but I am extra happy 2026 didn’t turn out to be the only year since I started publishing that I didn’t have anything original out. Black Ice Burning is a science fiction story set in the not-too-distant future, years after a devastating pandemic. A sentient house decides to put itself back on the rental market, against the wishes of its housekeeping and security robots, with, to say the least, unforseen consequences.

I had so much fun writing this story, these characters. Yes, there’s a lot of me in it. The love for books and writing, the salute to fan fiction, the obsession with space opera. There are quotes and literary allusions – can you spot them all?

And, of course, there is Pelican, the main character, debilitated by a chronic illness but chipper despite it. Yes, I gave her some of my symptoms, although sadly I don’t share her more interesting ones. As for the unobservability of the fifth stage of my fictional illness, I hope I am not hitting readers on the head with it, but it refers to the invisibility of chronic illness in general and Long Covid in particular.

As for her name, Pelican comes from a heart-wrenching line from Psalm 102 of the King James Bible. Not that I came to the quote from the Bible itself, but from the novel Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. It is a rather devastating book. I recommend, but only if you have the mental fortitude for it.

Go on and give Black Ice Burning a read. You don’t need mental fortitude for this story – just a desire to be entertained.