Ugh…so, it’s been that time again. A short story has been out for a while, it’s endured through to the query period, and after querying it’s turned out that my rejection was simply eaten by the internet. Sigh. It’s disappointing, but in two cases out of three when I’ve actually had to query, this has been the result — not held for consideration, but internet-ate-the-reply. So in the future, doubtless that’ll be what I expect.
(On the up-side, I wasn’t entirely happy with the ending, so I get to edit it and improve it now — and it was rejected because of a similar previous story, not because of anything inherently wrong in my one. So there’s that to take away — but it’s still disappointing.)
Oh well. Allow me to end with a bit of Iron Maiden, on a song with more than a touch of literary inspiration. As strange as it may seem (especially if you’re unfamiliar with their work), you’d be hard pressed to find any band whose body of work is more steeped in literature, history, genre fiction, myths, and legends.