City of Roses
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thecityofroses.com
City of Roses
@thecityofroses.com
680 followers 1 following 1.5K posts
The ten thousand things; the one true only.

An urban fantasy epic set in Portland—46 novelettes (so far): paperbacks, ebooks, zines, and on the web.
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City of Roses @thecityofroses.com · Nov 24
46 novelettes, 695,000 words (so far)—the acclaimed urban fantasy epic, now in its third season. Paper 'zines and paperback and ebook collections available for purchase.
thecityofroses.com
Day 17, a Saturday snippet. Let's go with something from the 28th novelette, " – Hands of an Angry – ", which will be appearing on the website over the next two weeks. Those of you who've read your Delany and your Russ might well recognize the game that's being played, here...

#FantasyIndiesJanuary
“A cool head,” he says, and then from his knobbled fingers that tiny scarlet figure trembling drops, straight to the tiny frozen waves of the sea below, clack and tumble. “Though a steady hand,” he says, “is also of some use,” and he reaches down to pluck it up again. Frowning over the board spread out upon the low table, the ocean before him, the mountains rising a rumple of snowy grey on the other side, the forest, the desert, the river between, and all stitched together by a dusty road. “Clothilde,” he says. Two cities, each made up of cunningly joined hexagonal tiles of tiny palaces, temples, arcades, favelas, the one there scarlet, where the river flows down from the mountains, the other a soapy viridian, spread along the margins of the bay. “Read me again, his last move?” “The Poet, Grandfather,” says the woman curled in the brown leather armchair opposite, peering at the sheet of onionskin in her hand, “to one eight nine point nine, thirty-seven aught, north by east.” Her feet tucked under her thighs, and a lacey shawl about her shoulders. “Blasted Rufer notation,” he says, reaching along the thick wooden frame of the board, carved with obscure characters, a sentence, or an equation, twining through a repeated pattern of egg-and-dart. He flips a switch with a hefty thunk, and tiny white lights blink on, a grid spread across the board, shining in the blue, the yellow, the green, the grey and the brown, though here and there a point is dimly amber or entirely dark, and one of them there by the red city’s winking, on and off. “Umf,” he says, his hand, that little scarlet figure, hovering over a yellowing ridge, dithering between two pinpricks of light, “there,” he says, setting it down amid other figures red and green and Ah, me, sighs a scratchy voice from the speakers set in the board’s frame, the only Emperor doesn’t glitter. “What were his rolls, again?” Wrapped about in a dark blue dressing gown, and his curls are stiffly grey, swept back from his forehead. Five dice are laid on the table by the board, three of them glossily black with white pips, one glassily clear, the pips but chiseled notches, and the last is larger, an angular icosahedron, bright red, its triangular faces printed with astrological symbols. “Three, one, four, a six, and Ninurta,” she says, reading from the onionskin. “Then I do have it right,” he says, looking them over. “Now: we must formulate our response. And I must admit, the temptation to reply in kind to such a cheeky provocation,” his hand trembling over that grouping of red figures, a Tinker-Prince, a Hedgewych, a couple of Jugglers and leading them all the red Poet, there on the slope of the ridge held by a lone green Beast, “is overwhelming, but one must be wary of the pitfalls of intemperate overreaction. Thus, the cool head,” but off back that way somewhere a simple descending chime rings out, and he frowns. “I wonder who that could be,” he says, as Clothilde gets up out of her chair, “at this hour?”
January 18, 2026 at 1:20 AM
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cotronis.bsky.social
human artists, use only one piece to convince people to follow you
A mixed media painting depicting a woman with long black hair, sitting on a table. Over her chest a window into the woods is superimposed.
January 10, 2026 at 2:13 PM
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nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social
Walter Schnackenberg, 1912
Advertisement for the Odeon Casino in Munich illustration of a man and woman dancing he's wearing a monocle and it looks like formal dress she has a pink flapper dress and a white and yellow headdress she's got a lot of rings on her fingers
January 11, 2026 at 11:42 AM
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damdiv.bsky.social
Misty Mountain Top with Celina Russell.
Taken a few years ago, lots of fantastic images from this shoot.
.
#artisticnudephoto #artnude #photography
January 16, 2026 at 12:29 AM
thecityofroses.com
And it's the end of the 27th novelette, " – tends to crumble – "

#FantasyLit #FreeBooks #SelfPublished #WhatToDo
“ – tends to crumble – ” (Closing)
Boom & Bang & Rattle & Crash
thecityofroses.com
January 16, 2026 at 11:32 PM
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nadhirnor.bsky.social
Perceive
Firash zooming into a petal using a star blessed technology
January 15, 2026 at 3:57 AM
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nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social
Fembot: The Bionic Woman's Enemy
Picture showing a doll in box of a figure for the 1970s by Nick lemon TV show by the women's Nemesis the fembot robot infiltrate oSI or headquarters and the doll is a blonde woman in a long black coat with her face removed shows a bunch of circuitry underneath but she has a couple of faces that can go over that one of which is a double of Jamie Summers the Bionic Woman the other is the Mystery Lady
January 3, 2026 at 12:49 AM
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nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social
Les Travestis - Erté, 1970s
Painting of a person dressed half in a gown and half in white tie. A monocle on the masculine half of the face, a lot of eye shadow on the feminine side.
January 16, 2026 at 11:58 AM
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umadlp.bsky.social
Cy Twombly, Paravent, 1989.
January 16, 2026 at 1:00 PM
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bluesky2020.bsky.social
Diane Kruger, 1997 - Thierry Le Goues, photographe de mode français.
#photographie
#cinéma
#DianeKruger
#ThierryLeGoue
September 14, 2025 at 10:17 PM
thecityofroses.com
Quote with your purple art.
No. 17, “Deliverance.” Sunset, of lavenders deepening as night falls into violet and indigo. A reservoir mirrors the astonishing colors of the sky, the silhouettes of the trees lining the straight edges of it, and behind them, among them, the lights of houses and street corners can be made out, reaching away to the far hills off behind a scrim of haze. One lone streetlight shines over the sidewalk edging the water, above a neat wrought-iron railing.
January 16, 2026 at 3:15 PM
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adaspota.bsky.social
Lee Miller ~ Revenge on Culture, London 1940

#LeeMiller #Photography
September 4, 2025 at 12:10 AM
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tribe-xx.bsky.social
Jim Woodring
January 16, 2026 at 4:29 AM
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adaspota.bsky.social
Paul Klee ~ Polyphonic Setting for White, 1930

#PaulKlee #Expressionism #ModernArt
January 8, 2026 at 1:55 AM
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rabihalameddine.bsky.social
Charles Victor Guilloux, L'Allée d'eau, 1895
January 16, 2026 at 12:12 AM
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4aamari.bsky.social
solidarity of light
a palest pink wash gently glows in pale dusky blue like a thought of color and light itself mirrored below somehow brighter still in still waters below the straight inked horizon line open to possibility
January 15, 2026 at 2:10 PM
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nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social
Crows in Winter - N.C. Wyeth, 1941
painting of a murder of crows flying over a snowy landscape
January 16, 2026 at 12:10 PM
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wanderingsag.bsky.social
華 by Yuji Tezuka, 2005
January 11, 2026 at 10:24 PM
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trahias.bsky.social
Philippe Charles Jacquet (French, b.1957)
"La Soirée," 2020
Oil on board
45.25 x 45.25 in

#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
January 16, 2026 at 4:42 AM
thecityofroses.com
The 27th novelette is almost done, which means starting next week, appearing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, no. 28, " – Hands of an Angry – "

(In which a window is broken, an indulgence curtailed, a sermon delivered, swords are swung, and a match is struck.)

thecityofroses.com/chapbooks/no...
No. 28, “ – Hands of an Angry – ”. The sun’s just rising over the horizon back thataway, rays of it striking sharp shadows from the stonework of the lone tower rising before us, the sort of modest skyscraper one might find in any mid-range city, thirteen storeys high, counting the mezzanine. An American flag at the very top of it whips in the wind blowing from the east. The store windows along the sidewalk are dark, and the streets are empty.
January 16, 2026 at 1:03 AM
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tintamarre.bsky.social
Kate Smuraga
January 15, 2026 at 3:47 PM
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umadlp.bsky.social
The Book, 1913. Juan Gris. Oil paint on canvas.
January 14, 2026 at 2:41 PM
thecityofroses.com
Day 15, last, current, and next reads: let's see—the last book I finished would be the recent Book of Love, by @kellylink.bsky.social; the book I'm currently reading is the much older Floating Worlds, by Cecilia Holland, who is not, insofar as I am aware, on Bluesky. But. But!

#FantasyIndiesJanuary
January 15, 2026 at 8:37 PM
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dungeonlust.com
Art by • Phil Moss
January 14, 2026 at 9:55 PM
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bluesky2020.bsky.social
Forest Edge, Hokuto, Hokkaido, Japon, 2004 - Michael Kenna, photographe britannique né en 1953, célèbre pour ses paysages en noir et blanc. Longues poses, compositions minimalistes et atmosphères méditatives caractérisent son œuvre, souvent réalisée à l’aube ou de nuit.
#photographie
#MichaelKenna
January 11, 2026 at 11:04 AM