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thecityofroses.com
City of Roses
@thecityofroses.com
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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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Day 9, a free Friday: I think I'll point you to the gallery of character art that the Spouse organized as a birthday surprise some years ago, with drawings of major players in the epic by some talented cartoonists you may well be familiar with…

pixelfed.social/c/7017637072...

#FantasyIndiesJanuary
Jo, glumly determined in a Ramones T-shirt, and Ysabel, gleefully shushing in a brick-red blouse, stealthily secret themselves in a manhole, just out of sight of two watchful knights, Roland in his green tracksuit, sword in hand, and Gaveston, red hair flopping from a high widow's peak, rumpled linen suit over an untucked white shirt, a portfolio tube slung from one shoulder; they're both on the lookout for our protagonists, and behind them all Detour and Caution Working and Danger signs, and the backdrop is a single ghostly rose. Art by Dylan Meconis.
January 9, 2026 at 10:27 PM
thecityofroses.com
“Sun,” fit for so joyfull day. —Ysabel prepares herself for loss, and Jo sets out to save her.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Sun

(In which keys are lost, a plan is lost, an answer's lost, a house is lost, a duel is lost, and all is lost.)
No. 20: “Sun.” Cloudless sky a seamless blue above, and at the bottom of the frame a utilitarian silver orb atop, perhaps, a pole, and reflected within the buildings about, the brick-lined plaza below. Rising from that orb a stylized golden sun, a simple profile, looking up in something like wonder, and shining rays like wind-tossed locks.
January 8, 2026 at 11:39 PM
thecityofroses.com
“Moon,” up above. —Three Kings contend, on planes mere mortals miss.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Moon

(In which a door's unlocked, a sword left behind, a coat is given, a light's turned on, and a Throne is sat.)
No. 19: “Moon.” A single naked looping fluorescent bulb set to one side lights a small dark-painted portico about a nondescript side door, but only the edges and the thick line of an electrical cable and close by that bulb the gleams struck from the near-black paint. Otherwise, the rest of whatever might be there is utterly lost in shadow.
January 6, 2026 at 6:32 PM
thecityofroses.com
Day 3, a snippet from the work: we'll go with this, from the 3rd volume, in which Bruno, Shrieve of the court, takes it upon himself to teach Chilli, the Harper, something of how it is value works, in a room full of, well, let him tell you:

thecityofroses.com/books/in-the...

#FantasyIndiesJanuary
the Worth of a Thing “Uprights, spinnets, pianos droits;” says Bruno, “I began by buying up office furniture, but in every city and many of the sizable towns, rows of old terrace houses were being demolished to make way for modern council estates. And in the front parlors of these terrace houses, gathering dust since the days before television, before the wireless, before electricity,” he reaches across the front of the piano, sliding the central panel to one side. The man within snorts himself startled awake, white-haired head laid back against the rows of hammers poised against tautly angled strings. “Spruce!” he blurts, and coughs, patting the pockets of his crisp white shirt, arms tucked close within the cabinet’s confines. “Spruce,” he says again, “from the forests about Old Tjikko, long may he reign,” and fits a monocle to his eye, “chilled in the hold of an old steamer down through the Baltic and the cold North Sea. Mahogany from Brazil, that baked in breathless heat across the Atlantic, between the Pillars of Hercules and up the Balearic to Marseille. Iron,” his smile is beatific, “scraped from Erzberg’s slopes, spun to wire in Vienna and brought by rail across Venetia and Sardinia. Sugar pine from the very wilds of Northwest America about us now,” reaching out of the cabinet to gently stroke the keys below, “stacked for a harrowing, storm-wracked voyage all the way around the Horn, only to end up a century later right back where it began. The ebony veneer from too many different pieces of wood, some of them once keys from other instruments, but not an ounce of ivory to be found: the natural keys are topped with porcelain, which has left them with the occasional chip and crack, though not a piece is missing.” Chilli’s stepped back, pressed against the draped piano behind him. Bruno’s tugging something from another pocket of his vest, a tiny glassine envelope. “I’ve kept in tune as best I can,” says the man within the piano, with a gesture to the strings arrayed behind him. “Shall I play you something? In a rag-time, perhaps?” Bruno steps close, holds up a fingertip glimmering gold, which the man in the piano seizes and brings it to his lips for a kiss, and a slow and savoring lick.
January 3, 2026 at 2:46 PM
thecityofroses.com
With the 26th novelette done, next week will see the launch of the 27th, " – tends to crumble – ", the way out of most antinomies. Fits appearing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays:

thecityofroses.com/chapbooks/no...

#Zines #WebSerials #FantasyLit #RobotFightinBoots
No. 27, “ – tends to crumble – ”. Across the street stretches the mostly empty wall of some warehouse at least a couple storeys tall, blandly grey but with patches where underlying coats of white paint and peachly orange paint show through. A couple-three shallow steps lift off the sidewalk to the ghost of a doorway, long since walled over. In the middle of that wall, the threshold of it six feet up at least, a single blue door with a nondescript knob, and no way to get to it. A tree, leaves just folding, grows from the sidewalk before it.
January 2, 2026 at 7:43 PM
thecityofroses.com
“Dazzle,” the glittering prize. Jo becomes the Huntsman, and Ysabel becomes.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Daz...

(In which way is made, debts are negotiated, something is spilled, villains are dueled, and snow begins to fall.)
No. 18: “Dazzle.” Two signs at an angle, brightly shining against the night. The lit sign above, jutting out from the storefront, says Mary’s Club, All Nude Review, Cocktails. The neon sign beneath, along the front of the store itself, says Mary’s in pale blue and pink swirls of light, over a lit panel with removable letters that currently say Girls Full Bar And Food Lottery Games ATM Open 365 Days 11AM Dancers From 1130 We Miss You Roy 1915 2006.
December 30, 2025 at 7:23 PM
thecityofroses.com
The 26th novelette, “ – only borders lie – ”, is halfway done: a challenge has been issued, and Jo must answer for it.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=onl...

(In which a sleeper on a threshold wakes, knights aren’t dubbed, fine points of etiquette are debated, and love proclaimed, after a fashion.)
No. 26, “ – only borders lie – ”. A narrow but grand arch of stone in the stone wall of a building long since given up to the elements, seams and edges roughened and blurred by rain and sun and wind and time, slathered with moss, sprinkled with greenery growing wherever it might find purchase. Through the arch the far wall of what was once a room’s revealed, and sprayed in white paint across the stone and moss huge handwritten letters that say, What if I kissed you there in the midnight without warning.
December 27, 2025 at 5:23 PM
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“Deliverance,” is only perfect for a very short time. Ysabel tries to save her mother, and Jo buys a gun.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Del...

(In which the chase is on, sureties are demanded, a briefcase is opened, horror brought up, and the King comes back.)
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.
December 24, 2025 at 1:03 AM
thecityofroses.com
The epic's structured in seasons of 22 novelettes—because old skool Yankee teevee shows used to have 22 episodes per season, roughly, and it has nothing to do with the Major Arcana, so. —We've begun the third season; the first two are available in omnibus ebooks :

www.smashwords.com/books/byseri...
The massive boles of concrete pillars rise to the deck of the freeway bridge ceiled above, and here below a sidewalk curls, a lamppost stands, a young but already gnarled and wizened cherry tree, perhaps, in snow-white bloom against the grey poured stone.
December 21, 2025 at 12:51 AM
thecityofroses.com
Vol. 3, In the Reign of Good Queen Dick, collects chapters 23 – 33 of incantatory fantastic. Available as ebook or paperback:

thecityofroses.com/books/in-the...

#FantasyLit #UrbanFantasy #Booksky #GoodQueenDick
Vol. 3, In the Reign of Good Queen Dick. High above downtown, towers of white stone and red brick rising above the cars parked on the roof of a grey concrete garage, the glass belvedere atop a bunker of a department store, the treetops lining the streets between and among them, all lit by watery afternoon light, and the darkening rainbow, falling from the blue-grey clouds above.
December 21, 2025 at 12:28 AM
thecityofroses.com
Which means starting next week, appearing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the next novelette, no. 26, " – only borders lie – "!

thecityofroses.com/chapbooks/no...

#FantasyLit #IndieAuthors #SelfPublished #StillThereNow
No. 26, “ – only borders lie – ”. A narrow but grand arch of stone in the stone wall of a building long since given up to the elements, seams and edges roughened and blurred by rain and sun and wind and time, slathered with moss, sprinkled with greenery growing wherever it might find purchase. Through the arch the far wall of what was once a room’s revealed, and sprayed in white paint across the stone and moss huge handwritten letters that say, What if I kissed you there in the midnight without warning.
December 20, 2025 at 12:05 AM
thecityofroses.com
The 25th novelette of the epic, " – two sweetest passions – ", is now complete on the website:

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=two...

#FreeBooks #Booksky #UrbanFantasy #ExcitementAndPrecision
No. 25, “ – two sweetest passions – ”. Shreds and tatters of posters and fliers stapled in flaking layers to a telephone pole, perhaps, words visible only in suggestive fragments, Ticketfly, one says, and Day 3, God, Portland Saturday, Hotties, Masters, Goths, and in the middle of this profusion the headline of one half-buried notice, in thick white letters on black, that may very well say SEX
December 19, 2025 at 11:45 PM
thecityofroses.com
“Plenty,” so be glad, ye children. —Another of the Duke's parties, and Jo's intemperate decisions.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Ple...

(In which donuts are laid out, blades are engaged, a date is made, a confrontation's forced, and three fit in a bed.)
No. 16, “Plenty.” A pale green microbus, parked close, rust about the windshield and the seams, and the front of it sloppily painted over with some pale blue sealant that's dripped about the grille and headlights. Inside, the dashboard’s covered over with vegetables, some onions, potatoes, beets, rutabaga, perhaps a parsnip, and a couple of ears of corn. A spring of what is perhaps dried grass, wrapped about with strings of red and silver and blue beads, has been tied to the rear-view mirror.
December 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM
thecityofroses.com
Burlesque performers Zero and Zen, the Porcelain Twinz, in a dilapidated hall somewhere, identically dressed in black thigh-high latex stockings and black opera-length latex gloves and black latex gorgets about their throats, and a heavy chain clipped hung from those gorgets, linking them together in an almost-embrace, hand on a hip, hand on a flank, the one with a look of haughty disdain, the other snarling with hostile determination, as their lips press together in a kiss. Photographed by Tony Notarberardino as part of the Chelsea Hotel Portraits series.
December 17, 2025 at 1:40 PM
thecityofroses.com
“Frail,” the wonders done by an inch of steel. –Jo and Ysabel each recover, in (and of) their own particular idioms.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Frail

(In which lunch is ruined, a sleeper wakes, time is nicked, sea air is taken, and a dinner party's wrecked.)
No. 15, “Frail.” A telephone pole rises up and up into an overcast sky, the back of a blocky bulk of walk-don’t walk signs depended off to one side, the bole of it barked with the shreds and tatters of the corners of hundreds upon hundreds of long-gone fliers, faded worn and melted by sun and rain and wind to a softly feathery mulch, and only here and there the stern dark wood of it beneath. A gap’s been left about a single tin sign, Placement of Signs or Posters on PGE Poles Is Not Permitted, it says.
December 16, 2025 at 6:11 PM
thecityofroses.com
“Mayhem,” to show you what steel do. —Jo fights a duel, for Ysabel.

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=May...

(In which a knife is plunged, a debt repaid [in part], an oracle's consulted, words are had, and swords are drawn.)
No. 14, “Mayhem.” The pedestrian walkway of a bridge reaches over the river before, paved with neat red rain-wet bricks; the deck of the roadway above; the railway caged behind riveted girders and grilles to the left. A lamp has been lit against the afternoon gloom, hanging over the walkway from a girder to the left, and another, identical lamp, further along the way. Across the river, against the colorless clouds, almost lost in the haze, two narrow towers of green glass can just be made out.
December 11, 2025 at 9:44 PM
thecityofroses.com
A drawing of two femme-presenting figures lying on a cluttered bed in their underwear, one with short red hair tied back over an undercut, an anchor tattooed on her shoulder, asleep, and the other with long dark hair laid back, looking up, a red tank top with a yellow star, and the title above them says, Jet Girl in I Love Lesley Hornby, and there are records and magazines and beer cans and beer bottles and stuffies strewn about, and a bong, and an alarm clock smashed by a hammer, and the internal monologue in the captions says, Ain't you beautiful? You cast a spell around the world just by being there. I'd like to paint you in poster colours across a billboard advertisement for a car or cheese or something. Art by Brett Parson and Ned Ivory, words by Alan Martin.
December 10, 2025 at 1:57 PM
thecityofroses.com
A femme-presenting figure, seen from the waist down, stands in a field, and the light about suggest a lingering afternoon edged into evening, and the figure wears white Chucks and white socks topped with lace frills and a brief layered skirt of orange lace, and the bared knees are marred by honeycombs, band-aids stuck here and there as if skinned, and honey seeps from them down the calves, and all about buzz so many bees. "The Bee's Knees," by VZEWL, 2nd Prize Winner Digital Art Award, Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, 2024.
December 7, 2025 at 10:24 PM
thecityofroses.com
A closeup of two hands, the one clasping the wrist of the other.
December 7, 2025 at 12:04 AM
thecityofroses.com
Here are some of the (many) places you might go to find them:

bookshop.org/lists/city-o...

www.smashwords.com/books/byseri...

payhip.com/cityofroses

thecityofroses.itch.io

thecityofroses.com/books
The four volumes of City of Roses on a shelf, next to Wicked and the Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire, Harlot's Ghost, by Norman Mailer, and Love is the Law, Sensation, and the Second Shooter, by Nick Mamatas.
December 6, 2025 at 6:41 PM
thecityofroses.com
Which means, starting next week, appearing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the 25th novelette, " – two sweetest passions – "

thecityofroses.com/chapbooks/no...

#Zines #IndieAuthors #FantasyLit #PrecisionAndExcitement
No. 25, “ – two sweetest passions – ”. Shreds and tatters of posters and fliers stapled in flaking layers to a telephone pole, perhaps, words visible only in suggestive fragments, Ticketfly, one says, and Day 3, God, Portland Saturday, Hotties, Masters, Goths, and in the middle of this profusion the headline of one half-buried notice, in thick white letters on black, that may very well say SEX
December 5, 2025 at 11:44 PM
thecityofroses.com
The 24th novelette, " – vilissima & infima – ", is now complete online:

thecityofroses.com/contents/#vi...

#FantasyLit #FreeBooks #Booksky #LowestAndTheLow
No. 24: “ – vilissima & infima – ”. The sun sets behind the west hills, away over the river, the slantwise rays striking silhouettes from towering cranes, one there, lifted up beside the skeletal frame of what will one day be a new shape in the skyline, another quite close, filling the frame from the street level at the bottom all the way up to the deepening night at the top, a single small red warning light lit there, but whatever it’s to build not yet in evidence.
December 5, 2025 at 9:40 PM
thecityofroses.com
thecityofroses.com/story/?c=Bea...

(In which coffee is ordered, clothes are laundered, groceries secured, an eye is lost, and a carpet ruined.)
No. 8, “Beauty.” Looking up at a traffic light hung from a heavy cable stretched at a sharp angle across a street, or an intersection, a streetlight, unlit, behind, above, all under a soft grey sky. Slung from a lighter parallel wire a pair of yellow high-heeled slingbacks, tied together by a bit of rope and tossed up to dangle there, so high.
December 3, 2025 at 5:31 PM
thecityofroses.com
The 24th novelette is halfway done, and the pieces of the conflict of season two are assembling themselves, tout suite:

thecityofroses.com/story/?c=vil...

#FantasyLit #Booksky #CityOfRoses #LowestAndTheLow
No. 24: “ – vilissima & infima – ”. The sun sets behind the west hills, away over the river, the slantwise rays striking silhouettes from towering cranes, one there, lifted up beside the skeletal frame of what will one day be a new shape in the skyline, another quite close, filling the frame from the street level at the bottom all the way up to the deepening night at the top, a single small red warning light lit there, but whatever it’s to build not yet in evidence.
November 28, 2025 at 8:53 PM
thecityofroses.com
Which means, starting next week, the 24th novelette, " – vilissima & infima – ", will be appearing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays!

#FantasyLit #FreeBooks #IndieAuthors #LowestAndTheLow

thecityofroses.com/chapbooks/no...
No. 24: “ – vilissima & infima – ”. The sun sets behind the west hills, away over the river, the slantwise rays striking silhouettes from towering cranes, one there, lifted up beside the skeletal frame of what will one day be a new shape in the skyline, another quite close, filling the frame from the street level at the bottom all the way up to the deepening night at the top, a single small red warning light lit there, but whatever it’s to build not yet in evidence.
November 21, 2025 at 8:22 PM