City of Roses
A serialized phantastick on the ten thousand things & the one true only.
by Kip Manley

the Table of Contents

Each novelette of the serial, arrayed in proper sequential order, for the convenience of the reader.

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the visible world is merely their skin

No. 5: Freeway

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Trivia

City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: a wicked concoction of urban pastoral and incantatory fantastic, where a grocers’ warehouse might become a palace, and an antique bank is hidden beneath a department store.

the Newis Glad:

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Things to keep in mind:
The secret of coziness.

It’s emblematic of the way predators in the arts and entertainment industries are tolerated by colleagues and fans until the accusations become too detailed and too numerous to ignore. It is the insistence of ignoring material reality and uncomfortable truths because to stand on moral principles might be inconvenient. It’s DNC-goers covering their ears so they don’t have to hear protestors shouting the names of Palestinian children blown apart by bombs sent by the Biden administration. It’s taking a big sip of delicious warm coffee and refusing to consider the enslaved children who picked those beans and congratulating ourselves on being so virtuous.

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Things to keep in mind:
The secret of the pastoral.

The essential trick of the old pastoral, which was felt to imply a beautiful relation between rich and poor, was to make simple people express strong feelings (felt as the most universal subject, something fundamentally true about everybody) in learned and fashionable language (so that you wrote about the best subject in the best way). From seeing the two sorts of people combined like this you thought better of both; the best parts of both were used. The effect was in some degree to combine in the reader or author the merits of the two sorts; he was made to mirror in himself more completely the effective elements of the society he lived in.

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The twenty-second; the forty-fifth.

In a day or so, then, I'll crack open the file for no. 46 and get that under way, while the first draft for no. 45 lies fallow. If you're a Patreon or Comrade, that means there'll be another couple-three months at least before you'll be seeing the actual start of the next bit of story, but at least you'll get two novelettes in reasonably close proximity, time-wise. Most likely. There's some slips yet, betwixt cup and lip.

(I trust when you see why, you'll understand, and appreciate. I hope, rather. Have I mentioned that this third season is, structurally speaking, the most complex, by far? —The third movement of any symphony is a dance movement, typically speaking, a burst of playful, even joyous energy, after the contemplative turn of the second. And so.)

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the most Recent installment:

No. 7: Gin-soaked

a Big Man straining What she Owes Four Simple Lessons

He’s a big man straining the shoulders of a dark blue jacket, sitting back in one of the leather armchairs beneath the large copper letters that say Barshefsky Associates: Quality Assured. Long grey mustaches droop to either side of his mouth. He flips over and over in his hands a white business card. When the side door swings open with a sudden wash of questioning voices and clacking keys he climbs to his feet and those mustaches spread around a smile. Becker steps out into the lobby, a big striped shirt unbuttoned over a yellow T-shirt, thin brown hair licked up here and there at the top of his head.

“It’s Becker!” says the big man. “You manage a phone bank.”

“I’m, sorry,” says Becker. “You’re very Do I know you?”

“Of course,” says the big man. “Pyrocles.”

“Pyrocles,” says Becker. About to nod, he shakes his head slowly instead, his face settling toward a frown. “Is that, what, is that Greek?”

“No, I’m from Vergina, where the Argead ruled. But they have heard of me in Byzantium.”

“Huh. I didn’t know there was a Byzantium left.”

“Goodness,” says Pyrocles. “I certainly hope so.”

“And you’re here because…”

“Oh! Jo Maguire. I need to speak with her. Briefly, of course.”

“Had to be one of those two,” mutters Becker.

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Paperbads & eBooks

Glamour stack.

’Zines & Swag

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“It’s like Twin Peaks had a baby with Once Upon a Time.”

“It’s serial fiction done right.”

“—people who like urban fantasy written in a rather jumpy unusual style will like this book—”

Table of Contents

Art is a gift.