Publications

Forthcoming

“Seven Cities of Gold”
PS Publishing, forthcoming

The air was hot as a sulfur spring, hot as fresh ashes. The sky was a deep blue, and completely clear. Of the looters and cannibals Ishino feared, there was no sign. There were no living people in sight, no fish, no birds. The wooden maze of the lower city, where the vast majority of the city's inhabitants had lived and worked, was simply gone. Of the canals indicated on the charts, there remained only a vague geometry picked out in burnt pilings that rose here and there among oily slicks of garbage, with here and there slowly turning drifts of wreckage captured in lazy edies, the corpses of dogs and pigs and human beings grounded against accidental dams of capsizeed boats and fallen timbers.

Nakada surveyed the prospect with a feeling of pleasant melancholy.

“On the Night”
Century magazine, forthcoming

The speech is a formula that Trugarez has heard before. He looks over the crowd, satisfied to see the Plaça Veliknija full, the groundlings rapt. And even among the quality, beneath their bright silk canopies, there is none of the fidgeting, none of the giggling, none of the chatter behind painted fans that mars the usual performance. Perhaps it is the spectacle; perhaps it is only the heat.

Read “On the Night” on-line

in honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

Published

“Finisterra”
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 2007

When the charges the drilling teams had planted went off, a ripple went through the zaratán’s body, a slow-motion convulsion that took nearly a minute to travel down the body’s long axis, as the news of death passed from synapse to synapse; and Bianca saw flocks of birds started from the trees along the zaratán’s back as if by an earthquake, which in a way she supposed this was. The carcass immediately began to pitch downward, the nose dropping — the result, Bianca realized, of sphincters relaxing one by one, all along the zaratán’s length, venting hydrogen from the ballonets.

Then the forward edge of the keel fin hit the ground and crumpled, and the whole length of the dead beast, a hundred thousand tons of it, crashed down into the field; and even at that distance Bianca could hear the cracking of gargantuan bones.

An imaginative and richly descriptive tale . . . definitely one of the winners of this issue.

Sarah Jackson, The Fix

A neat "sense of wonder" idea... colorful, with a hint of an interesting larger backstory, and plenty of nice ideas and nice action at the front.

Rich Horton, Locus 59 no. 6 (December 2007)

The suspense grows steadily, and always the huge vertiginous gulf looms below. Astonishing.

Nick Gevers, Locus 59 no. 5 (November 2007)

Go get the December issue and check it out. Moles doesn't write enough, but when he does write something it's always worth reading.

Jonathan Strahan

“Planet of the Amazon Women”
Strange Horizons, May 2005

There is something about the crew of the S.P.S. Tenacious, the picket ship that the Erewhon Republic has stationed in Hippolyta’s system to prevent any excursion from the Planet of the Amazon Women, that is both comical and touching. They take themselves very seriously, with their crisp white uniforms and their military ranks and their short haircuts. (Most of them are human, and most of the humans are men — boys, really.) They take their job very seriously, too, with a certain pride in being the only ones in this part of the Polychronicon interested in the problem: the universe may be dangerous and chaotic and very poorly organized, but the Republic, and the Navy, are up to the task.

They’re not, of course. The universe is so much more disorganized than these comic-opera astronauts could even imagine. That’s what makes it so touching.

Intrepid David Moles! He has boldly chosen to touch down on the "Planet of the Amazon Women," that SFnal territory so notably colonized by Russ and Tiptree. . . . However, this is hardly the triumph of militant feminism that some readers might suppose: the Amazon planet slaying its would-be conqueror. Moles is not so unsubtle an author.

Lois Tilton, Tangent Online (29 May 2005)

Challenging and original.

Rich Horton, Locus

[T]he second half actually added very little value.

Anonymous commenter, Strange Horizons message boards

Read “Planet of the Amazon Women” on-line at Strange Horizons

“The Third Party”
Asimov’s, September 2004
The Years Best Science Fiction: 22nd Annual Collection
(Gardner Dozois, ed.), forthcoming

He closed the folder. “It’s an interesting idea of help you people have, professor,” he said.

“I didn’t say we were here to help you,” Cicero said.

The Special gave him an appraising look. “Point taken,” he said. “Who, then? The islanders? The criminal classes?”

“Your grandchildren,” Cicero said. “And your grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

The Special snorted. “Out of the goodness of your hearts, I suppose.”

“Call it that if you like,” Cicero said.

”How noble of you,” the Special said. “My grandchildren didn’t ask for your help, professor. And they don’t need it.”

David Moles . . . surely qualifies as “hot” and “new” . . . . [T]he best piece in this issue.

Rich Horton, Locus 53 no. 4 (October 2004)

The scope of the story is huge, and it’s full of intriguing ideas.

Jeremy Lyon, Tangent Online (29 September 2004)

I want the novel.

Bluejack, The Internet Review of Science Fiction (August 2004)

“Five Irrational Histories”
Rabid Transit #3: Petting Zoo, May 2004

Elephants are not tamed again in Europe until the reign of the Angevin king Henry II. his son, Geoffrey I, uses them with great effect at the battle of Chinon in 1189, decisively establishing the dominance of the elephant-mounted longbowman over the horse-borne knight and the armored man-at-arms. Though the military effectiveness of the elephant is diminished by the advent of gunpowder, it remains both a useful beast of burden and a potent symbol of Anglo-French courage, determination, and stubbornness, and the Order of the Goad, established by Edward III in 1348 (motto: Piétiné soit qui mal y pense) remains the highest order of English chivalry.

Ranks with the best of its kind . . . erudite, clever, and witty.

Matthew Cheney, The Mumpsimus (June 2004)

Order Rabid Transit #3 from the Ratbastards

Read the ongoing Irrational Histories series

“The Ideas”
Flytrap #2, May 2004

He changed the curtains and shampooed the carpets and replaced his sheets, his pillows, his blankets and mattress, telling himself that they needed replacing anyway. He took ornaments and appliances to the Salvation Army, along with most of his clothes.

He let the ideas pile up in a basket on the kitchen table, ignoring the ever more elaborate seals, labels, commemorative stamps, the proliferation of exotic envelopes. He took a perverse pleasure in denying them his attention.

And after a few weeks, they stopped coming.

“The Ideas” is just great fun, a wonderful answer to the horrible question often asked of writers, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ I wouldn’t be surprised if some writers bring photocopies of this story to their next reading or book signing and pass it out to the first person who asks the inevitable question, wo which they will now be able to reply, ‘Why, I’m so glad you asked . . .‘”

Matthew Cheney, The Mumpsimus, December 2004

A deftly conceived allegory of obsession and inspiration.

Nick Gevers, Locus (July 2004)

Moving and thoughtful.

Rich Horton (November 2004)

Order Flytrap #2 from Tropism Press

“The Memory of Water”
Strange Horizons, October 2003

I was almost grateful when the Allied patrols found me, grateful to have my free will taken away, my responsibility for my actions lifted. I am told, though, that when they shipped me to Italy—along with a number of other German prisoners in need of medical care—I had to be heavily sedated, as the sight of the waves and the motion of the ship made me hysterical. For my part I have no memory of the voyage.

Read “The Memory of Water” on-line at Strange Horizons

“Long Past Midnight”
Say . . . What time is it?, May 2003

On Saturday, May 24th, at 11:14AM, the lights went out, and remained out for a period of seventeen minutes and forty-one seconds. The darkness lasted long enough for irritation to become first concern and then panic. People went into hysterics; they sobbed, prayed loudly, made sudden declarations of love.

[T]he strongest piece in this issue . . . a supple, intriguing tale.

Jeff Verona, Tangent Online (March 2004)

“Fetch”
Strange Horizons, May 2003

I don’t smoke much, as a rule—the chimps don’t like it—but I started chain-smoking two or three hours ago, along with everyone else. Outside it’s gone noon, but in Mission Control it’s still the same air-conditioned, fluorescent night, and the air has a sticky feeling, a used feeling.

We know that our heartstrings will be tugged, indeed yanked, but Moles manages to make this very sentimental story work.

Rich Horton, Locus 51, no. 1 (July 2003)

Read “Fetch” on-line at Strange Horizons

“Theo’s Girl”
Polyphony 2, April 2003

Night. Back in the trench, Mies tries to sleep. The airship is still up there, invisible, a noise like the papery whir of beetles’ wings, moving back and forth somewhere in the darkness above the trench, beyond the torch flames and smoke.

Full marks . . . a powerful alternate history.

Nick Gevers, Locus 50, no. 5 (May 2003)

I was quite impressed.

Rich Horton, Locus 51, no. 1 (July 2003)

Remarkable . . . In this world of bows, swords, knives, and copper-bottomed airships, suddenly anything is possible.

Sherwood Smith, SFSite (July 2003)

What sets this story apart . . . is its ultimate questioning of what it means to be a good man and how one’s own self-perception does not always tally with the perception of those around him.

Stephen Silver, Tangent Online (July 2003)

Locus magazine recommended reading list, 2003.

Order Polyphony 2 from Wheatland Press

”Tacoma-Fûji“
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 11, November 2002

First day of December and the fog
on the slopes of Mt. Rainier softens edges
reveals unknown symmetries
against a morning gray and streaked with yellow
so it might be Fuji there on the southern horizon
and if I were Hokusai I could draw this
the baseball stadium the cranes
like skeletons of Trojan horses
the masts of rich men’s yachts.

A hundred years ago Japanese men came here.
They drank rice wine in waterfront bars
that are underground now, anonymous
cut wood on the slopes of Tacoma-Fûji
fought over women
and some of them went mad.

A man called Kafû wrote it all down,
an admirer of the French decadents
who enjoyed absinthe, long bicycle rides in the country
and the conversation of prostitutes.
He would have preferred Paris, but his father
thought America would improve his character.