"The Mole and the Sun"

I've been contemplating compiling another collection, with an "Atlantis" theme. Over the years I've written many stories that reference Atlantis as a historical fact. The most recent is "The Queen of the Lesser Gods", which has been published in C Spot magazine.

Strangely enough, the one story I've ever written that actually takes place at that time has never sold. I first wrote it in 2004. A year or two later it underwent a major revision as a result of a collaboration, but that version was also never picked up.

As a result of the publication of "The Queen of the Lesser Gods" - and thoughts about the Atlantis-themed collection - I decided to tackle the story again. My collaborator and I are no longer chums, so in deference to him I decided to go back and revise my original version. I had to pull it off a back-up floppy disk that's probably been sitting around for ten years.

I found it interesting that while I was somewhat proficient at the time I wrote the story - I had already sold "A Rocket for the Republic" to Gardner Dozois at Asimov's - I still hacked off hundreds of words of clunky prose as I rewrote the story last night. The word count dropped from 2,500 to 2,064.

The story is now called "The Mole and the Sun". Back in 2013, the television show "NCIS: Los Angeles" used a similar idea - a sleeper agent hiding an atom bomb to destroy an enemy city. In my story, the "mole" exacts revenge for the destruction of Asvin (Atlantis) by detonating a hidden "sun bomb" in the enemy capital.

I sent it off this morning to a market that opened a submissions window on June 1st.