The subjects of my first professionally published stories, the Jokka are an alien species with three sexes, male, female and neuter, with a chance twice during puberty to Turn from one to the other. Their world Ke Bakil dwindled from an age of glory and plenty to one of scarcity, and the Jokka have only just struggled up from a nomadic period to living again in cities. The pitiless climate that now dominates the southeastern culture conspires with biology to stunt the mental processes of the females and males, both of which fall prey to the equivalent of strokes.
These stories are about identity, loss and the many compromises society must make with biology. Sometimes they’re beautiful and sometimes they’re harsh. As with many of my settings, there are no humans in the Jokka stories. They remain among some of my most popular.
Reading Order
Shorts are in quotes, novels italics.
1. “Freedom, Spiced and Drunk”
2. “New Stories”
3. “A Trifold Spiral Knot”
4. “Money for Sorrow, Made Joy”
5. “Unspeakable”
6. “Unknowable”
7. “Anadi Dolls”
8. “His Neuter Face”
9. “The Smell of Intelligence”
10. “Fire in the Void” (Also available at the end of The Worth of a Shell)
11. The Worth of a Shell (Stone Moon 1)
12. Pearl in the Void (Stone Moon 2)
13. “Stone Moon, Silk Scarves” (Available at the end of Pearl in the Void)
14. A Bloom in the North (Stone Moon 3)
Most of the short fiction can also be purchased as the collection Clays Beneath the Skies.
