Through the 1990s, Paul Riddell contributed articles and essays to a wide range of now-long-forgotten science fiction magazines before quitting professional writing in 2002. Yes, this is a relapse. He currently owns and operates the Texas Triffid Ranch (www.txtriffidranch.com), Dallas’s pretty much only carnivorous plant gallery. The author wishes to thank Saladin Ahmed and Ernest Hogan for vital inspiration in developing this concept, and anybody else who decides to run with the concepts presented herein.
Paul Riddell has the following works available at Clarkesworld:
It’s a very old trope in fantasy stories and games: the wizard or healer who needs an incredibly rare, delicate, or deadly flower, leaf, root, or bark for a critical bit of magic, and the plant from which it grows may only be found an inconvenient distance away. It may be that the spell is so rarely […]
