Art by Eleanor Clarke
Cerberus is an ongoing writing collaboration which pastes together the minds of Dan Rabarts, Grant Stone, and myself. When we get together, incredibly crazy stuff comes out. So crazy, most editors refuse to buy it from us. You can, however, read our story “Dada,” in issue #60 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.
The British Fantasy Society says about “Dada”:
Writing collective Cerberus (Matthew Sanborn Smith, Grant Stone, and Dan Rabarts) give us ‘Dada’ which would be easy to simply describe as Dieselpunk, however further explanation is required to do this story justice. ‘Dada’ places us in a battlefield during a steam / diesel punk alternative First World War and we follow a robot who seeks to protect a young boy in his charge. At times ‘Dada’ is marked by a mournful beauty that extends this story beyond being just a dieselpunk rehash of known history. The story’s title hints at its influences: early to mid-twentieth century modernism, and the impact of Franz Kafka and Herman Hesse are evident. There’s also a childlike naivety to the narration which gives the story a flavour of Ted Hughes’s Iron Man.
Grant and Dan have done a multitude of interesting things on their own and you can learn about those by clicking on their names above, but below are a couple of highlights.
Grant’s got a brand new collection of stories you should check out called Everything is Fine, for which I wrote the introduction. Check out the cover!
And Dan co-edited the Baby Teeth anthology in which all three of us have non-Cerberus stories. Buying a copy raises money for books for kids who need them!
