The Bone Flute

By Lisa Tuttle

Venn, a fickle and restless young musician, is drawn to the “lost planet” of Habille where, it is said, human nature has changed, and love once experienced can never die.

In an afterword written especially for this edition, Lisa Tuttle explains her controversial decision to refuse the Nebula Award for this story.

“Tuttle creates out of a genuinely strange imagination... ‘The Bone Flute,’ literally haunting, is possibly the best of its kind that I have read.” -- Josephine Saxton in The New Statesman.

“‘The Bone Flute’, literally haunting, is possibly the best of its kind that I have read.” Josephine Saxton, The New Statesman

• Language: English
• Publisher: infinity plus
• Release date: Nov 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465826251

Book preview

The Bone Flute

Lisa Tuttle

infinity plus singles #7

Published by infinity plus at Smashwords

www.infinityplus.co.uk/books

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copyright Lisa Tuttle 1981, 2011

 Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

This story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The moral right of Lisa Tuttle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

Contents

The Bone Flute

Afterword: That Business about the Nebula

About the author

More about infinity plus singles

The Bone Flute

I am forever falling in love with beautiful men who break my heart. Perhaps I prefer it that way. There are worse things than being left.

~

I first saw Venn in a spaceport bar. Not my usual sort of hangout, but I was a stranger to that world, with nowhere immediate to go and no one to see, and I was tired and looking for someplace dark and quiet. The bar was called The White Bird, and it was dark and quiet enough at that hour. Light was provided by a set of glowing, artificial birds that fluttered around, seemingly at random, lighting up different areas as they briefly roosted. The female dancers – off-duty now, and lounging at a table – continued the bird imagery with costumes of feathers constructed to continually fall away and reassemble in various more or less revealing ways. Besides myself and the dancers, there was only one other person in the bar, a dark-haired, very handsome young man who was sitting with the dancers.

They were laughing, the three costumed women and the man, and although I could not hear what they said, I guessed that the young man was being teased about something.

He rose from the table just as a bird was passing overhead, and his face was suddenly lit. I felt his beauty like a pain in my stomach. At that moment, with his beard and the classic lines of his face, he might have been an ancient god revealed to a