Between the Cities

Unrealpolitik, an anthology of political fantasy, is out now along with my story "Between the Cities."

Our world is not a lone candle guttering in the void. Tucked beneath the gauze of reality are forces, restlessly pushing but ignored by us, their unassuming counterweight.

Paperback

Kindle

When We Go

"When We Go" is out now at Fiction on the Web.

When I go, I want to go like a rocket.

Leaving the world at breakneck speed, upright, arms like fins, legs trailing a column of smoke; and the dusk sky, a postcard ripped in two by my passing.

And then, no explosion. But a winking out as space swallows me whole and the earliest star outshines me.

And then -

Wind blowing the smoke away; people scattering, going home to cry at photos that end up packed away into shoe boxes, shoved under beds to gather dust. People moving on.

People forgetting.

(...continue reading.)

Crisis

"Crisis" is out now at Mithila Review (Issue #10).

The story is set in present-day Vasilegrad, the capital of my fictional Balkan federation, where a bubbling political crisis threatening to tear the country apart is seen as an opportunity for an adrenaline rush by a Western tourist.

Read the full story.

Free to read: The Scrimshander

My dark fantasy story "The Scrimshander" is now available for free reading (and listening!) at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

The story can be read here, or you can listen to the audio version narrated by Michael J. DeLuca.

The slender jawbone lies in the palm of his hand like a crown. Raising it, an offering to the night, stretched starlight gleams on milk teeth. Engravings appear, a scene playing out from incisor to canine to molar, a tale of disease and mourning, of angry tears and hissed warnings to those who’ve caused him harm.

The city sleeps beneath him, bristled, towers jutting skyward in defiance of Mallinos. He swings off the eaves, jawbone in hand, down a drainpipe, past square windows of indigo, feet dropping on pavement with barely a sound.

(Continue reading...)

The Scrimshander

Beneath Ceaseless Skies #255 ebook is out now, containing my dark fantasy story "The Scrimshander."

The ebook is currently available at Weightless Books and Amazon.

Interview: One of the Cities

An interview with me about my entry into the Reading 5x5 anthology, "One of the Cities," is up on the anthology's website now.

All proceeds from Reading 5x5 go to charity; read the interview, and find more information about the concept of the anthology here.

Interview: A Faster Tomorrow

A two-question mini-interview with me about my story "A Faster Tomorrow" is available on The Future Fire's Facebook page.

"A Faster Tomorrow" appeared in The Future Fire #44, in March 2018.

Reprint: The Definition of Johnny

My story "The Definition of Johnny" has been reprinted in the Issues of Tomorrow anthology, edited by Roy C. Booth and Jorge Salgado-Reyes.

The story originally appeared in Beyond Science Fiction, in June 2015.

Amazon link.

Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017

My story "Lake Oreyd" had been reprinted in the Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017 anthology.

Find here the full table of contents and shop links of this anthology of vegan-friendly stories.

Read "Lake Oreyd" online.

A Faster Tomorrow

My latest novelette "A Faster Tomorrow" set in Vasilegrad, the capital city of the fictional Balkan Federation, is out now in The Future Fire #44.

(Illustration by Eric Asaris)

The ride got bumpy, which was unfortunate because the foam-padded cushion had been ripped right off his seat, the rivets which had held it in place sticking out. Georgi sat squashed against a window at the very back, watching the heads of the sleeping passengers bobble as the bus made the turns on the switch-backed mountain road. The image was comforting: angry workers reduced to slobbering toy-heads; it gave matters a comical spin, steering him away from a full-blown anxiety attack, a feat which was becoming harder to pull off with each kilometer closer to the city.

They passed a corroded sign claiming Plovna’s source was but a thirty minute walk off the main road. Up a dirt path, the arrow indicated, amid overlapping rows of pine and birch.

He shut his eyes. The spring of Plovna, pure, a blue brook trickling down the mountain, picking up speed and water and rushing headlong into the city carrying life to become--

The muddy river ran beneath the Bridge of Founders in his old battered quarter, where the air was suffused with the heavy smell of melting tarmac, truck exhaust, and a skyscraper diorama lay open in the distance, veiled in Plovna’s pastel mist; he was gripping the bridge rail, his two best friends on either side of him, the face of his dying mother drawn with a finger in the cloudscape, while she lay, blanketed by television light, in her living room--

(Read the whole story.)

One of the Cities

"One of the Cities," a hard SF far-future story, is out now in the Reading 5x5 anthology, edited by B. Morris Allen.

Two different versions of the anthology are available: a readers' and a writers' version, the latter of which, in addition to 25 great stories spanning five different genres, contains the briefs and the author's notes for each individual piece.

The proceeds from the anthology will go to the Jo Clayton Memorial Medical Fund.

(Cover art by Kathryn Weaver)

The City of Ionos Prime hung in its orbit like a ripe peach.

The urge to pluck it overwhelmed us; to rid our cosmos of rot, expose and exterminate the source of so much suffering. We were but a gamma ray burst away from turning Gomorrah’s qubits into an unreadable scramble, but Captain stayed her hand, allowing this drop of poison suspended in vacuum to continue coruscating around its star.

(Continue reading.)

Lake Oreyd in Metaphorosis: Best of 2017

"Lake Oreyd," published last March in Metaphorosis, has made the yearly Best Of anthology, which has a beautiful cover by Kathryn Weaver inspired by my story.

The anthology is on sale as of February 1 on Amazon (e-book and paperback) and other retailers.