Interview: Siv Delfin

In anticipation of The Future Fire's upcoming Noir-themed issue, they've invited me for a conversation about my story "Siv Delfin" (2016), a Noir piece set in my Vasilegrad universe.

Read the interview.

Read the story.

Slow Eshtyca

My new story "Slow Eshtyca" is out now in GigaNotoSaurus.

The samohod drove Vilma half-way up the mountain before its engine began to struggle with the slope, coughing up plumes of soot. When the vehicle heaved its last gasoline breath, she abandoned it by the road and continued to the highlands on foot.

By dawn, she reached Slow Eshtyca; the village’s scattered houses were tucked behind hillocks and greeted her with boarded-up windows and yards bereft of livestock. The green fluorescence wafting out of the wells smeared into the salmon pink of the horizon, and Vilma had to squint to make out the girl’s house.

 (Continue reading.)

Esma's Margaret

 My latest story "Esma's Margaret" is out now in the January 2021 issue of Metaphorosis Magazine.

“Power’s out again,” Esma’s father shouted from the living room.

She lulled her computer into sleep mode to preserve battery now the mains were off, put on her backpack, and stormed out of their home. Her father shouted something else after her, but she couldn’t hear him—her feet were on the dirty Orizari street already. Late-night raucousness swallowed her whole: men playing cards on the sidewalks, cursing their bad luck or each other; cars, old diesel vehicles, whirring to-and-fro, spewing fumes not smelled elsewhere in the city of Skopje in twenty years; kids and their mothers and fathers, out playing, chatting, even at eleven in the evening.

(Continue reading...)

Petroglyphs

Short story "Petroglyphs" is out now in Every Day Fiction.

When their ships landed on the porous soil of Blue-and-a-Rock, the hatchlings rushed out to preserve the petroglyphs.

They moved like a flood: overrunning the fields and valleys of the moribund world, clogging up the caves, prodding with claws and feet at the remains of that which had so recently ended. Gales scattered the hatchlings across beaches where they drank the waters and sated themselves with sand; waves pushed them outward to distant islands and open seas; maelstroms pulled them down to dark ocean depths.

(Continue reading.)

Reprint: The Trader

My post-apocalyptic story "The Trader" is out now in the Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019 anthology.

The story was originally published in the Score anthology last year.

You can pick up a copy from Amazon.

Bullies

My latest short story "Bullies" out now in Theme of Absence. Alongside the story, a short author interview with me was published.

“It’s okay,” Jon’s therapist said. “They’re gone. Just breathe.”

Tears came to Jon’s eyes, fogging up his smart specs; he took the glasses off, and the AI therapist slipped out of view. He flung his backpack against the concrete wall.

He was taking shallow breaths, so he made an effort to slow and deepen his breathing.

When he put his glasses back on, they notified him he was two minutes late for History, building B, classroom 12. He picked up his backpack, said, “I’m not feeling well,” to his specs, and headed home. In the background, his therapist informed the school and his parents, and purchased one tram ticket for him.

On the ride home, he watched the city in the tram’s window passing by, buildings, people, trees, materializing and disappearing frame by frame, and he thought of them the way he liked to think about everything: in matters of optimized CPU cycles, in graphics shaders, in the processing power made available once these complex geometries slipped out of view.

...continue reading.

Podcast: Garden

My short story "Garden", a musical and narrative collaboration with dark ambient musician Nanohex from 2017, is out now in the SubverCity Transmit podcast.

It is a fantastic production, with Nanohex's music playing in the background while the story is read, which is exactly how the project was intended to be experienced.

You can listen to the music and story wherever the SubverCity Transmit podcast is available, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Big Sister

"Big Sister" -- a story about growing up with an AI-aged version of yourself in your head -- is out now in Unfading Daydream, issue #9.

Try as she might, Mina couldn't reach the cherry pit in her head. She closed her eyes in concentration, and she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, and yet—nothing. Silence rung hollow.

It was her mother who gave her the imagery back when she was a child: when you pop a cherry in your mouth your teeth chomp on fruit flesh while effortlessly avoiding the hard pit, then your tongue rolls it around as you swallow the pulp, before you finally spit the cherry pit out. In much the same way, her mother had gone on to explain, she would learn to isolate the pea-sized implant she carried in her, to roll it around in her thoughts and wake it and speak to it. Speak to herself, at a different age.

Buy the magazine from Amazon.

Voices in the Things

"Voices in the Things" is out now in the Labor Issue of Big Echo.

Anna's phone rang, and shrill voices packed into circuits screamed a polyphonic melody: Liliana, calling from out of country. She jumped out of bed and picked up.

“I'm through,” Liliana said, and the voices in the electronics quieted down. “We're now ten, down from a hundred.”

“That's great,” Anna said, almost meaning it.

“Won't have time for much coordinating before the final round, so you better be ready by then.”

“I will,” she said, pacing the bedroom. “We will.” She opened a blind to reveal a muddy dark sky. She said, “Good luck.”

Liliana was quiet, as if mulling something over—or perhaps it was the delay in the signal—then she thanked her and hung up.

It was not quite morning but Anna could see the horizon bruising, so she decided against going back to sleep.

(Continue reading...)

Interview: The Trader

A short interview about my story "The Trader" can be found on the Metaphorosis Books website.

"The Trader" is available in the Score Anthology.

The Trader

My story "The Trader" is out now in the Score: an SFF Symphony anthology.

What if stories were written like music?

Score is an anthology of varied stories arranged to follow an emotional score from the heights of joy to the depths of despair - but always with a little hope shining through.

Purchase the anthology on Amazon.

AdPerson

Listen to my new flash fiction piece "AdPerson" over at the 600 Second Saga podcast.

Roland wakes into a world that is an eager customer.

He savors his oatmeal with honey; he brushes his teeth; he puts on clothes and greets the neighbors on his way out the building. And he stands at the bus stop and stands in the bus and reads his instructions from Corton Vestee Inc. and occasionally checks his wristwatch, treating it all as a performance, every sidelong glance, shuffle of the feet, every sigh and breath.

(Listen to the whole story.)

Ghostflesh

Horror short story "Ghostflesh" out out now at Five on the Fifth.

Martina lights the candle, and shadows throw themselves up against the wall; black silhouettes flicker, dance, squirm as if before a firing squad, and Martina watches these shadows through squinting eyes, drinking in their performance.

“They'll be strongest on Sunday,” she tells me and snuffs out the candle.

Smoke wreathes her head; she gets up and the wreath goes through her, dissipates. She flips the switch. Light floods the room, making us both wince, and I sneak a glance but the shadows have melted back into the wall.

Read the whole story here.

Borrowed

My flash fiction piece "Borrowed" is out now at Farther Stars Than These.

Emma was playing with Lev the Lion when the bell rang.

Rainbows gleamed in her father's eyes: the porch camera feed relaying to his optic nerve. Emma giggled as his cheeks and forehead wrinkled up in befuddlement; but his eyes dulled back to brown a moment later, and he went to open the door.

(...continue reading.)

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.