I think I’ve chosen darkness. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Not really sure. There was a boy, drowning. I was sitting against a tree, reading. The birds, the damned birds,…
Science Fiction
The Bleeding Summer of Love
It began as a clear bright line in the sky. They could see it from the station wagon as they drove up the long, pine-bordered highway that led through the…
Gag
Despite its proximity, I hadn’t been to Manhattan’s venerable Russian and Turkish Baths in a while. I wasn’t quite old enough to be a regular, but my back had seized…
Roadkill Ethics
Herbert Ewing was gleefully observing the various drones flying about working his farmland — planting, seeding, applying agricultural sprays, irrigating, monitoring field conditions and plant health — when his “man,”…
A Gothic(k) Tale
Part II Part one of this story may be found here Oct. 10 Twenty-one days later—starting a new letter to bring you up to date. First of all, I should…
The Veranda
The Veranda In the beginning there were five of us at the Veranda. LeGuard was our employer, a New Magician from somewhere in South America. I and the other three…
Cold Days in Hell
The cops kicked Urfirer’s ass—and it wasn’t a pretty ass. Scales, stray hairs an inch thick, and a bleary blind eye on the left cheek. The thing that was pretty,…
Dirty Dishes
Cassie always knows what I’m thinking. She told me about the whole ESP thing just before we moved in together. How she had inherited the gene from her mother’s mother…
Outmatched: a Jagged Steel Creek Chronicle
Rico rode for months before he picked up the Tinker’s trail. He rode through woods in the South populated by ancient giants, cybernetic dwarves, and trees that grew higher than…
The Judgment of Cambyses
It was August 2075 in Brussels. A dying arts and antiquities dealer needed an heir – a suitable one, one that wouldn’t squander and ruin the business he had spent…