Tag Archive: short stories


In which the author takes performance-inducing drugs

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July 12, 2025

…by which, to be clear, I mean caffeine and sugar. Mostly caffeine, really. So much caffeine.

I know this is ultimately unhealthy, and I know that Brando Sando (allegedly) doesn’t even consume coffee, but he’s the unattainable ideal of us writers. (The man wrote a bunch of full-length novels in secret while writing his regularly scheduled books during the lockdown.)

On the other hand, there’s Stephen King and Philip K. Dick, both of whom abused hard drugs with gusto. King said there are entire novels from that part of his life that he simply doesn’t remember writing, and PKD’s output was legendary – until he died of stroke at 53. (To be fair, even goody-two-shoes folks can get fatal strokes, and it can’t be proven that the drugs played a part.)

And then there’s me, chugging an extra-large black coffee with a Tim Hortons donut, which had been preceded by a passable cup of coffee and an above-average slice of chocolate cake at a fun little coffee date… The nature of my creative fuel is almost hilariously geeky by comparison, but hey, if it works, it works.

During the long walk home (the damn bus strike – still – but also, the weather was perfect), an old seed of an idea finally sprouted and, well, I aim to spend the rest of the night typing up the first draft of my first foray into a horror story. (With heavy sci-fi elements, of course, because come on…) Then I’ll sleep on it (after binge-watching a few more episodes of Alone), apply several coats of edits and shoe-shine – and then it shall join the ranks of my as-yet-unsold short stories and start the big bounce between the genre magazines looking for this sort of thing.

And now… Time to type, eh.

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In which the author experiments with ultra-minimalism

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June 26, 2025

Been sleeping on the floor these past five weeks. This has been due to a very logical set of decisions culminating in a pretty eccentric conclusion. I wrote about it a few posts ago, but briefly: my attempted thru-hike from Mexico to Canada ended prematurely, all my things were in storage, and I still had my empty apartment’s lease till July 1.

Ipso facto, didn’t make much sense to deal with a moving truck for just a few weeks.As of right now, my studio apartment has one small cooking pot (no lid), one fork, one pocket knife (mangos are hard!), a small pile of clothes, a laptop, a cellphone, a few chargers, some hygiene stuff, and two empty backpacks. Oh, and the sleeping bag I use on the floorboards (I’m not a barbarian), though without a mat (I’m not a king). There are also kitchen appliances (fridge, freezer, stove), but they’re more or less a default setting for rentals.

And… that’s pretty much it. Since mid-May, I joined a nice little anglophone library, attended a book sale, and have acquired a small stack of books that I haven’t quite read yet. In other words, the usual routine has been reestablished.I like to think of myself as a minimalist with a bit of an art hoard, but this is mighty minimalistic even for me, eh. This strange little lifestyle design experiment has had some interesting outcomes…

For example, I don’t miss my art, or my cool gem and mineral collection. Not sure if that’s because I’d gotten so used to them over the years, or because mentally, I’m still in a flux over the failed thru-hike adventure. (Not bad, just weird; a lot of compulsive walking.)

I have internet access through my phone’s frankly exorbitant data plan, and I use my phone as a hotspot whenever I need to do something on my laptop. I’m not streaming anything because I want to preserve all those gigabytes, and I rather miss Netflix. And gaming, even though I realize how addictive that hobby is. (I literally dream of Skyrim.)

Ironically and unexpectedly, the thing I miss the most is radio. Just a plain old little radio-clock cube thingy that can be set to a local station, to babble at me in that beautiful blend that is the Quebecois French, because, frankly, it’s impossible to learn from any app. (The continental French is an entirely different animal.)

One objective improvement has been my productivity. With my desktop in storage, I haven’t made any new short films, but now I have so much time (and so few distractions) to simply write. Over the pasy five weeks, I’ve written five short stories. They range in length from 333 to 5,400 words, and one of them has already been accepted by a Canadian anthology, woooo! (More on that later, once the contract is signed.) Also, I’ve just signed the contract for another anthology – this one will be about superheroes, and will feature my February story “To Fly or Not to Fly.” (Inspired by my experience with bureaucracies and the time I jumped into traffic to save a feral toddler.) The other stories I’ve written recently (and earlier) are awaiting replies from a wide variety of magazines. There’s one particular (and major) magazine that has been sitting on my new submitted story for quite a while now… I’m cautiously optimistic, given that their usual turnaround time is just a day or two.

All in all, this has been the most productive stretch of my life, writing-wise. Perhaps it’s the near-isolation, or the sheer emptiness of my living space (my studio isn’t big, but it looks huge without 97% of my stuff), or the fact that the weather is finally good enough to go on looong walks (think 2-5 hours) without being threatened by the elements – just walking and thinking and meditating on new plots and absorbing random new experiences. (Quebec City didn’t get its T-shirt weather till late May. I love this town, but I swear, the spring is getting colder every year.)

Or maybe it’s none of those things, and the wacky desert adventure, where each day had more new experiences than a fortnight in this town, reshuffled my brain and finally helped me internalize the way the narrative process works. I had so many stranger-than-fiction encounters in that desert… I miss it.

Or maaaaybe the secret factor here is that I’ve been doing a helluva lot of reading. In addition to going through my gigantic “to read” list (it’s in triple figures!), I’ve also been devouring the Wolrdcon finalist packet. Worldcon is the biggest annual sci-fi/fantasy convention (held in Seattle this year), and since they picked me for their short film festival, I figured I might as well go for the full event, not just for one day. $275 bought me full membership privileges, the convention pass (it’ll be so much fun to finally meet all my favourite authors), and the PDF versions of all the short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels (and many other categories) that made it to the final round of voting.

I take my newfound responsibility seriously, which is why I’m reading all of them. Every last one. They are delicious, eh. Currently almost done with Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Service Model” – that novel is an absolute blast. (Think Wall-E mixed with Fallout.) I’ve literally laughed out loud – and often – while reading it. Five stars, highly recommended.

So, yeah, inspiration galore. About a week from now, I’ll move into my new apartment (it’ll have a balcony! but no bathtub…) and get all my things from storage, and my life will once again have Netflix, and video games, and other time magnets. Here is hoping the new habits will stick.

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On symbolism and lack thereof

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June 16, 2025

A while back, I wrote that I personalize my social media to absorb only interesting factoids or insights from folks who are experts in certain topics. That doesn’t always pay off (I’ve had to mute a lot of politicians’ names), but when it does, it’s beautiful. Today was one of those days.

Recently, there was a big debate about symbolism: someome made a webcomic where they mocked a Literature professor and implied that Poe’s raven was a happy accident, not a deliberate choice. I’m not going to repost the webcomic here because it turned out its creator was 16 when they made that cringeworthy (but surprisingly artistic!) masterpiece. What folks do before their 18th birthday ought to be a sealed record.

In the aftermath of that online debate, someone posted a link to a fascinating article on the topic. In 1963, a teen asked top writers about their use of symbolism. Here’s what they said…

The article, which is already great all on its own, also mentioned an amazing essay by Mary McCarthy, “Settling the Colonel’s Hash.” She’d published a non-fiction piece that sounded like short story: her train ride amd debate with an antisemitic colonel. Far too many people assumed her story was fiction, and proceeded to over-analyze it, hunting for clever symbols when there were none.

In her “Settling the Colonel’s Hash” essay, years later, McCarthy dived deep into the dangers of looking too hard for symbolism, even when the author’s intent is right there. Enjoy this PDF version of her essay.

Some of my favourite bits:

1. “from the Middle West” is such a posh way to say “Midwesterner”

2. “A surprising number wanted exact symbols; for example, they searched for the significance of the colonel’s eating hash and the autor eating a sandwich.” (I love this weapons-grade snark.)

3. “If the colonel had ordered a fruit salad with whipped cream, this too would have represented him in some way; given his other traits, it would have pointed to a complexity in his character that the hash did not suggest.” (The fact that it’s true makes it that much funnier.)

4. “He declined to be categorized as anti-Semite; he regarded himself as an independent thinker, who by a happy chance thought the same as everybody else.” (That describes folks – especially men – today every bit as much as 60 years ago…)

There are many more amazing bits, but I don’t want to spoil that beautiful essay for you. Enjoy that 10-page read, and take your time – it’s worth it.

…and as for me, sometimes I find so beautiful that I simply must include it in my short films. Other times, it’s only at the very end of the editing process that I find a tiny detail that ties in perfectly with my theme – but had sneaked in right under my nose. And then, of course, there are lots of tiny little jokes in my short stories. Some of them are more noticeable than others, but I don’t deliberately sprinkle symbolism all over the place. (Though, as McCarthy wrote, everything we do is symbolic, which means that’s ultimately inescapable.)

And now I’m off to put a couple of more layers of polish on my new short story. (Technically, this whole symbolism foray – both reading and blogging – has been procrastination on my short story, which is, in turn, a way of procrastinating on my not-yet-started new novel.) The story is my first attempt at fantasy, or at least urban-ish fantasy. “Some Notes on Becoming a God” will end up around 3,000 words, and it touches on some mighty topical modern issues. Let’s see who’ll want to publish it, eh?

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Losses and wins

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June 3, 2025

My desert adventure ended early. I wrote about it in depth on my trail journal. Short version: my legs got several injuries, the trail was a lot less developed than advertised (at least 10% included walking on the side of a highway…), and it was soul-crushingly lonely. It was considered normal to walk 3-4 days without seeing another human being. This year, in particular, there was a shortage of hikers, especially from other countries. (Probably due to the politics and the ongoing harassment of foreign tourists.)

The loneliness bit may have been partly due to bad luck. There was one experienced hiker (she’d done the Triple Crown (hiking all three major trails) twice) who managed to form a trail family of eight people around her by the time she reached the first town, 83 miles from the border. Impressive, that. Others ended up walking outside such bubbles.

The desert was beautiful, though… I’d never seen the Milky Way so bright, not even in the Sierra-Nevada mountains during my PCT thru-hike in 2022. Along the way, I explored the ghost town of Old Hachita – or what’s left of it. Those ruins were some grade-A Wild West Americana.

In the end, I made it 155 miles before calling it quits in Silver City, NM. The downtown Palace Hotel was incredibly hiker-friendly, and there were quite a few of us there. Many were recovering from their own injuries, most of them less serious than my own. It was a bit like a hiker-trash field hospital in that respect. My initial (and very very ambitious) plan had been to do the entire Triple Crown by completing the Continental Divide Trail this year, followed by the Appalachian Trail in 2026. But over at that hotel… Yeesh. Yeesh, I say. Multiple thruhikers (who had saved the CDT for last) I met would complain about how much they disliked the AT, and how they were forcing themselves to do the CDT.

I listened to their woeful laments, and nodded, and sympathized – and also asked myself, “Self, is that what I sound like?”

There comes a point when pursuing an overly ambitious quest becomes not merely eccentric or quixotic, but self-destructive, with not much fun along the way. A lot of that desert section was beautiful, and I met some unique and interesting people, but hiking on the side of the highway, alone, with coal-rolling trucks spewing exhaust in my face… That doesn’t count as a “National Scenic Trail” in my book.

…though to be fair, if my legs hadn’t decided to fall apart (should I have done more ThighMaster exercises beforehand?..), and if it had been just a bit less lonely, I might have carried on, if only out of sheer stubbornness.

Ah well.

The unplanned return back to Quebec was pricey: a flight from Silver City to Albuquerque (a very cheap, very tiny propeller plane; great experience!), from there to New York, and from there, an all-night bus back home. My apartment lease was still good until June 30th, so that’s where I’ve been for the past two weeks. No furniture (still in storage), only my sleeping bag, the contents of my hiking backpack, and a big bag of “welcome home” stuff I’d packed away for easy access. (The initial plan had been to finish the hike, get an AirBnB, and hunt for apartments.)

It makes no sense to hire a moving truck, move my stuff back here, and then move it back to my new apartment (just found one) on July 1, soooo here I am, trapped in the midst of strange logistics. Just an empty studio, a sleeping bag, a few books, my phone, and my laptop. (I use the phone as a hotspot when I need to do laptop-specific things.)

It’s a hilarious parody of a bachelor’s life (though fortunately, my girlfriend was glad to see me back early!), but on the upside, I’ve gotten quite a lot done. I’ve already finished a couple of new short stories, caught up on a lot of reading, and done some other productive stuff. If I’d returned to my TV, gaming computer, and unlimited internet, my productivity would’ve been a whole lot lower, eh.

I’ve got some good news, too. I always juggle a lot of different projects, and a few of them paid off:

My essay “A Hierarchy of Apocalypses” has been published in Phano, making it my first-ever non-fiction sale. (I’m not including my Kindle e-books.) Also, the pixel art the editor had picked to go with my essay is a thing of beauty.

“If Time Travel Were Possible…” (a short story set in my OTTO-verse) has been published in Black Cat Weekly, which also resulted in my first-ever fan mail!

“Murder of the Orient Express” (of, not on!) has been published in Pulp Asylum. The title is a bit of a funny story: a couple of podcast hosts had a blooper moment when they mispronounced the title of that classic novel, and they laughed it off. But that got me thinking… Who would want to kill an actual train itself? Why? And how? And thus this story was born!

…and I have a few more waiting in the wings.

It’s a bit funny: in the short-story biz, an “emerging writer” is defined as someone who has three or fewer publishing credits. I guess that makes me an emerged writer, eh?

One particular cool piece of news is that my short film, “Please Don’t Send Help,” got accepted by the first-ever Worldcon Film Festival! Worldcon is the biggest annual sci-fi convention in the world, and this will be their first addition of a film festival alongside all the author-related events. This year, it’s held in Seattle, in mid-August. I’ll get to attend it for free for one day when my film screens, and it’ll be a fun experience, being there as a sci-fi creator, but not (or at least not yet) a published novelist. Just like with my one-day visit to the New York Comic Con last October, I’ll have to make the most of it!

And speaking of film festivals… I’ve got at least two dozen major film fests I’ve applied for. (Why yes, I do have a problem.) All of them are famous for their hospitality, hard to get into, and/or will get me sponsored by Quebec if I get picked. That’s mostly for the European festivals, but I really like my odds with the Finnish Tampere fest! We’ll see.

If even a few of those festivals accept me (and I submitted four films to each one, to boost my odds), that’ll result in more partying within a single year than in my entire life up to this point. All those submission fees have cost me a pretty penny (even with the carefully timed early-bird discounts), but a) parties! and b) unforgettable experiences and c) possibly new grand adventures stemming from those new connections?, and d) once you get accepted, you usually get a lifelong alumni discount, meaning no more fees ever again.

And so, while my dream of becoming an elite professional thru-hiker has gone bust, the upside is that I’d be able to attend my film’s screening at my dream sci-fi convention (that would’ve been impossible if I kept hiking), and I’ve used all this free time (and utter lack of distractions) to double-down on my artsy endeavours. Let’s see how this plays out, eh?

…there’s a distinct possibility that a year from today, I’ll be completely frazzled, drained of energy, filled with way too many conflicting and overlapping memories of far too many events (what folks in the biz call “the festival brain”), but that kind of fatigue will be a good problem to have – or, as I call these things, #GrigoryProblems

I hope all y’all are about to have a fun summer too!

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In which the author’s stratagems bear fruit

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April 5, 2025

There’s a fairly old video game, Red Dead Redemption, and it has a beautiful theme song… The lyrics are beautiful, but this bit in particular always resonated with me:

“And all the storms you’ve been chasin’
About to rain down tonight.”

The sum total of long-term plans, all coming to fruition at the same time. This week has been like that for my writing endeavours.

First, the Pulp Asylum magazine bought my short story “Murder of the Orient Express” (of, not on). After that, Story Unlikely bought the reprint rights to my very first sold story, “How to Prepare for Time Travelers in the Workplace.” And last but not least, I’ve sold my first-ever non-fiction work! My essay “The Hierarchy of Apocalypses” will appear in an upcoming issue of Phano. It’s about my video game escapism during the pandemic, and the many, many ways we as a society have chosen to outsource our humanity to machines. I’ve written quite a few non-fiction Kindle books before, but this is the first actual non-fiction essay sale. Hopefully, the first of many!

Also, I’ve finished yet another short film! That particular project is still top-secret, but it is – for once – not sci-fi, and it deals with a quixotic astronaut. Gonna add a few finishing touches and then try my luck submitting it to some A-list festivals. (The odds may be against me, but I have infinite time and optimism.)

Needless to say, this week has been one long series of celebrations. It’s a good thing I’m trying to gain as much weight as possible for my upcoming Continental Divide Trail adventure. (I fly out in just 17 days, wooo!) And on top of that, I have a very very enthusiastic agent reading my new novel (“The Patron Saint of Unforgivable Mistakes”), and a few more stories submitted to anthologies – which have not yet been rejected on sight. (That’s always a good sign!)

I can’t quite describe how great this feels: after months of rejections, receiving three acceptance emails (and on the same week!) is an unbelievable dopamine boost.

I track all my story submissions (and rejections) in a plain old text file – that’s fast and easy. At this point, I’m starting to run low on the unsold stories, which is an excellent problem to have! I’m currently reading the wonderful “Creating Short Fiction” by Damon Knight – reading it slowly, because (unlike so many writing guides…), it’s choke-full of advice and food for thought. The goal is to read it and internalize its lessons (or most of them, anyway) before my big CDT hike. I won’t have a lot of free time on my adventure, but I’ll have some – and I’ll have many many hours of nothing but hiking, and thinking, and brainstorming. This isn’t one of my primary goals for the hike (and not even in the top-5), but I suspect I’ll finish it with quite a few new short stories and poems. We’ll see, eh.

Here is to more acceptance letters from editors!

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Short story level-up!

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March 25, 2025

This has been quite an eventful week for my writing career. I’ve just made my second short story sale of the year! (The first sale is currently in limbo: I’ll post about it once it finalizes.)

My short story “Murder of the Orient Express” (of, not on) will appear in the June issue of Pulp Asylum. Also, that officially makes me a pulp fiction writer. Heh.

There’s a funny story behind the title… “Murder of the Orient Express” was a blooper on the great “Ex Urbe Ad Astra” podcast hosted by Malka Older & Jo Walton. They misspoke, then laughed it off and moved on, but it got me thinking… How do you kill an actual train? And why? What kind of person would even do such a thing? You’ll have to wait till June to find out!

I’m very very glad to get my third paid publishing credit (2025 has been quite kind to me so far), and I hope this will inspire all y’all to do what I did: seek inspiration in the weirdest places. You can find a kernel for a fun story just about anywhere – as long as your eyes are open and your mind is imaginative.

Good luck, eh.

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Book review: Writers of the Future Volume 31

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April 26, 2015

“Writers of the Future Volume 31” is this year’s collection of 13 best sci-fi stories by new writers. The stories (most of which are quite enjoyable) are interspersed with occasional essays on writing by L. Ron Hubbard, Orson Scott Card, etc. Overall, the collection had some nice gems and should give every sci-fi fan hours of enjoyment. (Or days, if you’d like to stretch it out!) Each story has an amazing illustration to go with it. The artists are featured alongside the authors, so who knows – maybe this book will be the big break they need.

Brief reviews:
“Switch” by David Farland – a cop using mental performance-enhancing drug is on the case to find the drug’s manufacturer after a series of violent crimes. Interesting if you’re into police stories and action movies.

“The God Whisperer” by Daniel J. Davis – what if people had minor gods as pets? Funny and creative story – shame it was so short, because there’s definitely enough potential for a book.

“Stars That Make Dark Heaven Light by Sharon Joss – a teenage girl from a space colony of genetically modified humans discovers an intelligent lifeform in her backyard. The story has a Young Adult feel to it and it’s beautifully written.

“When Shadows Fall” by L. Ron Hubbard – a 1948 story about three men’s attempts to save a dying, suffocating Earth in the distant future. An enjoyable yet unusual story written more like a parable.

“A Revolutionary’s Guide to Practical Conjuration” by Auston Habershaw – a teenager acquires a magical book to, well, learn magic and right the wrongs in his society (and his gang). Creative and entertaining, with a great twist at the end.

“Twelve Minutes to Vinh Quang” by Tim Napper – a deal between a Vietnamese gangster and a young woman who wants to smuggle some people through the border suddenly gets very complicated. Short and sweet, with a badass heroine but not a lot of action or plot development.

“Planar Ghosts” by Krystal Claxton – a kid wanders the scorched steppes of the futuristic, post-global-warming world, with a strange purple ghost of a girl as his companion. Interesting idea, but the execution could be slightly better.

“Rough Draft” by Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta – a bestselling sci-fi writer who stopped writing receives a novel written by himself – from a parallel universe. The story deals with practical applications of milking the multiverse for new content by artists and writers – and how it affects the creators who are still alive in this universe.

“Between Screens” by Zach Chapman – a gang of teenagers livng on a space station teleport around the universe and hijack telescopes to watch other worlds get destroyed by natural disasters. Gloomy and disturbing, if you’re into that kind of thing.

“Unrefined” by Martin L. Shoemaker – a metal refining station in deep space gets destroyed. Told from the point of view of the station creator’s bodyguard, the story is mostly about flying around and trying to save a collapsing station, followed by a story of the employees pulling themselves up by bootstraps. If you’re an Ayn Rand-loving engineer, you might enjoy it.

“Half Past” by Samantha Murray – a magician’s daughter who creates “echoes” of herself during emotional outbursts learns something very disturbing when she decides to move out on her own. An interesting slow-paced tale of emotion, magic and different stages of growing up.

“Purposes Made for Alien Minds” by Scott R. Parkin – a malfunctioning android who can only speak and think in 5-word sentences is sent to an alien world to discover why the aliens are killing off human colonists. Strange but overall enjoyable story.

“Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven – late at night, a freelance writer suddenly realizes that the ridiculously bright moon means something really, really bad is coming. A fun story about a guy and his girlfriend enjoying their last night on earth.

“The Graver” by Amy M. Hughes – in a world where super-powered people can suck out your soul, a widower is trying to protect his teenage daughter. Dark but creative.

“Wisteria Melancholy” by Michael T. Banker – a man who gets as heavy as lead when he feels sad moves into a clinic for other psychomorphically unstable people (mostly kids). Interesting concept, well written, contains some great quotable stuff.

“Poseidon’s Eyes” by Kary English – something about a struggling artist, her magical redneck friend who lives on the beach, some ghosts, etc… If you enjoy very slowly developing stories, this might be the one for you – I ended up skipping to the end when I was halfway through.

Score: 4 stars

Pre-order on Amazon (release date: May 4, 2015)

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Book review: “When Mystical Creatures Attack!” by Kathleen Founds

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November 25, 2014

“When Mystical Creatures Attack!” by Kathleen Founds is a quirky book that defies simple descriptions.

It’s a book about a disgruntled young high school teacher in a tiny Texan town, who gets driven insane by her ungrateful students and ends up in a bizarre mental hospital. It’s a book about a girl who takes the teacher’s English class. It’s a book about a dorky boy who has a crush on the girl.

It’s a book pieced together from emails, diary entries, monologues and hilarious recipes from a Baptist cookbook.

It’s a book about life and death, destiny and suicide, love and apathy, teenage pregnancies and abortions. (Trigger warning.)

It’s a book where the ending can be easily guessed, and yet it’s unexpected and poetic and beautiful.

It’s a book that’s frequently hilarious, occasionally touching, and amazingly well written throughout.

It’s a book that deserves a 5-star rating and more.

(Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Amazon link

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Book review: “Time Travel: Recent Trips”

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“Time Travel: Recent Trips” is yet another sci-fi anthology edited by the prodigious Paula Guran. While this book has some remarkable stories, it appears that the volume’s motto was “quantity over quality.” Some of the stories are downright tedious, while others have almost nothing to do with time travel and serve as a filibuster platform for their author. Because of all that, the book ended up being an average, run-of-the-mill anthology that gets only 3 out of 5 stars.

“With fate conspire” by Vandana Singh: in a dystopian, drowning world of the future, an illiterate refugee gets rescued because her brain is uniquely tuned to a machine that can look into the distant past. When she’s not being haunted by ghosts of people from the past, she sabotages the project because of her feelings. And more feelings. With some feelings on top. A sad weepy story if you’re into that sort of thing.

“Twember” by Steve Rasnic Tem: a middle-aged man living in a small town reminisces about the past while giant mysterious escarpments roam the world and alter the time-space continuum when they pass. Yet another “human interest” story that doesn’t exactly revolve around time travel.

“The man who ended history: a documentary” by Ken Liu: not so much a sci-fi story as a 46-page-long (the longest in the anthology!) NC-17 history lesson about Japan’s Unit-731 from World War II. A Chinese-American historian uses his Japanese-American wife’s invention to experience the past and relive old atrocities, which reopens old wounds and changes the way people view history. Great potential for a great story, but it ended up being rather dry.

“The carpet beds of Sutro Park” by Kage Baker: a glitchy immortal cyborg (see Kage Baker’s “The Company” series for more information) falls in love with a woman while he records her hometown for posterity. Original but depressing.

“Mating habits of the late Creaceous” by Dale Bailey: a magnificent story about a married couple that spent all its money on a time travel to see dinosaurs. A great combination of science fiction, giant lizards and the human element.

“Blue ink” by Yoon Ha Lee: a very clever story about a schoolgirl who gets recruited to help fight the battle at the end of time. Short, beautifully written and with an unexpected ending.

“Two shots from Fly’s photo gallery” by John Shirley: a historian who specializes in the Old West time-travels to the gunfight at the OK Corral to save the woman he loves. A thoroughly researched and excellent story.

“The mists of time” by Tom Purdom: an engaging story about a wealthy man who goes back in time to shoot a documentary about his great-grandfather liberating a pirate ship full of slaves.

“The king of Where-I-go” by Howard Waldrop: a strange story set in the 1970s – a Texan guy’s younger sister gets recruited into a paranormal research project. Curious premise, but the story itself meanders – more about life in the 60s and 70s than anything else.

“Bespoke” by Genevieve Valentine: a cute short story about a post-time-travel world, where a young seamstress helps create authentic period clothing for wealthy tourists going back in time.

“First Flight” by Mary Robinette Kowal: a little old lady goes back in time to 1905 to record one of the Wright brothers’ flights. A feel-good story where, for once, interfering with the timeline doesn’t cause a disaster.

“The time travel club” by Charlie Jane Anders: a quirky story about a group of friends who meet each week in the basement of a Unitarian church and share their made-up stories about time travel, until a real time traveler shows up… Fun and creative.

“The ghosts of Christmas” by Paul Cornell: science fiction meets Lifetime channel in this story about a woman who uses an experimental time travel device to haunt her own past and future, her mather and her daughter. A lot of monologues about feelings, not a lot of science…

“The Ile of Dogges” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette: a very Kage Baker-like story about a time traveler rescuing a play that would have been destroyed otherwise.

“September at Wall and Broad” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: an excellent story that combines the inefficiency of federal bureaucracies (the Time Department), the highly believable description of what it would be like to be a timestream operative, and the little-known Wall Street explosion of 1920. Highly recommended.

“Thought experiment” by Eileen Gunn: an engineer invents an unusual way to time-travel, but fails to consider the consequences. A goofy and entertaining story.

“Number 73 Glad Avenue” by Suzanne J. Willis: A woman and her magical tiny android sidekick steal time from people attending their parties. An unusual concept, though the story itself is a bit confusing.

“The Lost Canal” by Michael Moorcock: an unsuccessful and far too lengthy homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” novels. Apparently, a million years from now people will still speak English and remember what happened in the 20th century and what happened in the 23rd.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Amazon link

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Book review: “Zombies: More Recent Dead”

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October 1, 2014

“Zombies: More Recent Dead,” edited by Paula Guran, is yet another anthology of short stories featuring the walking dead. While it features a few excellent stories, a lot of the stories are random musings on life, the universe and everything, with a zombie or two thrown in for flavor. While a short story anthology can usually get away with a few stories that aren’t quite related to the subject at hand, at some point the balance gets disrupted.

This is just a guess, but the editor might have deliberately picked quantity over quality in this anthology. What could have been an excellent, average-length anthology ended up being a cumbersome refuge of anything and everything that claimed to be zombie-related.

“The Afflicted” by Matthew Johnson: when the zombie virus affects the elderly the most, one badass nurse chooses to protect, heal and occasionally kill them in their FEMA camp. An interesting story with a lot of human element.

“Dead Song” by Jay Wilburn: something I’ve never seen before – a story about the evolution of music in the post-zombie world. Dark and fascinating, told in the documentary style.

“Iphigenia in Aulis” by Mike Carey: this seemingly innocuous story about a little girl who goes to school in a guarded compound gradually gets darker and darker. Told from the girl’s point of view, it’s one of my favorites in the anthology.

“Pollution” by Don Webb: an in-depth look into the economics of zombie ownership, through the eyes of a fairly stupid American guy who lives in (and is obsessed with) Japan.

“Becca at the End of the World” by Shira Lipkin: a very in-depth and personal look at the biggest trope of zombie fiction, where a relative gets bitten and something should be done.

“The Naturalist” by Naureen F. McHugh: once the zombie threat is under control, Cleveland becomes a penitentiary. One of the condemned prisoners turns into a zombie naturalist. A dark and interesting story.

“Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)” by Alex Dally Macfarlane: a cheap “World War Z” knockoff.

“What Maisie Knew” by David Liss: in a world where corpses can be turned into subservient zombies, a drunk driver is trying to silence his victim.

“Rocket Man” by Stephen Graham Jones: a bunch of children play baseball (with their zombie classmate) and act stupid to impress the lifeguard lady.

“The Day the Music Died” by Joe McKinney: what do you do when the rockstar you work for turns into a zombie? Lock him, feed him groupies and make money off his unreleased material, of course! Dark, twisted and morbidly funny.

“The Children’s Hour” by Marge Simon: a very short and not very creative poem that doesn’t rhyme and has no rhythm.

“Delice” by Holly Newstein: a story that collects every stereotype you can think of. Zombie priestess? Check. New Orleans voodoo? Check. Horribly abused slaves? Check. Justice from beyond the grave? Check. I ended up speed-reading through this one…

“Trail of the dead” by Joanne Anderton: a short but intriguing story about an accidental Necromancer that’s stalked by a Necromancer Hunter and his reluctant assistant.

“The Death and Life of Bob” by William Jablonsky: what if a regular person from a regular office came back to life and decided to go back to work? A fun and slightly bitter story, that’s what.

“Stemming the Tide” by Simon Strantzas: in a post-zombie world, a misanthrope and his girlfriend take a trip to watch a zombie tide.

“Those Beneath the Bog” by Jacques L. Condor (Maka Tai Meh): a bunch of hermits (Native Americans?) hang out together, cook some deer, tell each other’s fortunes… This is one of the longer stories in the anthology and I stopped reading 1/3 of the way through. There might be zombies at some point in this glacially slow story, but it’s hard to tell.

“What Still Abides” by Marie Brennan: an interesting short story told in ye Olde English style about a zombie problem in the feudal Europe.

“Jack and Jill” by Jonathan Maberry: a young boy with cancer and a deathwish waits for a giant storm to arrive, but that’s not the only disaster he’ll experience… A sad and well-written story.

“In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection” by Caitlin R Kiernan: a mad scientist gently kills his girlfriend and brings her back to life to learn what’s on the other side. An unusual take on zombies, to say the least, and filled with purple prose.

“Rigormarole” by Michael A. Arnzen: a poem about a mad scientist’s unorthodox solution to the zombie problem. Fairly short and clever.

“Kitty’s Zombie New Year” by Carrie Vaughn: the hostess of a paranormal radio talk show encounters a zombie during a New Year’s Eve party. A very pragmatic take on zombies that avoids the genre’s usual tropes.

“The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring” by Genevieve Valentine: a fun and slow-paced short story about a town where water can make you immortal, and what it means to be a gravedigger in a place where no one really dies.

“Chew” by Tamsyn Muir: a disturbing story about a murdered woman coming back to life, told from the perspective of a young German boy right after WW2.

“‘Til Death Do Us Part” by Shaun Jeffrey: a surreal and creepy story about a man and his young son reintegrating their zombie wife/mother into their lives.

“There Is No “E” in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You or We” by Roxane Gay: all is fair in love and war – a woman in Haiti uses the zombie powder to get a lover.

“What Once we Feared (A Forest of Hands and Teeth Story)” by Carrie Ryan: a first-person narrative from a teenager who hid from zombies in a skyscraper’s penthouse with his four friends. Gritty, realistic and very well written.

“The Harrowers” by Eric Gregory: an amazing story that combines zombies, noir and just a little bit of cyberpunk (zombie cyborg bears!). A guide is tasked with helping a young man find his lost father outside the city walls, but nothing is as it seems… One of my favorites from this collection.

“Resurgam” by Lisa Mannetti: a story within a story about medical students stealing dead bodies (for science!) and the dead bodies coming back to life.

“I Waltzed with a Zombie” by Ron Goulart: a cute and occasionally funny story about a hack Hollywood writer in 1942, written in the style of that era.

“Aftermath” by Joy Kennedy-O’Neill: an unusual zombie story in that the infected eventually got cured. A former English professor describes the post-zombie world and provides increasingly disturbing flashbacks to her past. One of the best stories in the anthology, in my opinion – it reads just like something from “World War Z.”

“A Shepherd of the Valley” by Maggie Slater: a profoundly sad story about a religious hermit who lives in an airport with his 11 exoskeleton-controlled zombies, and a teenage girl that walks into his life. Reminded me of the video game “The Last of Us.”

“The Day the Saucers Came” by Neil Gaiman: a quirky little poem about the day the world changed.

“Love, Resurrected” by Cat Rambo: a necromancer’s undead girlfriend, who also happens to be a brilliant tactician, looks back at her life and tries to catch a remarkably talented warlord. A brilliant short story.

“Present” by Nicole Kornher-Stace: a high school student and her baby flee from zombies. Disturbing, to say the least, with some meta humor about zombies and horror stories.

“The Hunt: Before, and the Aftermath” by Joe R. Lansdale: a middle-aged couple goes on a zombie safari to save their marriage. A typical narrative of a cheating man, only with zombies in the backdrop.

“Bit Rot” by Charles Stross: a truly unusual take on the zombie genre, featuring insane irradiated androids on a spaceship. Excellent concept and execution.

Score: 3 stars

Disclaimer: I received my copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Link to the Amazon page

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