When the craft did arrive a few days later, their first act was a show of force, in which they vaporized 80% of the Siberian forests in a matter of minutes, having determined that there were no bananas being cultivated there. Earth’s military option was quickly dropped.
As though our visitor had tailored its request based on some vision of all those possible futures, exactly one million, just as it had asked for, volunteered with this same act of free will, the same commitment of spirit, to be exchanged for the healing of our blasted and dying home world.
I was an immediate fan of your story “Retrograde” upon reading it in Fatal Flaw last year. It is, in my view, an extraordinary work of short fiction—and its nomination for the Pushcart Prize last November suggests I’m far from Read more…
My bus arrived in Bagan at 5am, close to the Archeological Zone. The ancient city was swallowed up in pre-dawn darkness, residing beyond my sight on its vast, unseen plain.
“Just say it, Luke,” I implore him gently through the specialized vibration of my gullet and manipulations of the flesh around my beak. “What do you want to ask me?”
…these creatures leave us be while we rest, geared by evolution or some sick, parasitic intelligence to let their food replenish.
No, I do not fear pies. My fear is of what the robot will do to reach me. Its programming is cold, inflexible, and its calculations cruel. If people stand in its way, if they act to impede its progress – or, God forbid, attack it…
My arms are leaves. My heart is a severed stem. My eyes are yellow fornices. I am the Forget-Me-Not god.
“Y’know what?” I told the narrator. “No. Just…seriously. I’m tired tonight. It’s been an eight-hour shift and I had to work the cash through my lunch break because Peter decided to just not show up today.”
I want to get into talking about your 2018 release, Crestfallen, but first could you tell readers a bit about yourself, including when and how you got into writing? Oh boy… writing was actually the first thing I loved doing Read more…