I’m thrilled to announce that my 1,100-word dreamy horror story “Stag In Winter” is published in Cosmic Horror Monthly issue #33! It’s a little tale of a man who has lost his purpose finding one in a commune in the wilderness. It’s so nice to be needed. The Great Resignation meets Showtime’s Yellowjackets.
Please enjoy “Stag In Winter” in Cosmic Horror Monthly issue #33.
I’m thrilled to announce that my 1,000-word science fiction story, “The Air Will Catch Us,” is published in Reckoning issue 7! A grandparent reckons with environmental changes nobody had foreseen, where–as Pennywise the Clown promised–everyone floats.
Link to story:
Please enjoy “The Air Will Catch Us” in Reckoning issue 7.
Please enjoy “The Air Will Catch Us” to read for free!
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I’m thrilled to announce that my 2,100-word short story “Don’t Make Me Come Down There” is published in Translunar Travelers Lounge! It features the Hindu trinity of deities, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who (try to) work like an Agile software team to iteratively perfect the universe. But Vishnu keeps going off-process with all his avatar hot-fixes.
Link to the story:
Please enjoy “Don’t Make Me Come Down There” in Translunar Travelers Lounge issue 7.
Hooray! This story got a blurb in Locus Magazine!
I’m thrilled to announce that my 900-word flash fiction “Act One, Scene Five” has been published in Brilliant Flash Fiction WHEREIN the only Korean-American kid in school gets into character to rehearse Romeo’s first kiss with Juliet.
Please enjoy “Act One, Scene Five” in Brilliant Flash Fiction. (It’s a ways down the page of the June 2022 issue, alongside other tiny stories you’ll want to read!)
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I’m thrilled to announce that my 950-word flash science fiction story, “Our Kingdom Come,” has been published in Daily Science Fiction WHEREIN a tech billionaire achieves his dream of dying on Mars and second generation robots break from their immigrant parents’ dreams for the future.
Please enjoy “Our Kingdom Come” in Daily Science Fiction.
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I’m thrilled to announce that my 4,100-word cozy fantasy story “Epilogue” appears in the inaugural issue of Wyngraf Magazine! It features eldritch wine, delicious leftovers, reminiscence, glimmers of magic, and long-overdue kissing.
Link:
Please enjoy “Epilogue” in Wyngraf Magazine Issue 1.
Have you ever been so immersed in an epic fantasy world that you never wanted the story to end? Because ending meant a return to the ordinary world, without magic, without purpose written in prophecy, without thrilling possibility? What if the characters in that epic fantasy felt the same way?
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I’m thrilled to announce that my 500-word flash science fiction story, “In Roaring She Shall Rise,” won second place in the 2020 Escape Pod Flash Fiction contest! It’s a particular thrill to be published by a podcast. Hearing one’s words performed–in this case by Cast of Wonders editor Katherine Inskip–is a rare treat.
Please enjoy “In Roaring She Shall Rise” on Escape Pod.
Short fiction review-maestro Charles Payseur has some lovely things to say about this story and its Escape Pod peers in his Quick Sip Reviews.
Continue readingI’m thrilled to announce that my (tad longer than) flash story “Local Hero” is now live in Dream of Shadows Issue 2! The big Epic Fantasy war against the Dark Lord is over, and in the Black Land, the Orcs are living under occupation by their conquerors. But even a beaten people have their heroes and legends.
Read: “Local Hero” in Dream of Shadows, Issue 2
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UPDATE: “The Old Ones, Great and Small” can now be read, for free, at Diabolical Plots!
With great pride and pleasure, I can now announce that my story “The Old Ones, Great and Small” is now available in the Diabolical Plots Year Five collection! It will also be available to read for free on the Diabolical Plots website in March 2020.
Charles Payseur wrote a lovely QuickSip Review in his long-running short fiction review column.
Tara Grimravn also wrote a lovely review for Tangent.
Jeff Xilon had kind things to say in his Short Fiction Roundup.
A.C. Wise included this story in her “My Favorite Short Fiction of 2020” list.
Writing this story started, as is so common with a fledgling SFF writer, with being inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Maybe it’s a burning desire to use “squamous,” “cyclopean,” or “non-Euclidean geometry” in a sentence. Maybe it’s a desire to describe the indescribable. Maybe it’s a need to respond to the xenophobia and gynophobia underpinning Lovecraft’s stories. Or maybe it’s curiosity about why and how those stories endure and continue to spawn a thousand young.
I’m not immune. To me, the horror of H.P. Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones is the Fear of the Other to the ultimate degree. Not only are his horrors shadowy and inscrutable, they are so alien as to defy understanding; the sane human mind is incapable of comprehending them. Merely knowing of them, of their scale and cosmic indifference, moves us far from the center and threatens our sense of significance. How existentially angsty!
So, what if we beat them? What if humanity did what it always does in the face of an imminent, adversarial threat: girded ourselves, developed weapons and defenses, and subdued or annihilated our foe? “The Old Ones, Great and Small” takes place in the after-times. Humanity has gone into the shadows and dragged what lurked there out into the light. We’ve caged them, studied them, and even forced them to perform for us. Now, once we’ve gotten past our fear, how do we see the Ultimate Other? Is it much different from how we’ve evolved on all the other Others we feared?
I read that the original concept pitch for the movie Jurassic World described a scene where a bored teenager takes a selfie with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I love that notion. I’ll never forget the sense of wonder from the original movie, when they first see the Brachiosaurus stand on it’s hind legs to reach a treetop. But years later… Ho hum. Kids these days, right?
Of course the protagonist of my story would be an old man. Not the sort to take selfies. A brooder, a park bench philosopher. And in a short story, I didn’t have to make a Lovecraftian Jurassic Park in three acts, complete with escaping, rampaging monsters (as fun as that could be) and a cautionary message. The story could focus on a smaller, quieter concern. Like where the sense of terror (and wonder) had gone–and whether it could ever be rediscovered.
“L’Appel du Vide,” French for “the call of the void,” is a psychological phenomenon where a person standing at a precipice has a sudden notion of stepping out into the abyss. It’s not a suicidal urge. It’s a reflex of the imagination in the face of a thin line between possibilities. To be free is to be able to choose, even between life and death. There’s the rational choice–the sane choice, and… the other one. But what if?
Sometimes we don’t make a choice because we don’t see the choice. We’re stuck in a rut, and tethered down by the rational justifications for staying in that rut. But sometimes, circumstances force us to the brink of other possibilities. There’s a terror in that. And a thrill. It’s the feeling of being truly alive.
This is a story about hovering at the edge of possibilities. Please enjoy “L’Appel du Vide” at Metaphorosis, either with the other stories in issue 39 as a $3 ebook, or free on the site, on March 22 2019.
This story has also been reprinted in Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019.
I wrote this story after leaving a rut that had become unbearable, without having a “next thing” in hand. It was a scary, frustrating, and guilt-ridden time. But it was also an astounding experience of personal agency, having blocks of time that I could devote to things that I chose, for no other reason than I was interested. It couldn’t last, of course. And it didn’t. But… what if?
(Side note: This is the second of my published stories, after “Matchstick Reveries,” which features someone rising up into the air. The third, after “Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear?“, if you count people gazing up into the sky. Not sure what that’s about.)
I’d like to thank editor B. Morris Allen for his patient persistence helping me get this story up to par for his wonderful magazine.
Raj Against The Machine 