I don’t always choose the theme for a given issue. Sometimes it just presents itself. Much fiction is about transformations of one sort or another, but rarely is it hammered home so explicitly and wonderfully as in this month’s stories. First up this month is a story by science fiction writer John C. Wright. He […]
The free carnival pass dropped through Penny’s mail slot on Wednesday, exactly ten months after her mother died, three weeks after her son was born, and seven days before she planned to drive her car off Myrtle Pier. Penny had shoved the stack of letters behind the door, along with other bills piling up since […]
Read Bruce’s previous column here, or visit his author page to see them all. Zeus was the original Peeping Tom, hiding himself to watch human or divine maidens while they bathed. He particularly liked following Artemis and the nymphs who attended her on her hunts. One nymph in particular appealed to him. Callisto was her […]
It’s the cold mud that wakes me, and the taste of duckweed in my throat. In my mouth, my nose, my ears. It fills my lungs, creeps behind my eyes. I burst through the slime with a half-formed scream. I retch until I feel empty, hollow, withered. Stagger to my feet, knee-high in the sticking […]
This story collection is an exemplar for Short-short Sighted #22, “Metamorphosis and Compassion”. In a little church by the sea, long after the old gods had begun to sleep, there was a preacher of the Christian gospel who earnestly worried for the souls of his congregants. He wanted every one of them to one day […]
I was walking down Piccadilly not long ago, thinking of nursery rhymes and regretting old romance. As I saw the shopkeepers walk by in their black frock-coats and their black hats, I thought of the old line in nursery annals: “The merchants of London, they wear scarlet.” The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing […]