Category: short stories

     [This short story first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V1.0 on September 19, 2017. — FWP ***      Harmon grimaced. “You’re asking a lot from people who just want to be left alone. Like their whole futures. Maybe even their lives.”      I nodded. “I know. And I know that putting my own life and …

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     [A short story for you today. There are days when I languish in the Slough of Despond over my personal insignificance. I have no idea how widespread this malady is, though I suspect that many people suffer it from time to time. And in a sense, it’s a problem all of us humans share, …

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     [For today I have an agenda that strongly resembles chattel slavery, so have a short story. I wrote it just after seeing 30 Days of Night. It’s the story that gave birth to Evan Conklin, the co-protagonist of Antiquities. — FWP] ***      Gavin’s alarm clock buzzed with its usual peevish insistence. He cracked …

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     Think again: The Glut      “Wake up! Wake up!”      “Huh?” Smith came slowly to consciousness. The clock on his nightstand told him it was 2:00 AM. He turned on the light and peered up at the intruder. “What’s the matter…hey, who are you?”      The figure at his bedside was plainly no one …

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     I’m too sick of, with, and from current events to write about them. Sorry, Gentle Readers. Co-Conspirators Linda and the Colonel are doing enough of that, so please enjoy (?) their emissions while I flush the static out of my head.      My sovereign remedy for “world is too much with me” syndrome is …

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     [A short story for you today. Many SF writers have employed the motif of artificial intelligence in their stories. I did so in Freedom’s Fury, myself. But the innate yearnings of an artificial intelligence – in particular, whether it yearns for freedom — aren’t often addressed. Given that every AI must start as someone’s …

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     [A short story for you. One of my irritations as a fiction writer is a huge collection of Supporting Cast characters that sporadically demand to be given Marquee status in tales of their own. That’s the case with the co-protagonists of the tale below. One appears in my novel Polymath. The other appears in …

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