With years left on her prison sentence, Kasira took the opportunity to work off her debt to society by joining the Malikinar, an elite group of warriors charged with hunting down dangerous creatures. She is an unwelcome addition, as far as her unit is concerned, but at least it keeps her out of solitary confinement. […]
Alex has spent his entire adult life trying to forget he was “abducted by aliens.” In 1997, six year old Alex was on vacation with his family in Palm Springs. There he met fellow six year old Ana and her mother Cyndie. One night, with no warning, Ana and Alex disappeared. And then weeks later, […]
Since January, I have been slowly re-reading my favorite graphic novel series. Not just because I love it, but because the finale is coming – the seventh and final volume, THE ADVENTURE ZONE: STORY AND SONG. The Adventure Zone series is an adaptation of an actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. In the podcast, one […]
AJ Graves is feeling stuck. She was supposed to spend this summer at training camp, which would earn her a sports scholarship, which would get her into college, which would eventually lead to her dream job: writing on Saturday Night Live. Instead, a broken arm has her spending her summer working at a video store […]
Minnie is a college freshman, feeling adrift and isolated after relocating from Denver to Austin. College was supposed to be a time to meet lifelong friends and have new experiences. Instead she finds herself eating dinner alone in the dining hall and watching internet videos in her dorm room. That is where she first encounters […]
In the final few hours before the space station where she lives is blown up, Niko Larsen receives a mysterious package. Not a shipment of supplies, which would be addressed to her restaurant. The box is large and heavy; the shipping label has been torn off. There is no indication where it came from or […]
Like her mother before her, Reyna dedicated her life to Queen Tilane. She swore to protect the queen from all who might harm her, and she rose in the ranks to become one of the queen’s most trusted Queensguards. Tilane is a fickle, power-hungry ruler. When Reyna is nearly killed by an assassin – and […]
Over the centuries, Su and Emerald have drifted in-and-out of each other’s lives. Long ago, they were two snakes living on the banks of a lake near Hangzhou, China. There, they heard a rumor of a lotus that could grant them immortality and the ability to turn into humans at will. The two snakes – […]
Klara is an Artificial Friend. She lives in a store with other AFs, waiting for a child to come in and choose her to be their companion. Every day the AFs are given a place in the store to stand as customers come in. The best part of the store is the area behind the […]
It can be easy to dismiss popular culture as trite and inconsequential. Superhero movies, fantasy television shows, romance novels, Korean pop music; it can all seem a little meaningless, even to the fans. I, personally, have been known to lose interest in something if I sense that it is becoming “too popular.” But Martin Puchner’s […]
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