The Shieldbreaker Saga explores a region in flux: sixty years of uninterrupted warfare between two great ancient powers has destroyed them both, and a new regional superpower is emerging in the vacuum left behind by their collapse. Standing in the path of the new power are our protagonists: a tiny tribe of pagan mercenaries led by a nineteen year old kid who may or may not be out of his entire damn mind. Will they make it through the end of the world as they know it?
When Sriyani rescues a blind child from a flood, Sri’s family takes the survivor in despite her unsettling appearance. As the newcomer begins finding her place in their isolated settlement, strangers arrive from the Badlands with terrible news of violence and loss. Sri must decide how to protect her new sister, even as compassion might be more than her small community can bear.
“It rained and it rained and it rained.
“The shabby frontier polis of Gythion grew hodge-podge on a mesa isolated by gullies and gulches of piled clay and debris weathered off the Upper Plateau. Eleven months out of the year, Gythion’s people descended their mesa under the hot sun, turning down the track to Turtamos, or over to Antinoesis, or into the plains to Thyatira, fording a thin brassy trickle of water in the arroyo. In late summer, heavy rains swept the Plateau face. Then, the barren, dry gully lands boiled with red, muddy chaos. The mesa became an island accessible only by hopper.”
When a devilish womanizer, young and well-to-do, is shipped away to a rural island settlement in the wake of a scandal and disappears, his brother journeys to the island to learn of what happened to him. There he hears stories of the she-fiend said to lurk in the mountain lake, and the rumors of his brother's visitations there.
"The Lady and the Lake" is a short romance that dances between poetry and prose to capture a feeling similar to oral traditions of storytelling.
The story drops you into a starving city where the ground has turned to iron, and gravewright Orren must bury sixty-seven corpses before the Winter King’s riders harvest them. When fire and quicklime finally crack the frozen earth, a warm, waiting hunger exhales from below—forcing Orren to choose which horror he can live with.
I based the Winter King on the idea of Norse draugs (zombielike ghosts, but also specifically bodies returned from drowning in later Norwegian lore) and that you have to bury bodies in sacred ground to prevent them from becoming ghosts. And that digging in the winter is very hard.
In the Viking Age North, burning the dead was a normal Norse rite (often understood as helping the spirit “release” from the body), but the Christian message that arrived with missionaries and kings framed the body as something that should remain intact—modelled on Jesus’ burial and tied to the hope of bodily resurrection—so cremation started to read as the “wrong” ritual language.
Liam told himself that an AI companion wasn't cheating, even after his wife was diagnosed. How do power dynamics in a relationship evolve when only one of you is human?
The Cage of Saturn is an intro for a story I have in my head. It's quite evocative (as the title implies), and I'd love to know what people think of the intro.
Where the story goes next, is a very good question...
Those Who Knew Earth: This is a serialized novel of interstellar travel, technological ensnarement, power struggles, the search for meaning and legacy told over six generations.
In a war between humans and AIs, two groups of humans meet. But how can they convince each other they're really human instead of being well-disguised AIs?
The plays in a quixotic theatre in Oxford begin to get ever weirder until they question the existence of reality itself . . . through David Bowie Eyes.
I’m publishing my novella on substack in 8 parts — The Singing Ape is about a group of Canadian primatologists who go to the former United States to research feral gorillas, and they encounter a pink hairless ape they struggle to understand…
https://shieldbreakersaga.substack.com/p/start-here
The Shieldbreaker Saga explores a region in flux: sixty years of uninterrupted warfare between two great ancient powers has destroyed them both, and a new regional superpower is emerging in the vacuum left behind by their collapse. Standing in the path of the new power are our protagonists: a tiny tribe of pagan mercenaries led by a nineteen year old kid who may or may not be out of his entire damn mind. Will they make it through the end of the world as they know it?
Becoming - excerpt from my book
https://open.substack.com/pub/simpulacra/p/exerpt-from-becoming?r=2rr57&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
An entity is emerging out of the hollow spaces in a small coastal Oregon town. Lotta spooky stuff happens.
https://gmdileo.substack.com/p/story-547-asdfsdf
Terraforming? How hard can it be? A standalone excerpt from my serialized novel, Mars: The Novel. (https://gmdileo.substack.com/s/the-novel-mars-the-novel)
https://urnasemper.substack.com/p/floods-sister-b2b?utm_source=publication-search
When Sriyani rescues a blind child from a flood, Sri’s family takes the survivor in despite her unsettling appearance. As the newcomer begins finding her place in their isolated settlement, strangers arrive from the Badlands with terrible news of violence and loss. Sri must decide how to protect her new sister, even as compassion might be more than her small community can bear.
“It rained and it rained and it rained.
“The shabby frontier polis of Gythion grew hodge-podge on a mesa isolated by gullies and gulches of piled clay and debris weathered off the Upper Plateau. Eleven months out of the year, Gythion’s people descended their mesa under the hot sun, turning down the track to Turtamos, or over to Antinoesis, or into the plains to Thyatira, fording a thin brassy trickle of water in the arroyo. In late summer, heavy rains swept the Plateau face. Then, the barren, dry gully lands boiled with red, muddy chaos. The mesa became an island accessible only by hopper.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/talesofcalamityandtriumph/p/the-lady-and-the-lake
When a devilish womanizer, young and well-to-do, is shipped away to a rural island settlement in the wake of a scandal and disappears, his brother journeys to the island to learn of what happened to him. There he hears stories of the she-fiend said to lurk in the mountain lake, and the rumors of his brother's visitations there.
"The Lady and the Lake" is a short romance that dances between poetry and prose to capture a feeling similar to oral traditions of storytelling.
https://oldwellsprings.substack.com/p/in-the-bleak-midwinter-day-2-earth?r=54hst9
The story drops you into a starving city where the ground has turned to iron, and gravewright Orren must bury sixty-seven corpses before the Winter King’s riders harvest them. When fire and quicklime finally crack the frozen earth, a warm, waiting hunger exhales from below—forcing Orren to choose which horror he can live with.
I based the Winter King on the idea of Norse draugs (zombielike ghosts, but also specifically bodies returned from drowning in later Norwegian lore) and that you have to bury bodies in sacred ground to prevent them from becoming ghosts. And that digging in the winter is very hard.
In the Viking Age North, burning the dead was a normal Norse rite (often understood as helping the spirit “release” from the body), but the Christian message that arrived with missionaries and kings framed the body as something that should remain intact—modelled on Jesus’ burial and tied to the hope of bodily resurrection—so cremation started to read as the “wrong” ritual language.
https://jisbender.substack.com/p/excrucior
Scout knows it hurts Eli to summon him back from the dead for a night. But what is his pain compared to how desperately she misses him?
Liam told himself that an AI companion wasn't cheating, even after his wife was diagnosed. How do power dynamics in a relationship evolve when only one of you is human?
https://hammyj.substack.com/p/the-churn-rate
https://adventuretoaquietplace.substack.com/p/nox-and-justine
When the greatest drummer of all time loses his wife, he moves hell and earth to get her back.
Based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
The Cage of Saturn is an intro for a story I have in my head. It's quite evocative (as the title implies), and I'd love to know what people think of the intro.
Where the story goes next, is a very good question...
https://inadifferentplace.substack.com/p/the-cage-of-saturn-intro?r=2s9hod
Those Who Knew Earth: This is a serialized novel of interstellar travel, technological ensnarement, power struggles, the search for meaning and legacy told over six generations.
https://randyswriting.substack.com/about
https://gallagherstories.substack.com/p/recontact
In a war between humans and AIs, two groups of humans meet. But how can they convince each other they're really human instead of being well-disguised AIs?
David Bowie Eyes (unfolding in three parts):
https://jetse.substack.com/p/david-bowie-eyespart-1
The plays in a quixotic theatre in Oxford begin to get ever weirder until they question the existence of reality itself . . . through David Bowie Eyes.
Game Night by David Perlmutter: https://davidperlmutter.substack.com/p/game-night
Superhero gal pals, hanging together, playing cards....until their lives are at stake....
https://amyletter.substack.com/p/the-singing-ape
I’m publishing my novella on substack in 8 parts — The Singing Ape is about a group of Canadian primatologists who go to the former United States to research feral gorillas, and they encounter a pink hairless ape they struggle to understand…