Stories
Here are the first seven short stories I’ve published, sorted from most recent to oldest. I’ll update this page as new stories come out.
Echo, Write to All (2023)
Trak has spent his life training in the rituals of the console to compete for a chance to participate in the Terminal Feast at Landing City. To the Ministers, he is nothing but another expendable tool in their secret war against the Wardens. To the Wardens, he is a heretic to be crucified if discovered. All Trak wants is a way to escape. When he finally enters the Temple of the Node he gets his chance, but will he act quicly enough to change not only his fate, but that of his entire people? Find the story in the March/April 2025 issue of Analog.
Just Like Old Times (2023)
Jason and his synthetic war-dog Sam are a long way from the bloody Martian battlefields where humanity turned the tide of the Ceti Invasion. Once feted as war heroes, the two work in obscurity as First Responders out of Janus Station on the outskirts of the Solar System. But even though they’re through with the war, the war isn’t through with them, as a Solaran Council Special Investigator tracks Jason down to accuse him of war crimes and harboring dangerous, illegal technology. Is Jason’s dog Sam really just battered war-surplus, or something much, much more? This story appeared in the anthology We Dare: Old Age and Treachery available from Amazon.
Tiny Claws (2022)
This is one of those “write what you know” stories… sort of. It’s about parenting a new born, but it’s also about what happens when demon lord Refeldremain visits the mortal plane to babysit his newborn niece and, in the process, discovers what led his brother to forfeit immortality for a human life. It came out in issue 81 of The Leading Edge, which is available from Amazon.
Yaktaochelli (2021)
In “Yaktaochelli” I returned to the world of Bennie Browning (from “Follow the Temple”). This time she’s not chasing a walking building, she’s tracking down her younger brother, John Moses, and rescuing from the clutches of an Aztec war god who is thirsty for a fresh blood sacrifice. The story appeared in the Superstitions: Tales from the Mountains anthology which is also available from Audible.
Coyote Monsoon (2021)
Coyote Monsoon is a stand-alone excerpt from a much larger piece that I have yet to finish. It also appears in the Superstitions: Tales from the Mountains anthology.
One Heartbeat to Say Goodbye (2021)
This was the first story that I wrote when I started writing seriously in 2017. It's the story of how one simple, innocent mistake can have life-and-death consequences, especially if your neighborhood is being invaded by skinwalkers. It found a home in the LTUE benefit anthology Twilight Tales.
Interplanetary Janitorial Light Brigade (2020)
Interplanetary Janitorial Light Brigade is a near-future, hard sci-fi story from my biggest setting, which I call The Chronicles of Ascension. It’s the story of a couple of glorified space janitors whose only job is to polish giant mirrors that collect and redirect light from the Sun. Seems like a menial, unimportant job… until suddenly it isn’t. This story appeared in the August 2020 issue of The Colored Lens, which you can find for Kindle on Amazon.
Follow the Temple (2020)
“Follow the Temple” is my very first published short story. I wrote it for the fourth volume of Immortal Works’ Mormon steampunk anthology, A Mighty Fortress. It introduces Bennie Browning, a ‘thopter jockey on a quest to track down and return the ambulatory, semi-sentient Nauvoo Temple which was last seen headed east towards the Mississippi. You can buy the collection for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon. (The image is concept art by Mike Odum.)