Short Stories/Novellas

When a rural village elder allows a young boy to be his student, he and his whole family are affected. This is a short story that makes us think about our roles and our goals. It explores the power of questions in self reflection.

When aliens assume human form to fight for entertainment, things don't always go as planned. The human capacity for touch, taste, and feeling goes beyond anything the bugs have. The best fighter of a generation learns that he can be greater than himself when in the ring for the brief time of the bouts. He lives his life for those slices of time, when he can be more, where's found someone who makes him want to be a better man. As one reviewer said, this is a love song written to someone special within the violence of fights to the death. The author uses the external manifestation of combat as a visual for one man's internal struggle.

Space may not have cared that his only choice was to go it alone, but his ship did. A criminal who can’t be put to death. We’re too civilized for that. Launch him into space on a mission to survey asteroids. Give the criminal an old scout ship. We don’t need it anymore. Like those before him. Criminals sentenced to the same fate. One person condemned to a life alone, his only companion a computer determined to make his life hell. His mission will carry on, even if he does not.

An engineer who doesn’t believe in mystics. Mystics who can’t believe their eyes. It was only an exploration mission, looking for resource-rich planets to exploit. A routine mission. Just until it wasn’t. Follow the runabout ship Toros-9 as it stretches its physical and mystical legs on a mission that wasn't important, until the dragon appeared.

Language isn’t the only thing that can bring humans and aliens together. An expedition gets trapped when their space ship gets destroyed. The conditions are getting worse because winter is on its way. And they aren’t alone. Aliens? Not aliens? They don’t speak like humans, but they do speak. What are they saying? Scientists struggle with indecision. Fight or flee! Or maybe something else, an approach that only scientists could devise. A story to tantalize the little gray cells, at least that’s what I hope it does. Enjoy!

But I don’t want to represent all humanity. Can’t imagine why you’d choose me. I figured aliens would be smarter than that. Let me go about my business. I have to meet my quota, or I’ll get fired. Please. Go find someone else! Don’t judge humanity based on me. Please. “But we will...”

The Earth is doomed. Save it by destroying it. Build the Globus Cassus. Harness the power of the sun. Preserve the atmosphere. Turn outside in. This short story explores the construction of the Globus Cassus, turning the planet Earth inside out to support human life. This theory was posited as part of a 2004 thought experiment by Christian Waldvogel. Read A Builder’s Angst today.

Take the battle underseas… …in a fight for dominance and future contracts. The Xiq’tali, a crab-like race have found their place in the universe as a dominant mercenary force. The Selroth, a shark-like race that lives underwater. The fight was inevitable. Who will win was not. Victory or death! Fight to survive. Winner takes all. Read The Tide Changes today.