David Farland Short Stories/Novellas
On a world in the distant future, where the very name of Earth has been forgotten, a race of technological monsters is hunting down the last “biological infestations” in the galaxy. As doomsday approaches, a young girl and her friend discover a key that might save their world from its fate—if only they can get their alien overlords to pay attention!
In 1898, Martians attacked Earth, according to H.G. Wells in his classic War of the Worlds. He tells the story of what happened in England, but what of the rest of the world? In “After a Lean Winter,” David Farland reimagines the invasion from the point of view of International Best Seller Jack London—with dark and fascinating results!
On a hostile world, long after the fall of Earth, a young boy must become a man.
Alexander Dane wakes 100,000 years in the future and begins an eerie quest for the only thing that matters--the woman who promised to love him forever. [Special Feature: Includes author notes on the origin of this short story.]
In a world turned upside down, only the fittest will survive. But how can we define "Who is fittest?" [Special Feature: Includes author notes on the origins of this short story.]
Beware of strangers, yes. But also beware of friends. Sometimes, it is the ones we love most who call us to our doom. [Special Feature: Includes author notes on the origins of the short story.]
"The Mooncalfe" - An Arthurian tale of Merlin's daughter.
At age 16, Dale Fawkes is about to have his favorite Christmas—one that features a man who claims to be an uncle. But when the truth comes out, it is both stranger and more wondrous than Dale could ever imagine. For mature audiences only.
In 235 BC, a young man in China falls in love, but needs money to buy land in order to convince a young woman’s father that he is a worthy suitor. Taking the dangerous new Silk Road into Persia, he must face giant pink-tusked elephants, desert sandstorms, and dangerous bandits. But when all that he owns is stolen, he runs afoul of a Mongol sorcerer, to the peril of his soul.
When the princess Teneriel is kidnapped, her mother fears that her own beauty will be her end, so she curses Teneriel with a face that no man can love. Except . . . for a prince who can see into her heart.
Warning! Some people consider this story to be morally repugnant. In “At the Virgin’s Doorstep,” the first fantasy short story that New York Times Bestselling author David Farland ever wrote—and which some people insist should be burned—a plague of unicorns threatens the crops of a small town, and so a young man stakes out the house of a virgin, hoping that she’ll lure the unicorns in. It’s a wry story, about a young man growing up and facing a very small evil. Yet the reader is left to wonder: is David Farland anti-virgin, anti-unicorn, or just some kind of a sick puppy?
Henretta Bloom hates everyone. If she doesn't hate you now, she soon will. This award-winning story is one of David Farland's early works, when he first began blurring the lines between literary mainstream and fantasy realism. Set in his hometown in Oregon, Farland explores the psyche of those whose lives become centered solely upon themselves.
This story began as a writing assignment for a class taught by Eloise Bell. With the assignment, we were asked to start a story by taking something that had happened to us personally, and write about it. I had worked as a prison guard in 1983 and 1984, and one day the prison went into lockdown as we feared a riot. At the time I found an inmate hiding in a coat locker, afraid that he would be killed in the coming riot if he were forced to go back to his cell, so he begged me to kill out of mercy. In this story, I tried to capture the potency of that image, along with the sense of madness that you sometimes feel when trouble surrounds you in a whirlwind, and there is no escape. At the time that I wrote this, I had been reading Raymond Carver and was enamored with the gritty realism movement. This story won first place in the Ann Dody short fiction contest. Shortly thereafter, it was published in a small literary journal called Inscape.
David Farland's first short story, written as a student while attending BYU. Written about the emotional emasculation of young boys, the story is strongly rooted in Farland's childhood, and carries a strong emotional journey.
Based on a childhood experience, No Bird is a short story by David Farland that captures gritty realism, drawing on other experiences from his years working as a prison guard.
When a run in with highwaymen leave them poor, Erstwhyle, a satyr, and his “fool” companions travel to Castle Crydon to entertain an evil prince. If they succeed, they’ll win The Dark Prince’s purse, but as the last of the satyrs, Erstwhyle has a skull that any prince would fancy—as a trophy on a wall.
When a young filmmaker goes to China to shoot a film, he meets a lot of "little shady" characters, but there's only one "Big and Shady," and he's got the whole world under his thumb. This is a chapter from Dave's upcoming thriller "The Blockbuster."
When Dval finds that his king will not give him the respect and honor that he has earned, he discovers that it is time to take the fate of the world into his own hands. This is the fifth chapter taken from a new saga of the Runelords.
When Morgan Gray meets a stranger that might be god or might be the devil, he agrees to travel to the "High Frontier" and try to gun down a clockwork gambler, in a journey that will take him to a dead god's heaven, where feral angels are the least of his problems.
Mystarrians have always viewed the Woguld people as barbarians and natural enemies. Yet, when a Woguld boy by the name of Dval saves the young Mystarrian Princess and discovers the nests of the terrifying Toth creatures, he becomes accepted into their world. However, not everyone is so welcoming including the mad king who rules Mystarria.