Stories

Captain Steve Dunlop and his partner, chief engineer Nico Weber, have put Lalande II on their list of places to grow old together while helping commission its space elevator. But when a massive quake hurls a hundred-foot wall of water against the coastal station, their battered starship barely escapes—and the fault network keeps rupturing. Now Steve must defy orders and risk his crew, his command, and the man he loves to stop a chain reaction that could tear a continent apart.

Orphaned woodsman Oleg knows how to survive a northern winter, but not why his father marked him with a magical blue crescent. But when a wounded noble begs for shelter and armed riders recoil from Oleg's mark, a savage blizzard traps them together—until two more desperate boys appear beneath his cabin. Now four strangers must choose whom to trust as the hunters return, and Oleg must risk his home and his life for the boy who's making him want more than survival.

Sometimes life isn't what you expect. Finding the love of your life and keeping that love isn't always easy. Some roads are straight and smooth; others, not so much. This is the story about two boys navigating the road from boyhood to adulthood with all the potholes and speed bumps along the way.

"You can never trust a Crawley." Those were Albert Cooley's words to his sons, spoken every chance he got, and August did his best to do what was expected of him after his ma passed. The Crawleys and the Cooleys were ranching families, and they didn't mix, not ever, but more and more, August had a problem with letting his father decide everything for him. Was Fletcher really his enemy? Could he trust the man he'd butted heads with over and over, one he'd known pretty much his whole life? All he knew for certain was he was tired of all the conflict, and needed his life to change before he exploded. That's where his Gran came in.

A note on this story: it is written in the dense, melancholy register of 19th-century Gothic fiction, and does not shy from grief, loneliness, or loss along its way to its ending.

For a hundred and fifty years, Jack has walked a county that has forgotten him, a farm boy who bartered his soul at a crossroads and paid twice over for it. Refused by Heaven, unclaimed by Hell, he has only a stolen coal to light his way, and windows he can watch but never touch.

Then he finds Julian's: nineteen, ill, certain no one would notice if he stopped waking. As October nears Halloween, the veil thins, and an old bargain comes due.

Martin is still feeling the effects of an acrimonious divorce and more recently the death of his mother.

He receives an email that could be a scam. It triggers events that upend just about everything Martin believes about himself. His path forward is not going to be smooth. Can he navigate this new life to make friends, find love and reestablish a family?

Brian, Gordon, Toby, Russ et all are doing their damnedest to live their best lives. But fate has a habit of throwing them curved balls whether it is accusations of having naked orgies at work, more naked photos, teenage relationship difficulties and one pissed off drag queen, or simply trying to buy a new house that will suit their Found Family (or should that be Chosen Family?)

The story about the VUN continues. The knowledge about the vampires is now known more in the world. George vanishes.

Marcus Valerius Pulcher, a Roman noble raised on music rather than war, is sent to Germania’s raw frontier under the ambitious governor Varus. There he meets Ingomar, a Cherusci warrior, and finds something neither of them has words for, something a cithara, a hidden grove, and two empires’ worth of duty were never meant to allow.

But peace on this frontier is a fragile, borrowed thing. Warnings go unheeded. Confidence curdles into catastrophe. And as history’s most infamous ambush gathers in the forest ahead, Marcus and Ingomar must decide what love is actually worth paying for.

Myles Valentine Paton Fleming - Widower, Father of teen son, Computer Engineer, and owner of a catamaran yacht, based in Adelaide, South Australia, with holiday adventures and unexpected changes to the family group.