Recently in Novella Category

Inclination

By William Shunn

Release date: 26 May 2020

Nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards

“Outstanding. . . . It’s a fascinating future, and Jude’s personal story is involving.”

Jude Plane is not your typical teenage boy, even among the other kids in his cloistered religious enclave. He belongs to the Machinist Guild, a group that forbids the use of any technology more advanced than a doorknob. But advanced technology can be hard to avoid when you live in an overlooked corner of Netherview Station—a giant wheel in space, twelve light-years from Earth.

Jude wants to live an obedient life, whatever that means, but his resolve is put to the test when his abusive father sends him to work outside the enclave, unloading freight at the station’s hub. There Jude will make friends stranger than any he has ever known and will find himself confronted by choices he never imagined. But will he solve the biggest mystery of all—the mystery of who he is?

“An intelligent, well-crafted piece. . . . Shunn’s elaborate details about the religious rules and philosophies of this group form thought-provoking parallels with some of today’s funda­men­talist religious groups. It would not surprise me if this tale eventually finds a place in someone’s year’s best science fiction anthology.”

“A well-considered examination of a basic SF concern: the clash of differing technological levels, and how this (especially now) can cause the lower-tech culture to retreat into funda­men­talism. . . . Shunn gets a lot of good satirical digs in, and a contemporary dilemma is penetratingly illuminated.”

Cast a Cold Eye

By Derryl Murphy & William Shunn

Release date: 30 July 2019

“A genuinely spooky story that lies somewhere near the place where fantasy, horror, and science fiction meet.”

From Aurora and Sunburst Award nominee Derryl Murphy and Hugo and Nebula Award nominee William Shunn comes a chilling ghost story set in the aftermath of the worst pandemic the world has ever known.

1921. Rural Nebraska. In a region devastated by Spanish flu, where not a single life has gone unscathed by tragedy, 15-year-old Luke Bryant has lost more than most. Orphaned, Luke toils as a farmhand for his strict uncle and aunt, barely recalling a world not gray, deadening, and oppressive. Worse, he can’t so much as visit the graves of his parents without the statues in the cemetery opening their stony eyes and watching his every move.

Enter Annabelle Tupper, itinerant spirit photographer. Half-blinded by the chemicals of her trade, she travels the countryside in pursuit of the ghost of her dead husband. When a local pastor arranges for Annabelle to take on the boy as an apprentice, both find their every belief turned upside-down. For Annabelle, eking out a bare living while trying not to be run out of town as a charlatan, Luke represents a power she can only dream of. But for Luke—reluctant, resentful, and increasingly violent—the older woman stands for every nightmare that haunts his waking hours.

As more and more restless spirits converge on the unblinking eye of Annabelle’s camera, Luke’s only hope for peace will be to confront the most terrifying specters of all—the ones he carries inside.

“An archetypal American myth. . . . Any fantasy of a certain ambition set in the American Midwest in the late 19th through early 20th centuries must reckon with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, book and movie both, and Shunn & Murphy do so squarely. . . . Their depiction of 1921 Nebraska is vivid . . . but the real heart of the novella lies in the relationship between Luke and Annabelle, two strong but damaged characters who share an eerie bond.”

“Characterization is spot on, with no one who can be considered either evil or a criminal, just ordinary men and woman with all the flaws and virtues that implies. . . . I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it without reservation.”

“The authors know how to tell a story. They have good narrative drive, they deliver strong characterization without a lot of exposition, and the supernatural elements of the story are inventive, building one upon the other. . . . Cast a Cold Eye is one of those stories that work on many levels. I’ve reread the manuscript a few times since I first received it, and every time I do, I find another layer waiting for me. It’s past time for you to discover its treasures for yourself.”

“After reading Derryl Murphy and William Shunn’s Cast a Cold Eye, I felt as if I had just awakened from a lucid dream . . . as if I had just experienced their protagonist’s psychic adventure into deepening horror as my own. This is a book constructed with craft, sensitivity, and resounding talent. I have but one caveat: don’t start reading this book if you have other things to do. Murphy and Shunn are plotmeisters. Once you start reading, you won’t stop until you’ve finished the book. And then you’ll need to think about what the hell just happened!”

“Cast a Cold Eye . . . creates a fantasticated interplay between the growth throes of a young man in [1921] Nebraska and L. Frank Baum’s Dorothy.”

The Revivalist

By Perry Slaughter

Release date: 11 August 2015

America as we know it is no more.

Forty years ago, a military experiment in nanotechnology ran amok, wiping out most of North America and rendering it an uninhabitable plain of silvery goo. To set one foot in that silent tide is to suffer immediate disassembly into one’s constituent molecules. But against all odds, the town of Wellington, Nevada, has held off the threat, thanks mostly to the presence of Carl McFarland, one of the scientists responsible for the disaster. Now an old man, Carl is largely ignored by the townspeople of Wellington, with the exception of his avid student Orrin Pritchard.

But when a wagon train appears on the horizon, somehow crossing the silver tide without harm, all that will change. What miracles do these strangers bring? What news from the world beyond? And how is it that their charismatic leader, Pastor Smith, can raise the dead with the touch of his hand? Is Carl once again the only person standing between Wellington and a great tide of evil—or is he himself now the town’s greatest threat?

The Conscience of the King

By Perry Slaughter

Release date: 14 July 2015

For a decade and a half, old Bert Dram has crisscrossed the world in his capacity as propmaster for Jacques Paine’s famous traveling theater troupe. He has seen sights to gladden the heart and to chill the blood, entertained paupers and princes, encountered magic both bright and dark. But never before has he entered a realm as forbidding as Montravel, a land blasted by evil and brooded over by an improbably vibrant castle.

Pascal Demain is the new young court magician at Montravel Keep, charged by King Philip with maintaining the deep energies that support the castle at the expense of the realm. Troubled, he has just begun to question his role in the land’s depletion when the troupe of actors appears on the horizon.

In the hours to come, Bert and Pascal both will find answers to the question of Jacques Paine’s pilgrimage to Montravel—answers they’ll wish had remained hidden...

Deus ex Machina

By Perry Slaughter

Release date: 16 December 2014

With the computer called ARTHUR, Cliff Peabody has made a major breakthrough in artificial intelligence. It should be the most triumphant event of his professional career—but why, then, is the federal government invading his laboratories? Why is half the country suffering an inexplicable power outage? And, most disturbing of all, why is reality itself going haywire in the vicinity of Cliff’s office?

To answer these questions, Cliff will need to sacrifice everything—and everybody—that has ever been precious to him. And even then, there’s no guarantee that he’ll like what he learns. Especially when it points to the overthrow of the Creator of the universe itself...

First published in samizdat form in 1985, this rollicking, inventive, and blasphemous sci-fi adventure heralded the emergence of Perry Slaughter as a force to be reckoned with in American letters. Nearly three decades later, Deus ex Machina still retains its power to shock, astound, and entertain.

Chairman of the Board

By Perry Slaughter

Release date: 9 September 2014

Though a major chess and computer nerd, Sam Pauling has nonetheless managed to score a date with Kate Fitzhugh, the most beautiful girl at school. But the budding romance is barely off the ground before Sam finds himself caught up against his will with the local party crowd and their decadent entertainment of choice—a ouija board with a particularly nasty sense of humor. When a moment of temptation leaves the occult device in his possession, Sam learns to his horror that every slope is slippery and all morality relative, and that even a newly popular “Chairman of the Board” has no right to expect a happy ending...

Decried as “nihilistic pornography” when it first appeared over a quarter-century ago, this stylish and long-unavailable classic of ’80s cult horror has at last been rescued from obscurity to sow its corruption amongst a new generation of readers.