novella

The Afterglow

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Hey there. I’m back again, and I brought another friend with me.

Everyone knows about the afterglow: When someone dies, their spirit briefly visits the living soul who meant the most to them, before quickly fading from this world.

Jake and Emma were normal teens in high school, until a tragic accident claimed Emma’s life. Jake’s understanding of the world is fractured when Emma’s afterglow appears before him—but somehow doesn’t recognize him at all.

Confused, depressed, and in a daze, Jake turns to Emma’s sister Elise for answers, and instead finds a bond unlike any he’s ever felt before. But Elise knows what Jake doesn’t, and the secrets Elise swore to keep could tear the two of them apart.

The Afterglow is a young adult coming-of-age story about ghosts, railroad tracks, summer, and what it means to connect with each other on a spiritual level.

The Afterglow will be available in print and eBook formats July 26th, 2019. You can pre-order digital editions at the links below, which I’ll update as more editions become available.

Amazon ⋅ Smashwords ⋅ Barnes & Noble ⋅ iTunes Books ⋅ Google Play Books

The Forever Earth

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For the past few years, I’ve been slow to write or publish new fiction. It’s time for that to change. Late last year I was part of a team of talented individuals who published Crypto Bizarro, an illustrated horror story collection for adults. I’m just getting started.

The Forever Earth

I wrote this one a long time ago. Many of my works have touched on science fiction, but few have flown so far as to reach space opera territory. I ended up writing a novel in the genre, and while I felt like it had a large scope and a lot going on, it ended up being one of my shortest novels yet. That story is focused on a small set of characters on a very specific mission, but the world I found them in had a lot of other stories going on. The Forever Earth is one of them.

In the distant future, humanity has reached the apex of space travel, finding themselves alone in a dark and quiet solar system. Then the Navigators appear, a species of aliens capable of bringing mankind into a new frontier via teleportation.

Cody is one of the first settlers to uproot his life and move to a space colony orbiting a habitable planet half a universe away. People from all walks of life make their way to the colonies, hoping to earn a shot at one day living on a new planet’s surface.

But half a universe isn’t far enough to escape humanity’s demons, and Cody and the rest of the colonists soon find themselves cut off from Earth, stranded in the silence of unfamiliar stars. Culture shock, separation anxiety, and lawlessness collide, and Cody’s only hope for peace rests with his dreams of the little blue planet he left behind, and his ability to find his way back.

The Forever Earth will be available on May 10th, 2019, from most eBook retailers. Pre-order links can be found below:

Amazon ⋅ Smashwords ⋅ Barnes & Noble ⋅ Apple iBooks · Google Play (Coming Soon)

 

Six and Seven Release

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I’m excited to announce the release of my novella Six and Seven. I first posted about this project right here on my blog, and since then it’s been finished, edited, illustrated, and now published.

Cover art by David Lovato

Call it Hell, call it the Underworld, call it whatever you like, a lost soul known only as Six calls it “In” and he’s stuck here. The souls of In spend their time feeding or fanning flames, watched over by strange creatures called Bellows, and staring through the constant snow of ash at seven distant chimneys visible at all times but eternally unreachable.

Then another soul called Seven gives Six some interesting news: You can get Out by climbing up through one of the chimneys, and Seven figured out how to get to them. Six and Seven set off across the ashy plains toward a chimney, and they quickly learn the rules. The only way to reach the chimney is to progress toward it metaphysically, by finding objects from their lives before In. But each object is accompanied by a painful death, which is followed by a memory from Six’s life, and with each glimpse of what he left behind, Six begins to wonder if he truly wants Out at all.

Six and Seven is a novella and a short story that serves as a direct sequel to it. It features illustrations by me.

The e-book is already available at Smashwords for $2.99, and should be available for Kindle and at most other e-book retailers very soon.