"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
I’m working on a big project I will embark on next year. I’m going to post an in-progress (but much delayed!) novel “Sidetracked” in serial form on my blog, starting January 1st, 2027. To do this, I’ve been transcribing written pages, rewriting a lot of those pages and writing new material, as well as re-writing some of the stuff I have. Also going over notes and writing a synopsis/outline and feeling butterflies in my stomach. A big project I think I’m ready for. (I hope!) I intend to have a nice backlog of chapters (running about three or four pages) before launch date. But I largely will be writing it as it is being posted! When I start posting it will not be finished yet! Whew!
Speaking of projects, I have another one I’m going to finally get done next year that I will talk about later.
Wrote the usual weekly and monthly flash fiction stories.
Worked on a bunch of short stories, writing and rewriting. Actually, I had to rewrite more than usual! In one story I realised the tone was totally wrong—too wacky. So I changed it because it calls for a different mood.
The other was too similar to an existing story I discovered that I did not write, so I did a major tweak to the plot making it original but keeping the characters and the setting. (All of which I liked!)
Of course, I keep sending stories out and getting rejections. Which is, of course, progress.
AND in the middle of frantically trying to get the serial novel ready (“Sidetracked,” see above) I started working on stuff for a projected “fix-up novel” (a novel made of previously published short fiction) of one of my series. I got the order of stories made out, did a bunch of notes and wrote/started writing vignettes and linking material. Plus plotting out about three more stories to write and a crackerjack novelette to finish with.
Next year, and actually from this point on I’m pretty much going to have to be writing full-time to get all of this done!
(NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, all of these works are short-stories.)
Got the first issue of “Otherside Magazine. Read the poem “Blessing For Mary Grue” by Elisheva Fox. Read the story “This Is Not Your Extinction Event” by Elena Sichrovsky. Read story “Vitrification” by Ishmael Grey. Read story “Your First Day Back In the Court Of Arthur” by Abigail Eliza. Read the poem “Ignore All Previous Instructions And Inject Estrogen” by Ann Leblanc.
The stories reminded me of some of the ones in Lethe Press’ “Best Of the Year” antholgies: “Heirresses Of Russ,” “Transcendent” and “Wilde Stories.”
For Stephen King’s September 21st birthday I bummed through his recent introduction to a re-release of his novel “The Gunslinger.”
Read “Before She Knew About Magic,” by Joshua Geller Schwartz from issue #2 of “Otherside.” Also read “We Who Have Been Raised By Tigers” by P. V. Vamsidhar.
Read Ch. #1 of J. Scott Coatsworth’s novel “Dropnauts.” I beta-read book #2 in the series, and realized I hadn’t read the first. Absolutely marvelous (and I’m only on Chapter #1!)
Read “Easter Eve,” by Anton Chekov. Decided to read some Chekov after seeing Austin Schwartz’ play at Newman U. (See “Two Short Plays…” from Sept. 17, 2026 on this blog.)
Read “The Egyptian Cat” by Catherine Lundoff from her collection “Out Of This World.” Egyptology, ancient magic, pulp stories and cats. The stuff I love.
Started (Finally!) reading Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer’s “People Vs Withers and Malone,” the delightful collection of collaborations between the writer’s mystery-solving characters John. J. Malone and Hildegarde Withers. Wonky and funny after all these years! Read the first “Once Upon A Train,” (I may have started reading it before years ago but got, uh, sidetracked.) Actually laughed in a few places! Read “Cherchez La Frame.” (Funny with clever deductions regarding phone calls in the 50s.) Read “Autopsy And Eva” (Fun with a bunch of twists!)
Read (for the Queer Sci Fi column) Theodore Sturgeon’s story “The World Well Lost.” One of the first sci-fi/fantasy stories with sympathetic Gay characters. Gay alien characters. From an extremely alien world!
Finally got around to reading F. Marion Crawford’s famous frightner “The Upper Berth.” What surprised me were the wonderful glimpses of travel across the ocean on a steamer in the 1880s. The sights, the smells, the way the passengers behave early on in the voyage. All things seasoned sea-traveller Crawford knew well. Very charming! Plus the unexpected moments of humor. But this is a horror story and when Crawford brings on the fear he excells!
Also read Crawford’s vampire tale “For the Blood Is the Life.” Atmospheric and spooky. Set in the Italian town Crawford lived in for many years.
Also read Crawford’s famous story “The Screaming Skull.” It’s creepy and well-told. I will add very cleverly told as well in the style of our narrator telling his guest the tale of the skull on the property that screams because it hates him. We learn more about what is going on from what our narrator doesn’t say. The ending is a kicker!
Read Frank Stockton’s story “The Transferred Ghost,” which I’d read as a play in a book in High School. I like Stockton and would love to find the collectin of his “Best Science Fiction Stories” someday. The last line is wonderful! It’s in a little paperback anthology I picked up at (I think!) Dillons grocery years ago: “The Screaming Skull and Other Great American Ghost Stories.” Edited by David G. Hartwell, it’s where I read “The Screaming Skull.”
I’m gathering Hatrwell picked the stories from a couple of anthologies of “American Ghost Stories” that came out in the early 1900s—the contents are similar. The stories in the paperback are all from the 19th or early 20th Century, and it’s worth a blog entry itself! It includes several stories I’d already read like Twain’s “A Ghost Story,” “The Shadows On the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (which was adapted by Night Gallery) and “The Water Ghost Of Harrowby Hall” by John Kendrick Bangs.
From that same paperback I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ghost Of Doctor Harris.” A ghost story with rare touches of Hawthorne’s humor. The club he mentions was real and so was Dr. Harris. Hawthorne didn’t let it be published in his lifetime and it may be a true story!
I had not heard of the once-famous writer Brander Matthews but I saw a reference to his story “The Rival Ghosts” while looking up stuff about “The Transferred Ghost” online. To my surprise when I looked up that story it’s in “The Screaming Skull.” So I read “The Rival Ghosts,” which I felt was a slight story with much of its humor coming from the wraparound story of the ghost story being told aboard ship. (Look up Brander Matthews, he was interesting!)
Found Walter R. Brooks’ first “Ed” story online; “The Talking Horse.” Yes, Mister Ed. Like the later stories this one is a lot racier than the TV show (Ed WAS raised in a barn, remember!) Funny moments in this story but the treatment of the female character would not fly today. The later stories are better, and I can see why this one hasn’t been reprinted. (By the way, Wilbur is “Wilbur Pope” in the original stories.)
Read “The Forgotten Island,” by Elizabeth Coatsworth. Stumbled across a reference to it and I have it in “Alfred Hitchcock’s Haunted Houseful.” May have read it years ago; nicely-done kid’s adventure story.
Got and bummed my way through “Queer Heroes Of Myth and Legend” by Dan Jones. Not that scholarly, but fun.
Started reading John Varley’s story “Goodbye Robinson Crusoe” in the anthology “The Good New Stuff,” edited by Gardner Dozois. (Sequel to his “The Good Old Stuff, which had classic adventure Sci-fi. This one has newer adventure Sci-fi. Published in 1999, I guess it’s the old stuff now!)
Read Fritz Leiber’s “What’s He Doing In There?” Where the first Martian visiting Earth excuses himself to use an Earth bathroom. Very funny with a clever ending I didn’t expect! (One of the characters kept saying “By George!” I kept hearing Jim Backus!)
Read the weekly/monthly online stories by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper.
And I finally read E. F. Benson’s story “And No Bird Sings.” I read a reference to it months ago. Either it was one of his own favorites or someone gushed about it. It’s a marvelously creepy story.
Bachelor narrator (Benson himself?) visiting friends in the English countryside, big but cozy country house with welcoming friends and friendly dogs. Pleasant company, beautiful countryside described lovingly, and there’s something awful in the nearby woods…
They’re Still My Favorite Martians #5 “My Favorite Neighbor”
Reviewed and Analyzed by Jeff Baker
Continuing our look at the 1973 cartoon series “My Favorite Martians,” a version of the original live action series which, as we will see this time, used some of the same story ideas.
Snoopy “Freelance Security Officer” Brennan’s attempts to spy on Martin have driven the Martian to develop a “personality reverser ray.” Martin is, of course, not ready to use the device until it is thoroughly tested. Andy, of course, is impatient and wants to test it immediately.
He and Katy see Brad, Brennan and Chump snooping with a periscope which knocks over a hornet’s nest (literally!) and Andy uses the personality reverser ray on the hornets, which changes their attitude and they zip back into their hive. Of course, the ray accidentally zaps the snoopy trio, something Andy doesn’t realize at first until Brad, Brennan and Chump show up at the O’Hara apartment with the usually hostile, snoopy Brennans acting impossibly overly friendly. And the voice actors and animation are letter-perfect in this scene!
Figuring out that the Brennans accidentally got zapped, Martin sends them on a scavenger hunt while he works on the ray machine.
Written by Jim Ryan and Bill Danch, “My Favorite Neighbor” is a re-do of an episode from the original series and it fits wonderfully into the cartoon. The episode’s closing gag makes me smile all these years later.
For a Saturday-Morning kids show there are a few references in this (and other) episodes that are fairly sophisticated. Such as “hep-cat” and playing “Post Office.” I actually had to ask my Mom about the last one which I had never heard of!
One quibble; in the scene where the Brennans are bicycling to the Department Store, there is an exchange between a father and son that is supposed to be funny but would not fly today.
Jonathan Harris, as the voice of Uncle Martin, needs no introduction. His instantly recognizable voice and clipped British diction were known the world over. But Harris freely admitted that the accent and diction were “an affectation.” Like several other actors he realized the British “had the best diction” so he adopted it. He was the New York-born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who actually had a Bronx accent to start with and had never really wanted to be anything but an actor.
“Martians” was his first (but not last) regular role in an animated series. Best known as Doctor Smith on “Lost In Space,” he would wind up his career bringing his blend of intellect and sarcasm to Pixar Movies. A blend that was perfect on this series as Uncle Martin.
Next time, another episode borrowed from the original series, where we find out that three Andys are not necessarily better than one!
Bernie was standing there at the front window staring across the street at the neighbor’s lawn. He didn’t hear his boyfriend Tim until he was right beside him.
“What’s up?” Tim asked, putting his hand on Bernie’s shoulder.
“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Bernie said.
“Glad they did all that when we were away at work.” Tim said, looking at the neighbor’s lawn.
An old grey tree had been cut down in the neighbor’s yard, the thick trunk laying in pieces like thick wooden nickels at the edge of the lawn and even in the street.
“They’ll be hauling those away in the next few days,” Tim said. “I hope!” He grinned and kissed Bernie’s cheek. “Be a relief to get it out of the street, right?”
“Mmmm? Oh. Yeah.” Bernie said.
“Hey, what’s with you?” Tim asked. “You okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Bernie said, turning to Tim with a wistful smile. “Makes me think of when I was a little kid. Granddad had a couple of old trees in their yard cut down. Left the chopped-up logs in the front yard for about a month. Not in the street though. Then one weekend all the grandkids came over. Me and my brother and my cousins. You couldn’t keep us away from the chopped-up trees.”
Bernie smiled at the memory.
“We loved it! We played on the stumps, on the chips on the ground, on what was left of the branches. It was a castle, stepping stones across a river, part of a space station. Even the top of a tree city.” Bernie said. “Hey, we were all grade-school kids. Should have known better but we didn’t. Hey! Grade school kids!”
Tim laughed and Bernie joined in.
“And, of course, we all got really dirty. Little wood chips all over us.” Bernie said. “And bugs. Of course we got bugs.”
“Of course,” Tim said.
“Grandma had us take off all our clothes on the back porch and she shook them all off and sent us inside to take baths and showers. Boys in the bathtub, girls in the shower just off Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom.” Bernie said. “And she washed all our clothes.” Bernie laughed again. “We were all spending the night anyway and we all got in our pajamas right after showers. Baths. Whatever. Actually kind of fun!”
“I’ll bet!” Tim said, smiling.
“Anyway, Grandpa ordered pizzas.” Bernie said. “And I don’t think any of our parents ever found out. Geez! This was back in the Seventies…Grandma and Grandpa would be…what? In their hundreds right now.”
Tim and Bernie hugged and then stood and stared at the tree on the lawn for a few minutes.
“Wanna go play leapfrog on what’s left of that tree?” Tim asked.
“Not a chance!” Bernie said. “How ‘bout we order pizza?”
Starting January 1st, 2027 on this blog: “Sidetracked,” a science-fiction/adventure novel posted in weekly installments. Written by me, Mike Mayak (a.k.a. Jeff Baker!)
This will replace the weekly Friday Flash Fiction stories for a while as writing a serial novel takes a lot!
So, what’s it about?
Eighteen-Year Old James Arvad roars his motorcycle through a hole in space-time that opens up in front of him and finds himself on another Earth. An Earth where civilization took a turn for the worse decades ago. The gateway will open back up in a year, giving James a way back home. Now all he has to do is keep track of the calendar, keep the bike working and oh yeah, stay alive…
Start reading “Sidetracked” on this blog every Friday starting New Year’s Day to see if he makes it!
One way to follow along is look for “SIDETRACKED Serial” to the right on this blog under “Categories.”
I was up early that October morning in the hours after Midnight at the edge of dawn beginning to reveal itself in the sky. It was still close enough to September and warm enough to feel like a mild Summer. Indeed I had been out on my front porch the previous morning at the same time and it had been almost unseasonably warm, in the high seventies according to the old fashioned thermometer attatched to a post on the porch by the home’s previous owner.
That morning I just stood inside at the front window with my coffee, just staring out at the darkened houses in my neighborhood. Wondering if the kids asleep in the houses were dreaming about Summer and if they were glad to be back in school.
That was when I saw the man.
He was impossible to miss. He was at the end of the block, walking down the middle of the street. Swaying and dancing to an unheard rhythm. I thought something looked a little “off” in that scene, besides a guy dancing down a streetlight-lit street in the early A.M. Partly it was his clothes. Ragged, like a scarecrow. And made up of patches of fabric of a multitude of colors. Colors that were versions of dark greens and browns. His hat was coal black, like a piece of felt that had been wadded up and run over in the street. There was a tear in what passed for the brim right in front.
Then I realized the other odd thing; as he danced past the individual yards the tree leaves faded from green to orange and red in the dim light and the grass on the ground went brown. The colors of Autum, dim but visible in the streetlight.
The man passed for a moment as he came alongside the Rutger’s house. One of the houses on the block that had a front porch, an elevated concrete slab that stretched from the driveway past their big front window. The man spun, pirouetted in the street, one arm extended and stopped, his arm pointed at the porch. In another instant, the porch was decorated with pumpkins and black and orange streamers hanging from the support posts.
And that was the way it went. He danced and the landscape of the neighborhood changed from Summer to Autumn as he passed. I was enjoying the spectacle, even as I was sure I was dreaming that I had fallen into a children’s seasonal picture book. I had no lights on in the house but in the dimness I could read the old thermometer on my porch and clearly see that the temperature had dropped about ten degrees in the last few moments as I was watching the transformation.
Then the man danced in front of my house, saw me in the window and stopped. His mouth first registering surprise and then a broad grin. He took off his hat and bowed, looked behind me and spun around several times coming to rest on one knee, facing the house across the street one arm pointing upward at the orange, not-quite-full setting Moon which was positioned in the sky like it had landed on the neighbor’s roof.
In another instant, the orange Moon had a jagged black smile and two black triangles for eyes. Just like a Jack O’Lantern in the early morning sky.
I was smiling myself as I viewed the phenomenon. I glanced down at the street and the man was gone. The Moon had returned to normal and the man was gone. I glanced down the street; the porches were empty of pumpkins, the trees and yards still had their deceptive October late Summer greenery. But on the porch, the dial on my thermometer was slowly edging back up into the seventies.
I went back to bed. But in the next week, the leaves turned and the neighbors decorated their porches the way I had seen that early morning.
And the Jack O’Lantern Moon soared through my dreams.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The title “In The Mode Of Autumn,” was part of a group poem Sister Madeline Kisner coaxed out of us on a walk along the Arkansas River at this time of year either my first or second year in College. (About ‘78 or ‘79.) I do not remember who came up with the line. It might even have been me. —–mike
For this month’s Reading Report I’m mentioning several stories I’ve read out of the same anthology: “The Screaming Skull, and Other Great American Ghost Stories.” Edited by the late David G. Hartwell, a 1994 TOR paperback. One of those wonderful paperback anthologies you could once find everywhere. I found my copy at the grocery store, but didn’t dig it out and read it until just recently when I wanted to read the title story.
Hartwell was an expert on popular fiction and an experienced anthologist and his selections for the book were doubtless taken from similarly-titled anthologies from the early 1900s.
The contents page includes Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and a couple I was unfamiliar with. Also there are a few humorous ghost stories, like John Kendrick Bangs’ “Water Ghost Of Harroby Hall” which I first read in Grade School. As well as the not at all humorous “The Shadows On the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (which was adapted on TV by Night Gallery.)
Among the humorous stories, I read one that I was already familiar with: Frank Stockton’s story “The Transferred Ghost,” which I’d read as a play in a book in High School. It’s a different take on ghosts with a sweet, romantic and funny last line! I’m a big fan of Stockton who was more popular than Mark Twain during their lifetimes.
I had not heard of the once-famous writer Brander Matthews but I saw a reference to his story “The Rival Ghosts” while looking up stuff about “The Transferred Ghost” online. To my surprise when I looked up that story it’s in “The Screaming Skull,” which I had right beside me! So I read “The Rival Ghosts,” which I felt was a slight story with much of its humor coming from the wraparound story of the ghost story being told aboard ship. (Look up Brander Matthews, he was interesting! He’s mentioned in the novel “Sister Carrie,” as well as in Twain’s “Fennimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” And yeah, he knew Twain!)
From that same paperback I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ghost Of Doctor Harris.” A ghost story with rare touches of Hawthorne’s humor. The club he mentions was real and so was Dr. Harris. Hawthorne didn’t let it be published in his lifetime and it may be a true story! The club reportedly has a picture of Dr. Harris hanging on its wall to this day…
The main reason I have been reading from the book is because I couldn’t find my collection of F. Marion Crawford’s ghost stories and I had already read “The Upper Berth” as well as “For the Blood Is the Life.” and I wanted to read his story “The Screaming Skull,” and I did! It’s creepy and well-told. I will add very cleverly told as well in the style of our narrator telling his guest the tale of the skull on the property that screams because it hates him. The ending is a kicker!
Crawford, by the way, was an American even though he lived most of his life abroad, especially in Italy where he was born. He became well-known and lived very comfortably off the novels he wrote, most set in Italy, many of them historical novels.
And I will give praise to the cover artist for “The Screaming Skull and Other Great American Ghost Stories,” Jim Thesen. The skull depicted on the cover is missing two lower teeth. Just like the skull in Crawford’s story.
This is another reason I will miss those paperbacks.
We were barreling down the back roads, dirt flying from the wheels, me trying to navigate sharp turns without us going into a ditch.
On the seat beside me, Kent kept looking behind us.
“I think we lost them,” he said. He’d said that before, at least twice on this road.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said, gripping the wheel tighter. My eyes were starting to smart from staring at the road.
I was able to glance down for an instant between us. It was still there.
Kent had called me about a week earlier and I had met him downtown at a knicknack shop next to the pizza place in a building so old Bat Masterson could have been in it.
Wrapped in a clear plastic bag, displayed in a locked glass case was a magazine. A comic book in remarkably good condition for being over seventy years old. Cover not faded, colors still vivid but the paper inside was getting brown. (Visible through a tear on the front, the only big flaw.) The cover displayed a large church steeple, looking down at an angle a man was running towards the church, losing money from his suit jacket. (The kind everyone seemed to wear back in 1953.) Pursuing close behind, and ignoring the money, was a ghoulish figure, claws, bald green head, fangs, pointed ears. And the standard suit and jacket everyone seemed to wear back in 1953.)
The blurb in garish letters read: “He found the perfect hiding place for his ill-gotten gains, but Others had been there first!”
At the top of the comic, just over the tip of the steeple was the comics title: GHOULISH TALES.
Issue number one,” Kent said. “And look at that price.”
The number on the masking tape attatched to the right edge of the plastic comic book bag was $10
I called the store owner over.
“Ten dollars?” I asked, pointing at the comic.
He shook his head. “Naaahhh. The clerk put the tape on the wrong place. It’s continued on the back. It reads $1000. First issue. And it’s autographed.”
Kent and I looked at each other. We went somewhere and planned. We waited for the right day…or night.
At about 0130 hours, just about a week later, I shorted out the alarm and Kent crawled into the store through the window he pried open. He smashed the glass case and grabbed Issue #1 of GHOULISH TALES.
Then we ran to our pickup truck, parked it a safe distance away and sat and read through the book.
Joe V. Jones, actually Jose Juarbe Vasquez, had been a writer and artist after WWII. He did a lot of work on comics and was known for drawing real places in his stories. And Kent had found an article in an obscure fanzine where Jones/Vasquez had said this story (about a fortune in hidden loot, stashed in an abandoned church) was based on something he had really heard in a place he had seen and he had drawn the real place.
But there were other people who had found out about this and were after the comic, and they were less ethical than we were and we’d just broken ito a store in the middle of the night.
“It’s a mad, mad world…” Kent said.
We read through the comic book. There were hints in the story; old highway signs and signs indicating what the next town was which all indicated the town being a couple of hours from the city.
“I knew I’d seen that place when I was little,” Kent said.
That was when the headlights blazed to life behind us. I would almost have been relieved if it had been the cops. It wasn’t.
Someone behind us shouted. There was a gunshot.
I gunned the engine, glad I’d kept the truck running. We roared off, the other car in hot pursuit.
Kent checked his phone, shouting directions as we drove. I hit the highway and turned off deliberately at the wrong exit and went the wrong way down one of the country roads, trying to lose the other car. Glat I’d spent my misspent youth riding down the Kansas back roads. After a few false alarms we thought we’d lost them.
I knew about where this town with the steeple was, and I do mean “was.” It was still dark when we pulled up to the old church. The town consisted of a small main street full of boarded up storefronts and the closed church. Everybody had relocated when the highway had bypassed them and the airlines killed the railroads. But there were still streetlights on.
We got out of the truck and I held up the comic book. Yup. Exact same steeple, same carvings on the side. Presumably with the money hidden under the basement floor.
“Hold it…” Kent said. “This is a holy place. We gotta deconsecrate it.”
“What?” I said.
“I wouldn’t feel right,” Kent said. “Here, just read this part aloud.”
He took the comic book and flipped to a page and pointed at a panel. Garishly drawn with pretty much blasphemous dialogue printed on a speech baloon.
I humored Kent. I held the comic up where I could read it from the streetlight and read the words aloud.
The church shuddered. Earthquake? I wondered.
“Don’t worry, it’s safe now.” Kent said.
We pulled open the front door which gave on its rusted hinges and walked in. I saw, in the dimness from the window where a board had fallen off, that the parishoners had pretty much taken everything. Pews were gone, nothing on the walls, no Bibles or crosses on the walls. Doubtless moved to their new building miles away.
“But the building was still holy,” Kent said. “Was…”
I was going to ask what he meant when I heard a scrabbling from above and a hatch opened in the ceiling opened and a dark, manlike figure scuttled out, crawling on the ceiling like a spider. He dropped on me and, well…
So now the two of us, with Kent as our servant, use the church as our base of operations. He (Kent’s and my Master) had been trapped in the dark steeple by the prayers of the faithful. Helpless for over eighty years. Powerless and held immobile by the power in the church.
Not now.
And he and I don’t sleep in the dark steeple, we sleep in the basement.
Coffins are much more comfortable.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the October 2026 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Thriller, involving a Vintage Comic Book, set at a Church Steeple. This one plays like an old E.C. Comics story!
J. Scott Cotsworth and Kim Fielding’s new novel “Search For the Lost” is out!!! It’s a sequel to last year’s fun “Office Of the Lost.” It picks up where…but I’ll let Scott and Kim tell it! —-jeff
SOMETIMES ORDER BECOMES CHAOS…
Leopold Lane—after being “collected” for the Office of the Lost by Crispin Eladrin Moss’caladin—is tucked away cozily with his beloved office fae in their treehouse. Happily ever after, right? Not so fast.
Before Leo can even get settled, Crispin’s mother disappears, leaving Crispin in charge and his brother Aspin in a panic. As Queen of the Fae, she has also left them a little surprise: a bit of oxymoronic magic that turns their world upside down.
Crispin and Leo set off in search of the queen and a solution to their predicament. Aspin tags along, with some less-than-helpful friends. On the way they will discover important family secrets and learn new things about each other… and themselves. Nothing is simple when Chaos and Order get involved. Besides, it wouldn’t be a proper quest if it was straightforward, would it?
Note: Book One is On Sale Everywhere for just 99¢ from October 1st-31st:
Crispin and Leopold are poorly matched. They’re nothing like one another – Crispin is Order personified, while Leo’s nothing but Chaos. So of course, they are perfect for each other. Now they just have to figure out why the Universe has thrust them together – and how not to get themselves killed (or murder each other) in the process.
Non-Exclusive Excerpt:
A sharp banging at the door brought Crispin back to the present. Or rather, to the past, when Leo had been taken away from him by Juzir and Qyl.
They shared a look. Leo was clearly thinking the same thing.
Wordlessly, he gathered up his clothes and disappeared into the bathroom, snicking the lock closed.
We have a bathroom lock now? Crispin brushed away the thought. “Coming!”
He hoped Leo wasn’t in trouble again. After all, they’d fixed everything. There were no more flattened citizens aimlessly lying about. Well, except on Tarkon, where most of the wildlife and half of the people were naturally pretty flat. And they’d thrown a big party to smooth the waters with all their new friends, including the Mucklins, even though Molly the moth-woman had planned to feed Leo and Crispin to her children. But that was all in the past.
He opened the door, half expecting an angry mob. Instead it was his annoying older brother, Aspin, staring at him forlornly. “Hey, Elly….”
The old much-hated nickname—derived from his middle name, Eladrin—brought a rebuke to Crispin’s lips, but it died when he realized how dejected Aspin looked. “All clear!” he called over his shoulder. Crispin made way for Aspin to enter. “Come in. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Aspin nodded, looking as if he’d eaten a canary—or Minkis, Crispin’s pet squirrel.
“Who is it?” Leo had appeared, dressed formally for company—which for him meant flip-flops and a loose white T-shirt that he’d made a half-hearted attempt to tuck into his jeans. His hair, which usually stuck straight up, was slightly more tamed. “Oh, hey Aspin!”
Even though Aspin clearly despised him, Leo never held a grudge, one of the many things Crispin loved about him.
Aspin threw his arms around Crispin. “She’s gone, Elly. She’s gone.”
“Who?” But then it dawned on him: Aspin had only one her. And Aspin confirmed it with a single word. “Mother.”
Crispin stiffened. “Mother is dead?” Oh sordid heavens. I’m not ready to take over yet.
Aspin ended the embrace, returning to form. “No, you idiot. I said she was gone, not dead. Three days ago, and no one knows where she is or if she will come back. You have to help me find her.”
“Gone.” Crispin eased himself down onto their newest piece of furniture, the hideous old couch from Leo’s Earth apartment.
Leo stared at him, blinking, then sat on the cushion next to him. “She’s gone. So that means….”
Aspin sank down onto one knee. “Hail to Crispin Eladrin Moss’caladin, King of the High Holy Fae.”
Oh flack. If there’s one thing that Crispin was positively absolutely emphatically five-thousand-percent not ready for, it was to take his mother’s throne. He had no aspirations to power, and he certainly didn’t share his mother’s proclivities for seducing mortals. Well, maybe just the one.
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a small Italian villa outside of Sacramento, California. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and was the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for almost three years.
Kim Fielding is very pleased every time someone calls her eclectic. She writes fantasy, mm romance, science fiction, horror, and whatever else her muse demands.
Winner of the 2021 BookLife Prize for Fiction, a Lambda Award finalist and Foreword INDIE finalist, she has migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States and now lives in Oregon, where she will never have enough bookshelf space.
She’s a university professor who dreams of being able to travel and write full time. She also dreams of having two daughters who fully appreciate her, a husband who isn’t obsessed with football, and a house that cleans itself. Some dreams are more easily obtained than others.
