A woman follows a forgotten city drain that becomes a river and then a reckoning. What begins as curiosity turns into a one-way journey through darkness, memory, and release. The River Takes What It’s Owed is a story about leaving behind the noise that defined you and discovering what quiet actually sounds like.
A family hides inside a double-wide while armored troops and surveillance drones sweep the sky outside. What begins as a tense, procedural siege—searchlights, thermal scans, the sick choreography of authority—shifts into something stranger.
In a stitched chain of trailers dressed in polite dimness and burgundy carpet, a family follows an invitation to a banquet that performs hospitality a little too perfectly. What waits at the end isn’t gore so much as complicity—a ritual plated to make spectators of the people who love each other. One father decides not to play along. He breaks the room, names the door, and walks out with something the feast can’t own: the right to look without flinching.
When a weary house-flipper buys a decaying rowhouse from a man who swears his “art project” hums at night, the job turns into a surreal neighborhood exorcism. Between the meddling neighbors, a backyard full of snarled extension cords, and a neon OPEN sign that refuses to die, Wren discovers that some repairs belong to electricians—and some to whatever force keeps the lights of the world from devouring us all. Flipper is a darkly comic ghost-in-the-wiring story about ownership, responsibility, and the small miracles of doing things yourself.
In a forgotten corner of winter suburbia, a tiny anime convention blooms inside a rented trailer. Cosplayers swap stories in makeshift panel rooms, the smell of frying food leaks through paper walls, and nostalgia hums louder than the generator. But when a spark outside grows into something more, one attendee faces the moment that divides witnesses from actors. Book of Matches is a lucid dream about fire, duty, and the thin warmth of shared obsession.
Editor’s Note: This is a review of Homecoming, a short fic based on The Prisoner posted to AO3 by Alara Rogers. The Prisoner is a 1968 television show starring Patrick McGoohan who also starred in Secret Agent Man, as in…
So, Capclave was wrapping up in the early Sunday afternoon. We’d already checked out of our hotel room, and there wasn’t much going on for the rest of the con. Nevertheless, I was determined to stick around for every AI…
So, Sunday morning at any con is kind of a mix of wind-down, hangovers, and regrets. Nonetheless, I staggered out of my room after a terrible night’s sleep, at the bright-and-early hour of 11am to attend the panel on AI…
Over this past weekend, my wife, family, and I went to Capclave. This is a sci-fi/fantasy literature convention held at the Rockville Hilton every September. As such, one of the panels I and Alara attended was on Benevolent AI. Some…
A Book Review and Critical Analysis by Doctor WyrmMay 2025 WARNING: This book review contains spoilers. Indeed it would be very difficult to tell anyone about a Lem book without spoiling something in it. I have gone out of my…
Annotated commentary of contemporaneous analysis regarding political and random violence in America during the period of 2020 to 2050. Author’s Disclaimer (c. 2060 Edition) Readers should be aware that the following account does not always align cleanly with the historical…