The Short
Fiction of Mary E. Lowd
On this page, stories are organized by when they were written. Mary's bibliography organizes stories by when they were published.
To learn about collections of Mary's stories, check out her anthologies page. To find her fiction available for free online, check out Deep Sky Anchor.
On this page, stories are organized by when they were written. Mary's bibliography organizes stories by when they were published.
To learn about collections of Mary's stories, check out her anthologies page. To find her fiction available for free online, check out Deep Sky Anchor.
 | Questor's Wonderland Questor decides to give Captain Jacques a gift. [~9,700 words]
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| Questor is Bester or the Chains of Mortality An omnipotent being bets his immortality that he can persuade Captain Pierre Jacques to join him in omnipotence. [~13,000 words]
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| When Reality Cracks A teleporter accident leaves Ensign Ko and Lt. LeGuin in a precarious position. [~10,200 words]
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| The Measure of an Egg Joining the crew of the Initiative isn't an easy transition for Ensign Ko. [~12,500 words]
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| Gone, Not Forgotten Dr. Waverly Keller notices that people have begun disappearing. [~5,500 words]
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| I, Hive The starship Initiative rescues an injured Archidopteran, and Dr. Waverly Keller must nurse the insectoid back to health. [~15,800 words]
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 | A Dubious Hypothesis Jordan LeGuin begins sleepwalking. [~14,700 words]
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 | Cuckoo's Conundrum Jordan LeGuin and Fact try changing their routine and get kidnapped by avian aliens. [~10,900 words]
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 | Bravery Lessons Grawf must deal with an anxious, hypochondriac cat officer attending her martial arts classes. [~6,300 words]
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 | The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy Grawf suspects that an Ursine visitor to the starship Initiative is not who he seems to be. [~19,600 words]
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 | In Practice Fact the android builds an offspring for zirself. [~7,400 words]
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 | Time is a Double-Edged Sword A derelict copy of Fact the android's head is found in a cave in England. [~24,000 words]
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 | Goin' Turtle Cobalt Starstrong makes an unsavory bet. [~6,100 words]
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 | Dancing with Zirself Rariel experiments with outsourcing the process of learning how to control new bodies to a splintered kernel AI. [~4,800 words]
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 | Shipshape Relationship Addie has been having trouble getting along with her spaceship. [~3,000 words]
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 | Eschewing the Upgrade Path Gerangelo approaches a mural painting robot about whether it's sentient and wants more. [~700 words]
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 | Ginger Tea for the Dragon A woman must figure out how to deal with a dragon that curls up around the bones inside her toe. [~2,200 words]
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 | The Dragon in My Toe A woman must figure out how to deal with a dragon that curls up around the bones inside her toe. [~900 words]
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 | The Grafting Cmdr. Wilker accompanies Consul Tor home to Cetazed for an important ceremony. [~12,900 words]
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 | Frond Farewell A carnivorous plant befriends a rabbit. [~3,200 words]
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 | Treegadoon A river otter discovers a mysterious city of squirrels. [~20,100 words]
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 | Sister Ghost A woman takes the ghost who's been haunting her to a haunted hotel. [~3,000 words]
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 | Jellyfish for Dinner Arlene has to teach her adopted river otter son not to be afraid of the water. [~6,100 words]
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 | Chrysalis Can Wait A caterpillar becomes companion to the Time Tortoise. [~8,000 words]
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 | Blaze the Fire Monster The Unicorn and Dragon listen while their friend tells them a traumatic story from her childhood. [~3,000 words]
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 | The Muddy Unicorn Alivia seeks a place where she can play in the mud in peace. [~2,800 words]
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 | The Girl Who Could Hear the Stars Sing A girl who can hear the voices of the stars writes down what she hears as music. [~3,300 words]
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 | Summers on Sylverra Tara Schweitzer wrestles with the nature and meaning of her grandfather's wonderland planet. [~4,400 words]
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 | Breathing the Air at Wespirtech Two scientists navigate the complexity of friendship and the effect that their scientific discoveries have on others. [~6,600 words]
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 | Hide the Honey A bear cub gets her paws on her mother's honey stash. [~1,500 words]
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 | The Elephant Bride's Bouquet Jeko and Am-lei handle last minute disasters right before their wedding ceremony. [~2,400 words]
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 | Their Eyes Like Portals A pair of sister cats can summon portals when they work together, but somehow, that doesn't solve all of their problems. [~2,800 words]
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 | Orange Sherbet Unlocks a Better Loot Box When Orange Sherbet logs into her favorite VR game after school, her panda friend isn't there. [~1,700 words]
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 | Cosmic and Miley Miley the fennec fox is used to being Cosmic's sidekick in the video game they came from, but out in the real world, she's still figuring out her place. [~2,800 words]
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 | The Seamstress Robot and the Insect Bride Am-lei struggles to pick a wedding dress that suits her. [~3,200 words]
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 | Ekko the Orca An orca whale must fly into the sky and save her family from an evil alien spaceship. [~1,700 words]
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 | Flerble Gerbil was a Hologram Lea is surprised to discover a tiny robot hiding in her gerbil cage. [~3,400 words]
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 | Cosmic the Pangolin A super speedy pangolin finds herself transported to a more complicated world than she's used to. [~2,400 words]
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 | Two Roads Diverge A woman consults visions in a hypercrystal to decide whether she wants to have a child or not. [~900 words]
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 | Sarah Flowermane and the Unicorn A lion cub rebels against her father and seeks out fairy magic to help prove her importance. [~5,000 words]
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 | Black Swans The swans are a metaphor. [~250 words]
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 | Flowers Want to Be Free When concrete covers the world, a single dandelion becomes a marvel. [~1,300 words]
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 | Spoiler Warning Make sure you're caught up on the not new werewolf show on Netshows before reading this. [~600 words]
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 | Echoes of an Accelerated Life The fate of the fastest, most powerful AI ever created by Maradia. [~1,000 words]
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 | A Robot Joins Robotics Club Rariel likes to build extra bodies for zirself, so zhe joins the space station robotics club. But will a robot fit in with a bunch of roboticists? [~6,300 words]
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 | Too Many Jangleberries Alternate universes brush against each other while a giraffe-like alien is shopping for jangleberry jam. [~800 words]
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 | Clever Hansel 2020 A robot horse grapples with the emotional and intellectual complexity of having his brain upgraded to full sentience. [~1,200 words]
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 | Jumping Jellyfish and Singing Salmon Kipper, Trugger, and Jenny from the Otters In Space series get pulled into an alternate universe with magic. [~2,700 words]
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 | Seven Riders and Six Horses When the queen's riders return, one of them is missing her steed. [~1,200 words]
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 | The Dreaming Arm The dreaming arm convinces the seven other arms its connected to that they should seek out something from its visions. [~400 words]
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 | Stranger than a Swan A swan hatchling imprints on a surprising visitor. [~900 words]
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 | My Sister, the Space Station The AI inhabiting all the computer systems on Wespirtech sends a copy of herself out into the universe. [~1,300 words]
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 | Heaven is the Best Moment of Your Life, Infinitely Remixed and Played on Loop A woman learns something surprising about her memories while having a personalized heaven designed for her. [~3,000 words]
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 | Why You Should Follow Me Back on Social Media A list of all the time- and universe-spanning reasons that you should follow me back on social media. [~600 words]
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 | What the Eyes Covet and the Stomach Craves Am-lei discovers an unexpected side-effect to her metamorphosis. [~2,600 words]
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 | The Dragon's Mask A dragon crafts herself a human mask and makes a human friend, but can she really be happy, hiding who she truly is? [~4,700 words]
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 | Birthday Party at the Prehistory Zoo (The Prehistory Zoo, Part 4) A dinosaur-sized dog makes a great amusement at a child's birthday party. [~1,300 words]
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| Tiny Cartoon Dinosaurs (The Prehistory Zoo, Part 3) Dr. Loxley learns more about the dogs being bred as dinosaur companion animals and specifically the one her wife wants them to adopt. [~1,200 words]
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| Herding the Brachiosauruses (The Prehistory Zoo, Part 2) Dr. Cartwright tries to convince her wife not to be afraid of the dinosaurs and giant dogs she's been training at the Prehistory Zoo. [~1000 words]
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 | The Unshelled When a collie dog helps a crab-like alien rescue a missing science vessel, the two of them discover a deeper connection than either could have expected. [~10,500 words]
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 | Crystal Fusion A canine security officer, Lt. Vonn, and feline engineer, Lt. LeGuin, find themselves caught in the middle of a very confusing teleporter accident. [~12,900 words]
Awards: Nomination for Leo Literary Award (2021); Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction (2021) |
 | Where Have All the Mousies Gone A mouse brings her grandmother back after ten years, for one last moment. [~1,000 words]
Awards: Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction (2021) |
 | The Arsenal of Obsolescence Lieutenant Natalie Vonn is stranded on a jungle world, torn between trusting an eerie AI and hostile gerbil-like aliens to help her rescue the rest of her team. [~6,400 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction (2021) |
 | Eight Ways The only octopus to ever escape from the kitchen at Eight Ways... comes back. [~1000 words]
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 | Safe Here in Crest City Social media during the zombie apocalypse. [~850 words]
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Excerpt from Purride and Purrejudice It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a cat in sight of an empty box, must sit in it. [~200 words]
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 | An Otter's Soul An otter struggles with grief over the death of her best friend and seek's solace in her people's folklore concerning dragonflies and souls. [~1,300 words]
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 | Not Spider-Man and the Seven Angel Donors A satirical look at the state of trademarks, contracts, corporations, and the world in general through the lens of fairy tale and science-fiction. [~1,300 words]
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 | The Dancing Swords Sometimes the darkness inside takes the form of dancing swords. [~400 words]
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Dark Father When Erith Danaya faces off with his own daughter, the warlord gets more than he bargained for. [~800 words]
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Summer Strawberries Restless during winter break, Jenna decides to summon a summer elemental. [~4,800 words]
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 | On the Difference Between AI Cats and Actual Cats: A Love Story (written with
Daniel Lowd) An AI cat and actual cat find each other through the captions and comments on a lecture. [~1,000 words]
Awards: Ursa Major Award in the Short Fiction category (2023) |
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When the Universe Listens Can you win a staring contest with the universe? [~2,000 words]
Nominations: Leo Literary Award in the Short Stories category (2023) |
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Octopus Ex Machina Chaos happens at the Re-Incorpus summer pool party, and Lora thinks she's figured out who's behind it all. [~3,400 words]
Awards: Leo Literary Award in the Short Stories category (2022) |
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The Were-Raptor and the Seamstress Robot Angie and Tyler go on a walk in the forest and discover a magic lamp, but can they agree on how to spend the wishes? [~1,400 words]
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 | Sting Once and Die Selina casts a spell drenched in blood. [~800 words]
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Nawry the Noodlebeast A young noodlebeast leaves his people, on a quest to discover what's missing from their world. [~20,000 words]
Nominations: Leo Literary Award in the Novellas category (2023) |
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In the Roots of the World Tree Alia the felotter is summoned by Queen Seltyne to defend her lobster-like people from a mysterious force menacing them. [~1,600 words]
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Heart of an Orca, Grace of a Cat The first step to becoming a witch is to meet a familiar. [~1,300 words]
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Galactic Garden Ariadella spins galaxies with her silk. [~1,200 words]
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The Soul of the Forest A lone wolf must protect her forest from a deadly usurper. [~3,000 words]
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The Unicorn Keeper The magical and the mundane meet when a mythical creature becomes a daily responsibility. [~600 words]
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Courtship FTL Buying a spaceship is harder when it has a mind of its own. [~1,000 words]
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The Farther One Travels Captain Pierre Jacques of the starship Initiative must find a way to comunicate with an electric eel-like alien. [~2,600 words]
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Encounter at Hoppalong The crew of the starship Initiative encounters a world of rabbit-like aliens suffering from a mysterious illness. [~9,200 words]
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No Catch Some things seem too good to be true. [~300 words]
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Paper Horn During lunch at school, a girl makes friends with another girl's pet Smart Pony. [~300 words]
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 | The Christmas Tree Barn This year, Becca thinks it might be time to try out a new kind of Christmas tree. [~900 words]
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Ensign Mewly A fearful feline officer aboard the starship Initiative wrestles with a glitch in the lumo-bay programming. [~1,000 words]
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Skin of Reflection The ursine exchange officer aboard the starship Initiative awakes from her hibernation and must face off with a mysterious, amorphous, metallic creature on her first mission. [~6,600 words]
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Fact and Myth The non-binary, android fox officer aboard the starship Initiative uncovers a series of surprises on the planet where zhe was originally discovered. [~11,700 words]
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Ecto-Cafe Sunny, a hungry yellow lab, stops for a snack and finds herself battling a cafe full of haunted baked goods. [~4,200 words]
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Too Cuddly Maradia deals with a robot who doesn't want to look like a big teddy bear. [~900 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction (2021) |
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Prototype Dino 1 Maradia's new AI program becomes temperamental when she tried to upload it into a robot body. [~1,200 words]
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Speed Questing QuestCrusher20 finds herself at a loss when she doesn't stop to read the quest text. [~1,200 words]
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Diamond Dust Heart When an android detective follows a trail of illegal drugs to its source, she risks learning more about herself than she wants to know. [~1,200 words]
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 | Landfill Utopia An enterprising young nine-year-old journalist sets out to discover what's been happening to all the dino-bot toys in her neighborhood. [~800 words]
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Grizzelka's Bridegroom Rhun has second thoughts about marrying the great goddess Grizzelka. [~4,100 words]
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 | Toaster Dragon The young breadragon, Tzora, can't fly until she gets fire in her belly and toasts her doughy wings... unless, maybe, she can strike a deal with the fire ants living deep beneath her family's cave. [~900 words]
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The Fire In Her Claws No one will take this cat's claws. [~1,300 words]
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Commander Annie When Annie's best friend ditches her, she has to go on an adventure of her own. In a cardboard spaceship, she flies to the most dangerous planet she's discovered. [~21,000 words]
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Catacomb's Orchestra When a cat can mind control mice, she can make them sing for her. [~900 words]
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The Fog Comes On Little Cat Feet A cat seeks the source of his growing magical powers. [~1,100 words]
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This Dog For Hire When Jove Deadly's sanctimonious sister shows up with a job for him, it can mean nothing but trouble for the down-on-his-luck bloodhound PI. [~21,300 words]
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Sparky A little girl and her robo-nanny must find her missing robo-dog during the chaos of battle between the president of Earth and the queen of the moon. [~900 words]
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 | Dry Skin A salamander struggling with addiction goes on a blind date and finds more than she expected. [~3,200 words]
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Necessary as a Rose Alone on a spaceship with nothing for company but a rose. [~1,600 words]
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My Magic, My Spell An ice mage reflects on the spell that was stolen from her. [~1,800 words]
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 | Build-a-Pet At the pizza parlor, Leslie finds an arcade machine that will let her custom design a pet for herself! [~800 words]
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Rumpel's Gift Heidi won't be able to finish her daughter's costume in time for the school play, but a mysterious visitor arrives and offers her a dangerous deal. [~2,000 words]
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Home Remodeling A spaceship crashes down to Earth and picks a quick disguise. [~1,100 words]
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Shiny Red Chassis A robot designed to assist organic lifeforms struggles with her role. [~1,500 words]
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Fish Heart When a cat finds herself entranced by a fish, magic is afoot. [~1,100 words]
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The Fisherman's Robot A tiny robot makes more and more grandiose wishes for upgrades to her mechanical body. [~1,300 words]
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Salvador Dali Smile A robot with an overclocked brain has trouble fitting into human society. [~1,500 words]
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The Promise of New Heffe Jeaunia's family falls apart as the Heffen society on Crossroads Station receives good news. [~5,900 words]
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I Am Mazillion A sentient swarm finds a new home and way of life. [~1,200 words]
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Looking for Sentience Gerangelo follows a signal, searching for the sentient being who sent it. [~3,000 words]
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Twelve Days of Snow on Crossroads Station When the environmental controls go haywire, Crossroads Station is filled with a holiday atmosphere. [~1,000 words]
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The Three Laws of Social Robotics Maradia's AI program takes on a life of her own. [~2,400 words]
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When He Stopped Crying Through the haze of exhaustion, a new mother faces the consequences of ignoring her grandmother's warnings and taking down the mobile made to protect her new son. [~1,500 words]
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Ecto-Busters One Sunny wants to stop for a snack, but the demons pouring out of a portal on the top of the Great Dane building will not wait. [~1,400 words]
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Jetpack and Cyborg Wings Mother and daughter set out to fly around Crossroads Station. [~700 words]
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Veins of Black, Dust of Gold A metamorphosis. [~1,000 words]
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Hypercrystal Wish Jeko spends her recess playing board games alone, until a couple other students come back from the playground. [~1,300 words]
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Wing Day Lee-a-lei hosts an unusual party and rite of passage for her daughter. [~1,500 words]
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Rapscallions The crew of the TGN Initiative face a race of aggressive chicken-aliens in the aftermath of a teleporter accident. [~6,400 words]
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Sandbeard the Pirate Otter An intrepid pirate must rescue an ocean world from boiling under blaring sunlight. [~700 words]
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 | The City In Your Toaster Oven An artist makes a difficult and dangerous climb in hopes of creating an artwork so magnificent it will speak to the god of her world. [~800 words]
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| Comfort Animal (The Prehistory Zoo, Part 1) Dr. Loxley learns about the unsettling project her wife has been working on at the Prehistory Zoo. [~1000 words]
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Chestnut Wish An otter tries to make it through the day, living among squirrels, and caring for an otter toddler. [~1,800 words]
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When the Ghost of the Future Catches Up When a demon rides a unicorn, all hell breaks loose on an alien world. [~1,300 words]
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Returning the Lyre What if the snake had bitten Orpheus instead of Eurydice? [~2,500 words]
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Geese and Gingerbread Wish carefully on magic rocks. [~1,400 words]
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The Fish Kite Joan is visited by a forgetful figure from her past. [~2,000 words]
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Not All Dogs When Petra gets arrested, Lucky finds himself managing their three adopted kittens on his own. [~4,200 words]
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The Blood Portal Hanna uses her gravitational magic, fleeing with her son from her dangerous husband, and discovers a mysterious, hidden space station. [~2,400 words]
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The Ugly Sapling Not all trees grow the same way. [~600 words]
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Black Out In Space A buffalo-like alien babysitting a roomful of bunny-like aliens finds herself and the little lapines in the middle of a black out. [~2,000 words]
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Katelynn and the Hummingbird A cat goes on a wild adventure with a hummingbird who isn't what it seems. [~2,400 words]
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Treasure Moon The squirrel-like Rikkita chases down the clues to the final phase of her heist. [~1,100 words]
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Sky River Today, the ice rings melt. [~550 words]
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The Spider In Her Lungs Moira struggles to complete her greatest work of art before the source of her own talent consumes her. [~1,000 words]
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Huckle's Puddle When a boy looks at his upside down reflection in the puddles on a rainy day, his world turns upside down as well. [~2,500 words]
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The Unification of Worlds The final world in a generations-long journey. [~3,500 words]
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Crystal and Rainbow Musings on the power of an accurate metaphor. [~500 words]
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 | The Freedom of the Queen A queen bee reckons with the force who destroyed her hive. [~500 words]
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 | Moon Dust Rainal is almost out of moon dust. [~1,400 words]
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 | Pen Pals with the Tooth Fairy A little girl looses her tooth on Christmas Eve. [~900 words]
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Brain-Dead Baby Jesuses The snow is coming for Miley. [~1,100 words]
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 | The Moon Like an Unhatched Egg Four uplifted birds compete for the right to represent Earth on a mission to Mars. [~2,800 words]
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 | On the Eve of the Apocalypse A letter written as the world ends. [~700 words]
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Anger is a Porcupine, Sadness is a Fish A woman returns to her village to find herself beset by another's spells. [~900 words]
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 | Missing: Friendly Spook A friendly feline ghost goes missing. [~1000 words]
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 | Between the Black Holes The only escape for Clarity and Iroh is a deadly dangerous maneuver in deep space. [~1000 words]
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 | Crescent Horns and Tall Ears An unguloid at the All Alien Cafe introduces herself to a group of uplifted lapines. [~1000 words]
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Welcome to Ob'glaung Four aliens go on a trip together to a water-filled space station in the Lintar Oligarchy. [~1,200 words]
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For the Sake of Mushrooms Irudy struggles with her inner demons as she flies her cargo ship past the red giant that swallowed her home world. [~600 words]
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The Oldest One Anno can't find enough time alone with her mother. [~1000 words]
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The Pink Agate Clori's children won't stay in bed. [~1000 words]
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Treasure in the Sky A badger-like alien wrestles with a larger universe than he'd imagined. [~600 words]
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 | Inalienable Rights An uplifted lapine faces his former slaver. [~900 words]
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Somewhere Over the Ocean A whale-like alien makes first contact for here world with visitors from the stars. [~1,200 words]
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The Night Janitor and Alien Oceans Some scientific discoveries happen after the scientists have gone to sleep. [~1000 words]
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A Jetpack of a Different Color Wendy's ready for a day of atmo-surfing with her friend Flooffle, but first, she's in for a big surprise. [~300 words]
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The Emperor's New Bird A bio-engineer and a roboticist bring offerings to the Doraspian emperor. [~500 words]
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Welcome to the Arboretum, Little Robot Chirri's robot is malfunctioning. [~500 words]
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Waking Up in the Genie Shop An amphibioid alien undergoes a massive transition. [~1,100 words]
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 | The Best and Worst of Worlds Consul Eliana Tor, an exchange officer on the Tri-Galactic Navy ship Initiative, gets swept into a conflict between the cats and dogs of the navy and a dangerous alien race that they've encountered before. [~6,900 words]
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 | Principles Over Profit An avian salvage worker enlists an uplifted lapine to help her find a wrecked ship with especially valuable cargo. [~1,100 words]
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Of Starwhals and Spaceships When a spaceship flies through a flock of sentient space whales, an unlikely friendship springs into existence. [~1,000 words]
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Queen Doripauli and the Sproutlings An amphibioid alien must choose between her floral Doraspian lover and her conscience. [~1,000 words]
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Thirty Honey Feasts To Go Marga and her crew are hibernating their way through the stars. [~700 words]
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 | An Aldebaran Sugar Cookie for Star Shaker Chirri attends a concert among the stars. [~800 words]
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Clever Hansel 2000 An equine alien brings her dancing partner, an equine robot, to take the sentience tests. [~1,100 words]
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 | The Crowds on Crossroads Station An uplifted lapine discovers he has a new option available when his slaver brings him to an alien space station. [~700 words]
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A Sense of Clarity A young bartender at the All Alien Cafe makes friends with a shady patron. [~3,500 words]
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 | One Alien's Wreckage A salvage team comes across something surprising in a wrecked ship's cargo hold. [~800 words]
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One Alien's Wings Maradia helps a butterfly-alien become her true self. [~800 words]
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Galaxy Shaker and the Celestial Rainbow Dragon A reptilian pop-star invites a small fan up on stage with her. [~700 words]
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The Words in Frosting Chirri the felinoid baker advises a confused robot. [~1,400 words]
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 | Of Cakes and Robots Chirri gets her biggest order for a cake yet, from a surprising customer. [~900 words]
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Heart of the Gas Giant Arellnor dives into the heart of a gas giant, hoping the rumors are true. [~800 words]
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Go High A mouse-like alien gets lost in the clouds of New Jupiter. [~800 words]
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Winged Folk Only A mouse-like alien wants to fly with the avians. [~1,000 words]
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Elephantine Daydream Jeko is the only elephantine sentient in a classroom full of canine and robotic students. [~800 words]
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True Feast Argelnox has fallen behind the star migration, but perhaps she'll stop for a respite. [~400 words]
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 | The Empty Empire World after world is built, but who will live in them? [~300 words]
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 | Questor's Gambit Commander Bill Wilker, a Collie dog on the Tri-Galactic Navy ship Initiative, must protect his crew from a mysteriously powerful lifeform, and following his captain's orders may not be enough. [~8,000 words]
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 | High School Dogs Katasha is the only cat at the high school dance. [~1,000 words]
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 | Sheeperfly's Lullaby A sheep's fairytale. [~1,400 words]
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The Rocky Spires of Planet 227 The Tri-Galactic Navy ship Initiative investigates an unusual rock formation. [~4,500 words]
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Many Tiny Feet A reptilian alien rescues a crate of mysterious eggs while working in the ship's cargo bay. [~1,400 words]
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Birthday When you're parenting a five-year-old, your birthday isn't just about you. [~400 words]
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Green Skin Deep A reptilian alien forges a tenuous friendship with a sentient plant. [~800 words]
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 | Hidden Intentions A reptilian alien with her cool temper is clearly an ideal choice for babysitting the human captain's larval offspring. [~600 words]
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 | Dealership with the Devil Bob Reaper's Autos may have some ulterior motives when it comes to selling used cars. [~500 words]
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 | Hidden Feelings A reptilian alien with a hot temper keeps her cool around annoying humans. [~400 words]
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 | Small Smooth Pebble The ultimate choice is always at her fingertips. [~100 words]
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 | Marge the Barge A Newfoundland dog is not naturally graceful on the ice, but perhaps a tabby cat can teach her to be. [~6,600 words]
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 | Danger in the Lumo-Bay Captain Pierre Jacques and Doctor Waverly Keller, a Sphynx cat and an Irish Setter respectively, set out to spend a pleasant afternoon testing their ship's new lumo-bay. But are the safeties working??? [~7,400 words]
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 | All the Cats of the Rainbow A kitten in a scientist's lab -- what could possibly go wrong? [~2,200 words]
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 | Shreddy and the Carnivorous Plant An angry cat faces his greatest challenge yet when his owner brings home a Venus fly trap. [~5,200 words]
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 | Take Them to the Happiness Zoo A tired mother considers an impossible choice. [~400 words]
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 | The Mouse Who Was Born a Bear Maureen never felt right as a bear. [~1,200 words]
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 | Cold Tail and the Eyes Some cats cannot be owned. [~2,700 words]
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Xeno-Nativity Maradia considers branching out from robot-design to a new form of nurturing. [~5,000 words]
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Chrysalis Party A bittersweet celebration of beginning a new phase. [~900 words]
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 | Memory Sprites A camping trip full of memories. [~700 words]
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 | FemCloud Inc. Every action is a choice. [~400 words]
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 | Shreddy and the Dancing Dragon An angry cat must defend his household from a soul-sucking new game machine. [~2,800 words]
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 | Katelynn the Mythic Mouser A little girl and her cat work magic together. [~2,500 words]
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Tortoise Who A mouse is taken on an adventure across time and space. [~4,000 words]
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 | Pegacornus Rex Never leave your 3D printer running unattended. [~300 words]
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 | A Pearl for Amelie While looking through her aunt's old letters, Amelie uncovers an epic tale of academia and the fantastical. [~3,600 words]
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 | Frankenstein's Gryphon Igor the arctic fox learns that his master isn't what he seems. [~8,400 words]
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 | Shreddy and the Silver Egg An angry cat finds himself in charge of a strange, young ward. [~6,300 words]
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 | Feral Unicorn Janie's in over her head when her pet unicorn's horn comes in, and he starts working mischievious magic around the house. [~4,800 words]
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 | Weremoose Darkfoot attacks a moose in the dead of winter, and his relationship with his pack will never be the same. [~500 words]
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 | When a Cat Loves a Dog A black cat named Lashonda and her pug dog husband push at the very limits of their society -- socially and scientifically -- in their quest to have a family. [~37,000 words]
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 | Songs of Fish and Flowers When her witch moves away, a calico cat discovers magic left over in the witch's rose garden. [~2,300 words]
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 | Birthing Class Daniel has a sinister alien life growing inside him. [~2,700 words]
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 | In a Cat's Eyes A Collie pup can never comprehend the depth and mystery behind a Siamese cat's eyes. [~1,000 words]
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 | Shreddy and the Christmas Ghost An angry cat faces the true spirit of Christmas -- a rodential poltergeist. [~6,400 words]
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Greatest of Them All A spirit comes to Earth, seeking a new form. [~100 words]
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 | Fox in the Hen House Can a fox kit be raised by a mother hen? [~2,200 words]
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 | The Wharf Cat's Mermaid A club-footed kitten living the hard life of a stray in the Fisherman's Wharf discovers that one of the other cats is keeping a secret. [~8,300 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction, 2014 |
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The Otter's Mermaid An otter inventor takes a trip down the river and loses his heart to a woman of the sea. [~9,300 words]
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 | The Best Puppy Ever Gloria, the Bernese Mountain Dog, would do anything for her masters, but she doesn't know how much she's already done. [~1,000 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction, 2014 |
 | The Carousel of Spirits When Artie finds a ghost haunting his carousel, it's time for him to build a new horse. [~3,700 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction, 2014 |
 | The Little Red Avian Alien Prilla decides to make grassberry crepelets, but none of her friends on Crossroads Station will help her. [~2,500 words]
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 | Magtwilla and the Mouse A pregnant cat makes a fateful choice to protect her kittens. [~2,000 words]
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 | The Most Complicated Avatar A woman can't find her 10-year-old daughter in real life... But, maybe, she can find her online. [~1,300 words]
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 | Techno Babel (written with
Daniel Lowd) A parking garage arm gains sentience. [~2,300 words]
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 | Cyclops on Safari A normal day on safari -- in a different world. [~800 words]
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 | One Night in Nocturnia A mad mouse scientist uncovers truths that he should never know. [~3,900 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction, 2012 |
 | A Real Stand-Up Guy (written with
Daniel Lowd) A pug dog comedian wrestles with mixed feelings about his on-stage persona. [~3,500 words]
Awards: Nomination for Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction, 2014 |
 | St. Kalwain and the Lady Uta A man cursed by the faerie queen must slay a dragon to earn his freedom. [~8,400 words]
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 | Lunar Cavity Druthel, a delegate from a race of bat-like aliens, seeks the assistance of Wespirtech scientists in averting a catastrophe that faces his world. [~11,500 words]
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 | Foreknowledge Before she's even born, Amanda's death is predicted. [~4,200 words]
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 | Hot Chocolate for the Unicorn The Dragon and Unicorn come calling. [~1,000 words]
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Fetching Asteroids Jordan is a Labrador Retriever with a dream. [~300 words]
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 | Panda-Mensional If your spaceship is powered by a panda, you'd better keep the panda happy. [~1,400 words]
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The Canoe Race (with
Daniel Lowd) When Camp Riverwind closes at the end of the summer, the local animals hold their own summer camp. [~3,500 words]
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 | The Hand-Havers At the tender age of one-hand, Delundia falls for a wise old six-handed bachelor. [~4,700 words]
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Where the Heart Is Four aliens from Crossroads Station go on a camping trip. [~4,700 words]
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Shreddy and the Zomb-dogs An angry cat and an empty-headed Labradoodle must protect their neighborhood from techno-mystically raised zomb-dogs. [~4,200 words]
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Meet Archive A story-telling robot gets lost in his own stories. [~2,400 words]
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 | Einray and the Biologist A physicist and a biologist at Wespirtech get competitive with world-threatening results. [~4,600 words]
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Harvesting Wishes Where do wishes come from? Dandelions? Genies? ... Or asteroids? [~1,800 words]
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Little Sandy Starstrong and her Faithful
Robot Dogs Growing up among the asteroids with her two robotic dogs, Sandy feels like something is missing. [~2,200 words]
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 | My Fair Robot A patron at the All Alien Cafe tells a tall tale of the pitfalls in looking for true love by constructing it. [~1000 words]
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 | One Sheep There are many paths that a sheep living on a farm may take in life. [~500 words]
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Daisy Chaining A boastful young spaceman traps himself into racing a frezzipod through an asteroid field. [~1,300 words]
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 | Apples in Aruba Order carefully at the All Alien Cafe. [~100 words]
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 | We Can Remember It For You Retail What happens when memory, technology, love, and digital rights intersect. [~3,600 words]
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The Ambi-Cognitive Man Two brothers travel to a tiny colony in the far reaches of space where everyone is conjoined twins. They expect to find a place where they belong; instead, they're forced to question the very meaning of individuality. [~8,700 words]
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Gerty & the
Doesn't-Smell-Like-a-Melon Snuffle-snorting around the melon patch, Gerty finds something that does not smell like a melon. [~2,100 words]
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Slug Time A young scientist struggles against the clock and procrastination to translate thoughts through a direct brain interface with a slug. [~2,900 words]
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The
Nebula Was Empty Fear the love of a mega-dimensional nebula beast. [~700 words]
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The
Kitty Willow
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The Necromouser An angry cat discovers the techno-mystical ability to raise mice from the dead. [~2,500 words]
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The Third Wish Jealous of his half-brother's elven magic, a fisherman begins studying magic himself. [~3,000 words]
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Emmanuel and the Cannibals A colony stranded on an under-evolved world has an unusual response to the introduction of terran bovines. [~4,500 words]
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 | A Second Enchanted Evening Bomani convinces his wife to join him in using memory drugs to make their anniversary more romantic; instead, the drugs force them to face the true state of their relationship. [~6,800 words]
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Life with the Tumblers Arlene takes her young son Kyan on a research expedition into an alien culture of sentient trees. [~5,500 words]
Awards: Writers of the Future Quarter Finalist, (1st Quarter, 2006) |
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The Screen Savior What happens when a screen saver comes to life... [~1,400 words]
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Forget Me Not Can a bad memory be the secret to success? [~2,600 words]
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Of Behemoths and Bureaucrats Rhea brings her traveling carnival act to the Hegula Hephaesta mining colony to visit the new sun garden, but she and her Starwhals get caught in a battle for interstellar independence that threatens her three gentle giants. [~4,000 words]
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The Parable of Two Queens Can Commander Dyall and his team of translators -- a pair of gengineered parrots -- fathom the minds of myrmecoid warriors from another galaxy well enough to broker peace? [~3,400 words]
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 | "Viewers Like You" In the future, androids will pay you to watch TV. [~1,800 words]
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 | My Words Like Silent Raindrops A young scientist gets in over her head when she introduces technological telepathy to her friends. [~4,500 words]
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 | The Faithless, the Tentacled, and the Light Nicole is sent to investigate a mysterious outcropping of buildings in the Banti'phi asteroid belt. [~5,800 words]
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Rekindle the Sun A dying world may not be the best place to start your life anew. [~9,300 words]
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 | The Opposite of Suicide Dennis discovers the fragile, fractile nature of his life. [~1,500 words]
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 | The Genetic Menagerie Two cops chase down a rogue scientist, leading them to the fantastical world he's built with genetic engineering. [~6,600 words]
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