"The Scariest Story I Know" is by far the real standout of Nemo 5, a masterpiece about life and death and the ambiguity of both, about loss and tragedy and the impossibility to discern between who's alive and who's not. An exquisite psychological study, the story discloses, however, the only sore point in the "nemonimousity," namely that, ignoring the name of the author you can't go out and buy everything he/she has published as you'd like to do after reading such a little gem.

Yet another critic commented:

"The Scariest Story I Know" switches between different narrating strands: first person, third person, second person, third person and back to first, in a mirroring, symmetrical technique. This is a ghost story based on a family's grief and the separation of two people, a father and son, from the third person, their wife and mother. But the story plays with the reader, allowing them to make one set of assumptions about who is dead, before revealing the truth. The strength of this story is that it is grounded in human emotions and relationships. It's a quietly mature and sophisticated take on the supernatural.

And a third chimed in:

"The Scariest Story I Know" rivals the above tale for subtlety, but also adds ambiguity to the mix; a story of three members of the same family, though neither the reader—nor the protagonists themselves—know who has died, and who is living. Or maybe they've all died? This is wonderful piece of fiction, but it is annoying since I want to congratulate the author by name. ...

Maybe I should publish all of my work anonymously!

"This is Where the Title Goes"
The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives

I have always been fascinated by the skeleton that lies beneath the skin of Story, and in "This Is Where the Title Goes," just out in The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives, I've tried to peel that skin away. Rather than try to tell just a single story, I have tried to tell all stories. Of course, it will be up to any readers to determine whether I have told even one story. (However, even though the story has only just appeared, my readings of it aloud at various conventions over the past few years have garnered positive reactions.

The editors of The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives, Alex Irvine and Thom Davidsohn, have declared this second issue to be the final issue of their magazine—and their cover states that position rather forcefully. As they write in their joint editorial, "It is our fondest wish that if there are young people out there who dream of running a zine, they will see the path of misery and despair that we have so foolishly trodden, and turn another way."

Though the copyright date inside the issue states that this was published in 2004, copies were not available until March 2005.

"My Life is Good"
Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic

My Randy Newman-inspired story, "My Life is Good," is out in Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic, published August 2004 and edited by F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan. Good Old Boys has always been one of my favorite albums, and so Randy Newman was the first thing that came to mind when I was asked to contribute a story on that theme.

The opening line of my story will be familiar to anyone who's ever heard the song "Rednecks," which appears on that album, and which begins, "Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show, with some smart ass New York Jew." My story begins—

"Last night I saw Randy Newman on the time machine, with some smart, rich New York Jews."

—and proceeds to reference Huey Long, Kurt Vonnegut, and of course, the life and songs of Randy Newman. But don't worry—you won't have to be familiar with the entire Newman oeuvre to appreciate the story ... though certainly, the more you know, the richer the experience.

"I Wish I Knew Where I Was Going"
Quietly Now

Charles L. Grant has always been a master of atmospheric horror—not the kind that runs at you with a meat ax, but instead the sort that sneaks up on you. He's always focussed on the existential terrors that makes the hair rise at the back of your neck, not the ones that only turn your stomach. Editor Kealan Patrick Burke decided to honor this influential writer and editor with the anthology Quietly Now: A Tribute to Charles L. Grant, published in April 2004.

My short story "I Wish I Knew Where I Was Going" is an attempt to walk in Grant's footsteps. It's a tale of missed opportunities and second chances, and I hope that it will chill readers as much as it did me.

But even if it doesn't ... this signed, limited-edition book also contains work by Stephen King, Peter Straub, F. Paul Wilson, Joe Lansdale and others, so that's reason enough to check it out.

"Together Forever at the End of the World"
Men Writing Science Fiction as Women

Mike Resnick edited two anthologies on a similar theme this year—Women Writing Science Fiction as Men (for which I was obviously not qualified) and Men Writing Science Fiction as Women, which came out in November 2003. Stories submitted to these anthologies were supposed to conform to two rules—

First, they had to be written about a member of the opposite sex.

Second, they had to be written in the first person.

My story, "Together Forever at the End of the World," is from the point of view of an emergency room doctor dragged into playing a very special role after an unlikely alien invasion. Was I able to pull off the editor's assignment, and successfully pass myself off as a woman? That's up for you to decide.

"The Last Supper"
The Book of Final Flesh

Editor Jim Lowder's third anthology of zombie short stories, The Book of Final Flesh, was released in June 2003, proving that you can'd keep a good man down. Or should that be—you can't keep a dead man down?

My contribution, "The Last Supper," is the final story in the final volume of this zombie trilogy, which is as it should be, considering that it was designed to be the final zombie story. The tale aims to answer the question: What happens after the last human is gone, and all that remains in the world is hunger?

It will be interesting to see what readers make of this one, since it's a horror tale with a side order of science fiction snuck in. And I remember from my days editing Science Fiction Age that there are many readers out there who want their genres straight—no mixing of science fiction, fantasy or horror. Those uncompromising purists should look elsewhere, I guess, but as for the rest of you—enjoy!

"Goobers"
The Book of More Flesh

Stories rarely come to me in dreams. Sometimes, while I'm falling asleep, a character or an opening line or a plot nugget might sneak into my mind, and I'll have to struggle awake to scrawl down the idea in the dark before it vanishes. But to see the story entire, to have it bubble up very nearly fully formed—that only happens once every few years. My subconscious normally requires that I do most of the work. But in the case of "Goobers," published in October 2002 in Jim Lowder's second zombie anthology, The Book of More Flesh, my subconscious did all the heavy lifting.

In a dream earlier this year, I was a projectionist hiding from zombies in an old movie theater, and in a moment of existential terror, I thought of a unique way to communiate with them. I'll let you discover the exact nature of that communication in the story itself, but remarkably, the plot as written was not that far from the gift my sleeping mind had given me that night.

I wish I didn't have to wait several more years for lightning to strike again—but unfortunately, that's the way it is.

"Choosing Time"
Angel Body and other Magic for the Soul

Back in the summer of 1988, I published a strange little short story titled "Buffalo" in Ice River magazine, a journal of slipstream fiction published by David Memmott. Who knew then that this would, years later, make me eligible to appear in a commemorative trade paperback published in celebration of Memmott's press, Wordcraft of Oregon?

Chris Reed, publisher of Back Brain Recluse, worked with Memmott to assemble the trade paperback anthology Angel Body, featuring stories from writers such as Bruce Boston, Ernest Hogan, Mark Rich—and me.

My story in the volume, "Choosing Time," is a time-travel story with an odd twist, one in which the reader has as almost many choices as the lead character. But as for what those choices might be, I'll let readers discover in the story itself, rather than here.

"Eros and Agape Among the Asteroids"
Once Upon A Galaxy

Is the science-fiction field incestuous? Yes. Is that a bad thing? I'm not entirely sure. If editors are buying substandard stories from writers merely because those writers are their friends, I believe that to be a bad thing. But if what is happpening instead is that writers and editors who like each others' stories develop a friendship as an outgrowth of that, then that seems more like serendipity to me. Which is the cause and which the effect? We can never be sure.

The anthology Once Upon A Galaxy seems to be a prime example of this to me. Back when I was editing Science Fiction Age magazine, I published a number of stories by Wil McCarthy, including a novella titled "The Collapsium." That story, a hard-SF tale told in a fairy-tale tone, was nominated for a Nebula and later expanded into the novel Collapsium. Time went by. As editor of Science Fiction Weekly, I no longer buy Wil's fiction, but he does write a science column for me every four weeks.

When I heard that Wil was editing an anthology of hard-SF stories with a fairy-tale voice, a la the story I had bought from him years before, I completed the circuit by selling him a story, our roles suddenly reversed. Once Upon a Galaxy hit bookstores in September 2002.

"The Only Thing That Mattered"
Absolute Magnitude

I think that as a child I must have been infected by Theodore Sturgeon, and I've never been the same since. I once read that he considered all of his stories to be on the same subject—that of love—and for some reason that seemed like a good idea to me at the time. I agreed that love —or the lack thereof—was a central motivator of human interaction, which anyone who has read my stories will probably figure out without me having to tell them. So once Science Fiction Age was behind me and I sat down to write my own stories again rather than focus on editing those written by others, it was natural that I would choose as my subject "The Only Thing That Mattered," which found a home in the Summer/Fall 2002 issue of Absolute Magnitude.

As a former fiction editor, I know how hard it is to sell a story 20,000 words long, and yet, that is the story that inspiration handed me. I'm thankful that editor/publisher Warren Lapine was willing to give over 16 pages to it, or just over a quarter of the issue.

I enjoyed seeing my name on the cover, but even more than that, I got a kick out of seeing Jack Williamson's name there with mine.

"Mom, the Martians, and Me"
Mars Probes

Editor Peter Crowther, having allowed me to go to the Moon back in 1999 in his anthology Moon Shots, gave me clearance to orbit the Red Planet in Mars Probes, which was published in June 2002.

And yet, perhaps I never visited Mars at all in the tale "Mom, the Martians, and Me." When writing for theme anthologies, it can often be more entertaining to examine the territory on the fringes, rather than go for the more obvious plots. So in this case, it will be up to readers to determine the truth of the protagonist's plight. Does the story detail a case of genuine alien abduction ... or not?

I certainly hope that Peter decides to move on to other bodies in the solar system! Story ideas about Venus and Mercury are already beginning to percolate. ...

"Live People Don't Understand"
The Book of All Flesh

The third act of Thorton Wilder's "Our Town" has always made me cry. I guess I should have realized that meant it was only a matter of time before I'd create a short story out of that Pulitzer Prize-winning play's life-affirming concept. And, of course, what life-affirming short story is complete without zombies?

Although eventually published in the anthology The Book of All Flesh, edited by James Lowder, it was anthologist and author Peter Crowther who should get credit for planting the seed for "Live People Don't Understand." Crowther invited me to write a story for an anthology he was working on devoted to Will Eisner's noir comic book character The Spirit. I immediately realized that Wildwood Cemetery, where The Spirit has his secret headquarters, and the Grovers Corners cemetery, where the newly dead congregate in "Our Town," had to be one and the same. When The Spirit anthology ended in limbo, I was too much in love with the concept to let the story die with it.

It sat fallow for a while until I heard that James Lowder was putting together the zombie anthology The Book of All Flesh. I realized then how the plot could be restructured to build a story that could stand alone. As much as I regret not getting a chance to play with The Spirit, the story as published in October 2001 turned out to be a much cleaner realization of what I wanted to say than it would have been originally.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"
The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

As a writer, I know how annoying it can be when writers don't stick to the guidelines. So I can imagine what went through editor Mike Ashley's mind when I delivered the manuscript of "You'll Never Walk Alone." He asked for farcical tales not over 6,000 words, and I delivered a piece almost twice that length. If I'd been there when he first looked at the piece, I imagine I would have heard him groan. And not only that—the story was written entirely in dialogue, with no descriptions or stage directions, not even a "he said" or "she said."

Rereading the story before shipping it off to him, I considered making Ashley's editorial decision for him. I thought of putting the story back in a drawer and writing him a different, shorter tale. But the story seemed so on target for the sort of humorous fantasy he wanted that—urged by fellow writer Paul Di Filippo—I figured I'd send it along, and ask Ashley whether he could see any fat I could excise. He couldn't. And luckily, the story proved as magnetic to him as my protagonist—who is blessed (or cursed) with a literal magnetic personality—is to those around him. So John Cleese's story starts the anthology, and mine ends it. It was chosen to be the final story in The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy (which appeared in June, 2001) because, as Ashley put it in the intro, "Believe me, there's no way anything could follow this story—except maybe a stuff drink."

"True Love in the Day After Tomorrow"
Treachery and Treason

It's very rare for a story to spring full-blown into my mind. Usually, I just get a brief glimpse of a character or situation and have to construct the story brick by brick from there. But as I was driving north to Boskone, a science fiction convention in Massachusetts, the opening line of "True Love in the Day After Tomorrow" popped into my mind: "You didn't believe him at first when he said he was from the future." And I in that instant I knew the entire story from beginning to end. I could have told it to you right then, and in fact, I did tell it to writer Resa Nelson in the lobby of the convention hotel.

I wrote the story with no particular home in mind. But when I heard that Laura Anne Gilman and Jennifer Heddle were gathering SF, horror and fantasy stories on the theme of betrayal for an anthology to be titled Treachery and Treason, I realized that the book would make a perfect home. The book was published in March 2000, the same month I was burying Science Fiction Age magazine, so its publication was a welcome reminder that I am a writer as well as an editor, something that can be forgotten when reading a slush pile of 10,000 stories per year.

Recent Short Story Appearances

Short Stories: The 1990s

Short Stories: The 1980s

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