List of Published Works
Books
The Sum of Its Parts - Water Dragon Publishing (March 2025) (SIP)
Seven short stories and one novelette, all in the "Frankenstein, Detective" series.
Monsters All, The Monster Is the Father to the Child, Before the Beginning, None So Blind as Those Unseen, Voodoo as I Say, What Lies Beneath the Bandages, Wherefore Art Thou Werewolf, The Sum of Its Parts
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Read sample chapter here.
The Reopened Cask and other stories (June 2017) (RC)
15 SF and fantasy short stories.
Daedalus and Icarus and Phokus, The Reopened Cask, Riddle Me, Turkey of Frankenstein, Other Wishes, Mary Mary, Day of the Endorphin, Darkness in the Doll's House, T-Vision, The Void Gambit, Twice Upon a Midnight Dreary,
Trial by Fire, Felling All Right, The Robot of Dorian Graham, Israel Bissell Rides
Walden Planet and other stories (Feb 2016) (WP)
15 SF short stories.
That Was So Funny I Forgot to Laugh, Back to Forth, The Time Phone, Radiance, Late Programming, Walden Planet, A Human Failing, Selected Memory, She Blinded Me with Silence, The Sideways Machine, All My Todays, Stellar Dust and Mirrors, Holo Goodbye, The Time Guard, Dig the Slowness
Novelettes
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"The Sum of Its Parts" - title novelette in book published by Water Dragon Publishing (March 2025) - Someone from Frankenstein's past is creating life from body parts. (SIP)
Short Stories
Click on the "read here" links to read the short stories that are available for free online.
"Do We Have a Dimension for You" - Fission (forthcoming) - Detectives Formsby and Palance investigate an agency that offers transportation to other dimensions, temporarily and permanently.
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"Ich Bin ein Zombie" - Allegory (May 2025) -
A grade Z horror movie director saves money by hiring real monsters. Read here.
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"Down Time" - 4 Star Stories (May 2025) - Theseus and Pirithous venture to the underworld to kidnap Persephone. Read here.
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"The Slings and Arrows of Childhood" - Stupefying Stories: Showcase (Oct 2024) - One of the challenges of growing up on the narrator's planet is every offhand, childish remark, such as "Last one in is a rotten egg," literally comes true. Read here.
It Starts with Flies - Black Hare Press Monthly Patreon Challenge (Aug 2024) - As he lay dying after a confrontation with Dracula, Renfield's traces his life's arc.
"Hello, Stranger" - Stupefying Stories #27 (forthcoming) - To avoid having to wear an American mandated brain chip, Chuck Osteen has fled to Brazil, living the last 20 years as an exile. An American detective approaches him about a 50-year-old murder case. Chuck can help solve it... if he consents to put his chip back in. But if he does that, every memory he's ever had will flood back into his head.
"Sandstorm in the Hourglass" - Dragon Gems (Jan 2024) - An accident caused Christian Towne to live most of his life in a dimension where time goes backwards. Before he has to relive his adolescence, he repairs his Sideways Machine and tries to return to his original dimension.
"The Light and the Dark" - On the Premises (Oct 2023) - Detective Hal Boland chases a criminal into a holographic recreation of Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker." Read here.
"Possession Is Ten-tenths of the Law" - Stupefying Stories #26 (Oct 2024) - A ghost hires spiritualist Adrian Shaw to exorcise him. Shaw is a fake, but maybe he can swindle the ghost out of his money.
"Robot Stand-up" - Antithesis Journal
(forthcoming) - At the completion of a centuries-long voyage to Proxima Centauri in search of life, an AI delivers his final report in the form of a stand-up routine.
"Point Taken" - Tumbled Tales (June 2023) - Ancient Greek detective Phokus is hired by Demeter to find her missing daughter, Persephone.
"New Cessations" - Dragon Gems (Jan 2023) - When rival wizard Pokius steals a dangerous book of spells, Mazrus, to get it back, stops time... but then he can't get it to start again.
"The Tomorrow Man" - Another Dinner Conversation (Mar 2022) - A psychoanalyst is puzzled by a patient complaining of his memories of the future.
"Dance of the Maenads" - Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine (Mar 2025) - Ancient Athenian detective Phokus is hired to rescue a young woman who has been kidnapped by the Maenads, a group of wild women known for drunkenness, wanton sexual behavior, and tearing animals into little pieces.
"Mission to Clarity" - Martian Wave (Oct 2021) - Addict Thaddeus Oakham wakes up to find himself on board the Asclepius, on a one-way six-month voyage to Europa.
"Reflections on a Magic Mirror" - Page & Spine (Apr 2021) - The worlds of "Snow White" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" combine in this zany mystery.
Transitional Figures" - Page & Spine (Aug 2020) - In an attempt to make a man out of Sir Elwood, the king gives him the task of rescuing Sleeping Beauty.
"Release" - Cosmic Horror Monthly (Oct 2021) - Given a life sentence as an energy cog on an alien spaceship, Joel finally dies and seeks revenge on his captors.
"Roger and Hester - the Early Years" - Page & Spine (Aug 2020) - A look at what went wrong with the marriage of Roger Chillingworth and Hester Prynne (from 'The Scarlet Letter").
What Lies Beneath the Bandages" - Mystery Magazine (Oct 2020) - The wife of an ailing Romantic poet is being harassed by... a mummy. Frankenstein and Igor are on the case! (SIP)
"The Bird Whisperer" - Love Letters to Poe (Apr 2021)
- Cornelius receives a letter from a long-lost friend who is being tormented by a raven who keeps saying "Nevermore. " Cornelius believes the solution is to increase the bird's vocabulary. Read here.
"Scovell's Final Painting" - Cosmic Horror Monthly (May 2021) - His horrific paintings of monsters misunderstood by the public, Scovell decides to venture into the world of his source material.
Repeat as Necessary" - Hybrid Fiction (Mar 2020) - Detectives Formsby and Palance deal with a dead body, a career criminal, and tiny aliens.
"Echo of the Siren" - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (Nov 2019), Best Indie Speculative Fiction (Dec 2020) Appeared on Tangent Online's recommended reading list of 2021. - Unable to get the memory of their song out of his head, a middle-aged Odyseus confronts the Sirens for a final time. Read here.
"Signs" - Twenty-two Twenty-eight (Dec 2019) - Heitor Mendes has a sensitivity to signs. Every time he sees one, he does the opposite of what it says.
"The Case of William Wilson" - Sherlock Holmes and the Great Detectives (Jul 2020) - William Wilson is harassed by his doppelganger. He hires Holmes and Watson to put a stop to it. Based on the Poe short story, "William Wilson."
"Dead Stop" - "On the Premises" (Oct 2018) -
Hades has stopped accepting spirits in the underworld. Phokus goes there to investigate. Read here.
"The Contents of the Grail" - Shards Anthology (Sept 2018) - Three knights on the Grail quest enter a haunted castle and see three different visions.
"None So Blind as Those Unseen" - Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (Jan 2019), Best Indie Speculative Fiction (Dec 2021) - Detective Frankenstein tangles with the Invisible Man, who is intent on creating an army of invisible people. (SIP)
"The Changed Man" - Mythic (Sep 2018), After Dinner Conversation (Jan 2025) - Jason Turner, a murderer, forces a doctor to conduct an experimental procedure on him that dramatically alters his personality. His lawyer insists that he is not the person he was, and so, no longer guilty of the crime.
Before the Beginning" - Crimson Streets (Nov 2018) - When Hamlin Baudry comes to Frankenstein's office and then mysteriously decides not to engage his services, Frankenstein investigates. He discovers that, years ago, Baudry sold Victor a corpse that became a body part of the detective. (SIP)
"Monsters All" - A Lonely Riot (Nov 2017) - Victor chases the Frankenstein monster to the Arctic, where the monster survives. The origin story for "Frankenstein, Detective." Read here. (SIP)
"A Bolt for Semele" - Wild Musette (June 2018) -
Semele, the daughter of the king of Thebes, is "in the family way." Phokus is hired to discover the father's identity.
"Don't Dimension It" - Phantaxis (May 2017) - After traveling into another dimension to try to prevent a tragedy, Christian Towne messes up his own dimension.
"All Feeds the Silence" - Zetetic (Apr 2017) - Elpenor, recently deceased from falling off Circe's roof, begs Odysseus to bring him back to the world of the living.
Read here.
"Wyrd Times" - Red Sun Magazine (Mar 2017) - After a dragon kills Beowulf, Wiglaf tries to hold Geatland together.
"We'll Always Have Paris" - A Lonely Riot (July 2016) - Two oracles foresee the Trojan War and try to keep it from happening. Read here.
"The Mirror Dialogues" - Visions V (Aug 2016) - Space pirate Josiah Spaulding plunders a medical supply ship, not realizing it is Valarian. If you steal from Valarians, they will chase you until the end of time.
"Wood Man" - Mad Scientist Journal (Dec 2016) - The woodman tells what really happened in Hansel and Gretel. Read here.
"Too Much to Dream" - Perihelion Science Fiction (Feb 2016) - A house of holograms has taken its elderly, rich owner hostage. They will negotiate with one man, Hal Boland, who is secretly a holo."
"Voodoo as I Say" - T. Gene Speculative Blog (Dec 2015) - When a husband disappears, Frankenstein investigates a mine rumored to employ zombies. Read here. (SIP)
"The Thanksgiving Offensive" - Page & Spine (Nov 2015) - While his father and uncle play chess after Thanksgiving dinner, a young boy watches his older brother make a fateful decision.
"Four Mares of the Apocalypse" - Farstrider Magazine (Jan 2016) - Phokus is hired to bring back four horses stolen by Herakles.
"The Wind Cries Larry" - Mad Scientist Journal (Mar 2016) - Larry has never been one to talk to the wind, but suddenly it is threatening him.
"Days of Past Futured" - Bards and Sages Quarterly (Jan 2016) - MIT student Leigh Vaughn meets a strange young man who claims he had a dream about her future.
"A Right to the Cerebellum" - Sci Phi Journal (July 2016) - In a sting set up for a drug dealer, a cop participates in the latest rage, a thought-boxing match.
"After Fear Becomes My Friend" - Mad Scientist Journal (Oct 2015) - During Thanksgiving dinner, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Mummy compare notes of their glory days. Read here.
"No-Brainer" - Perihelion Science Fiction (Feb 2015), Digital Science Fiction (Sept 2014) - Detectives Formsby and Palance fight aliens that seem to kill only college and university professors.
"Wherefore Art Thou, Werewolf" - T. Gene Davis's Speculative Blog (Sept 2014) - Frankenstein is hired by the Wolf-man to help him get rid of his curse. (SIP)
"The Robot of Dorian Graham" - Perihelion Science Fiction (Sept 2014) - After an embarrassing interview, an aged, out-of-ideas spy thriller writer buys a robot that looks like a younger version of him. At first he is used as a stand-in for his public appearances, but the robot eventually takes over other duties. (RC)
"Trial by Fire" - SQ Mag (Feb 2015) - Zeus hires Phokus to discover who stole fire. Read here. (RC)
"Israel Bissell Rides" - Page & Spine (Jun 2015) - At his favorite tavern, forgotten freedom rider now mailman Israel Bissell reminisces of the day he had a really important message: "The British are coming!" (RC)
"The Smart Mirror" - Bards and Sages Quarterly (Jan 2015) - Professor Lamson is let go by the university. To cheer him up, his daughter buys him a Smart Mirror, which reveals so much more than just your appearance.
"Dig the Slowness" - Robot and Raygun (Apr 2014) -
Todd Stanky invents the slow bullet, which slowly follows its targets forever but never kills them. Problems ensue when he jealously fires one at his assistant's boyfriend. (WP)
"Feeling All Right" - Fantasy Scroll Mag
(Dec 2014) - A cop suspects a connection between his murdered partner and the owner of The Emotion Store, the largest supplier of bottled emotions. (RC)
"For Tomorrow I Live" - Penumbra (Apr 2014) - The body of Jason Hallyard, frozen for four thousand years on Mt. McKinley, is resuscitated. He wakes up to a world run by AI's where all humans have perished.
"The Rhetorical Detective" - Mad Scientist Journal (Sept 2014) - A man explains how he found meaning devoting his life to answering rhetorical questions.
"Twice Upon a Midnight Dreary" - Perihelion Science Fiction (Feb 2014) - At Dramatic Irony Park, which features androids of famous Romantic period writers, mechanical facsimiles of Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne spring into action when a Poe-obsessed young man kidnaps the park's owner. Read here. (RC)
"T-Vision" - Kzine (Jan 2014) - A television that simulates the future predicts the death of a criminologist. (RC)
"The Void Gambit" - Plasma Frequency Magazine (Oct 2013) - A stowaway in an otherwise unmanned spaceship searching for life is awakened from stasis every thousand years. During his conscious intervals, he plays chess with a robot on a board that simulates the size of the universe. (RC)
"Doll's House Darkness" - On the Premises (July 2013) - A toy cowboy is animated in an attempt to solve a murder. Read here. (RC)
"Day of the Endorphin" - Eric's Hysterics (Jun 2013), Centropic Oracle Podcast (Jan 2018) - A mayor sprays his city with ENDO-B, which stimulates the body's production of endorphins. Happy days are here again, until the mayor's son is kidnapped. Read here.
Listen to audio book here. (RC)
"The Monster Is the Father to the Child" - Mad Scientist Journal (May 2013), Digital Science Fiction (January 2017) - Frankenstein is hired to save a young woman from Dracula. (SIP)
"Mary, Mary" - Mad Scientist Journal (Apr 2013) -
A retired teacher living at an assisted living facility decides all the answers to life's questions can be found in the lyrics of The Monkees. (RC)
"Other Wishes" - Tales of Old (Jan 2013), Plan B (May 2014) - The first owner of the monkey's paw had three wishes. The third was for death. His daughter hires a detective to find out why, and what the first two wishes were for. Based on W.W. Jacob's The Monkey's Paw. Read here. Listen to audiobook here. (RC)
"Turkey of Frankenstein" - Mad Scientist Journal (Nov 2012) - A distant relative inherits the castle of Victor Frankenstein. After he moves in, he decides to continue the scientist's experiments. Read here. (RC)
"Riddle Me" - Stupefying Stories (Sept 2012), Stupefying Stories Showcase (Nov 2023) - A chicken contemplates whether he should cross the road. Read here. (RC)
"The Time Guard" - LocoThology (Sept 2012) - Two guards at a time travel institute clandestinely see scientists going into a time machine and not coming back. The reason? Earth will be destroyed in five years. (WP)
"Holo, Goodbye"- Mindflights (Apr 2012) - Maia Tolliver dies falling off a cliff. In her will, she asks that Hal Boland investigate. He discovers that in the last years of her life, Maia barely left the company of her holographic companions. (WP)
"Stellar Dust and Mirrors" - Stupefying Stories (Mar 2012) -The owner of a two-man interstellar trading ship has second thoughts about delivering a young prospective wife to the foreman of a mine on a faraway planet. (WP)
"The Reopened Cask" - Strange Mysteries 4 (Feb 2012) - Auguste Dupin is hired to reopen a 50-year cold case: the disappearance of Fortunato. A sequel to Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." (RC)
"All My Todays" - The Rejected Quarterly (Aug 2011) - A journalist disappears when he questions the government's possession of a time machine. (WP)
"She Blinded Me with Silence" - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (Mar 2011) - A pilot and a robot crash land on a distant planet. They encounter a species that communicates by mental pictures. (WP)
"The Sideways Machine" - Flagship (Feb 2011) - A woman stows away on Christian Towne's interdimensional machine, wrecking havoc in his dimension. (WP)
"Daedalus and Icarus and Phokus" - Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine (Jan 2011) - Athenian detective Phokus chases murder suspect Daedalus to Crete. (RC)
"Selective Memory" - The Rejected Quarterly" (Nov 2010)- A corporate representative questions a surgeon who specializes in memory extraction about his low patient acceptance rates. (WP)
"A Human Failing" - Writing Shift (Jan 2010) - Robots have banished humans from Earth. As a peace gesture, an elderly man is allowed to return to die. (WP)
"Walden Planet" New Myths (Dec 2009), Constellations (Jun 2019) - Brandon Hemmings, a devotee of Thoreau, decides his idol didn't go far enough with his move to Walden Pond. Hemmings goes to Mars. Read here. (WP)
"Late Programming" - Golden Visions (Oct 2009) - In a polluted world, most people have transferred their minds into synthetic bodies. Brad and his wife resist, until his wife is murdered. (WP)
"Radiance" - Golden Visions (Apr 2009) - In an attempt to create a more transparent society, a leader infects his city with Radiance. For a month, people's faces will reveal by color whatever emotion they are feeling. (WP)
"That Was So Funny I Forgot to Laugh" - New Myths (Mar 2009), Centropic Oracle podcast (Apr 2017)
Mort, a robot created to tell jokes, tries to survive on Earth after all humans have been exiled to Mars. Read here. Listen to audio book here. (WP)
"The Time Phone" - Speculative Mystery Iconoclast (Nov 2008) - After having a tryst with a beautiful woman, Ned Bowen drives off a cliff. What happened? A phone that allows its users to call people from other times may hold the answer. (WP)
"Days Retrograde" (aka "Back to Front") - Ray Gun Revival (Oct 2008) - After his friend Christian Towne is killed by a terrorist attack, Niles Castle flees into a time machine to try to save him. (WP)
Micro-fiction
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"What Fuels Us" - Pete Wood Challenge (Stupefying Stories) (Feb 2025) - A mysterious spaceship appears on an unscrupulous trader's viewscreen. Read here.
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"Talking Turkey with Tom" - Pete Wood Challenge
(Stupefying Stories) (Dec 2024) - Two turkeys talk politics. Read here.