I kept my hands to myself and hurried on. I had a reasonably generous timeframe to get what I needed from Case 39 and leave before the window of opportunity closed.

"Sam, is that you?"

I started quite considerably. I had seen other case-seekers today on…

Arden Waithe never wanted to be on the boat. Or any boat. His experience had taught him that sailing was misery cubed. The rolling of the ground that never stopped, rising and falling, clenched his stomach inside an iron fist even as it spun his conscious…

Each spadeful of dirt opened the earth a little further. It never seemed like much but it added up bit by bit. It always felt like it took forever. Patrick had lost count in the eighties at least three times. His mind was slow now. He supposed this kind o…

Irritation built as Anders stepped past the perimeter marker of Base Camp Aktina. No matter how loud he turned his music up, the sound of metal on metal always cut through. He was up to seven and still he could hear dozens of knives being sharpened at the…

The moat had not yet been filled the day I crossed the drawbridge. The main structure was standing tall, but not all the wings and towers and battlements had been completed.

Hammers, saws, welders, and all sorts of construction beeps and hums rang for we…

The thing that spoke to me had the face of a dead god but used the voice of my father. I had known to expect this. It was a by-product of the bonding ritual that gave a semblance of life back to this former deity. Not that any of the gods ever truly died,…

"which flavor cheese?"

"the yellow one."

.................................

Grosser looked away. Averting his eyes didn't help. It didn't stop Marnie from flinging his accusations at poor Julia. The woman had seemed near a breakdown after the expedition's second night.

“Where did it go? What did you do with it? Cause I'm damn s…

Story is marked as mature

So by now we all know that there’s no logical explanation why honeybees can fly, weight and wings and stuff, it shouldn’t be possible, but bees fly anyway. Perhaps bees are magical creatures, then. And the drop in bees’ quantity is alarming to the wizardi…

What would it be like to break into a hundred different worlds? A thousand? Would he ever get used to it, the way you get used to the routines of a new job? Ray looked at the device he held in his hand. Abruptly, he tossed it up, sending it spinning end o…

Prunella turned from her novel and rolled her eyes in copious disgust.

"Wait. Excuse me, what? What do you mean I can't go back?"

The gate stood resolute and impenetrable. I tried to rattle its bars, but it didn't so much as tremble at my efforts.

I had seen the notices, read the warnings, but who could accept that their hom…

I don't know how I made it through what came next. The next days were a blur of pain, both physical and emotional, and fever dreams, in the rare moments when I slept.

My first task was to split the figure of my father in half, carefully using the tools o…

I held that piece of flesh up before me, bitter distaste filling my mouth. If what my father and I had done before had been blasphemy, this was surely something far worse, to desecrate the body of a god in such a way.

And yet it was necessary. This war b…

You sometimes lost your way, but when you make it to a place like this, arriving without knowing how and why you arrived, you know you're not lost anymore. The air has an inimitable quality to itself, seemingly contained with the light of a day beginning …

"Okay, so... Yeah. We've got this." Captain Gaia looked us over. "Hero Corps, let's..."

"Uh, question." Even I couldn't believe I had spoken up, never mind that I had just interrupted Captain Gaia!

He stared at me for a moment. "Is this going to tak…

Vines and creepers covered every part of the bulkhead's interior. Sickly brown leaves, branches whose mottled bark looked like scales, as well as wicked looking thorns choked the mouth of the doorway. The metal surround it had warped, in some places buckl…

The floorboards creaked with my passage, threatening to collapse, but the key is to be sure and confident - uncertainty is infectious, and many a man has died by his own hesitation. My boots did not pause until I reached my destination - Building Grachkin…

I hope someone that can help, reads this. I stop by now and then to read all of your works. Normally I'll flick through the most recent stuff, other times I'll browse deeper. Today I saw a piece by PrincessLapis, titled The Morning Before. I noticed that…

They fought on. Orthael gave ground again and again, knowing that he could not - would not - strike her. She threw him a dangerously open slice, daring him to show her that Fire destroyed without meaning or mercy. But that was not the case. He caught her …

Warmth spread through Malika like a breath of fresh air. She sucked air in sharply between her teeth. The sensation was almost painful. Heat spread through her, suffused her, warmed her on a level deeper than merely the physical. It coiled around her brok…

Dear Dairy,

Today was an awesome day! !

You know that carton of pickles in the back of our fridge, the one on the roof? Well I was gnawing on the wrapper this morning when I finally broke through the plastic frieze packaging and got a mouthful of brine. …

I was thinking about series that are already in motion by a specific writer, such as the one I'm toiling on, the Legend of Tory Adore, which is finally developing a plot of sorts.

Of course, the options to write a sequel or prequel still are offered for a…

the church-turing thesis is inescapable.

any system with the right set of properties is, in principle, a computer.

most don't compute anything useful. uncountable decimal-prefix-unknown-illions of accidental turing machines, embodied in the matter and ene…