Tales From an Odd Mind

The book is a selection of short fiction and poems-experiments with different voices, characters, and situations. After an introduction (by Death), Section One consists of 9 first chapters of stories whose ends I have not yet written: For now, these are just beginnings, in different genres. Off the Map is fantasy. A master and student explore a mystical world. Wolf & Raven is a darkly humorous piece. After a mysterious mission, two bloodied agents chat at an amusement pier. In Box of J. O. Y. three dangerous men find a child from a mysterious organization in a box. A Black Dog, A Graveyard, and the Sea is fantasy. A dead man wakes up with his old sword and a new dog. A Warped View of the Stars is old-school science fiction space opera, with a prisoner on a rebel starship. Project Kage is a science fiction thriller. A Special Forces commander might undermine her own mission. Keen and Keen Inc. has elements of urban fantasy. A brother-sister pair of "fixers" take an unexpected assignment from the neighborhood witches. A Closet Full of Killer Robots is science fiction with a dark superhero tinge. Something strange is in the basement of a mansion for superhumans. Origin and Dandelion is...well, I don't want to nail down the genre just yet. It's a mental dialogue between... Well, that would be telling...




Section Two, We Few Old Souls, has 5 interconnected stories about a group of young people who keep getting reincarnated and finding each other. The background and the connections are not immediately revealed, and the stories are pieces of a mosaic rather than links in a linear chain.




Section Three, Poetry and Prose, is made up of 2 poems, An Ode to Langston Hughes, inspired by a Hughes poem that's used as a common high school writing prompt, and The Night Belongs to Us, about different areas of the planet and their voices. Thoughts of An Idiot at a Bus Stop is the final piece in the book, a realistic, non-genre story about a young woman's decision to save what's left of her family...or not.