My Fantastical Stories

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you enjoy reading my stories just as much as I enjoyed writing them. - Mark 

A future terraformed Mars, where civilization crashed back into a Medieval Era. Christian Knights called “riders” patrol the Pilgrim Road from Olympus to New San Diego, on the Chryse Sea. The technological past is known as the “Age of Magic” and only a handful of people understand how the remaining ancient devices really work. Lighter gravity in dense air makes flying dragons and bird riders a reality; alloys of the past make “magic” swords; and masters of ancient knowledge wield wizard-like power.

Nine authors spin tales in this unique story world, one which combines elements of science fiction and high fantasy.



 Two lives, two worlds, bound together by one accident.
When the young elf Strum first heard the whispers, some on Eversong called it a gift. After all, he is the first of the Iunctus Unus (United Ones) born in centuries. But the whispers are from a bizarre land called Chicago where twelve-year-old Jason Snider lies comatose in a hospital after a terrible accident, an accident that binds the two lives together. If Jason dies, Strum dies.

Forcing open the long-locked portal throws Strum and a pintsize baby dragon into the terrifying world of Chicago. Worse, Her Royal Pain torches the hospital lobby and escapes before Strum can revive Jason.

Strum must find the lost dragon and heal Jason before he can hope to return home. He teams up with a street-smart girl who has her own painful ties to Jason, and the battle is on. For not only is all Chicago chasing them, so are evil mages banished to Earth centuries before. Strum is their chance to return and conquer Eversong. He must stop them, even if it means forfeiting his chance to go home--or worse, his life.
And the adventure continues . . .
Months have passed since dragons had torched parts of Chicago. With the portal finally locked between Eversong and Earth, life seems to be returning to normal on both worlds. Fat chance.

On Earth, Jason Snider and Kat Meyers thought eighth grade would be the toughest thing they’d face until faeries start stalking them. An ancient faerie war threatens to erupt again, one that only the Blood Tithe sacrifice can prevent. The Tithe requires special blood from a special human and Maurelle, the terrifying faerie king of the Winter Court, has found that one special person: Jason Snider.

On Eversong, destructive forces are unleashed that the Magi Order hasn’t faced in generations. The young elf Strum is drawn into a race to capture a mad mage bent on reopening the portal. Many fear the mage will succeed. Others secretly fear Strum will and summon the power of the storm to ensure that he fails. 


In 2810, they’re called Zeroes.

Some Zeroes are born, somehow slipping through the genetic screening and purification tests in utero mandated by an overpopulated Earth. Others become Zeroes later, the worst murderers and thieves and abusers, despite the same genetic screening. Whether born or made, they are Earth’s outcasts, the dregs, sent to a perpetually dark rock orbiting a Y-class brown dwarf star by a society without the patience or desire to deal with them.

The Relocation Ministry cites the humanity of the process, offering the Zeroes a chance at a new life. Yet the overcrowded world secretly knows with silent approval that they’re sent to Colony Zero for one reason: to die. That is until the RM ship Valkyrie 2 arrives on a routine survey mission to retrieve core samples. It is on that dark wind-swept planet that the crew discovers a far different secret.

For some, it's impossible to let go.

In this collection of short stories:

The Passing of Things
I sense the tiniest pang on the edge of Mica’s thoughts. He is thinking of his sleeping chamber in Haven-Rest. Sparse though it was, it was home and it was warm. Here, high in the Crescendo Mountains in late autumn, there is only the cold and wind.

If Only to Say Goodbye
People had warned Rick about the man and his strange ways, but he couldn’t be dissuaded. He had to find the man who could send him back in time.


Away
We were walking away when he read my mind.
“You want to go back?” he said. He was leading the way, nearly a giant walking beside me, radiant beyond words.
We stopped as snow started falling lightly through the night sky. Streetlights illuminated the dancing flakes. The sight was odd and strangely exciting. Snow.
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” the angel said.

Severed Roots
He had started back toward the shanty when the air stirred lightly, suddenly, and he heard a moan full and low.
She stood where the tree had been with her naked back to him, facing the morning sun. Long black hair brushed against her shoulders and the curve of her arms. “Clarissa,” Tommin breathed.
With Captain Breneman thrown into a Zero prison cell, tension threatens to explode between Zeroes and Earthers. Commander Schneider takes command of the crew of the Valkyrie 2, and Lieutenant Ransom suddenly finds himself promoted to Second in Command. With their ultimate objective of escape unchanged, Ransom and crew continue to gather intel as they explore a self-sustained ecosystem no one could have imagined--a world of love and acceptance and unending light buried within a planet cloaked in

Yet as the wonders of Colony Zero unfold, Ransom must face his own past and the secret sorrow destroying his heart as he confronts his cousin’s murderer, the tormented man known on Earth as the Slayer.
The Final Solution…

That is what the Earth Relocation Ministry calls its directive to brutally end the festering Zero problem. Landing on the colony planet, Lieutenant Lisa Clarke and her platoon are committed to carry out the directive until she encounters a ghost from her past, someone she had once loved as a sister. Where does Lieutenant Clarke’s loyalty lie now, to the RM she swore an oath to obey or to the woman she thought had died decades ago?