1:75 Long Way From Home by Seanan McGuire

 Patreon short story for January 2022.

Alice can't understand why her grandfather hasn't answered her letters for a month now, especially as she has asked for help with the baby hodag that is currently residing under her bed. Laura, her cousin and roommate, wants it gone so Alice finally breaks down to call and have a cryptic conversation with her grandfather. This leads to a very frank conversation between her grandfather and father which leaves her father in a very awkward and uncomfortable place.  Now if only Thomas will understand what Mary is trying to tell him about why he's never received any letter from Alice...

Gearing up for this years Incryptid book, Spelunking Through Hell, which will give Alice her turn in the spotlight as her search for her missing husband, Thomas, continues with more hope now that the crossroads are destroyed. Can't wait!

Page count: 20p/20p ytd/370,948p lifetime

24:100 Belief by Seanan McGuire

September 2020 Patreon short story, standalone. 

Mary is a little girl who has lost her parents and lives with her grandparents. She has learned early on that the world isn't fair, Santa and the Easter Bunny aren't fair, but the postman is someone who is reliable and is absolutely fair in that he shows up for everyone and the post office would be her church, if she had one. 

A simple story with no gruesome monsters other than other humans and their greed, and how those of us who care might be able to save those institutions.

Page count: 20p/6,165p ytd/353,555p lifetime

95:100 Shocking Elation by Stefon Mears

Cleon Johnson is an artist who creates more than a simple visual medium for people to enjoy. For those with implants, his art is keyed in to let them feel the emotions that he wants to convey in ways that mere words or images cannot possibly convey. He wakes on this morning of an artist's reception ready to face his adulation upon the opening of his newest exhibit only to find instead that he forgot to run some processes correctly and the people that went through it already have suffered horribly and the world that once couldn't get enough of his art was now ready to cancel him completely.

An interesting take on where technology can take us in the future and also how careful and mindful we need to learn to be when using it.



Page count: 22p/22,733p ytd/331,430p lifetime

90:100 Quality of Darkness by Stefon Mears

Patreon short story.  He's a businessman about to leave on a trip when he has to grab something from the office at night.  As he's there, the lights go out, all of them, completely, and then there are screams.  Now something is in the office with him and it knows he's there.

Fun little horror story.

Page count: 22p/22,097p ytd/330,794p lifetime

82:100 Emergency Landing by Seanan McGuire

Another day, another flight, a woman wondering what her seat mates are going to be like this time and if they will leave her alone so she can nap.  A routine take-off until she sees missile-like objects falling on Atlanta and feels the plane jolt like it's being pushed off the group.  Now they are up in the air and the reports from her colleagues who work with the CDC are coming in and the news is devastating.  She alone on the plane understands what is happening down on the ground and now she must decide where they go from here.

Absolutely terrifying tale of something that seems all too plausible these days.

Page count: 22p/20,836p ytd/329,533p lifetime 

78:100 Only Sheepdog on the Moon by Stefon Mears

Cole retired to Ganymede after his military service and now runs a bar out of an old shuttle there.  The locals know him and things are going pretty ok for the moment until one day when out for a walk, he sees an orange flash of something breaking the atmosphere.  Realizing that with very little news of what is going on with the rest of the galaxy and that not everyone out there is friendly to humans, he decides to take a closer look and boy, are the rest of the people on Ganymede glad that they have someone like Cole to watch out for them.

Fun little space military short story.

Page count: 22p/20,191p ytd/328,888p lifetime

70:100 Coffee & Treason by Stefon Mears

Basic spy v spy short story.  American spy gets a lead on a Russian spy who may be getting some state secrets from a White House intern and he's in position to try and get the info to send everyone to jail but things never work out quite like you plan.

Page count: 21p/18,464p ytd/327,159p lifetime

68:100 War and Marketing by Stefon Mears

Derek has always been shy and quiet but he also has a special gift for finding things.  What that means in practical terms is that he has made a nice living finding paintings or other items that people want and will pay nicely for which makes him a comfortable living.  However, recently Earth has been at war with an alien species and Derek wants it to stop before this planet is destroyed.  So he starts asking himself the question, "what do the aliens want?" and his gift finds him the answer as always.

A fun little story about how things aren't always as they seem.


Page count: 21p/18,073p ytd/326,768p lifetime

66:100 Skydiving to the Gods by Stefon Mears

Eric Jarlsson was a thrill seeker.  You name it and if it was dangerous, a chance he may not walk away, he was down for it.  When he met Janice doing base jumping in New York, he thought he had found the perfect woman.  And for three years, it was perfect up until their third anniversary when she came up with the perfect way to kill him in a skydiving accident...the only problem is that there was no way for her to know the secret that might save him since he did not yet know himself...

Fun story playing with old Norse mythology in a modern tale.


Page count: 41p/17,876p ytd/326,571p lifetime

63:100 This Man Who Calls Me Brother

Set in the time of slavery in South America by the Portuguese, there are those that do not understand the desire for freedom until a choice is given, taken away, and then given again.  When someone holds their bloody hand out to you, what do you choose?

A simple tale of choices and why we choose.

Page count: 27p/17,045p ytd/325,740p lifetime

62:100 Spell Burnt and Sleepless by Stefon Mears

Venya had always been told that courier work was for suckers and she knew that to be true but sometimes you take the work you get which is why she is on her horse, by herself, on the road with a bunch of important papers.  When the ambush comes, the bandits are about to learn why she was the courier and why they should have stayed home.

Another fun little world building short story that makes me want to know more about this world and the magic that Venya used.


Page count: 18p/17,018p ytd/325,713p lifetime

61:100 Whistling the Water by Stefon Mears

Mahru is of the Nare tribe, a tribe of water whistlers. He is on the cusp of manhood but he can't yet whistle the water to obey him, to make him a home, or any of the other things that he should be able to do on his own.  His aunt says it does not matter.as the new people from the sky, the Awnu, are showing them new ways.  But Mahru does not trust the Awnu, and neither does his father, so he continues to work on his water whistling hoping to become proficient before he really needs it.

The base plot was predictable but the world building was wonderful and I would love to read more about Mahru and his tribe.


Page count: 24p/17,000p ytd/325,695p lifetime

52:100 Closing the Zoo by Stefon Mears

"Snake" may be living off the royalties of his one big hit but music is still his passion and he never wants it to end.  So when his band mates come in, late again, for practice and tell him that it's over, Snake is determined to find a way to hook them back in.

A lovely little story of what happens when your passion for the music remains long after the rest of the world has moved past your sound.


Page count: 26p/12,212p ytd/322,907p lifetime

47:100 Lucky Day by Stefon Mears

Carl is just a hitchhiking college student on his way back home for break.  He was so thankful when she pulled over to offer him a ride.

Next thing he knows, he's hanging by his wrists in chains with no memory of what happened to him or the lady who picked him up.  A car accident?  But where is he and why?

A fun little suspense tale.


Page count: 24p/11,169p ytd/321,864p lifetime

41:100 The Final Survey of Andrei Kreutzmann by Stefon Mears

Andrei is an explorer and surveyor.  He's just come across a planet that looks rich enough to set him up for the rest of his life, get his shipped spruced up, and he's hoping maybe even repair his relationship. 

And then he's ordered to do a suicide survey in the middle of an enemy fleet.  Some days it just doesn't pay to answer your comms.

A space-military short story.  Ok for what it was but not my taste in genre.


Page count: 20p/10,177p ytd/321,052p lifetime

40:100 On the Side by Seanan McGuire

The racists have won (hopefully temporarily) but for now, any culture other than what those people have deemed as "American" has been banned slowly but surely.  Clothes, cuisine, arts, anything that they don't feel is white-bred American is out.  Trying to stamp out the culture since they hadn't yet been able to actually stamp out the people themselves. Of course, that just means that it is hidden (and those white-bred racists don't get to enjoy it).  Enter in the covert food trucks like the one that Avi and Preeda run.  Buying forbidden ingredients to make forbidden dishes and bribing the police with free food (even if that food is technically illegal).  Maybe some day things will get better but in the meantime, you can still get a good curry if you know where to go.

A bleak outlook at the kind of America some people want and how much of our identity we stand to lose if these ideologies are taken to extremes.



Page count: 20p/10,157p ytd/321,032p lifetime

37:100 And Thrice Again by Seanan McGuire

Backstory of Simon Torquill back when he was married to Amandine and father to August.  Before things changed him.  We get to see his romancing of Amandine, his loyalty to Patrick, and a bargain made that will likely prove to be his undoing.

Simon may be one of the most interesting characters in this universe and at this point, if you've read everything so far, it's basically impossible not to pity him to some degree.  Yes, he did much of it to himself but I'm guessing he had only the slightest idea of what he was getting himself into.

Page count: 30p/9,669p ytd/320,554p lifetime

30:100 Love in the Last Days of a Doomed World by Seanan McGuire

Sharon is the smart one, the good child but not the good girl, and her parents treated her as such. Her brother gets the comic books from their dad but he doesn't think to bring them for her.  When she asks her brother about them, she learns about how Superman came to earth after being placed in a rocket from Krypton when their planet was dying.  Not very realistic she thinks. So when a stranger who seems familiar comes up to her at the library and drops a piece of paper on her book and walks away, she looks at it and finds an equation.  Now that is something she can sink her teeth into.  That equation leads her to places she could never have imagined but now that she has started down that path, she can understand Superman's parents better.  The planet is dying and there is no rocketship to save any of them....or could there be?

A patreon short story by Seanan McGuire and one of her more depressing ones as I look around at our world today.



Page count: 20p/7,398p ytd/318,283p lifetime

83:100 The Incident on Gamma 7 by Stefon Mears

Commander Teague knows that they are coming for him.  It's only a matter of time and his gut is saying it will happen soon.  After all the special ops missions he led to keep the other species at war to try and keep them from turning their attention towards the humans, there is the one that brought his house of cards down.

Short but engaging tale.


Page count: 20p/14,588p ytd/306,604p lifetime

74:100 The Ambitious Ocean by Seanan McGuire

Patrick is upset that Countess Winterrose would interfere and lie to him about Dianda so he goes to confront her on it but the Patrick that comes out after that meeting is not the same one that went in.  He is now cold and callous to those he once treated as friends, the pixies are shooed away and Daffodil actually struck, is dismissive of Carmichael, and now plans to kill Dianda for daring to try and ensnare him. 

And then Dianda and Sylvester figure out that something is very wrong and wrestle him into the sea where the ocean dissolves the spell that the Countess placed on him to make him into her idea of what a Doane Sidhe should behave like.  Thank goodness for that.  Now if he can just keep Dianda from going after the Countess herself...

Love reading about Patrick and Dianda and so glad I know how it will end up before getting stories like these.  LOL


Page count: 20p/13,314p ytd/305,330p lifetime