Short fiction comes and goes, but our serialized novels and serial fiction shapes the flavor of each issue's mix for half a year or more at a time. With the conclusion of contemporary romance Time Traveler, with its intriguing themes of anthropology and age, it's a good moment to stop and look at upcoming fiction in the Piker Press.
Emrys Koenigsmann's "Of A Dragon Born" debuts this week, a classic fantasy novel of epic proportions. Young Coran is one of the few elves growing up in a village of humans, but that isn't quite the problem. With his metallic-hued skin and strange talent for congealing energy into glowing hot orbs, he doesn't properly fit in anywhere. His differences make for a rough childhood, but it's only going to get worse as he gets older...
Josh Brown returns with part two of "Anachronocity", a science fiction tale that twists through time and space alike. Alex Sterling was nobody until his brother's death prompted him to enter the basement laboratory where his brother worked and pick up where he left off in hopes of understanding his brother's suicide. Katlyn Maruimatsu was an activist with a passion for helping people. She was seeking pledges door to door when she came to the wrong house. A combination of fate and freakish coincidence breathes life into Alex's experiments, sending him and Katlyn hundreds of years into a future where nothing is as it seems. Without believable ID, Alex and Katlyn find themselves labeled probable terrorists and dumped in the midst of the Pure League, a band of extremists who will stop at nothing to prevent an alien race known only as the Elders from their "peaceful" take-over of mankind. Catch up on the first half in the archives.
Lydia Manx continues to cover horror with "Night Time," a study in agriculture gone wrong -- where the meat animal is us. What seems like an isolated and brutal murder is merely the tip of an iceberg, revealing a web of ghouls, hellspawn and lawless vampires who have completely overstepped their bounds, turning a peaceful little town into a nightmare of horror and depraved hungers. Ancient and cunning vampire Harry Adkison has stepped in to decide what -- and who -- can be salvaged, because the rest is getting burned to the ground.
In addition to these long-running favorites, 2006 will see the return of short fiction starring hedge shaman Ase Ur Jennan, interplanetary missionary Jean LeCoeur, and adoptive brothers Quentin and Jimmy. Look for fiction in a variety of genres from long time contributors and fresh voices alike, as well as plenty of weekly nonfiction, humor, comics and more in the upcoming year. As author's schedules permit, we also hope to offer more collections in print, so you can take your favorite authors from the Press along anywhere you read, from the breakroom at work, to that long, hot bubble bath at home. And we do so love bubble baths.
2006 is going to be a great year -- let's see each other often.
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