The Vines of Mars
Nature is alien. Man is horribly familiar.
Tomás thought he had accepted the tragic loss of his sister to a supposed natural calamity on the Martian frontier. But then a mysterious stranger emerges from the desolate landscape– on a planet where everyone knows everyone and newcomers only come by rocket. No one is supposed to survive outside the colony and yet this strange half-feral boy has. What’s more he knows what happened to Tomás’ sister. Everything Tomás believed about his world, his family, and his hometown is shattered.
Driven by a newfound purpose, Tomás discovers that his sister also held a groundbreaking secret—one that could rekindle Mars’ faltering terraformation efforts and save them from the carnivorous and seemingly mindless vine forest that threatens their borders everyday. Now, to safeguard his planet and seek justice for his family, he must confront the unsettling reality that his sister, the martian colony he calls home, and everything he learned about sentient life itself, was built on layers of deception.
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Read an Excerpt from the Book Here.
Get a look at a scene that famed author John Crowley BEGGED me not to cut out.
THE DUNES
Awarded an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest 2nd Quarter 2020
A young couple thinks they’ve found the perfect romantic getaway to celebrate their marriage. But they discover that there’s more to the island and to their relationship than they ever dared guess. Is the island driving them insane or is there something more? A psychological horror with a hint of eldritch mystery.
“The Dunes” is only two dozen pages long, but its sinister and surreal mood grabs you at once and pulls you out of your routine mindset. Told from the husband’s perspective, it raises questions that surface in every marriage…the central question—“what other purpose could there be for marriage than to drive away loneliness?”—is relevant to ordinary couples too. Anyone in a romantic relationship must struggle against resentment of the other person’s independence. By the end of the story, the surreal plot twist raises another, metaphysical twist to that question: is possessiveness a sort of monster too?
Courtney Guest Kim, Reviewer
Read the Preview of this Award Winning Short Story Here
…the story took me by surprise. In fact, as soon as I finished the story I went back and started it again and read it through a second time. I read the story during lunch at work, and could not stop thinking about it. And here days later I am still thinking about it…
Steven R. McEvoy, GoodReads.com Reviewer
