icanhascoffee

Terroir
(1.2K words, Mar. 18/12)

Winemaking is as much art as it is science, and a mysterious art at that. But wine is just chemistry, and wine snobs notwithstanding, a good scientist should be able to solve the problem.

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Expert System
(4.2K words, Mar. 11/12)

Expert System is a story about the rapid pace of obsolescence of high technology, and what this may mean once we develop sentient or near-sentient machines. It's a particular concern to me since, once artificial intelligences start to displace us in the workplace, this will inevitably create tensions and the potential for tragedy on both a human scale and an AI scale. This is one musing on that potential.

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Graduation Exercise
(7.5K words, Mar. 10/12)

Graduation Exercise introduces the character Alison Katherine Morgan, who will become the protagonist of a novel (The Black Ships) about first contact, gunboat diplomacy, and the pursuit of war by other means. In this installment, Morgan recounts the story of the final test she faced before graduating from the Naval Academy's Intelligence (Intel) section. As you'll see, it's not a warm and fuzzy kind of place, but those who survive are well equipped to "pursue war by other means".

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Blood in the Snow
(49K words, Dec. 30/11)

Blood in the Snow is the first in what may become a series of tongue-in-cheek murder mysteries centered around a young Dwarf, Thomas “Rabbitfurs”. While traveling through the mountains, Thomas is caught by a winter storm and forced to seek refuge. By good fortune, he finds himself near a mountain keep, where he’s welcomed by a host who seems suspiciouly vampiric, but really—isn’t that a bit too much of a cliché? Thomas isn’t so sure. As the storm traps everyone within the keep, people begin dying. Can Thomas solve the crimes before he becomes the next victim?

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

The Computer Graveyard
(2.9K words, Nov. 12/11)

Computers are our friends, right? Not if you pay too close attention to the upgrade cycle.

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Dance the Shadows (ca. 64K words)

A "young adult" fantasy novel; that is, one with teenage protagonists but not dumbed down because of it. In the story world, there has traditionally been a truce between Light, the prevailing force of stability, and Shadow, a force of change and dynamism and possibly even chaos—but not in the clichéd sense of "evil" (pronounced with a dramatically drawn out initial "eeeeee"). Light predominates where humans live; at some distance from these areas lie regions of Shadow. Powerful and poorly understood forces cause humans who enter Shadow to change as fluidly as shadows seem to transform in a campfire's dancing light. Those who have acquired some understanding of Shadow can harness that energy; for example, a hunter might choose to become a wolf, at the risk of forgetting their humanity if they retain that form too long. Amodai, our protagonist,is one of a small group of Rangers who have been trained to safely enter areas of Shadow, retaining their humanity or taking on the form of any forest animal without losing that humanity. Their responsibility is to watch for and deal with any creatures of Shadow that might threaten their isolated village. The freedom of Shadow is intoxicating, and spending time in Shadow is far more interesting than mundane duties such as retrieving strayed livestock and hunting for food. As the story begins, travelers between villages have grown few, and Shadow seems to be encroaching on the areas of Light. Can Amodai and his fellow Rangers cope with this potential threat to their way of life?


Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Chords (ca. 140K words)

A "medieval" fantasy set in the same world as Jester, but set about a decade earlier. At the time of the story, the western human kingdom of Amelior has begun invading the eastern lands, apparently with imperial ambitions. To complicate matters, there are hints of magical assistance—despite a ban on magic for the past two centuries—leading to the death of key figures and the fall of several cities. At the time of the story, a former Ameliorite knight (Bram) and a mercenary (Gareth) are thrown together by circumstances, and find themselves forced to work together to help the eastern kingdoms withstand Amelior's steady advance. But Bram has not escaped his past, and will need Gareth's help to defeat the ancient magic that is following in his wake.

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Jester (ca. 110K words, Sept. 24/09)

A "medieval" fantasy set in a post-diaspora world, in which humans have fled to a new continent after destroying their original homeland in a magical catastrophe. Now, more than two centuries later, they have successfully re-established their civilization and begun to spread through the new lands, despite conflicts among kingdoms and between humans and the land's original inhabitants. In this story, the protagonist is Morley, a human dwarf (that is, the achondroplastic kind, not the Tolkein kind) who has survived an abusive childhood and is now serving as a court jester. When he is offered the chance to become "normal", he accepts—but there is a high price, and one he may be unwilling to pay. Chronologically, the story follows that in Chords (in progress), but you don't need to have read Chords to understand or appreciate Jester.

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Graf (3.6K words, Feb. 10/09)

Art remains art, even when the media and the technology change. But can an old-style artist keep hold of his muse when younger, hipper artistes start transforming his art form with new technology?

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)

Flatlander pro tem (5K words, Feb. 10/09)

A classic spacefarer-meets-new-planet story, but with a protagonist who is anything but the jut-jawed Nordic demigod of this story's tradition.

Home page for my fiction (all stories in one convenient place)