(reading time: 1 hour, 11 minutes)
Dinosaur
The tip had come to Lindwurm from a trilophosaur, and so was taken with the utmost seriousness. No family was more devoted to the cause than the trilophosaurs, even across their many species. Most of them were forever cut off from man, unable to experience their appreciation across the gulf of time, because few of their fossils would ever be found, and when they were they were not representative. Continue reading
Only finding fossils, we never suspected the flesh of the dinosaurs could’ve been so strange, could’ve climbed off whenever it felt like it and even borrowed our shape. That is the forgotten clade thanazoa, but they know of us, thanks to communing with their fungus-like oracle Atropos.
A defeated villain resurfaces to abuse those predictions, her predatory eyes set on the future she thinks she is denied. Discover a brand new world on familiar bones in this wildly speculative novella of the Triassic period.
(reading time: 1 hour, 13 minutes) (reading time for entire novella: 2 hours, 24 minutes)
Taxa Disaster
by
Blaine Arcade
‘Even if, one day, we had access to perfectly preserved fossils, a vital aspect of animal life would still elude our grasp. Behavior is almost entirely lost in the fossil record. Imagine the richness and strange wonder of animal life today. The eerie, ululating songs of whales, the elaborate middens of bowerbirds and the surreal spectacle of a peacock’s display could never be deduced from inanimate remains.
Likewise, some of the most spectacular sights of the past will never be seen, or even guessed.’
– All Yesterdays
Centipede
The insects were reluctant to touch it, and that reluctance continued on down to everything that could be called life. The fungi refused to take the first bite. The bacteria self-destructed rather than continue touching it for more than a moment. It was as if they knew what kind of will had inhabited it just one day prior. Continue reading
(reading time: 1 hour, 13 minutes)
Münstereifel was the forest where one couldn’t help but feel watched. Despite the stodgy old growth being stuffed into a pocket of Germany, the sensation was not like being a grim fairy tale child wandering between dark trees with glowing beastly eyes all about. No, the eyes were far more ethereal, and for Kanga more frightening. Continue reading
(reading time: 1 hour, 26 minutes)
A dark cloud would be just one more uncomfortable bump on any transoceanic flight, but the pilot and copilot couldn’t see it or detect it with their instruments. Even the normal filters of first class team recycling travel, which kept out the riff and for a minor additional fee the raff as well, could do nothing against this particular phenomenon. Continue reading
(reading time: 1 hour, 31 minutes)
The night sky was beautiful, almost nauseatingly so. There was purple, orange, and blue in great drifting clouds. Nebulae, but they were supposed to be impossible to see from Earth. The Milky Way was there, under them, everything out of place but rapturously so, the celestial bodies nuzzling each other like puppies in a pile. Continue reading
Y2K threatened to destroy the world, all computers to go mad when the year ticked over to 2000, but a solution was found! Now the nineties play over and over again, and things just keep getting better! The guns are off the streets, the ozone hole is patched, the cops are tough on drugs, and competitive recycling is the number one sport in the world.
Life should’ve been perfect for one of its star players, Joey ‘Kanga’ Reuben, but after his best friend was taken from him in the middle of a match he could think of nothing else. It was all the work of those superhuman terrorists, the dastardly Millennials…
(reading time: 1 hour, 6 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 5 hours, 16 minutes)
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Competitive Recycling in the Fifth 1990s
by
Blaine Arcade
With a robotically chauffeured limousine and enough free soda to raise the Titanic from the depths, nobody could call it a young man’s average Friday night. It was to be the fantastic Friday night characteristic of the reborn Rockford Rendezvous, and this trial run would culminate with the latest tour stop of the sexiest and most fashionable hologram to ever grace the stage and the drifting dust in the beams of the spotlight. Continue reading
Well, they aren’t quite blurbs, given that these stories are, you know, short, but now that we’ve got descriptions for our books and novellas available, it’s time to move onto these.
If you don’t know me, I’m Blaine Arcade, a speculative fiction writing hobbyist, and I write lots of out-there science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, and some horror. All of my stories are available here and free to read, so please check them out if you’re interested. Happy reading!
Jesus has come to town in his big black SUV. He says it’s time for the rapture. The only problem is that this is white Jesus, and he isn’t so friendly.
(reading time: 1 hour, 9 minutes)
President Digz
“Hey Longjump… it’s looking at me,” Digz said with a smile. He waved his hand back and forth and watched the eyes of the little character on screen follow it. “Hey little guy, can you bring me some Seinfeld? Season seven? S-E-V-E-N.” Continue reading
(reading time: 1 hour, 24 minutes)
E-denta
It took three separate sessions across two days, but E-denta finally succeeded in painting all of Maggie’s toe nails. The idea came to her when Jones asked for everyone to search the surrounding area for plants. The Riches around them were getting so thick that Maggie couldn’t find enough to eat without their help. Oddly enough, Braxton had the most talent for rooting around the money and bringing up the flattened bodies of mostly dead bushes. The elephant didn’t care for them, so Jones had to chuck the limp plants into her mouth and order the beast to chew. Occasionally she would chew three or four times and spray the pulpy mess back out, staining his shirt a rotten green. Continue reading
(reading time: 1 hour, 4 minutes)
Gronix the Spouse Eater
An angry crowd, that was all talk, gathered outside Bee Tower, keeping their distance from the elephant with its head stuck through the door. They grumbled and whined and milled about, too afraid to organize an actual physical strike against Jones for creating a long burrow of destruction through the city with his robot chum. Continue reading
Blaine Arcade 