Visionary Fiction

In this compendium of delightful short stories, David Michie draws us into the extraordinary experiences of everyday people as they encounter those tell-tale cracks exposing reality as not quite what it seems. Through intriguing story-lines and revelations, Michie offers life-enhancing insights. How better to gently unwind at the end of the day - and to prepare for the infinite possibilities we may encounter in the realms of our dreams?

The Chemistry of Love A Multicultural Romance with a Supernatural Twist — Where Science Meets Destiny What if the one you love dies in your arms… only to meet you again in another lifetime? Brandon Jung, a brilliant Korean American civil rights attorney, is deeply in love with Tia Singh, a gifted chemist of Trinidadian heritage. But when suspicion and betrayal threaten to destroy their relationship, Tia turns to science—and something far beyond it. A love potion meant to reveal truth sets off a chain reaction of obsession, lies, and supernatural forces neither of them understand. Set ...

On the heels of their amazing discovery under the Sahara, Hank Boyd and his team find themselves in another precarious situation. This time they must stop Zero, the shadowy organization that violently hunted them in Algeria, from releasing an ancient and deadly weapon. The target? All of humanity. Starting with Washington D.C. From the Yucatan to the streets of D.C., Hank and company must try to find a way to prevent the potential catastrophe. Time is running out as an enemy from mankind’s past, aided by someone from Kane’s, tries to continue the work set into motion millennia ago. Will...

From their first meeting, it was clear that Gwen and Tancred were meant to be together. But, as we know, the course of true love never did run smooth. Gwen’s mother, intuiting that her daughter is in love, gives her a magic ring that has been passed down through endless generations of mothers and daughters. This ring grants its wearer the opportunity to change three things about her beloved. Like all blessings, this may also be a curse.

Here, in Enon, Harding follows a year in the life of Charlie Crosby as he tries to come to terms with a shattering personal tragedy. Grandson of George Crosby (the protagonist of Tinkers), Charlie inhabits the same dynamic landscape of New England, its seasons mirroring his turbulent emotional odyssey.

When a solid-gold reliquary missing from a church in Belgium suddenly resurfaces in America, a young newspaperman begins to investigate the story. At first it seems like just another case of a treasure stolen during World War II that has resurfaced. But it soon becomes apparent that much more is at stake.

" Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero - sullen, gawky Hugh Person - to Switzerland.... As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride.... Eight years later - following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment - Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his past...." (Martin Amis)

Please Note: This story is also part of book 10 of The Hunter Legacy series, The Long Road to Gaia. Thirteen doesn't like humans. The last thing he wants is to be assigned a mission to babysit them. Given a choice, he'd happily let them blow themselves up, after he saved all the cats first. Exactly how humans could ever have anything to do with galaxy wide consequences is completely beyond his ability to understand. When asked to perform an intervention, there was always freewill to choose not to. But in this case, does he really have a choice? This is a 5000 word short story, set in The ...

It's 1986 and a nuclear reactor has exploded in Chernobyl. Syvert Løyning returns home from military service to live with his mother and brother on the outskirts of a town in Southern Norway. One night, he dreams of his late father, and can't shake him from his mind. Searching through his father's belongings for clues and connections, he finds a cache of letters that lead to the Soviet Union.

Before Joe Hart can stop the murder of John Lennon, he must die himself. When Joe Hart dies after leading a wasted life, he chooses to use his second chance to make the world better. Even when he thinks he knows what is coming, changing the past is difficult. What would you do, if you could do it all again?

Travel from a Land of Skies isolated in space to civilisations flourishing underground, from a chaos curtain to sacred sites and more, in this epic fantasy/sci-fi omnibus. Lore of Arcana Omnibus includes The Infinity Mantle, The Kinfire Tree, The Drowned Throne, and The Dragon Circle and delves from the deep and forgotten past into a speculative future, knowing time cannot be truly measured. Time moves between realms and reality in a fashion contradictory to our present, and exposes creatures of myth and legend.

In a city graveyard, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet between two graves. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby appears quite suddenly, a little after midnight, in a crib of litter. In a snowy valley, a father writes to his five-year-old daughter about the number of people who attended her funeral. And in the Jannat Guest House, two people who've known each other all their lives sleep with their arms wrapped around one another as though they have only just met.

Almost anyone who has read or written science fiction or fantasy has been inspired by the work of Michael Moorcock. His literary flair and grand sense of adventure have been evident since his controversial first novel Behold the Man, from the stories and novels featuring his most famous character, Elric of Melniboné, to his fantasy masterpiece, Gloriana, winner of both the Campbell Memorial and World Fantasy awards for best novel.

Penelope Drayton Spence made a choice years earlier, and picked marriage and family over a promising career as an investigative reporter. Now, divorced and with her children spread around the country, she is having second thoughts. A mysterious call from the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, offers her a second chance at big time journalism. He has a story so sensitive that the President of the United States personally asked the Post to leave it alone.

Wherever he goes, the Dreamseller enchants, stirs up trouble, and inspires his listeners to search for the most important thing: the heart of the human soul. Every person he meets is someone who has abandoned their dreams and is struggling through life: a professor who has stopped pursuing his passions; a lonely alcoholic with no family; the elderly who have lost their zest for life. Through his wisdom, the Dreamseller helps them to look into their silent hearts and get to the root of their unhappiness.

Finally, Cameron Decker is reunited with Heather - the love of his life, now a fellow galactic traveler in her own right. Each has survived their own hellish experiences. Now onboard their new starship, they settle in for the journey home to Earth - or what's left of it. News is not good: the massive, tentacled Loths are multiplying at an astounding rate, and much of humankind has either perished, succumbing to the rampaging beasts, or moved on to other worlds.

"I very much need to be dead." These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for - but took his own life. In the aftermath, his widow, Jane Hawk, does what all her grief, fear, and fury demand: find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people admired and happy and sound of mind, have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane seeks to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important - so terrifying - that they will exterminate anyone in their way.

“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet - he’s been given a second chance. He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on "homestay" in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family and the people around him and sees their true colors more clearly.

Clockmaker is quite content making timepieces in his little cottage within the world of Everpath, until a terrible shadow from the forest begins to threaten him. Leaving all that he knows behind, Clockmaker escapes with the Road-Men so he can find a new home, far from the cruel shadow that haunts him. Instead, he discovers that the world is not at all what it seems, and he embarks upon a strange adventure beyond his wildest expectations.

The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian falling apart onstage - an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice, before their eyes. They could get up and leave or boo and whistle and drive him from the stage, if they were not so drawn to glimpse his personal hell.