This is an update to my previous post, in which I announced a small short story collection.

I’ve now pulled that collection off Amazon, for the best possible reason. I’ve agreed with Charles Barouch of the small press HDWP Books to issue a solo anthology later this year under the HDWP imprint, including my contributions to HDWP’s Theme-Thology collections.

Charles’s vision for the anthology is that it’ll have 10 stories in total (there may be more). Here’s a partial summary of the contents, which includes the three stories I mentioned last time:

Good Neighbours: An elderly woman must answer the classic question: Who is my neighbour? (Formerly appeared in New Realm magazine in December 2013.)
2700 words.

Vegetation: In an old Elvish city, plants are everywhere. And goodness knows, someone has to look after them. A lighthearted, Wodehousian piece involving the petty politics of volunteer organisations.
2300 words.

Gnome Day: An idealistic young clerk helps out on the night the gnomes are freed, and meets three people who will change his life: the woman who will become his wife, the gnome man who will become his best friend, and the gnome woman with whom he’ll share a tragedy.
6000 words. (This story is available for free to subscribers to my mailing list.)

Not Like Us: A beasthead clan leader contends with the botched Human Purity invasion of her village (as mentioned in Realmgolds), and must decide how much she wants to resemble the invaders. (Originally appeared in Theme-Thology: Invasion.)

Brothers: When a highly literate Asterist scholar meets a smelly Earthist shaman, things don’t go the way anyone expects. (Scheduled to appear in Theme-Thology: New Myths.)

Weave: (Non-Gryphon Clerks.) All of a sudden, everyone in the world is connected in strange and frightening ways. (In progress; for submission to Theme-Thology: Real World Unreal.)

Intrusion: The story of the dwarven hack of the farspeakers in Hope and the Clever Man, told from the dwarven side. (In progress; for submission to Theme-Thology: Mad Science.)

Names: (Non-Gryphon Clerks.) In an afterlife in which everyone is a collective being, made up of everyone who’s ever lived who has the same name, a person with a unique name has an advantage. But what advantage? (Currently on submission to a well-known genre magazine.)

Fixer: The man called Fixer knows everyone, and helps connect people with needs to those who can meet them. What happens when a confidence man wants to exploit Fixer’s network? (In progress.)

You’ll note that’s only nine. I’m sure another will come to me in due time. (It might be that noir dwarf detective story in the style of Damon Runyon that I started once, in frustration at the story of a noir dwarf detective that was so clod-hopping and ponderous that I just couldn’t stand it. Or not.)

Earliest publication date is probably around June for this one, assuming I sell “Names” to the magazine I’m targeting. They gave me a very positive personalised rejection for another story which was all about why that particular story didn’t quite work for them, despite its many good qualities, so I’m having another go. Their exclusive period is two months from date of publication.

More bulletins as events warrant.

Mike Reeves-McMillan

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Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.