Short Fiction by Gary W. Olson
A list of short fiction I've written over the years, plus upcoming stories and where and when they will be published.
|
 A homeless woman, Rennie Kalick, has been given the ability to turn the painful memories of others into weapons, and has used this power to seek revenge for wrongs done to herself and those like her. But Kagami Takeda, whose connection to the merciless, godlike sea of light known as the Radiance was responsible for this gift, wants to take it back. A short story set in the Brutal Light universe.
This story is available for free download as an ebook from Smashwords! Formats available include .mobi, .epub, .pdf, and .pdb. (You can also use Smashwords' html viewer to read the story on the site.)
And if you enjoy it, please consider Brutal Light, the novel it ties in with!
|
|
|
Glass Nails is a horror short story published in the Spring 1999 issue of Outer Darkness magazine. In it, a violent clash between former friends yields realization of the world as it is, and what must be done to stop its screaming.
One of the darker things I've written, and one of the most frantically energetic.
|
|
The Body in Motion is a science fiction/horror short story originally published in the Summer 2001 issue of Outer Darkness magazine, accompanied there by a wonderful black-and-white illustration by Katheryn Davis (of West Virginia). In the story, the remnants of humanity languish in underground pods, fighting in cybernetic fantasies to decide who gets to live as resources dwindle. But the intelligence running it all is still working on the problem given it ages ago, that of saving humanity, and may have found a solution at last. A bloody one.
I wrote this one after reading through Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories. Looking back, all I can recall is that book put me in one hell of a mood.
Currently, anyone who subscribes to my newsletter will get a download link for a FREE PDF EDITION of this story! It's been revised and (I think) improved, and though it doesn't include Katheryn Davis's illustration, it does have another striking image as its cover.
|
|
Electricity in the Rain is a five-part serialized science fiction novelette, the first four parts of which were published in Mythic Heroes magazine (issues 1-4, late 1996). The story was to be the first in a series of tales under the umbrella title of Nihil Nations, set on an alternate Earth in which a willful and explosive act causes a small percentage of people the world over to gain superhuman abilities, which in turn drastically reshaped the sovereign boundaries of the world. In the tale, two women who have elected to use their powers to fight crime track a serial killer, unaware that a super-powered government agent has his own plans for their target.
The fifth and concluding part to the serial was never published, as Mythic Heroes folded after issue 4. (Its editor, Greg Fishbone, happily went on to better things as a writer of children's books.) The next two serials in the series, written and accepted, were never published. Once, I had extensive plans for the universe; perhaps some day I will return to it.
|
|
|
