New Stories in Phobos Magazine and Suction Cup Dreams

I'm currently cooking up a brand new, substantial post about how I used ecstatic trance to research the novel I'm writing right now. (You read that right.) BUT in the meantime if you would love to read some short fiction about the end of the world OR an octopus who must strive to stop an alien invasion threat, you are in the right place.

Phobos Magazine is a brand new publication out of Philadelphia. Their inaugural issue, Zugzwang is available through Amazon right now for a dollar. Given the size of the table of contents and the thoughtfulness that I know went into this ish, that is a bargoon, my friends. My story, "Hail Khepera In Thy Boat," features an Egyptologist who must use her knowledge of the past to help humanity deal with an alien threat. For those of you whom I met through April's A to Z challenge (who didn't I meet through A to Z?) you might be pleased to note this story is based on this blog post. Like at least one other story I've written, it contains a secret poop joke. Can you crack the code?

I've been eagerly anticipating the release of Suction Cup Dreams: An Octopus Anthology ever since I read their call for stories. I knew that the octopus was a weirdly smart animal, and, despite the fact that it evolved in a highly divergent line from mammals, its eyes are uncannily similar to ours. Amazing stuff. It's about time someone decided to pull together an anthology of fiction about the octopus! 

Suction Cup Dreams gathers twelve stories of various genres united by the fact that they all feature octopuses. My story, "Three-Hearted," riffs on the question begged by every Hollywood alien invasion movie: why do the aliens always land on the White House lawn? Why not in Podunk County? Why not in (GASP!) some country other than the US? Extending that notion, "Three-Hearted" explores the idea of an alien invasion that has virtually no interest in humans. What if we were not the first line of defense? What if it was up to a different species to save us? Suction Cup Dreams is available right now as a paperback, and scheduled for upcoming ebook release. Paper book fetishists beware: you might not want to wait for the ebook, since the paperback is a thing of beauty, and includes a gorgeous original illustration for each story.