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Stories of where the normal meets the strange... From the travails of a water-carrying alien on a harsh world.... to the loss of a child by a much-too-young father touched by the were gene. From the plight of a young immigrant painter struggling to get by... to the story of a young man who has to decide whether to help when he comes across a car in the ditch and a family fighting for survival in that wrecked vehicle... And more... Twenty-one stories about the moment when someone's life took an unexpected turn, and that person was changed forever. Tales of heroes and cowards, lovers and leaders, the heartbroken and the heartless. Stories that leave you wrecked inside, while the characters on the page try desperately to pick up the pieces of their lives. Take a chance on a story from a genre you might not have ever read before, and dive headfirst into the tale of a life that appeared normal but was quickly transformed into a life less ordinary, and a life more strange and more fascinating. Michael Jasper uses genre as a weapon in these twenty-one stories. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
We started the fires at dusk. The opening to the title story of this collection by Michael Jasper is a distillation of the mix of danger, disquiet, and determination that runs through all sixteen stories. Whether it’s the return of a prodigal son to the family farm ("The Chicken Project"), the young high school teacher conscripted into refereeing a basketball game with his new school’s rivals from the nearby reservation ("Home Court Advantage"), or the impossible feats of a team of mixed-race baseball players long before the days of Jackie Robinson ("The Champ Escapes"), Jasper takes you on a guided tour of the human condition. This includes the dark sides as well as the bright. Sometime...
An unlikely team of misfit players, and the coach fighting to hold them all together... In his first season as head coach of the All Nations team, former slave George Grunion contends with racist crowds, low team morale, and... the ghost of the previous head coach. And if George can’t hold the All Nations together, he loses more than his job and his team. He’ll miss his chance to fulfill the prophecy made by his prescient centerfielder Mack — that George will be reunited with his estranged family before the 1918 season ends. If George doesn’t score this final run, he loses everything. "Avid, talented newcomers like Jasper help us keep the faith." — Locus
Aliens crash-land in snowy North America, attempt integration, and fail—violently. In the near future, over thirty black ships containing the aliens known as the Wannoshay crash-land onto the frozen earth of the Great Plains of America and Canada. Over the course of a year, the aliens attempt to become part of American society, only to be banished to internment camps when they are suspected of causing a series of deadly explosions at their new jobs. A handful of humans who made early contact with the Wannoshay stand up for the oppressed aliens. They soon learn, however, that the aliens are not without guilt—a guilt that seems to be killing the Wannoshay with each passing day on Earth... "An absorbing work full of unflinching looks at what makes us human, how we might react to be faced with the truly incomprehensible." — SF Site
Retirement: it’s not just for the elderly. Thirty-six-year-old JB lives to inspire the old folks at Whispering Pines Rest Home. He listens to their stories, encourages them to get some fresh air, and makes sure they aren’t just sitting around waiting for the end to come. But he’s not a doctor, not a therapist. He’s a resident of Whispering Pines, too. When the finances for Whispering Pines hit the skids, the Home starts to earn the wrong kind of attention. And JB must confront the harsh reality of his past, and the reason he dropped out of life to retire three decades early. A reality he has been working hard to avoid since stepping foot inside Whispering Pines. Sometimes life — and getting back to really living — requires some assistance.
Some family curses really should be passed on... Tommy Roling does everything humanly possible to raise his infant daughter Corinne the right way. But a half year out of high school, Tommy finds himself a single parent as well as flat broke. And, with every full moon, he can't fight the urge to strip off his clothes and run wild through the pastures outside town. So when a stranger shows up, slashed to death, the day after Tommy's most recent full-moon run, Tommy must resolve this murder or he could lose what little he has left. That includes his innocent baby girl Corinne, who just might have inherited his werewolf gene from him. A paranormal mystery about fatherhood, responsibility, and taking control of your own life, one full moon at a time. The first book in a new "Rural Fantasy" mystery series, continuing with Book 2, Hunter's Moon!
Magic: It can show up in the strangest places… An old man sleeping in a cardboard box in snowy Chicago holds the secret of sorcery in his head. Thanks to the damage done to him by using magic decades ago, he doesn’t realize it. Most days he can’t even remember his own name. But when two teens try to jump him in an alley, the magic Words come back to him at last, and he “infects” the kids with magic. And soon Chicago has a wild epidemic of magic on its hands… An earlier, but still self-contained version of the novel A Sudden Outbreak of Magic, but with a slightly altered cast of characters and plotlines. Consider it the “alternate-world” version of the Contagious Magic story.
A haunted romance. An unsolved mystery. And a centuries-old curse at the heart of it all. Off the rough coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Ella Simon tracks down one man—the infamous pirate Blackbeard. She must identify a shipwreck off the coast of the island, but she and her divemaster Mitch Thompson discover much more than that. They just have to stay alive long enough to solve the mystery of a young girl's killer before the ghosts of dead pirates take them down to the bottom of the ocean, forever. A haunted romance, a lovestruck mystery, and a pirate-filled adventure. "Fans of an interesting ghost story enhanced by romance will want to read this tale of long dead pirates riding the high seas." — Midwest Book Review
First contact between a priest and an alien… Less than a dozen years from now, over thirty black ships containing the aliens the world will come to know as the Wannoshay arrive on the frozen earth of the Great Plains of America and Canada. When communications break down between the military personnel of the humans and the leaders of the Wannoshay, Father Joshua McDowell gets a chance to make first contact with the aliens. And just as he thinks he has come to understand the aliens and his new friend known as Johndo, Father Joshua realizes he has a lot more to learn. And what he doesn’t know about the Wannoshay just might kill him… A Wannoshay Cycle novella.
Sometimes you eat the forest, sometimes the forest eats you. What would you do if your child was lost, and—even though you’d never admit this to anyone—it was all your fault? How would you react? Would you be a hero or a coward? And just how would you get your innocent child out of this situation These are all questions Gil Anderson faces when his five-year-old son goes missing somewhere in the dark trees at the edge of the family farm. On that fateful day, Gil must travel through his own version of hell to rescue his child before the forest eats them all. What Gil doesn't know is that his wife and son are both on their own dark, solitary journeys as well... For fans of Stranger Things and the weird world of the Upside Down. "In his third novel, speculative-fiction rising star Jasper offers a finely nuanced blend of fantasy and horror." — Booklist