Ancient spacefaring humans had built the world-ships as temporary shelters after ruining every planet they’d attempted to colonize. But when it became clear that their new homes were not destined to be temporary, they’d descended into chaos, tearing apart their artificial universes rivet by rivet. Despite the fact that they were well cared for by the world-ships, and even loved in a way, humans chafed under their self-imposed ‘imprisonment’. So now the world-ships shield their organisms from the truth, keeping them dumb for the sake of all sentients involved.
This story appears almost a year after my last story in Nature, "Symphony of the Damned." As much as I love writing and publishing flash, I'm happy to say that I also have some full-length stories coming out this year. As always, Twitter is the best place to get the latest scoop on my writing, but I'll post it here as well for non-Twits.
In case you missed my Endeavour Awards livestream a few months ago, you're in luck! There's a podcast version available here, featuring a Q&A followed by a live reading of "After We Walked Away" (my take on an Omelas story, every writer gets one). Like the fiction, I have a few other podcasty things in the works, which I can hopefully post about soonish.
Lastly, just a reminder that if you've read my Endeavour Award-winning short fiction collection How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters, I'd really appreciate it if you left a review (starring is fine) on Amazon and/or Goodreads. They help sales and give a little burst of dopamine, and isn't the latter what we're all looking for?
