About the book
The Arch of Endings: A novella and 5 short stories
covers a wide breadth of the best new science fiction and fantasy writing
lately. Want to know what purgatory might really be like? Check
out the humorous “Helping Katie On.” Think aliens visit us
for sinister reasons? Perhaps they only want something a bit more
simple. Read “Gas Stop” to see what that might be. Mountain
folk may know more than the worlds finest doctors and if your only son
was dying in a hospital, you too might search out someone with “Methusa’s
Touch.” Space really is the final frontier and it all might come
to a screeching halt for everyone if three intrepid explorers don’t do
something quick in the exciting novella, “The Spires of Kelso.” Life
on Mars? What would happen if three ore miners on the red planet
stumbled onto a very well kept secret in “The Arch of Endings.” A
shepherds life is not an easy one at the best of times. What happens when
you toss Armageddon into the mix? That’s just one of the surprises
in “The Hexam Cote.”
This delightful, thoughtful, and eclectic mix of mainline
science fiction and new wave fantasy proves once again, that Stephen P.
Miles knows how to bring a fast paced, often humorous approach to superior
quality storytelling. This one is perfect for your flight and your flights
of fancy.
Excerpts
The Spires of Kelso
Tom Mckensie stepped into the airlock of HABITAT
and waited for the sudden hiss of air to crescendo and stop. A green digital
above the door to atmosphere began a ten-second count. Mckensie checked
his airpak and the laser spade on his utility belt. The smooth roll of
the airlock door interrupted this inventory and he stepped out into thin
blue sunshine. A veteran of nearly thirty planet falls, Mckensie never
lost his delight in the unique variations of the different worlds he mapped.
Helping Katie On
“But you’re talking!” This simple exclamation
wouldn’t have been much out of the ordinary except the recipient was a
cat.
“Of course I’m talking. How else would
we communicate?” This particular cat was glossy black with round green
eyes as clear and uncluttered as mine might have been 40 years earlier...say,
before the ‘60's had worked me over.
Methusa’s Touch
Methusa, living nearby on some mountaintop,
dug her roots and lived her legend. From pink-eye to terminal tumors; from
AIDS to plantar warts, she cured them all. She could make the lame walk
and the blind see. So the people who lived on the hard ridges of these
unforgiving mountains believed. And believed it with something which was
much stronger and went much deeper than they even took their hellfire Baptist
religion.
Gas Stop
The two men sat on a small stoop that jutted
out like an afterthought from the gas station’s front. The men looked as
old as the building they adorned, weathered and brittle. Arizona summers,
especially near Yuma, were not known for their gentleness. Blistering daytime
temperatures, a ravenous lack of humidity that sucked moisture from anything
unlucky enough to posses it, and the sun; the sun was worst of all. Staring
down from a sky forever as blue as a robin’s egg, it ruled the desert with
a firm, unforgiving hand.
The Arch of Endings
The stones had been waiting a long time. Well,
one stone had been actively waiting while the other two stood passively
erect and horribly weathered, waiting only in the sense that they were
still functioning. They were not sentient. Guideon, to the left of the
door the three of them formed, was sentient though in a very low energy
way these last 10 millennia or so. No Movers had approached his station
in so long that he saw no need to be constantly alert, trickling instead,
the minutest amounts of energy required to keep his receptors active. One
could not blame him. He had faithfully held his post for nearly 2 million
years without complaint. Still, if the truth were known, and if hope were
a concept Guideon could have recognized, he was slowly losing both patience
and hope.
The Hexam Cote
His name was Crook and herding sheep was all
he knew. As far back as he could remember he had wanted to be a shepherd,
and so that was what he had become. Although he suspected he was not very
intelligent in the larger scheme of things, he was agile and patient and
learned quickly the things he needed to know and did not bother about the
rest. He was content to wander the North Riding with his flocks and to
care for them through the endless turn of the seasons.
About the Author
Miles’ fiction and poetry has been published in over 150 magazines and
anthologies including Playboy, Amazing Tales, Southern Images, Pembroke
Magazine, Sanskrit, Crucible, Synthesia, New York Arts Journal, Zone 9,
and Guilt & Gardenias. He has published several books of poetry
including Rubicon, Songs of the Dying king, 2:15, Silent Women
and Crescent to Quarter. He has served as an editor of several publications,
including Fayetteville Magazine, New Voices: A Time to Listen, and
as editor and publisher of The Cape Fear Quarterly. His plays include
DEROS:
A Vietnam Trilogy, Living in Jericho, Olde Times, and Clusters 2-456.
Miles is currently working on a novel, NNE. His writings,
in all genres, have won numerous awards including the Thompson Theater
Playwrights Aware, the Sanskrit Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature,
two first place Tarheel Writers Roundtable Awards, and two North Carolina
Fellowship Grants. He was a Bollingbroke finalist in 1993. He has taught
workshops in short fiction, poetry, drama, and science fiction/fantasy
and has taught Creative Writing at Methodist College. He is a founder of
the Professional Writers Group and a past president of Writers’ Ink Guild.
He currently works as a security consultant for OSS training U.S. military
personnel in survival, evasion, resistance and escape techniques.
Return to top
Return to Old Mountain Press
Books In Print
|
