Brain Wrecks

BRAIN WRECKS is a collection of short stories and short-short stories, ranging across a wild universe of imagination, dream, and startling reality. From the familiar landscapes of western New York to the alien brutality of a planet in a deadly struggle for survival, stopping along the way for detours into weird and wacky nightspots of unreality, this bundle of tales covers it all.

Here you'll find short-short stories of no more than a page, and some longer stories that might qualify as novelettes or novellas. For a while I thought about grouping them by some theme or standard or locale. Then I gave up. I offer them in alphabetical order instead.

Satire lives here in various places. Remember that.

The first nine are all very short. In the world of randomness, that seems unlikely when alphabetical order was used, but unlikely only works until it happens, which makes it unlikely no longer.

The next five, from THE COBALT CYBER SEAS through HERE OUR STEPS FALTERED, are all regular short stories or longer forms.

Then there are three very-shorts, one full-length story, NIGHT BELLS, another very-short, then three full-length stories from PYRO through TARGHAST. This pattern looks more likely as random, doesn't it?

This seeming randomness continues with one very-short, two full-length stories, TRIZARK and TROUPE, a last very-short, and a final full-length story, WINTERSTATE.

Just remember that when someone tells you that a pattern is random, they're probably just messing with you.

The story list:

ACCENT
ADRIFT ON THE MARE COMMUTATIO
ALCHEMY
APPEAL
3.14159265358979323846264 and so on
BRAND NAMES
BROKEN CIRCLE
THE BUDDHA LECTURES ON COSMOLOGY
CARBUNCLE

THE COBALT CYBER SEAS
DEADWINTER MOON
FROM THE WALL
GUIGNOL
HERE OUR STEPS FALTERED

LOVE DRINKS IN
METAMORPHOSE
NEW WORLD

NIGHT BELLS

PIE AND WINGS

PYRO
SPICE ON HOT STEEL
TARGHAST, or NEDRILLO LEARNS THE ART OF IMPROVISATION

THE WEEZO UNIVERSE TUNING DEVICE

TRIZARK
TROUPE

THE VISITORS ON THE FOURTH

WINTERSTATE