DEAD FISH BOOKS
Retro-style Speculative Fiction which will also feature female and male protagonists, people of varying cultures, religious views, and sexualities. The stars belong to all of us.
KICKSTARTER RUNNING NOW!
Help us bring Dragons on the Bayou to Life!
Life is hard for most fourteen year olds. Bodies are changing, relationships are changing, and they are freshmen on the bottom of the high school pecking order. But for Roby James--orphaned, undersized, and living in Ohio--it's all worse than usual.
His foster brother framed him. His foster parents sent him off to a military-style reform school. And everyone thinks he's weird because he can talk with animals. But then one night a fast-talking man with a Southern Louisiana accent shows up in his dorm, throws him into a flying car, and carries him off to a school somewhere between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The food is magical, the friends are real, and there are dragons.
And a cat, big and brown and fluffy. A hungry sea monster in the closet. And a very enthusiastic half-cockatrice.
As Roby makes friends and navigates the challenges of his first year at a literally magic high school, others around him test their boundaries, explore their options, and fall in love. Yes, it's as much a story about teachers as students.
Read the prolouge here, for free!
Role Up Some Aliens!
And then share them with us!
So, are you here to create a completely different alien? One that breaks the mold, steps outside the box, challenges you to consider life in a new way? You bring the dice and we’ll bring the tables. Together, we are going to get weird.
Using random number generators, science facts, and illustrations from the real world, we will show you how to create unique non-terrestrial organisms, and flesh them out. This is a useful tool for worldbuilders, science fiction authors, and bio-curious individuals.
The Wait is over! Rolling Up Aliens is now available for everyone! We are all systems go, lauching now! Learn how to roll up your own unique aliens using out guidebook, examples, and wonderful art by Gary Burnett. You can find the PDF at DriveThruRPG. The print version is avaiable (hopefully temporarily) at Amazon.
(I need to go learn how to make high-class PDF's to load an image-heavy manuscript on DriveThruRPG.)
And Check This Out!
Beneath the surface of the Ohio landscape lies a secret, one told in the layers of limestone and shale that lurk with all their fossils and ghosts: a great inland sea once covered the entire midwest. Even as this ancient sea still affects our landscape, with sinkholes giving way and fossil-laden cliffs weathering out, so do the secrets and traumas of our lives haunt our present. Find within a form poem inspired by weather radar, a story set as a sequel of sorts to the Fall of the House of Usher, and the person who will be eaten by a prehistoric fish. The Great Landlocked Sea is a collection of four beautiful, terrifying stories and one poem, all written by our own Elizabeth Davis.
Currently available in print from Amazon, and in both digital and hand-made chapbook directly from us. (Email for details.)
Anthology Submissions Open This Fall
God willing and the creek don't rise.
We will be looking for innovative stories with a plot, intriguing characters, and, oh yes, a fit to the theme. Both are open to all speculative fiction stories, such as horror, science fiction, and fantasy, as well as their many subcatagories. However, the stories must contain a speculative element. _Screw Dem Space Horses_ will be for stories centered around a horse or other equine-type creature. _Did I Leave the Gas On_ will be for stories about coming home from an adventure and discovering the disasters waiting there. (If you've ever had the power go off while on vacation, with egg salad in teh refrigerator, you know the feeling we are trying to capture.) We are open to LBGTQ+ characters and themes, but these are not required. Tell your best story!
Compensation is $5 per accepted story. New stories and reprints both accepted. For a story accepted by another market while under consideration with us, check with the terms of the accepting market to see if you can reclassify your story as a reprint or if you must pull it.
New Project! Dragons! Magic School! And a Bayou!
More details and a Kickstarter coming soon!
While you are at it, find us on Facebook, where the Little Plague Doctors and the Plague Nurse are having adventures!
What we offer: Quirky Anthologies filled with unexpected stories from authors around the world. See Our Books for a complete list. We also offer several exclusive FREE short stories just for signing up for our mailing list, and through our mailing list we will offer free downloads of new stories, news about our upcoming projects including anthologies with open submission, an occasionally updated editorial, and shout-outs for other deserving micropresses and authors. Please join our mailing list! Sign up on the form or send us your preferred email and way of reading electronic stories: Kindle, Epub, PDF, or printed out on strips of paper and tied to the legs of carrier pigeons! And we'll send you download links for free, exclusive to subscribers, short stories!
Other books will also be featured, so come on in and see what is new!
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