M.G. Herron's Blog

Dark fantasy/thriller author J.F. Penn brings the magic of maps and cartography to life in Map of Shadows.

I love urban fantasy adventure novels with a dark twist, and Penn’s novel delivers. The blood magic system has a realistic cost, her sense of place whether you’re Earthside or in the Borderlands is tangible and real, and the character dynamics are realistic and come packed with a fun twist.

I thought i...

Shawn Inmon is a science fiction author who uses the central Oregon landscape, bricked-up portals, and a tribal culture in a distant future to tell a riveting adventure tale.

I grabbed the first book, A Door into Time (affiliate link) as an audiobook and tore through it. The story was easy to fall into and I found myself wide-eyed with wonder as Alex encountered oversized beasts, learned n...

This story is reprinted courtesy of Project Gutenberg. View the source text.

Fantastic Stories of Imagination, May 1962

[Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories of Imagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Because this is a masculine world, the author of this fairytale is usually identified as the wife of Poul Anderson. But a few more incisive cameos of fantasy such as this, ...

This story is reprinted courtesy of Project Gutenberg. View the source text.

If, September 1960

Time is money.
Time heals all wounds.
Given time,
anything is possible.
And now he had all the
time in the world!

Welcome to MGHerron.com! I’m your host, and you’re reading a classic sci-fi short story in the public domain.

I’ve curated this set of stories personally, reprinting them here for my own enjoyment, and so others can read them too.

The Golden Age of science fiction is gon...

Of the five stories in Boys & Their Monsters, this is my favorite.

Alien beasts populate the post-apocalyptic plains of a dustbowl Earth.

One in particular is harassing a community of survivors.

A boy, coming into his own as a scavenger in the new normal, sets out to deal with the problem.

His community rallies around him—but will it be enough to face the beast down? Or will the boy go too far and find out just how unforgiving an apocalypse can be?

I hope you enjoy the read. It’...

Of the five stories in Boys & Their Monsters, this is my favorite.

Alien beasts populate the post-apocalyptic plains of a dustbowl Earth.

One in particular is harassing a community of survivors.

A boy, coming into his own as a scavenger in the new normal, sets out to deal with the problem.

His community rallies around him—but will it be enough to face the beast down? Or will the boy go too far and find out just how unforgiving an apocalypse can be?

I hope you enjoy the read. It’...

I read widely. Always have.

My bias is toward fantasy and science fiction novels, but I love short stories, self-help, thrillers, literary classics, philosophy, mythology, ancient civilizations and much more.

Each year I read about 50 books.

This isn’t a lot compared to some readers I see on Goodreads setting goals to read 100+ books in 2023.

But 50 books is still orders of magnitude more than the average American.

According to the Pew Research Center (2016 study), the average Ame...

A river runs through Austin, bisecting the north and south sides of the city with a horseshoe-shaped bend.

It’s dammed at both ends, which is why Austin residents call it “Lake Austin.”

As with any dammed river, they have to actively maintain it, adjusting the dam for rainfall and cleaning, and working to balance out the artificial ecosystem.

This story begins with that river.

In particular, it begins with that river in a post-apocalyptic Earth when the delicate ecosystem has been un...

A river runs through Austin, bisecting the north and south sides of the city with a horseshoe-shaped bend.

It’s dammed at both ends, which is why Austin residents call it “Lake Austin.”

As with any dammed river, they have to actively maintain it, adjusting the dam for rainfall and cleaning, and working to balance out the artificial ecosystem.

This story begins with that river.

In particular, it begins with that river in a post-apocalyptic Earth when the delicate ecosystem has been un...

This story was written as part of a short story challenge, where I had to write 5 stories in five weeks following along with a class of fellow writers.

A good challenge.

At the time, I was focused on post-apocalyptic scenarios. Each apocalypse is slightly different, but every story focuses on a young man coming of age in a bizarre new world.

In some cases it was a new post-apocalypse Earth. This story is different. In “Centurion”, I asked myself, what would it be like if a man and his s...