The Machine

by Mark R. Healy

In the near future, a man climbs the corporate ladder inside a powerful company but finds that with each promotion he must sacrifice a part of himself.

23 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Mark R. Healy is an author and musician from Brisbane, Australia. From an early age he loved to create, and often assembled his own illustrated books with accompanying stories - and then forced his parents to buy them.

Unfortunately this model was not scalable and Mark now seeks to promote his works to a wider audience.

Mark has also combined his storytelling prowess with music, creating a project called ‘Hibernal’ through which he interweaves original sci-fi stories with his own music to create an immersive theatrical experience for the listener. Combined with a professional voice cast and sound effects, these “audio movies” are available online through iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon under the name ‘Hibernal’.

Reviews

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

short stories are hard to pull off - you have just so much time and space to accomplish so much. Mark does a great job of dialing it in early, bringing the lead character and his predicament (career versus personal life) to light. enough of a "futuristic" setting is put in place to let the reader visualize what the surroundings are like as well. it's paced well and is really quite creepy once you realize what is happening to our poor main character. this was a strong short story that could easily be a part of a larger anthology. recommended!

[Tony Barkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Machine, another good read by Mark

Pretty good for a short story, although I'm not a big fan of short stories. But the subject fit very well into a short story.