I.E. Demon

by Dan Wells

Included in the Shadows Beneath - The Writing Excuses Anthology

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Urban Fantasy

41 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Dan Wells is a thriller and science fiction writer. Born in Utah, he spent his early years reading and writing. He is he author of the Partials series (Partials, Isolation, Fragments, and Ruins), the John Cleaver series (I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don't Want To Kill You), and a few others (The Hollow City, A Night of Blacker Darkness, etc). He was a Campbell nomine for best new writer, and has won a Hugo award for his work on the podcast Writing Excuses; the podcast is also a multiple winner of the Parsec Award.

Reviews

[A.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine you’re a grunt in Afghanistan and you have to take out some special weapons dudes and let them use your guys and your vehicle to test their new IED detector. Imagine that one IED tips your vehicle and the literal small green gremlin inside the detector unit escapes… and starts breaking machines like all gremlins do.
How the heck do you deal with it? Especially when one piece of flying shrapnel hit the only guy with any demonology experience.
***
It would be just like military research to use, let’s call it the unexplained, for military purposes.
They are screaming for the MRE’s to make salt circles. And trying to read the sealed instruction manual…
Very amusing.
4 stars

[Andrew Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version and it was laugh-out-loud funny. Loved this story. The delivery was spot on, too. I cannot say enough good things about it.

[Lilyyyy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing but dumb

[Joshua Wieber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful.

[A.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was a ton of fun. It's short, fast-paced and very clever. The minimal cast helped the story and helped me remember who was who. The story kept me surprised and on the edge of my seat. The ending was a great wrap-up for everything that was built-up during the story.

Random thought: I think this would have made a really good Twilight Zone episode.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun short story. I heard the brainstorming session for it on writing excuses, so I knew the punchline already, but it was well written.