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Threads: A NeoVerse Anthology - Volume 1
"Twenty stood out from those original 4,000 submissions... exceptional stories that made me cry and laugh, and often, pause in total fascination." - Aaron Safronoff (Award Winning Author of Spire and Sunborn Rising, and Chair of NeoVerse Writing Competition)
From the mind-bending to the emotionally charged...
Enter the worlds of twenty talented authors as they shine hope on loss, speculate about technology and posthuman culture, and pluck heartstrings masterfully in this unique collection of short stories by: Winners of the NeoVerse Short Story Writing Competition.
Experience an amazing collection of short stories, crossing genres of Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense/Crime, and more.
- GenresScience Fiction
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 13, 2016
2 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Safronoff
6 books99 followersAaron Safronoff was born and raised in Michigan where he wrote his first novella, Evening Breezes. In his early twenties, he moved to California to attend culinary school. He fell in love with the Bay Area and has never considered leaving, although he did eventually leave the school.
During his ten years in the games industry, he worked at various levels and for several disciplines including quality assurance, production, and design. All the while he was writing a novel, short stories, plays, and poetry. His career in design introduced him to amazingly intelligent, fun, and creative people, many of whom he considers family today.
Safronoff self-published, Spire, in 2011, and won the Science Fiction Discovery Award for the same in the summer of 2012. By the end of that year he decided to drop everything and free fall into fiction. In the following three months he completed work on the sequel to Spire, Fallen Spire, edited Evening Breezes, and published both.
Today, Safronoff is co-founder and Chief Storyteller of Neoglyphic Entertainment and working on his fifth novel, the second book of the Sunborn Rising series. In his spare time, Safronoff enjoys reading a variety of authors, Philip K. Dick, Cormac McCarthy, and Joe Abercrombie among them. He enjoys living near the ocean, playing and watching hockey, and video games. He has a deep love of music and comedy.
During his ten years in the games industry, he worked at various levels and for several disciplines including quality assurance, production, and design. All the while he was writing a novel, short stories, plays, and poetry. His career in design introduced him to amazingly intelligent, fun, and creative people, many of whom he considers family today.
Safronoff self-published, Spire, in 2011, and won the Science Fiction Discovery Award for the same in the summer of 2012. By the end of that year he decided to drop everything and free fall into fiction. In the following three months he completed work on the sequel to Spire, Fallen Spire, edited Evening Breezes, and published both.
Today, Safronoff is co-founder and Chief Storyteller of Neoglyphic Entertainment and working on his fifth novel, the second book of the Sunborn Rising series. In his spare time, Safronoff enjoys reading a variety of authors, Philip K. Dick, Cormac McCarthy, and Joe Abercrombie among them. He enjoys living near the ocean, playing and watching hockey, and video games. He has a deep love of music and comedy.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 5, 2016
Neoglyphic is in the business of creating new ways to tell stories. It’s a transformation a long time in coming, the creation of media that unites story-telling, music, graphics and interactivity. Perhaps it’s been underway for years in the video-game industry, but it hasn’t yet carried over into electronic reading platforms. What I mean is this: prose itself is reaching the place where it can be transformed, for better or for worse. Publications are looking for submissions that blur the line between creator and audience, that find creative ways to use the now-fluid electronic medium to make stories more interactive. Again, some video games have been doing this very well for years, but they remain a specific platform and niche. Neoglyphic, it seems, is working to bring this transformation to story-telling itself, to transform how readers (not just players) engage with text.
To do that though, they have to position themselves as purveyors of story. They have to assemble writers and narratives, and they have to show that quality story-telling—with all the editing, advocating, and disseminating it entails—is part of what they do and what they do well. To this end, Threads: A Neoverse Anthology was born. Neoglyphic cast the net out for stories, and the anthology was their wide and varied catch.
What they caught was a school of strange fish, some frightening, some lovely, all of sleek and flickering hues, all from different depths and of different shapes and sizes. The stories in this volume, in other words, are of a huge variety. They vary widely in polish and style and run the gamut from literary realism to psychological horror, from golden age scifi to technological thriller and on to lighthearted fantasy. (Full disclosure, this anthology includes my contribution, "Gold, Vine, and a Name," which I will not be discussing below.)
Many of the stories feel like pieces of larger works (and the editor explains that this is indeed the case for some of the stories—that they are stand-alone chapters from novels, for example). This increases the feel (whether intended or not) that the work is meant to function as a patchwork showcase of sorts, of a collection of resources Neoglyphic can draw on in their quest to take storytelling in new and different ways. Whether this turns out to be the case remains to be seen, but there’s the sense here of launching, of piloting some new projects to see where they might go or how they might develop.
The anthology was organized around a contest, and so the first three stories appearing in the collection are ranked in prize order. After that, the stories are alphabetical. This may have been to ensure the rest of them were treated equally, but it meant there wasn’t editorial freedom for structuring the flow of the anthology by giving the order of stories some organizational structure. What it lacks in unified flow though, it more than makes up for in the artwork Neoglyphic created to accompany each story and tie them together. Each story has an introductory illustration by the same artist, and the cover (recreated as a full two-page spread at the conclusion of the volume) brings elements of each tale together in a dynamic mishmash that makes the collection of narratives leap off the page.
Some of the stories in this collection were striking on a first read. For example, Chuck Regan’s “Dysphoria” (the third-place winner) presented a grippingly horrific vision of a near-future alternate reality awash in chemicals. When most of the world has forgone a physical existence for a virtual one, a market has arisen to create and produce new psycho-chemical experiences. But who’s actually in control: the emotive artists creating them or the corporations selling them? “Say When” by Pamela Bobowicz and “Hotel Marietta” by Sabrina Clare were other stand-outs, literary pieces that look at issues of loss and how families (biological or adoptive) come together to cope with that. There’s a certain level of the saccharine in some of the works of the anthology, but these two do an excellent job of treating issue of the heart with earnestness and skill.
There’s great fantasy here as well: “Vanni’s Choice” by David A. Elsensohn and “Stormsong” by Tessa Hatheway, for instance, are solid and satisfying. In the first, we follow a thief breaking into the magical fortress of an enemy sorcerer and the choice she must make once she realizes the nature of what she’s been hired to steal. Elsensohn did such a great job building a world and a character in a manner of pages I wanted to follow Vanni directly to her next heist. Likewise, Hatheway’s “Stormsong” is a straightforwardly haunting tale of hubris and deep water.
“A Knight, A Wizard, and Bee— Plus Some Pigs,” by K. G. McAbee, is another fantasy piece in this volume that stuck out. The plot is straightforward—a knight arrives to slay a powerful wizard—but the tone and style is in the tradition of Terry Pratchett, and the humor makes it come to life. Like Vanni, I want to follow Bee and her new master across a few more pages. If a goal of the anthology was to generate readers for new adventures, McAbee and Elsensohn succeeded.
There were several good pieces in the anthology but there was one that stood out above the rest. (No, I’m not talking about my contribution.) This was Katie Lattari’s “No Protections, Only Powers,” which the author admits in the introduction was written as an attempt to channel Stephen King. A young girl dabbles in some harmless witchcraft and makes a new friend along the way. In the background though, there are much darker things afoot. What makes this story so devastating is the way Lattari balances the details of suburban life and the shadowed view of a surly teenager but then makes those shadows hide genuinely frightening details that only become clear later on. Things are left unsaid or only alluded to, and the story becomes exponentially more chilling by its conclusion. Lattari has stepped on something deep in this one.
Where some anthologies have an overriding theme that ties the contributions together, this one has rather an overriding purpose: to tell and celebrate stories. It gives the work something of a patchwork feel, but it also means that whatever your tastes, if you have an appetite for short stories you’ll certainly find something in here to satisfy.
To do that though, they have to position themselves as purveyors of story. They have to assemble writers and narratives, and they have to show that quality story-telling—with all the editing, advocating, and disseminating it entails—is part of what they do and what they do well. To this end, Threads: A Neoverse Anthology was born. Neoglyphic cast the net out for stories, and the anthology was their wide and varied catch.
What they caught was a school of strange fish, some frightening, some lovely, all of sleek and flickering hues, all from different depths and of different shapes and sizes. The stories in this volume, in other words, are of a huge variety. They vary widely in polish and style and run the gamut from literary realism to psychological horror, from golden age scifi to technological thriller and on to lighthearted fantasy. (Full disclosure, this anthology includes my contribution, "Gold, Vine, and a Name," which I will not be discussing below.)
Many of the stories feel like pieces of larger works (and the editor explains that this is indeed the case for some of the stories—that they are stand-alone chapters from novels, for example). This increases the feel (whether intended or not) that the work is meant to function as a patchwork showcase of sorts, of a collection of resources Neoglyphic can draw on in their quest to take storytelling in new and different ways. Whether this turns out to be the case remains to be seen, but there’s the sense here of launching, of piloting some new projects to see where they might go or how they might develop.
The anthology was organized around a contest, and so the first three stories appearing in the collection are ranked in prize order. After that, the stories are alphabetical. This may have been to ensure the rest of them were treated equally, but it meant there wasn’t editorial freedom for structuring the flow of the anthology by giving the order of stories some organizational structure. What it lacks in unified flow though, it more than makes up for in the artwork Neoglyphic created to accompany each story and tie them together. Each story has an introductory illustration by the same artist, and the cover (recreated as a full two-page spread at the conclusion of the volume) brings elements of each tale together in a dynamic mishmash that makes the collection of narratives leap off the page.
Some of the stories in this collection were striking on a first read. For example, Chuck Regan’s “Dysphoria” (the third-place winner) presented a grippingly horrific vision of a near-future alternate reality awash in chemicals. When most of the world has forgone a physical existence for a virtual one, a market has arisen to create and produce new psycho-chemical experiences. But who’s actually in control: the emotive artists creating them or the corporations selling them? “Say When” by Pamela Bobowicz and “Hotel Marietta” by Sabrina Clare were other stand-outs, literary pieces that look at issues of loss and how families (biological or adoptive) come together to cope with that. There’s a certain level of the saccharine in some of the works of the anthology, but these two do an excellent job of treating issue of the heart with earnestness and skill.
There’s great fantasy here as well: “Vanni’s Choice” by David A. Elsensohn and “Stormsong” by Tessa Hatheway, for instance, are solid and satisfying. In the first, we follow a thief breaking into the magical fortress of an enemy sorcerer and the choice she must make once she realizes the nature of what she’s been hired to steal. Elsensohn did such a great job building a world and a character in a manner of pages I wanted to follow Vanni directly to her next heist. Likewise, Hatheway’s “Stormsong” is a straightforwardly haunting tale of hubris and deep water.
“A Knight, A Wizard, and Bee— Plus Some Pigs,” by K. G. McAbee, is another fantasy piece in this volume that stuck out. The plot is straightforward—a knight arrives to slay a powerful wizard—but the tone and style is in the tradition of Terry Pratchett, and the humor makes it come to life. Like Vanni, I want to follow Bee and her new master across a few more pages. If a goal of the anthology was to generate readers for new adventures, McAbee and Elsensohn succeeded.
There were several good pieces in the anthology but there was one that stood out above the rest. (No, I’m not talking about my contribution.) This was Katie Lattari’s “No Protections, Only Powers,” which the author admits in the introduction was written as an attempt to channel Stephen King. A young girl dabbles in some harmless witchcraft and makes a new friend along the way. In the background though, there are much darker things afoot. What makes this story so devastating is the way Lattari balances the details of suburban life and the shadowed view of a surly teenager but then makes those shadows hide genuinely frightening details that only become clear later on. Things are left unsaid or only alluded to, and the story becomes exponentially more chilling by its conclusion. Lattari has stepped on something deep in this one.
Where some anthologies have an overriding theme that ties the contributions together, this one has rather an overriding purpose: to tell and celebrate stories. It gives the work something of a patchwork feel, but it also means that whatever your tastes, if you have an appetite for short stories you’ll certainly find something in here to satisfy.
May 15, 2019
Loved this! Brilliant stories, thought-provoking, creepy, emotional, and everything in-between.
I used to have a real bias against short-stories, thinking they'd feel incomplete or just inaccessibly weird, but this really won me over!
I used to have a real bias against short-stories, thinking they'd feel incomplete or just inaccessibly weird, but this really won me over!
November 13, 2016
**This book was reviewed for the San Francisco Book Review**
Welcome to the Neoverse! Aaron Safronoff, author of the awesome young adult fantasy novel Sunborn Rising, edits this amazing collection of twenty short stories that were the result of Neoglyphic Entertainment's writing contest. There are so many wonderful stories here, I'm hard pressed to choose just a few to discuss.
'One Time Hero’ by Neil Chase follows superhero Orion, whose powers have caused his body to begin to shut down. Does he have one last rescue in him? This was such a touching story; a tale of morality, ethics, and above all, the value of innocence.
'Say When' by Pamela Bobowicz really hit home. This is the story of a family coming to terms with the fact that the mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. She is at home, surrounded and attended to by her family. The story is told from Katie’s point of view. She is the youngest daughter, and the only one still living at home. It's a story of life, death, and how we cope, and it reminded me so much of when my grandmother was home under palliative care for end-stage renal failure. I spent many days that long summer, sitting by her bedside, going through the transition from desperately wanting her to get better, to wanting her suffering to be over.
'Hotel Marietta' by Sabrina Clare is a sweet story showing the value of patience. Ellie is an autistic little girl whose parents were brutally murdered. Jessica is a young woman who worked at a children’s centre before it closed, which is where she learned of Ellie. Jessica decides to take a chance, adopting Ellie and taking on the challenging task of raising an autistic child.
'The Carving’ by M Lopes da Silva made me tear up. These people carved their deepest, darkest secrets into their jack-o'-lanterns, there for the whole town to see. Instead of dividing them, this act drew them all together. We need this sort of miracle right now in this country, gods’ truth we do. There's too much ugly truth going around and not enough healing.
'The Magical Worlds of Theodore Erickson: A New Beginning’ by SA Rohrbaugh was a delight to read. Theodore is the shepherd to a fascinating herd of beasties quite out of place in Charleston SC, which is why they are all invisible. Sixteen year old Charlie spots one in the ocean and makes Theodore's acquaintance. Theodore opens his eyes to a whole new way of seeing things. Once learned, it will never be forgotten, and this most precious of gifts will allow Charlie to have adventures quite above average. There are worlds galore to explore out there. We just need the right key to unlock them.
Welcome to the Neoverse! Aaron Safronoff, author of the awesome young adult fantasy novel Sunborn Rising, edits this amazing collection of twenty short stories that were the result of Neoglyphic Entertainment's writing contest. There are so many wonderful stories here, I'm hard pressed to choose just a few to discuss.
'One Time Hero’ by Neil Chase follows superhero Orion, whose powers have caused his body to begin to shut down. Does he have one last rescue in him? This was such a touching story; a tale of morality, ethics, and above all, the value of innocence.
'Say When' by Pamela Bobowicz really hit home. This is the story of a family coming to terms with the fact that the mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. She is at home, surrounded and attended to by her family. The story is told from Katie’s point of view. She is the youngest daughter, and the only one still living at home. It's a story of life, death, and how we cope, and it reminded me so much of when my grandmother was home under palliative care for end-stage renal failure. I spent many days that long summer, sitting by her bedside, going through the transition from desperately wanting her to get better, to wanting her suffering to be over.
'Hotel Marietta' by Sabrina Clare is a sweet story showing the value of patience. Ellie is an autistic little girl whose parents were brutally murdered. Jessica is a young woman who worked at a children’s centre before it closed, which is where she learned of Ellie. Jessica decides to take a chance, adopting Ellie and taking on the challenging task of raising an autistic child.
'The Carving’ by M Lopes da Silva made me tear up. These people carved their deepest, darkest secrets into their jack-o'-lanterns, there for the whole town to see. Instead of dividing them, this act drew them all together. We need this sort of miracle right now in this country, gods’ truth we do. There's too much ugly truth going around and not enough healing.
'The Magical Worlds of Theodore Erickson: A New Beginning’ by SA Rohrbaugh was a delight to read. Theodore is the shepherd to a fascinating herd of beasties quite out of place in Charleston SC, which is why they are all invisible. Sixteen year old Charlie spots one in the ocean and makes Theodore's acquaintance. Theodore opens his eyes to a whole new way of seeing things. Once learned, it will never be forgotten, and this most precious of gifts will allow Charlie to have adventures quite above average. There are worlds galore to explore out there. We just need the right key to unlock them.
October 22, 2016
Disclaimer: I have a story included in this anthology, so this review focuses on the other work and the anthology itself.
In reading this I am impressed with the narrative ability of each author. While they seem to vary widely in printed experience, each delivers an accomplished level of high emotional tension.
The three winners of the contest are all good, naturally. “One Time Hero” by Neil Chase is deceptively simple but its tension builds steadily to an almost unbearable level. Edith Clark’s “Night Insects” is subtle in its savagery; I am quite pleased that it took a winning spot, because the truths beneath its storytelling could have been overlooked. Chuck Regan deftly handles a possible transhuman future with an ever-accelerating hypercultural pace, in “Dysphoria”.
The others, though, are of equally high quality so that the contest decision-making process must have been difficult. I mention only a few:
I always admire well-wrought, immersive worldbuilding that mimics no other, so Stephen Case’s “Gold, Vine, and a Name” and Tessa Hatheway’s “Stormsong” greatly appeal to me.
I rarely read modern, non-speculative work with heavy emotional weight, but Pamela Bobowicz’s “Say When” grabbed me with its almost neutral narrator observing how others express their pain.
M. Lopes da Silva shows us an unwanted outpouring of a town’s secrets and woes in “The Carving”. Fantasy has two outlooks: one gritty and desperate in Hannah Marie’s “The Queen’s Dragon”, one tongue-in-cheek and subtly uproarious in K. G. McAbee’s “A Knight, A Wizard and Bee--Plus Some Pigs”. “No Protections, Only Powers” by Katie Lattari pulls the reader along unexpected twists in the mind of its young narrator. Charles D. Shell’s “Boneyard Prophet” explores in a cloud of confusion before it swells with righteous fury.
The design and color aesthetic of the book are noteworthy. The painted double cover, in desaturated blues, contains elements from each tale. Inside, the rough typeface of the story titles connotes a well-used typewriter, and each story has its own illustration. The paragraphs are more web-style, with spaces between each paragraph instead of indentation. The book is 9”x6” and satisfyingly hefty.
I am quite lucky to be included among these stories.
In reading this I am impressed with the narrative ability of each author. While they seem to vary widely in printed experience, each delivers an accomplished level of high emotional tension.
The three winners of the contest are all good, naturally. “One Time Hero” by Neil Chase is deceptively simple but its tension builds steadily to an almost unbearable level. Edith Clark’s “Night Insects” is subtle in its savagery; I am quite pleased that it took a winning spot, because the truths beneath its storytelling could have been overlooked. Chuck Regan deftly handles a possible transhuman future with an ever-accelerating hypercultural pace, in “Dysphoria”.
The others, though, are of equally high quality so that the contest decision-making process must have been difficult. I mention only a few:
I always admire well-wrought, immersive worldbuilding that mimics no other, so Stephen Case’s “Gold, Vine, and a Name” and Tessa Hatheway’s “Stormsong” greatly appeal to me.
I rarely read modern, non-speculative work with heavy emotional weight, but Pamela Bobowicz’s “Say When” grabbed me with its almost neutral narrator observing how others express their pain.
M. Lopes da Silva shows us an unwanted outpouring of a town’s secrets and woes in “The Carving”. Fantasy has two outlooks: one gritty and desperate in Hannah Marie’s “The Queen’s Dragon”, one tongue-in-cheek and subtly uproarious in K. G. McAbee’s “A Knight, A Wizard and Bee--Plus Some Pigs”. “No Protections, Only Powers” by Katie Lattari pulls the reader along unexpected twists in the mind of its young narrator. Charles D. Shell’s “Boneyard Prophet” explores in a cloud of confusion before it swells with righteous fury.
The design and color aesthetic of the book are noteworthy. The painted double cover, in desaturated blues, contains elements from each tale. Inside, the rough typeface of the story titles connotes a well-used typewriter, and each story has its own illustration. The paragraphs are more web-style, with spaces between each paragraph instead of indentation. The book is 9”x6” and satisfyingly hefty.
I am quite lucky to be included among these stories.
August 5, 2017
Note: received this book in exchange for a review.
This is a wonderful collection of short stories! Ranging from sci-fi and fantasy to supernatural to a heartwarming story about a woman and her adopted daughter, this book has something for everyone.
This is a wonderful collection of short stories! Ranging from sci-fi and fantasy to supernatural to a heartwarming story about a woman and her adopted daughter, this book has something for everyone.
October 13, 2016
Amazing collection of stories. All so different but all so well written.
October 19, 2016
A powerful collection of unique, enchanting tales, with a little bit of something for anyone and everyone.
December 17, 2016
I won this book through Goodreads. Very interesting and exciting group of stories. One was better than the next. There is something for everyone.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews