Short Fiction

“Brigid and the Snakes”

Intergalactic Rejects

Calendar of Fools (2025)
ISBN-13: 979-8989406029
ASIN: B0F79RF23R

“Brigid and the Snakes” is a fantasy alternate history by Jean Marie Ward. Brigid prevents Patrick from cursing Ireland while not thinking through the consequences of a spell he had been working, only to inadvertently inspire Patrick to bring snakes to the island through a magical transformation.

C.D. Lewis, Tangent Online

This anthology is a treasure trove of the unusual, written for writers and by writers.

Wendy S. Delmater, Abyss and Apex

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“A Taste of Paradise”*
“The Nameless Stranger”*
“The Sultan’s Bath”
“Dragon Trap”
“Pas de Demons”*
“Brownies”

Dragon’s Cats, and Formidable Femmes

Ginger Blue Publishing (2024)
Hardcover ISBN-13: 979-8887870403
Paperback ISBN-13: 979-8887870267
ASIN: B0D127DCQL

*Tangent Online 2024 Recommended Read

“The Alien Method”

Familiars

Zombies Need Brains (2024)
ASIN: B0D11WYXCG
ISBN-13: 978-1940709734

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Zombies Need Brains

“Ouanna’s Rock”

The Eye of Argon and the Further Adventures of Grignr the Barbarian

Fantastic Books (2022)
ISBN-13: 978-1-5154-4788-7

Another, “Oanna’s Rock” [sic] by Jean Marie Ward, is likewise a nicely plotted heroic fanaasy, but unlike Hildy Silverman she was unable to make herself strew her tale with spelling errors and goofy grammatical absurdities, so it is essentially Thiess played straight, somewhat of a different kettle of fish.

Robert Silverberg, Asimov’s Science Fiction, January/February 2024

Fantastic books

“Fire Sale”

The Modern Diety’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Zombies Need Brains (2021)
ASIN: B094NXCTRB
ISBN-978-1940709390

(Reprinted in the collection Dragons, Cats, and Formidable Femmes.)

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Zombies Need Brains

“The Wrong Refrigerator”

Asimov’s Science Fiction

September/October 2018
Vol, 42, Numbers 9 and 10
Dell Magazines

[‘The Wrong Refrigerator’] was just a perfect little story with just the perfect ending!

Sam Tomaino for SFRevu

The Wrong Refrigerator’ is a fantasy which applies ‘quantum entanglement’ to people and tangles that up with time travel as a woman who wants kids to paper over her unhappy marriage finds herself connected to an old flame who has been ‘killed’ in a scientific experiment gone awry (akin to Larson’s recent ‘Carouselling’). Things come to a head when her husband tries to trade her to his boss for a promotion. (Oddly this story references Jessica Rabbit but made me think of what little I’ve seen of Peggy Sue Got Married.)

Jason for Featured Reviews

Also mentioned by:
Greg Hullender for Rocket Stack Rank
Kevin P. Hallet for Tangent
Editor Sheila Williams’s recap of Asimov’s original fiction offerings for 2018

(Reprinted in the collection Dragons, Cats, and Formidable Femmes.)
(Translated into Mandarin for Science Fiction World: Translations, September 2020.)