The Humble Ovix and the Changes Wrought in Her Form - The Journal of Anther Strein

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The ovix echidna is farmed throughout Proesus for its meat, milk and eggs. This has been happening for a very long time, far longer than any surviving record has existed. The ovix’s diet – somewhat expanded, depending on those keeping it – ordinarily consists of ants, termites, and the larvae of other insects. Many who keep ovices also keep an ant farm as feed. The most common choice is the friendly ant (Amicus utilis), a species which has itself been thoroughly domesticated.

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The Habits and Hazards of the Mighty Rowax Ape - The Journal of Anther Strein

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The rowax may be the only remaining species of ape. Muscle-bound, with greyish skin and a coating of red hair, the rowax can stand as tall as six metres. Allied to a fierce and burning curiosity, an intellect ranking high among the beasts of Proesus, and a general lack of inhibition in directing each of these attributes toward the harm of others, one begins to see how the ape may pose a serious danger.

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The Austia of Leafshrine - The Journal of Anther Strein

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This is my last week in the village of Leafshrine, a tiny community of Austia (Teensies explorator) deep in the Erefal Woods. Although I have worked with Austia before, I have never spent so prolonged a period living among them. The Austia, as a civilized species, have endured discrimination from as far back as history goes - owing chiefly, I believe, to their insectoid nature.

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On Concurrent Cake Decoration for Divorce Ceremonies

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In Haber, cake decoration takes place during the ceremony, artistically incorporating events and symbols important to the couple. Lesha is the cake artist at a divorce ceremony where a clash of cultures results in disaster.

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Foreword - The Journal of Anther Strein

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When I first heard of Anther Strein, and of the famous Theory for which she is chiefly responsible, I was sitting in a lecture hall at the University of Manifold. I was about to fall asleep. I was wrenched rudely back to full consciousness by the sheer audacity of the assertions being made before me. Only once I had assured myself that the words emanating from the professor at the front of the room were not, in fact, generated by my own semi-conscious hallucination, but were uttered in complete sincerity, did I begin to realise the full impact of what I was hearing. The elegance of Anther’s ideas and the fundamental truth behind them struck me deeply; they cast new insight on everything I knew of the living world. I wished immediately that I had learnt of them much earlier.

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The Journal of Anther Strein

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Anther Strein is a travelling naturalist in the science fantasy world of Pendant. In her studies of the astounding animals and plants of her surroundings, a question has often nagged her - how did such diversity come to exist, and how does it adapt to the ever-shifting conditions of the natural world? A dangerous idea is forming at the back of her mind: one in which gradual change, rather than instantaneous creation, is the main driving force of the natural world.

Join Anther on her journey across the continent of Proesus, as she records her observations of bizarre animals and plants and unravels the mysterious relationships between life, magic and natural selection in an enchanted world.

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Some kind of trout

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The fish was minding her own business when a fissure opened in the ice above her, and she was sucked unceremoniously upward.

She wasn’t really a fish, of course. But she had fins, she had gills, her shape was ideal for slicing through Europa’s subsurface oceans. The obvious difference, biochemistry aside, was her lack of eyes, and some deep-water Earth fish don’t have those anyway.

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Legacy - Sign of the Limbless

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This symbol has a few different meanings throughout my Legacy universe (under construction). Within the universe's fictional history, it's been passed down from civilisation to civilisation, symbolising different things to each.

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North Richmond Street

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North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when, after a daily seven-hour stretch of tedium, they finally let us loose. For the last hour us kids minded more the clock than the chalkboard. The yellow light of the sinking sun would warm our yawning faces, a signal to our brains to shut down; one old Mr Malone, droning on at the head of the class, was somehow insensate to.

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Cappuccino

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“Medium cappuccino.”
The grinder released a small pile of grounds into the handle. Dan tamped the pile smooth, then jammed the handle into its socket. As the coffee trickled through he steamed the milk, tiny bubbles rising to froth. He poured a stream into the cup with the coffee and affixed a lid.
“Medium cappuccino!”  

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The Quarry 11: Polygraph

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A new issue of The Quarry, with a fascinating concept! It's all flash fiction or non-fiction, but which is which? It's up to you to guess.

My piece is here:

Legs off an Ant

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