In the Arms of Lachiga: Stories

Introduction

Introduction

Most of the following stories first appeared elsewhere, in some form or another, and as such I owe each of their respective editors a debt of gratitude: “In the Arms of Lachiga,” from which this book gets its title, was originally published in Heir Apparent: Digital Science Fiction Anthology 4—which became an Amazon #1 bestseller in the Science Fiction Anthologies category just days after its release—and received editorial comments from Christine Clukey, who helped make the piece far better than I ever could have on my own.

“El Mirador” appeared in the first volume of Thomas K. Carpenter’s Mirror Shards augmented-reality anthology series, from Black Moon Books, while “An Apocalypse of Her Own, One Day” was published in the series’ second volume.

“Headcase” and “Touching from a Distance” both appeared in Matt Edginton’s The Glass Parachute, an anthology of science fiction stories from Villipede Publications; “We’ll Own the Stars” can be found online at Villipede’s website.

“Moonbound” was also first published online, at Michael Paul Gonzalez’s superb electronic magazine ThunderDome.

The remaining three stories, “Where All Roads Meet,” “War Dogs,” and “To Meet the Light” have never been published elsewhere, and are exclusive to this e-book collection.

The four-story arc beginning with “Headcase” and ending with “Touching from a Distance” is something I’ve referred to over the past couple years as my “Lachiga continuity,” for lack of a better term, and began with the titular “In the Arms of Lachiga”—my first foray into the somewhat nebulous but fertile ground of postcyberpunk literature.

I hope you’ll find, as I did, that there’s still plenty to be explored in the realms of virtual reality, augmented reality, and both trans- and posthumanism.