18 speculative short stories… A lyrical and literary approach to genre-based fiction A father and his young son face a choice—risk their lives by extending kindness to a person who is not permitted to exist or risk their souls by walking on. In a dark and starless world where magical creatures are hunted and destroyed, a captive girl’s courage sets in motion a wish that will change the skyscape forever. Even though the world declares her son dead, a relentless mother casts a lifeline into an icy lake, day after day, to rescue the child swallowed by its waters. A microbiologist’s sanity is questioned when he discovers a technology-borne parasite that threatens most of the world’s population. An android is charged with apprehending a rogue time traveler whose innovations have distorted history so much that the fate of the world rests on his capture. Aware that she was created with the purpose of dying upon another’s command, a clone struggles to find her strength, and her life, in a world that deems her sub-human. Forced to weigh the value of one individual life against the lives of many, a scientist from a dying planet confronts her own morality and the ‘core truths’ driving her choices and her actions. CORE TRUTHS: Speculative literary fiction that gleans its energy from the fantastical, making us think about who we are as people, about those Core Truths that govern the lives we choose to live.