As this year comes to a close, I remain awestruck that I managed to get six short stories published. As an emerging writer, I am proud of the work I have done and very grateful to all of the wonderful editors and publishers who have provided a platform for my art. Below, I list my stories and provide synopses (and behind the scenes info) in order of priority for awards eligibility consideration. Thank you for supporting SFFH writers.
“Somnambulist” (Reckoning 6)
They had survived extinction before. They could survive it again.
E.G. Condé
Synopsis: The last remnant of the Taíno awakens in the cosmos to rekindle the flora and fauna of extinct Caribbean archipelagoes, but horrifying abominations of techno-capitalism stand in their way.
- Somnambulist (2022), Reckoning (🎧) | Science Fantasy & Indigenous Futurism | ~ 2,500 words
Author’s Note: I envision this as the first of a far-future story cycle (Taínofuturism) where Taíno Cemís & Yoruban Orishas must wrest the cosmos from the vestiges of a vast techno-capitalist empire.
“Sumerki” (Tree and Stone: Queer as F Issue 2)
I can still remember the pyres where they heaped the “apostates” they used as scapegoats to explain why the world was burning. But it was not God or queers that made the world hot.
E.G. Condé
Synopsis: A Novemberist revolutionary defends his Siberian homeland from a neo-monarchist regime that has risen in Petrograd in the aftermath of climate disaster.
- Sumerki (2022), Tree & Stone | Queer Military Science Fiction | ~ 3,500 words
Author’s Note: An entry in the vast interconnected web of my story universe, the events of this story are referenced in my forthcoming novella, SORDIDEZ. With its queer characters, I see this story as an intervention to a subgenre of SF that tends to be hypermasculine and heternormative.
“Sidereal” (Solarpunk Magazine Issue #6 Lunarpunk)
Things had been good before the aliens came.
E.G. Condé
Synopsis: In the island formerly known as Puerto Rico, a pair of sisters lead a Taíno chiefdom that can no longer thrive under the light of their sun due to a climate change technofix gone terribly wrong.
- Sidereal (2022), Solarpunk Magazine | Lunarpunk | ~ 4,500 words
Author’s Note: This story is based on a Taíno myth cycle that explains the origins of day and night, and the sun and the moon, respectively. The story directly overlaps with the events of my forthcoming novella SORDIDEZ, featuring some of its characters. *Please note that this story is currently only available for purchase.
“Skylark” (EASST Review)
There isn’t even a whisper of birds anymore. This world is quiet. Empty. Like the blank, barren sky, bereft of those formless flocks of white that now only live in memory.
E.G. Condé
Synopsis: A climate scientist recounts the tragic disappearance of clouds from the world and his failure to understand their true nature.
- Skylark (2022), EASST Review | Climate Fiction |~ 2,000 words
Author’s Note: This story is a narrative expansion and adaptation of a collaborative speculative film project I helped create called “World Without Clouds“. This story was the winner of the EASST Science Fiction Sub plenary Short Story competition.
“Sonoran” (If There’s Anyone Left Vol. 2)
Sometimes I remember the shadows of vaulting hawks cascading over rosy buttes, I remember the sun, when it was not yet too bright to see.
E.G. Condé
Synopsis: A botched climate technofix has depleted the ozone layer resulting in the Bright. A disillusioned construction drone operator devises a way to survive beyond the UV-shielded walls of their city.
- Sonoran (2022), If There’s Anyone Left | Climate Fiction |~ 1,000 words
Author’s Note: This was my first story acceptance so it has a special place in my heart. It is the first installment in my universe of near-future climate fiction. *Please note that it is currently only available to read in print or ebook.
“The Fulminous” (Sword & Sorcery Magazine)
Over the course of his long life, many of his elder kin had fallen ill, their bodies withering as they transformed into the Fulminous, ascending past the weepers to the ever-torch, where they would begin their drumming, spawning again as the blue serpents that now brilliantly illuminated the ebon vale.
E.G. Condé
Synopsis: A legendwalker teams up with an unlikely ally to protect his people’s way of life and secure the future of his ancestors who have become sapient lightning.
- The Fulminous (2022), Sword & Sorcery | Fantasy |~ 5,000 words
Author’s Note: This is my first published Fantasy story and my only story set in a secondary world.
E.G. Condé 