I’ve written a handful of fictional works. Here is a list of some of them. The versions on this website are “canonical,” although many have been crossposted to other sites, such as the following:
General Fiction
I’ve written the following standalone works, unattached to any specific setting:
- The February Crisis, 16,314 words, uploaded and first published here on January 31, 2023. I began working on this story in the summer of 2021. It started as a thought exercise in response to my seeing a few episodes of the show Designated Survivor. What would really happen if the State of the Union were attacked, I wondered. By January of 2022, I had a near-future, speculative political thriller that I was nearly ready to publish. Then real life got in the way. A year later, I’m finally ready, although I don’t know how well the speculative part holds up. I tried to be as accurate as possible on legal and constitutional matters, though surely errors crept in.
Shard Web Universe
The Shard Web is a nontraditional fantasy universe that the following of my works are set in:
- The Second Lord’s Madness, 23,944 words, uploaded here on December 4, 2022. This story was dreamt up as a result of me binging through Gogol’s and Pu Songling’s short stories. I soon thereafter realized that I could not do justice to either, but I kept writing anyway. A rough draft was first published here under the pen name “Matthew Komarev” from February to March of 2021. Yes, this pen name, in combination with the Gogol inspiration, led to people mistakenly assuming that I was Russian.
- Zeki’s Folly, 22,883 words, uploaded here on December 4, 2022. This story, in contrast, does not have a clear source of inspiration. If anything, it’s more of an excuse to dump worldbuilding lore for the Shard Web. Oh, and the main characters have RNG Ethiopian names, instead of RNG Russian names. (I’m also fairly sure that I used a bad reference on how to combine those names with formal titles.) A rough draft—basically the same text—was first published here under the pen name “Matthew Komarev” from June to July of 2021.