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    J Alan Erwine's Tales of Twisted Realities
    J Alan Erwine's Tales of Twisted Realities
    J Alan Erwine's Tales of Twisted Realities
    Ebook57 pages50 minutes

    J Alan Erwine's Tales of Twisted Realities

    By J Alan Erwine

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    About this ebook

    Science fiction author J Alan Erwine has always had a twisted view of reality, and now he’s chosen to share that twisted view with his readers.

    This collections features stories about an astronaut who has suffered brain damage and can no longer distinguish between the realities in his mind and the realities of the world...a man obsessed with the concept of entropy and what it might be doing to our universe...the last man on Earth trying to cope with his dilemma, but is he really the very last man on Earth...a pothead netrunner who can’t decide what’s more important to him, his pot, or his work...a soldier who is slowly going crazy and is sent to a computer therapist, but which one of them is actually crazy...and parents who hear their child begging to die, and are then shocked when the devil shows up to grant the child his wish.

    These six stories will have you questioning what reality is, and what we can possibly do with it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJ Alan Erwine
    Release dateJun 16, 2016
    ISBN9781311415615
    J Alan Erwine's Tales of Twisted Realities
    Author

    J Alan Erwine

    J Erwine was born Oct. 15, 1969 in Akron, Ohio. Early in his life he was exposed to science, and specifically astronomy. From there on, J's passion turned to science fiction, a passion that's never died. Due to family issues, J eventually found himself in Denver, Colorado, where he still lives (well, right outside now.) From the time he could put subject and predicate together on paper, J has been writing stories. None of those early stories exist anymore (thankfully), but that passion for writing has never waned. After several years of rejection, the story Trek for Life was eventually sold to ProMart Writing Lab editor James Baker. It wasn't Asimov's, but it was a start. Since that time J has sold more than forty short stories to various small press publishers. In addition ProMart also published a short story collection of J's entitled Lowering One's Self Before Fate, and other stories, which is still available. ProMart also published a novel from J entitled The Opium of the People, which sold a few copies before going out of print. The relevance of the novel after the events of September 11th caused J to self-publish the novel, as he felt the story had a lot to say in the new reality we now find ourselves living in. Now, this same book has been re-released by Nomadic Delirium Press. Eventually J would become an editor with ProMart. Then, after the untimely death of ProMart editor James Baker, J would move on to ProMart's successor Sam's Dot Publishing. He currently works as the managing editor for Nomadic Delirium Press. J also spends most of his time working as a freelance writer and editor. J's novel was voted a top ten finisher in the 2003 annual Preditors & Editors contest, and his short story The Galton Principle won a ProMart contest for best story over 5,000 words. In addition, a number of his stories have been voted "best of" in various issue of The Martian Wave and The Fifth DI… and have been included in Wondrous Web Worlds Vols. 2, 3, 4, and 6. In 2009, the Ephemeris Role Playing Game was released. J is the co-creator of this game, and has written numerous supplements for the game. J currently has three novels and four short story collections available, and yes, they're all available from Smashwords. J currently lives with his amazing wife, three wonderful children, three crazy cats and a very quiet turtle.

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      Book preview

      J Alan Erwine's Tales of Twisted Realities - J Alan Erwine

      J Alan Erwine’s

      Tales of Twisted Realities

      Published by J Alan Erwine at Smashwords

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All stories appearing in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

      All stories Copyright: J Alan Erwine

      CONTENTS

      Reality

      Entropy

      Nobody’s Home

      A Chronic Mistake

      Sim-Shrink

      Living in the Styx

      REALITY

      Gerard Anderson stared out the window of the lumbering truck at the falling snowflakes. The storm, if you could call it that, seemed to be intensifying. The dancing of the snow had turned into a frenzied movement of chaos, but he could still see everything around him. The storm couldn’t be that bad. Hills rose to his left, while off to the right, the Muskingum River continued its slow and plodding progress towards the Ohio River. As far as Gerard could tell, there wasn’t any ice on the surface yet.

      What am I doing here, he asked himself, running his hand over the coarse red stubble covering his skull. Slowly, the events began to coalesce in his mind for him. There had been the space station he was helping to build. He remembered it vividly; the glorious sun rises over the fragile limb of the Earth. Nothing could take that memory from his mind. But with the memory of the sunrise also came the memory of the accident that had almost cost him his life. After the accident, there’d been the doctors, the needles, and then finally his plunge from a fourth story window to escape the torture the doctors had been subjecting him to.

      A blinding flash of pain shot through skull, and he remembered everything, or at least he thought he did. His job with the Agency and the accident, which the doctors said had caused brain damage, were all a bad dream. They had to be. He couldn’t have been building a pace station in orbit of Earth. That planet had died 200 years earlier.

      Another blinding flash of pain wracked his brain as he passed the corporation limit sign of McConelsville, Ohio. The same houses he’d grown up with were all still there. They may have had a new paint job, but even the colors the owners had chosen were the same as they’d been in his youth. The new bridge, why it was called that he didn’t know, still led to the bustling metropolis of Malta. For the most part, nothing looked different to Gerard, but then nothing ever seemed to change in this sleepy little town.

      Amazing, the driver said, drawing Gerard out of his reverie. He hadn’t paid much attention to the woman when she’d picked him up, and looking at her, he regretted that. She was more than beautiful; she was stunning. It’s almost the middle of the 21st century, she continued, and these people haven’t even left the 20th yet. I mean, look around you. No moving walkways, no shuttle pads, and only two roads for electronic craft like mine. Why don’t these people get with the times?

      This is a nice place, was Gerard’s only reply, which got him an odd stare from the driver. He didn’t care. He was home.

      Home amid the towering red and purple cliffs. Cliffs? he asked himself. In McConelsville? No, McConelsville was only a figment of his overactive imagination. He was on Epsilon Eridani 2, and he knew it. Slowly, Gerard gazed up at the towering cliffs. The large sphere that was Epsilon Eridani crept towards its zenith just above the cliffs, while birds glided gracefully through the eddies of the air currents.

      Gerard

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