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A Less Disturbing Form of Reality is a short story collection themed around the uncanny and the unexplained. However, there’s something you need to know: It’s not new.

In fact, it’s anything but new. The stories were written between 2008 and 2014, though a handful of them are adaptations of even older stuff I’ve written.

In other words, these are really, really raw. They’re also very unlike my usual literary-fiction style, and even different from my recent short fiction, such as A Summer Evening in Another World and Tell Me, Mariner.

So, why now?

The cover art of A Less Disturbing Form of Reality is something that won’t win any awards. It’s made with Canva and an AI-slapped image…

A Less Disturbing Form of Reality: The Past of Writing

Actually, no; it’s not the past of writing. A Less Disturbing Form of Reality represents an alternative timeline (meta- time!) in my writing. This is the kind of writing I could’ve been doing, if I hadn’t… failed.

Still, yes; it’s the past. As I said, these stories hail from an early era, where my narrative was raw, not evolved yet. The language itself likely contain discrepancies and irregularities. And yet, that’s probably what makes this collection interesting – to me, and perhaps to you.

Genre and Themes

Though ambiguity is certainly central in many of the stories, I hesitate to call the volume Gothic fiction.

Do the stories portray supernatural events? Do they feature demons and ghosts? Perhaps they are simply exemplifications of the frailty of the mind; sad, horrific manifestations of madness. For some stories, it’s easier to reach a conclusion; for others, not.

The stories offered are very diverse, both in terms of setting as well as thematically. Some are set in times long gone, such as “Arrowhead of Time”, or “The Snow-Child”; others are situated in the future, such as “The Fallen”; and in some, such as “The Secret Forest” or “Bleeding Blue”, to talk of the past or the future seems to make little sense.

Then there are stories – “The Mатрёшка Concept” being a typical such text – where the very notion of reality is in doubt. Some stories, such as “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” or “Nothing but Air in a Colorful Balloon” are set on sublime landscapes, the terrible beauty of which inspires both admiration and fear, both attraction and revulsion.

Other stories, conversely, explore the uncanny in mundane, every-day reality – “It’s a Wonderful Lie” becomes an apt example of the real horrors hidden in our societies, our neighborhoods, and sometimes in our own home. 

A Less Disturbing Form of Reality: Affect

Ultimately, the power of such stories – and the ever-present fascination they inspire – lies in the way they intersect with our own, seemingly stable and predictable reality.

In these stories, we recognize behaviors and thoughts, emotions and actions, to which we can relate to; they are fears we have felt, hopes we have had, despair we have experienced. And if, the grand conspiracy winking, these stories are premised on such fundamental constructs of reality and life, what stops them from becoming real in the most literal sense of the word?

Where to Get

A Less Disturbing Form of Reality is not available for sale or a free download. But you can get it from my Patreon shop – it’s also available for download to all paying patrons.