Daniel Ausema
Daniel Ausema writes lyrical tales of other worlds, stories of strangeness and wonder.
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Daniel Ausema's fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications, including Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Diabolical Plots. He is the creator of the steampunk-fantasy Spire City series, set in a city of chained singers and beetle-drawn carriages where the powerless fight back against those with wealth and influence. His latest novel is the first book of The Arcist Chronicles, The Silk Betrayal, published by Guardbridge Books--it is a story of magic and revolution in a caste-based society teetering on the edge of an industrial era. He lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rockies.
Fiction · Posts · Books
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Fiction
Imagination Thief
Published Oct 9, 2020 · 2,827 words (11 minutes) · 42 views
What if a vampire does not drink the blood, but their imaginations? And how might a corrupt ruler make use of such a creature, once discovered?
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Fiction Series: Ongoing 3 Chapters
The Market of Magical Goods
Updated Sep 30, 2020 · 308 words (2 minutes) · 2 likes · 270 views
Fantasy serial Drabble fabulist
Welcome to the Market of Magical Goods, a serial of brief, fabulist visions of wonder, each exactly 100 words long. A shopkeeper offers you a tincture to drip into your left eye. Will you take it?
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Fiction
A Dream of the City's Future
Published Sep 11, 2020 · 1,863 words (7 minutes) · 60 views
In the distant, decaying future--or one possible future, anyway--of the uncanny city of Boskrea, the trees that were once home to a decadent city have fallen into ruin. The descendants of today's city, surviving on what they can scavenge from the ruins, do what they can to leave a mark on their world and the dreams of the past.
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Fiction
The Blood Tree War
Published Aug 14, 2020 · 1,251 words (5 minutes) · 2 likes · 110 views
Fantasy Trees carnivorous plants
Two trees, siblings and rivals, vie to grow strong by drinking the blood of ancient battlefields.
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Fiction
Tree Ring Anthology
Published Jul 10, 2020 · 2,067 words (8 minutes) · 209 views
Fantasy Horror Literary Fiction Trees
The rings of a tree tell a story. For some trees, that means a litany of horrors that have twisted its long life and haunt its space still, even after the tree is harvested. This story was written for the D. F. Lewis-edited Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies as a twist on the theme to expand the image of what an anthology is and might be.
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Fiction
Orgood's Party (an excerpt from Spire City, Season One: Infected)
Published Jun 28, 2020 · 1,560 words (6 minutes) · 144 views
To understand the infection devastating the city, Chels goes to a high society party hosted by Orgood--the mad scientist who created the infection. Leaning into her immigrant heritage, she must pretend to be from her mother's homeland--not the poor street orphan she really is, but the exotic foreigner these wealthy people will expect.
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Fiction
Hometown Hero, Gone for Good
Published Jun 16, 2020 · 513 words (2 minutes) · 2 likes · 156 views
Canthis was a local hero, or a nobody, or maybe a symbol for justice denied. As the invaders approach, conquer, and pass on, the remembrances and rumors shift and adjust.
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Fiction
Seven Ways of Bringing Down the Regime
Published Jun 5, 2020 · 2,137 words (8 minutes) · 7 likes · 665 views
An artist uses all the tools at his disposal to defy an oppressive regime, no matter the cost.
Author Daniel Ausema lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rockies. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, and many more, and he’s also the author of the steampunk-fantasy Spire City series.
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Fiction
Playing Kiwan (excerpt from The Silk Betrayal)
Published May 28, 2020 · 1,269 words (5 minutes) · 164 views
Kiwan is a game of strategy and skill. Pavresh must play the game against the man he wants to be his mentor in arcist magic. The scene is from early in The Silk Betrayal, before intrigue and revolution tear apart everything Pavresh had journeyed to find.
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Fiction
The Gunpowder Resistance
Published May 14, 2020 · 995 words (4 minutes) · 189 views
Fantasy steampunk flash fiction
In the fabled city of beetle-drawn carriages and chained singers, a man tries to find a way to resist the city's foreign occupiers. A brief steampunk adventure set in the same world as the Spire City series, some years after the events of those books.
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