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
Seasons in a Moon Ocean
Published Apr 6, 2021 · 368 words (2 minutes) · 29 views
Rhysling-nominated poem about the scientists who study the seasonal patterns of a watery moon somewhere.
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Fiction Series: Ongoing 9 Chapters
The Market of Magical Goods
Updated Mar 26, 2021 · 944 words (4 minutes) · 3 likes · 1780 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 Map is not the World
Published Mar 6, 2021 · 4,196 words (16 minutes) · 67 views
On a plain where war is sacred and eternal, the soldier Sai becomes high priest of a religion that worships war itself. Meanwhile four mapwalkers try to escape the unmapped region they've come to by mistake, reading their way out to places that are known and named.
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Fiction
The Square That Hides a Thousand Stories
Published Feb 7, 2021 · 2,774 words (11 minutes) · 110 views
Tsantau is sent to retrieve a relic said to continue its own story. To understand it, he must break the relic apart.
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Fiction
The Romantic and the Pragmatist, Biking
Published Jan 11, 2021 · 16 words (1 minute) · 123 views
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Fiction
Peace, a Triptych
Published Dec 11, 2020 · 906 words (4 minutes) · 159 views
Fantasy Literary Fiction flash fiction
A poetic story of peace in the face of despair.
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Fiction
Lumberjill
Published Nov 12, 2020 · 4,031 words (15 minutes) · 274 views
Lumberjill, the niece of a famous lumberjack, travels to the Great North Woods--or what's left of them. She is very clever, but the fauna of the forest is unlike anything she's ever known, with many quirky creatures living in the remnants of uncut timber, most of them inspired by Jorge Luís Borges' account of the creatures supposed to live there.
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Fiction
Imagination Thief
Published Oct 9, 2020 · 2,827 words (11 minutes) · 1 like · 199 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
A Dream of the City's Future
Published Sep 11, 2020 · 1,863 words (7 minutes) · 191 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 · 275 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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