A young man already promising to grow to great size and athleticism, a budding warrior. Once he leaves the failing inn on the edge of the Wastes, he has to make his way in the world. But how? Becoming a mercenary soldier is a good first step, but does he want to follow orders his whole life? Or give them? When Bear meets the mysterious youth called Mouse, he realizes that the two of them together might be able to call their own shots, and live an independent life. ...

We trudged up to the border post in a steady drizzle. Nothing but a dry-stack stone hut beside the road, the post held a single guard, grizzled-looking but tough. She stepped up to the doorway, but not out into the wet. "Welcome to the Barony of Rain," she said. "State your business." She didn't just look tough, she was tough. One guard, facing me and Mouse? Especially when she's closer to Mouse's size than mine? Okay, Mouse doesn't look like much unless you've b...

Justin Willehelm works for a security company, getting along in an ordinary life, until suddenly changing course. His boss blames him for a failed assignment, simmering tensions erupt in his wife leaving, and he's left standing and staring at the Passage River. Running water has always fascinated him, and there's something about this particular river… Justin ends up in the river, and then literally out of the world he worked in. He meets extraordinary people like U...

Some of the best bits: @2019 Kevin Wade Johnson Call me vile. Call me a villain. But I wasn't willing to be a victim. * * * I scuffed at the ground, kicking a dead leaf into the river. It swirled away, caught in the current. I wondered where it was going. I sighed. What I needed to do was stop wondering, and decide where I was going. "You're on your own, leaf," I murmured, but thinking more of myself. * * * I had to look out for her the way s...

I delight in wordplay and wittiness (with what wits I've got). So when the inspiration seized me to write eleven nonsense rhymes, with allusions ranging from Holmes to Vlad(s), some apt (I hope) coined words and a lot of puns and plays on words, I went with it. I've thrown in nine other poems either evocative or emotional (or maybe just fun), and I hope their slight contents provide some light entertainment.

Would you play at wordplay If words would serve as toys? But if your words play you then Would you make only noise? If you would utter falsehoods Would wordplay play you false? If you then play as you would Then gentle life just halts If you would putter round with words Sputter them on out in herds If you would clutter truths with lies Your words—the kind that destroys Faith that words are more than ploys— Flutter off away like sighs Lasting long as butterflies

Shade mammoths, iron buffalo, and dodos; honeyberries, lightning pines, and mistle… It's 1840 in the United States, but a different country from the one we live in. Magic has been known for tens of thousands of years, and the only reason the colonies freed themselves from British domination is that Pennsylvania Rifles outrange the tyrannical power of Mastery. The colonies haven't gotten far into the interior yet; a different man from Thomas Jefferson was born in t...

I stepped into a world o' gold, gold and yellow and orange and all the colors 'twixt 'em, with a hint o' red too. I didn't see no underbrush, nor the scrubbier trees, leavin' only the giants, 'cept they rose on up even higher here, no leaves or branches till hunnerds o' feet up. I could see the stream a mile or so t' the north, same as the world back home, the other burblin' along t' the east, and t' the south the ridge risin' slowly up, all reddish, till it topped out...

Expanded from 3 stories to 65, almost 150,000 words, ranging from my first real effort at a story, to more recent works of humor, horror, fantasy, parallel worlds, time travel, science fiction on libertarian worlds, a superhero tale, a couple of young adult stories, and holiday tales too. These stories were written between 1982 and 2020, and in the course of them I wanted to try a lot of different things. So they range from the very violent You've Seen the Video, Now...

Goblin Hound This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. @2015 Kevin Wade Johnson I got to say my hands were shaking a little bit when I put the leash on ol' Jonesie. "You gotta help me," I told my grampa's dog, "'cause we gotta go looking for the goblin hound." Jonesie just grinned up at me the way she always did, a smiling happy hound the...

A train, stopped on the western plains. A man rides up, on a horse he'd better relinquish. A struggle on board the train; a woman of surprising, even superhuman abilities, and an unconscious man. Who is this woman, named Aimee? For that matter, who is the man who comes to her rescue, named Phineas? How is it her train can travel to parallel worlds? Who are the people who attacked her train? "Beware of false friends, and false enemies." A world called "Aryan Trans...

I ordered staples and stores without any trouble, and went back outside to find a florid fellow questioning the wagon driver. The slave put his deed back in a pocket, and his questioner nodded and strolled over to me. "New in town," he observed. "Passin' through," I replied, pushing my hat back off my forehead. "Come in on that there train?" he said, lifting his chin to point. "Yep," I said. "Right nice," he observed. "Yep," I agreed. "Buyin' food?" "Yep." Why ...

They were left to the study of academics, relegated to the realm of literary criticism. They were dismissed as creations of a poet, remnants of an ancient literary tradition. But they were more than that, far more. Grendel and his mother were living creatures. And they were more than relics. We know, because their descendants live today. We just don't think of them as Grendels anymore. We lump them in with serial killers. And we dismiss any hint of supernatur...

…one, accursed, in man’s guise trod the misery-track of exile, though huger than human bulk. -Gummere, 1351-1354 "This heat is horrid," Butch muttered. I eyed her. We were crouched under camo cloths between a couple of half-dead acacia bushes in an arid, sandy plain, half a mile from a dusty ranch house, the sun beating down on us all. Half an hour ago, my phone had put the West Texas heat at well over 100 degrees. Nothing moved but a loose shutter on the h...

His own mother hasn't been willing to look at him since he was five years old. He and his twin sister have a connection that seems almost psychic. He realizes that close physical contact can let him know what others are thinking as well. His sister's different from most. He's different. But how? And why? He and his sister never knew their father, and their mother won't talk about the man. What they first learn only deepens the mystery. Could that have anything...

Gary McInnes gets his nickname of T-Man not from being transgender (although he meets and befriends a transwoman), but because of uncanny abilities he shows. How are they connected with this very different United States? Or the fact that his mother turns from him? He'll find out...

John Stephen Gray suffers sleepless nights from the memories of mistakes he's made, mistakes he can't forgive himself for. Or, at least, that he's never learned to forgive himself for. But neither he nor his daughter Janna have time to brood when invaders attack his home. In a world of visionaries who have invented such wonders as regeneration tanks, cloned hardwoods and advanced weaponry, they have to find a way to deal with their attackers, and more importantly th...

She ran out of the smoke straight to me. Gunshots and explosions boomed somewhere behind her. Fires flared. Dark-haired, dirty, and dressed drab, same as everyone else here in Bethlehem. Three years old? Four? I wasn't that good with kids then. I was slow. She'd grabbed onto my one leg, choking back sobs, before I could shoot her. Look, sorry, but too many kids were being used in this filthy little "uprising." Some had frag's or incendiaries taped onto them, un...

Parallel worlds touch where two places are so similar that one leads to the other. Only people more perceptive than the norm can sense them, though. Einar follows the much more "knowing" Agnethe from one world to the next, each seeking their destiny.

Snow was falling by the time the sun set, and I soon found myself in the monotonous state I'd been in last night. The frozen crust crumpling just a bit, the sharp wind, feathery with snow, icy against our eyes. No other skin was exposed, but it was once again too dark for the goggles. Winter nights have a certain, stark beauty. This far north, the nights last for hour upon hour; on a clear night, the stars glitter brilliantly. This clouded night, with the snow falli...

A science fiction novella with a political undertone, looking at what virtually unlimited power does, and how it might have been used over the years from 1934 into the 2010s

"[I]f the scientists are correct, the worlds out there are parallel to ours. Well, not parallel, but branches from the same tree, from the same history. … "Worlds where Tesla never heard about Yellowstone while visiting Colorado in 1903, never had his imagination fired by descriptions of 'Coulter's Hell,' never had the fundamental inspiration for the Tesla Field."

A woman whose great loves in life are talking, taking her nieces on vacations to interesting places, and taking in strays, has unlikely experiences, becoming a hero? How unlikely is that? She, her young nieces, and various strays save the family, the space program, the world, the solar system, and, heck, even the universe? And they all become heroes? How unlikely is that? From Yellowstone to the National Hall of Statuary…cascarones…Old McDonald…sitcoms…"xanthic sh...

The three of them had stood at their places, along with all the senators and representatives, waiting for the new president to arrive. They'd stood. And stood. Graciella whispered, "Aunt Gabby, can't we sit down yet?" "We have to wait for the President." "Why?" "It's a sign of respect." "Oh. My feet hurt." After a moment, Graciella added, "Would Rosa Parks have done this?" "I think she would have, dear." But a few moments later, the President swe...