Published!

The Backward Traveler  is now available as a book of 12 short stories.

Check out the Kindle edition on Amazon- The Backward Traveler.

The Backward Traveler will be on promotion on Amazon, and available for free from 18-22 June 2014.  Be sure to obtain your free edition during the promotion.  Give it a read.  If you enjoy it, recommend or gift it to your friends.

 

Feedback and commentary are welcome, both on these pages and directly with the author – intrepidmars@outlook.com.

 

 

 

Your interest and patronage are appreciated.  The Backward Traveler Volume II is already in the works.  Perhaps a continuation of a tale or two from the first, but surely another collection from otherly worlds.

Welcome to the reading gallery of fiction by A.I. Mars.  Be sure to check out the short story collection, available on Amazon.

The Egyptians referred to Mars as The Backward Traveler.  Mars travels in the same direction and is in the same plane of the solar system as Earth.  It looks like it is transiting the sky in reverse at times,  as a matter of our terrestrial perspective.  The stories I have created and present for you follow this concept.  It often feels familiar.  But as Mars travels the sky at times, so do stories turn and show something that perhaps doesn’t seem possible.

There are a few works on these pages; two stories for readers here, not included in The Backward Traveler, as well as the historical fiction piece which is a tragedy, set in feudal Japan.

Thanks for coming.

A.I. Mars

© 2014 A.I. Mars

Stories to read on Intrepid Mars–

Götterdämmerung

A long helo flight.  Landscape and missions, so many the same.  The vibration and thrumming of the rotors let the mind drift.  That’s when it’s possible to see the crack in the sky under the clouds.  Twilight of the Gods.  Is the mission a flight, a dream, or something else?

PG. Fiction/Sci-Fi.  1600 words.

The Return of the Dark Horseman

He’s coming.  He’s not returned for seven years; five before that.  The space that rides above his collar is a stomach-churning void where judgment resides.  First the ominous fog, that comes from the darkness at the edges of the town.  It moves and laps against the doors.  Then the thundering of the hooves of his monstrous black mount are the herald of his approach.  The townspeople know the demand; the fog  finds them, squeezes them,  until they comply and stand with the others, along the street,  heads down, eyes squeezed shut.

The Dark Horseman has returned.  Judgment is at hand.

PG-13.  Juvenile to adult,  horror/fantasy/fairy tale.  1500 words.

Battle Flags

It is feudal Japan. A time of an undercurrent of warfare and conflict that skirmishes under the governance of unification- The Shogun. The lord of a seemingly inconsequential province receives demand of loyalty from powerful, opposing lords. Despite his attempt to remain neutral from what is pending war, he is drawn into the conflict, but to what extent, he has yet to discover.

Lord Hirayama received the royal command- a demand to meet in the glen at daybreak. His fate, that of his men, that of his people and province, will be shown in that meeting. But who will be the others at the gathering demanded by the regional governor? A hostile, aggressive clan who burns for vengeance in repudiation for his refusal to take sides? Or the stalwart lord of his closest neighboring estate, whose chances at victory are slim.

The meeting may hold a command of death; or a penance so severe that to comply would bring a shame worse than death. The report of the emissaries is incredible, and filled with intrigue. Tragedy. The Lord sits calmly in the glen, awaiting his fate. The riders approach-

PG.  Action/drama, military historical fiction.  9300 words.