Category Archives: fantasy

Maybe, just maybe…

Posted on April 7, 2026 by Mark Hayes

A storm is brewing in the mid Atlantic and the airship Maybe’s Daughter is caught up in the middle of it. Benjamin West is hanging from a cargo net after someone tried to kill him. Eliza Tu-Pa-KA is trying to save the airship, unaware of West’s plight. Meanwhile in a realm beyond the mortal world, the soul of a dead man faces a stark choice.

Hopefully Perkins will put the kettle on before it all goes too far… Continue reading →

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Not Committing Ritualised Murder

Posted on April 6, 2026 by Mark Hayes

The first bit of news is of a Free anthology. Yes FREE, on kindle and Smashwords and other places. Now normally the moment I talk about a free book I develop a nervous tick because no book is free, it all costs the writers, editors and publishers those most vital of resources, time and energy. Giving books away for free feels like a betrayal of the artist and a betrayal of the art… It is part of the malaise of the industry, because no one truly values that which is free*. However in this case the free anthology was created specifically to be free. It was also, ahem, my idea… Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar 53 ~ The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade

Posted on January 29, 2026 by Mark Hayes

Truth, as the old saying goes, is stranger than fiction. It is also on occasion harder to believe. Fiction has the advantage of the internal logic of the story. Truth has to actually be true, even if that truth is … Continue reading →

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Pagan Lines

Posted on January 20, 2026 by Mark Hayes

She utters words of honeyed violence to sooth the savage at her breast.

I harken to her words, but they are as nothing to me. Garbled sounds, senseless, meaningless. Words from across the whale road. Words from the lands of the cross carriers. The land where they worship the murdered god. Continue reading →

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Preludes in Obscurum

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Mark Hayes

Hello and welcome to what will eventually become the year of the Rusty Hobbyhorse in mid February. While we are now in 2026 it is still the year of the Distressed Snakeskin Belt for a little longer. However, weary travelers, I bring you news of some import before the celestial cladder turns once more. To wit, to help you through the cold darkness of winter there are two new releases coming your way in which to feast this eyes and feed you imagination. Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar 45 ~ A Tale of the Ragged Mountains

Posted on October 31, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Science Fiction is awash with tales of procession or bodily transference… This one by Poe, may have been the first Continue reading →

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3 Turns Widdleshin’s: For she is Devine

Posted on October 9, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Whom ‘She’ is, is a matter for your conjecture. She could be ‘The Sibel’ of ancient Rome. She could just be a woman who claims that is the case to add mystic to her illegal den of vice and corrupted youth. A dark forbidding goth club named for an ancient standing stone. Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar 42 ~ The Black Cat

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Pluto the cat was not named for Pluto the planet. Pluto the planet was not discovered until 1930 (though one suspects it was always there…) which was almost ninety years after this story was written. Continue reading →

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New Book, Conventions, and an update

Posted on July 4, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Occasionally, just occasionally, everything all comes at once. Which is why I have an ear infection, am currently deaf on my left side, feel like curling up in a dark room under a blanket, just as I have the busiest … Continue reading →

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Maybe Tuesday

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Mark Hayes

In another universe, where a man in a small lab in China didn’t drop a non-descript vail on the floor (allegedly) on a Tuesday in late 2019, the release of my 2020 novel ‘Maybe’ might have gone differently. It must have been a Tuesday when he dropped the vial, these things always happen on a Tuesday. No one ever accidently changed the course of history on a Monday. Continue reading →

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