Top 50 Stories, by Weekly Downloads

A boy on a Wyoming ranch catches a prize and learns a hard lesson.

'The world went white' is flash story I wrote as an exercise earlier this year. There's no sex, just a lot of blood and guts. The aim was to write a short piece about the last two people in the world. This was my take on the subject. It is very tongue in cheek and was a piece that I had a lot of fun writing.

Set in the 1950's, young shaman Graydon Williams and friends are caught up in a massive corporate land-grab scheme that threatens their entire way of life. Corrupt government officials, interstate conspiracies, blackmail, vicious IRS attacks, and kidnapping are unleashed against Graydon and his small mountain valley. This is a follow-on to "Pasayten Pete," involving the original cast and more. Readers are advised to read "Pasayten Pete" to understand the origins.

A Knox family story (1)
Part of the Enfield Undrowned universe
Will you be content to drift from situation to situation, to sail the course charted for you by others, or will you take charge of your life and chart your own course? For Jeff Knox, a teenager about to start high school in Enfield, Massachusetts, choosing to take charge of his life will affect more lives than just his own.

a young group growing up in early ranch life in Oregon

Dexter James is fed up with his job. For ten years he has put in long hours, worked for jerks, and received no rewards for a job well done. Then one day he says no to a temporary promotion. The fallout of that one little action will change the world.

Always stay heads-up, and have a Plan B: leave yourself a way out. A true story.

A simple training exercise with brand new fighter aircraft goes very wrong when some thieves are where they shouldn't be and get mistaken for the target drones. The resulting explosion has many consequences for everyone involved, and Will March ends up living in some turbulent times in another era. Read how Will survives those first few years which are the dangerous beginnings of his new life. 65,000 words of action adventure.

Thomas Tregonney has served the railway well and faithfully. When the railway is closed, what else should he do?

Sequel to "Masi'shen Stranded" -- Michael Hawthorne and Dee'rah evolve to become ambassadors seeking to link two worlds across the galaxy. Earth recognizes the chance for global peace, but a corrupt American president threatens them all with nuclear nightmare as a ploy to rule the nation. Old enemies become allies, and old alliances fall apart. Will humankind survive to achieve a future in the stars?

Pasayten Pete is an obscure north Cascades legend. As a boy growing up in the Methow Valley, Graydon Williams heard tell that Pasayten Pete was a hermit, a lost prospector, or even a creature not-human and not-animal. No one claimed to have seen him or knew anyone who had seen him, but everyone seemed to believe there was something to the legend. Graydon lived the real story.

The Human Series (1)
You can't hide from your past forever, but it's easier if you're a foster kid in rural West Texas. Scott MacIntyre was different in more ways than even he knew. (this was my first attempt at writing a novel)

Andy Drayton was having a hellish day and it looked to turn worse when he almost ran into a car on the highway. But then Regan Riley — a girl light-years out of his league — entered his life.

Burl is a security guard at a local mall. He's the kind of guy that woman like as friends, but nothing more than that. As everyone says, he's a nice guy.

16 y/o Hal Smith is a quiet, unassuming Australian teen boy with a bad knee and no dreams. Taught to help people, he does; without thinking before acting. In Year Ten in a new city and school, it's a year of living in interesting times as he's in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the right thing. He'd once dreamt of being a world athlete and had the skills to make them true, but lost them helping a stranger; and delivered a Star Performance greater than most athletes can ever do.

Whilst on a business trip to the big city, a guy decides to take a look at the neighbourhood that he grew up in, just for old times sake.

The Human Series (2)
Scott MacIntyre, the unusual foster kid raised on a boys ranch in West Texas, joined the Marines at the end of Human Phoenix. In the sequel, Human Man, he's all grown up and ready to make a life for himself.

How far will governments go when you have something they want? All Waylon Eckermann wanted to do was to go to college and figure out the rest of his life. It wasn't going to be that easy, not even with a little extragalactic help.

John Taylor (2)
A National Guard armory has been destroyed in west Texas, and all eyes turn to a possible terrorist attack by a missing soldier. The agents in charge of the investigation refuse to listen to soldier's mother, forcing her to turn to Taylor to clear her son's name. As he digs up clues of a frame-up and hints of a much more sinister motive behind the explosion, Taylor races to stop an even greater tragedy. (Story is complete and posts every Wed)

The Masi'shen crash-landed on Antarctica 2,000 years ago. Their ship lies under the ice on a volcanic island. It has been detected by a spy satellite. The U.S. government, the Russian mafia, and a volunteer rescuer race to get there first.

A Rivers Region Story
A young man with a unique heritage that guides his destiny has to deal with many hard issues starting with the murder of his father while 10 years of age. We follow his life for the next decade while he works to survive, protect his heritage, and fight the man he holds responsible for his father's death. He's more than what he seems, and strives to meet all his responsibilities. Set in Australia.

Pudgy, out of shape, divorced, and laid-off; Colin thought he had hit rock-bottom. Then came the landslide that almost sent him to his grave. In the depths of despair, miles from nowhere, he searches for a way to get back to civilization and finds that his service is required in a totally unexpected role - as the person who will save the human race from destruction.

An Australian schoolboy discovers he can move small objects with his mind. His family moves to Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA and he uses his special skill to 'win' money at casinos. His exceptional skills at winning bring him some unwanted attention from some people, including the Department of Homeland Security. He objects to their actions and soon a state of war exists between his family and the DHS (and the people behind them). The odds are heavily in favour of one side - but which side?

Getting tired of waiting for death to come claim him, Tracer decides to go out into the world. Once there he gets caught up in a war and a prophecy. One way or the other he will find his peace.

A young couple deals with the fall of civilization. If you cross them there will be hell to pay.

John Taylor (4)
John Taylor had finally gotten his life put back together. He was living with his girlfriend, FBI Agent Loretta Whitaker, and was in the process of adopting the girl who'd returned with him from Russia. He had put the past behind him. or so he thought. Qasim, the man who'd held him in the desert for three years and tortured him every day, was back and in the US. Now Taylor must stop him from committing his next act of Terror. Can Taylor bury his past once and for all?(New Posts Every Sat)

Paul McAllister wants nothing more than to put the wars, cancer, and death of his wife behind him as he numbly glides into his final years doing the only thing he still enjoys - selling weapons and his services as a gunsmith on the gun show circuit of the American southwest. Driving down the road in the Mesilla Valley of southern New Mexico Paul loses consciousness while returning home from a gun show. An hour later, he awakens, finding himself swept away on the tides of time.

A Story in the The Trilogy and More Western Universe
A strange and wondrous adventure for a young man from Texas.

It is a harsh cruel world in which danger lurks for the unwary. After a small town is wiped out, ten families sign the Pfand X, the pledge of ten, in which they promise to support and help each other in good times and bad. After 18 generations, the families of the Pfand X are once again threatened.

John Taylor (3)
Soldier-turned-missing persons specialist John Taylor is adjusting to his new life, putting the scars of his past behind him and doing what he can to make a difference. That new status quo is upended when a powerful Senator asks Taylor to find her wayward party girl daughter. What should have been a simple job escalates into a race against the clock to get the girl back before she is taken out of the country and sold into a nightmare.

She left a note and was gone, but something wasn't right. He decided to follow his wife.

Tom is down on women after his wife dumps him for a handsome guacho from Argentina. Can he be tempted by the girl sitting at Willy's Tavern looking so sad and lonely. She was just... a girl in the night.

A Knox family story (2)
Part of the Enfield Undrowned universe
Terrorist rage pierces the heart of the United States in a shocking and brutal attack. The attack jolts the country from its naïveté in one, horrifying instant; Jeff Knox, his family, friends, and neighbors are shaken from their comfortable lives in that same moment. How does a nation of three hundred million respond and how does it change one man?

A young man struggles to with morals and staying alive in a post war shelter.

A story set in the Post Sickness world of Phoenicia
It has finally happened: Terrorists have unleashed an unstoppable virus upon the world. Only a very small percentage of humanity has survived. Gavin Thompson, unsatisfied with the prospect of just surviving makes plans to restore civilization as quickly as possible. This is his story. (This version is a bit longer and slightly modified from the version on SOL)

Mike Cavenaugh is facing 40 with an ex-wife he can't stand and a teen-aged daughter he can't begin to understand. The lone bright spot in his life is his son. Then he meets Carrie Walton in one of the unlikeliest of places.

A Worlds of Light Story (2)
The continuing adventures of Davey, Ginny, Dare and the rest of their friends and family.

When, in the course of human events, a Government of a Nation has forgotten that it is founded and predicated upon the singular sentiment, We the People, it becomes necessary for Men and Women of good conscience to stand tall and remind those who govern on behalf, by forbearance, and at the will, of We the People; that the law of the land is specified in the Constitution of these United States.

John Taylor (1)
John Taylor walked out of the desert a different man than he was going in. After three years of torture Taylor is now an ex-soldier with a life in shambles facing a world that gave him up for dead and moved on in his absence. Taylor is forced to pick up the pieces when he steps in to help an outgunned Federal Marshal against unknown assailants. Now Taylor is on the run and saddled with a witness marked for death. Can saving the witness's life give Taylor back his own?

A Story in the The Trilogy and More Western Universe
The life and times of an unlikely hero.

Richard Gilson lives at a time of many changes. He loses his girlfriend, Mavis to another and then his family. Even when Mavis comes back into his life, the past is ever present.

A Worlds of Light Story (1)
My name is David Alan McKesson. I can't remember how old I was when I first saw the lines. Their appearance was infrequent and peripheral to my awareness as a child, and I did not wonder at what was just a barely noticed part of my world. Later, I learned how to touch them, and where they led me, The way they changed my life, and allowed me to change the lives of many others, remains a true wonder, and the true story of my life

A Christmas Story
Generally speaking being a granddaughter is defined by genetics, but sometimes it's due to circumstances driven by fate.

A lot of parents tell their children, "I hope you have a child who is just like you." What's worse than having a child just like yourself? Maybe it is having a daughter who is just like your mother!

A star high school football quarterback loses his father, his girlfriend and his career, all in the same explosion. Now, he goes back in time to get the ones who did this, as well as saving the United States from being destroyed. What he finds on his one way trip is 'home.' - 42,200 words.

A man just out of university inherits a trust in the USA. He has to live in the house it owns, but first he has to make it liveable. He also has to worry about some old feuds in place in this rural valley in the Appalachian mountains. He has to survive his first weeks in the mountains, and in doing so he finds a wife and partner for life while they deal with old feuds and the local weather. Set in Australia.

Now married, Paul McAllister and Anna Jaramillo McAllister, continue building their fledgling Estancia into the refuge they've dreamed of. Where family and friends can live a life safe from the violence of daily life in the wilderness of the New Mexico Territory. Building levees, planting crops, cattle drives, digging for gold, and advancing the use of existing technology rapidly become intertwined with ferreting out robbers,kidnappers, and murderers.

Will was just an average guy until a terrorist's bomb stripped away everything that he loved in life. When he came across the ad for volunteers for a super-soldier experiment, he figured he had nothing to lose, and if it all worked out, maybe he'd be able to get revenge. Little did he or the people running the program realize just how it would turn out. (Note: If you read this on SOL, you'll find this version to be a bit different)

A fire destroys a farm in Virginia, so the family is moving west. Except the youngest is too ill to travel when it's time to leave. The boy and his grandmother stay behind to follow later. It takes so long for him to recover the two don't go west, and find local employment. A decade later rising political problems cause the young man and his grandmother to make a decision about their future. They'll go west, but it isn't that simple, or an easy journey. Written in US English - 72,700 words.