I had one new novelette out in 2020: “Shadow Prisons,” which originally appeared in three parts in The Dystopia Triptych (eds. John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant).
The novelette is available online (serialized in three parts) at Lightspeed Magazine:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/series/shadow-prisons/
Here’s an excerpt from Part 1: The Shadow Prison Experiment
The shopping district was crowded on a Sunday afternoon, and Vivian Watanabe was out running errands with her sixteen-year-old, Cass. Together they wove through throngs of shoppers wearing customized skins or the generic default. Vivian wasn’t fond of Generics—they fell into that uncanny valley between a nondescript human and a silver android. Cold and impersonal, plus it was hard to keep track of who you’ve interacted with. Which was the point, she supposed. Personal connections and privacy were often at odds.
“This neighborhood is creepy,” Cass said, waving their arm at the crowd around them. “Rich people have flawless skins.”
“Back in the old days it was make-up and plastic surgery and designer clothes. Overlays aren’t much different.” Vivian wasn’t wearing an overlay. It’d been Cass’s idea, and they’d convinced Vivian to do it as an exercise in challenging societal norms.
Walking around without an overlay felt simultaneously scandalous, exhilarating, and deeply unsettling…
