[Short Stories 02] • Death of East

When a lowly jeweler in ancient Egypt finds an enormous yellow diamond lodged in the clavicle of a Nile river crocodile, he strikes for riches, selling it to the richest man in Memphis, a living god, the Pharaoh. Then the Pharaoh demands more. So begins a terrifying descent into greed, madness, and murder, with diamonds for all, and diamonds in all, and the blood-red eye of Ra ascendant.

About:

- This bizarre collection of 9 weird short stories delves into a world separated from our own by the most gossamer of veils, rife with horror, mystery, madness, love, and redemption.

- 5 stories were published in pro-level magazines (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Kaleidotrope, Ideomancer, Podcastle, Something Wicked), 4 are brand new.

Contents:

1) Bone Diamond

2) Caterpillar Man

3) The Tonsor's Son

4) The Mud Girl

5) Flatland

6) The Orphan Queen

7) Sky Painter

8) Leanna Drew The Moon

9) Death Of East

Praise:

- "The dark insanity in this story develops out of greed and terror and self-loathing, until all healthy logic in one person is destroyed. Human life becomes as expendable as filthy Nile water. A very satisfying ending." - Sherry Decker, Tangent Magazine.

- "... a beautiful bittersweet fairy tale, set in the modern day." - Sam Tomaino, SF Revu.

- "Wow. Horrifying and compelling and poignant. This one is going to stick with me." - Kim, Ideomancer.

About the author:

Michael John Grist is a 33-year old British writer and ruins photographer who lives in Tokyo, Japan. He writes strange, twisty fiction, in both fantasy and sci-fi genres. See more at www.michaeljohngrist.com.

Excerpt:

I discover the first bone diamond in a hunk of crocodile clavicle, lodged between the foramen and articular process. I had meant to simply facet the bone tip's lamellar weave, that it might, once polished, dove-tail into a brooch that some high lady in the court might wear to the arena flooding.

Rather, I find a diamond, at least thirty carats in size. It is the most extraordinary bright yellow, like amethyst but glowing hot within. Allory would have loved it.

I take it to my lathe and polish it on corundum, brute it with emery, and at last heat it over a sulfur jet as though it were a citrine. Its yellows melt, whirl, and blaze as though afire inside.

I sit atop my cankerous clay rooftop and hold it up beside the sphere of the moon. Of the two, my bone diamond shines the purest, the brightest, as though the sun risen at night over the slums of Memphis.

I do not know then that it will be the end of everything I know.