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READ ON FOR MORE INFORMATION about current and upcoming SHORTCUTS ebooks, short science fiction and fantasy novellas from Aotearoa New Zealand.
MIKA | Lee Murray & Piper Mejia April 2015
Mika Tāura arrives in New York in the middle of a storm, where she accidentally kills a motorist and lands herself with an injured child. What’s more, she’s missed her rendezvous.
Stan has problems of his own. Several of them just broke into his apartment and tried to kill him, which may explain why hitching a ride in Mika’s armoured waka seems like a good idea. Besides, her business is taking her across to the West Coast, and so – conveniently – is his.
On the run, Mika, Stan and the girl flee across the country to Stan’s reservation home, where they encounter a couple who may be the key to Mika’s mission. But time is running out, for the travellers and for those they leave behind them.
THE LAST | Grant Stone May 2015
Forty years ago, Katherine St. John disappeared – briefly. Thirty years ago, she enacted a disappearance of another sort, stepping not just away from her music career but across the ocean to the other side of the world.
Yesterday, Rachel Mackenzie’s flight touched down in Auckland. She’s travelled to New Zealand to interview the reclusive musician Katherine St. John about her first album in nearly thirty years. But strange things are happening at St. John's farm and soon Rachel finds herself caught up in something far larger than the world of music.
BREE’S DINOSAUR | AC Buchanan June 2015
Cam’s ambitions are straightforward: study Business English in Wellington for six months, then return to Vietnam to build a promising career. She doesn’t need any complications, least of all those created by Bree, her host-family’s secretive, troubled, teenage daughter. But when a dinosaur is being (very noisily) built in the bedroom next to yours, and a meteor-strike is threatening, it’s not always possible to avoid being sucked in – especially when there's an extinct animal in your own history. And one winter night in Karori, Bree's past resurfaces as well.
POCKET WIFE | IK Paterson-Harkness July 2015
Carl's work requires him to travel extensively, but he and his wife Jenny stay connected through their Tinys – four-inch-tall replicas of themselves which, when turned on, transmit whatever sensory information they are receiving directly into their living counterparts' minds. Through his Tiny, which Jenny keeps close beside her in Auckland, Carl can see his wife, speak to her, even feel her touch. But when Jenny's Tiny malfunctions and she can't turn herself off, Carl has a major problem. He’s having an affair, and he'd rather his wife wasn't around.
LANDFALL | Tim Jones August 2015
THE GHOST OF MATTER |Octavia Cade September 2015