© James Pyles

Looking back on 2025 and my publication history, here’s what has presented itself. Frankly, I expected two more anthologies featuring my short stories to have come out this year, but both have been delayed.

To start off with, I had four drabbles published in the Starry Eyed Press anthology Drabbles: First Contact, tales of exactly 100 words long, describing humanity’s first contact with aliens (the images above aren’t presented in publication order).

Then there is my first actual (short) novel Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure. This was previously published in installments on the now defunct Amazon Vella but it was always intended to become its own novel. Old school space opera based on a 1950s TV show. A lot of fun. You should read it.

If you like ghost stories, my short tale “Haunting Chloe” is available in Haunted Places. A young teenage girl encounters a strange but compelling boy while ice skating on a remote lake. Unfortunately, their relationship is not only forbidden but quite deadly.

Dames, Derringers, and Detectives: Moggie Noir features the return of my 1940s haunted private detective Marguerite “Margie” Potter and her ghost-seeing cat “Mac.” This time the mystery involves World War Two in the Philippines, black marketeers, an unlikely romance for Margie, and of course, murder. “Last Wish For A Dead Man” is one of my personal favorites.

Short Fantasy Stories: Fantasy in 100 Words is one of two drabble anthologies presenting a number of my “exactly 100 words” tales, fantasy in this case.

The other involves military SciFi drabbles in iSoldiers: Military Science Fiction Drabbles.

Drabbles seemed to be my theme for the year because next comes Drabbles: Second Wave. I’ve already written stories about first contact with aliens. “Second Wave” covers what happens next.

Fantastic Schools Familiars offers my short story “Dead Cat Fever.” A runaway teenage girl has fallen in with a gang of other disenfranchised teen magic users led they a would-be Fagin. Returning to their abandoned shack, she discovers everyone has been murdered by a mysterious magician who has stolen a valuable spell book. Well, almost everyone. Although bodily dead, the spirit of the cat familiar Skinner has survived, but will soon be trapped forever in a steadily decaying corpse. Can the girl and a now zombie cat recover the book before disaster befalls them and the world?

Finally, Far Futures: Book Four features my short story “Awash on Titan’s Shores.” All tales in the anthology are set on or are about Saturn’s moon Titan. In mine, can a military rescue team discover why all the members of a scientific colony on the moon went missing before the same thing happens to them?

That’s it for 2025 but, if you’ve been following my blog, you know there are exciting things ahead for the coming year including another novel.

It’s been nearly a year since I retired from working day jobs and I seem to be busier than ever, though not just because of writing.

To you and yours, may you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year, and thank you to everyone who has purchased, read, and enjoyed my stories. It means a lot to me.