March 10th, 2025
Announcing: Hot Bloods, a brand new short story.
When I wrote my novel Cold World, I compared it to building a house: on its own, it’s a complete story, saying everything that I wanted to say at the time.
But I also left some room.
In the construction of the book, I allowed myself space to build up, down, or sideways if I ever wanted to; meaning, I could write a sequel, or a story about characters that appear and disappear in the context of Calef’s story… or I could write about what happened before.
Hot Bloods is the tale of an asteroid.
It’s a standalone short story that is the account of the crisis that turned our world cold, eighty years before the events of that book. You’ll experience Oscar’s life as a four-year-old boy in 2142; you’ll get to meet Jonah Mesh, billionaire prophet and architect of our desolation (sorry, that’s a Cold World spoiler!).
So: how will you be able to read it? This will be my entry for Other Worldly: Volume 2, the next installment of our Nerd Street anthology series. Meaning that, for a whole year, this collection will be the only place you can find it!
And I hope it also introduces you to a whole lot of other incredibly talented local writers, many of whom I’ve been lucky enough to befriend and sit with during panels at conventions.
More details on Other Worldly 2 as the release date is revealed and it gets closer. You may as well read Cold World again in the meantime! 🩵
The Den 