Stories to Share With Strangers: A Fiction Short Story Anthology

By Scott Gladstein

Written over the course of a number of years, these short stories delve into worlds and topics both challenging and exploratory. Each presents a different side of the kind of literature I like to both read and write and they form a collective whole that approximates the whole distribution of my interest and hopefully yours as well.

This eclectic collection includes:
My Kingdom for a Fuse
A slice-of-life science fiction story about a mechanic looking for a fuse for their ship on a big space station. It contracts the banality of life with the challenges that the bureaucracy that banality relies on presents.

Hexcaster
A story about early American colonists fighting off a coyote spirit with "hexcaster rifles". While it is ostensibly a fantasy story set in colonial New England, it is also a study of the necessity of outsider art and skills developed by those outside respectability.

Down By the Creach
A short story about a mutant/cosmic horror living in a small little rural town and trying to fit in. It centers on the idea of the "unknowable other" and contrasts that with its small town setting and look at rural Americana.

Unbreakable Magic
A flash fiction story about a mage deciding what kind of magic they wanted and getting it in a very clever way...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GDQN9R7J
• ISBN13: 9798242228825
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"