Ned Marcus — Dystopian Fantasy & SF

I’ve spent the past 2 or 3 years changing as a person, and my writing has been changing with me. I’ve not published much in recent years. My last novel was The Orange Witch (Feb 2023), and my last short story was Warriors with Sheathed Swords (Penumbric Magazine, June 2024). 

Until recently, I’ve been in a cycle of writing and deleting, then writing and deleting more. 

Although I love my early (first 5) novels, I don’t think I’ll ever write stories with such big magic again. At the moment, I’m attracted to dystopian SF/fantasy and sword and sorcery. I’m working on the former now, but I have plans for the latter in  the future.

"A thought disturbed the darkling sea." From the beginning of Blue Prometheus.

I’m planning a v-tubing YouTube channel where I’ll publish audio versions of some of my short stories + social commentary on themes that interest and move me.

I write SFF, but writing is inspired by the world around us (as well as the world within). And we seem to be fated to live in interesting times. In fact, some things happening in the real world appear so strange and delusional that if I’d written about them stories 10 or 20 years ago, I’d have been accused of being too fantastical. I plan to write and talk about some of these in more detail in the future.

"Dreams don't raise the dead." Lucy speaking to Thomas in Fire Rising, concerned about his dark obsession.

But briefly, one of the main themes of my current work in progress is truth. Truth is important and is currently under severe attack. Not just the narratives that the establishment and their media spin, but lies, too. Perhaps this has always been so, but I think it’s worse now. Now, the media appears as the conductor of a strange pantomime where truth is the villain. 

From my still evolving perspective, living by the truth is right, living by lies is wrong, and wrong leads either directly to evil or to a shock that nature imposes on a lack of consciousness. It’s a theme I plan to work into my future writing.

Short Stories

You can also read (and read about) my short stories and learn when I publish new ones. Recent stories include Hobs n' Dogs, which has also been translated into Galician, and my latest science fiction story, Warriors with Sheathed Swords.

And you can read reviews of my books on my books page.

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