Source: Outposts of Beyond

My short story “Hill of Souls” is now in the current issue of Outposts of Beyond.

It takes place during the Siege of Port Arthur, a bloody land battle in the Russo-Japanese War that lasted from August 1904 to January 1905. It is also the first historical fantasy story I’ve ever written.

The story focuses on a Japanese soldier named Captain Tanaka Hideki who is a member of an occult organization known only to Japan’s senior leadership as Unit 108. His mission is to track down a possessed Russian necromancer who lays in wait on the strategic terrain feature known only as Hill 203.

To craft the story and build the world, I spent a great deal of time researching the events, personalities, and weapons of this historical siege that turned out to be an eerie foreshadowing of the First World War’s attrition warfare.

I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing and researching it.

Buy my first complete anthology at Amazon or Smashwords. It includes ten stories about cursed alien artifacts, interstellar investment banking, ancient alien astronauts, parallel timelines, alien experimentation, and space colonization gone horribly wrong.

First published in venues like Fictionvale Magazine, NewMyths.com, Mad Scientist Journal, Plasma Frequency Magazine, Outposts of Beyond, and The Colored Lens, several of these stories have received Honorable Mentions in the prestigious Writers of the Future Contest.