Our Universes

The Enclave Universe

A fictional, isolated village in the Southwest United States, Enclave plays host to a series of thrilling stories about modern-day conquerors, religious horror and the sublime beauty of suffering overcome. Stories available in the Enclave Universe include:

Enclave 1929 – Mother Sojourner and the Gentle Extinction: Inspired by the exciting new science of eugenics and the ancient virtue of compassion, Mother Sojourner leads a caravan of like-minded settlers from the merciless slums of San Francisco to the fresh opportunities in Enclave. She needs only grant the suffering primitives of the Old Enclave a merciful extinction to realize her true utopia.

Enclave 1994 – The Imp  of the Old Enclave: Engineer Marcus Hunyadi comes to the primitive, brutal town of Enclave thinking he wants to make money. Something in the town – wild, intensely alive and very frightening – inspires Marcus to conquer the villagers, crush his enemies and glory in the instincts he’d long suppressed. Will he succumb to the imp’s ambition, passion and cruelty, or will he slink back into the comfortable, meaningless slog of his old life?

Enclave 2012 – Three Trinities: The new Enclave, safe and dreary, disgusts Izzy. She, along with two hand-picked champions, vows to replace meaningless comfort with honorable death, shallow amusement with sublime struggle and boredom with a ferocious sort of love. Are the people of Enclave ready to be rescued? Can they embrace a “dirty, bloody, sexy spirituality?” Are they worthy to suffer?

Enclave 2035 – The Labyrinthian: Chiu’s mother dreams of making her son a god. Chiu’s father believes he has already made himself a god. Can Chiu navigate this merciless, trans-humanist utopia to discover his own divinity, or will he, like so many others, disappear into a trash heap of evolutionary dead ends?

The Old Heroes Universe

A historical fiction series set in the ancient Mediterranean, the Old Heroes Universe follows legendary figures like Moses, Joshua, Nimrod, Ramses III and Memnon. Stories available in the Old Heroes Universe include:

Joshua and the Chosen People: The revered Moses leaves the fate of the Israelites in the hands of soft-hearted Joshua, commanding him to cleanse the Holy Land. Before Joshua, Jericho and the nations of Canaan glimmer with arms, wealth and paganism. Can Joshua’s virtue persevere in the face of Israel’s fearsome destiny? Can the Chosen People remain good so long as they remain chosen?

Aethiopian Memnon and the Amazons of Troy: Mighty Memnon, lover to the Amazon Queen Penthesiliea, is famed for his honor. As the Amazon Queen leaves for Troy, Memnon hastily promises to guard her name with his life. When Achilles strikes the Queen dead, Memnon’s honor faces its sternest test, and his preference to speak truth turns deadly.

Nimrod and the Tower From Babel: The decadence of Babylon, the treachery of the Anatolians, the pretense of the Israelites – King Nimrod will suffer none of it. Where others feared to venture, Nimrod goes boldly forward, but at what point does boldness turn to recklessness?

Fair Ugarit and the Distant Fires: Ritual constrains every aspect of King Ammurapi’s life, a state of affairs he accepts for the sake of his country’s safety. However, with terrifying savages invading from the sea, crop failures ravaging the countryside and the crumbling remains of great empires all around him, King Ammurapi struggles with not only the limitations of ritual, but the limitations of human agency full stop.

Stories from the Lost and Found Universe

An ethereal, often funny and always surprising world built around Jamal Barbari’s adult fairy-tales, Stories from the Lost and Found plays host to dozens of short stories about death, love and finding connection amongst chaos.

Shades of Mortality: Sit beside the eternal fire and hear the time-traveling, universe-hopping, interdimensional storytellers as they share tales of life, death, love, and despair from across the cosmos in Jamal Barbari’s debut short story collection, Shades of Mortality. Each of the twenty stories features a unique artwork, subtly offering clues as to twists, turns and interpretations for the attentive reader. This collection weaves dynamic tales, drawing you into a sometimes frightening, sometimes awe-inspiring dance with the idea of mortality.