Reminder: Anyone who has purchased the book through this website or Smashwords can download the updated version for free.

The new formats are on sale right now through the Hope Anthology webpage. The new files have also been uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon.

Anyone who has purchased the book through this website and Smashwords can download the updated version for free. If you haven’t purchased a copy, now is an excellent time to do so.

Now it is possible to use either the footer contact form or the contact us page to send us a query.

In the meantime, the contact form found here can be used to ask your questions etc.

We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

These updated versions have been uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon (Book 1 and Book 2), and will also be distributed through this website (Book 1 and Book 2).

Our other titles will be reformatted over the next few weeks.

Whilst the paperback is now out-of-print, Kayelle Press has taken over the management of the digital versions of the anthology. We have released an updated version of the ebook, which is available now from our store for AU$3.99 — check out the official Speculative Realms: An Anthology webpage.

The third version of the ebook will soon be available for purchase from most online ebook stores also.

Use the tabs below to read a short blurb on each of the stories and to find out more about the authors.

Find out more about the stories:

Of Bones and Blades by Jeff Parish

A powerful mage hunts down a dragon in the hopes of using its bones to forge mighty weapons. Only one will survive, and the dragon is immune to magic.

Summer of the Widows by Sherry D. Ramsey

Suspected of murder, a wizard’s apprentice must find the real killer and save her master from an even more dangerous threat–marriage!

Brittle Bones by Lorne Dixon

A dying fox seeks sanctuary in her final hours inside an abandoned house built on the fault line between life and death. Unfortunately for the vixen, she is not alone.

The Gun by Ian Whates

Discovered on a body-strewn battlefield, the intelligent gun seems almost too good to be true; and perhaps it is, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is killing the enemy, and if there’s one thing the Gun is good for, it’s killing…

KARMA by Sasha Beattie

A mother’s determination escalates to obsession as she searches for her daughter beyond the grave.

The Widower’s Tale by Davin Ireland

A reclusive hitman discovers vengeance can’t always be left for dead.

Where Strength Lies by Karen Lee Field

When warrior mages try to abduct her son, a woman must trust her past to ensure her son’s future.

KanjiKiss by Lancer Kind

A young man moves from the country to the big city to learn how shooting varmints relates to love and the Internet.

Shouting at the Stone by TW Williams

In a world where the most powerful magic is the loudest, a mage who has lost his voice must find a way to save the woman he loves.

Second Chance by David Meadows

A failed writer discovers that somebody is stealing his manuscripts — before he even writes them!

To Hell and Back by Rob Rosen

A boy’s love for his father is endless, timeless, and deeper than the very pits of hell itself.

The Guardian by Lyall Henderson

Aboard the most powerful warship in the galaxy, a soldier must sacrifice what he loves most to save his people.

Children of Ba-Seku by Christopher Donahue

A desperate prince will use one of Egypt’s darkest secrets to try and turn back bronze-wielding invaders.

Find out more about the authors:

Sasha Beattie would spend every minute of the day writing if she could, but she manages to spare a moment or two for her husband and two children, as well as the two dogs and two cats, the cockatiel and the small flock of chickens. Not to mention the family of mice that seems to have taken up residence in the roof.

Visit Sasha Beattie’s Website

Lorne Dixon lives and writes somewhere off an Exit of Route 78 in residential New Jersey. He grew up on a diet of yellow-spined paperbacks, black and white monster movies, and the thunder lizard backbeat of rock n’ roll.

Visit Lorne Dixon’s Website

Christopher Donahue is an Electrical Engineer with Dallas Water Utilities, a former Navy Avionics Technician and avid military history buff. He has written a number of short stories in horror, military, humour (and combinations of the same) anthologies including Loving the Undead, Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, Robots Beyond, and High Seas Cthulhu (co-authored with his wife, Linda). He lives in the Dallas area with his wife and an assortment of free-loading pets.

Born within the sound of the Bow bells in London, Karen Lee Field was seven when her parents decided to move to the “Lucky Country” and settle in Sydney, Australia. Apart from enjoying time with her family and pets, Karen loves escaping to fantasy worlds — places where her sometimes ordinary life is transformed into an exciting adventure and her imagination is set free. Her debut children’s novel, Cat’s Eyes, was published in 2010 and her short stories appear in several anthologies. She currently lives west of Sydney, in the beautiful Blue Mountains.

Visit Karen Lee Field’s Website

Lyall Henderson was born into a family of six on the 30th July, 1989. He grew up on a farm in country Victoria, before moving to South Australia this year to study Medicine at the University of Adelaide. In his spare time he plays jazz trumpet, attempts to keep fit, and writes the occasional story.

Davin Ireland was born and bred in the south of England, but currently resides in the Netherlands. His fiction credits include stories published in a wide range of print magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including Underworlds, The Horror Express, Zahir, Neo-Opsis, Rogue Worlds, Fusing Horizons, Storyteller Magazine and Albedo One.

Visit Davin Ireland’s Website

Lancer Kind grew up on a farm in Montana where he learned to ride a horse at the age of five and shoot varmints at the age of fourteen. In the nineties he lived north of Denver where he studied big city life and ski areas while working for a large high tech firm. Today, Lancer lives near Seattle with his lovely wife Shelli and their imaginary rooster Jimmy.

Visit Lancer Kind’s Website

David Meadows lives with a large number of books on the North East coast of England. He makes his living writing rather tedious technical documents but his ambitions are to rescue a beautiful princess, have his fiction published, and become a grumpy old man. So far, he has realised all but one of those ambitions.

Visit David Meadows’ Website

Jeff Parish is a 30-something native Texan. He and his wife have a girl and two boys. He started writing in middle school, where he concentrated mostly on (bad) fantasy tales and (even worse) poetry. His writing skills developed over time, much to his delight and the relief of everyone he forced to read his work, and he gravitated to prose over poetry. Jeff eventually decided to make a living as a writer, starting work at a small newspaper in Texas nearly a decade ago. His newpaper career career was suffocated in its sleep in 2006 after he realised journalism might be a noble profession, but slowly starving his family to death was not.

Visit Jeff Parish’s Website

Sherry D. Ramsey is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy writer whose work has appeared in print, online, and over the airwaves. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, daughter, son, and various pets, and steals whatever spare nanomoments she can to write fiction, publish a monthly web magazine and sleep and eat once in a while. Every November she disappears into the strange realm of National Novel Writing Month and emerges gasping at the end, clutching something resembling a novel.

Sherry is a moderator for her local writers’ group and a member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia and SF Canada, a founding editor of Third Person Press, and a copy editor for the Internet Review of Science Fiction. You can visit her on the web at www.sherrydramsey.com

Visit Sherry D. Ramsey’s Website

Rob Rosen is the author of the novel “Sparkle”. His short stories have appeared in more than fifty anthologies, most notably: Short Attention Span Mysteries; Modern Witches, Wizards, and Magic; Southern Comfort; Hell’s Hangmen: Horror in the Old West; By the Chimney with Care; Our Shadows Speak Volumes 1 & 2; Strange Stories of Sand and Sea; Damned in Dixie: Southern Horror; Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic; Legends and Fables: A Fantasy Anthology; Twisted Fayrie Tales; Ruins Metropolis; Don’t Turn the Lights On and Other Stories; Futuristic Motherhood; Bloody October; and Black Box. Please visit his website, www.therobrosen.com, or email him at… robrosen AT therobrosen DOT com

Visit Rob Rosen’s Website

Having turned his back on a career of baffling numbers and finance, Ian Whates has concentrated on writing since May 2006. He sold 24 short stories in the following 24 months, appearing in various magazines and webzines including the science journal Nature (twice), Hub(twice) and Fusion Fragments, as well as several anthologies: Glorifying Terrorism (Rackstraw Press 2007), Futures from Nature (Tor Books 2007) and Beneath the Surface (Shroud Press 2008). His story “The Gift of Joy” was shortlisted for the BSFA award in 2008.

In 2006 Ian formed NewCon Press (www.newconpress.com) and has since published stories that have been selected by Gardner Dozois for ‘Years Best’ anthologies and by Locus for their recommended reading lists, as well as one, by Ken MacLeod, which won the BSFA Award in 2008. Ian edits the BSFA’s magazine Matrix and is currently a director of both the BSFA and SFWA.

Visit Ian Whates’ Website

TW Williams lives near Chicago and has been a newspaper and magazine journalist since the last millennium. He is co-editor of Carnivah House’s upcoming anthology, “The Infinity Swords” and the author of two unpublished novels. Recent story credits include “The Man With the X-ray Nose,” in Journeybooks’ Unusual Journeys II; “Lesson Learned” and “Rip-Snorter” upcoming in “Black Dragon, White Dragon” and “Iron Hearts of Death,” upcoming in “Magic and Mechanica,” both from Ricasso Press; “The Teeth of the Matter” and “Cold Dragons” in Dragons, Knights and Angels; and “The One-Legged Assassin” and “Possession is Nine Parts” in Electric Spec.

His wife, Lynne, is his chief supporter and biggest fan. They are the parents of five children.

Visit TW Williams’ Website

About the Artist

Heather Anderson is a Wisconsin musician, teacher, artist and writer. As an artist, Heather created the cover art for the Speculative Realms anthology and has contributed elsewhere to online games, graphic art companies, and literary publications. Her art interests include drawing, painting, color pencils, and some sculpture. As I writer, Heather favors speculative fiction and fantasy. Her literary influences include Charles de Linte and Robin Hobb, to name a few. A career musician, Heather plays in her local symphony orchestra as a cellist, teaches piano and cello lessons, and manages a busy string quartet.

Juggling three loves has always been difficult, but it is ever Heather’s goal to find a way to balance the three arts and meet the demands of her muses. Heather lives and works out of her home with the company of her three steadfast feline companions.

The reading period will close in ten weeks — on 9 February 2013.

The book is available in paperback and various digital formats from this website, and from most online bookstores.

We have also replaced the purchasing system so that paperbacks and digital books can be purchased with one transaction. We will ship anywhere within Australia, up to 5kg. Anything over that weight will require a quote. We will also ship to Canada, United States and United Kingdom, up to 1kg. International orders over 1kg are very expensive and we recommend you purchase our books through an online book store in your country.

At present, the “submission guideline” section of the website needs a major reformat. This will be completed in the next couple of days. However, the rest of the website is up and running as normal. If you do notice any issues, please use the contact form in the footer to let us know.

Upon its return, we will have a modern design and better purchasing facilities. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for updates.