Metamorphoses

by Joshua M. Bigley

Overview

'Metamorphoses' features a collection of strange tales and science fiction: some being derivative of popular film, novellas, fairy tales and urban legends. It includes ten short stories and flash fiction pieces related to cyberpunk, horror, and science fantasy. Themes embrace alien abduction, extraterrestrial arrivals, otherworld colonization, gene splicing and ectogenesis. Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis is revisited in one of the tales and inspired the title of the collection. A place in the author's hometown inspired the legend of the 'The Thirteen Curves'. A harrowing experience in the North Country woods involving cougars and hypothermia incited 'Without Eyes' and was the first story the author ever set to paper, crafted with ink and ribbon on a Brother Model WP-760D electric typewriter. 'In Vivo' speculates on designer babies and is mimetic of the author's personal life and experiences in a biracial family with an adopted brother. 'Bastian Dies' is based on a disturbing dream the author had in a misty-laden hostel of Thurso Scotland a long time ago; it occurred on the eve of deathly tidings that came as if on the wings of a raven. 'Metamorphoses' is a time capsule of one writer's journey.

*This is a revised edition. Edits were made to some embarrassing mechanical errors and tense issues in some stories as well as some style and word choices. The stories remain the same.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940164870966
Publisher:	Joshua M. Bigley
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	300 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Joshua M. Bigley was born in the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York on a farm with over 80 horses long in the tooth. He has an older brother and a younger sister. His father talked to cows and farmers on the radio, gave rides in a sleigh festooned with jingle bells and poured cheap beer as the proprietor of a tavern named the Junction--where there's always a function. And then vanished. He rode west following the sun and turned up on a Navajo reservation cowboying and teaching earth science. Joshua's mother moved to Syracuse and married the Iceman, founder of Ice Systems of America. When he was still a child he discovered a time-machine in the wood-cellar/wine-cellar/bomb-shelter, crept through cretaceous jungles and was bowled over by a charging pachycephelsaurus, gored by a frenzying stygimoloch when he mistakenly wandered into its spawning grounds, feasted on the precious eggs of an archeaopteryx, ancestor to birds, and was nearly sacrificed by an Aztec priest-king millions of years later. Escaping through Time, in a malfunctioning time machine (but that's another story), he ended up on a dark planet, a wasteland resembling Earth with canceled skies under a black pall. At the end of a long basalt road half-buried in shifting sands and marked with ancient standing stones Joshua encountered a dark tower and a stranger in black with hourglass eyes. He stopped traveling in time after that and only does it now, on rare occasions, when he's got time.

He studied in Britain and lectured at the M.I.T of China.

Joshua M. Bigley was born in the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York on a farm with over 80 horses long in the tooth. He has an older brother and a younger sister. His father talked to cows and farmers on the radio, gave rides in a sleigh festooned with jingle bells, and poured cheap beer as the proprietor of a tavern named the Junction--where there's always a function. And then vanished. He rode west following the sun and turned up on a Navajo reservation cowboying and teaching earth science. Joshua's mother moved to Syracuse and married the Iceman, founder of Ice Systems of America. When he was still a child he discovered a time-machine in the wood-cellar/wine-cellar/bomb-shelter, crept through cretaceous jungles, and was bowled over by a charging pachycephalosaur, gored by a frenzying stygimoloch when he mistakenly wandered into its spawning grounds, feasted on the precious eggs of an archaeopteryx, ancestor to birds, and was nearly sacrificed by an Aztec priest-king millions of years later. Escaping through Time, in a malfunctioning time machine (but that's another story), he ended up on a dark planet, a wasteland resembling Earth with canceled skies under a black pall. At the end of a long basalt road half-buried in shifting sands and marked with ancient standing stones, Joshua encountered a dark tower and a stranger in black with hourglass eyes. He stopped traveling in time after that and only does it now, on rare occasions, when he's got time.

He studied in Britain and lectured at the M.I.T of China.