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Many of my published or up-coming work are based in a particular story-world, referred to as my Hell-Colony world.
A ridiculously dangerous world where humans are feasted on my most plants and animals. From mid-afternoon, the whole world shuts down. Everyone gets off the streets, grills come down, shops close.
By sunset, anyone who wants to survive are very silent, locked in behind grills, locked doors and spells. After dark, everything eats you :-)
All tickets into this world are strictly one-way. There are too many spores, parasites and rampaging beasts for any teleportal to be two ways.
Once you are in the program, you cannot leave. You cannot even sent MAIL to your family/friends. All travel and information is carefully censored by the Colony Program.
People in vastly over-crowded mega-cities or living in poverty may be willing to pay their life savings to retire to a place where you are given a large house, suburban setting, blue skies, flowers and grass...
Rich families in overcrowded worlds are required to allocate a certain number of people into the Program. They may pay YOU to take their ticket to spare people they love.
If you don't have money, you can present an interesting application (arranged marriages, interesting power combinations) or a business proposal and the Colony Program may fund your application.
There are Program staff in the colony and outside the colony (channelling new colonists in) responsible for selling tickets, approving applications and then setting people up inside the colony.
Those program staff OUTSIDE of Hell get to stay outside if they can secure enough money and assets IN. Those INSIDE the program are protected in ways the colonists are not.
If a colonist dies, their position/assets are sold a second time, to a new colonist.
Slave-factories (closed systems of slave-contracts and ghetto-acommodation) produce much of the food and materials that are needed in the colonies. There is no shortage of edible plants and beasts (the plants and beasts just eat/infect you ata faster rate then you could them). Some resources (like buildings) are teleported in, one way (they are immediately infected with wildlife, spores and deadly plantlife).
Pure, absolute desperation :-)
Overcrowded worlds, with vast ghetto-berbs and towers, unemployment, poverty and starvation. The program (inside the Hell-Colony) offers housing (some are mansions!), protection (grills, spells, induction) and a monthly payment until you are settled. Alll you have to do... is be willing to live in Hell!
In some overcrowded worlds, a certain % of the population are allocated to the Hell-Colony as a way of managing population control. Families are required to sell/allocate a certain number of people per year to the colony. These tickets are used to exile trouble-makers or are allocated (with money) to lowly members of the family/off-shoots of the family willing to take it (and the assets that come with this ticket).
Certain cohorts of people are useful to the colony prpohram and are targetted (prisoners in overcrowded prisons, thugs and spell-casters, heroes and warriors, well-known heros/villains with powers/reputations, poor people who are fertile and willing to commit to breed/raise a new generation of colonists).
Interesting combinations of power or household (ie muscle and magic) are especially interesting to the program. Civilians tend to die. Spell-casters, warriors, people with a reputation are much more likely to be offered a ticket (and assets - like a fancy house).
No. It is a world so awful the colonists (and the people managing the program) call it HELL :-)
It is
It is
Why do I LOVE writing pieces based in the Hell-Colony?
Yep yep?
Yep :-)
I'm working on it! A lot has been published, and more is on the road to completion. Check out the sections below for externally published work about the Hell-Colony (I am chasing ONLY traditional publishing opportunities only, so it is very very slow!).
Who: Metastelllar Magazine
What: short, tense, lightly amusing slice of life (in the Hell-Colonies!)
Tensions: enemies next door, forced proximity, old dogs new tricks, found families
Where can I buy this?
This story has been published twice, once in 2021 in anthology: A Quiet Afternoon 2 (Victory and Grace Press) then a second time in Metast
Who: Metastelllar Magazine
What: short, tense, lightly amusing slice of life (in the Hell-Colonies!)
Tensions: enemies next door, forced proximity, old dogs new tricks, found families
Where can I buy this?
This story has been published twice, once in 2021 in anthology: A Quiet Afternoon 2 (Victory and Grace Press) then a second time in Metastellar Magazine. Which... is FREE to read. Check it out here: https://www.metastellar.com/fiction/neighbors/
Who: (Anthology) Summer of Speculation: Villains, Cloaked Press
What: adventure fantasy about a retired thug/ex-minion attempting to recreate herself - in a colony called Hell.
Tensions: fake wife (who she's in love with), ex-villain/minion hench-person trying to live in surburbia.
Where can I buy this?
Who: (Anthology) Summer of Speculation: Villains, Cloaked Press
What: adventure fantasy about a retired thug/ex-minion attempting to recreate herself - in a colony called Hell.
Tensions: fake wife (who she's in love with), ex-villain/minion hench-person trying to live in surburbia.
Where can I buy this?
https://www.cloakedpress.com/sos2022/ https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Speculation-Villains-Benjamin-DeHaan-ebook/dp/B09ZSK8MWR Or (not in Australia) here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Summer.../dp/B09ZSK8MWR
Who: Teleport Magazine (which has closed, no archive)
What: humourous short fantasy about ex-villains attempting to begin a school - in a colony in Hell.
Tensions: forced proximity, fish-out-of-water, unlikely allies, enemies to co-workers,.
Where can I buy this?
Unfortunately, Teleport Magazine has closed so this piece is no longer available
Who: Teleport Magazine (which has closed, no archive)
What: humourous short fantasy about ex-villains attempting to begin a school - in a colony in Hell.
Tensions: forced proximity, fish-out-of-water, unlikely allies, enemies to co-workers,.
Where can I buy this?
Unfortunately, Teleport Magazine has closed so this piece is no longer available. I will work on re-submitting it eventually! Stay tuned! This piece is also a teaser for the novel below that is chasing publication: The Retiement of Callous Blight/Calamity Bright does Hell.
Novel completed in Nanowrimo 2022. Querying agents from 2024. Working titles: Calamity Bright Does Hell, or The Retirement of Callous Blight.
Desperate, poverty stricken ageing ex-villain Calamity (now known as "Callie") is attempting to create a better future for herself and her minion Scrim. To get a ticket into the Hell-Colonies they ne
Novel completed in Nanowrimo 2022. Querying agents from 2024. Working titles: Calamity Bright Does Hell, or The Retirement of Callous Blight.
Desperate, poverty stricken ageing ex-villain Calamity (now known as "Callie") is attempting to create a better future for herself and her minion Scrim. To get a ticket into the Hell-Colonies they need a business plan. Start a school in Hell? How hard can THAT be?
Collaboration: a 3000 word short story, cosy, enemies-to-allies/lovers (?).
A pair of old enemies, facing increasing rent prices and lack lustre businesses, consider a proposal. Humourous slice-of-life, post-60yo warm/cosy fantasy romance.
Fish and Chips: a 2000 word short story, enemies-to-allies, unlikely proposal.
What happens when you land in the Hell-Colony and find it is not what you expected? Two down-at-the-heels unsuccessful ex-thugs/villains are finding themselves in the final chapter of the Program's patience. Is it true that people who don't make the 'cut' for successful civilian living end up culled?
Spin-off from Nanowrimo 2023's completed novel, written through 2024. First draft complete. Hoping to have edits through 2025, maybe out chasing publishers/agents late 2025/early 2026.
Two highly competent career-minions who have been enemies their entire career are forced into an unlikely alliance when their dome-world collapses. They kni
Spin-off from Nanowrimo 2023's completed novel, written through 2024. First draft complete. Hoping to have edits through 2025, maybe out chasing publishers/agents late 2025/early 2026.
Two highly competent career-minions who have been enemies their entire career are forced into an unlikely alliance when their dome-world collapses. They knife-at-the-other's-throat hate one another and have spent their careers undermining and reducing one another. There has always been an odd burn/connection there. Ryder's husband has just screwed her over, he's a Dad with a precarious relationship with most of his kids. Can they survive Hell - and each other?
Completed in Nanowrimo 2023 but I am not happy with the sizzle. I plan a re-write this whole piece. This novel created a cool spin-off (which did get completed), but I think there's still something here.
Plan to re-write this piece, hopefully in 2025. Concept: forced allliance between a guard/service-person/lackey and a very powerful, arr
Completed in Nanowrimo 2023 but I am not happy with the sizzle. I plan a re-write this whole piece. This novel created a cool spin-off (which did get completed), but I think there's still something here.
Plan to re-write this piece, hopefully in 2025. Concept: forced allliance between a guard/service-person/lackey and a very powerful, arrogant but broken/vulnerable augury mage as their world collapses. Can they learn to trust one another as they plumet into the Hell-Colonies?
This story started as a joke around the "one-bed" trope with a mate. How many ways can I force this unlikely pair to share a bed? Jokes aside, there's a wriggle of something here. Just have to get the chemistry between them right and the situation they get tossed into right!
In the process of completing a long short story about life in the Hell-Colonies. Two established professionals detect a nasty hustle beginning in their quiet little town... in Hell. Quite a wriggle on this one. Expect it to be finished in 2024.
I expect this one to have cross-overs/easter eggs from the completed novel: Calamity Bright Does
In the process of completing a long short story about life in the Hell-Colonies. Two established professionals detect a nasty hustle beginning in their quiet little town... in Hell. Quite a wriggle on this one. Expect it to be finished in 2024.
I expect this one to have cross-overs/easter eggs from the completed novel: Calamity Bright Does Hell. This will be a stand-alone piece with unrelated characters, but will be based in one of the towns that feature in this novel, explaining a bit of back story about characters in that place
I have a folder filled with fragments of stories I've started that have a particular wiggle about them. A quick skim of there shows that at least ten of them may wind up being Hell-Colony world pieces (novels, novellas or short stories). I expect more to come in this section of my website as these piece begin to progress and get completed!