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    Fieldcraft: Four Stories on the Edge Between the Present and the Future
    Fieldcraft: Four Stories on the Edge Between the Present and the Future
    Fieldcraft: Four Stories on the Edge Between the Present and the Future
    Ebook61 pages45 minutes

    Fieldcraft: Four Stories on the Edge Between the Present and the Future

    By Kellan Sparver

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    About this ebook

    A spy searches for meaning and survival.
    A gay couple and their community confront an external threat.
    Two men wait for the shuttle off-planet.
    A young boy loses a friend in a small town whose residents are slowly being replaced by robots.

    These are four stories on the edge between the present and the future.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKellan Sparver
    Release dateSep 26, 2019
    ISBN9780463518106
    Fieldcraft: Four Stories on the Edge Between the Present and the Future
    Author

    Kellan Sparver

    Kellan Sparver currently lives in San Francisco, California and works in software. When he’s not writing he enjoys hiking, 3D printing, and gluten-free baking. His fiction and other writing can be found on his blog at https://kellansparver.com

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      Book preview

      Fieldcraft - Kellan Sparver

      Contents

      Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Introduction

      Fieldcraft

      Hitchhiker

      September, After

      The Sky, Full of Swallows

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Fieldcraft

      Four Stories on the Edge Between the Present and the Future

      Kellan Sparver

      These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      Copyright © 2019 Kellan Sparver. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      No part of this may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      PUBLISHED IN 2019 BY KELLAN SPARVER.

      340 S Lemon Ave., PMB 5149 • Walnut, CA 94158 USA

      kellansparver.com • kellansparver@gmail.com

      Some of the pieces appearing in this collection were first published elsewhere, permission and copyright information is as follows:

      Introduction copyright © 2019 by Kellan Sparver.  First publication, original to this volume.

      Fieldcraft copyright © 2017 by Kellan Sparver. First published on kellansparver.com.

      Hitchhiker copyright © 2014 by Kellan Sparver. First published on kellansparver.com.

      September, After copyright © 2015 by Kellan Sparver. First published on kellansparver.com.

      The Sky, Full of Swallows copyright © 2019 by Kellan Sparver. First publication, original to this volume. Published simultaneously on kellansparver.com.

      Acknowledgments copyright © 2019 by Kellan Sparver. First publication, original to this volume.

      COVER & INTERIOR DESIGN: Kellan Sparver

      COVER PHOTO: Copyright © 2011 Jesse Vincent. Used with permission.

      SPARVERIUS PRESS LOGO: Kellan Sparver. Based on a public domain photograph by Alan Schmierer.

      AUTHOR PHOTO: Copyright © 2011 Jesse Vincent. Used with permission.

      For my Patreon backers:

      Ekate, Kevin, Lise, Erin, Lauren, Dave, Nicole, and Scott. You’re the best.

      Introduction

      I’ve been struggling to figure out what to write here—how to tell the story of these stories. I started the first one in November of 2010, which I remember because it was at first titled November, After. But as it developed, November was too late in the year in the place and the time I had set it for the action that I wanted, and so eventually I changed the title. The last of these stories I put the final paragraphs to just before its publication in February of 2017.

      So much changed between the first word and the last. The events which transpired between are not the only things which drove me to add the coda to the title story, but they crystallized the theme of the story and validated why I couldn’t let go of that bit of the past.

      I write now in July of 2019, and it gives me a little bit of vertigo to realize that this slim volume represents a decade of work. And it has been part-time work, to be sure. I have done more and there have been greater changes in other areas of my life. The first draft of this intro- duction was signed 18 August 2016, Somerville, Massachusetts, for instance. But still, ten years. A third of my life.

      I’ve been thinking of this collection as my EP. A short album, the kind a band might release early in their career, when they’re just starting to move from covering other people’s songs to writing and per- forming their own work. The production is a little raw, and you’ll have bought it in a bar with bills that smell of stale beer. Still, maybe these kids are going somewhere.

      I don’t know what the future holds—for any of us, but least of all for myself. The story I started in 2010 was not the first story I wrote and finished, nor was the story I amended in 2017 my last. But rereading these stories, and thinking about the composition of this

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