A fantasy novel set in an alternate Europe, one where magic was discovered in prehistory, and one where, since the old Imperium fell, civilization has barely advanced, even in over a thousand years. Nor has magic advanced much either, with scattered spells found in old grimoires, or taught by a perhaps grudging mentor, being the state of the art.

I stole into Domina's private rooms through the secret entrance. I'd spent days scrying in my crystal ball to find the entrance and the passage through the red-orange sandstone that led to it. She sat in lotus herself, on a silken cushion, the only sign of self-indulgence in an otherwise ascetic room. The stone walls and ceiling were only marginally smoother than those of my chamber. The flame from a burning shallow bowl of oil provided the only light, reddening th...

Robert Serviss is a mysterious man, in some ways. He doesn't look like anyone else, not on this Earth, anyway. All anyone in the town knows of him is that he's just arrived in a Ground Rover that needs some urgent repairs. A mystery to them, not so much to himself, though he'd like to be. He doesn't even like to think about his past, or origins. * * * He's not from the town he starts out in, not even the world. He's from a parallel world, from an organizatio...

I hate Earth. Well, this one, anyway. As I stood on the trash-strewn street, looking past the signs and billboards at the repair shop working on my current ride, I thought about this forsaken town. Yellow dust blew, as it usually did. Faded wooden buildings leaned to one side or another, looking like they'd been here since cowboy-and-outlaw days. Forsaken town on this fractured world, Fragmented Earth. I stood, leaning on a lamp post. Some of the locals lounged ar...

Cowboys! Flying saucers! Gangsters! A weird space creature! Rustlers! Outlaws! Dames in trouble! The mob! Space Amazons! Space gladiators! And one man is the key to it all… How can this be? Trouble Magnet – A rare condition wherein the afflicted individual attracts frequent trouble of a serious nature. This has manifested most recently in the form of a starship captain whose five-year mission was plagued on a weekly basis with every imaginable compli...

I moseyed back to the ranch house, went and found me my lady boss, Miss Letitia Knott. She was standin' on the broad plank porch in her homespun dress and her bonnet, lookin' out over her land. She saw me comin', and gave me a welcome that brought a smile to my face it did. She always showed how much she trusted and valued this here cowboy, yes indeed. "Now what, Gunnar?" I doffed my hat. "Well, Lets—" "It's Miss Knott to you, cowboy." That just made me smile all...

A parallel world where some of the Anglo-Saxon tribes traveled north into Scandinavia, and later the Viking colony of Vinland expanded, and left a legacy of an Anglo-Saxon tongue being spoken in North America, among a people who were very largely of indigenous ancestry. But those cultures are not the focus, individuals are. A professor who isn't totally tightly wrapped in Scandinavia develops portals: matter transmission, or teleportation. One frightful accident l...

And then I topped the rise, and what lay before me was made clear to my wide-open eyes. A medicine wheel. A circle of stacked stones in the center, like a well or circular wall, with spokes of stones lined up stretching out to the south, the east, and three more stretching along between north-northwest and south. One spoke stretching toward Medicine River. The other four toward the other spirit places I'd seen in the night. That's what my eyes saw. What my spirit s...

A human princess who just wants to go and have some fun meets a mysterious flute player from Faerie Forest. She leaves behind council meetings and tutoring sessions for adventures! Soon Princess Onesie and Fairy Friend meet Unspeakably Gruel, Robyn Redcap, Boglin, Hob, and more. In a mix of seriousness and silliness, along with some conscious anachronisms, the princess makes new friends, helps some people, and learns some basic truths about life, the fae, and maybe even herself.

Princess Onesie glared from under her brows at her tutor; the princess was in high dudgeon. At age eleven, she already had firm notions in her head. A head, it might be said, that was thought to be quite attractive, although that could change. As so many things so often do, her aunt was wont to remark. My chin's down, she thought. Does that make it low dudgeon? What's dudgeon anyway? She shook off the thought, something she did a lot during tutoring, and said, "Wh...

It's called the Next World. Everyone there either disappeared from Earth, or is descended from earlier Arrivals. People, teratorns, great auks, sleuth hounds, short-faced bears, you name it. There are six peoples, or if you prefer nations, in the Next World. Dares who can heal, Aranhas/Simarabos with spirit connections, Bathursts who can turn you temporarily into ghosts. Not to mention "Reapers," like a young man named March. Or the Everetts, aka Shadows, five of...

Lightly edited for context: "So, why did you leave?" Arabella said as we headed back to Meetpoint. I was trying to keep an eye out all around, as she appeared oblivious. She wasn't that oblivious. She said, "Oh, don't worry, the guardian says none of your Everetts are near." "Even in the ghost realm?" She looked disquieted then. "Figured that out, did you?" "Wasn't hard." They sure surprised us before. "Guess not." And she started paying m...

An adventure tale of a young man, bereft of close family, who falls out of the world he was born in and into one of a series of parallel worlds, followed by a shadow whose touch he fears and flees

(Lightly edited for spoilers) Snow falling through skeletal tree limbs above and around, my skis coming down on a mountain slope, and I could just see the tips of the shadow's fingers above as it reached over top of my head from behind me. The skis saved us. We went rocketing down the steep slope, just before the shadows that emerged with us could take hold. I "knew" how to ski, but Serenity really did know, and shot off ahead of me. I couldn't give anything too m...

A world where enchanters put their long-ago efforts into living creatures, not swords and such. And those creatures were mostly human beings. And the result is that there are seven magical bloodlines, seven different magical talents, where, if the breeding comes out right, a baby is born who in adolescence will show his clan's magical ability. His clan's. Because, with almost no exceptions, only the boys become blood warriors. Women can only be breeders, and, if...

"You're halfway to being a remarkable warrior," said Gilbert, leaning back against one of the granite blocks while he caught his breath from another sparring session. "What do I do?" "The other half. You've got the warrior part, now you need the blood half." "I will." "I know you will. You're willing to work, work like a maniac, which is great. But there's three things about becoming the best you can with the blood talent." "Tell me." "One is to work...

Homeless in a space habitat, in the warren of tunnels dug into an asteroid, is hard enough. What's harder is Gray isn't just homeless, but is a hermaphrodite, shunned or worse by everyone. But in learning to stay alive, Gray learned to read people's body language, to study and remember. Will those skills be enough to make it? Or will Gray have to fake it? A science fiction novel of coming into one's own, of overcoming oppression and exclusion, of using skills an...

Excerpt I: Meanwhile, the predator was stalking me, faking being an ordinary stationer. The corridor stretched gray and rust before and behind me, with occasional hatches and cross-tunnels interrupting. No shop windows here, vacuum-strength glass cost too much. I could count a handful of people walking it aside from me and the faker. A full-time hydroponics gardener in green, a ventilation duct cleaner in brown, a cafe wait-staffer in blue, a nurse in white, and a...

A young man already promising to grow to great size and athleticism, a budding warrior. Once he leaves the failing inn on the edge of the Wastes, he has to make his way in the world. But how? Becoming a mercenary soldier is a good first step, but does he want to follow orders his whole life? Or give them? When Bear meets the mysterious youth called Mouse, he realizes that the two of them together might be able to call their own shots, and live an independent life. ...

We trudged up to the border post in a steady drizzle. Nothing but a dry-stack stone hut beside the road, the post held a single guard, grizzled-looking but tough. She stepped up to the doorway, but not out into the wet. "Welcome to the Barony of Rain," she said. "State your business." She didn't just look tough, she was tough. One guard, facing me and Mouse? Especially when she's closer to Mouse's size than mine? Okay, Mouse doesn't look like much unless you've b...

Justin Willehelm works for a security company, getting along in an ordinary life, until suddenly changing course. His boss blames him for a failed assignment, simmering tensions erupt in his wife leaving, and he's left standing and staring at the Passage River. Running water has always fascinated him, and there's something about this particular river… Justin ends up in the river, and then literally out of the world he worked in. He meets extraordinary people like U...

Some of the best bits: @2019 Kevin Wade Johnson Call me vile. Call me a villain. But I wasn't willing to be a victim. * * * I scuffed at the ground, kicking a dead leaf into the river. It swirled away, caught in the current. I wondered where it was going. I sighed. What I needed to do was stop wondering, and decide where I was going. "You're on your own, leaf," I murmured, but thinking more of myself. * * * I had to look out for her the way s...

I delight in wordplay and wittiness (with what wits I've got). So when the inspiration seized me to write eleven nonsense rhymes, with allusions ranging from Holmes to Vlad(s), some apt (I hope) coined words and a lot of puns and plays on words, I went with it. I've thrown in nine other poems either evocative or emotional (or maybe just fun), and I hope their slight contents provide some light entertainment.

Would you play at wordplay If words would serve as toys? But if your words play you then Would you make only noise? If you would utter falsehoods Would wordplay play you false? If you then play as you would Then gentle life just halts If you would putter round with words Sputter them on out in herds If you would clutter truths with lies Your words—the kind that destroys Faith that words are more than ploys— Flutter off away like sighs Lasting long as butterflies

Shade mammoths, iron buffalo, and dodos; honeyberries, lightning pines, and mistle… It's 1840 in the United States, but a different country from the one we live in. Magic has been known for tens of thousands of years, and the only reason the colonies freed themselves from British domination is that Pennsylvania Rifles outrange the tyrannical power of Mastery. The colonies haven't gotten far into the interior yet; a different man from Thomas Jefferson was born in t...

I stepped into a world o' gold, gold and yellow and orange and all the colors 'twixt 'em, with a hint o' red too. I didn't see no underbrush, nor the scrubbier trees, leavin' only the giants, 'cept they rose on up even higher here, no leaves or branches till hunnerds o' feet up. I could see the stream a mile or so t' the north, same as the world back home, the other burblin' along t' the east, and t' the south the ridge risin' slowly up, all reddish, till it topped out...

Expanded from 3 stories to 65, almost 150,000 words, ranging from my first real effort at a story, to more recent works of humor, horror, fantasy, parallel worlds, time travel, science fiction on libertarian worlds, a superhero tale, a couple of young adult stories, and holiday tales too. These stories were written between 1982 and 2020, and in the course of them I wanted to try a lot of different things. So they range from the very violent You've Seen the Video, Now...

Goblin Hound This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. @2015 Kevin Wade Johnson I got to say my hands were shaking a little bit when I put the leash on ol' Jonesie. "You gotta help me," I told my grampa's dog, "'cause we gotta go looking for the goblin hound." Jonesie just grinned up at me the way she always did, a smiling happy hound the...

A train, stopped on the western plains. A man rides up, on a horse he'd better relinquish. A struggle on board the train; a woman of surprising, even superhuman abilities, and an unconscious man. Who is this woman, named Aimee? For that matter, who is the man who comes to her rescue, named Phineas? How is it her train can travel to parallel worlds? Who are the people who attacked her train? "Beware of false friends, and false enemies." A world called "Aryan Trans...

I ordered staples and stores without any trouble, and went back outside to find a florid fellow questioning the wagon driver. The slave put his deed back in a pocket, and his questioner nodded and strolled over to me. "New in town," he observed. "Passin' through," I replied, pushing my hat back off my forehead. "Come in on that there train?" he said, lifting his chin to point. "Yep," I said. "Right nice," he observed. "Yep," I agreed. "Buyin' food?" "Yep." Why ...

They were left to the study of academics, relegated to the realm of literary criticism. They were dismissed as creations of a poet, remnants of an ancient literary tradition. But they were more than that, far more. Grendel and his mother were living creatures. And they were more than relics. We know, because their descendants live today. We just don't think of them as Grendels anymore. We lump them in with serial killers. And we dismiss any hint of supernatur...

…one, accursed, in man’s guise trod the misery-track of exile, though huger than human bulk. -Gummere, 1351-1354 "This heat is horrid," Butch muttered. I eyed her. We were crouched under camo cloths between a couple of half-dead acacia bushes in an arid, sandy plain, half a mile from a dusty ranch house, the sun beating down on us all. Half an hour ago, my phone had put the West Texas heat at well over 100 degrees. Nothing moved but a loose shutter on the h...

His own mother hasn't been willing to look at him since he was five years old. He and his twin sister have a connection that seems almost psychic. He realizes that close physical contact can let him know what others are thinking as well. His sister's different from most. He's different. But how? And why? He and his sister never knew their father, and their mother won't talk about the man. What they first learn only deepens the mystery. Could that have anything...

Gary McInnes gets his nickname of T-Man not from being transgender (although he meets and befriends a transwoman), but because of uncanny abilities he shows. How are they connected with this very different United States? Or the fact that his mother turns from him? He'll find out...

John Stephen Gray suffers sleepless nights from the memories of mistakes he's made, mistakes he can't forgive himself for. Or, at least, that he's never learned to forgive himself for. But neither he nor his daughter Janna have time to brood when invaders attack his home. In a world of visionaries who have invented such wonders as regeneration tanks, cloned hardwoods and advanced weaponry, they have to find a way to deal with their attackers, and more importantly th...

She ran out of the smoke straight to me. Gunshots and explosions boomed somewhere behind her. Fires flared. Dark-haired, dirty, and dressed drab, same as everyone else here in Bethlehem. Three years old? Four? I wasn't that good with kids then. I was slow. She'd grabbed onto my one leg, choking back sobs, before I could shoot her. Look, sorry, but too many kids were being used in this filthy little "uprising." Some had frag's or incendiaries taped onto them, un...

Parallel worlds touch where two places are so similar that one leads to the other. Only people more perceptive than the norm can sense them, though. Einar follows the much more "knowing" Agnethe from one world to the next, each seeking their destiny.

Snow was falling by the time the sun set, and I soon found myself in the monotonous state I'd been in last night. The frozen crust crumpling just a bit, the sharp wind, feathery with snow, icy against our eyes. No other skin was exposed, but it was once again too dark for the goggles. Winter nights have a certain, stark beauty. This far north, the nights last for hour upon hour; on a clear night, the stars glitter brilliantly. This clouded night, with the snow falli...

A science fiction novella with a political undertone, looking at what virtually unlimited power does, and how it might have been used over the years from 1934 into the 2010s

"[I]f the scientists are correct, the worlds out there are parallel to ours. Well, not parallel, but branches from the same tree, from the same history. … "Worlds where Tesla never heard about Yellowstone while visiting Colorado in 1903, never had his imagination fired by descriptions of 'Coulter's Hell,' never had the fundamental inspiration for the Tesla Field."