Tonya R. Moore
Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer & Bibliophile
The Lesson
The first blow came without warning. She wasn’t stupid. She’d known it was coming and was waiting. She moved ever so slightly, dipping low as his fist
connected with the wall. She reared up head…
Neophyte and Paradox
I’ve been having the same dream ever since I became Xu’s apprentice at the Southern Temple. It happens at odd moments, whether I’m awake or asleep. The world melts into stormy blue and…
Devious Machine
Ginger conjured a cool, dark river. The bottoms of her feet actually tingled as they slipped over the smooth rocks in the virtual riverbed. As she lowered her body into the wetness,…
Ghost & Hammer
John Miller entered the bridge of the Dawne Empress and sat in the pilot’s chair. He winced a little at the toll it took on his knee and grinned as he switched off the autopilot, adjusted their…
The Last Archangel
When she was earth bound, Alys wore the scars of her vocation with pride. The hardware semi-permanently fused into her head, arms, and back – input terminals for the iron maiden’s controls,…
Gatherer
At first, it didn’t seem so strange, waking up by the sea. I thought I’d simply fallen asleep after my usual swim again. The damp sand was itchy, crackled bits of seashells were cutting…
Tightrope Cat
Masika sat in her apartment, cowed by the gloom and dirty-gray walls. That old fashioned clock in the kitchen was ticking so loudly it scraped at her nerves. Her fingers itched to rip it…
Bird of Paradise
Midnight was always Gabe’s favorite hour. There’s a pulse that flows in the air, making everything – even inanimate objects seem to move like predators. Trees sway with attitude in the…
Off the Beaten Path is Up the Creek
The highway is a thing of beauty, as long as you understand that what you see is more than a mere ribbon of asphalt receding into the thirsty horizon on a desert road. The boy named Case,…
Sweet Belladonna
Capella: the tiny planet languishing in the soft crimson glow of her dying star had been a late bloomer, coaxed into habitability by human colonists only a few centuries earlier. The tiny body was…