Anaxagology for May 2026

News

The Robot-Filled Post-Apocalypse is Coming in July

I'm delighted to announce that my post-apocalytpic novelette, "Ladd's Robot Repair," is coming to Lightspeed in July!

Pop by Lightspeed in July or keep an eye on my Bluesky feed for the exact date and link. I can't wait to introduce you to some of my favorite characters.

Nebula Awards

This year, I'm a finalist for the Andre Norton Nebula Award for The Tower. I'm still pretty amazed I get to say that. Tune in to SFWA's YouTube channel to stream the Nebula Award Ceremony live on June 6, 6pm PDT/9pm EDT. Though I can't make it in person to the ceremony, I'll be attending virtually and watching the awards stream right alongside you.

Work in Progress

I've decided to focus on longform projects this year and let the short stories simmer on the back burner for a bit. It's torture. No matter what I write there's always some other thing I feel I'm neglecting. I need another couple of keyboards and two or three extra sets of hands.

My post-apocalyptic novelette "Ladd's Robot Repair" will be coming soon in Lightspeed (see above), and I've written an even longer second story set in the same world, and have plans for 13 more. Not a typo. The stories focus on a fiercely independent scavenger boy (Ladd) who repairs robots and reluctantly learns that in a broken world, connection is survival. I plan eventually to collect the novelettes into one volume.

And, for reasons unknown even to me, I've also embarked on a series of 5 weird western novellas. Not a typo. I've been building up to this one for a while. I recently dusted off a flash fiction piece that I wrote as a kind of proof of concept a few years ago, and it reignited my interest. So now I've begun drafting book one, Buckshot and the Iron Sheriff. It's about a cybernetic Sasquatch sheriff and his young ward (Buckshot) who face a monstrous threat in the old west.

Here's an excerpt, hot out of the word processor, as told by Buckshot:

Buckshot just goes on like that. If this sort of thing doesn't make your eyes go cross reading it, good news—there's a heck of a lot more to come.

Story Notes — Gumba Cuddles

Many authors have quippy answers at the ready for when they are asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" Award-winning author, SFWA Grand Master, and noted asshole, Harlan Ellison, would famously reply, "Schenectady."

To be fair, it's hard to answer that question in general terms because it assumes that all stories emerge from the same general wellspring—as if there really were an idea subscription service running out of a small shop in Schenectady. But if you ask an author what the flash point for a specific story was, you generally won't be able to shut them up. Each story has it's own origin story.

My short story Gumba Cuddles was published in Hell Itself in March. It is the story of a boy who accompanies his Grandpa to the NICU to help comfort babies from war-torn lands.

This idea sat in my (digital) notebook for a long time—maybe ten years, maybe more. I had seen a news article (or maybe a feature on a TV news program) about a volunteer grandpa who cuddled babies. I was very drawn to the idea of character who was a male nurturer, perhaps because I had been a preschool teacher for more than 20 years. But a character is not a story and for a long time, I couldn't figure one out.

Then, a few years ago, Israeli forces began attacking hospitals in Gaza. Dozens of fragile, premature babies had to be evacuated. Not all of them made it out.

I was enraged. Sometimes stories come from anger. Or at least, the motivation to write can come from there—or from love, or homesickness, or nostalgia. Any strong emotion.

So these things collided—feelings of rage and helplessness, the character of a volunteer grandpa baby cuddler, a different idea of masculinity, and a dream of safety, kindness, and humanity. What resulted was a story that begins with a sense of mounting horror, but ends up someplace completely different.

The story was rejected by 27 publishers before it found a home. It's a story I'm especially fond of and I hope you'll hop on over to Hell Itself when you get a chance and check it out. Also, I don't have a ko-fi or Patreon and I don't ask for tips, but if you found the story worth your while, or the idea of babies being caught in crossfire of war upsets you, please consider making a donation to Doctors Without Borders, who are doing real work to help people affected by wars, disease or natural disasters.

And finally, I am delighted to see that older men are still cuddling babies. In this world, especially if you are an infant in need of a cuddle, what could matter more?

Reading Log

Capsule reviews of vintage SFF short stories

"Happy Birthday, Little Elroy" (1982) by Barbara Owens in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It's Little Elroy's 10th birthday, which means it's his first time to use the Way — a gift handed down through his family for generations to grant themselves birthday wishes and reshape reality however they see fit, irreversibly, for an entire year. Trouble is, Elroy's been neglected by his boorish family, bullied by his brother, and mistreated by others in the community. When his family used the Way on their own birthdays, they thought small. Little Elroy, on the other hand, thinks big. This story is a bit of a throwback to EC Comics-style revenge horror stories. There's not much in the way of characterization or plot. The "fun" is in watching the inventive ways in which Elroy reshapes the world to his liking, which mostly entails endless suffering for others that wronged him. It's okay as far as it goes, but lacks the kind of deeper insight offered by Jerome Bixby's similar and much more well-known "It's a Good Life," written decades earlier.

"Little America" (2012) by Dan Chaon in Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, ed. Sam Weller & Mort Castle. Available online. Peter is on a road trip through a ruined and desolate America. He's a boy who was born human but soon showed signs of an affliction affecting many youth: he grew sharp teeth, long nails, course hair, and a predator's instinct. Mr. Breeze rescues these predators and takes them to a sanctuary where they have a hope at a normal life. Chaon excels at creating a sense of accumulating dread with slow-burn, oblique worldbuilding. The story begins as a simple runaway-kid story (or perhaps even a kidnapping) but little by little small bits of wrongness build up until finally Peter's true nature comes into focus. Peter, ironically, feels like the most human character in the story—another of Choan's achievements. For all the implications of his monstrousness, Peter is simply a lonely, frightened, uncertain kid who desperately wants to be "a good boy," but the adults in his world are fearful, exploitative, and cruel. Though the story's final line is haunting, the ambiguous ending left too much unresolved for me and weakened the full emotional impact.

"The Father-Thing (1954) by Philip K. Dick in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1954, reprinted in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 16 (1954) eds. Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. Charles, an eight-year-old boy, suspects his father is not his father and has been replaced by an impostor. When he discovers the discarded, desiccated skin of his real father stuffed into the bottom a garbage can, he seeks the assistance of the neighborhood bully to help fight the interloper. It's hard to fully appreciate "The Father-Thing" with modern eyes in the long shadow cast by Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers and its many descendants (even though this story pre-dates its publication by a year). What surprised me the most was how active the children were in this story. Rather than waiting to be picked off one by one as passive horror victims, they investigate, strategize, and fight back. Charles especially is emotionally authentic. He's terrified, but acts in spite of that fear—and his bravery is all the more visceral. I also appreciated the capable role given to Daniels, "the best at finding," and though the story's casual racial framing is painfully dated, it's refreshing to see a diverse cast of kid protagonists in a 1950s science fiction tale. This story feels more akin to Stranger Things than Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and, even after 72 years, it still contains some genuine scares.

That's the news for this month. Subscribe for more and thanks for reading!

ICYMI

If you’re just joining the party, here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to and where you can find my work.

Coming Soon:

• "Ladd's Robot Repair", post-apocalyptic SF novelette forthcoming this July in Lightspeed Magazine.

• "How to Survive a Corn Maze", horror flash fiction forthcoming in Lightspeed Magazine.

My latest short stroy, “Gumba Cuddles” is free to read in Hell Itself. You might also enjoy "'We Require an Engine,' Said the Testicle Collective". Visit my Bibliography for a full list of my fiction and other works.

I am the Andre Norton Nebula Award finalist author of The Tower (Recorded Books, 2025), narrated by Christopher Gebauer. Available wherever audiobooks are sold, or check your local library.

I wrote for Nickelodeon’s Glitch Techs, an animated sci-fi adventure about teens who hunt video game monsters that have broken out into the real world. I also created and co-executive produced Amazon Studio’s first live-action kids and family series, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, about an ordinary suburb that hides extraordinary magic.

About

Anaxagology is a free monthly(ish) newsletter from author and speculative fiction writer David Anaxagoras featuring essays, previews of works in progress, behind-the-scenes story notes, reading logs, and the occasional giveaway. Subscribe now! You can learn more about Dave at his website, or follow him on Bluesky.