Eric Staggs: Writer

Links to some of my short stories ( in case ya missed ‘em the first time around):

• Exodus is here.
• The Census Bureau and Space Whales II: Sister Shiv are here!

Kind words from some very talented writers. Thank you all!

“Eric’s collections of short stories are not only entertaining but are very well written. There’s adventure, humor, intrigue and everything that makes stories exciting to read. As you’re reading it is so easy to make a mental movie from the words that are written on the pages. I enjoyed them very much. It was hard to wait to see what would happen next. Eric is a talented, gifted, and mind boggling writer. He will keep you your toes with his imagination. I recommend that you read Space Whales and Other Nonsense. You won’t be disappointed.” - Bianca Emery, Writer

The best part is… they don’t run out:

Buy it for Kindle at Amazon.com

Buy it for Nook at Barnesandnoble.com

The first reviews are coming in – good things! Check it out:

“Eric Staggs is one of those rare sci-fi writers that has new ideas that simultaneously expand the genre and make it more accessible to everyone in the process. Each short story is a window into detailed worlds that will get your imagination firing and make you yearn for complete series set in each one. The stories run the gamut from far out alien adventures to tales that could happen just down the street if the world were tweaked ever-so-slightly. There is drama, action, philosophy, and even the occasional bit of humor. If you don’t love Sister Shiv then you don’t have a funny bone in your body. Point being, this short story collection is a lot of things, but that’s not a bad thing, and it will appeal to everybody. Like Shel Silverstein, Staggs has created something bizarre, but relatable to everyday life. You’ll appreciate how unique these stories are and how much you can take away from them.”  –Jeremiah Smith, Writer

Buy it for Kindle at Amazon.com

Buy it for Nook at Barnesandnoble.com

Here it is for Nook! Buy it! Read it! Review it!

Space Whales and other Nonsense – The classic science-fiction tale of drug-crazed extraterrestrial cetacean invaders leads this collection of science-fiction and fantasy shorts. Also includes Serpent-Rider and Space Whales II: Sister Shiv (winner of Aviator’s Editor’s Choice Award).

Available from Amazon.com for Kindle, iPad, iPod and iPhone!

My crack pipe is digital and fibrous and reflects light, a trillion tiny messages packed up neat as you like and shot-thought out, across space and time. My crackpipe comes in flavors, blue and white lasers, reticulated star-gazers and the cost is steep. The High Animal, ribald in his hopes for godlessness, sweats and shits in a mirrored landscape, scurries for shelter, without God we’ve just Mommies Little Helper.

She pulled a hit from the swirled-glass creation, the acrid chemical smoke drifting lazily from her upper lip, curling around, obscuring a tiny mole before sneaking into her nostril to run through her pulmonary system again. Each pass the smoke grew weaker, thinner, as her body absorbed it instead of precious air.  Eyes half open, once pale-blue now blazed a noxious red. Her ears rang.

It was a painful need, that nagging desire always in the back of her mind, always chewing away at her dreams and goals, a dull blade knocking chips, spark and all, from so fragile self-respect.

As the pain receded and she slunk back into the warm arms of Forget, she was betrayed by her eyes and a tear fell.

My crackpipe has grown, transformed over the years, from simple knowledge to data to rampant seething, patterns. The crack pipe shattered and shivered when knowledge wasn’t enough. The patterns began to go wild, expanding and growing growing like interlaced vines. A fractal that cannot be mastered, cannot be wholly viewed in instant. As she wished for the pattern, I wished for the smoke.

by Eric Staggs
December 1, 2008 

It lands on the television screen. An enormous expanse of glowing colors and shapes, flickering, overloading the fly’s multifaceted eyes. If you were to look close you’d see mirror-perfect reflections of a million dreams, sports gods and local hope for a sportier tomorrow. It raises its forelegs and drags them across its illuminated eyes, swipe, repeat.

Upon close inspection the insect’s visage is hideous. Bulbous head, cruel mouth ringed with tendrils and appendages, hooks and tongues, those special things that nightmare is born from. Watching longer still, the mindless thing twitches and flexes, its entire body seems pregnant with some alien horror. Back to those cunning eyes, the head shifts, reflected heroes fade and light pushes forth another character.

A kindly old woman sits at a polished wooden table, her elderly husband stares at the screen, not seeing the fly, for his vision is poor, but he knows his team, he knows which colors are his pride, which represent mid-western righteousness. His wife, the old woman, talks on.

“It was such a peculiar plant. I got it at the farmer’s market. So odd. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She stops in her retelling of the tale to watch a young woman, two tables over, light a cigarette. The old woman frowns. “Such a peculiar plant.”

At the bar, directly under the fly, a young man sits. He listens to the old woman’s story without turning around. He is reminded of a movie. Such a peculiar plant. The young man didn’t like place. He was accustomed to certain patterns. This pattern unnerved him. They frosted their mugs here, so your beer came cold, but in moments was watery. More watery American beer. He stared at the television screen, the one where the fly rested, and did not see either the fly or the screen. He just stared and sipped watery beer.

The bartender was a young girl with stainless steel rings pushed through her eyes and ears, and she often wished she could put then through her cheeks somehow. She watched the young man frown at his beer, drink it with disdain and distance. She watched the old woman talk at her husband, who watched the screen, and she watched the fly, which did not buzz. Rather, the fly twitched, as if it was being electrocuted.