Solitude in E Minor

SOLITUDE IN E MINOR contains five stories of drama, fantasy, and science fiction.

"Odinsphere" tells the story of a teenaged boy named Travis, who lives on a small, lonesome planet among an entire star system of prosperity and excitement. He has no friends to speak of and one drunken abusive father, nothing going for him on this planet other than the memories of a better past. He is in desperate need of a better life, and seizes the opportunity when it comes.

"Room 26C" follows Jared, a man who in his youth may once have been eager to take a crack at life in the big city, but is now a single father struggling to make ends meet and provide a good life for his son. Quarter life crisis in full swing, he is trapped in the drudgery of day to day routine, burdened with shortcomings, when one Christmas Eve a small but unexpected break awaits him.

In "Runt," a local farmer named Lance has had a difficult season, which is why he can't afford any loss of livestock to predators. Having shot a dog one night who went after his chickens, a surprise awaits him when he discovers that it isn't a dog at all, nor is it like any animal he'd ever seen. His hands, neighboring farmers, even animal control cannot identify this thing. Lance encounters one neighbor who does in fact have the truth about this creature.

"A New Beginning" tells the story of Dante and Natalie, a new young couple who are fresh out of college and have got plenty of options as well as a literal open road ahead of them, a chance to be their own people unburdened by past choices or their friends and families' expectations of them. Dante and Natalie are also both grieving the loss of a dear friend of theirs, and the different ways in which they grieve reveal some perhaps unexpected truths about them.

"Alton the Almighty" is the fiercest and truest hero the Republic of Men has ever known, only a young boy whom once longed for a life of magic and adventure is now living a pure child's fairy tale with the aid of his trusted Steed, Clover. In a land where magic is outlawed and the looming threat of the dreaded Giant Kingdom grows ever greater, Alton takes his knowledge of the forbidden craft into the fight against the Giant King directly.