Brain Read

4 is an unfortunate number in many Asian countries, having connotations with death.

A superstition? Perhaps.


But what if human brains (and their contents, our memories) could one day be read, copied, even remixed again and again?

Think of the possibilities, the secrets, the nightmares that might emerge.


Welcome to Brain Read . . . a collection of four speculative fiction short stories by Mark McClure that play with space, time and the fragile seams between life and death.


A man flees the scene of his family's slaughter only to doubt his own alibi in 'Reliving the First Day of the Dead.'


“Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In 'The Many Little Deaths of Lover Boy and Lover Girl', an acrostic poem about Valentine's Day unleashes the power to horrify even Coleridge.


In 'The Keyboard Prisoner', Harod King, a struggling ghostwriter, dreams of making it big. But with his client, best-selling author Stevie Speckter, in prison for first-degree murder, how far will he go to succeed?


When Evelyn Weir, retired and disabled, discovers an inner voice that eases her loneliness, she begins to wonder when might be 'A Perfect Time to Die.'