Skip to content

Category: Short Stories

Read Adam’s short stories!

Six Straight Roads, a new short story by Adam Bender

I have a new short story out! It’s called “Six Straight Roads,” and here’s the short description:

Matt tries to be the hero at his friend’s annual Capture the Flag birthday tournament in this coming-of-age short story set in the Philly suburbs. Sweating and covered with sap, Matt learns who his true friends are beneath the shade of a 20-foot-tall pine tree. In the tradition of fellow sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, Adam Bender reflects on his childhood experiences and the innocence of youth.

You can read it for free through Smashwords!

It’s fair to say that “Six Straight Roads” has been a long time coming. I began writing the short story back in 2016. I was trying to come up with ideas, and my wife suggested I should write a short story based on a random title.

“Okay, so what’s the title?” I asked nervously.

She thought for a moment and said, “Six Straight Roads.”

I was stupefied more than inspired. What story could I possibly write with such a mundane yet cryptic title?

But then, as I kept running the title through my mind, I started thinking about the games of Capture the Flag my friends and I used to play in our suburban neighborhood in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The various pleasantly named streets formed a kind of grid that we used to set the boundaries and midpoint of the game’s map. It occurred to me that “six straight roads” could form just such a grid.

So, yeah, even though I’m allegedly a sci-fi author (and a dystopian one at that), I began writing a short story inspired by my childhood adventures in suburbia. But hey, if Ray Bradbury could do it, then so could I!

I quickly wrote the first draft of “Six Straight Roads.” However, I guess it never quite felt finished, because I didn’t release it in 2016. Then I guess I forgot about it for a few years, had a child in 2019 (Happy Father’s Day!), and got caught up in writing Utopia PR. It wasn’t until summer of (gasp) 2021 that I gave it another look.

I had just joined a Philly writers’ meetup group and was looking for something to submit for the group to read. I realized this would be a great opportunity to polish up my rough draft of “Six Straight Roads.” I ended up getting a really encouraging critique from a bunch of great writers. They liked the story and had a bunch of great ideas to make it even better. I took many notes, excited to finally finish the damn thing.

And then I put it off for another year. Okay, but in December 2022, I stopped clicking snooze on my to-do list, sat down, and got to work implementing my fellow writers’ suggestions. I finally whipped the thing into shape!

But then of course I dilly dallied on releasing it … until today! I really hope you enjoy it. It’s been on my mind for forever. Please leave a review on Smashwords or let me know what you think in the comments below.

By the way, there’s something pretty cool about the cover. Can you guess what it is? (The answer is below!)

Cover of “Six Straight Roads” by Adam Bender

Yes, I created the drawing with AI! Like probably all of you, I’ve been pretty flummoxed and frightened by the whole AI craze, but I thought one good use might be to help design a quick cover for a free short story. I’ll still hire real people to design my novels but I can’t afford to do that for every little piece I write.

I used DALL-E through the Microsoft Bing AI chatbot. At first I was thinking more literally about the title and tried to get an image of suburban streets from above, but it was kind of boring.

An AI generated suburban neighborhood. Credit: DALL-E/Bing

My other idea was to focus on the story’s main characters hiding out beneath a pine tree. At first I got some really f-ed up looking children, but specifying a cartoon style helped fix that. I still got a weird one with blank eyes….

Not bad but what’s with that kid’s eyes? Credit: DALL-E/Bing

But then I got the one I ended up using. I was intrigued by how the one kid looked kind of melancholy. It looks like there’s a story there!

Ah, that’s better. Credit: DALL-E/Bing

Oh yeah, those kids really do have a story! It’s called “Six Straight Roads.” Hope you like it!

Leave a Comment

Adam Bender releases new short story: “Wrong Gate”

Last month for NaNoWriMo 2019, I asked subscribers to my newsletter, The Underground, to submit a title for my next, yet-to-be written short story. The winning prompt was “Wrong Gate” by Janet Lerner from Raanana, Israel, and the short story is now available to download for free in the eBook format of your choice (EPUB, Kindle, PDF and more) at Smashwords!

In “Wrong Gate,” a businesswoman rushes to make her connection at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which at 17,207 acres is larger than the island of Manhattan! Will she reach her final destination? In the spirit of The Twilight Zone, “Wrong Gate” is a humorous short story with a terrifying twist.

You can read all my short stories for free on Smashwords! And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to my newsletter. Underground members get exclusive opportunities like this title prompt contest, plus first notice of new stories and updates on future works.

Happy New Year!

-Adam

Leave a Comment

You’re Invited to ‘A LifeTrade Wedding’

Here’s the ad copy for my new short story:

Read about the next direction of matchmaking apps – exchanging lives! A reluctant groom leaves his bride at the altar by trading places with a man who wants to be married. A series of testimonials by the wedding party shows how LifeTrade can give everyone a “happily ever after.”

I wrote “A LifeTrade Wedding” as a fictional advertorial for the trading-places-as-a-service (TPaaS) introduced in a previous short story. I had a lot of fun writing it and am super excited to share it with you!

As with all my short stories, it’s completely free to read. If you like it, please leave a comment below or a review where you download it.

Get the eBook now from Smashwords, Apple iTunesBarnes & Noble, Kobo or Scribd.

Cover for A Life Trade Wedding

Leave a Comment

Prepare for ‘Invasion Day’ — a new sci-fi short story by Adam Bender

With the winter holidays nearly upon us, I’d been thinking about what gift I could give my awesome readers. And then… it suddenly occurred to me! “Hey, I’ve got this great unpublished short story called Invasion Day!”

"Invasion Day" cover
Cover for “Invasion Day” by Adam Bender

On his tenth birthday, a boy living on the moon asks his grandpa about the blue planet glowing in the forever-night sky, and why they live the way they do.

I wrote this story earlier this year, based on a several-years-old idea from my notes, and inspired by the writing of one of my favorite authors — the great Ray Bradbury.

You can read the eBook free on Smashwords and other online retailers including AppleBarnes & Noble, Kobo and Scribd. I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave me a review when you’re finished.

Happy holidays!

Leave a Comment

Revealed: The street artist who tagged Heretical symbols all over the Capital

THE CAPITAL — You see it painted on road signs and the walls of train stations and government buildings: A black visage with fiery red eyes.

wtw face
The so-called “Fire Eyes,” dissident symbol of Heretics in the Underground.

This graffiti, done with a stencil and spray paint, has long fueled the Heretics’ hatred for our benevolent government. But until today we did not know the perpetrator.

Today, the administration of President William Drake announced that the Guard have learned the graffiti scoundrel’s name: Ignatius.

“We will find Ignatius,” said a spokesman for the Guard. “When we do, the Heretic will face charges of treason and Heresy. These offenses are punishable by death.”

It is not known where Ignatius resides at this time, and the street artist seems to have gone quiet of late, the spokesman said.

“He will turn up again,” claimed the spokesman. “Heretics like Ignatius just can’t resist. When he does, the Guard will be waiting.”

Follow Ignatius in “Fire Eyes,” the new short story by Adam Bender.


Cover of "Fire Eyes," a short story by Adam Bender
“Fire Eyes” – The new short story by Adam Bender

Set before the events of WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL, “Fire Eyes” reveals the man behind the street art seen throughout the acclaimed dystopian sci-fi novels. The story, inspired by real political street art by Banksy and others, makes a great entry point for new readers and provides new perspective to fans of Adam Bender’s books.

Like his novels, this short story by Adam Bender exposes a current political issue in an exciting speculative fiction adventure, carrying on the tradition of dystopian classics 1984 by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, as well as more recent blockbuster novels like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

“Fire Eyes” is free to read on Smashwords! Also available from Apple, Nook, Kobo, Scribd and Inktera.


You can also read the story below via Scribd.
[scribd id=299710621 key=key-l1deYvd24lhocffpEzdX mode=scroll]

1 Comment
©2023 Adam Bender | adambenderwrites.com | watchadam.blog