Because I’m curious about Smashwords as a publishing platform and am particularly intreguied by its automatic ditribution to the major ebook outlets, I’m testing the service by way of using it. A detective races to prevent catastrophe in this free short story. Part horror, part science fiction, “Let Sleeping Gods” is powerful and tough fiction with a heart of deepest mystery.

“Let Sleeping Gods” was written as an experiment with a dramatically minimalist prose style, an experiment I think turned out quite well. I enjoyed writing this way enough, in fact, that it influenced my revisions of The Hole — though the result in that case is not quite as telegraph-ish as the story.

The story is available in a variety of formats from Smashwords. If you’d like to read it on your Nook, you can also grab it direct from Barnes & Nobel.