M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you’ll find something you like here.

If you want to read something short, check out the free stories available here or the links under “Publications” go to other places my stories have been published. Some of those are free to read online.

If you prefer longer works, I have free samples of all my novels available on the site. Beautiful Red was my first book, and is a standalone cyberpunk story. Self Made, Act of Will, The Beauty of Our Weapons and Pixels and Flesh are a series (in that order) about future detective Andersson Dexter. Children of Arkadia is a standalone political space station epic and The Voyage of the White Cloud is a novel-in-stories about the middle years on a generation starship.

I’ve also written a novel-length interactive fiction game called The Martian Job, where you play a safecracker called in to do one last casino heist… on Mars.

My newest mainstream book, The Home for Wayward Parrots, is a lighthearted coming-of-age story full of geek pop culture and foul-mouthed birds. The YA series, Devi Jones’ Locker, is mainstream fiction — a light beach read that brings the beach to you. The first book in this series is Packet Trade.

You can also get exclusive monthly content over at my Patreon page, for as little as a dollar a month.

Reviews

Children of Arkadia
Wehm writes novels of ideas in which the ideas genuinely matter… [I]t’s a pleasure to see political and ethical questions, so often relegated to the background in science fiction, allowed so much scope to drive the story. — David Larsen, New Zealand Herald
The Home for Wayward Parrots
A love song to late bloomers, eclectic families, and all the assorted weirdos, hang-ups, and half-understood stories that make up a life. — Greg Bechtel, author of Boundary Problems
A bittersweet tale of eccentricity, delayed development and getting on with the messy business of life. Plus parrots. — Toronto Star

Free Stories

  • Chekhov’s PhaserChekhov’s Phaser
    I never planned to end up here. I’ve never planned anything, really. All my life has been like that: I see an opportunity and I take it. Sometimes that works out better than other times. So why should this be any different? I’d just been by docking station three, slipping …
  • The InterviewThe Interview
    Originally published in Podioracket Presents – Glimpses “I was working at this stim joint, a place called Ultra-Sissons. It’s not where I’m working now — I wasn’t a bartender then, just a busser. Cleaning up the used cartridges, tidying chairs, occasionally tossing out the odd rowdy. Anyway, I wasn’t important or …

From the blog

The Voyage of the White Cloud — Out Now!

My new standalone science fiction novel, The Voyage of the White Cloud, is out now in paperback, ebook and audiobook.

Can home be a place you’ve never been, a place no one has ever been? 

The White Cloud is the most audacious experiment the human species has ever undertaken—to search for a new Earth. The ship and its crew exist for a solitary purpose—to reach a distant planet and establish a colony. However, the vast majority of people undertaking this journey will not live to see its result, nor were they part of the decision-making process to leave.

A novel-in-stories, following the many generations who make the journey, The Voyage of the White Cloud asks how you can find meaning as a slave to destiny, a mere stepping-stone in history.

These are the stories of the most ordinary people on a most extraordinary journey.

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2018 Publications

‘Tis the season… the beginning of awards season, so it’s a good time to take stock. Here’s what I (will) have published this year.

Short Fiction

“A Most Elegant Solution.” Terraform. April 2018 (science fiction)

“Daphne Disappeared.” The Dame Was Trouble. Coffin Hop Press. August 2018 (mystery/crime)

“Mistletoe and Holly.” Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Coffin Hop Press. Forthcoming (mystery/crime)

Games

The Martian Job. Choice of Games. October 2018 (science fiction)

Novels

The Home for Wayward Parrots. NeWest Press. May 2018 (mainstream fiction)

The Voyage of the White Cloud. in potentia press. November 2018 (science fiction)

The Martian Job—Interactive Novel

I’m stoked to announce that the project I’ve been working on for the last year is out this week—and you can play the demo now!

Watch the trailer… it’s awesome!

From Choice of Games:

Welcome to Mars, where one last safecracking job could nab you enough platinum to last a lifetime. But how will you pull off your heist? Do you hack into the vault, blast your way in, or finesse the locks? Can you trust your misfit team of grifters and con artists? Can they trust you?

The Martian Job is an interactive text game where you create your own character to act as the protagonist. Find out more and play the demo now at Choice of Games.

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