M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

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

My Nebula Award nominated and Sir Julius Vogel Award winning game The Martian Job is interactive fiction where you play a safecracker called in to do one last casino heist… on Mars.

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.

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
Exceptionally readable... This novel should be devoured in a single sitting. — Megan Kuklis, The Fiddlehead
A bittersweet tale of eccentricity, delayed development and getting on with the messy business of life. Plus parrots. — Toronto Star
The Voyage of the White Cloud
I felt so much … The final lines of the book…were a major emotional gut punch … I highly recommend this if you like emotional Science Fiction. — The Content Cr_Eater

Free Stories

  • 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 …
  • Fire. Escape. – SampleFire. Escape. – Sample
    This is a novelette that explores a different aspect of the world of the Andersson Dexter novels. You can get the complete ebook for free when you sign up to my mailing list. It all started with the explosion. It wasn’t the first time Grey had heard the tell-tale bang… whoosh …

News

Retaking Elysium Chapter One — Read or Listen Free

I’m serializing my new novella Retaking Elysium on Patreon.

Mars is good place to reinvent yourself, isn’t it?

Jules Morales’s life has always been a state of contact change. When the opportunity comes up, why not take a trip to Mars to work on the platinum mining operation—and make a load of money? But what if there is more to Mars than just a payday and an adventure?

The woman now calling herself Lisa Marie has spent her whole life trapped by the struggle to make ends meet, and sometimes held hostage by her own memories. On Mars she might finally find financial security, but will she also find something to care about today, and maybe even for the future?

Mars is a world in transition, caught in the balance between capitalist exploitation and human exploration. The first people of Mars need to find a way to build a functioning economic zone and liveable habitat on the Red Planet. But could they do more—create a community, a true new home for humanity?

Read or listen to Chapter One for free.

Retaking Elysium — Coming in July

Coming July 23—a Patreon exclusive serial in text and audio: Retaking Elysium, a prequel to my Nebula nominated game, The Martian Job.

Mars is good place to reinvent yourself, isn’t it?

Jules Morales’s life has always been a state of contact change. When the opportunity comes up, why not take a trip to Mars to work on the platinum mining operation—and make a load of money? But what if there is more to Mars than just a payday and an adventure?

The woman now calling herself Lisa Marie has spent her whole life trapped by the struggle to make ends meet, and sometimes held hostage by her own memories. On Mars she might finally find financial security, but will she also find something to care about today, and maybe even for the future?

Mars is a world in transition, caught in the balance between capitalist exploitation and human exploration. The first people of Mars need to find a way to build a functioning economic zone and liveable habitat on the Red Planet. But could they do more—create a community, a true new home for humanity?

All patrons will get the weekly chapters in text, patrons at the $2 or more level will get the exclusive audio podcast, and patrons at the $3 or more level will also get the ebook before it is released worldwide in October.

Join my Patreon here!

More...