How do you hope your readers will react to these stories?
By feeling good about themselves.
That may sound strange coming from me, since my work so often deals with the dark and dismal side of human nature, but I mean it.
The fact of the matter is that I love the human race, in spite of everything. It’s not that I have many illusions about us being being good in any objective sense, but this is my species and you’re all I’ve got.
I try to use the Fantastic to shine a light on the Mundane. I like to present my characters with interesting and difficult ethical choices and show them choosing to take the best of a bad lot.
I want my readers to identify with my characters and to think, “If I was in that situation and I reacted to it like that person did, I’d feel good about myself.”
I don’t always succeed. And sometimes, to be honest, I change it up and write a story designed to make people think, “I’m glad I’m not the kind of person who would react to that situation in that way.” (There’s a lot of that in my last collection, An Atlas Of Bad Roads.)
In general, though, I am hoping that people will finish Small Worlds feeling good, and strong, and brave. I want to give people hope. And if many of my stories are dark, well that’s because when it’s darkest even the smallest candle can shine with a mighty light.
[Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds is on Kickstarter now but ends tomorrow! Be sure to pre-order this amazing collection, and don’t forget to check out the audiobooks of Endless Summer and An Atlas of Bad Roads as DRM-free add-ons, only $10 each!]
Ours is a culture that adores the elephantine, the cyclopean, the Brobdingnagian. Bigger is better, we are told, and the biggest is the best. People love big stories, with a cast of thousands, and Vista-vision widescreen special effects. Heroes must be larger than life, and devils blacker than they are painted, and entire worlds must be set aflame to create an ever-growing hunger for spectacle.
Oh, says I, that’s interesting. But that’s not what I do.
I write short stories, about little people in small worlds. That’s what you’ll find in this collection. In a couple of cases, they are literally small worlds, flyspeck heavenly bodies far out in space. In others the constraints are more metaphysical, worlds bounded by the vision of their inhabitants, an event horizon close enough to almost touch.
But one mustn’t suppose that the Lilliputian character of these stories means that nothing of significance happens in them.
Small worlds need saving, too. – Misha Burnett
Cirsova Publishing is proud to present Small Worlds, a brand new anthology of fiction [much of it previously unpublished], from short fiction master Misha Burnett.
Small Worlds has all of the hallmarks of Misha Burnett’s fusion of SFF with classic weird, inviting the reader into the uncanny realms where the mundane has been pervaded by the strange, but also brings to the table his unique brand of white-knuckle thrilling adventure sometimes seen in the pages of Cirsova Magazine.
This collection features “Better Off Dead,” an all-new novelette-length Erik Rugar fantasy-noir thriller, “This Green and Pleasant Sky,” a novella about farming… on an asteroid populated by women prisoners, “My Grandfather’s Grandfather Balled Goddesses,” a Sword & Sorcery adventure set in the world of Cha’alt, and much much more!
The Stories
Josef: A Fable – What happens when Society has officially decided that you’re just not good enough?
Better Off Dead – In an all new Erik Rugar adventure, Dracoheim’s premier agent investigates a potential undead uprising that coincides with the return of a legendary serial killer!
284 Miles to Empty – A mysterious phone call from out of time brings two strangers together!
Johnny and the Nightmare Machine – Johnny discovers that farming gold in an abandoned MMO somehow pays out real cash! But where is the money coming from, and what is the catch?
They Delved Too Deep – Construction workers in an underground parking garage accidentally break into forgotten catacombs!
The Irregular – The last survivors of human kind wage guerilla war against the aliens who have occupied earth!
This Green and Pleasant Sky – Todd Allard is given a debtor’s sentence to an asteroid penal farm, only to find that it has already been run into the ground by the women prisoners who have made it their playground! Can he turn things around before they’re all liquidated?!
Fragile – A technician with brittle bone disease on a remote space outpost must face off against a deadly femme fatale!
The Fall of a Storm King – Luther lives his life overclocked so he can pilot around the rings of Saturn until an accident forces him to find new work!
My Grandfather’s Grandfather Balled Goddesses – An unlikely duo must join forces to survive the wastelands of Cha’alt!
Rewards
$3 – Small Worlds eBook
Receive digital copies of Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds.
$20 – Small Worlds Pocket Paperback
Receive a pocket paperback copy of Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds + ebook.
$20 – Small Worlds Trade Paperback
Receive a paperback copy of Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds + ebook.
$40 – Small Worlds Hardcover
Receive a linen-wrapped hardcover copy of Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds + ebook.
$70 – All Formats
Receive all physical formats of Small Worlds + eBook.
Add-Ons
$10 – Digital Add-on Pack
eBooks of An Atlas of Bad Roads, Endless Summer, and Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts
$10 – Signed Bookplate
Bookplate signed by Misha Burnett
$10 – Audiobook of An Atlas of Bad Roads
Audiobook of Misha Burnett’s An Atlas of Bad Roads, read by Brandon Cassinelli! Be one of the first to get this DRM-free audiobook edition BEFORE it’s available anywhere else!
$10 – Audiobook of Misha Burnett’s Endless Summer
Audiobook of Misha Burnett’s Endless Summer, read by Brandon Cassinelli.
$10 – An Atlas of Bad Roads Trade Paperback
Add on a physical copy of An Atlas of Bad Roads. [US-only]
Add on a physical copy of Misha Burnett’s Endless Summer. [US-only]
$10 – Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts: The Case Files of Erik Rugar Trade Paperback
Add on a physical copy of Bad Dreams and Broken Dreams. [US-only]
Risks and challenges
The Book is in the can! The biggest challenge is going to be fulfillment. Cirsova Publishing has a 7 year track record of delivering on high quality publications on-time and often early.
Ours is a culture that adores the elephantine, the cyclopean, the Brobdingnagian. Bigger is better, we are told, and the biggest is the best. People love big stories, with a cast of thousands, and Vista-vision widescreen special effects. Heroes must be larger than life, and devils blacker than they are painted, and entire worlds must be set aflame to create an ever-growing hunger for spectacle.
Oh, says I, that’s interesting. But that’s not what I do.
I write short stories, about little people in small worlds. That’s what you’ll find in this collection. In a couple of cases, they are literally small worlds, flyspeck heavenly bodies far out in space. In others the constraints are more metaphysical, worlds bounded by the vision of their inhabitants, an event horizon close enough to almost touch.
But one mustn’t suppose that the Lilliputian character of these stories means that nothing of significance happens in them.
Two years have passed since the fall of Alness. And two years have passed since the brash young sellsword Mangos teamed up with Kat, the mysterious Alnessi rogue. Together, they have made a name for themselves as the Mongoose and Meerkat!
The ravaged northlands still smolder as the warlord Rhygir holds Alness in an iron grip. Rumors swirl that a member of the Alnessi royal family may have survived, but Rhygir is intent on hunting down any resistance that might rally to a rogue prince who escaped the slaughter.
Though Rhygir has been consolidating power in Alness, the Mongoose and Meerkat have been hard at work, gathering resources and making alliances in Alomar and abroad. But can the new allies and old friends overcome the army of Rhygir before it can be bolstered by elite mercenaries?
All of the pieces of the King’s Game are place!
The Redemption of Alness collects the third year of Kat and Mangos’s adventures together, including:
The Flying Mongoose
Death and Renewal
Fight of the Sandfishers
Thunder in the North
Feast of the Fedai*
Trapped in the Loop – [Previously unpublished]*
The Redemption of Alness – [Previously unpublished]*
* : [We WILL be publishing these stories serially in Cirsova Magazine, however backers of Volume 3 will get these these last two stories before they are published in the Fall and Winter 2023 issues].
Additionally, this volume will include the previously unpublished short story Knotsin the Thread of Time AND a teaser for Jim Breyfogle’s upcoming novel, A Bad Case of Dead!
We’re offering The Redemption of Alness in eBook and three physical formats:
$3 – eBook
$20 – Pocket Paperback
$20 – Trade Paperback
$35 – Linen-wrapped Hardcover
$70 – All Formats
As a bonus, we’re giving ALL backers a digital copy of Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat Volume 1: Pursuit Without Asking and Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat Volume 2: The Heat of the Chase so you can get all caught up!
$50 Pocketbook Catchup – Get all 3 volumes in pocketbook format
$50 Trade Paperback Catchup – Get all 3 volumes in trade paperback format
$88 Hardcover Catchup Pack – Get all 3 volumes in linen-wrapped hardcover format
$180 The Works – Get all 3 volumes in all 3 formats!
Like with Volume 1 & 2, we will be adapting elements of these stories into gaming content! The hardcover’s appendix will contain additional stats, items, and more! Plus, updated character sheets for Kat and Mangos.
Jim Breyfogle is one of Cirsova Publishing’s break-out stars. His swashbuckling duo Mongoose and Meerkat have become one of Cirsova Magazine’s most popular features. Cirsova Publishing released the smash hit collection Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat, Vol 1: Pursuit Without Asking in 2020, Vol 2: The Heat of the Chase in 2022, and his fairytale romance, The Paths of Cormanor in 2021.
Jim began inventing stories to keep himself occupied during the school day, and later, as all good writers, created stories for the entertainment and delight of his children. He is a regular attendee of the World Fantasy Convention and in 2010 was accepted to attend the prestigious Odyssey Writing Workshop. Since that time, Jim has been published in numerous magazines.
Cirsova Publishing began in 2016, launching its flagship fantasy magazine, which is now on its 20-somethingth issue. Cirsova has been serializing Mongoose and Meerkat’s adventures for a number of years now. They are also known for publishing Michael Tierney’s Wild Stars science fantasy saga and the strange fiction of Misha Burnett.
We’re trying really hard to time this release in early summer 2023. We want to do this to accommodate a brief break in the scheduled publication of Mongoose & Meerkat in Cirsova Magazine. Backers will get the “conclusion” to the series a bit earlier but we don’t want to deprive the people who have been following as magazine-only readers! So, we’re aiming for this sweet spot. Of course, we also need those last stories reviewed by our copy-editing staff and we need art for them. The biggest challenge is for all of these parts to come together at once and in time to ship out before we run those last two stories in the magazine.
What better way to remember the strange places you visited on your trip than by grabbing a business card?
All physical backers will receive facsimile business cards from some of the odd and out of the way places in An Atlas of Bad Roads!
*Note: As we’re fulfilling international orders directly, these may be mailed out separately to those individuals.
$8,000 – Cheap Souvenir
Maybe you want to pick up something a little more from the gas station…. something that will remind you of the good times you had every time you use it!
All US physical backers get An Atlas of Bad Roads bottle opener keychain free! [International backers who want these will need to pay separate S&H. Sorry, but mailing things is expensive! ToT]
100 Audiobook Sales – Throw Something on the Stereo
Need something to listen to on your next road trip? If we sell 100 audiobooks of Endless Summer, not only will we commission an audiobook edition of An Atlas of Bad Roads, we’ll throw in the first story to backers of this Kickstarter for free!
There are many strange places off the beaten paths in this great land of ours. From the abandoned shopping malls where squatters revel in violent nihilism to the new subdivisions built atop ruins where tragedies lay buried, Misha Burnett is your guide to the weird and out of the way places that are haunted by the past and the future.
This all new collection from Misha Burnett includes 16 strange tales of the macabre as well as 16 original poems, exploring the mysterious nature of the seemingly mundane world, where the run-down warehouses, shady night clubs, and even 24-hour gas stations may be home to magical fae creatures or skulking maniacs.
You’ve been offered a map to these beautiful vistas and disturbing local attractions. Just try not to get lost.
[In case you missed it, Misha Burnett was on Critical Blast with R.J. Carter last week. It was a fantastic interview! After you’ve backed An Atlas of Bad Roads, be sure to check it out!]
The Mongoose and Meerkat are back in six more exciting Sword & Sorcery adventures in this fully-illustrated collection.
Mangos, the brash and somewhat impetuous swordsman, and Kat, the mysterious Alnessi rogue, have been adventuring together for a year now and are finally building a reputation as competent adventurers who can get the job done when the price is right.
The duo sets up shop in the city of Alomar, a place where anything can be bought and sold. While seeking patrons for future plans, the Mongoose and Meerkat turn old enemies into new allies, but there’s always cost! While Mangos seeks flashy wealth and fame, Kat has her eyes on bigger prizes… and making some new and powerful foes among the elites comes with the territory when the Crown of Alness is on the line!
The Heat of the Chase collects the second year of Kat and Mangos’s adventures together, including:
The Golden Pearl
Hunt of the Mine Worm
The Grain Merchant of Alomar
The King’s Game
Too Many Mangos
The Wreck of the Cassada
Plus, as a bonus, we’re including the previously unpublished standalone novella, Thunderhead!
The Books
We’re offering The Heat of the Chase in eBook and three physical formats:
$3 – eBook
$18 – Pocket Paperback
$20 – Trade Paperback
$30 – Linen-wrapped Hardcover
As a bonus, we’re giving ALL backers a digital copy of Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat Volume 1: Pursuit Without Asking so you can get all caught up!
Add-Ons
Signed Bookplate
$25
Mongoose and Meerkat Volume 1
$10 – Audiobook
$15 – Pocket Paperback
$15 – Trade Paperback
$30 – Linen-wrapped Hardcover
Original Art
$300– The Gate Demon
$250 – The King’s Game
$350 – Kat Killing Mangos
$300 – Mangos and the Submarine
Stretch Goals
$3000 – RPG Bonus Content
Like with Volume 1, we will be adapting elements of these stories into gaming content! The hardcover’s appendix will contain additional stats, items, and more! Plus, updated character sheets for Kat and Mangos.
100 Audiobooks – M&M Volume 2 Audiobook
Show us that there’s demand for an Audiobook of Mongoose and Meerkat Volume 2! We think that Erin Mitchell did a fantastic job reading for volume 1 [she absolutely nails Kat], and we’d love to do another! If 100 backers get the Audiobook add-on, we’ll do what we can to get her on board and record Volume 2 for us!
About the Author
Jim Breyfogle is one of Cirsova Publishing’s break-out stars. His swashbuckling duo Mongoose and Meerkat have become one of Cirsova Magazine’s most popular features. Cirsova Publishing released the smash hit collection Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat, Vol 1: Pursuit Without Asking in 2020, and his fairytale romance, The Paths of Cormanor in 2021.
Jim began inventing stories to keep himself occupied during the school day, and later, as all good writers, created stories for the entertainment and delight of his children. He is a regular attendee of the World Fantasy Convention and in 2010 was accepted to attend the prestigious Odyssey Writing Workshop. Since that time, Jim has been published in numerous magazines.
About the Publisher
Cirsova Publishing began in 2016, launching its flagship fantasy magazine, which is now on its 20-somethingth issue. Cirsova has been serializing Mongoose and Meerkat’s adventures for a number of years now. They are also known for publishing Michael Tierney’s Wild Stars science fantasy saga and the strange fiction of Misha Burnett.