Quarantine Reads: Escape to Adventure

By Karen J. Carlisle

When times are dark, fiction can whisk us away to other worlds to find new friends and have fantastical adventures. This collection of short fantasy, steampunk and fairytale fiction was created to entertain those in isolation or quarantine, or anyone needing to escape the worries of the world for a while.
Stay safe.
Quarantine Reads contains seven short stories of a lighter note, to inspire and transport you beyond four walls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kraken Publishing
• Release date: Oct 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215452226

Karen J. Carlisle

Karen J Carlisle is a writer and illustrator of speculative fiction - steampunk, Victorian mystery and fantasy. She graduated in 1986, from Queensland Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Optometry and lives in Adelaide with her family and the ghost of her ancient Devon Rex cat. Karen first fell in love with science fiction when she saw Doctor Who as a four-year old (she can’t remember if she hid behind the couch). This was reinforced when, at the age of twelve, she saw her first Star Destroyer. She started various other long-term affairs with fantasy fiction, (tabletop) role-playing, gardening, historical re-creation and steampunk – in that order. Her first book, Doctor Jack and Other Tales, was published in 2015. She has had articles published in Australian Realms Roleplaying Magazine and Cockatrice (Arts and Sciences magazine). Her short story, An Eye for Detail, was short-listed by the Australian Literature Review in their 2013 Murder/Mystery Short Story Competition. Karen's short story, Hunted, is featured in the Trail of Tales exhibition in the Adelaide Fringe, 2016. She currently writes full-time and can often be found plotting fantastical, piratical or airship adventures. Karen has always loved chocolate - dark preferred - and rarely refuses a cup of tea. She is not keen on the South Australian summers. 

Book preview

QUARANTINE READS:

ESCAPE TO ADVENTURE

A collection of speculative fiction short stories

by Karen J Carlisle

Copyright 2020 Karen J Carlisle

2023 Edition

License Notes.

All rights reserved.

The moral rights of this author have been asserted.

All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without written permission (except under the statutory exceptions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968).

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real places, events, or real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design: Copyright Karen J Carlisle 2020

NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

Thank you for purchasing this e-book.

Introduction

When times are dark, fiction can whisk us away to other worlds to find new friends and have fantastical adventures. This collection of short fantasy, steampunk and fairytale fiction was created to entertain those in isolation or quarantine, or anyone needing to escape the worries of the world for a while. Stay safe.

Contents

Flash Fiction: Under Two Minutes

Snow Peas – fantasy

Aether Egg – steampunk, based on The Adventures of Viola Stewart

Short Shorts: Under Five Minutes

Hunted - historical

Longer Shorts: Under Ten Minutes

Writer and the Story – fairytale fantasy

Bonus Shorts: Longer Reads

The Wager – historical

Rumpelstichen – fairytale fantasy

Here be Dragons – fantasy, based on upcoming Otherworld series.

Author’s Notes

About the Author

Other Titles by Karen J Carlisle

Flash Fiction: Under Two Minutes

Snow Peas

Mum always tells us to eat our greens. Says they’re good for us. She grows them in the front yard. This year she went pea mad, planting every type of pea she knew.

I hate peas. I swallow them whole, like pills.

So Mum planted snow peas. She was hoping I’d like them. I did, but not as mum had hoped...

Summer was hot. The snow peas were dying. Mum was sad. I wanted to help. I wanted to chase the heat away. I couldn’t, so I ate the snow peas.

They were cold. As I opened my mouth, a gust of cold air rushed out. It filled the room. Small icicles grew on everything it touched. Mum almost fell off her chair in surprise.

I opened