About The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner
What happens when you’re face-to-face with a truth that shakes you?
Do you accept it, or pretend it was never there?
Award-winning author Mark A. Rayner smudges the lines between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative in this collection of stories that examines this question—what Homer called passing through The Gates of Polished Horn.
We discover the cruelty of creating synthetic consciousness. A woman is worried that her husband is having an affair but discovers it’s much, much worse. A time traveler uncovers a reality-bending fact while observing the death of Socrates. Waldo, of Where’s Waldo fame, has an existential crisis. A traveling salesperson is killed on the highway, and this is just the start of his journey through the gates.
Infused with comic insight and tragic vision, this collection invites readers into new realities that touch on our shared humanity.
“Mark A. Rayner’s formidable storytelling is on full display in this thoughtful and diverse collection. He’s a fine and creative writer whose characters and storylines are quirky, inventive, and often very funny. Bravo!”
~Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans & two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
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Author Bio:
Human-shaped, monkey-loving, robot-fighting, pirate-hearted, storytelling junkie, Mark A. Rayner is an award-winning author of satire and speculative fiction. He writes in the genres of science fiction, humorous SF and dark comedy. He dips his toe in the occasional bit of dramatic prose and experimental/literary fiction. When not working on the next novel, he pens short stories, squibs and other drivel. (Some pure, and some quite tainted with meaning.) He does all these things while being Canadian and owning cats.
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