Free Stories Online:

"Breathing Trouble"
"Peterson & Son Automotive"
"Waiting for Joey"
"What Was Left Standing"
"Winter Hunt"

"Black Angels"
"Mother of the Bride"
"Remainders"
"Riverrun Alley"

Wannoshay Cycle stories:
-"Redemption, Drawing Near"
-"Explosions"
-"Wantaviewer"
-"Crossing the Camp"

Short Story Collection:

Gunning for the Buddha collects 13 previously-published stories and two unpublished stories, from Prime Books, January 2005.

• "Evocative and vivid."
  — Publishers Weekly
• "A marvelous collection, full of intelligence and keen insight."
  — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
• "The stories offer a pleasing variety that I think will establish Jasper as a guy to keep an eye on."
  — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
• "While this world may seem darker and more dystopian by the day, avid, talented newcomers like Jasper help us keep the faith."
  — Faren Miller, Locus
  
  

Published Stories:

1. "The Fifty-Minute Nietzsche," Windhover, May 1996.
   
   
2. "Siding the House," Obsidian II, November 1997.
   • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
     
     
3. "Fences," Honorable Mention story, O. Henry Festival Stories, March 1998.
   • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
   • "Jasper's writing is full of vivid descriptions of the struggle of digging fenceposts, the chain-smoking neighbor with emphysema, and Canton's own internal struggles."
     — Greensboro News and Record
     
     
4. "Waiting for Joey," PIF Magazine, November 1999.
   
   
5. "Unplugged," SpaceWays Weekly, January 2000.
   • Reprinted at ShadowKeep, September 2000.
   • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
   • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
   • "This is one of my favorite stories. It's a short, taut piece, about Internet junkies, here called cowboys, who are trying to "dry out" before they fry their systems. We have another first person narrator, Mickey, who has been here before at Rubin's non-tech "health facility," on the edge of a huge freeway in a grim near-future. He talks to Jonathan, the new arrival; they both know their health is in trouble, but the urge to plug in, any way possible, is nearly overwhelming... The details are sharp and unsentimental: we see the ex-cowboys jerking and twitching, hear their mumbled, brain-fried conversations, but the view is compassionate, not scornful, and the inward battle is viscerally real."
     — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
   • "Kesey meets Cronenberg."
     — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
     
     
6. "A Simple Way to Pass the Time," New Works Review, March 2000.
   
   
7. "Wrecked," (long version) ShallowEND, March 2000.
   
   
8. "Wrecked," (short version) The Raleigh News & Observer's Sunday Reader, March 2000.
   • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
   
   
9. "Peterson & Son Automotive," 3 AM Publishing, June 2000.
   • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
   
   
10. "Mud and Salt," Writers of the Future 16, September 2000.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Why I Hate Aliens, January 2004.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • "The author clearly understands Wittgenstein's famous observation about speaking lions, as the alien remains just that—alien. The hunters are all too familiar stand-ins for the reader and the values of our culture as a whole. Take your time with this one."
      — Jay Lake, Tangent Online
    • "Jasper is great with the sensory details in this story, the cold and dirt and excitement of guns and buddy talk; when the action happens things speed up to disaster very rapidly. Several sharp turns, including to the emotions, make the story a satisfying read."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    • "The paranoia, the fear of the other, the judgmental attitudes and lightning-quick stereotyping seemed very accurate, if unflattering. Moreover, Jasper's aliens are believable—they are neither monsters bent on world domination nor flawlessly wise and adorable aliens that dominate science fiction."
      — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
    
    
11. "Winter Hunt," The Stirring, July 2000.
    • Reprinted at Climate Controlled, October 2002.
    
    
12. "Breathing Trouble," The Pedestal Magazine, December 2000.
    
    
13. "Crossing the Camp," Strange Horizons, January 2001.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 19.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • "I thought the writing was powerful, the men and aliens sympathetic as they wrestle with their own emotions, and examine grim moral dilemmas while trying to do good work. A fine story."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    
    
14. "One Night in Rosecroft," The Witching Hour, February 2001.
    • "Jasper's characters are recognizable without descending into stereotype. This is one of the more successful stories in the volume."
      — Deborah Layne, Tangent Online
      
      
15. "Scotty's Song," Strange New Worlds IV, May 2001.
    • "'Scotty's Song' starts in a classic story fashion as well. Character, with a problem (no sleep) in a setting. And as the first short section is done, we know the problem isn't just Scott's lack of sleep, but the reason why he isn't sleeping, and the reader is hooked. Clear writing, done to the point, makes the opening of this story work perfectly."
      — Dean Wesley Smith, series editor
      
      
16. "Explosions," Strange Horizons, July 2001.
    • Reprinted in The Best of Strange Horizons, October 2004.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • "Jasper's Wannoshay are intriguing, avoiding so many frequently-seen alien tropes. The protagonist is a working mom at a beer brewery. Jasper veers between the inexplicable and realistic human reactions to the inexplicable in a tight, involving story."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    • "If expanded, this sequence of four stories about the aliens known as Wannoshay or Wantas—near-humanoids marooned on a near-future Earth, rather than bug-eyed invaders—could form an excellent 'mosaic novel'; even as a 'mini-mosaic' it's intense."
      — Faren Miller, Locus
      
      
17. "What Was Left Standing," The Pedestal Magazine, August 2001.
    
    
18. "After the Storm," The Raleigh News & Observer's Sunday Reader, November 2001.
    
    
19. "A Feast at the Manor," NeverWorlds, February 2002.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 16.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • "I really liked this story; Jasper handles the subjects of food, friendship, attraction, and marriage with grace, compassion, and a touch of humor, leading us unexpected places."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    • "'A Feast at the Manor' is lovely. Rob and Melinda go to a weight-loss facility, where they are tortured by horrible exercise and deprivation. The writing is so vivid, I could taste the chalky shakes they were given instead of meals. Is it any wonder that the inmates rebel and order pizza? As a consequence, they discover a sinister secret behind the facility's success. While I wasn't crazy about the sinister secret itself, the rest of the story more than made up for it. Jasper's skill of sympathetic observation shines in this tale—it is impossible not to love his overweight protagonists, far as they may be from the current ideal of a human body."
      — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
    
    
20. "Working the Game," Future Orbits, April 2002.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 20.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • Translated to Russian and reprinted in Russian magazine Esli.
    • "Michael J. Jasper's 'Working the Game' left me in awe of his creative prowess... Jasper pens cunningly inventive variations on ironic themes: 'scrags' struggle twelve hours a day at lethal demolitions trying to earn enough "points" to cross the wall and live the easy life in a 'cocoon'... Twined against this dystopian background are a touching love story and a vision of futility that rivals Hardy's. A spectacular success."
      — Daniel E. Blackston, SFReader
      
      
21. "Natural Order," Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 2002.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 20.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • Repinted and recorded as an audio podcast from Escape Pod, April 2006.
    • Reprinted in Polish magazine Nowa Fantastyka, 2006.
    • "This intensely moving story asks some profound questions—what is the place of human beings in the natural order? Is life more valuable than duty? Are even the worst of us deserving of forgiveness?"
      — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
    • "The last four entries are the most memorable, the standout being the evocative and vivid 'Natural Order,' which Jasper calls in his afterword 'the best story I've ever written in ten hours.'"
      — Publishers Weekly
      
      
22. "Visions of Suburban Bliss," Gothic.Net, June 2002.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 16.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • "Yes, his whole life seems wrapped up in the artificial niceness of the suburban good life... It's weird, just how easily suburban bliss can turn seriously weird."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
      
      
23. "Mother of the Bride," HorrorFind, July 2002.
    
    
24. "Wantaviewer," Strange Horizons, September 2002.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 20.
• Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
• Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
• "Everyone seems to be expecting some kind of interstellar war, and while waiting for the fewmets to hit the fan, take out their apprehensions on the Wannoshay still trying to comprehend this bewildering world they are refugees on. The choices here are realistic, the consequences logical, and the story heartbreaking."
  — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
  
  
25. "Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies," The Book of More Flesh, October 2002.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 16.
• Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
• Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
• "Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies" is about (you guessed it) surfing zombies. That is, they start out eating people's brains, just like any zombie would, but the locals teach zombies to surf, and the new passion distracts them from mayhem. In less skilled hands, that would be an interesting gimmick but not much of a story. Jasper throws in a narrator—a man who likes to fish and surf, and who is getting old. The end result is a bittersweet meditation on mortality and afterlife, and a strong message of hope."
  — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
• "The notion of zombies taking up surfing as a beloved preoccupation is weirdly satisfying enough; the rest of Jasper's story is frosting on the cake."
  — Edward Bryant, Locus
• "With a title like that, how could a story miss? Well, actually, it could easily have been one of those one-joke groaners. Jasper shows here how finding just the right voice makes a story work... The concept of surfer zombies is funny, but the joke could so easily have become tired. Jasper takes a funny concept and makes a good story out of it."
  — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
  


26. "Comfort and Joy," The Raleigh News & Observer's Sunday Reader, December 2002.
    
    
27. "Gunning for the Buddha," S1ngularity, March 2003.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 17.
    • Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
    • Reprinted at Farrago's Wainscot, 2007.
    • "The story races at headlong pace, shifting around in time just as the characters do... the story's got velocity."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    • "You don't have to be young and fiery to feel that kind of anger these days, but finding a way past it can be a tortuous journey. Jasper crams that into a few short pages -- then reality turns inside-out."
      — Faren Miller, Locus
      
      
28. "The Deck," Windhover, May 2003.
    • Reprinted at Fictionwise, May 2003.
      
      
29. "Riverrun Alley," MarsDust, July 2003.
• Reprinted at Fictionwise, February 2004.
  
  
30. "The Disillusionist," Would That It Were, August 2003.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 17.
• Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
• Reprinted at Fictionwise, February 2004.
• Available for adding to a print-on-demand anthology at AnthologyBuilder
• "A very thoughtful exploration of the place of illusion and truth, with nice special effects."
  — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
• "About three quarters of the way along I realized I was picking up hints about the identity of the deputy, which caused my interest in an already creepy, thoughtful, sensorily complex story to zing. My favorite of the collection."
  — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
  
  
31. "Never, Incorporated," Flytrap, October 2003.
    • "Michael J. Jasper's "Never, Incorporated" takes a familiar idea, that of dark creatures (in this case, goblins) offering one's heart's desire at too great a price, and gives it an original spin, making the ending at once inevitable and surprising."
      — Greg Beatty, SF Reader
    • "A sly depiction of a demon hoisted with his own petard."
      — Nick Gevers, Locus
      
      
32. "Helljack," with Tim Pratt, H.P. Lovecraft's Horror Magazine, November 2003.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 17.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction(!) vol. 22.
• "Helljack" by Tim Pratt  and Michael J. Jasper is great fun–bloody, scary kind of fun... I enjoyed this story quite a bit, mostly because it manages to be gruesome and entertaining, yet never takes itself too seriously."
  — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
  
  
33. "Coal Ash and Sparrows," Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine,
    January 2004.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 22.
• Honorable Mention, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror vol. 18.
• Reprinted at Fictionwise, February 2004.
• Reprinted in Gunning for the Buddha.
• "Jasper does more of his structural magic with this strange tale of a boy, a book, and the girl who discovers that book. What happens to each as time slides along, what the book means, makes for a fascinating story, impossible to predict."
  — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
• "A powerful work which 'started as an outtake' from a YA fantasy novel-in-progress and makes me eager to see the final product."
  — Faren Miller, Locus
  
  
34. "Remainders," second prize-winner in the SF Reader annual contest, February 2004.
• Also available for download at the Sony eBook Reader store.
  
  
35. "Repeat Performance," Fishnet, July 2004.
    
    
36. "Redemption, Drawing Near," Interzone, August 2004.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 22.
    • Also available for download at the Sony eBook Reader store.
    • "Also quite impressive is 'Redemption, Drawing Near,' in which the US military calls in a Catholic priest to help interrogate aliens who have landed on Earth, apparently seeking refuge, but who remain dangerously inscrutable, expressing a cultural complex requiring deep moral scrutiny."
      — Nick Gevers, Locus
    • 'Redemption, Drawing Near' effectively cast me into a science-fiction reading haze... I felt like I was reading genuine, gosh-wow science-damn fiction and enjoying it."
      — Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column
      
      
37. "An Outrider's Tale," Gunning for the Buddha, January 2005.
    • Honorable Mention, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, volume 19
    • Available for adding to a print-on-demand anthology at AnthologyBuilder
    • "A new look at a very old fairy tale. Most of it is narrated in the past tense over a campsite, but Jasper makes it work, because the story telling is not simply a frame; the strange narrator must then take that tale and use it. This last aspect was what brought it all together to a transcendent close. Best use of that tale I've seen in a while."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    • "It has a bit of battle, a bit of magic, but mostly it's a story about regret and redemption. The milieu is a mix between medieval and fairy-tale, and the protagonists are well-drawn and sympathetic. This type of story is the main reason I read fantasy."
      — E. Sedia, Tangent Online
      
      
38. "Black Angels," Gunning for the Buddha, January 2005.
    • "Here's a story with all kinds of nifty elements: angels, demonics, a fight, a cemetery... the action is full of pizzazz, making a fast, engaging read."
      — Sherwood Smith, SF Site
    • Honorable Mention, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, volume 19
      
      
39. "California King," with Greg van Eekhout, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April/May 2005.
    • Honorable Mention, Year's Best Science Fiction vol. 23.
    • Honorable Mention, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, volume 19
    • "It is always a delight to experience the nova-imaginations of the best new writers at their creative heights, and Jasper and Van Eekhout may well lay claim to their places in that minor pantheon."
      — Patrick Samphire, Tangent Online
    • "What happens when an old King battles his upstart son, and (still more menacingly) a third generation stakes a claim to influence? The resulting clashes are vividly portrayed, the dynamics of a broken family intersecting keenly with larger cultural and environmental concerns; but the succession is handled with unexpected dignity, a basis for optimism in the wider world."
      — Nick Gevers, Locus
    • "The interactions between the imperfect King and his imperfect family are delightful, but it really is the casual lines of humor that keep this tale on track. That and a touching conclusion that the authors handle just right."
      — Bluejack, April 2005 Internet Review of Short Fiction


40. "Gillian Underground," with Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout, Polyphony 5, November 2005.
    
    • Honorable Mention, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, volume 19
      
    
    
41. "The Brotherhood of Trees," Aeon Speculative Fiction, February 2006.
    
    • Available for adding to a print-on-demand anthology at AnthologyBuilder
    • Honorable Mention, The Year's Best Science Fiction anthology, volume 24.
      
    • "This issue of Aeon really picks up with “The Brotherhood of Trees” by Michael Jasper. This is a smoothly-flowing piece, with an excellent feel and some great descriptive prose... The protagonist and his partner are depicted with compassion and pathos, and not the over-the-top camp behavior many other authors use to depict gay characters. This, coupled with the neat backstory and polished prose, makes this a tale worth reading."
      —Jason Fischer, Tangent Online
      
      
42. "This Divided Land," Jigsaw Nation, May 2006.
• "Jasper handles both Zack's and Alan's viewpoint well, telling each boy's story and giving just enough reason for sympathy votes. Of all the stories in Jigsaw Nation, this was the one that felt the realest, and maybe that's why it had such a strong impact on this reader. Well recommended."
  — Paul Abbamondi, SFReader
• "Michael Jasper turns a story of unrequited gay love in "This Divided Land" into a fairy tale (no pun intended) through a carefully measured Fairy Godmother narrative voice."
  —Mark Teppo, Strange Horizons
  
  
43. "Meet the Madfeet," Fantasy Gone Wrong, DAW Books, September 2006.
    
    
44. "A Miracle in Shreveport," Electric Velocipede, May 2007.
    • Available for adding to a print-on-demand anthology at AnthologyBuilder
    • "...I was mesmerized as I read the story, pulled in by the tension between the all white team and the team, called All Nations, that had everyone, including a woman, on it. Told from the point of view of a former slave who coaches and manages the team, it tells what happens one afternoon and about the magic that can be found on the baseball diamond. I really enjoyed the voice of the narrator, George. Jasper’s characters are actually from a novel he’s written and I think I might need to check that novel out."
      —My Very Own Blogetary
    • ...There’s something slightly off-kilter about Jasper’s story. The looming war is neatly dealt with, but the author doesn’t really follow through on this theme. The racism—we discover about halfway through that a black man was lynched in the town where the team are playing the night before they arrive—is ominously traced out."
      —Martin McGrath, The Fix
      
      
45. "Drinker," Heroes in Training, DAW Books, September 2007.
    • Also available for download at the Sony eBook Reader store.
    • "'Drinker' by Michael Jasper provides a model for enveloping readers in a nonhuman, alien culture... In the Drinker’s case, he struggles against the suspicious conservatism of his fellow creatures as he finds a way to preserve his environment and his species. Mournful in tone, but ending with a bit of hope, Jasper’s understated prose provides food for thought about our own adaptation [or lack thereof] to planetary changes."
      —Elizabeth A. Allen, The Fix
      
      
46. "Tiny Disaster, The Raleigh News & Observer's Book Pages, September 2007.
    
    
47. "Painting Haiti," Paper Cities, April 2008.
• "Surreal in a lucid way, this story captures the nightmare that Claudia suffers through. A well-told tale with a visual arts sensibility."
  —Marshall Payne, The Fix
• "The story was well-written, and I appreciated the painting & voodoo elements."
  — Fantasy Book Critic
  
  
48. "A Game of Contact," The Exquisite Corpuscle, Fairwood Press, June 2008.
    
    
49. "Devil on the Wind," with Jay Lake, Black Gate, 2008.
    
    

Fiction Editor:

Intracities, October 2003. With fiction by Tim Pratt & Heather Shaw, Jay Lake, Jason Erik Lundberg, Mary Madewell, Mark Siegel, Paul Martens, Rachel Heslin, and more.

• "A lively, handsome little theme anthology is to be found in the form of Intracities. Editor Michael Jasper here arrays a baker's dozen of tales focusing on the odd and uncanny niches to be found in such diverse cities as Phoenix, Montreal, Oakland, and London... And a striking wraparound collage by Frank Wu complements the whole package nicely." — Paul DiFilippo, October/November 2004 Asimov's