Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, with more than 30 million books sold, writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres.

At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang, and the Mary Jo Assassin series.

His monthly magazine, Smith's Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month.

During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.

He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.

Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series.

For more information about Dean's books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com.

Bryant Street - Spring by Dean Wesley Smith

Bryant Street, a standard subdivision street outside of any city. Well-kept lawns, paint and roofs up to HOA standards, two- or three-car garages. Everything looks to any casual observer perfect and normal.

But inside those perfect-looking homes, the residents seem just a little off. A little twisted or confused or a half-turn out of reality.

Normal exists on other subdivision streets, but never on Bryant Street.

SPRING is one of four books in the Bryant Street Surreal Stories Collection, each containing 10 fantastically strange stories for your enjoyment. If you like Twin Peaks or The Twilight Zone, take a delectably weird stroll down Bryant Street.

CURATOR'S NOTE

I'm the lucky person who gets to read Bryant Street stories first. These stories are dark, but wonderful, taking place on a street that wouldn't be out of place in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. Each story has its own delightful shiver. There are four packed collections here, providing lots of shivers. Enjoy! – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

It All Might Be Seasonable

For years and years, actually decades and decades, I kept saying that one day I would do a Bryant Street collection or two, and I just never got around to it.

Finally, in the winter of 2023, I decided it was time and told the fine folks at WMG Publishing I was going to do this. Stephanie Writt came up with the cool street-sign logo and I was off.

I thought it would be cool to have Bryant Street be a television series with four seasons of ten episodes each season. (For those of you who don't know, a short story usually has enough story for a single thirty-minute episode of anything on television.)

So I sent the idea of four seasons to Stephanie at WMG and back comes the four wonderful covers using seasons of the year. I was about to object when it dawned on me that four seasons of the year would be a lot easier to explain than four seasons of a television show.

And these would act as ten episodes of a season, but each season would start on the first day of the named season. A full year of Bryant Street.

So I started with the forty stories together and then put them into seasons.

Often a story is set in the title season. Or the story is dark like winter. Or hot like summer.

Or a character in the last days of their lives like winter, or fading like fall. In one way or another, all the stories fit into a season.

But think of them like ten episodes per run. The winter season run, the spring season run, and so on.

Sort of like ten episodes per season of a series like The Twilight Zone television series used to be. Every episode different, yet every episode set on Bryant Street.

The Park, the Yard, and Other Cold Places

Bobby Liebert killed his wife. He had his reasons. And he had planned everything right down to the last detail.

Only detail he forgot to take into account was that he lived on Bryant Street.

* * *

Bobbie Liebert killed his wife, Stephanie, on the afternoon of April sixth in the spare bedroom, second one down the hall, of their three-bedroom ranch house on Bryant Street.

He told her he was painting the room because she had always complained that the robin's egg light blue wasn't the best color for her sewing room. So he promised to paint it and three years went by before one Friday evening he finally moved all of her stuff out into the other bedroom, which had become her reading room, covered the shag carpet with a large painting tarp, made sure she had approved the color, and then killed her in that room, on the painting tarp.

He used a hammer to the back of the head and managed to keep the bleeding on the tarp.

He no longer loved her and she clearly no longer loved him. And just killing her seemed so much easier than divorce and still having her around in the same city.

His plan was simple. Kill her and bury her in the park down the street.

Bobbie was a short man at five-three and identified with being short. His suits were always perfect and he had three of them in his closet, all identical brown. He owned five different ties that went with the suits, one for each day of the week.

He ate the same Frosted Flakes every morning for breakfast, the same peanut butter and honey and lunchmeat sandwich every lunch, and often brought home dinner from a Chinese restaurant or Kentucky Fried Chicken depending on the day of the week.

He carefully planned everything every day. Including killing Stephanie.

Stephanie hadn't worked a day since they got married. She did a lot of sewing and also said she hoped to be a writer, but had a lot of reading to do first.

The first couple of years of the marriage, Bobbie didn't mind at all. His job as a manager of a major grocery store paid them enough money to live in the nice house on Bryant Street. Buy food and clothes and put some away.

And they only needed one car, so they lived within their means just fine.