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 - Autumn 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.

AUTUMN 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.

Bryant Street Series Introduction by Dean Wesley Smith

A long time ago, Stephen King said that he wrote about what scared him. For me, not much in the world scares me besides the fear of being trapped in a subdivision. If I find myself driving down a subdivision street, I start sweating and my hands grip the wheel and I search desperately for a way out. Weird yes, but very true.

So I started writing about the fear, going from house to house on a street I called Bryant Street, telling the story of the people I thought lived in each house. Twisted stories, Twilight Zone-like stories.

But all stories take place on 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 Back Seat

Andy and Bettie Norwood loved each other beyond doubt. And they loved their old car, an ancient DeSoto.

Then one day Andy got lost on a walk.

And things went from there because, after all, they lived on Bryant Street.

* * *

Andy and Bettie Norwood loved their home on Bryant Street. A perfect three-bedroom-down-the-hall ranch with a wooden fence around the backyard and a two-car garage large enough for all of Andy's tools and their only car, a classic two-door DeSoto 1948 Custom Coupe. Andy had bought it used in 1966 right before he and Bettie started dating and he had kept it in perfect shape over all the years.

It was tree green, with the huge steering wheel, no seat belts, and plastic seat covers that if you took a corner too fast you slid clear to the other side. Just rolling down a window was an exercise routine for either of them. Andy was no longer sure he could still do that.

The thing looked like a giant round tank with tall tires, headlights the size of large platters, and big metal bumpers.

Neither of them drove anymore due to age, bad eyesight, and failing memory. Plus it was work to drive that car. But they loved the car anyway and sometimes they just went out and sat in it, trying to remember the good times of dating and the early years of their marriage.

Both of their kids were conceived in the huge back seat of that car, something they took great joy in telling their children and grandchildren when they stopped by. They both knew they had told the stories of that back seat a hundred times before, but telling them again gave them both pleasure.

And it was fun to watch their kids get embarrassed and the grandkids get appalled. They were old, they had to have a few sports that kept them entertained.

Andy and Bettie also loved to argue. Back when their arguments had fire in them, the making up part also played a large role in those backseat stories.

Now the arguments were just over small things, things that didn't really matter to either of them, and since it was an odd day on the calendar, it was Andy's turn to break up with Bettie.

Someone once asked them why they always pretended to break up and both of them claimed it was not pretend. But mostly the ritual kept them focused on each other and after all the years they had been together, that was a great thing to give each other.

Andy usually managed to break up with Bettie around two in the afternoon, storm out of the house for a walk, and get back by four in time for a nap and then dinner. The routine got him some exercise as well.

Bettie cooked on the days he left her.