An Unsettled Score: The Collected Twisted Visions of Christopher L. DelGuercio

by Christopher L. Delguercio, Rebecca Ledford (Editor)

Overview

An Unsettled Score is an anthology of short works by award-nominated author Christopher L. DelGuercio. This, his first collection, includes twenty twisted visions of speculative fiction spanning thrilling adventures on far flung, alien worlds and dystopian futurescapes; to mind-bending surrealities and nightmarish encounters with evil; to the bitingly satirical and overtly comical, these dark-hearted tales of monsters and mayhems are designed to entertain and delight, to surprise and to move. Ranging from poetic verse and flash fiction to novella-length narratives, in the rich tradition of such shining stars of the short form as Bradbury, Ellison, Gaiman, King, Martin, and Vonnegut, we can add an exciting new collection, An Unsettled Score.

If you're in the mood for a hearty stew of stories to feed your cravings for the bizarre, the wondrous, and the macabre, take a stroll through the twisted visions of An Unsettled Score.

Includes:

• Original Sin
  Dark Men, Dark Machines
  A Time Bully's Report: August 13, 2046
  Eden Succeeding, CNY Book-of-the-Year nominated novella
  Man Farm
  Shi'roc-Su
  Béba Daio's Inches
  The Starway Pass
  Marvels Of The Burger King Parking Lot
  The Book of Judy
  Every Good Stud Comes To His Senses
  Metal With Me
  The Arcadian Nights Of Rigel Kent
  Farewell Luther
  Two Cups
  Copycat Jack
  Unbreakable Yu
  A Portrait of The Artist As a Stung Man
  Heavy Is The Head
  Tempus Servivit
  Bonus: Intro by the author to each piece regarding seed conception, influences, and history.

Phase 5 Elements:

• Anthology 20
  Transmutation 195
  Other Worlds 57

Horror, science fiction, speculative fiction. Cosmology, galactic civilization, aliens, mutation, occult, reality manipulation, colonization, dystopia, humor, new weird.
Adult readers violence; brief, mildly-graphic sexual situations; cursing; death; mutation; irreverence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942342151
Publisher:	Phase 5 Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	10/19/2023
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Christopher L. DelGuercio is a writer, teacher, editor, and lecturer from Syracuse, New York. He does this with the endless encouragement and understanding of his wife, Kathleen, as well as his son, Gabriel, and Shih Tzu, Jasper. He writes when it’s quiet, in a farseeing place where he can stretch out and let his mojo rise. Mr. DelGuercio is a lifelong Central New Yorker and graduate of The State University of New York at Oswego. He is the author of many long and short stories as well as the CNY Book-of-the-Year nominee, Eden Succeeding. His particular brand of “fantastic fiction” has appeared in print and on the internet over the past fifteen years in many magazines, e-zines, serializations, anthologies, and podcasts. This is the first compilation of his work.

A creator and purveyor of speculative fiction for nearly a quarter-century, he began his writing career seated alone at a tiny desk in Liverpool, New York. Now he writes, seated alone, at a tiny desk in Clay, New York. In between there were stops at tiny desks in Watertown, New York; Cicero, New York; Baldwinsville, New York; and Fulton, New York. A lot of places, a lot of desks… and a lot of writing.

In the realm of storytelling, he is a lover of all that is weird and wonderful, sublimely surreal, a fan of the fanciful and the phantasmagoric. If the tale is preternatural or mysterious or astonishing in nature, if it's well-written and blows your hair back, chances are good he can get into it.

He's published many yarns since 2007, and produced many more recently, culminating in the publication of An Unsettled Score, which brings together twenty of his best tales into one magnum opus.

In addition to his years of writing, DelGuercio has served as editor for multiple novels from up-and-coming local authors, served as a fiction writing instructor at the YMCA's Downtown Writers Center since 2009 (where he also co-founded the Young Authors Academy), and has given numerous presentations on the writing process at CNY-area high schools. He is currently the faculty advisor for the Liverpool Literary Society.

He can be contacted through his website, www.cdelguercio.com.

Editorial Reviews

Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher DelGuercio... yes, DelGuercio deserves to be mentioned right alongside these other authors. Not only is his work reminiscent of them, but like these other authors, DelGuercio creates his own fantasy worlds where he takes his readers on incredible journeys into the unknown. In this collection, the reader can find flights of fancy, dystopian worlds, philosophical sensibility, and pure entertainment... you will not be disappointed.

Direct - Jill LeClair

It can be difficult to bring fresh ideas to oft-used sci-fi tropes such as time travel and failed space colonies, but DelGuercio manages to do just that. There's a little bit of everything here, too. Poetry, flash fiction, longer stories, and even a novella. While the genre is firmly sci-fi/speculative, DelGuercio also adds elements of fantasy, western, and horror to the mix. No matter how inventive the concept, the author never forgets to tell a good story.

Direct - Mike Seperak

twenty (score, get it?) twisted tales of fantasy, science fiction, futuristic, dystopian worlds, and unsettling horror. Each original creation is more captivating than the last. DelGuercio does not disappoint! His writing and storytelling are so immersive and so captivating, I found myself on various occasions not being able to wait to get home to finish a story or start the next one... see why Christopher L. DelGuercio is quickly becoming the future of fantasy and horror fiction.

Direct - Scott Lombardo

...a rich feast for the science fiction and horror fan. His stories, poems and longer fiction offer enough variety to satisfy everyone with a taste for the bizarre, the offbeat and the truly terrifying... the stories... are very reminiscent of the works of the famed science fiction/horror writer Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles) and display the same sense of carefully twisted reality that the master writer is known for... truly outstanding in terms of rising suspense....

Direct - Megan Davidson

a wild ride... dark and creepy tales, with a touch of surrealism, and more than a touch of twisted humor. DelGuercio is a master craftsman. His style is terse and distilled—not a word or sentence is wasted—and he has an ear for dialogue that rings true, regardless of character or setting. The collection is unified by DelGuercio's unique sensibility, yet the stories are wonderfully varied, keeping the reading experience fresh and surprising. What a rich and mysterious imagination....

Direct - David G. Moore