This is the fourth volume of my Passing Strange series of science fiction and weird short stories. It may be the last, since I think I've run out of titles that are variants of 'Passing Strange.' Well, I can always start another series.As with the stories in the other books of this series, I've kept these tales short and plot-based. Each story, tho strange and improbable, is based, in part, on hard science. In order to explicate the scientific aspect, I've appended the author's not...

Friends since childhood, musicians Max and Larry, simultaneously fall in love with Kitty, but perhaps for different reasons. Larry's ex-wife, JJ, helps Kitty cope with the men's pursuit of her, and JJ falls in love with Kitty herself. Kitty marries Larry, to her regret, and has an affair with Max, which Larry discovers. Their ruined relationships implode on September 11, 2001, as the twin towers collapse. Max leaves to lick his wounds by reporting on the war in Afghanistan. He is blown up,...

Love is and has been the most ubiquitous and intense subject of individual and social concern throughout human history. Moreover, love has been a primary topic for philosophers and religionists through the ages. Even as materialistic science came to dominate society in modern times, love became a major subject for scientific investigation through psychology, sociology, anthropology, archeology, biology, biochemistry, and most recently, neuroscience.Love has been the most compelling...

Nightmareica is the sometimes anguished, frequently sarcastic, often ironic, response to America's political and social absurdities by Michael Baldwin, a former professor of American Government, civil rights activist, and concerned citizen. His critical and satirical poetry powerfully illuminates how American government has been usurped by BigBusiness and the ultra-wealthy to serve their own interests rather than the common good. Meanwhile the average citizen is distracted from co...

Again Passing Strange is Volume 5 of the Passing Strange series.Delight your taste for strangeness with these 11 stories of the wild, weird, and wonderful. Let your reality bend and descend into these mind-bending stories of plausible unreality, many based on known science.Corona Chrono Tango combobulates the Coronavirus epidemic with our renewed interest in UFOs and the possibility of literal loops in spacetime.Catastrophic is a humorous take on the serious subject of...

Mantras From the Moon, by Michael Baldwin*,* consists of 53 Zen poems by Michael Baldwin and 66 full color, public-domain images, many from vintage Japanese woodblock prints. Baldwin also provides basic explanations of the concepts of Zen philosophy and poetry so the reader can better appreciate the poems. This book is a wonderful introduction to Zen and Zen poetry for anyone not familiar with Zen culture. For those who are interested in pursuing more information about Zen after r...

Would you recognize a Neanderthal living among us? Watch closely; they may be out there.A halfling boy and his Neanderthal uncle are the only survivors from their strange, prehistoric culture. Now they are struggling to survive in modern society, with often violent, sometimes humorous, and always exciting results. Follow their exploits from the steppes of Siberia to exotic Kashmir, India, amid the clash of armies, religions, and criminal gangs. The half-Neanderthal boy matures into...

Roll Back the Sun, by Michael Baldwin, is a high-energy, literary romance; a jazz-infused love quadrangle fueled by ambition, betrayal, obsession, the terrorist attacks of 2001, the wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and the universe's lust for love. Four Texas musicians jazz-jangle an erratic, erotic journey of friendship and betrayal from 1985 to 2002 trying to amorously connect, to cope with the conflicts, dangers, and paranoia of the times, to find love, success, and beauty in a broken wo...

Counting Backward From Infinity is a collection of eight poems based on science, mostly astronomy, that won the Morris Memorial Chapbook Award, 2012, from the Alabama Poetry Society. The central long poem, The Butterfly Effect, provides a mind-boggling ride into the history of the universe, the evolution of life on Earth, and explains why there is everything instead of nothing and why everything is just one thing.

Fourteen Science-Fiction short stories that will add some needed spice and weirdness to your life, providing just the strange perspective you need to challenge your ordinary reality.Some of these new stories carry on my concern with contemporary social issues (such as global warming, bullying, abortion, animal rights, gun control, etc.) by extrapolating them into the future or exploring them thru unusual perspectives. Other stories here briefly ponder philosophical questions such a...

A short story collection for those who like a little weirdness in their lives. These stories will challenge your assumptions, your beliefs, and perhaps even your hold on reality. These are stories that will perhaps give Stephen King the shivers.

A thriller for anyone who enjoys mayhem, music, and romance. Join Missy McKean, beautiful teen virtuoso who plays a haunted violin; Missy's genius jazz mentor, Tiger Blakely; a devious drug kingpin who wants Tiger very dead; Tiger's dog, Bix, a canine Einstein; a mysterious red-haired Indian from outer space; and a bevy of craven killers on a crazy cross country jazz road trip that can only end in death and disaster.