Creator / Desmond Warzel

An American short story writer who favors the Horror Literature and Science Fiction genres. His works are published solo or as anthologies in magazines such as Daily Science Fiction and Shelter Of Daylight. He was born in Franklin, Pennsylvania, USA on November 26th, 1973; where he currently resides in.

Warzel's stories are set in some US states, such as Cleveland ("On a Clear Day, You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy" and "Fields") and Alaska ("New Archangel" occurs in Sitka at various points of Alaskan history); or take place during time periods as varied as the The Thirteen American Colonies era —in The Lost Colony of Roanoke— ("Ezekiel" explains where the pilgrims went, and why), the The Pope's election at the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, and the Tsarist Russia ("New Archangel", when said regime ruled over Alaska).

Warzel's Anthologies

• "31 Days of Halloween Horror"
• "The Best of Abyss & Apex: Volume One"
• "Liminality: Tales from the Borders of Speculative Fiction"
• "Night Terrors: An Anthology of Horror"
• "Return of the Raven"
• "Terminal Earth"
• "Timelines: Stories Inspired by HG Wells' The Time Machine"
• "Triangulation: Last Contact"

Warzel's Short Stories

• "A Good Boy"
• "A Hot Time in the Old Town"
• "Assumption"
• "The Black Sheep of Vaerlosi"
• "The Blue Celeb"
• "Called"
• "The Elephant in the Marble"
• "End Game"
• "Epinikion"
• "Ezekiel"
• "Fields"
• "A Good Boy"
• "Good Friends and Good Family"
• "Habēmus Papam"
• "New Archangel" (2009)
• "Offerings"
• "On a Clear Day, You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy"
• "Pushing the Envelope"
• "Same-Day Delivery"
• "Strung Out in Alientown"
• "The Most Precious of Treasures" (2011)
• "The Van on Atlantic Street"
• "Wikihistory"
• "Wrestling with Alienation"
• "You Never Know What You're Gonna Get"

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Tropes associated with Warzel's works:

• 90% of Your Brain: In "On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy", a caller to a radio show invokes the "ten percent" myth and the host smacks him down, even giving the "seizure" explanation mentioned in the introduction above.
• Alien Among Us: In "On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy", there are two aliens among us—one was sentenced to live on Earth, and the second is here to keep an eye on the first guy.
• Aliens in Cardiff: "On a Clear Day, You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy" is a literal case of Aliens in Cleveland; well, actually, aliens in the upscale suburbs of Gates Mills and Lyndhurst (apparently even extraterrestrials have standards).
• Aliens Speaking English: In "On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy", the aliens speak perfect English. For at least two of them, however, this is justified, as they've been hiding out in suburban Cleveland and would need to speak English to blend in.
• Aliens Steal Cable: In "On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy", the aliens not only listen to local AM radio, but they also call in.
• Apocalypse How: "Fields" takes place in Cleveland during the final days of humanity, after most plant life on Earth has been choked out by genetically modified wheat.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Used In-Universe in "The Van on Atlantic Street". One character does an imitation of M*A*S*H character Father Mulcahy's impersonations of famous 1970s movie characters. In M*A*S*H, Mulcahy overuses the word "jocularity". In the Warzel short story, the character is told that Mulcahy never said that word at all. The Star Trek Trope Namer and "Play it again, Sam" are also referenced by way of explanation.
• Bounty Hunter: Stitsky is a Bounty Hunter of the contemporary sort who makes his living retrieving bail-jumpers; as the story commences, however, he's overstepped his jurisdiction, having accepted a couple's commission to locate and retrieve their runaway son.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: "The Van on Atlantic Street" pauses briefly to address the reader and reassure them that they has nothing to fear should they encounter the eponymous van.
• Cargo Cult: "Assumption" features a literal case in that they worship an actual piece of cargo.
• Character Title: "Ezekiel".
• Clean Cut: In "Epinikion", the alien Squids have natural weaponry that not only does this to their human opponents but leaves them alive for several hours after being bisected.
• Combat Tentacles: Played for Horror in "Epinikion". The alien Squids have tentacles that can effect a Clean Cut on a human —and secretions that keep the victim alive for hours after being bisected.
• Cosy Catastrophe: In "Fields", the world is overcome by mutant wheat that chokes out all other vegetation; after most of the people of Cleveland have fled (futilely, it is implied) for greener pastures, the narrator, a homeless man, relaxes by reading and eating canned food —he considers himself better off. When other stragglers arrive, they form teams and while away their days playing baseball.
• Creepy Doll: In "Good Friends and Good Family", the action figure isn't particularly creepy at first, but it gets worse.
• Everything Is Racist: In "Wikihistory", it is implied that AsianAvenger has a history of this behavior. This comes back to bite him at the end, as he accidentally Grandfather Paradoxes himself out of existence, and while his fellow time travelers/forumites are aware of this, no one can be bothered to save him.
• Evil Tainted the Place: In "A Hot Time in the Old Town", a racism-fueled murder in a rental house somehow poisons the place with hatred. After the house kills another black tenant, the house's owner never looks for more tenants. Instead, he spends the rest of his life watching over the house to make sure it doesn't claim more victims.
• Foreign Language Title: "Habēmus Papam" and "Epinikion" are in Latin.
• God Guise: In "Assumption", a person becomes an object of religious awe because of her advanced technology (she descends from the sky).
• Golden Snitch: In "Fields", the last twenty people remaining After the End divide themselves into two baseball teams as a means of keeping themselves occupied. In a league with only two teams, it is, of course, a foregone conclusion that those are the two teams that will meet in the World Series; thus, to keep things interesting (and having nothing better to do), they play an entire 162-game season solely to determine which team will have home-field advantage in the Series.
• Great Escape: In "Good Friends and Good Family", Sparks manages a prison break with a little outside help. Say hello to his little friend...
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: "Wikihistory"
  • It's basically a time traveler's message board discussion about the importance of not killing Hitler: it turns out World War II and the Third Reich are vitally important to the invention of time travel and the foundation of the Time Police. Noobs who didn't read the rules keep going back in time to kill Hitler anyway, and an increasingly angry moderator has to clean up after them.
    Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip.
  • Another poster calls the others out on their Eurocentrism and asks why no one ever tries to kill other, arguably worse tyrants and murderers. He goes after one of them, successfully kills him, and inadvertently RetGones himself. No one seems particularly inclined to undo his error.
• Institutional Apparel: In "Good Friends and Good Family", the viewpoint character, a county jail inmate, decries the uncomfortable nature of the orange scrubs and the poor fit of the jail-issue sandals.
• Jewish Mother: In "Pushing the Envelope", Albert's mother is overbearing and argues with him about how his anarchist beliefs bring heartbreak to his family and that it's time he moves on to live on his own. When he does just that, she accuses him of not visiting his parents regularly enough.
• Jews Love to Argue: "Pushing the Envelope"
  • Albert states that he's an anarchist and constantly questions what his mother is telling him. She answers with respect to his attitude that "[she and Albert's father] put in food and get back aggravation and heartbreak".
  • They argue first that she wants him to move out of her house; then, after he does, that she never sees him anymore.
• Log Fic: "Wikihistory" is formatted as a Wiki discussion page.
• Mistaken for Racist: In "A Hot Time in the Old Town", the elderly gentleman telling the story to the narrator used to be a landlord, whose house was avoided by potential black tenants because of a hate crime homicide that had taken place there. As it turns out, this is a wise decision on their part, because it's not the landlord who's racist, but the house itself that has been poisoned by the original crime.
• Naming Your Colony World: In "The Black Sheep of Vaerlosi", the name of the titular planet colony is a corruption of Værløse (a small Danish town).
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The main character of "On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy" is a thinly veiled version of Cleveland radio personality Mike Trivisonno.
• Noodle Implements: In "Wikihistory", a character helps maintain Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act by getting Hitler expelled from an Art Academy due to "an elaborate prank involving the Prefect, a goat, and a substantial quantity of olive oil." May have something to do with the Urban Legend that Hitler lost one testicle trying to pee into a goat's mouth.
• One-Word Title:
  • "Assumption"
  • "Called"
  • "Epinikion"
  • "Ezekiel"
  • "Fields"
  • "Offerings"
• Our Liches Are Different: In "Same-Day Delivery", the narrator turns out to be an undead wizard, and so probably qualifies, though no Soul Jar is mentioned.
• Pity the Kidnapper: "A Good Boy" references O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" by name. The titular boy turns out to be a lot more than just an annoyance, though.
• The Place: "New Archangel" takes place in Sitka, Alaska, which at the time the story is set was called Novoarkhangelsk, or New Archangel, due to being occupied by Tsarist Russia.
• Pose of Supplication: In "Assumption", the primitive people of an unexplored world—a literal Cargo Cult—make this gesture before the object of their worship. The narrator is incredulous and makes an explicit comparison to jungle tribes in old movies.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In "Wikihistory", the posters remember AsianAvenger even after he wipes himself out of existence via Grandfather Paradox.
• Running Gag: "Wikihistory"
  • It's presented as a forum for Time Police. The running gag throughout is people pointing out that the current conversation is off-topic.
  • Also, a sequence of noobies who triumphantly and smugly boast about going back in time and preventing Hitler's rise to power... followed by increasingly irate moderators undoing their actions and repeatedly telling people to knock it off with the stopping Hitler already.
• San Dimas Time: "Wikihistory" would seem to operate on San Dimas time; otherwise there would be no suspense regarding AsianAvenger's return.
• Scooby Stack: In "The Blue Celeb", the narrator even name-checks The Three Stooges when describing it.
• Set Wrong What Was Once Made Right: Played for Laughs in "Wikihistory". Adolf Hitler, the Third Reich, and World War II are crucial to the formation of the International Association of Time Travelers, but newbie IATT members who didn't properly read the rulebook keep going back in time to kill Hitler. Each time, veteran member SilverFox316 goes back and stops the newbies because no one else will do it, and his posts on the message board get more frustrated with every trip.
• Shout-Out:
  • "The Black Sheep of Vaerlosi" makes reference to a mineral whose unrefined form is too sharp to handle safely. The mineral is called "costnerite"—because it's untouchable. The mineral's name is a derivation from Kevin Costner, the lead actor in the film The Untouchables (1987).
  • In "Same-Day Delivery", the phrase "blue bolts from the heavens" appears twice; this is a direct Shout-Out to first-edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; specifically, the Dungeon Master's Guide.
• Space Police: In "The Black Sheep of Vaerlosi", the narrator is a space customs agent.
• Spies In a Van: In "The Van on Atlantic Street", it's unclear throughout exactly who they're spying on, or, for that matter, who they're spying for.
• Starfish Aliens: "Epinikion" features the Squids, militaristic cephalopod-like aliens with unusual funerary rituals and natural weaponry that spells a hideous end for anyone who loses to them in close combat.
• Time Police: "Wikihistory" is told as a Web forum of the International Association of Time Travelers. Much mention of punishing rookies for killing Hitler occurs.
• Van in Black: In "The Van on Atlantic Street", though the van is white, it is in other respects an example of this trope.
• Vasquez Always Dies: In "Assumption", Belasco proves to be more effective in combat than the men or the unnamed female narrator and is the only one seriously injured. Fortunately, she doesn't die.
• Verbed Title: "Called".
• The X of Y: "The Black Sheep of Vaerlosi".
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: In "Ezekiel", which takes place in 1587 Roanoke, the English is, at least approximately, accurate for its time, mimicking in style other primary documents from that colony. So, mostly averted.

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