But here’s the thing: dystopias are lazy. 

Border-line boring, even, comparatively. Especially when they are not only the "norm", but ubiquitous, copious, proliferative.

They’re the narrative equivalent of reheating last night’s existential dread in the microwave. 

My short story collections here offer a sample platter of *what if we don’t screw it up?*  

And isn’t that the point of SF, to experiment, to ask “What if…?”

If you suffer dystopia-fatigue, maybe you'd enjoy reading my positive near-future short stories as antidote? Our Capitalist overlords want us demoralized, distracted, depressed, distressed. They flood news and social media with negativity, to destabilize and desensitize you.  

So you think everything is negative, and you become defeatist. 

So you don't notice whatever good IS happening.

We could change our story, couldn't we, like switching channels? 

What if, instead of wallowing in inevitability of collapse, we build something better? 

Not through naivety, but through earnest, imaginative effort? 

Consider me a meta-modern meliorist of "whatever-this-is". These stories I craft aren’t *stories*, so much as hope-punk ambience. My stories are built around my particular ability to not be anyone else. I'm a glitch in the system. A minimalist writing approach might seem like incompetence... when actually, it is a rejective-response. Instead of trying to adapt my writing to conform with conventional ways, I found the creative space where my specific strange energy makes sense, properly contextualized. 

The beauty of my writing approach comes from the fact that I'm inventing a new language of storytelling in real time. Nothing is standardized — not pacing, not framing, not structure — which means all aspects become a playground for experimentation. 

If we want to expand our choices & perspectives, then we need new stories— new tastes & new ways of telling stories— to entice us from the old & familiar. Coming up with these stories is not always easy. But I try. 

And— hypothetically— if you *were* the kind of person who enjoys hopefulness (gross), or positive imagination (cringe), or stories where humanity doesn’t eat itself alive (embarrassing), then *maybe* you’d wanna skim through my silly little books?

Look, *obviously* you don’t want to read "Apotheosis Gnosis". 

Who needs a book of optimistic near-future stories in 2026? Right? 

You’d much rather mindlessly (or ardently?) doom-scroll while the 47th dystopian reboot plays in the background. Obviously. 

But what if—stay with me—what if stories *didn’t* have to be emotional self-flagellation?  

Enter "Apotheosis Gnosis", my new collection of near-future speculative fiction, which is *definitely not* a radical act of hope disguised as a book. (Spoiler: It is.) 

Do you have dystopia fatigue? In real life and/or in fiction you consume? 

Then remedy this problem by exposing yourself to & immersing yourself in utopian-mystique... with positive near-future short stories.  

What does a better future look like? How could it be? Can you even imagine what a better world IS? Looking for new-to-you speculative fiction short story books to read? 

Let me help... through stories I write:  

*Made by a human, not AI

Absurd Abstract: Occasionally composing what polite society calls "fiction", but which he secretly categorizes as "structured hallucinations with elaborate footnotes", Sean is essentially a creative writing student auto-didacted on TED Talks, Medium.com essays, and Wikipedia's "List of Optimistic Futurism" page, filtered through a kaleidoscopic lens of autism and meta-modernism.

Deliberately hope-filled (like a jelly donut?), Sean crafts with a magical flair in atypical narrative concoctions that stubbornly and urgently insist the future won't be a total dumpster fire. 

Advocates have kindly referred to his earnest elucidations as motivational propaganda for the apocalypse-weary. 

Which all proper story-tellers know is ultimately and fundamentally bad for conflict-driven storytelling.  

Uncautiously decorated with Oxford commas and Em-dashes, his writing has been chided in so many words as "unrealistic hope-punk foolishness" and "profoundly naive" by cynical critics... and regarded as "delightfully prophetic" by his mom, and those of more daring imaginational perspicacity. 

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Or would you prefer  E-BOOK ? 

In Apotheosis Gnosis, the mundane dissolves to animate the magical and calibrate the marvelous across 360 pages (ten stories) of inter-connected vignettes. A shimmering, glimmering manifesto intersecting fictional discourse. Your life does not need purpose of grand ambitions. Just wandering through life finding interesting and fun things to enjoy until you die. What seems frivolous to most people is actually the opposite. Our stories should not be escapes, but escapades! 

Luminous visions of societal metamorphosis, as the most potent infrastructure blooms from wonder and whimsy, when imagination is treated as architecture. 

Through encouraging, elevating, and sharing stories grounded in optimistic futurism, maybe we can re-wire our collective imagination. Challenging as it may be, only through our own intentional action can we identify and execute the steps toward a more positive and fulfilling future for ourselves. Pluralism and collaboration are essential. By influencing cultural narratives as architecture, we can steer societal development towards outcomes that achieve human flourishing.

SUPPLEMENTAL   CODA

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For what should be obvious reasons, it is critical that our society has and encourages a concept of an improvable and improving future possibility that we want to build (and could build), such that we may choose to strive in progress toward creating it, as real. Twenty-five speculative near-future short stories offer optimistic glimpses through the Overton Window onto a world building with positive aesthetics and belief in achieving mutually beneficial outcomes. What if we stopped procrastinating our future onto the next generation? What if we really thought it was really possible? 

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In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a hallucinating idiot...for he sees what no one else does: things that, to everyone else, are not there. 

We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us. 

One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in. We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish. 

The poet, the artist, the sleuth-- whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "well-adjusted", he cannot go along with currents and trends. 

A strange bond often exists between anti-social types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain anti-social power is manifest in the famous story "The Emperor's New Clothes".  ― Marshall McLuhan  

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In a broader context, poiesis encompasses the act of bringing something into existence; involving imagination, skill and effort. 

Within  POIESIS  are playful, thought-provoking explorations of the ever-evolving nature of narrative and its power to shape our realities. 

Think of this book as a literary CPR unit for a world desperately in need of narrative resuscitation.

What if the stories we tell ourselves — and each other — are not just reflections of reality, but active change agents for better futures? 

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This book, you will be pleased to know (or disappointed, perhaps, depending on your proclivity), is not a book in which cynicism is celebrated, but rather circumvented, circumscribed... even circumnavigated. 

This metamodern anthology reflects and responds to a societal need for both forward-looking (visionary) and re-evaluative (revisionary) storytelling. 

An autistically-influenced short story collection urging cultivation of new narratives crafted in kindness, innocence and sincerity which are not only necessary, but desired-- and also a re-examination of existing narratives that might be hindering a positive future. It's a call for pro-active, optimistic storytelling as a means of personal, social and cultural change for the betterment of humanity. 

By expanding how we imagine futures, we can see the present differently. 

What possibilities we see for ourselves in the future has a great influence on how we feel today and make decisions.

As the algorithm switches to positivity over negativity...