Shards is dark fiction at its shortest and sharpest. Each shard is an imaginative fragment, broken, sharp, and poised to draw blood.

Praise for Shards

"With Shards, author Shane Jiraiya Cummings and artist Andrew J. McKiernan take us on a guided tour of the darkest backroads of the imagination. It is wonderfully moody and creepy."
– Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero and The Wolfman

"Cummings' work possesses a Stephen King-like quality, creating rich and colourful characters in a handful of words ... Well worth the read."
– Mark Smith-Briggs, HorrorScope

"Shane Jiraiya Cummings with Shards shows he is not only a master of the flash fiction style of writing but has pretty much written the definitive statement on how it should work. The collection is a strong statement on the validity of an internet-driven writing style and is a must have for any collector of Australian Dark Fiction."
– Jeff Ritchie, ScaryMinds

“Shards cuts you right open and then sets about infecting the wound. Cummings' prose is as the title suggests: short, sharp, and deadly. The tales themselves are relentless, battering you with their suggestive intensity or mocking with bleak humour. Add to this darkly disturbing illustrations by Andrew McKiernan and Shards is one hell of a nightmare.”
– Dr Marty Young, President, Australian Horror Writers Association.

“If flash fiction is the distinctive form of our internet age—and everything points that way—then I can’t think of a better demonstration of the art than Shards.”
– Richard Harland, award-winning author of The Black Crusade and Worldshaker.

"Fans of the short-short form will welcome this darkly entertaining foray into a world gone subtly—and at times unsubtly—askew, from one of Australia’s 'new bloods' of horror. Combined with a wealth of evocative illustrations from Andrew McKiernan, Shards represents a unique horror experience."
– Robert Hood, the 'Godfather of Aussie Horror' and award-winning author of Creeping in Reptile Flesh.

About the author

Shane Jiraiya Cummings is an award-winning Western Australian author and editor and the Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. He has had more than sixty short stories published in Australia, USA, and Europe, and his work has been translated into Spanish, Polish, and French. Shane has twice won the Ditmar Award and has been nominated for the Australian Shadows Award and Aurealis Award.

About the illustrator

Andrew J. McKiernan's illustrations have appeared in Aurealis, Orb, Black Box, In Bad Dreams, and Australian Speculative Fiction: A Genre Overview. He is the Art Director at Aurealis magazine.

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