Kakistocracy
If you do it well, lying is every bit as effective as magic.
Conrad Brent has no innate magic, so he bluffs a lot and uses a myriad of magical items to protect Brooklyn from monsters and arcane threats. As a member of the Watch, the group that protects the mundane humans from such dangers, he risks his life on a regular basis. Sometimes twice before lunch. Sometimes during lunch, when he dares order his food from a street cart.
After regaining his position in the Watch which he’d temporarily lost due to the machinations of a variety of evil-doers, Conrad doesn’t want to take any risks he doesn’t have to. But now his boss is missing, there’s a totalitarian new regime in City Hall oppressing all magic users, and the mayor has aligned himself with a diabolical villain.
In order to save the day, Conrad must team up with a recovering necromancer to mediate a dispute between two ancient enemy factions, solve a mystery of a warded house adjacent to a cemetery, and stand with his friends against tyranny.
That is, if the interdimensional fae assassins don’t get him first.
Alex Shvartsman is a writer, translator, game designer, and anthologist. Over 120 of his short stories have appeared in various venues, including Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, Fireside, Weird Tales, Galaxy’s Edge.
He won the WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction in 2014 and was a two-time finalist (2015 & 2017) for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction. His political fantasy novel Eridani’s Crown was published in 2019.
Alex’s translations from Russian have appeared in magazines like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld and Asimov’s. He’s the editor of the Unidentified Funny Objects series of humorous SF/F, as well as other anthologies, including The Cackle of Cthulhu, Humanity 2.0 and Funny Science Fiction. He also edits and publishes Future Science Fiction Digest.
Alex has resided in Brooklyn, NY for over 30 years and draws on his experience as a New Yorker in writing The Conradverse Chronicles where Brooklyn is more than merely a background.
