The latest stories, poems, and games from author, poet, and Nebula award-winning game writer Stewart C Baker.
“Walking Tour of Scarborough in Nuclear Winter”
The tour starts the same way they all do—in the Spa’s outdoor suncourt, as the bloated, swollen sun tries its best to pierce the eternal grey clouds and reach the ashen waves below.
One part eldritch horror, one part post-apocalyptic nightmare, one part jaunty seaside holiday. Add wealthy patrons, season with guilt, feed to your terrifying overlords, and get out fast.
Published in Pseudopod, March 13, 2026
image credit: Scarborough Spa by Derwisz, used under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.
“You, Who Sought the Stars’ Distant Light”
By the time you boarded me, you were already dead. Or rather, I had killed you.
A sentient spaceship must struggle with ideas of loyalty and duty when boarded by an unexpected visitor with access to their systems.
Published in Analog, January/February 2026.
Crescent Sea Story
You wake on a boat in the midst of a vast, ruined ocean. You have no memories. You have no belongings. Your only companions are five fragments of your missing self.
A powerful urge draws you southward towards what you know is your destiny, but before you can grasp it you must reclaim your identity. Follow your fragments through your own past and discover what happened to the world—and to you alongside it.
Memories are mutable. The future is unwritten. But can you ever truly change who you are?
Written for IFComp in September, 2025
Spire, Surge, and Sea
In a far-future seascape cursed by the ancients, will you make mankind’s last home a haven or a fortress?
Back rebels or royals, or pursue your own rise to power. Speak for the spirits or fight for your own kind, or try to reconcile both by uncovering ancient injustices. Heal the creatures afflicted by a magical rot or defeat them in the name of defending the ones you love. Shape humanity’s destiny with magic, alchemy, or high-tech masonry.
Spire, Surge, and Sea is a 380,000-word science fantasy epic where the gods, the spirits, and your king are watching your every move.
Published by Choice of Games in July, 2025.
Ginkō at the End of Time
Everything is coming apart.
Take one more walk and marvel at the strangeness of the world.
A one-page RPG about impermanence, strangeness, beauty, and writing haiku.
“The Square Root of Forever”
Jeyana knew she had what it took to become immortal. She hadn’t reckoned with what she’d have to take from someone else.
A weird sort of Highlander/DS9 mashup on a terraformed Mars, only swap out the swordfights and Julian Bashir for a doomed sapphic romance.
Published in Lesbians in Space: Where No Man has Gone Before from Space Wizard Science Fantasy, June 2025.
Rooftop Tolls
Can you help the plants and denizens in the garden beds get what they need to flourish, so you can go back inside?
Created for Neo-Twiny Jam 2025, weighing in at approximately 405 words (not counting code, etc.)