Stories of where the normal meets the strange... From the travails of a water-carrying alien on a harsh world.... to the loss of a child by a much-too-young father touched by the were gene. From the plight of a young immigrant painter struggling to get by... to the story of a young man who has to decide whether to help when he comes across a car in the ditch and a family fighting for survival in that wrecked vehicle... And more... Twenty-one stories about the moment when someone's life took an unexpected turn, and that person was changed forever. Tales of heroes and cowards, lovers and leaders, the heartbroken and the heartless. Stories that leave you wrecked inside, while the characters on the page try desperately to pick up the pieces of their lives. Take a chance on a story from a genre you might not have ever read before, and dive headfirst into the tale of a life that appeared normal but was quickly transformed into a life less ordinary, and a life more strange and more fascinating. Michael Jasper uses genre as a weapon in these twenty-one stories. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. A young woman struggling with drug addiction catches aliens on her digital camera. A man with elemental powers struggles with morality and carrying out the orders of his bosses. The dead leave their graves and take up... surfing? Gunning for the Buddha collects fifteen stories that range from near-future science fiction to historical dark fantasy and contemporary horror, touching on a range of genres in the process. These wide-ranging stories were previously published in magazines such as Asimov's, Strange Horizons, The Best of All Flesh, and Writers of the Future. Enjoy the voyages, and watch out for false Buddhas on the road! “Don’t be looking for bold starship captains or warrior maidens wielding magic swords in Gunning for the Buddha. Michael Jasper serves up something refreshingly different: a heady brew of ordinary folks making tough decisions at the far edges of reality. Spend some time with these stories and you’re bound to bump into people you know who find themselves in places you’ve only dreamed about.” — Hugo-winning author James Patrick Kelly “Mike Jasper brings the common touch to the most uncommon situations. Welcome to his world.” — Nebula-winning author John Kessel

A haunted romance. An unsolved mystery. And a centuries-old curse at the heart of it all. Off the rough coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Ella Simon tracks down one man—the infamous pirate Blackbeard. She must identify a shipwreck off the coast of the island, but she and her divemaster Mitch Thompson discover much more than that. They just have to stay alive long enough to solve the mystery of a young girl's killer before the ghosts of dead pirates take them down to the bottom of the ocean, forever. A haunted romance, a lovestruck mystery, and a pirate-filled adventure. "Fans of an interesting ghost story enhanced by romance will want to read this tale of long dead pirates riding the high seas." — Midwest Book Review

An unlikely team of misfit players, and the coach fighting to hold them all together... In his first season as head coach of the All Nations team, former slave George Grunion contends with racist crowds, low team morale, and... the ghost of the previous head coach. And if George can’t hold the All Nations together, he loses more than his job and his team. He’ll miss his chance to fulfill the prophecy made by his prescient centerfielder Mack — that George will be reunited with his estranged family before the 1918 season ends. If George doesn’t score this final run, he loses everything. "Avid, talented newcomers like Jasper help us keep the faith." — Locus

Magic: the side effects are painful, if not fatal... Two months after the explosive and unexpected ending to A Sudden Outbreak of Magic, Jeroan learns all about magic at Dr. Azure’s mysterious training center. Meanwhile, Kelley can't even leave her hotel room in Dubuque without a chaperone. When people they care about start disappearing, and people they didn’t think they should care about—like Dr. Azure—get attacked by rogue magic-users, Jeroan and Kelley must work together. Before this growing epidemic of magic turns deadly. Unfortunately, they learn too late that magic no longer works properly, and they suffer some serious side effects whenever they use it... The fantasy series for all ages continues!

Magic: It can show up in the strangest places… An old man sleeping in a cardboard box in snowy Chicago holds the secret of sorcery in his head. Thanks to the damage done to him by using magic decades ago, he doesn’t realize it. Most days he can’t even remember his own name. But when two teens try to jump him in an alley, the magic Words come back to him at last, and he “infects” the kids with magic. And soon Chicago has a wild epidemic of magic on its hands… An earlier, but still self-contained version of the novel A Sudden Outbreak of Magic, but with a slightly altered cast of characters and plotlines. Consider it the “alternate-world” version of the Contagious Magic story.

Aliens crash-land in snowy North America, attempt integration, and fail—violently. In the near future, over thirty black ships containing the aliens known as the Wannoshay crash-land onto the frozen earth of the Great Plains of America and Canada. Over the course of a year, the aliens attempt to become part of American society, only to be banished to internment camps when they are suspected of causing a series of deadly explosions at their new jobs. A handful of humans who made early contact with the Wannoshay stand up for the oppressed aliens. They soon learn, however, that the aliens are not without guilt—a guilt that seems to be killing the Wannoshay with each passing day on Earth... "An absorbing work full of unflinching looks at what makes us human, how we might react to be faced with the truly incomprehensible." — SF Site