08 January, 2022

Read an #Excerpt from A Year of Words {Translated from the Original Shark} by Briane Pagel - @BrianePagel @GoldenFPress #Translation #CollectionOfStories


"Translated From The Original Shark" is a collection of 365 stories, written at a rate of one per day over the course of a year. The first story has 365 words, and each subsequent story has one word less than the previous, counting down to the final, one-word, story.  The stories are speculative fiction, about robots and cowboys and witches and strange happenings. The characters include robots programmed to be sad, people falling from airplanes, princesses and frogs, dimension-hopping pirates, and a host of unique animals, including the main character of the titular piece, a story which has been called one of the most imaginative works of fiction ever. 

Interspersed with the stories are short intermissions, (called "[Notes]") that briefly detail what was happening in the author's life during the year the stories were written, making "Translated From The Original Shark" the world's first memoir-by-short-story. These autobiographical details provide a counter perspective to the stories, and add depth and heart to the collection.


Book Link
Golden Fleece Press


Read an Excerpt from A Year of Words {Translated from the Original Shark}


[note 143]: Sweetie and I both agree that the cure for post-Xmas blues (I always get them, a little) is to look ahead to the next thing that you’re excited about.

Today, we took the boys to the Madison library, where they have a great children’s section.  As we sat and watched them play with puzzles and crawl through the cubbies and sometimes even look at books Sweetie looked up at me, and asked “We’ll have money next year, won’t we?”

146, and 145: The Same Story Told Backwards

Nobody ever knows the ending to someone else’s story, or even if it does end. So each of them, and not us, will only ever know if they get shot, hit the ground, fall into the river, or just keep going up forever.

Bullets whizzed by, the river below them in the gorge thundered, sky whistled past.

“Maybe it don’t matter what we hit,” one had thought, or maybe yelled.

“Maybe we hit the river,” one had yelled, or maybe just thought.

Just moments before this fall (?) they’d looked at each other, each dropping empty six-shooters. 

The standoff had been brief, the bad guys shooting back so furiously, the cowboys were left no choice but to turn and leap over the edge into the sky!

The ambush had come at dawn, quickly chasing them at a run to the precipice.

And Then Forwards


Two cowboys stare at the campfire.

Neither one wants to say tomorrow they will probably die.

Some things do not need to be said.

But some things do, and finally one does.

“You believe in God?”

The other cowboy shrugs.

“You?” he asks.

Sparks break free of a log and lift into the sky, disappearing after traveling too far for the cowboys to see anymore but continuing on their journey regardless. Or because they burn out.

It was hard to tell which.  But it mattered which, and both knew it.

“Think they burn out?” the first cowboy said.

“I think they’d better not,” the second said.

That was the last anyone said, until much later in the middle of the night, each heard the other praying.  Each understood that their prayers were mainly hoping someone would be out there hearing their prayers.



The author, Briane Pagel, is also the author of the science fiction thriller about gene theft and cloning, "Codes," also available at Golden Fleece Press. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianePagel, and on Instagram at @brianepagel.  He lives in Verona, Wisconsin.

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