By Joshua Vise – August 1, 2026
I am incredibly proud to present my first published short story collection! The End of a Lineage and Other Tales contains twenty-six of my favorite stories that I have written over the years, and includes design and artwork that I created just for this special release. The book will be available in three formats:
Name-Your-Price EPUB version
Standard Print Version
Limited Edition Special Release (coming in late 2026).
Name-Your-Price EBOOK
- Available exclusively on this site. (CLICK HERE)
- Pay what you want to pay, including FREE!
- DRM-Free
- Hand-coded my me for maximum compatibility with your favorite Ebook Readers and Ebook Apps*
*The Ebook is distributed as a zipped file. Once downloaded, it can be extracted and opened in your favorite Ereaders. I have personally tested this file with ReadEra, Moon+ Reader, Calibre, Aquile Reader, and Thorium, and on the Meebook M6.
**Simply request a copy from your favorite independent bookstore, and they will order it for you. Through IngramSpark, bookstores receive 40% of the sale price after printing costs. Support your local bookstores!
Limited Edition Special Release
The Limited Edition Special Release of the book will be a special printing, limited to a small run of copies (likely to be 20, but I haven’t decided yet). For this edition, I hope to work closely with a local printer to add a bunch of special touches to make these editions truly collectible.
Some ideas I currently have are hardcover, a bookmark bound into the spine, gilt page edges, textured dust cover, embossed stamps, or whatever else the printer and I can make work. It is my goal to turn these books into as much a work of art as I can. Each one will be signed and numbered. Price and availability will be posted here in late 2026.
The Stories
The End of a Lineage and Other Tales contains the following stories:
River Roast
The Horror of the Signus Magnolia
The End of a Lineage
The Show Must Go On
The Regretful Climb
The Pillars of Poplar Street
Cassia and the Crescent Moon *
Agent 49
Destroy, Erase, Improve
Moon Bears of the DMZ
Barotrauma
Enemy in Potentia
Punctuated Equilibrium
So Much, You’re Nothing
The Porcelain Ghoul
To the Top, Cowboy!
A Desert Caravan
The Incident at the Fairfield
A Single Foundation in Cahokia
Hope Eternal *
Midwestern Tunnel Rats
Tombo
A Small Hand in Mine
Terminal Performance
The Last of the Kwatalo’s Pride
Mandatory Overtime
* Previously unpublished on this website.
The Artwork
The short story, “The End of a Lineage”, was one of the first stories I wrote, and it is also one of my favorites. In it, mosquitoes play an important role in driving the plot, and so I chose to add hand-drawn mosquitoes as a headpiece for each chapter. Each mosquito is framed by an art-deco design, a theme that is also present on the front and back of the cover. All of these designs are present in both the paperback and EPUB versions of the book. Here are a few samples:
AND FINALLY…
As I say at the end of my book introduction:
“…through your readership, you’ve allowed me to accomplish a
genuine goal of mine that has taken the entirety of my life to finally
realize. I am exceedingly proud of the stories contained in this humble
collection you now hold, and I sincerely hope you enjoy it.”
And at the end of the book:
“…additionally, if you enjoyed this collection (or even if you
didn’t), I would encourage you to seek out smaller publishers,
independently-published authors, and writers online. An incredible
amount of talent exists in the world, and taking a chance on someone
less famous or less well-distributed can be rewarding both for you and
for them. If you do find someone you like, take the time to let them
know. Your positivity means everything.”
THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY DREAM COME TRUE!