Tangents & Tachyons: A Sci-Fi Romance Collection for Readers Who Enjoy Thinking Quietly #StoriesThatLinger

Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic. Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why?

Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world?

Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too?

Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world?

Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short.

Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

Tangents & Tachyons

Some stories don’t ask for your attention all at once.
They unfold. They trust you to notice what matters.

If you enjoy speculative fiction that leaves room for reflection—stories that don’t explain themselves, but allow meaning to surface on its own—this collection may be worth your time.

Tangents & Tachyons is a science fiction and sci-fantasy collection that moves comfortably across ideas rather than staying in one lane. Time travel, retro speculation, quiet rebellion, and personal revelation all appear here—not as spectacle, but as lenses for examining choice, identity, and consequence.

The stories range from the far end of the universe to alternate versions of familiar worlds:

1. A closeted editor whose life changes when an unapologetically queer story arrives from an unexpected source
2. A man waking at the end of time, unsure who brought him there—or why
3. A borrowed body on an urgent mission to save a world
4. A mind that finds meaning hidden inside random patterns
5. A small circle of friends trying to relight a darkened world

Two previously unpublished flash fiction pieces round out the collection, making this the first time all of these works have been gathered in one place.

What stood out to me about this collection is its restraint. Each story presents an idea and allows it to resonate without insistence. The emotional impact comes not from urgency or scale, but from accumulation—from noticing how small moments echo larger truths.

This is speculative fiction for readers who enjoy connecting the dots themselves.

If that sounds like your kind of reading experience, Tangents & Tachyons is available now.

https://storyorigin.kayelleallen.com/tangents-tachyons