Expected Shipping Date: October 15, 2025
Winner of the 45th Annual 3-Day Novel Contest
In a future hotter than today, people meet their needs through tailored forms of intelligence. From the cyborg security at the food mart to the ever-learning, ever-loving forms that can effectively — and acceptably — be a life partner. The processing nous of an AI spouse is all the more valuable in a world where everything’s a game. An actual game.
So We Blush Less When The Phone Rings presents a world where differences hinge on whether we’re organic or customised, whether we’re physical creatures or a controlled visualisation. This is a world where power dynamics are hazy and the old uncertainties of romance mean nothing in the face of reliable engineering.
But no society can be all winners. In this world, “scarcity value” haunts everything and staying wholly natural is the only sure way to lose. Who benefits and who goes without is determined by iron rules, while commodities are acquired via an ongoing bidding game.
The purpose of this society is to hold a bright blanket around chronic scarcity. The world is too hot to do anything more. And even a respectable, happy married couple, once they step outside the game, find themselves talking to bullets.
Bio: Mark Wagstaff’s work has appeared in Heavy Feather Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Neon Origami, and Cagibi . He won the 39th Annual 3-Day Novel Contest with off-kilter romcom Attack of the Lonely Hearts published by Anvil Press. Mark’s raucous teen thriller On the Level was published in 2022 through Leaf by Leaf, an imprint of Cinnamon Press. And Cinnamon Press published Mark’s new novel Mascara a post-modern tale of politics and mayhem in 2025. https://markwagstaff.com/
