About The Promise of King Washington: A Short Story:
When the aliens came, it wasn’t a military invasion: it was an economic one.
Shortly after first contact, Earth became the latest proxy war between the two major alien empires in the galaxy. Now humanity is divided between Monarchist-sponsored nations and Imperialist-sponsored nations, and the last independent holdout—the United States of America—has just experienced a coup.
Sam Fisher doesn’t know why the new president has agreed to give him an interview, but as an independent journalist and alternative media blogger, he intends to hold the would-be dictator’s feet to the fire. But when he sees the gallows lining both sides of the National Mall, he can’t help but wonder if coming to Washington DC at this time of enormous turmoil was a mistake.
This story was originally published in Again, Hazardous Imaginings (December 2020), and received the highest ranking (***) on Tangent Online’s 2020 recommended reading list.
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Author Bio:
Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He wrote several unfinished novels in high school and took Brandon Sanderson’s writing class at Brigham Young University.
He first came onto the indie writing scene in 2011 with his debut novel Genesis Earth. Since then, he has written more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. His stories have been published in Leading Edge, Kasma SF, Serial Magazine, Gallery of Curiosities, and Bards and Sages Quarterly.
As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He has also traveled across the United States, from Texas to New England and California to Washington DC. He lives in Utah with his wife, daughter, and two apple trees.