Traveling the Transdimensional Highway (New Free Ebook)

Traveling the Transdimensional Highway, my latest novel (and free ebook), is now available here.  (For a list of all of mine, kept up to date, see this entry, or go to https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson.)  I'm really pleased with it, needless to say; the pace and suspense in the last half I kept credibly compelling.

* * *

Robert Serviss is a mysterious man, in some ways.  He doesn't look like anyone else, not on this Earth, anyway.  All anyone in the town knows of him is that he's just arrived in a Ground Rover that needs some urgent repairs.

A mystery to them, not so much to himself, though he'd like to be.  He doesn't even like to think about his past, or origins.

* * *

He's not from the town he starts out in, not even the world.  He's from a parallel world, from an organization with a lot of reach and resources.  The journey he's on will take him far, farther in most ways than he's ever been.

Farther than he'd ever thought life would take him.

Traveling the Transdimensional Highway: A journey of excitement and imagination.

Ghost Mode - Free Ebook

I had a tremendous burst of creativity back around 2007, in response to unfortunate events at work.  Unfortunate for me that is, but not for my readers, because I ended up with an overpowering urge to speak up, to assert myself as worth attention.  And so I wrote.

Are those experiences related here?  Of course not, a guy behind a desk is nothing to write about.  Are those experiences reflected here?  Of course, just like with all fiction.

The first seven of these connected stories were written between 2007 and 2011, and the other two in 2011 and 2013, but all were put aside eventually.  I'd come up with the title for this volume in an attempt at a novel all the way back in 1991.  But I wasn't good enough then…and even in 2007 I still wasn't quite there.

Well, I'm not as good as I want to be even now; then again, I never will be.  But I hope I'm good enough, and so I finally got back to these stories, mainly because pandemic stress has kept me from drafting as much new, and instead has me revising what I already wrote.

The stories (chapters) are set between 1934 and the early 2010s, and explore a common idea, with technology and society changing along the way.  But I'll let you discover that for yourself.

Meanwhile, I have a world for you.  Worlds:

"[I]f the scientists are correct, the worlds out there are parallel to ours.  Well, not parallel, but branches from the same tree, from the same history. …

"Worlds where Tesla never heard about Yellowstone while visiting Colorado in 1903, never had his imagination fired by descriptions of 'Coulter's Hell,' never had the fundamental inspiration for the Tesla Field."

The 1991 version of this volume started from the idea of a character with the power of Nikola Tesla's invention arriving in a parallel Earth and running around getting into and out of trouble.  The climax of the story would involve getting out of trouble, finally, and settling down with the girl he met on the way.  I hadn't thought it through, though, and the story predictably went nowhere.

When I got a little more life experience I realized that the power of that invention was the crux.  What did power like that entail?  What are its ramifications?  Where does it lead?

Hence the novella.  See what you think.

All my ebooks are free: https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson.  You can also see my entry Ebooks Update for a full list.

Department G

 

They were left to the study of academics, relegated to the realm of literary criticism.  They were dismissed as creations of a poet, remnants of an ancient literary tradition.

But they were more than that, far more.  Grendel and his mother were living creatures.  And they were more than relics.  We know, because their descendants live today.  We just don't think of them as Grendels anymore.  We lump them in with serial killers.

And we dismiss any hint of supernatural ability.

Department G was formed at a British professor's insistence, as an American parallel to Britain's MI-G.  The department's Team One has a proud tradition of protection…and an increasingly impossible task of providing Americans that protection, without causing too much risk, or panic.

Impossible means lethal.

* * *

This is a near-future science fiction novel, in a world that isn't ours but only differs in the detail of Grendels.  Those serial-killing creatures make it horror as well, comparable I think in frightfulness to Patricia Cornwell's early Scarpetta novels.  (If it's comparable in any other way I am blessed indeed.)  The e-book is $3.99, and the trade paperback $11.49 (priced for the same royalty either way).

I just don't want horror fans to be surprised by the science fiction elements, and vice-versa.  Happy reading!

My novels, novellas and collections are at Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press.  They're all pdf ebooks, all free, and always will be.

See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list, or on Gutenberg at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson

Across the Worlds with Aimee and Phineas

A free ebook, available here

A train, stopped on the western plains.  A man rides up, on a horse he'd better relinquish.  A struggle on board the train; a woman of surprising, even superhuman abilities, and an unconscious man.
Who is this woman, named Aimee?  For that matter, who is the man who comes to her rescue, named Phineas?  How is it her train can travel to parallel worlds?  Who are the people who attacked her train?

"Beware of false friends, and false enemies."  A world called "Aryan Trans-Atlantic."  "Sumer is icumen in."

Join a voyage of discovery, of who Aimee and Phineas are, not to mention Ammendina, Colonel Malcontent, and the Vicereine's husband.  Discover where the overwhelming red dawns and the TONE take them.  Discover what lies...across the worlds with Aimee and Phineas.

My fiction (other than a published short story) is at Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press.  My works are all pdf ebooks, all free, and always will be.  They can all be found at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson

Aunt Gabby Saves the Universe!

A woman whose great loves in life are talking, taking her nieces on vacations to interesting places, and taking in strays, has unlikely experiences, becoming a hero?  How unlikely is that?  She, her young nieces, and various strays save the family, the space program, the world, the solar system, and, heck, even the universe?  And they all become heroes?  How unlikely is that?

From Yellowstone to the National Hall of Statuary…cascarones…Old McDonald…sitcoms…"xanthic shores"…fending off blockers…bullies…Rosa Parks…ocher…"That was English?"…"'Erry Co'o!"

Join Aunt Gabby and the girls as they use the most unlikely elements to save themselves and all the rest of us too from the wildest, weirdest, and wonkiest troublemakers ever seen on one world!  Or even solar system.  Heck, universe!

"Aunt Gabby, things like this always happen on vacations with you!"
______

One of my free ebooks - see my entry Ebooks Update for a full list, or see them at Project Gutenberg, at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson

Shadows Between Worlds

The second in the Roads Between Worlds series:

John Stephen Gray suffers sleepless nights from the memories of mistakes he's made, mistakes he can't forgive himself for.  Or, at least, that he's never learned to forgive himself for.  But neither he nor his daughter Janna have time to brood when invaders attack his home.

In a world of visionaries who have invented such wonders as regeneration tanks, cloned hardwoods and advanced weaponry, they have to find a way to deal with their attackers, and more importantly the nature of their attackers; but they also need to discover their own abilities, the nature of those abilities, their world, so like and yet unlike our own, and its nature as well.

Not to mention other worlds parallel to theirs.

For all the visionary inventions of their worlds, their attackers use equipment strange to them.  Where have the attackers come from?  Where did they get, or make, their equipment?  And why are they attacking in the first place?

The Roads Between Worlds series, of which this is the second, deals with perception and understanding, along with parallel worlds, and parallel versions of humanity.  Which is to say, along with the adventure, it considers what is human, as opposed to inhuman.  Humane as opposed to inhumane.  Perhaps even the unforgivable.

My fiction is all at Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press.  They're all pdf ebooks, all free, and always will be.

See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list, or on Gutenberg at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson

Lower than the Angels

Although I've been self-publishing for a few years, I actually am a published author...just barely, anyway.  Back in 1999, I had a short story published in Lower than the Angels, a regional anthology.

I'm still pleased about my contribution, "Flip of a Coin."  Although it's not as good as what I produce now, with all the years of practice and improvement since then, the feedback I got at the time startled me, and let me know I was moving in the right direction.  At that time, I had doubts about my ability at anything other than narrative.  After being complimented on the characterizations and dialog, I knew it was time to stop trying to hide what I thought were weaknesses.

And I remain pleased about what the story tried to say, not just how I tried to say it.

Anyway, as I said, I think it's pretty good, though not my best.  It's not the best in the collection, either; there's some very fine fiction within.

Am I puffing out my chest a little?  I guess so, although I suspect all authors do.  We labor alone a long time, generally, and it's always nice to get some form of affirmation.

That said, I'm not trying to make any money with this post.  Any further sales of the anthology won't pay me a penny.  Which is fine.  It was wonderful to break out into print, all those years ago.

As for you, all I can say is, here's one place where my example might help you.  Don't hide what you think are weaknesses when you can work on them instead.  Practice and improve.  Then no doubt you'll get some affirmation too.  Either way, go for it.  Puff out your chest a little.

T-Man (Free e-book)

Cover by Garrett W. Vance

His own mother hasn't been willing to look at him since he was five years old.  He and his twin sister have a connection that seems almost psychic.  He realizes that close physical contact can let him know what others are thinking as well.  His sister's different from most.  He's different.  But how?  And why?

He and his sister never knew their father, and their mother won't talk about the man.  What they first learn only deepens the mystery.  Could that have anything to do with how they're different?  Maybe.  But how?  And why?

They live in a more bureaucratic world.  Mandatory service.  Rules.  Licenses.  Their world is different.  Could the difference be connected with theirs?  Seems tenuous, but possible.  Is so...how?  And why?

Trooper McInnes finds his talents lend themselves well to soldiering.  Investigator McInnes becomes so good at detection that he gets a reputation for being practically telepathic.  But he has to overcome the doubts his mother unwittingly saddled him with.  He has to overcome the mystery that surrounds his and his sister's birth.  He has to overcome the obstacles the world puts in his way.

And he has to overcome the temptations that close physical contact can lead a young man into.

How will he make his way to adulthood?  How will he make his way in his world?  Find out, and find out why he's called—

T-Man

Note: He isn't called T-Man as short for transman, because he isn't one.  There is, however, a transwoman in the story, among other gender issues. 

My books are all at Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press.  They're all pdf ebooks, all free, and always will be. 

See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list, or on Gutenberg at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson

Roads Between Worlds

My books can all be found at Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press.  They're all pdf ebooks, all free, and always will be.

See them at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson; this one is here.

When Einar and Agnethe discover that the mysterious treatment at "the Institute" has given them the ability to know things they shouldn't be able to, they have to make some decisions.  Should they go to the place Agnethe mysteriously knows of?  Should they leave their Earth behind?  What will they find once they depart?  What might parallel Earths and parallel civilizations be like?

And, knowing what they know, what should they do with their lives?  If they aren't going to stay put and be lab rats, where should they go?  What will they do?

And, knowing what they know...just what does it mean to be knowing?  What is the interplay between knowing, thinking, and feeling?  Does knowing make them superhuman?  Or inhuman?

Follow Einar and Agnethe as they seek their destinies and their humanity, searching for them on the roads between worlds.

Ice Cold and Other Stories

Updateed June 12, 2026

This was my first self-published ebook, back in 2013.  Since then, I've made it about twenty times longer, with dozens of stories in it now, and it's available for free (a downloadable pdf) from https://self.gutenberg.org/, in an expanded edition, here.  All my free ebooks are at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson.

* * *

Why does the hunter have a crossbow instead of a gun?  Why do he and his people hate those on the other side of an interdimensional Gate?  Why do they feel they "got a pig in a poke"?  He's not hot with rage though; he's Ice Cold.

Hurt...damaged...trudging through snow, a banished soldier makes a surprising discovery.  Maybe there's hope.  Maybe there's no need to just fade away and die.  Maybe there's return from Exile.

A bustling multidimensional civilization; expansion based on Explorers, Experts, and Enforcers.  A man who is one of the foremost Experts takes his uncanny talents to a nexus of tremendous possibility.  But things go badly wrong at Majoros-Taff Vale.  Will he overcome the reasons the nexus and its development site are called Emptyville?

* * *

Expanded Edition table of contents:

The Original Ice Cold

Ice Cold

Exile

Emptyville

Libertarian Worlds

Glamour Angel

Numb

Run

Cinnamon Girl

Love? I Can Get It for You Wholesale

Unauthorized Intrusion

Body Guard

You've Seen the Video, Now Read the Story

Parallel Worlds

The Only One in the World

Exit Ramp

A Friend in Need

Reflective Phase

Time Travel

About Time

One More Time

Time Change

Science Fiction

Warrior of Empire

Free! (Dark)

Free!

First Contact

The Alien Woman

Fantasy

A World of Dream and Nightmare

Devil of a Storm

North Woods Werewolf

Princess Katana

Invincible

Horror

Botnet

Half Seen

Surly Bonds

Vampire Country

If Psychic Powers Are Real, Where Are They?

Resistance

Doctor

A Door Closed

Hector

Superheroes

Nightwatch: Dusk and Dawn

The Environment

Knightside

Rising

+Blinded by the—

Humor

Another Friday Night in the Multiverse

Immortality at Last!

Roman in Time

Bugs

Suddenly Ninjas Came Through the Window

The Lost Heir of Generica

The Bureaucracy of the Rings

Early Efforts

Not…Human

Death of a Captain

Riven

City of the Dead

A Time to Remember

Young Adult

The Enchanted Treehouse

Sam's Tale: The Girl Who Fought

Pets/Tearjerkers

Old Abby

Percival's Thanksgiving

Mainstream/Holiday

Christmas Is Just Another Day

"Christmas Is All a Lie!"

Christmas Storm

The Christmas Sweater

Christmas Alone

Goblin Hound

Hosanna Hound

Et in Arcadia Ego