With the goal of discovering the best voices in speculative fiction from across the world, Book Smugglers Publishing publishes original short fiction featuring subversive, feminist, and diverse perspectives. Book Smugglers Publishing’s Summer 2016 theme goes blobckbuster with The Year of the Superhero, with five original short stories for the masked vigilante reader. The Indigo Mantis Written by E. Catherine Tobler Cover art by Melanie Cook Available 05/24/16 A crime-fighting praying mantis avenges her father’s murder in E. Catherine Tobler’s The Indigo Mantis Since witnessing her father’s murder, revenge has been on Indi’s mind. A mantid with a vendetta, Indi has searched her tree high and low for the murderer. In the hunt for her father’s killer, Indi has unleashed her own brand of justice as the notorious “Indigo Mantis”–a vigilante blue-winged mantid, killing lawbreakers with impunity. When Indi follows the first solid lead in her father’s case, however, she uncovers a frightening, terrible possibility. Indi must confront the harsh truth about her own dark nature, and choose what kind of hero–or villain–she wishes to become. E. Catherine Tobler is not a mantis, indigo or otherwise. Among others, her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and on the […]