Genre Exercises

​

​

​​The Daily Tomorrow: short story​​

My story was serialized by this excellent online outlet. Their synopsis: "a deathbed codicil, a savage sport, a mechanical replacement, and further complications? Join us for a healthful outing in Chris Baker’s marvellous 'A Duty of Care.' Happy hunting!"

​

Subscribers can read an afterword about the story's making.

​

​​New piece in Adventitious magazine​
​​Everyone should subscribe to this excellent spec-fic quarterly edited by Scott Beggs. Very proud to have a short piece in it.
​
Tar Vol ​writes​, "while I’m not necessarily a sci-fi comedy fan, it’s worth taking a peek at The Gorilla Fighters Under Texas, or: Derek King, Age 8, Shares His Take on the Salvadoran Civil War With Classmates at Sam Houston Elementary Based on a Viewing of ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings on January 19, 1988 (Confederate Heroes Day) by Chris Baker to see whether the bit is up your alley. It’s a lot, but it’s also clever."

​

​​Flash fiction in Nature: Futures
​​I wish more science mags still published speculative fiction. We didn't know how good we had it with Omni back in the day...

​

​​Shortlisted in Uncharted Magazine's Cinematic Short Story Contest​​

My short story "Autonomous Mode" made the shortlist in this call, and will be judged by the amazing ​Ananda Lima​. (I assume my story is first on the list because my last name is "Baker" and it's alphabetical by author, and not because I've got the inside track or anything...)

​

​

​​McSweeney's: Dystopian sci-fi horror about rude social media Reply Guys​​

"I don’t enjoy playing the role of That Annoying Internet Guy who reflexively replies with hectoring know-it-all comments like 'Why are you surprised?' or 'How is this news?' But people force me..."

​

​​​Short story in Kozy Krampus holiday horror anthology. Buy it now!​​​

You can buy a paperback or digital version of this book that features my 4000-word piece “‘The I Night I Defeated the Demon of Winter’ from Chapter XLVIII of the autobiography of Sir Gottfried von Berlichingen.”

​

​

Story "Unfinished Conversations Package" in Flash Fiction Online's November 2025 special FamPunk issue. Read it ​here​. It made Tangent Online's ​2025 Recommended Reading List​, and they ​wrote​, "There is much to ponder about the relationship between parent and child in this deceptively simple tale."

​

Flash piece in the anthology Twisted Trails: Tales of the Weird Wild West. Buy it ​here​ and read my story: “Specters of the Crash: A Cross-Media Survey of Paranormal Narratives Surrounding the Crush Collision of 1896 (Journal of the Texas Folklore Society, Vol. 79 No. 1 – Summer, 2025)" I examined a tragic real-life event in Texas history through the lens of Mexican ghost ballads, dark fantasy pulp, EC horror comics, Swinging Sixties steampunk, spaghetti Westerns, sci-fi manga, & a psychedelic Jodorowsky fever dream.

​

At my day job, I got to write the story bible and do script continuity for ​this award-winning sci-fi horror podcast series​. It was commissioned as a prerelease promotion and story extension for the disgustingly gory game The Callisto Protocol. The podcast won a Webby award, and I got to write and deliver ​the five-word speech​.

​

My earliest speculative fiction ran on WIRED magazine's monthly back page item Found: Artifacts from the Future. Read some of them ​here​.