Aaron Sher
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aaronsher.bsky.social
Aaron Sher
@aaronsher.bsky.social
470 followers 350 following 1.3K posts
Fantasy author, martial artist, software engineer, cook, ally, and cat minion. Not necessarily in that order. (he/him) http://aaronsher.com
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aaronsher.bsky.social
The full English, with bonus tea joke.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
Joining Nia and Elise at the tiny breakfast table, I watched Marks happily working in his kitchenette making the most extraordinary spread of food: back bacon, sausage links, fried eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, toast, hash browns, and probably a few other things I didn't spot amid the piles. There wasn't room on the table even for all of our plates, so we filled them from the counter and held them to eat. No coffee, still, but we made do with tea. Nia used two teabags and left them in the mug while she drank it. I tried not to watch Marks wincing every time he looked in her direction.
November 11, 2025 at 11:19 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
I mean, come on. You just don’t say things like that out loud.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"It'll take them a few days to get here, though. They're traveling incognito and separately so that they don't tip off the London mages, just in case the whole chapter is corrupt." "They can't just call somebody closer?" Nia asked. "They don't dare. If the London chapter has gone bad, who knows who's trustworthy? He did give me a local contact, though, 'for use in emergencies.' Some old friend of his named Blake." Nia snorted. "That's OK, hopefully we can just hole up and not draw attention until they get here. More mages usually means more problems." She should have known better than to say something like that- -because at that point, predictably, everything went to hell.
November 10, 2025 at 12:05 PM
aaronsher.bsky.social
I love this tiny little exchange, because it really captures the three of them in a nutshell.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
Nia said, "There are pictures of the inside here. How in hell did he get these?" "Don't care," I said. "What's it look like?" "Pretty small for a warehouse. Looks like a single storage room with an enclosed loading dock in the front and an office above the loading dock. There's a rolling door between the street and the loading dock, and another one between the loading dock and the storage area in back. He doesn't have any pictures of the back, but he does have shots of security cameras and several door locks." "You know this is a trap, right?" I asked. "Of course it's a trap," said Nia. "Why would it be a trap?" questioned Elise.
November 9, 2025 at 11:55 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
I’m picturing mages lined up in rows practicing spitting out single syllables with anger, contempt, derision, dismissal…

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
The mage turned on me with clear recognition on his face, along with the kind of searing disdain only achievable by the alchemical combination of arrogance and alcohol. "What's it to you, little psi?" It shouldn't really be possible to put that much contempt into a single syllable, but he managed. Maybe mages get special training? Being a psi, a psionic as opposed to a mage, meant I was lower-class in supernatural circles. Mages had vastly more power than we did, and they never let us forget it. I looked up at the mage. Quite a long way up. "Come on, everybody's little compared to you. I know Joe's fries are great, but maybe lay off them a bit?" My mouth sometimes has a mind of its own when I'm scared, and it usually doesn't have to pay its own bills.
November 8, 2025 at 11:22 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
The only time in the whole book where Nia gets to use a gun. Not very effective, it turns out.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
That sounded like a really excellent idea to me, and I started backing towards the tunnel entrance. I faced where I thought the slithering sound had come from last, though who knew if that was actually where the thing was or whether I could do anything about it if it chose to attack. Nia moved with me, her gun up. Nothing happened. My back touched the wall of the cave and I glanced back to find the tunnel entrance. At that exact moment, there was a sharp crackling sound and an indistinct rush of movement in the light-spangled blackness of the cave. Nia's gun went off twice, deafening in the enclosed space. I threw myself into the tunnel and started scrambling up, heedless of how the sharp bits of glass cut my fingers, and heard Nia right on my heels.
November 7, 2025 at 11:47 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Close as I could get. The lack of guns in London is really crimping everyone’s style.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
Her smile made me feel warm. She had such confidence in me. I wish I felt like I deserved it. I wish I didn't feel like the splint on her leg was somehow my fault for not being more useful. "I hope he's willing to help. I'm going to have to pitch it to him just right, I think. Ultimately, though, I don't see how this doesn't come down to a fight, and if there are forty or fifty of them like Andrews said then we're seriously outgunned. And we don't even have guns." "I may have an idea about that. I need to work on it some more." I knew that look. She was coming up with some magic gizmo or something that nobody had ever heard of before.
November 6, 2025 at 11:30 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
This is my experience of most places in Europe.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
A big cemetery, called Brookwood. The driver recognized the address and regaled us with the multi-century history of the place on the way, all tied up in the Anglican church and the world wars. I guess that's most places around London, though? How do they keep track of all the history? Living in Boston we have little plaques and stuff all over the place commemorating various Revolutionary War events, and there's the Freedom Trail that's basically a history buff's guided tour, but in London every place was like that. The random pub you walked by probably had a four-hundred-year history involving plagues and civil wars and the occasional king, and you'd never know about it unless you happened to buy a drink for that one old guy in the corner. But I digress.
November 5, 2025 at 12:16 PM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Yes, I did do the math to figure out if that size and weight was reasonable. Because I’m that kind of nerd.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
I wasn't feeling frustrated—I was feeling scared. The thing was roughly person-shaped. It was easily twelve feet tall and looked at least twenty as it loomed over us. It was made of scrap, but it had been expertly welded together and looked about as fragile as the Hoover Dam. The floodlights gleamed off its patchwork surface in crazy pinpoints and blotches and it made tremendous creaking noises as it moved, though its movements were fluid and natural. It raised a steel fist the size of my torso. Nia barked "Scatter!" and we went in three directions, all perforce into the open space as the Bentley was occupying the lane behind us. As I took my third step, I felt the ground shake as the half-ton fist landed where I'd been standing a fraction of a second earlier. If I hadn't moved, I'd be a puddle of pink jam.
November 4, 2025 at 11:29 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
“Blowing off steam,” nice. 😄

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"What do you think we should do instead? I'm not sure we could kill Steve without herhonestly, I'm not sure we could kill it with her. Always assuming it, you know, can be killed in the first place." "I'm betting a couple sticks of dynamite rolled down that hole would do a good job." She knew perfectly well that that was impossible in about five different ways, so she was just blowing off steam. I was working hard on keeping my knees from trembling, and I would have paid a hell of a lot at that moment to be able to just say, "You're right, never mind. This is a terrible idea." But... Elise. And DeRose. And all that. "It'd put a big hole in their nice fancy landscaping, though. You wouldn't want to do that to our British friends, would you?" "The live ones, or the dead ones?" We went in.
November 3, 2025 at 11:39 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Connor can’t just go all Darth Vader on people, so he has to be clever about it.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
I threw the strap. It struck the windshield and cracked it in a spiderweb pattern. Pressing with one mental "hand", I held the buckle end there while the loose end flew up and wrapped itself over the top of the car. Reaching out with my second "hand" ', I grabbed the loose end and pulled it down into the open sunroof and forward. Without being able to see what I was doing my control was pretty vague, but I had a good idea of the driver's position so I wrapped the strap around where I assumed their head and neck would be. All this took maybe a second. Then I let go of the buckle end and shoved it away from myself as hard as I could, which was admittedly not all that hard, especially at this range. The buckle flew back towards the back of the car, I felt resistance, and then the car started weaving on the road as the driver hopefully fought the pressure on his throat.
November 2, 2025 at 11:05 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Only use of this word in two books.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
The thing that made this particular bar special was the clientele. Byrne's catered to the supernatural crowd and "mundanes" weren't welcome, even among the very few who were aware of the supernatural community in the first place. They were so not welcome, in fact, that there was no sign outside; if you didn't already know where the place was you'd never find it. It was a pretty small bar, only half a dozen tables, and tonight it was crowded-there were maybe twenty people here. Plus me. My name is Connor Rourke, and the name is the most Irish thing about me. Presumably one of my ancestors was properly Irish, but I'm a purebred American mutt-average height, light skin, and short brown hair that's usually stuffed under a hat or else sitting in an untidy mop like it gave up and died. I was in the bar waiting for a client, but that wasn't who showed up.
November 1, 2025 at 10:36 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Yelling is always appropriate when fighting zombies and… whatever that is.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"Elise, can you clear the tunnel if we keep it off you?" I yelled. We didn't need to yell- -the zombies were silent and the creature was making only scuttling noises and a low mechanical-sounding grating noise but it seemed appropriate at the time. "I can try!" she said, and turned her back on the creature to address the zombies. That's some goddamned trust right there. I couldn't let her down. I placed myself between her unprotected back and the monster just as Nia tackled it from the side, stabbing with her pen. The pen had no more obvious effect than the belt had, but Nia's mass at least made the creature stumble even as it continued to try to reach Elise.
October 31, 2025 at 11:11 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Sat out yesterday, but today I’m spoiled for choice.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
The door to the office, which we had carefully closed behind us, opened. I now noticed that it was the only door and that the windows were high up on the walls. That might have been so that nobody outside could spy on White's secret dealings, but it also worked nicely to cut off any possible avenues of escape. The first through the door was Jeeves. In the middle of the night, he was still wearing an immaculate suit, his graying hair was neatly combed, and I could swear he was freshly shaven around his goatee. Must have been a spell, nothing else could explain it. His face, as usual, held all the expression and warmth of an ice sculpture... of a marble statue. The don't-look charm may still have been working, but it wasn't nearly strong enough to hide us in a small well-lit room from people who already knew we were there.
October 30, 2025 at 11:33 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Hate it when that happens, don’t you?

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
At that moment, I noticed a guy standing not ten feet from us, inside the front door. Which was closed. How did he get there, and why hadn't we seen him? He was short, wore a long brown coat and sunglasses, and had medium-brown skin and black curly hair—Turkish, maybe? Something like that. He stood casually, as if he owned the place. When he noticed that I'd spotted him, he said, "Excuse me, but I'm going to need to settle something here." He spoke in an accent I couldn't place. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" I asked, blithely ignoring the fact that we were standing in somebody else's house. "I'm sad to say that's no concern of yours," he said as he unbuttoned his coat. Underneath, he wore a loose suit like you'd see in a Chinese martial arts movie, with an elaborate necklace covered with charms and bangles. His hands bore multiple rings. I had no more time to inspect his outfit, because he threw a fireball at us.
October 28, 2025 at 10:57 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Vibes. This is a bad day all around.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
Then I heard the scream. Even on a battlefield where people were getting hurt or killed all around me, this was like nothing I could have ever imagined. It was a man, and it sounded like his bones were being extracted, like he was in more pain than a person ought to be able to experience. There was no sanity in it, no resistance, it was the scream of someone who could do nothing else about the torment he was in than to give it voice.
October 27, 2025 at 11:09 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Trafalgar Square can only wish it were as weird as Harvard Square.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
There was a long pause. "Not normally, no, but if it was a last-minute request during the night... perhaps. It's a very thin story, you realize." "Sure, but I bet I can get all kinds of official paperwork to make the story stick," I said confidently. I was certain that DeRose and Aegis between them could get any agency anywhere to swear up and down that it had been a secret operation months in the making. Or, for that matter, that polar bears had been seen dancing in Trafalgar Square wearing little paper party hats.
October 26, 2025 at 10:43 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Weirder things happen in Harvard Square every day, honestly.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"Could it have been a focus?" Nia asked, intent. She loves puzzles. "I guess? How would I know? Why would it matter? I can go down to Odd Goods and buy a dozen different focuses, or at least I could if I had the money. Come to think of it, she never paid me for the job." "You can take her to small claims court later. When she's not trying to stick you in a hole and stuff the hole in after you. Did you read any of the papers?" "No, I never got the chance. I never even saw what was on them," I said, annoyed. "So it has to be the statue, then. Whatever it was, it was important enough that just having seen it made you a danger." "Who would I tell? If I walked through Harvard Square shouting, 'I saw a wooden statue in a safe!' absolutely nothing would happen other than that I'd get locked up for being a public nuisance." "Again," Nia observed.
October 25, 2025 at 10:37 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
I see no possible downside here.
Poster for the movie "Stealth"
October 24, 2025 at 3:04 PM
aaronsher.bsky.social
I really just wanted to use the RC car idea here, but I had to justify it.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
Halfway across, all the lights came on. In the darkness, the cloud of shadow was well-nigh invisible. In the bright light of the overhead lamps, it sat there like a shifting blob of ink in the middle of the floor, totally exposed and obvious. On the catwalk, two guards leaned out and fired bursts from small but lethal machine pistols into the blackness. Within the cloud, bullets spanged off the concrete floor. This would have been a real problem if I'd been inside the cloud. I'd taped the shadow focus to a little radio-controlled car we'd bought at a toy store, and driven it into the warehouse. I could have floated it in myself, but I was saving my energy in case things went bad-because of course they would. When there's a cheap and easy way to do something, I use it. Besides, toys are fun.
October 24, 2025 at 11:05 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Always better not to bring up the limerick.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"Let's do it. Right now?" "If you're going to break into the building, maybe wait until dark?" suggested Franklin, annoyingly. What made it annoying was that he was right, of course. "Dark, right. Let me know when you're ready." DeRose simply inclined his head to me. "Oh, one more thing," I said. "Yes?" "The telepath, the Ministry guy, he'd like an official thank you from the College for his help. I... kind of told him I could make that happen." Andrews snorted without looking up from his papers. DeRose said, "I imagine something can be arranged. If his information proves to be useful, that is." That was as close to victory as I was going to get, so I decided to flee while I was ahead. "Ill let him know," I said as I backed away. Should I have mentioned the limerick? Probably not.
October 23, 2025 at 11:20 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Hey, that’s an expensive floor to be putting smoking craters into. Easy on the hardwoods, there.

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"You wouldn't want to blow this up, now would you?" I produced the wooden figure from Nia's bag, holding it in front of me like a hostage. Jeeves actually snarled at me. It was so startling, so out of character, that I froze for a second. Thankfully, Nia didn't; she tackled me to the floor as a bolt of fire, some sort of blue ice beam, and some other thing visible only as a distortion in the air all cut through the space where I'd been standing. I guess they would want to blow it up. Who knew? We hit the floor hard, Nia's weight knocking the wind out of me. The mages hadn't given up, and I knew we were about to be a smoking crater in the floor. We couldn't possibly get to our feet in time, and if we did, then what? Stand here and play shooting gallery? Charge them with our fists? I saw Jeeves, fury in his eyes, level a closed fist at me. I saw, in slow motion, the bolt of blue flame gather around his outstretched hand. In a fraction of a second, both of us would be in agony.
October 22, 2025 at 10:22 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Why WOULD you? I mean, yuck.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
I said, "And what about the zombies?" "Presumably the mages didn't leave a fucking zombie horde wandering around a public cemetery for a whole day. You'd think that might attract some attention." "Now wait a second," I said. A car went past- -on the wrong side of the street, because freaking London-and splashed a thin spray of dirty water at us. "So, the mages were doing some sort of ritual in the park, right? And we're guessing it was to make the zombies." "That's the current working theory," said Nia. "Why were they making zombies?" "That's what we need to find out." "No, I mean, why would anybody want to make zombies? In general?"
October 21, 2025 at 11:23 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
The title of the chapter is “The Ambush Ambushers Get Ambushed”. Lot of that going around.

A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
"Spotted that guy while he was setting up the earthquake, figured I should take him out before he really got going with it." She tapped her chest, and I saw the Horus eye pendant hanging there. "Jackson's spell has a hell of a kick." That thing was a focus that put out a don't-look-at-me field, and I hadn't even known she'd brought it to London. It would still be active—it couldn't be turned off until it ran out of mana-so if I moved very far from her I'd most likely lose track of her. Good to know. In the momentary stillness, I heard a scream through the trees, from where I knew the other team had been hiding. "This ambush is going great, don't you think?" She gave me a tight smile with no trace of humor in it.
October 20, 2025 at 11:17 AM
aaronsher.bsky.social
For those who haven't already seen it in the newsletter (go to the link in my bio to subscribe!), finally—the cover for Mechanical Advantage, book two of the Origin Key series #books #fantasy #urbanfantasy #coverreveal
October 19, 2025 at 6:13 PM
aaronsher.bsky.social
Going with “test”. It’s always good to make new friends, isn’t it?

A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙
Nia took the knife and tucked it into the back of her pistol holster. It stuck out a bit awkwardly, but it looked stable. She tested drawing the gun and seemed satisfied. "Could we use this on the psi?" Elise said, "Won't work. Psis don't use patterns as such; they don't handle enough energy to need them. It wouldn't trigger even if you stabbed him with it." Nia said, "It might make me feel better." "Now, we're trying to make friends here, be nice," I said. "Speaking of which, we were figuring out how to ambush and trap our new friend. I think we need to go shopping."
October 19, 2025 at 11:34 AM