This site is devoted to the fiction of Jeffery Scott Sims, presented by me, the author, to further acquaint interested readers with my work. It is divided into the following categories: this introductory page; a series of pages listing my productions in chronological fashion, with appropriate annotations where necessary or illuminating; a page devoted to notable personalities and places that appear in my writings; and a special pictorial page dealing with some of the real world locations that have inspired many tales.
At this point, with a healthy number of short story sales under my belt, I can profitably look back and consider how it all happened. Early on I was a great reader and writer; scarcely was I past the Dick and Jane phase than I fastened on science fiction, which remained a staple until adulthood. During the third grade I read all of the classic novels of H.G. Wells-- which to this day strike me as the epitome of that form-- shortly began writing my own little tales for the amusement of friends. As an adolescent I read a story, not heeding the author then, which began the permanent shift in my tastes. A year or two later I read a collection of tales by H.P. Lovecraft, soon discovered that mesmerizing story to be "The Shadow Out of Time". I was hooked, and have ever been since a fan of the double-dyed weird. In my teens I read half a dozen times The Lord of the Rings, found another outlet for imagination in pure fantasy. I began writing stories regularly, for the first time seriously intending to publish commercially.
For an aggravatingly long span intentions were all. Market factors; my own amateurishness of technique; less than professional salesmanship; where the explanation for those lean days? All I know is that suddenly, without clear warning, I started to sell, and not only my latest productions, either. There should be a lesson in that. I never gave up, which must count for something. I am currently building up a satisfying body of genre work.
My literary gods, those I acknowledge as the masters, are Lovecraft (still, and always), Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, M.R. James, and E.R. Eddison. Each provides me with the very best of what I crave from great stories of their kind. I measure others, and myself, against them.
Save for a few forays into SF, and the occasional light touch, most of my writings can be described as weird horror and dark fantasy. I write of beasties creeping in the night, or beyond the rim of the universe; I write of fabulous worlds and remote eras of my own invention. I have sought, my very best, to learn from the masters without imitating them. The story I pen is meant to be mine, not a copy of another's.
I prefer to read and write what I call clean stories, by which I mean those which present a plot, and the characters to drive it, and having done that get going and keep going unto the last word. Seldom do I clutter a work with back story-- endless chatter about personal irrelevancies or private "issues"-- unless the plot absolutely demands it, and even then I am wary of topical excess which may seem clever at the time, pitiful later on. I am first and foremost a story teller, and one who wants his stories to live beyond the fleeting present.
Many of my tales are one-off creations, written and done with, yet scarcely planning to do so I have fashioned characters who came to mean so much that they began to appear again and again. So I have written many a yarn of the obsessive researcher Professor Anton Vorchek, he of the keen mind and hazy credentials, constantly delving into morbid mysteries than no one else can fathom, often accompanied by his loyal but querulous young assistant Theresa Delaney. So too I have written of the cold-minded, somber sorcerer of yesteryear Jacob Bleek, a man of few words but eager desire for ultimate wisdom and power, the goal of a quest for which he wanders the world and beyond, never (mercifully) achieving, but always finding marvelous adventure. Those characters will appear again, along with the numerous others who pass briefly by to face unusual perils or suffer unimaginable fates.
It is a pleasure to imagine the unimaginable. I love such tales because they connote the broadest, most powerful, most scintillating exercise of the mind. I look forward to reading many more of them, and to writing more.
For my own purposes, I have divided my works chronologically into volumes, some of which are grab bags, others designed around themes. The stories have not (to date, at least) been published in these formats. Click on the following links to read the titles within each volume, and the accompanying notes.
Brief discussions of notable characters and creations found in my tales may be read here.
Photographs of the genuine locations that form the setting for many of my stories may be viewed here.
Reach me by e-mail here.