Planet of Ghosts and Other Stories

Title: Planet of Ghosts and Other Stories
Author: Wesley R. Bishop

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What remains when the world—and the universe itself—fades away?

Planet of Ghosts explores the thin veil between the living and the remembered. On a nameless desert planet, a small colony of Earth’s refugees discovers that the greatest threat to their new home isn’t the harsh environment, but a “contagion of memory.” As the past begins to manifest into visible, haunting phantoms, the survivors must build “spirit houses” to contain a history that refuses to stay buried.

Bishop’s Other Stories include a lonely God seeking conversation at the end of time, a genetically altered dog leading an exodus off Earth, and more that animate the remains of human existence. Whether archaeologists excavating a “Walmart World Heritage Site” or William Howard Taft traveling to the future, Bishop asks: How do we carry our ghosts without being consumed by them?

This collection is a map for those who long for a better world, while knowing the past must accompany us on the voyage.

ISBN: 978-1-951393-53-3
Price: $15 (paperback) $5 (Kindle ebook)
Release date: March 2026

Praise for PLANET OF GHOSTS and OTHER STORIES:

“Bishop writes with a rare blend of heart, wit, and sharp speculative clarity. Planet of Ghosts and Other Stories is a collection that lingers in the funny, unnerving, and sometimes quietly devastating ways only the best sci-fi can. These stories sift through the ruins of Earth and the complexities of human belief, asking what it means to carry memory forward. ‘Walmart World Heritage Site’ is one of my all-time favorite short stories: darkly hilarious, piercingly smart, and sneakily tender. I think about it constantly especially when I make my way to the cart corral. Bishop doesn’t just imagine futures; he reanimates the absurdity, sorrow, and sacred detritus of our present.”
— Mauve Perle Tahat, PhD, author of Ecologies of Incarceration: Carceral Discard Studies in the Anthropocene (2024) and Spatial Residue: Plastic Affects and Configurations of Place (2026)

“Planet of Ghosts is a searing examination of a dying Earth. Bishop’s prose is reflective of what is seemingly right in front of us while simultaneously extending the depths of dystopian imagination. Through humor and heartbreak, the reader will journey into the desperate grips of a failing planet, but with the ultimate reminder that ‘[e]very problem humanity faces is always only one generation away from a solution.’ Let this collection be your awakening.”
— Kailey Tedesco, author of MOTHERDEVIL