Antczak, Stephen L
Entry updated 27 October 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1966- ) US author, former punk rock singer and Comics creator who attended the University of Florida in Gainsville and began to publish work of genre interest with "Shit Happens" in the Fanzine The Scanner #5 (1989) as Steve Antczak. His first novel God Drug (2004) has a back-story in which the US Marines test the titular Drug, a weapons-grade form of LSD, in hope of improving squad efficiency via Telepathic communication. The only survivor of this experiment, "Jovah" – who does not appear in the book – has been locked away in Sensory Deprivation because his thoughts/hallucinations can now dangerously affect reality. Various characters created or imagined by Jovah exist only as side-effects of the variant LSD and (when activated) work on his behalf to reassemble his scattered personality fragments and figments, endangering the world should they succeed. When some of the drug is sold to two hapless college students, they must battle for sanity in the ensuing twisted alternate reality where inter alia a helicopter manifests as a dragon (see Supernatural Creatures). There is much graphic Sex and violence.
Antczak's first story collection was Daydreams Undertaken (coll 2004). His second novel The Oracle Paradox (2009) is a Technothriller in which the advanced United Nations AI "Oracle" identifies and orders the assassination of persons who pose a threat to world stability, or who according to its predictions may one day do so (see Precognition). Complications begin when, to the hitman's dismay, the next target proves to be a female child aged eight. [DRL]
Stephen L Antczak
born Salem, Massachusetts: 1966
works
- God Drug (Turlock, California: Marietta Publishing, 2004) [coll: pb/Andy Lee]
- The Oracle Paradox (Calgary, Alberta: Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2009) [pb/]
collections
- Daydreams Undertaken (Turlock, California: Marietta Publishing, 2004) [coll: pb/Georges Jeanty]
- Edgewise: Dark & Disturbing Stories (place not known: for the author, 2022) [coll: ebook: na/]
works as editor
- Zombiesque (New York: DAW Books, 2011) with James C Bassett and Martin H Greenberg [anth: Zombies: pb/Shutterstock]
- Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables with James C Bassett (New York: New American Library/Roc, 2013) [pb/Eric Williams]
links
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