Twenty-one stories. One Spain, torn apart.

I'm announcing Baler and Other Stories, a collection of twenty-one speculative fiction stories set in a near-future Spain fractured by electoral fraud, institutional collapse, and foreign interference. It's the opening act of the Broken Flag Saga — and it publishes on 28 September 2026, ebook and paperback together.

The title borrows its shadow from the Siege of Baler, the 1898 stand of a small Spanish garrison in the Philippines who held their post for 337 days after the war that mattered to them had already ended. That image — men and women holding a line for a country that may no longer recognise itself — runs underneath every story in this collection, even where the word "Baler" itself never appears.

These are stories of soldiers, engineers, smugglers, mothers, and defectors, told from inside a conflict where nobody involved agrees on which side is loyal. Some stories are quiet. Some are not. All of them ask the same question in different voices: what do you owe a flag once it's been broken?

The ebook launches first on Amazon; paperback and hardcover follow through wider distribution shortly after. A Spanish edition, Bandera Rota, is planned to follow.

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