“Our obsession at Grailrunner is raw, incandescent imagination and everything that fuels it.”

Grailrunner is an indie publisher of science fiction and fantasy novels, short story collections, art, and related tabletop games. We aspire to break new ground in anything we do, with an emphasis on inspiration, innovation, and immersive storytelling. At Grailrunner, we believe great myths and stories climb inside our heads and are what pushes us into great decisions and make-or-break moments in our lives. So let’s make more! 

Our signature property is a rapidly growing original western science fiction setting collectively called The Salt Mystic Universe, represented in novels, a series of tabletop games, and branded merchandise.

One of the most popular things we do on the site is called Grailrunner’s Inspirational Creator Series, where we interview some of the most intriguing artists, writers, cartographers, and game designers working today to specifically talk about inspirations and their creative processes. Smash the logo below to catch up on those:

We also feature other ongoing series such as Pulp Gems and Inspirations From History. Click here to browse them via picture gallery.

Our philosophy:

Try this sometime. It’s fascinating. Go on Gutenberg.org and pull down a copy of one of the old sci-fi pulps from the 1930’s like Astounding Stories Of Super-Science or find a pdf of Planet Stories. Read the letters columns. Those guys were teenagers, thrilling over pulp stories that blew their minds about space travel and breakthrough technology, but they grew up and put us on the moon and invented television and communications satellites.

Then try this. Go find some interviews with people that worked at DARPA on the original internet, or the guys who designed the iPhone, or the ones now working on CRISPR and other biotechnology that will be curing cancer and AIDS and all sorts of plagues within a generation or two. See how often they mention being inspired by Star Trek, or remembering seeing Star Wars the first time, or reading something from Arthur Clarke.

Science and speculative fiction helped build our best thinkers. And it’s still trying to do that. Yet writers are rewarded for cloning existing works, sticking to safely worn paths, and increasingly these days for lining up with political messaging in social media. We need Grailrunners. Off-road, breaking rules, dynamiting tired ideas and gloriously summoning that which inspires. 

Care to join us in that?

“The fascinating thing about the Grail is that you must change yourself in order to find it. Even if you do, you’re still not walking away with a Grail in your hand – because the transformation was the point. “