Exclusive Excerpt: Liz Shipton’s Urban Fantasy Dot Slash Magic

Liz Shipton is probably best known among romantasy fans and BookTokkers for her dystopian Thalassic series. But she’s poised to finally break into the mainstream with her latest, Dot Slash Magic, a spicy, sarcastic science fantasy that features a complex heroine and timely questions about machine learning 

Described as perfect for fans of I Am Number Four and Zodiac Academy, the novel follows a twentysomething coder who discovers an underground magic club. With their help, she learns to control her power by writing a magical computer program. But when it seems to start summoning monsters, things get complicated quickly.

Here’s how the publisher describes the story.

When twenty-something coder Seven Jones goes back to school at a community college in San Diego, the last thing she wants is to join some stupid club. And the last thing she expects is to walk into an underground magic club. Like, actual wizards and shit.

Seven reluctantly joins the motley crew of magic weirdos and discovers her own power. But she struggles to control it…until she figures out how to channel her magic through an artificially intelligent computer program.

Unfortunately, there is literally nothing Seven’s new friends hate more than AI, and when a student mysteriously turns up dead, blame falls on Seven. Is her “creepy artificial magic” summoning terrifying creatures to hunt students? Or is someone trying to frame her?

With only one person – cute ex-Navy seal Logan – on her side, Seven fights monsters (Dragon? Check. Kraken? Check) while struggling to convince everyone that her AI has nothing to do with them.

But how can she convince her peers when she isn’t totally convinced herself?

Dot Slash Magic won’t be released until August 19, but we’ve got a first look at the story for you right now. 

The smell of smoke-that-wasn’t-tobacco greeted Seven as she rounded the corner into the dark courtyard behind the cafeteria at 7:55. Kurt’s rawboned silhouette, illuminated under a security 

light, leaned up against the picnic table, drizzly fog speckling the halo of light around him. Two more people were on the other side of the patio, noisily failing to land their skateboards on a wall.

Seven hesitated at the corner. The only reason people hung around schools after hours was for mischief, and doing mischief so soon into her tenure here felt brazen. Besides, she didn’t plan to get involved with anyone at City; she wasn’t trying to meet “other people.” She was doing the bare minimum required to get her hands on Dragonfly. Why was she even here? Because this guy looked a bit like Kurt Cobain and she’d never gotten over that particular crush?

Yes, she realized, that was probably it.

“Hey!” He smiled and stepped away from the table. “You came.”

Seven folded her arms against the chilly air and didn’t move. “I don’t understand why you want to hang out on campus like a bunch of teenage hoodlums.”

He shrugged. “It’s a central location and there are good spots to skate.”

“And how did you know this was my picnic table?”

“Because it’s actually my picnic table. I was just letting you borrow it – you looked like you didn’t want to be bothered. What were you listening to?”

Her face went red and she hoped he couldn’t see it in the dark. What was less embarrassing: that she listened to ASMR? A weird YouTube phenomenon where nice ladies with quiet voices whispered directly into her ear holes? Or that the only band she’d listened to since high school was Nirvana?

She shrugged. “None of your business.” 

“So, Nirvana?” Her face went redder, and he looked mildly amused. “Come meet everyone. I promise we’re all full-grown adults and no one is a hoodlum. Anymore.” 

The two buffoons clattering around on their skateboards on the other side of the yard were Xander Hoffman and Julian Lee. Xander, in a white tank top and puka shell necklace, was a surfer with big California Manchild energy. In at least his thirties, Seven guessed. Julian was younger – twenty-one, he said – in a black and orange t-shirt from the Santa Cruz skateboard company. He had a two-block haircut and bespectacled brown eyes that refused to meet hers, which Seven appreciated because she wasn’t big on eye contact either. A Korean word was tattooed behind his ear. 

“What does it mean?” Seven asked.

“Ladybug,” said Julian. “It’s what my Halmi used to call me.” 

“But don’t ask why she called him that.” Kurt pulled a joint from behind his ear, lit it, and blew a skunky plume into the fog. “He’ll never tell you.

“What’s Halmi?”

“Grandmother,” said Julian. “I’m Korean. Half-Korean – my dad is British.”Xander held out two fingers for the joint. “So your name is Seven? That’s weird.” 

Seven scowled. “Yours is Xander.” 

“It’s short for Alexander. What’s yours short for?”

“Sevenxander.”

Kurt snorted. Xander stared at Seven with the vapid seriousness of a cow in a field and said, “Wait, really?”

Julian sighed. “No, dude. She’s messing with you.” He took the joint from Xander, dragged on it, and held it out to Seven.

“It’s not short for anything,” she said as she took it. “It’s supposed to be like the Seven Seas. I think my dad harbored a secret desire to sail the world when he was younger.” 

“Ohh.” Xander nodded wisely. “So your parents are hippies.” 

“No. Just two people whose dreams were crushed by their first child.” 

She punctuated this lofty insight with a good, long hit on the joint. It was like a blowtorch to the inside of her sternum, and she immediately regretted her decision. She choked and shoved the thing at Kurt as a coughing fit seized her, and when she finished hacking and stood up, objects in the world were already making little time trails and the backs of her eyes had gone fuzzy.

“Careful,” said Kurt. “It’s quite strong.” 

“Thanks.” Seven wiped her eyes on her wrist and glared at him. “Alright, your turn. What’s your actual name?””

“Did he tell you it was Kurt Cobain?” said Julian, his voice tight around a lungful of smoke. “It’s not; it’s–” 

“Hey! I see you over there!”

The white blade of a flashlight cleaved the dark courtyard in two. Xander’s face paled and Julian began to choke. 

“Oh, wonderful,” muttered Kurt. “It’s the cops.”

“The cops?”

“No no no,” he amended quickly. “Campus security. Still… better run, probably.” 

“Are you serious? I’m twenty-four and weed is legal.”

“Not legal on a college campus. And these guys are not super friendly.” 

Xander had already disappeared, and Julian was hiking up his pants and tripping onto his skateboard.

“Go ahead,” said Kurt, “I’ll hold them off.” 

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Give ’em the old” – he waved his hand in front of her face –“these are not the droids you’re looking for.”

Seven rolled her eyes. “My hero.” 

Kurt laughed. The sound of it was so unexpected it made Seven’s heart run up the wall and do an excited little backflip. Even in the face of catastrophe, making someone laugh felt like making magic happen.

He stuck the joint in his mouth, then took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and gave her a little push. Was he seriously suggesting she run from campus security like a fucking high schooler?

Sighing, she trotted across the courtyard. She turned a corner and found herself falling up the steps to the auditorium. When she paused and looked back over her shoulder, the flashlight beam was bouncing crazily around in the dark. She heard Kurt say, “Gentlemen!”

Swearing, she jogged to the top of the stairs and tried the auditorium’s double doors.

Locked. She looked around, spotted a second door, tried that, and went through. Inside was a dark theater. Seven shut the door behind her and put her back to it. The combined effect of running up stairs and a hit of very strong weed was making her head spin.

She listened over her breathing for the sound of approaching footsteps. A minute passed. Two minutes. Hearing nothing, she turned to open the door.

It was locked.

“Fuck’s sake.” She jimmied it harder, rattling the handle. Nothing.

She scanned the room. Rows of purple seats and a stage partially blocked by a red velvet curtain. Dark and quiet. Seven crept down an aisle until she came to the stage. There was a small door to the right of it. Finding it open, she went through.

Backstage was a maze of corridors. Cardboard boxes full of feather boas and sequined fabric were stacked four and five high. Enormous sheets of plywood, propped against walls, were half-painted with city skylines. The air smelled of old clothes, new wood, and paint fumes. She stretched her eyes against the dark. She was definitely high. 

Every door she tried was locked

“Fuckity shit-fuck,” she muttered as she shook the handle of a door labeled Green Room and found it immovable. “Cock and balls.” She looked up and down the corridor again. At the far end of it was a door she hadn’t noticed before. Seven set off toward it.

As she got closer, she could see that it was too small to be a real door – a prop, maybe; some kind of set piece. Some weird trick of perspective, probably from the weed, was making the corridor warp and twist as she walked toward it. Like the hallway was shrinking or something. 

Or… was it shrinking? 

She put up her hands and felt them touch the ceiling. Yep, it was shrinking. Or was she higher than she thought?

Ten paces later, she was crouching, and really starting to wonder what the fuck was going When she stopped and looked back, the corridor seemed to stretch infinitely behind her. She shut her eyes. She was very high; properly, balls-ass high – like, mushrooms high.

Some kind of fucked-up Alice in Wonderland shit.

Turning around, she found she was close enough to the door to examine it. She knelt to take a look. It was three feet tall and made of dark red wood polished to a shine. A pattern was carved into it that reminded Seven of Mayan stones she’d seen at that loot stash they call the British Museum. A big brass doorknob dead center. She tried it, and to her surprise, it turned easily. The door made a hideous, hair-raising creak as she pushed it open and crawled through, and the room on the other side was so dark that she had to grope around to find the wall before struggling to her feet.

“Um, excuse me?” said a voice. “What are you doing in here?”

Seven blinked and the room lit up; in front of her was a semi-circle of about ten people. 

And in the middle of it, Alicia was levitating.

Dot Slash Magic will be released on August 19, but you can pre-order it right now. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB