MAKESHIFT is a short story (approximately 5,100 words) which mixes fantasy and magic with imagination and the science of noetics in the tale of a very special young man recruited to a world of wonder and weighty responsibility.

Best known as the world's top-ranked player of classic role-playing games for fifteen years, Donald J. Bingle is an oft-published author in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller, steampunk, romance, and comedy genres, with eight published novels and novellas (including The Love-Haight Case Files (Books 1 and 2), Frame Shop, Flash Drive, Wet Work, Net Impact, Forced Conversion, and GREENSWORD) and more than sixty shorter stories, primarily in themed anthologies commissioned by DAW and in tie-in anthologies, including short fiction in The Crimson Pact, Steampunk'd, Imaginary Friends, Fellowship Fantastic, Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies, Time Twisters, Front Lines, Slipstreams, Gamer Fantastic, Transformers Legends, Search for Magic (Dragonlance), If I Were An Evil Overlord, Blue Kingdoms—Mages & Magic, Civil War Fantastic, Future Americas, All Hell Breaking Loose, The Dimension Next Door, Sol's Children, Historical Hauntings, Hot & Steamy—Tales of Steampunk Romance, and Fantasy Gone Wrong.

Many of Don's stories are electronically available, individually or in genre collections, including "Writer on Demand: Tales of Gamers and Gaming," "Writer on Demand: Tales of Humorous Horror," "Writer on Demand: Tales Out of Time," "Writer on Demand: Grim, Fair e-Tales," "Not-So-Heroic Fantasy," and "Shadow Realities." Donald J. Bingle is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Horror Writers Association, International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, GenCon Writers Symposium, and Origins Game Fair Library. You can visit him on Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook, or at his website at donaldjbingle.com.