Interlude: Shameless Promotion

Leap Year Magic promotion: On Wednesday February 29, the Kindle version of The Princess, the Knight, & the Knave will be available at Amazon.com for free. Instead of $2.99 to download this 61,000 word (about 220 paperback pages) young adult fantasy novel, the price on Feb 29 will be $0.00 for one day only--and worth every cent. Yes, $0.00, that's almost as good as free. Put it on your calendar. Download a copy. Give as gifts to your friends. Give it to people you don't like: that'll show them.

Here are some other sites that feature my short fiction for free reading:

Words and Music
His Brother was an Only Child
Hire Education (Just Up for March Issue)
The Unicorn Dilemma should be available in March at New Myths.
Perchance to Bleam coming soon to Futures:Nature.

or you can pony up to buy one the following Kindle ezines:
Heir Apparent Anthology (read the reviews)
June 2011 Daily Science Fiction
OG's Speculative Fiction

And finally, the Kindle version of my science fiction adventure novel Wobbling Star is available at Amazon.com.

Next time, back to Episodes....

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2013 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest

I was just notified (March 14, 2013) that my 7700 word short story " Intent to Occupy " placed second in The 2013 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest administered by William Ledbetter. Mr. Ledbetter just posted the results on his Facebook page , so I assume the results are now official: The winners of the 2013 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest are: GRAND PRIZE "The Lamplighter Legacy" by Patrick O'Sullivan 2nd Place "Intent to Occupy" by Ronald D. Ferguson 3rd Place "Improvising at Branson Six" by Sean Monaghan The annual contest is sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society in memory of the founder of Baen Books , Jim Baen. The judges consisted of Baen Books editors Hank Davis, Jim Minz, Tony Daniel and best selling Baen author David Drake. I'm very honored to have such illustrious judges select my story. My first reaction to the email from Bill Ledbetter telling me that I won second place was "Well, I...

My first alternate history novel was Rogue Knight: Marked by Thor . Rogue Knight takes place early in the ninth century shortly after the death of Charlemagne. The View from the M öbius Window is my new kindle novel available on Amazon.com . The novel is my second venture into alternate history: In 1914, fifty years after a forgotten cabal of wizards stalemated the Civil War and overthrew the incompetent Confederacy to establish the Southern Alliance monarchy, twenty-two year-old Lieutenant Maximillian Bontemps saves the newly crowned, teenaged King John from a sniper in Asheville by knocking the boy onto his royal ass. Angry that Max dared touch Him, the King dismisses Max from His Royal Guard. Dejected, Max returns home to New Orleans to start a private Security Service. New Orleans is the last bastion of wizardry in the south, and there Max discovers he has a rare talent: he is immune to magic. For Max's first...

Repurposing a Joke.

Jokes are often micro fiction—very short, short stories—but they share some characteristics with longer stories. Most folks label a story as good if it keeps its promises and meets expectations. They may label a story as great if it exceeds expectations, but when it subverts or twists or upends expectations it can be brilliant or terrible depending on who reads it and how. These subversions are the basis of a lot of humor. Humor often relies on surprise, particularly the upending of expectations. Two different people can tell the same joke, and for one teller, it falls flat while for the other it invokes laughter. That is a separate, story-telling issue. When the joke is written as micro fiction, as many jokes are, then whether it strikes someone as humorous depends on the reader as much as the writer. This is why explaining a joke often destroys the humor. Explanations eliminate surprise. Recently, I’ve posted a few repurposed old jokes on Facebook, rewritten as political ...

No Mongoose in the Mimosa

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