Skip to main content

Another Interlude

Hire Education is now online in the Universe Annex section of the Grantville Gazette. The story grew out of an observation that a guy with a baseball bat might try to repossess your education, and then I got to wondering what might happen if education became a commodity that you could rent or hire for use. If someone fell behind on their payments, what would happen next?

Also up is The Unicorn Dilemma in Issue 18 (March 2012) of NewMyths. The story is a slightly different take on a girl, a knight, a dragon and a unicorn.

Words and Music is in the February 2 of Futures:Nature. The story is available online. The premise revolves around aliens who modify the meaning of their statements with pitch, far beyond any earth tonal languages. Communication problems? You bet.

I also sent back the page proof last week, and so I expect that Perchance to Dream will be up at Futures:Nature very soon.

His Brother was an Only Child is still available at Daily Science Fiction. Cryogenic storage may have unexpected repercussions.

For my Leap Year Magic Promotion on Kindle, I gave away 150 copies of my young adult fantasy The Princess, the Knight, & the Knave. So far, not one review, or like or any response . . . disappointing. I suppose I should be more patient, but the novel is only 61,000 words, about 220 paperback pages. Maybe the YA audience doesn't do Amazon reviews? Naw, that can't be it. Of course with free promotions, people sock up with books that may never see the light of day, or might sit around until a dark winter evening when . . . . Oh, wait, winter isn't over yet. Well, I'll mull over this a bit longer and hope for the best. Now, I can't decide whether to run a similar promotion for Wobbling Star. Clearly, I need to plan better before jumping headlong.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
2 comments
Read more
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more