If you enjoy superhero comic books, then you will probably like this week’s excerpt. Wonder City Stories is a satiral take on the superhero genre, following several viewpoint characters as they attempt to live their ordinary, extraordinary lives.

Black Lawrence Press recently announced the re-release of this book:

Neither Here Nor There by Marcel Jolley

We at Black Lawrence Press are proud to announce the second printing of Neither Here Nor There by Marcel Jolley. This short story collection, winner of the 2004 St. Lawrence Book Award, is deeply rooted in the Pacific Northwest. Eight deceptively simple stories introduce the reader to drifters, lovers, and Outsiders – people searching for a future both elusive and frightening. From barrooms to lonely highways to city busses ridden by enemies who have never learned each other’s name, Neither Here Nor There seeks out every character’s rough edges, deftly exposing the extraordinary ways that ordinary people dream.

I am pleased to announce the winners of the 2010 Rose and Bay Awards.  These awards honor excellence in cyberfunded creativity.  Congratulations to all the winners! Read the rest of this entry »

This week we have an excerpt “The Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom,” which has completed its first draft and is now being polished for book publication.  This crowdfunded project is currently supported by subscription, donation and book one pre-sales, as well as advertising.  When Book One is re-released, both the crowdfunding model and the website will be updated.  Details are still developing, but there will be some exclusive content for subscribers.

Now that he’s of age, Prince Temmin must leave his childhood home behind for a new life with his father in the capital. King Harsin plans to educate his son in the ways of all the kings who have come before. But the family’s immortal advisor, Teacher, has other plans: to bring Temmin closer to the people he will rule, to bind him to a Temple devoted to eroticism, and to set him on a path that will lead to unimaginable glory for the House of Tremont–or to its end. Read the rest of this entry »

My dark SF flash fiction ”The Negotiator” is up today on  Everyday Weirdness March 5.

Ann K. Schwader

http://ankh_hpl.livejournal.com/

http://home.earthlink.net/~schwader/

My new book of 48 flash stories; half of them are published here for the first time.

At least follow the link & see the cool cover! You can read an excerpt, too.

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

This notice popped up recently — more reading material!

The February Issue of  The Absent Willow Review is now available. Please visit us for the best in horror, fantasy, and science fiction!

PS – Thank you for making The Absent Willow Review the fastest growing online magazine in its genre!

Kindest Regards,

Rick DeCost
Publisher/Editor
The Absent Willow Review

http://absentwillowreview.com

Absent Willow Publishing,LLC

This week’s excerpt features a tale of psychic powers, intrigue, and parenthood.  Good thing that’s happening to someone else, eh?  It’s wildly amusing from the safe distance of another universe.

Strange Little Band by Nancy Brauer and Vanessa Brooks

Strange Little Band is the ongoing story of Addison and Shane, two self-centered, amoral psychics who work for the cut-throat Triptych Corporation. Their insular, comfortable lives are disrupted when, due to Triptych’s machinations, they become unlikely parents. How can they raise a child when they can’t trust each other?

New installments are posted on Tuesday and Friday.  Bonus stories air every other Monday or so. There’s a podcast and forums, too!

Excerpt: from chapter 1

After her week 21 appointment with Dr. Frasier, Addison headed toward the commissary. With morning sickness behind her, Addison’s appetite had returned with a vengeance. Once again her body had skipped hunger and went straight to ravenous. Little could stand between her and whatever she was craving.

Addison’s route through the sprawling complex took her past Genetics — Myers’ department. The doors to the various labs and offices were closed, as usual. Myers ran a tight ship.

The door ahead and to Addison’s left opened, and a balding, middle-aged white man in a lab coat strode through. The printout in the man’s hand had his complete attention. His unshielded thoughts washed over Addison.  …don’t know how the hell he thinks we’ll resequence…

Addison’s eyes found the nameplate beside the slowly closing door: Dr. Shane Myers. On impulse she ducked inside.

Even if the freak hadn’t been sitting at his glass-topped desk, Addison would have guessed this was Myers’ office. The decor was cold, modern, and minimal. The only exception was a black leather sofa against one wall. Rumor had it that Myers was a workaholic. He may have slept on the sofa more often than a bed.

Myers himself was oblivious to her presence. Like his underling, he was too busy frowning at papers to notice a buxom woman a few feet away.

Addison fought to keep her amusement from her voice. “Dr. Myers.” Her tones were cool and polite.

Myers’ head snapped up. Surprise flitted across his clean-shaven face, then was replaced with a scowl. “What are you doing here, Harris?” he demanded.

Addison perched on the sofa arm closest to Myers, careful to stay out of reach. She leaned forward to hide her bump and display her generous cleavage. “Can’t I visit a colleague?”

Myers’ scowl didn’t waver. “No.” Nevertheless, his brown eyes briefly darted to her breasts.

Addison allowed herself a smug smile. “Shane.” She propped her elbow on one knee, resting her chin on her upturned palm. “You don’t mind if I call you Shane, do you? ‘Dr. Myers’ sounds so formal, considering that we’re practically family now.”

Silence stretched as Myers studied her. Addison studied him back. He wasn’t bad looking. Lanky, and possibly fit under his dress shirt and slacks. The fact that Addison couldn’t sense his emotions — her mental fingers slid off of his eerily slick mental shields — reminded her that the average-looking man was part alien.

Myers hadn’t ordered her out, so Addison continued. “I suppose I should start with congratulations.” She stood and drifted toward him, unbuttoning her jacket. “Or didn’t Daniel tell you that your donation worked out? One of those sperm is the little engine that could.”

For an instant confusion, curiosity, and a hint of lust radiated from Myers. Addison laughed as her jacket fell open. “Don’t flatter yourself, Myers. I don’t want to shag you.” She ran her hand over her rounded belly. “Congratulations. Twenty-one weeks and still growing strong.”

Myers gaped as his shields slipped again. Taking advantage of his distraction, Addison grabbed his hand, lifted the hem of her shirt, and pressed his palm to her bared abdomen. “For confirmation.” The man’s mute shock made the precariousness of the situation worthwhile.

Chuckling, Addison backed off, heading for the door while buttoning her jacket. She tossed over her shoulder, “If you’re going to buy those chocolate cigars, you want the ones with the blue wrappers. It’s a boy, Dad.”

Addison felt Myers’ eyes on her back she strode out of his office into the hall. Daniel will be pissed, Addison mused. She dismissed the thought with a shrug. She really didn’t care.

Her stomach, on the other hand, wondered if there was any chocolate cake in the commissary. She had a craving for it.

Here for your delectation is this week’s excerpt, an excursion into dark literature…

314 Crescent Manor by M. Jones

Where the rent is cheap and your neighbours are dead to the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Walking to Mercury by Starhawk. Bantam Books, 1997. Hardback, 489 pages. ISBN: 0-553-10233-8. Three stars.

A story of introspection should begin at a point within, and a story of people should begin with personal interaction; so this one does. The viewpoint character, Maya Greenwood, is a writer and the opening scene comes from her book From the Mountain. A young woman touches divinity directly, yet fears the burden that vision brings her. Likewise Maya finds herself struggling to follow her own vision up a rough and rugged track. A man once part of Maya’s past reappears in her present, and she must work through all the old issues. Her mother’s death leaves her shaken, so she packs up the old woman’s ashes and travels to Nepal in search of a suitable resting place for them. Through it all Maya strives to rediscover herself and her source of strength and inspiration.

Reading this book is like digging through a trunk in someone else’s attic. Starhawk brings us the story through a combination of plain narrative, letters, journal entries, and other tidbits strung together in approximate order. This provides a broader perspective than Maya’s alone, and I found the differences in style quite striking. The author certainly knows how to capture each character’s unique perspective and personal voice. It can produce some confusion too, but you can follow it if you read carefully, as you would listen to someone’s life story.

Walking to Mercury reads more like real life than fiction, which has both positive and negative effects. It is eminently believable and packed with gritty little details. It is also rather sordid in places. People make mistakes — small ones, large ones, stupid ones. Sometimes they manage to forgive each other and move on. Some of the plot twists actually managed to surprise me (not an easy task) and offer thoughtful options rather than the obvious, without quite breaking the contract with the reader. The worst problem stems directly from one of the greatest challenges in fiction, namely how to keep a story from wandering lost when the main character does just that. Between the piecemeal presentation and Maya’s chaotic if sometimes obsessive rambling, the story meanders quite a bit before reaching its conclusion.
From a Pagan perspective, it contains more hints and glimpses than heavy impact. While the main character experiences several powerful encounters with the divine, these stand out as little islands in a sea of insecurity. The author’s knowledge and beliefs provide a firm background so that the spiritual aspects make sense, and I thoroughly enjoyed the original portrayal of the Goddess in Her three phases, given here as the Seer, the Singer, and the Reaper. Yet I found somewhat less “going on” here than I expected. On my scale it falls in that broad borderland between “Pagan Fiction” and “Pagan Literature” because it touches on Maya’s relationship to both the spiritual realms and the modern “mainstream” society.

Not light reading by any stretch, Walking to Mercury does offer a contemplative look at middle-age shifts and surmounting the challenges of daily life. The Pagan themes are subtle but present, and you can have fun hunting for all of them. Give yourself time to savor this one slowly. It deserves your attention. Fans of Starhawk’s nonfiction will recognize many familiar elements, especially from Dreaming the Dark : Magic, Sex, and Politics and Truth or Dare: Encounters With Power, Authority and Mystery. I recommend it for Pagan audiences in general.

This week’s featured cyberfunded creativity is a piece of urban fantasy.  You never know what could be around the next street corner …

Addergoole by Lyn Thorne-Alder

Addergoole is a contemporary fantasy story with erotic and dark-fantasy elements, a modern-day fairy tale of sorts, without the soft-glow filters to soften the harsh edges, without the safety of ”happily ever after” or even the security of knowing that the Prince on his white horse is the good guy. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s excerpt introduces a fairly new piece of cyberfunded creativity from Cecilia Tan…

Daron’s Guitar Chronicles by Cecilia Tan

DGC is a serialized novel telling the story of Daron, a guitar player trying to make it in the face of a dysfunctional family, internalized homophobia, and the changing face of celebrity in the 1980s. It’s a story of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the era that brought us AIDS, MTV, and Just Say No To Drugs. It all starts when 19-year-old Daron, playing a low-rent gig in a heavy metal cover band, runs into an old friend, a much older and more successful musician he knew when he was a lot younger, whom he hasn’t seen since the guy got famous and moved away. Read the rest of this entry »

Lyn Gardner shares the following news about her recent publications and other stuff you might enjoy reading:

The new issue of MindFlights just went live with ”Calendar of Cats” by Lyn C. A. Gardner.

Also, Cabinet des Fees: A Journal of Fairy Tales has just released Issue 9, January 2010, Scheherezade’s Bequest, with ”Waking Beauty” by Lyn C. A. Gardner.

There’s also a lot more fabulous work in these issues, for anyone who cares to stop by.

Thanks for reading,

Lyn G.

Here is the latest stop in our tour of cyberfunded creativity. The author describes the challenges of life above ground…

“Above Ground” by A. M. Harte

Life above ground is something Lilith Gray has never experienced. When she gets the chance to visit the outside world, she’s understandably ecstatic. But the infected have a reputation for being dangerous for a reason, and Lilith is about to find out why.

“Above Ground” is a dark fantasy serial, exploring explores a world where fighting the odds – and surviving – is no mean feat. Read the rest of this entry »

Invasion America 2: On the Run: The Lost Years by Christie Golden.  Roc, 1998.  Paperback, 266 pages.  ISBN: 0-451-45693-9.  Four stars.

One of the nicest things about books in comparison to movies is that special effects don’t cost extra — and in comparison to animated features, it isn’t necessary to draw a gazillion frames to tell two minutes’ worth of story.  Thus, much to my delight, some modern storytellers have begun to take advantage of this, and tell their tales in more than one format.  This makes it possible to get more of the backstory than would be practical within the scope of a movie or series or what-have-you.

On the Run tells one of the stories behind the story of Invasion America, the popular new series from DreamWorks Television Animation.  Long ago, the Tyrusian people planned a peaceful  first contact with Earth, but their plans went awry.  Prince Cale fled for his life and wound up on Earth, which engendered a very different first contact than planned.  He fell in love with a human woman, and together they fought in secret to save the Earth — and Cale — from his enemies.  Along the way, they also conceived a son, David Carter, who would grow up to be a great hero…

Christie Golden brings to this tale her characteristic knack for portraying tragic stories in striking detail and eloquence.  Who better to sketch out the haunting might-have-beens of human/Tyrusian history?  She also handles the developing romance with sensitivity to the emotional tensions caused by all the running and hiding, plus the inevitable differences in culture.  The activity on the Navaho reservation rings through with piercing clarity.  I’m pleased to see the author’s deft use of non-English words and phrases, too — that really highlights the culture disparities that give the story its strength.

This book will of course make more sense if you have already seen the series it ties into, but I found it pretty intelligible on its own.  Science fiction fans in general will like it; On the Run has extra appeal for fans of animation and military SF.  There are even some artful touches of sociological SF if you know what to look for.  Highly recommended.

A new business model is evolving online, called “crowdfunding” or “cyberfunded creativity.” It makes a connection between writers, artists, etc. and their audience members — cutting out the middlemen and directing funds to the people who do the hard work of creating cultural material. Now there is an award that honors excellence in cyberfunded creativity, and the Rose and Bay Award has just opened for nominations. Read the rest of this entry »

This week I have another excerpt of a cyberfunded project for you, as Clare introduces her phantasmagoric world…

Chatoyant College by Clare K. R. Miller

Corrie, Edie, and Dawn are new students at the only institution in the United States that teaches magic: Chatoyant College. They’re looking forward to learning how to cast spells, curse their enemies, write essays, and learn foreign languages. But not everything is what it seems, and even less is what they expected. Dawn has memories no one else shares. Corrie finds things she thought she understood spiraling out of her grasp. Edie doesn’t even believe in magic when they arrive, but the line between fantasy and reality quickly blurs. They find themselves turning to fiction to answer the questions their professors won’t. Creatures out of folklore and legend lurk behind friendly facades as well as within forbidden places. The girls have a lot to learn. College leads you farther from home than geography can account for, and there’s no turning back now…

Chatoyant College is fantasy weblit, an online serial novel about college life, updated with a new chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Come take a look! Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I received this announcement from Mitchel McAllister:

I have just posted a new story “Santa’s Other Helper” to my gay fiction site, Prism & Ink, in the Category “Other” (the green button at the top of the page). Please note that this is not erotica. It is gay-themed fiction, and probably fits into the “Contemporary/Modern Fantasy” genre.

I’d like to remind everyone that donations to this site, made in the month of December, will be split half-and-half with the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network.

- Mik

This piece of cyberfunded creativity is historical fiction, an interesting change of pace from the widespread fantasy and science fiction projects. The Roman View is a weblit serial by Michael L. Coburn.  The author describes it like this:

A whimsical look at Rome if some of the circumstances that led to its fall had been slightly different.  The following is a teaser from about mid-way into the story. Read the rest of this entry »

This announcement came from Bruce Boston:

The ninth-anniversary issue of The Pedestal Magazine is now online, with a
special flash fiction section that Marge and I guest-edited. Seven stories, all under 1000 words, selected from more than six hundred submissions.