Catching Fog

And another of my science fiction short stories is now available for the Kindle. I figure I’ll get all the interesting ones up that I’ve either already seen published or that have already made the rounds without success. Those short stories that I’m still circulating among the magazines I’ll hold off on turning into ebooks for now.

The story I put up today is called The Debate. The story’s description is as follows:

David Long was a time traveling graduate student doing research in the thirteenth century. He wanted Father Hockmeyer, who was dying from the Black Plague, to understand how his personal suffering would, in the long run, benefit humanity and human civilization. Father Hockmeyer wasn’t buying it.

The story approaches the question of human suffering and its point, and then kicks it in the shins. It is a very short story, about the same length as Timewinder, I believe or maybe slightly less.

If you’d like to get it, click here.

Remember, all my ebooks can be borrowed for free if you’re an Amazon Prime member.

Send to Kindle

Three of my old short stories are now available for the Kindle (see previous posts for information about Timewinder, Not in My Backyard, and Shades of Darkling Nights and Other Colorful Metaphors).

So what am I up to now? I’m doing heavy proofreading of five of my essentially unpublished science fiction novels, Antediluvian, Inheritance, Somewhere Obscurely, The Wrong Side of Morning, and John of the Apocalypse. My plan is to indie publish them in that order as Kindle e-books (See Sarah A. Hoyt, So You Want to Go Indie, for the concept of “indie publishing.” She encouraged me to try this experiment). Antediluvian, Inheritance and Somewhere Obscurely–(titled as Somewhen Obscurely), were published by a small press publisher that never paid me a cent and has since stopped publishing new work; of course, part of the reason they essentially went out of business is that one of the owners/editors, Leo Frankowski, died.

Antediluvian

The Solar Union and the Outworld Federation had been at peace for hundreds of years, but that time was ending. Methuselah, grandfather to Noah, was leading the Solar Union headlong toward war. When it came, civilization would fall. Powerless to stop the coming deluge, Noah risked everything to survive.

Inheritance

An old geneticist, Paul Wilcox, becomes involved with a fifty-thousand year old archeological site that will radically change the world’s understanding of its past, with implications that will change its future. The ancient site is filled with advanced, human-built technology, and an artificial intelligence that has been waiting a very long time for someone to talk to.

Somewhere Obscurely

Mohado — vulgar term applied to timeslipped workers. Living as virtual slaves, these desparate workers move back and forth through time at the whims of their employers. This is Aramond Smith O’Reilly’s life. Witness to his mother’s murder, kidnapped, and sold into a life of misery… He will never know where – or when – he will be. After escaping wretched conditions, Aramond rises above his situation. Purchasing a timeship, he becomes the very thing mohados dread and fear: a coyote–one of those who transports and delivers the workers to those who would exploit them.

The Wrong Side of Morning

The Devil has a time machine and he knows how to use it.

Calling himself Harlequin, he is desperate to keep God from locking him away in Hell forever. He suspects that if he can make the right change in history, he’ll manage to escape God’s judgment. So he keeps trying, over and over again, to make changes in the past, present and future. Laurel Lapere, a historian from the 23rd century who watches history unfold through a time portal, notices an anomalous event and discovers that it focuses on a late twentieth century accountant named Keaton. She travels back in time to meet him, and together they soon discover Harlequin’s plan and try to thwart him. At the same time, Harlequin tries to use them to his own advantage.

John of the Apocalypse

“Why doesn’t God do something?” It was a question heavy on John’s mind. He had seen all his companions bleed and die; thousands of his compatriots had been slaughtered by a brutal tyranny. It seemed such an odd way for God to treat his most faithful servants. By 93 AD, John was just a lonely old man exiled for his beliefs on the island of Patmos. And then Jesus unexpectedly shows up with good news and an explanation.

The book descriptions are in a very preliminary stage; they are very much works in progress. Writing a good book description is almost harder than writing the novel itself. If you happen to have any constructive criticism on either the book cover designs (also preliminary) or the book descriptions, that would be very helpful.

After that, I’m intending to indie publish a six part series of novels, The Chronicles of Tableland. I’ve written all six of the books, but I’ve only settled on titles for the first two. So here are the titles and the book descriptions for those two. I have no cover designs as yet. And I still need to do a lot of proofreading on them:

The Chronicles of Tableland 1: All His Crooked Ways

In an alternate reality, the Egyptian Empire and its pharaohs have ruled Tableland and its assorted nations and peoples for thousands of years. It is a flat world bounded by oceans that extend for light-years in every direction. A young boy, Matthew, is sold into slavery after his parents are murdered. All hope seems lost. But when Longren, a lonely hermaphrodite from another alternate universe rescues him from his enslavement, Mathew’s despair turns to hope. Longren and his companions—a centuries old conundrum named Flet, with Samantha, a much younger doctor mourning a lost love—are hunting for the secret to immortality. They invite Matthew to join their quest.

The Chronicles of Tableland 2: Twister

Matthew, Longren, Flet and Samantha journey by land and river across Tableland in search of freedom, love and immortality. Instead, they find slavery, misogyny, and brutality. They also run into Matthew’s old master once again, who is even more evil than they knew. It turns out he’s a twister, a demon who enjoys torturing and killing his wives. He uses services provided by the Aztecs. Not only have the Aztecs endured and prospered, they still practice human sacrifice.

I’ll keep everyone updated on when each of these novels (and others) become available for the Kindle, and how this experiment in indie publishing is going.

Send to Kindle

Timewinder is now available as an ebook from Amazon.

So, Timewinder is now available on Amazon. It was not as easy to get it there as I had anticipated; the actual conversion from Microsoft Word to a format that Amazon likes was not difficult and the proofreading and trying to make sure there are no typos (which, I suppose, as soon as someone gets it they’ll find everything I missed and joyfully let me know). Also, putting up all the information that Amazon wanted was not onerous. What was an unexpected struggle was getting them to believe that it was mine, that I had a right to publish it, and that it wasn’t floating around the web for free (the only place it ever appeared–outside of its original publication in a small press magazine, Vision Science Fiction–in 1993, was when I briefly put the story up on this blog—and I subsequently deleted all but the first two paragraphs so I wouldn’t violate Amazon’s requirements). What should have been a twelve hour process, from the time I uploaded it to their servers until it was available for purchase turned into a forty-eight hour marathon with multiple emails back and forth. Sigh.

At least it’s done and up. I’m hopeful that the 30 or so other books and such that I intend to “indie publish” won’t be quite as stressful. I don’t mind proofreading and formatting and such (well, okay, it’s not my favorite thing) but I dislike hopping through hoops. On the other hand, making things available for sale that otherwise would simply be sitting on my hard drive makes all the frustration worthwhile.

Send to Kindle