I know I haven’t come out with any novels recently. I really, REALLY need to fix that. In fact, I’ll be sharing more info on the next novel in a future post. (Including some preliminary cover art!) But that doesn’t mean I’m not writing and getting published. Over the past year or so, I’ve appeared in three anthologies. Each story is based in the Shards Universe and you’ll see three familiar faces plus one VERY unfamiliar face.
This first one is the unfamiliar face. And for good reason: In the short story “Jacalyn”, I introduce a new race to the Shards Universe! Time and location is pretty out there, too. Set in the early 41st Century, and 3 million light years from Earth in the Triangulum galaxy, this emissary of the Arattan race looks decidedly non-human. Beings that can flit through vast distance of space without a ship or suit, they speak only in color. The human explorer ship Traveler is the first contact and must try to understand this new people before what’s looking for the humans finds them.
Twisted Tails VI is another clever collection of authors out to wind their readers through a maze of exciting turns. And the point of view adds the greatest twist: Every story is told from the point of view of the alien!
I venture outside the Double Dragon Publishing world to contribute two short stories to Dark Quest Books military anthology series: Defending The Future. The first one was in their third anthology: By Other Means, the theme of the anthology being that the military solution provided in each story had to be non-traditional.
It was easy to pick a non-traditional approach by using a non-traditional combatant: The 2nd generation homo Magicus engineering whiz, Jennifer Navarra. Now in her late 50s – though looking no different than when she appeared in her 20′s in The Science of Magic - Jenn has completed a new drive to replace the venerable fusion drive. In the story, Alone and Afar, they’re heading out to deep deep space to test it. A vicious ambush by unseen attackers, however, change their plans as they try to fight back and survive the horrors of pentrinsic code being used in combat!
Speaking of changing plans, that’s what the theme of the next DTF book is. Entitled Best Laid Plans, I give you an exciting combat story that gives you two things a lot of you have wanted: Not only does it occur during the Troid Piracy War, it features our two heroes from my Horizons novel: Pamela Carlson and Mahlon Stewart. It’s the year 2230 and the Troid Piracy War has been dragging on. As captain of the gunship Tigershark, Pam has earned a reputation as sure death if you go against her. Now the forces of the asteroid miners seem to have come up with a plan that… what? The Tigershark is a short story that changes pace and target and purpose on every page. The only consistency is the deadliness of the gunship and her crew.
I have two more anthologies coming out in the coming months. One will be my third contribution to the Defending The Future series. The collection will be called Dogs of War and you’ll be getting a grim story from me that occurs during the Fourth and final Terran/Martian war.
The other is a radical departure for me, but something I’ve enjoyed writing. Part of the award winning Bad Ass Faeries anthologies, I’ll be in the fourth installment: It’s Elemental. What can I say about my story? Well… you wouldn’t think there were fairies in Nordic mythology, but you’d be wrong. And you would think that if there were fairies in Nordic mythology, they’d be pretty bad ass. And you’d be right.
