I just realized that I didn't post this here, so here it is:
I've decided to drop "Mbachu" from my last name (as I've been ecstatically divorced since February '08, :-D). I held on to the name because of my daughter, but it's about time to get rid of it."Okorafor-Mbachu" will appear on the forthcoming paperback of The Shadow Speaker (March). But after that, the name is officially retired (r.i.p.). I'm pleased to say that it will not appear on the cover of Long Juju Man (to be released Feb 6th).From now on, I will go by Nnedi Okorafor, my maiden (and true) name. I'd be highly pleased if you spread the news.Nnedinnedi.comRead more…
Posted by Fumi Bankole on October 22, 2008 at 9:25pm
One hundred years in the future when life on Earth's surface can no longer tolerate the blaze of its own Sun, the world has been divided between a genetically engineered elite and a massive, mixed race underclass. But there are others…Messob, a young woman raised deep underground in the isolated, yet evolved community of the Tunnels, must start the dialogue between her own people and the Sky People, safe on their elevated Sky Shelf. On her mission, Messob learns that though these elites live in a seeming techno-paradise, their very existence depends on a massive slum just meters beneath their Sky City.
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Posted by Fumi Bankole on October 22, 2008 at 9:05pm
Chapter OneSharp pebbles bit through the seat of the girl’s fatigues while she sat in the tunnel’s narrow path and stared at the wall ahead of her. There it was, clearly chiseled, her namesake and destiny. Up until now, Messob was simply the lyric that drew her attention and which, in twenty years, she thought she had grown into. As a gust of tunnel air toyed with her long, hazel curls, Messob scooted onto her feet and stood up. There was a haggle of teenagers searching the walls for their own destinies ten meters to her left and a lone reader several meters to her right. She breathed hard and took a step closer to read it for the third time:“All praises due to God for Republic of Kalifornia. Contraband missiles destroy cities and farmland of our beloved Ethiopia. Sent troops when no United Nations to help, no mercy for us from the West. In 2120, we came to republic in five fighter jets and battleship to repay favor. General Haile Messob, direct descendent of His Imperial Majesty, led us in combat at Kalifornia border. Our ship lost. Kalifornians housed us in Sky City until turned against general, banishing us for blood that makes skin brown.”The teenagers were moving on, leaving Messob alone with the man who suddenly burst into laughter and blurted out, “Woo wee.”“What, found yourself?” Messob said loudly enough to carry the distance.“Yeah, and after how many years?” The man readjusted the worn leather top hat that compressed his bushy hair. “Let’s see, I’m almost thirty. Whatever. It’s been some time.”“You don’t look it.” Messob said.“Who does in this tomb?” he said. “Besides, I enjoy the medicines of music and natural mystic.”“What’s your name?”“Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy.” A momentary blank stare made him seem doubtful.“You sure?” Messob said. He glanced at her.“I think he was a made up guy. Funny thing is I really do play guitar. And I’m left-handed.”“So it won’t be hard to internalize,” Messob said, thankful for the interlude.She wandered over and followed the man’s eyes to the wall. Together they read some of it; she silently, he out loud:“Ziggy played guitar/jammin’ good…the spiders from Mars…played it left hand… then we were Ziggy’s band…”“Yeah, this is all me,” Ziggy said. He laughed again and hitched up multi-patched jeans.“I just found me too. Over there,” Messob said, pointing.“Sonia Sanchez?” he said. Messob rolled her eyes. Her voice was heavy.“Not hardly. A war general.”Messob began a quick return to her funk. It just could not be her name. There was a mistake, perhaps just a consonant or a syllable, skewering the meaning that should have been tutor or doula or oils mixer.“We were just talking about their Laws for Racial Coexistence. Crazy eh, thosetests?” Ziggy said, drawing Messob back to the moment.“I’m no war general,” Messob said, resisting the urge to rub her eyes for fear of grinding dirt into them. “We don’t deal with war.”“I used to deny who I was. Trust me. It ain’t worth it. You should read the Republic of Kalifornia’s Constitution?”“I read it.”“It’s a stack of farts ‘bout to bust. Maybe you’ll have a hand in that.”Messob winced at that prospect. She knew alphabets, signs, and symbols. She knew the trader patois that conjoined Spanish to Indio and Korean to English.Language was at her mental fingertip, and like most other tunnel dwellers, she had been walking and reading it since her youth. By far, the gory soldier confessions scribbled in guilty syndrome-ridden hand disturbed her most. The name was wrong.“You going up to Ground Zero?” Ziggy said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out.”Messob shrugged. Of course he hadn’t seen her; she never went. Ziggy kneeled and picked up a large, pieced-together backpack that, once strapped on, shot up into a turret above his head. The emzees discouraged going outside. As far as Messob knew, it was reserved for the Outzone workers and was a last resort safe haven if something cataclysmic happened in the tunnels below. Otherwise, it was far too dangerous. Besides a well-gossiped den for the submerged tenth, the sky was lethal. At once, she felt an agoraphobic tightening of her throat.“We’re always up there playing music.” Ziggy looked around while Messob was quiet, allowing the pause to grow thick. “So I gotta get some air. Coming with?”Messob thought a moment longer and sized up the boy with a sideways glance.“You go all the time?” she asked.“Yep. Can’t beat fresh air.”Normally, she didn’t entertain strangers in the tunnels, but with her namesake come to light, her life had more than changed; it had spun vertigo.“Yeah, I’ll go,” she said while grabbing her pack. Then she added, “We have to go this way so we can get my sister.” She pointed up the tunnel.“Alright?”“Cool.”
INFRADEAD - GuidelinesINFRADEAD is an anthology of original novella-length science fiction stories to be published in trade paperback format in 2009. INFRADEAD is edited by Tyree Campbell, J Alan Erwine, and Scott Virtes. INFRADEAD is looking for tales of human extinction.Preferred length is 5,000 to 10,000 words, but we will consider longer works. Pay will be 1/2 cent per word. We will not consider reprints.We will consider poems. However, the theme of this anthology requires that poetry be very well developed--not necessarily long, but well developed. Pay will be a flat $6 per poem. We will not consider reprints.The successful INFRADEAD story is driven by its plot, the events of which are experienced by fully developed characters. The science in the story is speculative but plausible. In summary, we want to know what happened to bring humanity to this state, and how, exactly, in the words of the last humans, they lived the last lives. If you choose to have small groups of survivors [see add'l note below], tell us how they cope with their circumstances. And remember: the Earth will have changed in some way. This change must be taken into account when you tell us how the survivors cope.One additional note: it is not necessary that the entire species be wiped out. There might exist very small pockets or remnants of humanity--but in the conditions of the story, the species will for all practical purposes be finished.Either of these works will offer suggestions regarding the human denouement.1. A Choice Of Catastrophes, by Isaac Asimov2. Our Angry Earth, by Isaac Asimov and Frederik PohlThere is no need to rush your writing. We will close to submissions on 1 December 2008. We expect to "hold" about 10-12 story submissions and about 8 poetry submissions until then, at which time we will make our final cuts. We will advise you of declines or holds within 2 months of the date of your submission. So there is no need to hurry.HOW TO SUBMIT:Stories: submit your story as an rtf or Word attachment. Submit only one story at a time, please. At the top of the attachment put your snail mail address and contact information. Double-space. Indent paragraphs five space-bar spaces--do not tab, please. Use italics when necessary. In your cover letter, be sure to include the word count and a brief bio. Send your story toinfradeadsdp@yahoo.com . Be sure to put Submission in the subject line.Poems: submit your poem in the body of the e-mail. Submit one poem at a time. Be sure to include your snail mail address and contact information. Use italics when necessary. Include a brief bio. Send your poem to infradeadsdp@yahoo.com . Be sure to put Submission in the subject line.And if you have any questions, please query at infradeadsdp@yahoo.com .An Open Call for Submissions~*~Howdy Pardners!Mosey on up ta the bar and let me tell ya about the darnedest, silliest, most outrageous Western anthology this side of the Mississip'.Y'all heard right! CyberAliens Press'll be spittin' out another one o' them themed anthos on May 1, 2009.We'll be featuring hilarious stories of the Wild West, some sappy Prairie Romance, and even a little bit o' SteamPunk - as long as it's knock-us-on-our-butt funny! We're also lookin' fer cowboy poetry and limericks, art and comics, and anything else that's sure-as-shootin' silly.So saddle yer ponies, get them doggies ta market then set yerself down and write us the silliest bunch a words what never come outta that pencil a yers.In plain language:We are looking for short stories from 500 to 3500 words in length, as well as poems, jokes, puns, limericks, artwork, and general silliness. All submissions must express one of the following themes:+ American Wild West+ Steampunk+ Prairie Romanceor some mixture of the above.Submissions open November 1, 2008 an' close on February 28, 2009. Acceptances and declines will be ongoing through the submission period. No late submissions will be accepted. Put "SUBMISSION: [TITLE]" in the subject line, and address all correspondence to The Editors (there's two of us) and email them to: sillywestern @ gmail.com - ¿Comprende? Now saddle up and write.~*~http://residentialaliens.blogspot.com/2008/10/silly-western-antho-call-for.htmlCheck out the footprints anthology alsoFOOTPRINTS ANTHOLOGYScience Fiction anthology to be edited by Jay Lake and Eric T. ReynoldsPUBLISHER: Hadley Rille BooksSUBMISSION GUIDELINESTHEME: Long after our species and all its works have turned to dust, the moon landing sites will show evidence of our time here on Earth. Imagine future explorers from among the stars interpreting that. The astronauts' footprints should last longer than the fossils in the Olduvai Gorge have.LENGTH: 4,000 to 10,000 wordsNO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONSELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS ONLY. Send as an attachment to an email message. Microsoft Word doc file is preferred, or rtf is okay (please contact us if you need to make arrangements for another format). Please virus scan your document before sending.EMAIL YOUR STORY TO: subs@hadleyrillebooks.com. Important: put FOOTPRINTS in the subject line.FORMAT: The standard manuscript format as shows herehttp://www.shunn.net/format/story.html, except that we prefer single-spaced rather than double-spaced. Please don't do any fancy formatting such as right-justifying, etc. – leave that to us. Please don't hit Enter (or Return) at the end of each line. Let your word processor wrap the text.SUBMISSION PERIOD: From August 15, 2008 through November 15, 2008.PAYMENT: $40 upon publication. Payment is by PayPalhttp://www.hadleyrillebooks.com/FootprintsSubs.html1. The Nemonymous editor requires a story judged suitable by its author for inclusion in the projected Cern Zoo book, planned to be published in June 2009. Ideally, this story should be specially written for ‘Cern Zoo’. 'Cern Zoo' (alternatively 'Cerne Zoo') simply means what it means to you. The above image is not intended to guide the nature of submissions and your story can have any title.2. Between 500 and 14000 words for each story.3. Lump sum payment in UK pounds to author upon publication: £0.01 a word up to a maximum of £100 (by Paypal).4. Stories should be submitted as a Word Doc attachment. The editorial addresses to which your submission should be sent are bfitzworth@yahoo.co.uk ANDdflewis48@hotmail.com5. One story per author under consideration at any one time. The deadline is 31 March 2009.6. You may submit the story anonymously. If so, you will be asked to reveal your identity and/or by-line when and if the story is placed on the short list.7. The story must be original to the author and never published before in any form. No simultaneous submissions.8. It is possible that any story will be kept for the whole of the reading period and still not be accepted for publication.9. The stories will be published without a direct by-line but there will be a disordered list of authors’ names printed on the back cover. The by-lines will be correctly assigned on-line to the stories' titles when 8 months have elapsed after the publication of 'Cern Zoo'=C 2and also correctly assigned within the projected printed 'Nemonymous Ten' in 2010.10. The decision of the Nemonymous editor is final regarding all points above. By submitting a story, any author accepts these terms. Please put 'Cern Zoo: Story Title' as the subject of your email. Also, please show a word count at the top.To help you with 'styling' your story for NEMONYMOUS, please see all the independent reviews linked from: www.nemonym ous.com and also by reading previous editions of Nemonymous.http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/cerne_zoo__guidelines.htmWar is All We Know:This anthology is designed to collect the best fiction on war. We don’t want war as a backdrop to another story, but the war or conflict must be the major part of the story. Using historical fiction or other fiction is fine, but we don’t want real-life battle stories. Each story must also include as a quote or somewhere else in the text the phrase “War is all we know.”Page length: Between 20-40 pages, but we would consider longer or slightly shorter pieces.Due Date: December 1 (tentative-we reserve the right to extend this if we have not yet accepted enough stories to complete the Anthology).Contest End Date: December 1 (to ensure full consideration of your story make sure that your entry is received by this date. The contest deadline may be extended, as noted above, but is unlikely).Interested in submitting stories?Click here to view Submission GuidelinesFantasy Anthology:The stories may include any type of sword and sorcery type fantasy, but must be original works NOT following any material owned or trademarked by other companies engaged in publishing books or games set in fantasy worlds.Page length: Between 20-40 pages, but we would consider longer or slightly shorter pieces.Due Date: December 1 (tentative-we reserve the right to extend this if we have not yet accepted enough stories to complete the Anthology).Interested in submitting stories?Click here to view Submission GuidelinesHorror Business:This anthology will collect the best fiction horror short stories. We are interested in traditional horror, Gothic horror, the supernatural, and hauntings. Hack and slash, gore, or other Hollywood modes that rely more on the "picture" and less on the plot will not be included.Page length: Between 20-40 pages, but we would consider longer or slightly shorter pieces.Due Date: November 1 (this is a tentative date that will only be extended if we have not yet accepted enough stories to complete the Anthology).).Interested in submitting stories?Click here to view Submission Guidelineshttp://diversionpress.com/anthology_seriesCall for Entries as Prize for New Fiction goes AnnualCall for Entries as Prize for New Fiction goes AnnualThe Desmond Elliott Prize 2009Entry forms are downloadable at www.desmondelliottprize.comThe trustees of The Desmond Elliott Charitable Trust are delighted to announce today (Tuesday 23rd September) that theDesmond Elliott Prize will now be an annual event. Launched in 2007 as a biennial prize to reward and promotefirst novelists, the success of the inaugural prize in 2008, won by Nikita Lalwani for her novel, Gifted, has prompted thechange.Entries are now invited for the 2009 prize. A panel of 3 judges, to be announced early next year, will be looking for anovel which has a compelling narrative, arresting characters, and which is both vividly written and confidentlyrealized.Worth ￡10,000 to the winner the prize is designed to support new writers and celebrate engaging new fiction. The prize reflectsthe ethos of the charismatic and successful agent and publisher, Desmond Elliott whose professed duty was to have confidence and faith in his newauthors by offering them 3 book deals to ensure they were free of financial worries and so could write happily andsecurely.Books will be considered from all fiction genres. As an indicator, last year ’s shortlist was: Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (whichwent on to win), Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, and Sunday at The Cross Bones by John Walsh. A longlist of 10 titles will be announced in Aprilfollowed by a shortlist of 3 books in May 2009. The winner will be announced in June 2009 at a centralLondon venue. The judging panel will be announced in early 2009.Entry forms are downloadable at www.desmondelliottprize.comEllipsis Press is interested in novels that are structurally innovative.http://www.ellipsispress.com/submission-guidelines/Submission GuidelinesWe like: novels that look normal but aren’t (more than those that look weird but are actually quite normal); those that aresuccessful at bypassing or evolving the seemingly necessary but often tired elements of character and/orplot; and those that respond in some way to the history of the novel as genre and form.Writers who have studied the traditional elements of the novel and experimented with them to emotionally movingand/or extraordinary ends are invited to submit for publication.Send your whole manuscripts as a .rtf attachment by email only to editors [at] ellipsispress [dot] com.We are not interested in poetry, short story collections, or non-fiction at this time. Due to time constraints we can respondonly to those submissions we wish to pursue. These responses will be made within four months time.SHINE Anthology Guidelineses/>October 28, 2008 at 9:07 pm * Filed under GuidelinesSHINE is an anthology of optimistic near-future SF, edited by Jetse deVries, published by Solaris Books, and is planned for an early 2010release.Keywords:Convincing and optimistic: Imagine that we are the biggest skeptics onthe planet, then show us how things can change for the better, andpersuade us.Near-future: from now until 50 years later.SF: we're not going to define it. Write what you think is SF, andconvince us with the story.The Gritty:Length: up to 10k words (not hard, but anything longer than 10k shouldbe mind-blowingly superb).Payment: 5 cents a word, on publication (and probably a pro rata shareof the anthologist's earnings: I'm working on that)Genres: science fiction only. I greatly prefer original stories, but Iwill - like Baen's Universe - look at stories that have been publishedin markets that are not professional by SFWA standards, or markets witha relatively small reach. I also consider Interzone, Black Static,Postscripts, Futurismic, Apex Digest and Flurb to be either professionalmarkets or markets with a wide reach (or both), so don't want to seestories published by them, either.Rights: First World English Rights, non-exclusive world anthologyrights, non-exclusive audio anthology rights, and further subsidiaryrights specified in my boilerplate [author-anthologist contract], whichI'll put up after I return from World Fantasy. NOTE: obviously, foreventual reprints the first world rights will become anthology rights,first if possible.Reading Period: May and June 2009Response Time: Most rejections will be sent out quickly, while I willhold over stories that I like until July 31, when a final decision ismade. No multiple submissions, please: only one story per author, andonly submit a second one if I expressly ask for it. Simultaneoussubmissions: at your own discretion, but keep in mind that I will notfight over a story, that is, if it's with another publisher I will dropit like a ton of bricks.Submissions Instructions: send your story, preferably single-spaced andin rich text format (RTF) to [email to be added later]. Put Submission:"Title of your story" in the email's subject line.NOTE: I will be travelling to Calgary for World Fantasy tomorrow(writing this on October 28), so there might be some small changes afterI return. But these are the main things for the momentGUIDELINES FOR CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2:more tales of beauty and strangenessCLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness is the next volume in the annual anthology series edited by Mike Allen, scheduled to be published by Norilana Books in July 2009. The anthology's literary focus is on the high end, and it is open to the full range of the speculative and fantastic genres.Editor Mike Allen says: "CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2 is a home for stories that sidestep expectations in beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their settings and startle with the ways they cross genre boundaries, that aren't afraid to experiment with storytelling techniques. But experimentation is not a requirement: the stories in the anthology must be more than gimmicks, and should appeal to genuine emotions, suspense, fear, sorrow, delight, wonder. I will value a story that makes me laugh in its quirky way more than a story that tries to dazzle me with a hollow exercise in wordplay."The stories should contain elements of the fantastic, be it science fiction, fantasy, horror or some combination thereof. A straight psychological horror story is unlikely to make the cut unless it's truly scary and truly bizarre. The same applies to a straight adventure fantasy or unremarkable space opera — bring something new and genuine to the equation, whether it's a touch of literary erudition, playful whimsy, extravagant style, or mind-blowing philosophical speculation and insight. Though stories can be set in this world, settings at least a hair or more askew are preferred. I hope to see prose that is poetic but not opaque. I hope to see stories that will lead the reader into unfamiliar territory, there to find shock and delight."Update for the second volume: "Over the course of reading for the first volume, I developed some criteria for stories that aren't likely to interest me (though exceptions are always possible). These include straightfoward retellings of well-known fairy tales; stories in which a Machine Discovers Its Humanity; stories that aim to prove Christianity/Religion Is Bad; stories about a Privileged Schmuck who comes to understand Oppression Is Bad; stories whose entire plot can be described as X Commits a Murder; stories of wish-fulfillment with little complication — i.e.: character longs for something; character is granted that something; end of story."My aim with the CLOCKWORK PHOENIX books is, somewhat selfishishly, to create books that satisfy my own tastes as a reader. And as a reader, I enjoy stories that experiment, that push the envelope, that dazzle with their daring, but I'm often personally frustrated when an experimental story ends without feeling complete, without leaving an emotional crater for me to remember it by. At the same time, I find myself increasingly bored with the traditional, conventionally-plotted and plainly-written Good Story Competently Told. For better or for worse, I envision the CLOCKWORK PHOENIX books as places where these two schools of story telling can mingle and achieve Happy Medium; where there is significance to both the tale that's told and the style of the telling."RIGHTS PURCHASED: First English Language Rights and non-exclusive electronic rights. The anthology will be published by Norilana Books in a trade paperback edition in July 2009, to be followed by an electronic edition to be produced later.PAYMENT: $0.02 a word on acceptance as an advance against royalties, then a pro rata share of royalties after earnout, plus a contributor copy.WORD LENGTH: Stories should be no longer than 10,000 words, preferably shorter. This is a firm limit for unsolicited stories.READING PERIOD begins August 23, 2008; ends Nov. 16, 2008. Any unsolicited stories sent before Aug. 23 will not be read until sometime after the reading period starts.SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: Submissions are electronic only. Please submit your story via e-mail, as an RTF file attachment. Your e-mail subject line should say "Submission: Story Title". Include a brief cover letter in the body of your email. It should have your name, address, e-mail address, title of story, number of words, and brief biographical information in case we don't know you, with most recent publishing credits, if applicable. We are open to new writers and seasoned veterans alike.EDITORIAL ADDRESS: clockworkphoenix@gmail.comFAIRY TALE REVIEWPlease note that our next submission period isApril 15,2009 - September 15, 2009. We will be accepting submissions ONLINE duringthat time, via a Submission Manager, accessible at that time from our website.We look forward to reading your work!http://www.fairytalereview.blogspot.com/http://www.fairytalereview.com/Fairy Tale Review is an annual literaryjournal devoted to contemporary fairy tales. The journal hopes to provide anelegant and innovative venue for both established and emerging authors of poetryand prose. Fairy Tale Review is not devoted to any particular school ofwriting, but rather to fairy tales as an inspiring art form.Fairy TaleReview is a co-publication of The University of Alabama Press. For recentnews please visit www.fairytalereview.blogspot.comOCTOBERhttp://www.leeandlow.com/p/new_voices_award.mhtmlLee& Low BooksNEW VOICES AWARDSAbout the AwardLEE & LOWBOOKS, award-winning publisher of children's books, is pleased to announce the ninth annual NEW VOICES AWARD. The Award will be given for achildren's fiction or nonfiction picture book story by a writer of color. The Award winner will receive a cash grant of $1000 and our standard publicationcontract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.Established in 2000, the New Voices Award encourages writers of color to submit their work to a publisher that takes pride in nurturing new talent. Since1993 we have published more than eighty-five first time writers and illustrators. Past winners of the New Voices Award include The Blue Roses, winner of thePaterson Prize for Books for Young People; Janna and the Kings, an IRA Children's Book Award Notable; and Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: TheSammy Lee Story, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and a Texas Bluebonnet Masterlist selection.Eligibility1. The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the U.S. and who have not previously had a children's picture book published.2. Writers who have published in other venues, such as children's magazines, young adult, or adult fiction or nonfiction, are eligible. Only unagentedsubmissions will be accepted.3. Manuscripts previously submitted for this award or to LEE & LOW BOOKS are not eligible.Submissions1. Manuscripts should address the needs of children of color by providing stories with which they can identify andrelate, and which promote a greater understanding of one another.2. Submissions may be FICTION or NONFICTION for children ages 5 to 12. Folklore and animal stories will not be considered.3. Manuscripts should be no more than 1500 words in length and accompanied by a cover letter thatincludes the author's name, address, phone number, e-mail address, a brief biographical note, relevant cultural and ethnic information,how the author heard about the award, and publication history, if any.4. Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on 8-1/2" x 11" paper. A self-addressed, stamped envelope with sufficient postage must be included for returnof the manuscript.5. Up to two submissions per entrant. Each submission should be submitted separately.6. Submissions should be clearly addressed to:LEE & LOW BOOKS95 Madison AvenueNew York, NY10016ATTN: NEW VOICES AWARD7. Manuscripts may not be submitted to other publishers or to LEE & LOW BOOKS general submissions while underconsideration for this Award. LEE & LOW BOOKS is not responsible for late, lost, or incorrectly addressed or deliveredsubmissions.8. Dates for Submission: Manuscripts will be accepted from May 1, 2008, through October 31, 2008 and must be postmarked within that period.Announcement of the AwardThe Award and Honor Award winners will be selected no later than December 31, 2008. All entrants who include an SASE will be notified inwriting of our decision by January 31, 2009. The judges are the editors of LEE & LOW BOOKS. Thedecision of the judges is final. At least one Honor Award will be given each year, but LEE & LOW BOOKS reserves the rightnot to choose an Award winner.**************2009 Essence Short Fiction Contest Official Rules <-- I think this is over for this year but am keeping it here for next year.Dream of being the next Terry McMillan or E. Lynn Harris? It just might happen. Start by entering our 2009 Essence Short Fiction contest. The winner will be announced at next year's Essence Literary Awards. See rules below.Write On!2009 ESSENCE Short Fiction ContestOFFICIAL RULES1. ELIGIBILITY: This contest is open only to legal residents of the United States and Washington, DC 18 years or older at the time of entry that have never had a work of fiction published in a major commercial book, or in a magazine with a circulation of more than 25,000. Void where prohibited by law. Employees of Sponsor and its promotional partners and their respective parents, affiliates and subsidiaries, participating advertising and promotion agencies (and members of their immediate family and/or those living in the same of household of each such employee) are not eligible.2. HOW TO ENTER: All stories submitted must be works of original fiction featuring an adult female of African descent as the main character. All contest entries must be typed, double-spaced, with one‹inch margins, on one side of 8 1/2 -by-11 inch paper and not more than ten pages or 2,500 words. The author's name, mail, email address (if available) and daytime telephone number must appear in the top right-hand corner of the first manuscript page. All subsequent pages must be numbered in the top right-hand corner and include the author's last name. Submit your entries via postal mail only in care of 2009 ESSENCE SHORT FICTION CONTEST, Essence Magazine, 135 W. 50th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10020. All entries must be postmarked no later than September 30, 2008 and received no later October 7, 2008. Limit one entry per person. Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late, illegible, incomplete, postage due mail or entries not received for any reason. Entries become sole property of Sponsor and none will be acknowledged or returned. By entering, Entrant warrants that his or her entry is original and does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party and has not previously won an award. ESSENCE WILL NOT ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS IN THE FORM OF FAXES OR ELECTRONIC ATTACHMENTS. Entries will not be returned, and the contestant will only be contacted if her or his entry is chosen. Telephone, postal mail, email or fax inquiries will not be accepted and could cause disqualification.3. JUDGING: All entries will be judged by the editorial staff of ESSENCE and a select panel of publishing experts appointed by ESSENCE based on the following criteria: Originality (25%); Creativity (25%); Use of language (25%); and Appropriateness to contest theme (25%). First, Second and Third place winners and Seven Honorable Mentions will be chosen by the judges. In the event of a tie, an additional tie-breaker judge will determine the Winners from among all such tied entries using the judging criteria above. Incomplete and/or inaccurate entries and entries not complying with all rules are subject to disqualification. Decisions of judges are final and binding. Winners will be notified by telephone or email on or about January 10, 2009.4. PRIZES: One First Prize Winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 and publication of her or his contest entry in a winter 2009 issue of ESSENCE magazine. The submissions of the First, Second and Third Prize Winners as well as those of the Seven Honorable Mentions will be featured on ESSENCE.COM during the first quarter of 2009. ALL TAXES ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WINNERS. The prize is nontransferable and is awarded without warranty, express or implied, of any kind. ALL WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE 2009 ESSENCE LITERARY AWARDS.5. CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION: No transfer, assignment, or substitution of a prize permitted, except Sponsor reserves the right to substitute prize (or prize component) for an item of equal or greater value at Sponsor's sole discretion. Nothing in these official contest rules shall obligate Sponsor to publish or otherwise use any entry submitted in connection with this Contest. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Entrants agree to be bound by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding on all matters pertaining to this Contest. By entering, Entrant represents that any materials submitted as part of Entrant's Contest entry are original and will not constitute defamation or an invasion of privacy or otherwise infringe upon the rights of any third party, and that the Entrant owns or has the rights to convey any and all right and title in such entry. In addition, by entering, Entrant grants to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to edit, publish, promote, republish at any time in the future and otherwise use Entrant's submitted entry, along with Entrant's name, likeness, biographical information, and any other information provided by Entrant, in any and all media for possible editorial, promotional or advertising purposes, without further permission, notice or compensation (except where prohibited by law). Potential Winner, as a condition of receiving any prize, also may be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility, a Liability Release and where legally permissible a Publicity Release and confirmation of a license as set forth above within 7 days following the date of first attempted notification, certifying, among other things, the following: (a) entry does not defame or invade the privacy of any party; (b) entry does not infringe upon the rights of any third party; and (c) the entry submitted is original and has never won an award. Failure to comply with this deadline may result in forfeiture of the prize and selection of an alternate winner. Return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate winner. By entering and/or accepting prize, Entrants and Winners agree to hold Sponsor and its promotional partners, its directors, officers, employees and assigns harmless for liability, damages or claims for injury or loss to any person or property relating to, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, participation in this Contest, the acceptance and/or subsequent use or misuse, or condition of any of the prizes awarded, or claims based on publicity rights, defamation, or invasion or privacy. False or deceptive entries or acts will render the Entrant ineligible. Sponsor, in its sole discretion, reserves the immediate and unrestricted right to disqualify any entrant or prize winner, if either commits or has committed any act, or has been involved or becomes involved in any situation or occurrence which the Sponsor deems likely to subject the Sponsor, entrant or winner to ridicule, scandal or contempt or which reflects unfavorably upon the Sponsor in any way. If such information is discovered by Sponsor after a winner has received notice of his/her prize and before the prize is awarded, Sponsor may rescind the prize in its entirety. If a portion of his/her prize has already been awarded, Sponsor may withdraw the remainder of the prize that has been fulfilled. Decisions of the Sponsor are final and binding in all matters related to this paragraph. Sponsor is not responsible for any typographical or other error in the printing of the official rules, administration of the contest, or in the announcement of the prize.6. GOVERNING LAW: This Contest is governed by the internal laws of the state of New York without regard to principals of conflict of laws. All cases and claims pertaining to this Contest must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in the City of New York, without recourse to class action suits.7. SEVERABILITY: If any provision of these Rules is found to be invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction or appointed arbitrator, such determination shall in no way affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision herein.8. WINNER'S LIST: For name of Winner(s), available after February 15, 2009, log onto www. Essence.com for a period of thirty days.9. SPONSOR: The Sponsor of this Contest is ESSENCE Magazine, 135 W. 50th Street, New York, NY 10020.Our tentative deadline for submissions for The Book of Exodi (see below) is November 14, 2008. To guarantee that your submission will be considered for this anthology, please submit your story by that date.Since some writers have voiced some confusion about what we are seeking for the The Book of Exodi, here are a few points we'd like to emphasize. Just remember, these are only guidelines, not hard and fast rules. If you don't quite adhere to these guidelines but we like your story, we'll still consider it for inclusion.The acceptable genres are science fiction, fantasy, horror, or any combination of these three.The exiles should be a significant portion of the sentient population and they are to leave their home world, their home planet, or perhaps their home plane. A large population moving to some other country or continent on their home world is not what we're looking for.Tell why the exiles had to leave their home, but not necessarily as an expository paragraph.The focus should be on the characters, not events or setting. Events and setting need to be included, but they are not the focus.Give some explanation of the means of transportationused by the exiles to flee their home world. Do not get overly technical with this explanation and don't necessarily write it as an expository paragraph.Eposic plans to publish fiction anthologies. Each anthology will be based on a central theme, which may vary from one anthology to the next. We will only accept fiction that fits the theme for a planned anthology. In general, we are looking for science fiction, fantasy, or horror stories that fit the currently planned themes. As long as your story fits one of our planned themes, your story will be considered for publication; if your story does not fit one of our planned themes, it will not be accepted for a planned anthology.Currently, we are seeking stories for our first planned anthology, "The Book of Exodi." The theme for this anthology is the theme of "mass exodus," of peoples forced to leave their home worlds. The home world in any given story could be Earth or some other inhabited planet, and the people forced off their world could be humans, aliens, or fantasy kindreds, but should be a significant portion if not all of the world's sentient population. The story could tell about the adventures of exiles in fleeing their home world or it could tell about their adventures some time after they have fled and what their lives are like wherever they ended up. Or it could be about people finding their way back to their home world after being forced off for a while. Each story should give a reason as to why the people were forced to leave their planet.As long as your story is based on the required theme, it can be any type of story—action, adventure, romance, comedy, etc. The genre for the story should be science fiction, fantasy, horror, or a combination of any of these three genres. Regardless of the type of story or the genre, the primary focus of the story should be on its characters, their interactions, their experiences, and their feelings. We are also interested in stories that describe the environments in which the characters find themselves after leaving their home worlds, contrasting the new environments with their home worlds. Last but not least, we'd like to see stories that give the reader, without being overly technical, a good understanding of the means of transportation used to flee the home world.Themes of other anthologies will be revealed here as soon as we decide what those themes will be. We are open to suggestions.Please do not submit stories to us that use any trademarked names. No fan fiction, please.Contributors Guidelines Indexhttp://eposic.org/submissions/fiction.phpCATASTROPHIA <-- not sure about the deadline for this. Might be the end of October.In Brief:Allen Ashley will be editing acollection of stories loosely themed around “Catastrophes, Disasters,Post-Apocalyptic Fiction”. Allen is looking for original, unpublished storieswhich deal in a modern manner with these classic Science Fiction and SocialHorror based themes.Rights and Other Technical DetailsWe are lookingonly for original material - No reprints. We are seeking to acquire FirstBritish and First North American Rights for your story with a six monthmoratorium subsequent to publication. At the current exchange rate we areoffering 3p / 6c a word up to a maximum payment of £100 / $200 per story. Weexpect to only publish one story per author. The book will be split 50:50between solicited works and open submissions. The submission period is scheduledto open on 1st July 2008.How do I submit?The information in thissection applies only to "open" / "unsolicited" submissions. It does Not apply toinvited authors.Please note: To enable authors to fully develop their corecatastrophe idea and their characters’ reaction and response to the disaster, weare generally seeking stories in the range of 6000 to 12000 words. We willconsider shorter material but we are extremely unlikely to take a story longerthan 12000 words long.Please note: Before submitting – before completing –your opus, you should email a 500-750 summary to Allenat:editorcatastrophia@hotmail.co.ukIf we like your idea or approach,Allen will then contact you with a request to see the whole manuscript.Allen will NOT be receptive to submissions without prior email contact andagreement on the synopsis. Your synopsis does not have to include every plottwist but should detail the specific catastrophe/disaster/problem and thesetting (e.g. downtown LA, the London Underground, beginning in Madagascar andspreading across the world…).Stories should be in English and in a legibletypeface (Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New). Stories will be requested as anemail attachment compatible with Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format.Whatdo we mean by catastrophes?In short, some event that rapidly changes theworld social order, threatens the survival of Humankind or planet Earth, reducespeople to a state of mere hand to mouth existence, puts the clock of progressback a couple of thousand years almost overnight, takes our attention off theexploits of celebrities, footballers and politicians and instead focuses it onkeeping ourselves and our loved ones alive until sundown… you get the picture.To give a further flavour of what we want, here is a quote from Allen Ashley’sstory “The Overwhelm” (Catastrophe = World is engulfed by fog): “Truly it didn’ttake much for the veneer of civilisation to be stripped away.”We are takinga broad view of what constitutes a catastrophe / disaster / apocalypse. Pleasenote, however, that we do not view catastrophe stories as an excuse fordisgruntled authors to indulge in a pointless orgy of gratuitous rape andviolence fantasies.A Brief History of Catastrophes:These sortsof tales have a long and prominent history within the genre and are amongst thefirst titles that spring to mind when listing SF classics. Discounting Biblical,mythical and similar precedents, this sub-genre probably commenced with:“TheWar of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells (Invading Martians destroy Britain) and M. P.Shiel’s “The Purple Cloud” (Polar toxins kill everybody barprotagonist).Brian Aldiss famously labelled many of these stories as “cosycatastrophes” but that certainly hasn’t got in the way of our enjoyment. Youreditor grew up on these stories and with “Catastrophia” expects to reinvigoratethe genre for the twenty-first century. Indeed, recent films such as “The DayAfter Tomorrow” (environmental disaster), “Deep Impact” (comet strikes Earth)and a re-make of “The War of the Worlds” suggests the desire is there to befaced with the apocalyptic all over again.Further Information andInspirationWant to get the feel for the nature of the catastrophe beforewriting and submitting?Here’s an “off the top of my head” list ofcatastrophe stories to add to those already mentioned:John Wyndham – “TheDay of the Triffids” (Blindness and Killer Plants);John Wyndham – “TheKraken Wakes” (Marauding sea monsters);John Christopher – “Death of Grass”(AKA “No Blade of Grass”) (All grass / wheat / rice crops fail);J. G.Ballard – “The Drowned World”, “The Drought’, “The Crystal World”, “The WindFrom Nowhere” – early quartet of psychological / environmental disaster novelsfrom the master;Brian Aldiss – “Greybeard” (No children are born);EdmundCooper – “All Fool’s Day” and Richard Matheson – “I Am Legend” (Benchmarkpost-apocalyptic last man on Earth tales);Brian Aldiss – “Barefoot in theHead” (LSD contamination causes social breakdown);Edmund Cooper – “Kronk”and Charles Platt – “The Gas” (Rampant venereal disease / sex plagues);JohnChristopher – “The World in Winter” (New Ice Age);Keith Roberts – “TheFuries” (Giant wasps);Roger Zelazny – “Damnation Alley” (Mad Max startedhere).For a really modern catastrophe story in the short form, Irecommend that you track down “Approaching Zero” by John Lucas (Contemporarylifestyles as catastrophe!), most recently available in “The Elastic Book OfNumbers” Edited by Allen Ashley (Elastic Press, 2005).Catastrophes forthe New MillenniumWith the current prominence of “Green” issues, you maywell decide to try your hand at environmental disaster, biological agentsrunning amuck, responses to the future fuel and water shortages or similarthemes…I’ve always quite liked the idea of the animal and plant kingdomsgetting their own back on Humankind (See “The Furies’, “Day of the Triffids”,the film “Them”, etc…) – so I’d be quite receptive to an idea along those lines.No vampires, though, which have been done to death.Something based on ourdependence on technology in the so-called Information Age. No cyberspeakgobbledegook, please, and no rehash of “Transformers”… but I’m sure there’splenty of material to extrapolate from.Better still, come up with a freshcatastrophe idea, something that has not been explored before but is still closeenough to the real world to convince as an extrapolation or apossibility.OK, enough of me broadcasting ideas – it’s now up to youfabulous authors out there to impress your humble editor.-Alleneditorcatastrophia@hotmail.co.ukNOVEMBERThe Phantom Queen AwakesA Dark Celtic AnthologyEdited by Mark S. Deniz & Amanda PillarIt may come as little surprise to the friends of Morrígan Books that Mark S. Deniz has decided to dedicate an anthologyto the publishing company’s patron goddess, the Morrígan. The collection will be edited by Mark, with in-house editor, Amanda Pillar as co-editor.To date, Elaine Cunningham and Katherine Kerr have agreed to write for the anthology.The Morrígan is commonly portrayed as a triple goddess, but her tripartite nature is uncertain at best. This ambiguity shall beat the heart of The Phantom Queen Awakes. Please follow the link for some background on the Morrígan.The Phantom Queen Awakes, will focus on Morrígan’s tripartite nature. We want stories set in the ancient world of theCelts (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celt for some information), that talk of Morrígan. She does not have to be a centralfigure (although she must appear at least once in the tale), however we would prefer it if she was.Mark and Amanda are looking for stories that push the boundaries, for tales that resound with the reader long after they’ve beenput down. Supernatural creatures are allowed, although they must be in tune with Celtic mythology. We do not want gratuitous violence or sex scenes. The editorswould prefer stories of a darker nature, and are much more likely to take well written stories with this in mind._________________________________________________________________________Word Count: 50 to 6,000 (the lower word countbeing reserved for excellent flash fiction and poetry).Payment: $.01 per word for original stories, no reprintsDeadline: 1st December 2008 - we are implementing a new submission selection for the anthology but will let allauthors know as soon as possible after the deadline day as to the decision regarding their story.Submission Format: Please write the title, your name, your address, email, contact numbers and the word count at the top of themanuscript submission. Please include the page number in the footer.Manuscripts should be in either the Courier New or Times New Roman font. Please make sure your manuscript is double-spaced.We will only accept manuscripts electronically and they must be in .rtf (rich text format).Submissions: Send submissions as attachments to: phantom.queen@morriganbooks.comhttp://www.morriganbooks.com/?page_id=120DecemberWarrior Wisewoman is a new annual anthology series of science fiction featuring powerful and remarkable women, edited by Roby James.The first volume was published by Norilana Books in June 2008.The anthology was conceived as a sister volume to the classic Sword andSorceress fantasy series originally edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley,with the main difference being that the story themes will involve sciencefiction instead of fantasy, and they will be intended for a more matureaudience, allowing a mixture of serious contemporary issues and reasonablesexual content (but no erotica) in addition to action and adventure. The storieswill have a stronger focus on the interface between scientific exploration andour sense of wonder.Editor Roby James says:"I am looking for stories that shed light on the truth of what itmeans to be female, that illuminate the wisdom and the strength of a woman, butnot in cliché 'goddess' stories. I love action and adventure, grand space opera,thrilling discovery, and intelligent protagonists. Make the story thoughtful,wise, and surprising, not merely the same old metal spaceship hull filled withcardboard military uniforms with female names 'barking' orders and firing ataliens. In addition, the stories in the anthology should appeal to genuineemotions, suspense, fear, sorrow, delight, wonder. The science can be part ofthe background and the characters foremost, or the science can be central to thestory, as long as the characters are realistic and appealing. It is stronglyrecommended you read thefirst volume to get an idea of what kind of material we're looking for."This is science fiction, but I also welcome stories of spiritualexploration, looking at the bond between the scientific and the divine. I wantto see how a woman survives tragedy and disaster, overcomes impossible odds,achieves her true potential, or goes on to thrive in a marvelous universe of somany possibilities, using what is inside her, as well as what she finds in thelaboratory, the alien planet, or space itself."The stories should contain the question of 'what if' on some level. And theyshould have a woman answer it."Read the editorial Introductionto Volume One.DECEMBERGuidelines for Volume #2 of the Anthology:RIGHTS PURCHASED: First English Language Rights and non-exclusive electronic rights. The anthology will be published by Norilana Books in a tradepaperback edition in June 2009, to be followed by an electronic edition to be produced later.PAYMENT: $0.02 a word on acceptance, and a pro rata share of royalties, plus a contributor copy.WORD LENGTH: Up to 10,000 words, with longer stories having to be exceptional.READING PERIOD begins on August 1, 2008. Please do not submit your stories before then.DEADLINE: December 15, 2008.HOW TO SUBMIT: Submissions are electronic only. Please submit your story as a Word (.doc or .rtf) attachment to your e-mail. The subject lineof your e-mail should say "Submission: Story Title, last name of author." Also, include a brief cover letter. It should have your full name, address, e-mailaddress, title of story, number of words, and brief biographical information in case we don't know you, with most recent publishing credits, if applicable. Weare open to new writers and seasoned veterans alike.EDITORIAL ADDRESS:We look forward to reading your most inspired work.http://www.norilana.com/norilana-ww-guidelines.htmDelacorte Press Books for Young Readers is pleased to announceThe Twenty-Sixth AnnualDelacorte PressContestfor a First Young Adult NovelThe prize of a book contract (on the publisher's standard form) covering world rights for a hardcover and a paperback edition, including an advance androyalties, will be awarded annually to encourage the writing of contemporary young adult fiction. The award consists of $1,500 in cash and a $7,500 advanceagainst royalties.All federal, state, and local taxes, if any, are the winner's sole responsibility. Prizes are not transferrable and cannot be assigned. NO PURCHASENECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.ELIGIBILITY1. The contest is open to U.S. and Canadian writers who have not previously published a young adult novel. Employees of Random House, Inc.and its subsidiaries and affiliates, and members of their families and households are not eligible.2. Foreign-language manuscripts and translations are not eligible.3. Manuscripts submitted to a previous Delacorte Press contest are not eligible.FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS1. Submissions should consist of a book-length manuscript with a contemporary setting that will be suitable for readers ages12 to 18.2. Manuscripts should be no shorter than 100 typewritten pages and no longer than 224 typewritten pages. Include a brief plot summary with yourcovering letter.3. Each manuscript should have a cover page listing the title of the novel; the author's name, address, and telephone number.4.Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on 8-1/2" x 11" good quality white paper, and pages should be numbered consecutively. The type should be at least10 point. The author should retain a copy of any manuscript submitted.5.Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white (not gray) paper.6. Do not submit manuscripts in boxes. A padded envelope will do. Please do not enclose checks for postage. The publisher is notresponsible for late, lost, misdelivered, or misplaced submissions.7. Please enclose a business-size stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification only. Please do notenclose checks for postage. Due to new postal regulations, the publisher cannot return any manuscripts. All submissions will be recycledby Random House after they are read.MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS1. Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while underconsideration for the prize.2. Authors may not submit more than two manuscripts to the Delacorte Press competition; each mustmeet all eligibility requirements.DATES FOR SUBMISSION1. Manuscripts must be postmarked after October 1, 2008, but no later than December 31, 2008.2. Send manuscripts to:Delacorte Press ContestRandom House, Inc.1745 Broadway, 9thFloorNew York, New York 10019JUDGING1. Entries will be judged by the editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers. The prize will be awarded on the basis of originality, style,and creativity.2. The judges reserve the right not to award a prize.3. The decision of the judges will be final.4. The editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers will not be able to offer critiques of manuscripts orenter into correspondence about the manuscripts other than with the winning author.5. Writers will be notified between January and April as submissions are evaluated by the editors. Final contest results will be announced on our Website on or around April 30, 2009.JANUARYFEDERATIONSEDITED BY JOHN JOSEPH ADAMSFrom Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea ofvast intergalactic societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations will continuethat tradition. What are the social/religious/environmental/technological implications of living in such a vast society? What happens when expansionist tendencies on agalactic scale come into conflict with the indigenous peoples of other planets, of other races? And what of the issue of communicating across such distances, orthe problems caused by relativistic travel? These are just some of the questions and issues that the stories in Federations will take on.Genres: Science Fiction only. Original fiction only, no reprints.Payment: 5 cents per word ($250 max), plus a pro-rata share of the anthology’s earnings and 1 contributor copy.Word limit: 5000 words. (Stories may exceed 5000 words, but $250 is the maximum payment per story, and stories 5000 words or less are stronglypreferred.)Rights: First world English rights, non-exclusive world anthology rights, and non-exclusive audio anthology rights. See my boilerplate author-anthologistcontract, which spells out the rights in detail.Reading Period: November 1-January 1, 2009Response Time: Most rejections will be sent out quickly, but stories that I like may be held until January 31 before a final decision is made.Publication date: May 2009Publisher: Prime BooksSubmission Instructions: Email your story in rich-text format (RTF) to John Joseph Adams at federations.anthology@gmail.com.Include the title of the story and your byline in the subject line of the email.ABOUT THE EDITORJohn Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies Wastelands: Stories ofthe Apocalypse, Seeds of Change, and The LivingDead. He is also the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy &Science Fiction, and is the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire(the news service of the SCI FI Channel). For more information, visit hiswebsite at www.johnjosephadams.com.http://www.johnjosephadams.com/?p=1630Highlights for Children will accept submissions to the publication's 29th annual fiction contest during the month of January 2009. The contest is open toanyone interested in writing for children and three winners will receive $1,000 each.For this year's contest, Highlights seeks stories set in the future. Under contest rules, any unpublished story is eligible, whethersubmitted by a professional or a new author. Previous winners have included both published and first-time authors.Contest guidelines state that all entries must be postmarked between January 1 and January 31, 2008. The storiesshould not exceed 800 words, and they may be considerably shorter for younger children. Stories glorifying war or crime or containing violence or derogatoryhumor are not acceptable.The three contest winners will be announced on Highlights.com in June 2008. Winning manuscripts become the property ofHighlights and will appear in the periodical at a later date. All other contest submissions will be considered for purchase at regular rates and terms. A listof winners will be sent by mail if a self-addressed stamped envelope is included with submissions.Highlights also accepts the submission of articles, stories, and fillers throughout the year.For guidelines or additional information, go tohttp://www.highlights.com/custserv/customerservicecontent2main.jsp?iCategoryID=203&iContentID=1584&CCNavIDs=3,203MarchDelacorte Press Books for Young Readers is proud to announce theSeventeenth AnnualDelacorte Dell Yearling Contest fora FirstMiddle-Grade Novel*The prize of a book contract (on the Publisher's standard form) for a hardcover and a paperback edition, including an advance and royalties, will beawarded annually to encourage the writing of contemporary or historical fiction set in NorthAmerica, for readers age 9–12. The award consists of $1,500 in cash and a $7,500 advance against royalties.All federal, state and local taxes, if any, are the winners sole responsibility. Prizes are not transferrableand cannot be assigned. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO WIN.ELIGIBILITY1. The contest is open to U.S. and Canadian writers who have not previously published a novel for middle-grade readers. Employees of Random House, Inc. andits subsidiaries and affiliates, and members of their families and households are not eligible.2. Foreign-language manuscripts and translations are not eligible.3. Manuscripts submitted to a previous Delacorte Press contest are not eligible.FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS1. Manuscripts should be no shorter than 96 typewritten pages and no longer than 160 typewrittenpages. Include a brief plot summary with your covering letter.2. Each manuscript should have a cover page listing the title of the work and the author's name, address, and telephone number. The title shouldalso appear on each manuscript page.3. Manuscripts should be typed doublespaced on 8 1/2" by 11" good quality white paper, and pages should benumbered consecutively.The type should be easy to read, preferably 12 point. The author should retain a copy of any manuscript submitted.4. Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white (not gray)paper. Partial or illegible entries will not be acceptable.5. Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white(not gray) paper.6. Do not submit manuscripts in boxes. A padded envelope will do. Please do not enclose checks for postage. The publisher is notresponsible for late, lost, misdelivered, or misplaced submissions.7. Please enclose a business-size stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification only. Please do notenclose checks for postage. Due to new postal regulations, the publisher cannot return any manuscripts. All submissions will be recycledby Random House after they are read.MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS1. Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while under consideration for theprize.2. Authors may not submit more than two manuscripts to the Delacorte Yearling competition; each must meet all eligibilityrequirements.DATES FOR SUBMISSION1. Manuscripts must be postmarked after April 1, 2009, but no later than June 30, 2009.2. Send manuscripts to:Delacorte Yearling ContestRandom House, Inc.1745 Broadway, 9th FloorNew York, NY 10019JUDGING1. The Judges are the editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers.2. The judges reserve the right not to award a prize.3. The judges' decision will be final.4. The editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers will not be able to offer critiques ofmanuscripts or enter into correspondence about the manuscripts other than withthe winning author.5. Writers will be notified between July and October as submissions are evaluated by the editors. Final contest results will beannounced on our Web site on or around October 31, 2008.* Formerly the Marguerite de Angeli ContestSPECTRA SHORT FICTION CONTESTPresenting a new short fiction contest for unpublished writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.For its third edition of Spectra Pulse, Bantam Spectra is allowing unpublished writers to get their work featured alongside some of the most well-respected names in science fiction and fantasy.One lucky winner will receive $100 and have his/her story published in the Summer 2009 issue of Spectra Pulse, Bantam Spectra’s exclusive magazine distributed at Comic-Con San Diego and select conventions and bookstores (available July 2009).*Prize:The winning author will receive $100 and have his or her work published in the Summer 2009 issue of Spectra Pulse.To Enter:Submit a work of speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, new weird, anything fantastic in nature) no longer than 2,000 words in length to spectrapulse@randomhouse.com by January 31, 2009. Be sure to include your name, e-mail address, and mailing address.One winning story will be selected by the Bantam Spectra editorial department. The Winner will be notified by March 18, 2009 and announced on April 28, 2009.Open to adults, ages 18 or older, who are residents of the United States and have never published a work of fiction nor entered into a publishing contract as of the time of entry. Entrants who subsequently enter into a publishing contract will be disqualified from winning if their contracted work is to be published before Fall 2009. Submissions that have been submitted to another publication or online site for publication will not be accepted.Scroll down to read the Official Rules for complete eligibility requirements and submission guidelines.If you have any questions, you may e-mail us at spectrapulse@randomhouse.com.OFFICIAL RULESOFFICIAL RULES 2009 SPECTRA PULSE SHORT FICTION CONTESTNO PURCHASE NECESSARY.1. This Contest runs from October 28, 2008 to January 31, 2009. To be eligible to win, entrants must email their name and complete mailing address along with their Spectra Pulse Short Fiction Contest submission (in English) to spectrapulse@randomhouse.com on or before the entry deadline: 11:59 P.M., Pacific Time, on January 31, 2009. Each story must be limited to no more than two thousand (2000) words and must be submitted as a .doc, .pdf or .rtf file. The e-mail must include the subject line "Spectra Pulse Short Fiction Contest Submission." Sponsor may use entrant's e-mail address for purposes of prize notification and to request a mailing address to be used for the sole purpose of delivering the prize. Any entries received after the deadline will be ineligible to win. LIMIT ONE ENTRY PER PERSON and ONE ENTRY PER EMAIL. Multiple entries from the same person are void. Sponsor is not responsible for entries that are late, misdirected, lost, garbled, or unintelligible, including those due to computer or network malfunction or congestion (including at Random House), and any such entries are ineligible.2. Prizes are as follows: One (1) Grand Prize: a $100 cash prize and inclusion of the Winner’s short fiction submission in the Summer 2009/Issue No. 3 edition of Spectra Pulse. No transfer or substitution of the prize will be permitted, except by The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. ("Sponsor") in its sole discretion, in which case a prize of equal or greater value will be awarded.3. On or about March 17, 2009 one (1) Grand Prize winning submission will be chosen by Sponsor's marketing and editorial departments from all eligible and completed submissions received by the entry deadline. Entries will be judged on the basis of originality, creativity and writing style. Winners will be notified by e-mail and their mailing address will be used by Sponsor solely for the purpose of delivering the cash portion of the Prize.4. This Contest is open only to residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico) who are 18 years of age or older, have not published a work of fiction (self-published books included), and do not have a publishing contract at the time of submission. Entrants who subsequently enter into a publishing contract will be disqualified from winning if their contracted work is to be published before Fall 2009. Submissions that have been submitted to another publication or online site for publication will not be accepted. Employees of Random House, Inc., its affiliates and subsidiaries, and their immediate family members and persons living in their households are not eligible to enter. This Contest is subject to all federal, state, and local regulations. Offer void in Puerto Rico and where otherwise restricted or prohibited. 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By accepting the prize, Winner grants Sponsor the exclusive right to first publish his/her work in Spectra Pulse and online and the nonexclusive right after such first publication to publish, post online or otherwise reproduce the work and the name and likeness of the Winner in any and all forms and media throughout the world, and for any and all publicity or promotional purposes, without obligation or compensation, except where prohibited by law. Entries will not be returned or acknowledged.7. For the names of the Winner, available after October 28, 2009, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope, separate from your entry, to Spectra Pulse Short Story Contest, Bantam Internet Marketing, Dept. MW, 1745 Broadway, New York, New York, 10019 by December 31, 2009.8. Sponsor: The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 1745 Broadway, New York, New York, 10019.http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/spectra/spectrapulseshortfiction.htmlRead more…
My first novel, Zahrah the Windseeker, is one of three books shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature.The full shortlist:Beast of The Nation by Uzodinma Iweala (I've read this…absolutely phenomenal)Zahrah The Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor (read this, too. Fabulous. Ha ha)The Weaving Looms by Wale Okediran (Looking forward to getting my hands on this one)If all goes as suddenly planned I'll be in Nigeria very very soon meeting the amazing Wole Soyinka at the awards ceremony!View more details in a recent article from the Guardian (a Nigerian newspaper) hereFor more info about this prize, go to: http://luminafoundationsoyinkaprize.com/prize_about.htmRead more…
Well, now that I've sent The Constant Tower off (in it's very messy state) to my editor, I can now return to Dark Inheritance. So, FYE: here is the fourth chapter of Dark Inheritance. Hope you enjoy. Am gonna try to finish this for nanowrimo. -C#As a child Ethan had feared her. He would lay in his bedroom, his head covered under the Mickey Mouse blankets, hoping she would not come. But she always did. At least two nights a week, the headless female torso would materialize in his room. His bedroom door would clamp itself shut under his shaking hands. His hands would go clammy and inside his Spiderman slippers, his little hammer-toed feet would grow cold. He would shout and plead and beg the looming specter to not hurt him, to just leave, leave, please, please! She would call to him, laughing. And that was damn strange because she had no mouth, at least no physical one his little kid eyes could see. When she spoke, her voice grated, like fingernails against a blackboard, and it sounded muffled as if it came from behind some thick invisible wall. Which he figured was understandable because, after all, she had no mouth.He tried to explain all this to his mother, tried to explain how the smell of death would fill the room, and the room would go cold. He followed his mother around when bedtime came, telling her repeatedly that a naked female spirit without a head lived in the walls and came to visit him at nights and could his mother please sleep in his room with him, or maybe could he sleep with her in hers, especially since now his daddy had run off. He told his mother, “when she comes into the room, the room smells like dead people.”His mother stroked his bowl-cut hair and responded, “Son, how do you know how dead people smell?”He answered, “I just know.”One day, his mother asked if he wanted to switch rooms with his sister, Ruth. Such a question only showed she didn’t believe him. He thought of Ruthie alone in that room and what the spirit would do to her. He decided he didn’t want Ruthie to be hurt. “I’ll stay in my room,” he said. He said this although he was sure the spirit would kill him but he was prepared to fight her. He fought her a long while. Needless to say, he figured it best to not even mention that the spirit tried to force sex on him.At one point he told his Uncle Li all about it. His uncle said it was a demon, that such things were common. His uncle tried to persuade his mother to take him to a Shinto priests. But his Uncle Li was a drunk and his parents were good modern Chinese Christians – Methodists. They told his uncle to stop filling Ethan’s head with superstitious old stories. A week after that, his uncle died suddenly. He had left a note among his sparse belongings telling the family the spirit was going to kill him.Ethan got to reading the Bible and visiting the local shrines whenever the family went to Chinatown. He took to buying praying candles at the supermarket and burning them on rocks in the woods near their upstate New York home. His mother noticed his new-found spirituality. She said it was good if he studied the spirituality of other cultures but he shouldn’t go overboard. His older brother, Arnold, said he was just a silly kid turning to religion because his dad had deserted the family for his sleazy co-worker. Ethan listened to them, tried to mull over their words and sort through what was happening in his room at nights. He read about generational curses. He read about haunted houses. He read about psychosis, mental illness, and depression. But nothing helped and after a while it just seemed to him that neither Buddha nor the Christian God were strong enough to help him. He began to believe the entire thing was his karma. Yet, he kept wondering why such a bad thing, such a weird thing, should happen to him.During all that time the Beloved kept attempting to seduce him. She would tell him to lift the covers, to not be afraid of him, that she was there to protect him and love him. The silky smoothness of her ice-cold breasts, the rawness of the moist place between her legs (even though she smelled like garbage and a dead dog he once found in the woods)— they seduced. After a while, he gave in to her. What joy she brought him! What shame too! Terrified at first at the sudden venture into sexuality, he grew to like the wild force of her sex, grew to love her. But she was headless, mouthless, lifeless.He was no more than eight years when the visitation began and about ten when he began to give in to her. That was the day when he realized that goodness was all a crock. Or at least the power of goodness. Heck, his dad wouldn’t have dumped his mom if the world so was good and if God had any control. But still, he did feel that he was a bit abnormal. He knew that love between a spirit and a human could never be permanent. One day, he told the Beloved so.She answered him, “One day, you will touch my human flesh, hear my human voice, and enjoy my human body.”“How will I know you?” he asked. After all, the Beloved had no head.“You will find me,” she answered. “Seek me. Love many women. Seek and you will find me.”And that’s what he did. He had dated. Many women, of all colors. But none of them made his body thrill as much as the Beloved did. There was always something lacking. He told this to the Beloved when she visited him. “I searched,” he pleaded, “and none of these women give me the pleasure that you do. Their bodies aren’t as cold as yours. They don’t look like you. They don’t smell like death.”“You will have to search for me in other places,” she said. “Climb windows, enter locked houses. Find me. I will live in one of those women. Find me, and pleasure me.”And that’s what he began doing. He was eighteen when he raped the first girl. But even then, the pleasure was nothing compared to what the Beloved gave him. He didn’t like to see the girl lying there under him, crying. The Beloved told him that guilt prevented him from enjoying himself, that he should cast guilt aside. The Beloved had spoken the truth. After the fifth rape, he began to allow pleasure to flow into his body. The pleasure helped to push the guilt away. When he pushed himself into the women, he felt the Beloved’s joy working inside him. Now, sitting on his bed in Attica, he no longer felt or even understood the terror that used to make his little boy body tremble.The Beloved had also been faithful. She always protected him. Even when he murdered them two girls. The Beloved had told him to, and he understood the expedience of it. There was little about the Beloved’s commands that he never understood. She was always right. Hadn’t she told him to decapitate several of the women he had raped? To make them in her image? Hadn’t he done that? And those women’s bodies had never been found. If only he had listened and had avoided the woman in the mall, the woman who turned out to be the mother of his Beloved son. If he had done as the Beloved had ordered, he would not have ended up in jail.He lay in his cell remembering his trial and thinking. How strange it had been to hear the court officers, the prosecutors, and the cops call him a rapist! What kind of rapist would kneel between the legs of a woman to pleasure her? They had not understood that. Detective Ramsey had even called him a sick puppy. Stupid woman! When he got released, he wouldn’t immediately kill her though. That was just the kind of thing the cops would expect of him. He’d bide his time. Besides there were more important things to do. He still had to find his son. The Beloved wanted that. And he had to find the Beloved also. The Beloved with a head, a mouth, human flesh. He would search for her as long as it took....and he would find her.
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Posted by Night Manager on October 16, 2008 at 9:22am
This is just about where things started to go wrong. I had a plan... I SWEAR I had a plan. But instead of this being a short story it's reading more like a pilot for a TV show and I don't know how to end it as just a short story! Hell, I'm WAAAAY off what I started to write which is why the title makes no sense“It’s a façade! Pull it out!” Wade ordered. He and Wilson stood back as two of the Rangers stepped forward. Another of the white and blue armored men moved into flanking positions behind them, cocking and raising his rifle. A fourth was holding what looked like an older model cellular phone; large with a long antenna and wide digital face screen.“Signal’s strong.” He reported. “Can’t break the encrypt but it’s reading clear. Someone’s online.”With a crack the huge crate broke away from the others it stood against. A flash of white streaked by too fast for the Rangers moving the crate to react to.“Hold your fire!” Wilson yelled too late as the rifle report filled the air. The Rangers were well trained and disciplined; the rifle stopped firing as the order was given. Never the less the result was there was a woman lying face down on the hard warehouse floor her white lab coat covered in blood.“Damn it!” Wilson cursed.“What?” Wade looked apathetic. “It’s what we came here for right?”“We are looking for the God damned tech!” Wilson snapped. “Only she…”His mouth snapped shut as a pained gasp came from the woman on the ground. Immediately one of the Rangers moved up to her. He kicked away the small black device lying next to her and leaned down and lifted the lab coat.“She caught two in the thigh”, he reported. “Wounds not bad; she’ll survive.”“What’s this?” Wade asked as he picked up the handheld she had dropped. “Micro terminal. Looks like the source of your signal.”Wilson snatched the monitor from him and turned it on. The Eagle logo flashed at him before the desktop came up. He drew his finger across the screen but nothing happened.“Security feature.” Wade said looking over his shoulder. “They come with keys… cards, finger covers, chipped pens… it won’t work without it.”Wilson quickly stepped by the Ranger, knelt down and grabbed the woman roughly by her long black hair. He turned her face around until her pain filled eyes met his.“Remember me little whore?” he said in a whisper. “You got something for me?”“Sir there’s a door here!” one of the Rangers reported. In the hiding space behind the crate against the wall of the warehouse there was indeed a door.Wade walked over and looked it up and down. “Now how did that not show up on the Satellite imager?” he looked back to the woman on the ground. “It’s a security door too. Probably rigged with… WATCH IT!”The knife flashed and a bright red line of blood streaked across the room. Wilson screamed and fell back, trying to get away from the black hunting knife. Lucky for him the injury to the woman’s leg kept her from being able to chase after him. Otherwise she might have gutted him with her second lunge. As it was he rolled backward without being cut again, clutching his face while Wade and two of the Rangers pinned the woman.“CHRIST!” Wade grabbed the woman’s wrist as she tried unsuccessfully to drive it through the breast plate of one of the Rangers. It took hardly any effort to get the knife from her then and she cried out in anguish as he pried it from her hand.Knife in hand Wade turned to see Wilson standing still holding his face his hands now soaked with blood but not so much that it looked life threatening.“Fucking bitch!” Wilson was shaking with rage. “I should have popped you when I…” but Wilson stopped himself. One of the Rangers was pulling at the man’s hands trying to get a look at the wound.“Sliced all the way through the cheek…” he reported.After a quick glance back down at the woman Wade turned his attention to Wilson. “Damn. She cut you a nice new smirk.”“We need to get you to a Medi-unit.” The Ranger was saying but Wilson ignored him and pushed past Wade on his way back to the woman still pinned to the ground.“Whoa!” Wade warned him. “We still need the tech remember.” But he was stifling a laugh as he said it.“Stand her up.” Wilson ordered and the two men who were pinning her pulled the woman to her feet. She gasped in pain and leaned heavily on her right side trying to give her wounded left leg respite.“Okay… okay Ms. Corrigan…” Wilson was speaking through clenched teeth. “You have no idea how bad it’s going to get for you now.”But the dark haired woman just glared back at him through pain filled eyes and said nothing. Lightning fast his hand whipped out and smashed her in the face. Her long black hair flew wildly as her head snapped back from the blow. She sagged a bit in the Ranger’s arms and her hair covered her face. Wilson reached and savagely grabbed her by the throat and forced her head back up.There was blood all over her pale face. A lot dripped down from her nose and around her mouth but most of it was smeared across her right cheek; blood from Wilson’s own hand.“Back to business?” Wade reminded him. Wilson nodded with the same shaky, barely controlled rage. Still holding the woman by her throat he pulled her face close to his.“Where is the fucking Engine, Corrigan?”Her breathing was as haggard as his was. Bloody spittle slid down her chin, mixing with the blood flowing from her nose. But her eyes were defiant; she remained silent.“Still got nothing on this thing.” One Ranger waved the small Computer unit with frustration.“She just used it. We need her key card.” Wade stepped forward and reached into the woman’s lab jacket pockets. Then he frisked her thoroughly until;“Here it is.” He held up the stylus then handed it to the Ranger with her device. “So what exactly was the deal?”Wilson spit a little blood himself. “Simple. She sold us the specs for the Engine. Now we’re here to collect.”“You…” the woman uttered her voice cracking. “… you killed him.”Wade smiled, looking sidelong at Wilson who was trying not to look back at him. “The way I heard…” he began, still keeping an eye on Wilson for his reaction. “… you’re the one did your boss in. I saw the body. Decapitation’s an ugly way to do someone you once called friend.”The woman looked from one man to the other. A defiant smile slid across her lips. “You weren’t supposed to do it. You weren’t supposed…”Another back hand ripped across her face. Blood gushed from her nose, seeped from both corners of her mouth. Wilson drew his hand back for another strike.“Alright, alright!” Wade grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. His face was a mean smirk. “Don’t forget we’re here for the tech. Don’t want to mess that up… twice apparently.”“Don’t think you’re so smart Wade.” Wilson turned his glare to his partner. “She cut the son of a bitches head off.”Wade’s eyes narrowed and he looked from Wilson to the woman and then back again. The smirk slid further up his cheek. “Maybe… but was he alive when she did it?”The snort was halting and sounded a little wet. Wade turned back to the woman. Her head was down and her long black hair covered her face. She shook with the second snort.“The Jones won’t like that too bit of news.” She said slowly leaning her head up and flashing a smirk of her own.Wilson’s eyes flared with anger but Wade stepped in between them again. “Now why would you cut off a dead man’s head?”“You… you won’t find the Engine.” She said desperately.“Got it!” The Ranger who was working on her portable device handed it and the stylus over to Wade. He looked at the screen and tapped it a couple of times with the stylus.“Yea… good encrypt…” Wade said concentrating on the screen. “But it’s LAST month’s encrypt…” and after another tap of the stylus the screen color changed.“What the hell are you monitoring?” he said tapping the screen a few more times.“SIR!” one of the Rangers had raised and cocked his rifle. He was peering into the remains of the fake crate. The security door that they had been ignoring after the knife attack was wide open.“Who the hell opened that door?” Wilson hissed.“Look behind you.” The whisper came from the woman whose head had fallen back down. Wilson snorted himself, unwilling to take the bait. Then he noticed Wade looking past him, just over his shoulder. The smirk was gone. The Rangers turned together and Wilson whirled around and his jaw dropped.It stood six and a half feet tall. First Wilson thought he was looking at some kind of chrome skeleton covered with dark plates of the same metal as the woman’s blade. The dim warehouse lights gleamed softly off the dark metal coverings which flexed and rotated minutely seeming to almost to float lightly about the chrome skeleton. The thing stood on three pronged feet and flexed four digits at the ends of its two long arms. The dark plates covered its joints, torso and also its head. There smaller shifting plates formed a mask of where they shifted, twitched and fluttered like an insect’s wings. Those smaller plates danced around a trio of cylindrical lens cases that moved in unison sweeping over the group of Rangers.“Oh shit.”
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no science fictionThe SagesWhen I was a little boyWhen men appeared as immortal giantsIt was they whom I idolizedTheir lives I wanted without knowing their plightsMy dreams were blessed with ignoranceNow I am a young man only slightly wiser of the nature of lifeI now know the truth of these menI listen to the wisdom of these sagesThey warn me of every misfortune I would come uponI didn’t listen, because I know allEveryday I live I learn how wrong I amWith that knowledge I come closer to being one of the sages
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Posted by Night Manager on October 12, 2008 at 12:29am
3rd in the installment. At this point it still flowed but I was running over on my word count.Her hand was clamped tight over her mouth. She had been startled when the lid had hit the ground and could not help jumping. Now everything on the other side of the crates had gone quiet. They had heard her. Did they know where she was?Then the heavy stomp of boots bounced echoes off of the walls around her. They stopped on the far side of the crate she was hiding behind. Their voices were muffled but she heard barking orders and then the echoes of the boots spreading out in every direction.Her lungs began to ache and she realized that she had been holding her breath. With the boots stomping about loudly she pulled her hand away from her mouth and chanced a quick gulp of air.Luckily the boots never noticed, so she took another. She listened while more harsh voices barked out more orders. With the noise from the increased activity she decided it might be safe to check her bag. Carefully, while still in a crouch, she swiveled around on her toes. The scratchy sound of her shoes twisting on the concrete floor went unnoticed. Beside her lay a black leather bag, misshapen and bulging. As quietly as she could she pulled on the zipper and opened it halfway. Boot steps came close to the other side of the crate and she paused but they continued on and away. She pushed her hand deeply into the bag, stopping every few centimeters because something in the bag would knock not so quietly against something else. Once she got her hands on what she wanted it took even longer to get it out because the bag was so full.Finally the device came free. It was about twice the size of her fist with a small liquid crystal display covering one half and a small touchpad the other. With her thumb she rolled a small dial then pressed a small button on its side. The display came to life bathing her face with its soft blue light. A circular logo flashed for a moment and then the screen read ready displaying a common computer desktop. She reached into the jacket of the long white lab coat she was wearing and withdrew a small stylus. The tip lit up as the stylus made contact and she then drew it across the touch pad maneuvering the on screen pointer towards a javelin shaped icon.The sharp crack of splintering wood startled her again and she fell backwards onto her butt.Had they seen the light?No. Someone was opening another of the crates; the one she was leaning against. In her panic she had pressed the small device to her chest to cover the glow of the light though she knew rationally that the light was not bright enough to be seen past her hiding space. With a tiny breath she pulled it away from her chest.She also knew that they would find nothing in the crate that would lead them to her hiding place. It was filled with construction supplies for what would have been their new offices in downtown Philadelphia.They would find no prints. She had worn gloves. They would find no footprints. She had the staff sweep the floor before she got here. They would not find her.All this she knew rationally but never the less her hand ached as it held a viselike grip on the second item she had pulled from her bag. She had snatched it out of reflex when the second crate had opened and now held it low and ready to use. It was the only weapon she could get past the security check points and she knew how to use it. The long hunting knife had an onyx blade that reflected very little of the soft blue light.She turned her concentration back to the small screen and noted the progress bar that had appeared beneath it. Her heart began to race. Gritting her teeth she tried to calm herself down. There was still much to do.Another tap with the stylus and another icon, this one the shape of a dollar sign, flashed and opened. A small hour glass spun for a moment and she felt her anxiety rise even more. So much depended on every little detail working out the way she had planned. Even one mistake and it would be over then she would most likely find herself strapped down with a needle in her arm.The small digital hour glass stopped spinning and the screen changed from soft blue to a dull gray white. The top of the screen now displayed the corporate logo of a bank. A few more taps with the stylus and she almost breathed the sigh of relief out loud.The money was there.It was going to work.Hard running boots stampeded nearby and voices were raised in harsh warning on the other side of her crate. She pressed the screen to her chest again and clenched the knife tightly. It was okay, she told herself, they couldn’t know. The small device began to vibrate against her and she pulled it away from her now sweat soaked blouse to see why. A red and yellow window had opened in the bottom right corner flashing a warning:ALERT CONNECTION MONITORED!.
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please critisize“This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done” said Maricus. Isn’t there another way to figure this out?“Well this is the most accurate way we have” said Dr. Langdon. “If you have a better way of figuring this out, I’d be glad to hear it.” Maricus sat quietly for a moment.“No I don’t have a better way, but I was just wondering do we really need to know?” asked Maricus after a moment. Dr. Langdon pondered.“Yes” he replied after a while. “It’s not like you’re really dieing. You get to come back after a few minutes.” Maricus thought about it, and said nothing else.They resumed changing their clothes in the dressing room. They removed their causal attire and replaced them with plain white hospital scrubs. They put their belongings into their respective lockers, and exited the dressing rooms. They walked into the hallway and meet two more mean in identical attire.“Are you gentlemen ready?” asked Dr. Langdon.“Ready as we’ll ever be” said one of the men.“Not sure if I still want to go through with this” said the other man.“Good lord, am I the only one with any balls around here” asked Dr. Langdon jokingly. “Fawkes, I’m surprised at you” he said referring to the person that had spoken previous to him. “You’re usually the brave one. We’ve already got enough adversity coming from outside sources, the last thing we need is someone getting cold feet at the last second. So if anyone wants out, they say so now.” The hallway was silent. “Very well, let’s do this” Dr. Langdon said beginning to walk. The other men followed behind him.They walked down the hallway, passing doors with signs that read:Dr. Samuel WashingtonDepartment of Biblical ScienceDr. Edward LyonsDepartment of DivinityDr. Marcus RossDepartment of Biological Creationism.They reached a pair of swinging doors. Dr. Langdon pushed through them. On the other side stood a man wearing a black suit with a red tie. The lapel of the suit had a crucifix pin on it.“Dr. Lennon, to what do we owe the surprise?” asked Dr. Langdon. “If it is about stopping the experiment, I will have to ask you to talk to me about it afterwards becauseWe’re about to go do the experiment.”“Langdon, I’ve previously been against the experiment because of its lack of Christian morals, which I am still against, but now I think your team is in danger.“What kind of danger?” asked Dr. Langdon.“I think someone might pull the plug on you guys” said Dr. Lennon.“Lennon, we have everything set up well here” said Dr. Langdon. We’ve covered every corner on this. Nobody is going to pull the plug”.“But Langdon there are forces at work here that you don’t see” Dr. Lennon said in solemn voice.Dr. Langdon began to chuckle. “What forces, Aliens” the other men began to laugh all except for Dr. Lennon. “Let’s do this before the Aliens get here guys” Dr. Langdon joked. The group of men walked away leaving Dr. Lennon do watch them disappear through another pair of double doors.“The men walked into what appeared to be a well illuminated surgical auditorium. In the center there were four tables with IV machines beside them. At the head of each of the tables there was a computer, each with a man controlling it. The spectator section of the auditorium was full of people, all of whom were gazing at the four men who had just entered, and whispering among themselves. In the middle of the surgical floor was a podium with a microphone on top.Dr. Langdon walked to the podium. The other men stood on either side of him. “Good evening, ladies, and gentlemen” Dr. Langdon began. “I would like to welcome you to SIC, the Scientific Institute of Creationism. Here men from all over the world have come together in and attempt to prove the theories of Creationism. We are glad that you have attended today, to witness this day that shall most defiantly go down in the pages of history. Today we shall find sufficient evidence to prove the theory of intelligent design, and possibly disprove the theory of evolution. How will we do so? We believe that the only way to prove that there is a God is to see him. So that is exactly what we plan to do here today.Murmurs erupted throughout the auditorium. “How do you plan to do that?” One of the men shouted from the observation balcony.“Well” Dr. Langdon continued. “The bible teaches us that when we die we shall come before God in judgment. We believe this is the only surefire way to se God.”Murmurs once again echoed through the auditorium. “So you plan to kill yourself?” someone shouted out.“We will not be breathing, and we won’t have a heartbeat, but we will regain them after twenty minutes. We will use a newly developed chemical, named Babylonium, which will stop our heartbeat and breathing. After our twenty minutes, Babylonium will restart our heartbeat and breathing. By that time we believe we will have had contact with the Supreme Being.”The room was quiet. “So you basically plan to trick God.” Someone shouted out.“We do not plan to trick him; we just mean to establish contact” Replied Dr. Langdon.“How do you know the drug will work in stopping your heartbeat, and breathing, and then restarting them?“The medicine” said Dr. Langdon has been thoroughly tested on animals. This is the first time it will be used on a human. Still we are confident that it will work.”“How do we know that you will really be dead?” asked another man. “And how do we know that it won’t be a biased answer?”“To your first question” said Dr. Langdon. “We have an Electrocardiogram monitoring our heartbeats that you can see on the TV in the observation balcony. We also have four doctors from local hospitals and medical school that will be down here observing, and manually checking us for a heartbeat. For your question about knowing if it is the truth I am taking three other men. The one to my left is Dr. Amahad Rashik. He is a professor of Islamic studies at Florida State University. Since he practices another religion he will not lie and just say that he saw God. The man to my close left is Dr. Gary Fawkes, who is a professor of philosophy at Duke University. He is a atheist who works with the Institute for Humanist Studies, and is a member of the South Place Ethical Society. With him on the team he will take out the chance of religious bias. To my far left is Maricus Battle. He is a Graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, pursuing a master of divinity. He has a bachelor’s degree in ethics from Howard University and is also a Notary Public. He will ensure the truth is being told.“This is blasphemy” said another voice from the balcony.“So we’ve been told” said Dr. Langdon. “Many religious groups have strongly opposed the experiment for various reasons. We believe it is in the interest of the future of man kind that we do this experiment. For to long man has wondered the existence of God. The belief has even halted scientific advances in fear of offending God. Today man shall wonder no longer. The experiment will begin in five minutes.”The men retreated from the podium. “I can’t believe we are about to do this” said Dr. Rashik. The men came together in a huddle.“Hope the Babylonium works” said Maricus. “I don’t have a life insurance policy yet.“Everything will work out fine” said Dr. Fawkes. “If it doesn’t, what will we care, we’ll be dead.”“We won’t die” said Dr. Langdon. “Now lets get to our tables and do this. We are about to see god, and prove or disprove the age old question of a Supreme Being.”The men walked to their tables and laid down on them. A sense of excitement filled the room. All was silent. An age old question was about to be answered. The four men were nervous because they were about to kill themselves, and more importantly stand before god himself.The men who were behind the computers started to connect the IV machines that would administer the Babylonium. They sanitized the area were they were going to put the needle. Then they stuck it in. The men’s faces twisted in a quick moment of pain, but soon were relieved. The technicians then went to there computers and started the flow of Babylonium into their bodies. They lay on the table breathing heavily. Their eyes were looking every which way. Soon there eyes began to close. The lines on the Electrocardiogram began to flatten. Soon the line became completely flat. A beep echoed through the room.The four men found themselves in fog. There was no sound. There was nothing. There were just the four men. They looked around expecting to see something or at least hear something. But there was nothing.“I am ready for you gentlemen” said a loud voice suddenly. Then the four men found themselves in an office. The office had bare white walls with an oak desk. A man was sitting behind the desk looking at the frightened men chuckling. He wore a white three-piece suit, and had a well groomed beard on his face. “Welcome gentlemen” he said. “We’ve been expecting you.”The men stood dumbfounded before the mans desk. But the worst off was Fawkes who was in a state only describable as insanity. “I believe you gentlemen have your answer now don’t you?” said the man behind the desk.“There is a God” said Fawkes, hardly believing his own words.“You admit without seeing him yet” said the man. “That’s strange for a man of science like you.”“So you’re not God” said Langdon finally having the courage to speak up.“No, I’m not” said the man. “You will see him in a moment. For the record when you do see him, you should bow down.”“Who are you then?” asked Maricus.“I’m an angel” the man replied.“So there is a Supreme Being” said Langdon.“Yes” said the man.“Can we talk to him?” asked Langdon.“No need to be in such hurry” replied the man. “Trust me. You will get your turn.”“But we have to hurry up” said Langdon.“Trust me” said the man. “You have plenty of time.“You don’t understand” said Langdon. “We are only going to be up here for twenty minutes, and then we are coming back to life.”“I know your plan” said the man chuckling. “It’s not going to work.”“What!” exclaimed the men simultaneously.“You gentlemen really thought you could cheat God?” said the man chuckling. “There’s a reason men don’t know for sure that God exist. If they did what would be the point of life. God put man on earth to test his faith. If man knew for sure that God existed man would have no faith, he would know. Knowing takes away the need for faith. Knowing everything is a horrible existence because you will have nothing to question, and having nothing to question is a fate much worst than death.”“There is no purpose in questioning if you aren’t going to make an effort to figure it out” retorted Langdon.“True” said the man. “God gave man a quizzical nature. A sense of curiosity that causes a hunger that can only be feed by knowledge. I suppose it’s not your fault. It’s your nature. I suppose if man didn’t have that sense of wonder he would be no more than a monkey that stood upright. Well still we knew it would come to this. God made it so it would happen this way. Gregory he gave you sense of curiosity greater than most other men. Your yearning to understand everything has become apparent in this fiasco. It was truly your destiny for you and your friend’s lives to end like this.”The men gave each other a quick look. “End” they said in unison.The man began to chuckle. “You didn’t expect us to send you back down there and mess life up for everyone else did you?” The men stood dumbfounded again. “At this moment the doctors who were watching over you have declared you legally, and irreversibly dead.”“How?” asked Langdon.“You should have listened to your friend Frederick Lennon” said the man. “There were forces at work there that weren’t visible. You should do a little more of a background check on the men who you leave your life in the hands of. The technicians were Catholics. If you remember one of the religious groups that opposed the experiment was the Catholic Church. You see in the event that you did cross into the other side and did not see God; you would come back and tell everyone that there was no God. If you did do that they would loss a considerable amount of influence in the world. They were not willing to allow that to happen. Lets just say some officials at the Vatican told the technicians that if they put a few ounces more of the Babylonium, which would then make it lethal, in each of your IV `s that your deaths would be used as atonement for all their sins, and lets just say those technicians had quite a few skeletons in the closet.”The men stood there speechless.“We’re dead” said Maricus.“As a door knob” replied the man.“We can’t go back” said Rashik.“That is highly unlikely. All you can do now is stand before God in judgment, and maybe then God will let you go back” said the man.“How do we do that?” asked Langdon.“Just walk through that door” said the man. “God has the final say. He’s going to place judgment on you.” The man opened a folder. “By the looks of it” he said looking at some papers in the folder. “All of you are going to have a lot to answer for.”“Wait it’s not fair” said Fawkes desperately. “I didn’t know there was a God, so I didn’t live right.”“That’s what faith is for” said the man. “Now its time.” He said pointing to the door in the corner near his desk.“What if we don’t go?” asked Fawkes.“Then things could get ugly” said the man.The men walked towards the door. They never knew they would be so afraid to stand before God. Langdon reached the door. He placed his hand on the gold door knob. He looked behind him. He looked at the men he would stand before God with. All of them with the fear of God in their hearts. Langdon opened the door. A bright light swallowed up the room.
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Posted by Night Manager on October 3, 2008 at 3:30pm
Again this is now part TWO of the 1st story I had written for the BSFS anthology but I thought the one I did submit was better.REBIRTH OF SLICK part 2“You had me bring three Rangers for ‘dis?” Wade kicked a crumpled soda can across the warehouse floor. He resisted an urge to chase after it and kick it again.“She’s a murderer; very dangerous.” Wilson answered. They were both dressed in neat business suits, both Air Force blue. Wilson was walking along one long row of stacked crates, reading the labels on each as he went. He was an older man, sporting a close cut ring of white hair about his head and a hard lined face. His look was grim, his eyes drawn tight as he continued his inspection.The warehouse was well lit but huge stacks of wooden and metal crates cast vast shadows along the far walls. The floor had been swept but the job had been left incomplete with mounds of trash and dirt left in the corners. The most of the crates were stamped with a company logo; an eagle’s head and wing.“Girl’s not much more ‘an a hun’ert pounds” Wade spat back. “Could ‘a just sent me.” Wade was a much younger man, dark haired with a wickedly cut goatee. The two men’s suits were identical but Wade’s tie was missing and his shirt unbuttoned. He was not paying much attention to the crates. Instead he was checking the messages on his phone.“So we could find you the way we found Knox?” Wilson asked.Wade ruffled at that remark a bit and glanced over his shoulder. Against the far wall by the one door in view stood a man in blue fatigues covered by light white body armor. He was carrying a heavy looking rifle, glossy black in color with a wide barrel. An old standard issue Forty-Five was strapped to his hip along with spare clips for the gun. A visor dangled from his neck so Wade could clearly see the amusement in the man’s eyes… and the smirk as well.“That was a nasty piece of work…” he admitted. “But Knox wasn’t a soldier. He was a rich nigger that got too big for his britches. Besides… I thought she worked for us.” Wade snapped his cell phone shut and looked around the room for anything of interest.“That’s what we thought but looks like she had an agenda of her own.” Wilson moved on from the crate he had been examining and walked further into the room. “She gave up Knox but not his technology.”Wade followed him across the room and when they both went beyond the Ranger’s field of vision he followed as well. As soon as he left another similarly outfitted man stepped into the room to stand in his place.“No new tech toys for Five Stars?” Wade’s voice was a bit mocking. “That engine would have been a nice coup. No Engine equals no flying Rangers.”“The company has already invested in the new program. Without that damn engine we’ll have wasted millions in advertising.” Wilson tore another packing list off of a crate, read it and discarded it with a grunt.“Yea I’ve seen the new ads... Glossy. ‘Just look up...” His raised his voice mockingly. “Five Stars Security is shining down.’ You know what I especially like?” Wade bent, picked up the discarded piece of paper and regarded it. “I like the shot of the one Ranger standing atop the American Commerce Building, with the top spire all decked out in Five Stars colors now, all blond haired blue eyed and very ‘All-American’. But Philly ain’t buyin’ it. You know, Analog’s been tellin’ folks for months that we set up Knox to steal the tech.”“I hate those fucking pirate transmissions. Watch yourself. UNG!”Wade’s head snapped up when Wilson forcefully cracked open one of the crates. Dust flew as the lid hit the floor. The crate was so large that Wilson had to stand on tip toe just to see down inside.“There’s nothing here”, he said in frustration. “Not the tech… and certainly not the…” he cocked his head suddenly.Wade raised his eyes in genuine interest. “What is it?”Wilson reached into his suit jacket and withdrew a Forty-Five. “Get the Rangers in here.”
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Posted by Night Manager on September 26, 2008 at 3:30pm
WINTER GHOST P 6Footsteps in the stormI let her legs go and push us up until I get my feet under me, but I don’t stand. Instead I crouch and peer off into the storm in the direction the shadow went. My eyes search but the snow won’t let me see. My ears listen but the wind is all I can hear.It went… that way.I turn, grab her legs and pull them out of the snow once again.We’ll go this way.I hop through the snow. We’ll cross the street… make to the houses on the other side… someone has to be home.How can the wind push at us like this? It pushes me from behind helping to lift my legs through the snow, then from the left, pushing me off course and blowing her nightgown up and into my face.It pushes from the right throwing her hair into a frenzy making the tips stab at my eyes.And it blows against us, so strong that I have to stop, dig in and then change direction because I’m afraid it will knock us over if we try and keep going.Finally my foot hits something high and solid. I look up and see the huge rise of snow in front of us and the dark brown shape rising even higher beyond it. A lawn and behind it a house. We’ve reached the other side of the street.I can’t see where the steps are. Too much snow. So I step hard, kicking my toes into the snow to dig in and get sure footholds to climb. I clench my jaw tight as I see her feet trailing in the snow. Faster damn it. Climb faster.My foot kicks away loose snow and I’m at the top of the snow covered lawn. The house is still indistinct because of the storm but I can make out the mound of snow covering the front steps. I can almost make out the shape of the front door. It’s flanked by a dark patio on the other side, covered by an awning and filled with snow.I don’t see a light anywhere.The wind blasts us from the front again. I brace us, plant my feet and lean into it. Almost there……just hold on……I’ll get you inside this time…… no matter what…But this time the wind isn’t changing. It just gets stronger and stronger. I lean forward more and more until I feel my elbows dipping into the snow, feel the wind blowing over my head and driving snow into the back on my collar.… no matter what…My teeth ache I’m biting down on them so hard. I lean harder and take a step forward. My skin is hard and unfeeling. I can hear her hair, now just as hard, tapping against the side of my face, my ears, sounding like frenzied wooden wind chimes.… no matter what… and I take another step.Suddenly the wind stops, breaking off almost as though spent. I would fall forward but the snow in front of us has been pushed into a small wall against us almost up to my waist. I take a breath.We’re covered in snow. My legs, her chest, my shoulders, her feet, my eyebrows…The snow still falls, once again settling into falling straight down instead buzzing around like enrage hornets. The street is so quiet now.The house is clearer now but still mostly hidden by the snow fall. An old stone house, typical here in Mt. Airy, a little bigger though than most in this neighborhood. There’s a breezeway between this house and the next, where the snow fall is not as heavy. I can see down the small alley a bit, the sides of the houses, the windows and still I don’t see a light on.… no matter what…I turn back to the front door and the huge mound of snow that’s covering it. If I have to I’ll…Tiny warm puffs of breath pulse against the underside of my jaw. I look down and see her brows are knit tight, her mouth pursed but open. She’s breathing so hard. Is she in pain? She looks like… she’s exhausted.Then I hear them; footsteps in the snow.I turn in a panic and peer around but still I can’t see anything. There’s another step… then another…It goes quiet again for a long moment before I hear another step.And then it’s quiet again. I can… feel him. I know he’s… searching… listening as I am right now. I don’t move.Another step… another and… it’s quiet again.The falling snow is too deceptive. It makes man-like shapes out of the gray background and makes objects move that aren’t really there to begin with. Where is he?Another step…On the street?Another step… was that one farther away?… another. Yes! He’s moving away!A deep ache at the bottom of my throat is reminding me that I need to breath. Not just yet… another few steps… just a few…The gasp comes out like a whisper… a quiet secret… almost intimate. She let the breath out like she was just getting her breath back. Her eyebrows are relaxed again, her mouth no longer pursed and her lips are apart just a hairs breath now.I whip my head back up and stare into the white fall. It’s almost quiet enough that I miss it but another footstep sounds… closer.The falling snow begins to shift….Another step… another, Oh God… they’re coming closer!…The wind returns but without the force it once had.Another step and I look into the far falling snow and see the dark shadow looming.He’s too close.We’ll never make it.
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I know this isn't sci-fi ya'll, but bear with me and I'd love a little feedback.I Vote...by B. Sharise Mooreevenonballotswe remainbig lips.listless.lazy.LOUD. Stereo.typical.unintelligent.un-American.unimaginably.unfit.for a white house.even afterentering earththrough a white wombwhite privilegeis only recognizedwhen whole.and he is onlyhalf/ Harvardhalf/Columbiahalf/ Senator/half/ Professor/Legislature/Organizer...while a perpendicularpoliticstouts proximityto Russia, Putin, andanother possible war...I am askedfor my vote.and I dobecauseblack skinshed red bloodfor thisonce whites onlyprivilegein a strangely silent northand a deep southwhere hosesseared the hair from scalps,dogs bit chunksfrom the fleshof freedom,and hard handsgripped the edges oftomorrowinside concretewalls.I vote.knowingI'mbig lipslistlesslazyun-Americanunintelligentand mymeagerchoice for changemay never mattermore thanRace doesmay never matter morethan this race does...
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Annabelle stood before the mirror and waved her hand over it. Instantly, Sonya’s bedroom appeared. Nothing had been touched. And even though it was morning, on the other side of the glass it remained dark and silent.“It’s a trick,” Sonya whispered, her eyes still on the mirror. “You tricking me.”“You know I’m not,” Annabelle replied solemnly. “In your heart you know I’m telling the truth. Now if you wanna leave you can,” she waved her arm expansively, “and miss out on all this. Everybody been waiting to meet you.”The young woman furrowed her brow, “Everybody like who?”“You’ll see; you hungry?”“Yeah…”Annabelle smiled again. “ Well come on then, let’s find you something to wear.” She led Sonya back to the bedroom she’d slept in. Minutes later Annabelle and Sonya, dressed in a white blouse and skirt, that hung low around her hips; her hair freshly combed walked out into the hallway.An Indigo woman emerged from the room across from Sonya’s. She was tall, slender and muscular with a long face, flashing eyes, brown sugar skin and closely cropped black hair.And she was totally nude. She paused in the corridor staring at Sonya with open curiosity. “You’re new here aren’t you?”Speechless Sonya nodded, trying not to stare.The woman flashed a smile. “I’m Selena.”“Sonya,” the girl stammered.“Well…maybe I‘ll see you later.” She walked past Sonya, her stride proud and confident, to the same oak door Sonya had tried to escape through.Annabelle’s face creased in annoyance, “Selena, could you try wearing clothes sometimes?” she called.Selena looked back over her shoulder, her brown face unconcerned. “For what?When I spend my days like this!” Instantly a black panther appeared, growling where Selena had stood only moments before.“Wow -- just wow!” Sonya exclaimed, clapping her hands together like a delighted child, “Too cool!”Selena dipped her head in Sonya’s direction purring approvingly, then turned green cat eyes to the door. It swung open to reveal a lush jungle. Selena leaped through the archway and it shut behind her.Wide eyed, Sonya watched this spectacle. Then turned to Annabelle. “That’s the same door from last night! How -- !?”Annabelle threw back her head and laughed. “You are too precious! Let’s eat first, and then I’ll answer all your questions.”“But I just dreamed --”Annabelle pulled up short: eyes narrowed, face sharp and watchful. “You dreamed what?”This transformation was not lost upon Sonya. Don’t tell about the door, an urgent voice whispered, she won’t like it. And in the core of her being, Sonya realized that Annabelle wanted -- needed -- to believe that she was in control. Of Sonya. Of everything.“I dreamed I became an animal…a wolf,” Sonya finished.The Indigo woman visibly relaxed. “Oh, is that all?”“Uh-huh.”The young woman followed Annabelle to the end of the hallway -- the castle seemed endless -- where they turned left into a huge alcove walled in at a right angle by glass. Beyond these transparent barriers was a beach and foaming ocean.Frolicking in the waves were mermen and women of every color imaginable with fishtails or scaled legs; some with slits for eyes and noses; others with human features diving in and out of the water.Galloping up and down the sand were two female centaurs.Sonya gawked at the creatures, a goofy half smile on her face. “Are -- are they real?”“As real as you and me,” Annabelle replied softly.“I wanna go out…there,” breathed Sonya. “I wanna get a closer look…”At that moment, Cle- Menti appeared, with a breakfast tray levitating in the air in front of him. The smell of eggs, bacon and toast filled the room.“Did you sleep well princess?” Cle-Menti’s basso profundo voice filled the room.Sonya stared up at him, “Yeah…” even to her own ears she sounded like a child.He was naked from the waist up, and clothed only in a pair of loose fitting brown trousers and open toed sandals. His thick, kinky hair was molded about his wide, angular face, with an aquiline nose and his muscles were so well defined they seemed carved into his chocolate hued body.Without a doubt Cle-Menti was the darkest, most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.He smiled into her eyes, waved his hand over the table and the plates floated to Sonya’s and Annabelle, and settled in front of them.He took Sonya’s hand, “I hope you enjoy your breakfast princess. I cooked it myself,” then pressed his thick lips to her fingers.“Ok…” she breathed, unable to manage anything else.At the other end of table half hidden by Cle-Menti’s frame, sat Annabelle a smile playing about her lips. “She wants to go out after breakfast. You mind takin’ her?”“Of course not,” Cle-Menti answered in his melodious booming tenor, never taking his eyes off Sonya’s face. “Just call me when you finish eating.” He vanished.The food was delicious -- the eggs fluffy with just the right amount of cheese, the bread sweet and buttery, the bacon crisp.Sonya turned her chair to one side so she could watch the creatures gamboling beyond the glass wall -- her questions forgotten. By now the centaurs had galloped to the edge of the ocean and were tossing a ball back and forth to the mermaids.In that moment if she’d turned her head, Annabelle’s sharp eyed calculating stare would have frightened her...“You finished eating?”“Yes Mam.”“Alright, I’ll get Cle-Menti to take you out,” Annabelle pushed her chair back form the table, rose and walked back out into the hallway, Sonya followed. They stood before the door. “Don’t ever try to open this door yourself. It’s a portal to other worlds -- other times. You need one of us to open it -- always. Understand?”Sonya nodded impatiently, her fear forgotten.“Cle-Menti, she’s ready, ” called Annabelle.The words were barely out of her mouth, before he appeared beside Sonya. “You wish to go out princess?”“Uh-huh,” Sonya stammered. Why do I always sound brain dead around him...?Cle-Menti took her hand…they faced the door. “We wish to go to the beach,” he commanded. It swung open to reveal an explosion of color: golden sands and foaming turquiose waters, under an unbelievably bright orangish blue sky.They turned to the left, around the corner of the mansion to find the two centaurs now racing each other up and down the sand. One Bronze with reddish brown hair that curled about her shoulders, green eyes and a dark red mare’s hindquarters; the other Amber with thick, black hair that flowed to her waist, porcelain white skin, slanted almond brown eyes, and a black horse body. Each wore silver bras covering their torsos.Sonya looked up at Cle-Menti. “Can I get a closer look?”He smiled indulgently, “Of course!” Then shouted in a booming bass that echoed along the beach: “This is Sonya and she’d like to play with you, but behave yourselves! None of your tricks -- you hear?”Sonya approached the centaurs slowly, twisting her hands in front of her like a child. “Hi…” she said softly.They regarded her with open curiosity. “I’m Lui and this is Juliana,” the Amber centaur lisped. “Would you like a ride?”“Oh yes!” Sonya breathed.“Well climb on my back then! We’re going to race!”“And I’m going to win!” Juliana pronounced.With Juliana’s help, Sonya mounted Lui’s back. “Hold on tight!” They galloped down the beach -- Sonya holding on for dear life -- then back again. Sonya glanced over her shoulder and glimpsed mermen and women looking on with great interest.They finished near the ocean’s edge where a crowd of aquatic folk were bobbing up and down in the waves, smiling and pointing -- waiting for their chance to play with this newcomer.As Sonya slid off Lui’s back, she whispered: “You would make a lovely centaur! Wouldn’t you like to be one of us?”Sonya frowned “Oh no!”“And why not?” Juliana chipped in petulantly. “Are we not beautiful?” Beside her Lui pouted.Sonya’s face split in a wide grin, flattered beyond measure that these magical equines wanted her to join their family. “You’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen!” Mollified they smiled back.“Well…?” said Lui expectantly.“I have a mother, two brothers and sister,” Sonya explained. “If I stayed with you they’d miss me.”For a moment Juliana and Lui seemed to seriously consider.“We could be your family,” Juliana offered, smiling openly as if this solved everything.Sonya looked distressed. I don’t want to make them mad! “But I’d miss them too!” she stammered, “I love them!”“What is…love?” asked Lui, looking confused.Sonya’s jaw dropped. “It’s when you miss a person when they’re gone,” she groped for words, “you don’t ever want to be without them… and when they hurt, you hurt.”They listened intently. “Ohhh…” said Juliana nodding, beside her Lui bobbed her head in agreement.But it was obvious they still didn’t understand. A small almost imperceptible shiver of fear coursed through Sonya. “Could we go in the water?” she asked.“Oh yes!” Lui smiled brightly, “We can do whatever we want!”“Ride me this time!” chirped Juliana.At the ocean’s edge, Sonya scrambled off the centaur’s into the warm water, clothes and all and swam into the mere folks’ midst -- marveling at their lustrous emerald, golden, brown, ebony, purple, sepia and pinks skins -- and joined them in an impromptu game of tag.She began diving under the waves with them. A purple mermaid with long ropy hair to match her skin, laughing at how playful the Indigo woman was, pulled Sonya under the water and swam alongside her. At this the mere folk took turns dragging Sonya down with them -- she couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun.As Sonya paddled the depths marveling at the sea blooms and geometric coral… and at how long she was holding her breath, a slender, pink skinned merman with golden hair, sea green eyes and a matching tail, bobbed beside her grinning. Suddenly he reached out pulled her into his arms -- his body even warmer than the sea -- and holding her began swimming downward.With his curious fish body pressed against her's Sonya felt the twinges of arousal. How do they do it, I wonder? Like us…?As if her could read her thoughts, the merman bubbled laughter in her ear and pressed himself even more tightly against her, so she could feel the maleness hidden beneath his scales. They swam deeper -- and deeper still entering colbalt blue waters, foliated by stalks of coral growing from an unseen ocean floor.He paused with Sonya still in his arms and pressed his lips to hers: filling her mouth with his strange bumpy tongue. And she wondered how it would feel to have him take her -- right there -- beneath the ocean depths…“ENOUGH!” Cle-Menti’s booming voice echoed beneath the waves. “BRING HER BACK DEMETRI!”Demetri broke the kiss. He stared up frowning…then began swimming to the upward. They burst above the surface and for an instant she couldn’t breath. I’ve been breathing water -- !It passed. Her lungs accepted the air and Demetri was moving to the shallows to release her. Sonya stood in ankle length water, looking at him and felt a curious longing. It was so peaceful down thereDemetri held her gaze. His lips curving upward in a smile as if they shared a secret.Then with a flip of his tail he was gone.Cle-Menti was sitting on the beach waiting for her. “Time to go princess.”Sonya pouted. “Why’d you make me come back -- I was having fun!”Cle-Menti’s full lips spread into a smile. “Not so innocent after all,” he said softly, almost to himself and Sonya blushed.He put an arm about her shoulder guiding her to the door. “You couldn’t breath when you first came out of the water,” the Indigo man said matter-of-factly. “Don’t you wonder why?”Sonya eyed him solemnly, but didn’t answer.“Demetri changed you because he wanted you.” there was no trace of humor in Cle-Menti’s voice now. “If you’d made love to him, you would have become a creature of the sea. And you would have to stay here. Forever.”He dipped his head toward the beach. “Many of them were human once,” he continued, “but once transformed they forgot all about their past lives.” Now his gaze was direct, penetrating.Looking into his dark eyes, Sonya felt nauseous with fear. I almost --- !“They wouldn’t make suitable playmates,” he finished, “if they missed their families.”The door swung open and she rushed past him -- back into the safety of the castle.Stealer of Souls chapter excerptCopyright 2008 Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson all rights reserved
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Posted by Night Manager on September 13, 2008 at 12:40am
Last Night… in my Dream…I must have fallen asleep on my couch because that’s where the dream begins. Something was wrong with the book I was trying to read because the words were all jumbled. Before it became frustrating enough to wake me there came a loud rumbling from outside my window and then a banging at my door.But the banging was not to rouse me or to get me to open it. It was too strong, violent and the door shook on its hinges. Suddenly it burst open and in stomped strange men bearing hammers, swords and chains. Their skin was weather beaten, their hair was wild and they yelled at me with accents so thick that I could not understand what they were saying.In a rush they came at me and pinned me down. With their rough skin around my arms and their swords at my throat they chained me. Then they pulled me to my feet and I saw that I was a good foot taller than all of them. Not that it mattered; they slashed at me with their blades and pounded on me with those hammers, forcing me to the door.Just outside my window I could hear screams and fighting. I was pushed through my door a saw the most horrible site. Huge Truck flatbeds were being driven right down my block. They were so large that they knocked and scraped along the cars parked on the street, knocking some of them up onto the sidewalk. On the backs of the flatbeds were people.Some people I recognized; they lived in my neighborhood. Others were strangers to me but they were all chained as I was. They were men and women, adults and children, individuals dressed for work and families dressed for bed. The strange men were pulling my neighbors from their homes and then loaded them onto the trucks. Those that resisted were beaten with the hammers until they complied or no longer could. The strange men jabbed at me with their swords and I fell down my steps onto my face.The men laughed and jabbed again, yelling for me to move. Chained as I was it took some doing but I wasn’t the only one. A woman was screaming and I looked to see her being dragged away from the unmoving body of her husband. He isn’t the only person to fall and not get back up.I saw that most of the people who resisted were men… and most of them were then lying unmoving on the ground. A fear took hold of me like I’ve never known. Quickly I was on my feet and marching to the truck.That’s when I saw you.I know you don’t live in my neighborhood but I wasn’t surprised to see you. The strangers dragged you from the breezeway in between two homes across the street. You fought with everything you had but they only laughed and pulled you easily down to the street. You never had a chance against them as small as you are. As they load you onto the truck one of the men grabbed at you indecently. Your chains prevented you from striking back at him and he sneered at you wickedly and laughed again with his fellow captors. Cold steel was pressed against the back of my neck and I did nothing except comply and climb aboard one of the trucks.The culling goes on for hours. We rode aboard the trucks for miles as people were rounded up, chained and thrown on board. Along the way some leapt from the trucks, desperate to escape. But the chains were heavy and the strange men were everywhere. None that I could see make it. None that I could see survive to climb back on.All the while the men taunted us. Theirs was a deep well of cruelty, hitting some, leering at a few of the women and punishing those who do not show enough submission. As tall as I am I became a target for them. Try as I might to comply I found myself bleeding and bruised from their intermittent attacks. When they weren’t after me I looked for you but the other trucks were all identical. You could have been anywhere.They took us all the way across the city and I could soon smell the river. Still they were loading the trucks and more and more people were chained. More and more bodies lay on the ground when they resisted too hard or a moment too long.But not everyone was taken.Soon we were driven through nicer neighborhoods. Some homes were still raided for prisoners but many were not. I saw sad shameful faces peeking out from windows or standing in doorways. Those homes were all marked with a large piece of cloth… a flag bearing an unfamiliar pattern. No one was taken from those homes. I saw a few familiar faces whose eyes never meet mine. They were the faces of people who had only one thing in common that I know of: money.Soon we were brought to the docks and sitting in the water were the largest boats I’d ever seen. Old boats with huge billowing black sails, like the ones you see in pirate movies. Atop the tallest mast of each ship the strange flag fluttered in the wind. Several people screamed once they saw the ships. Many called for God and a few passed out. I actually found myself envying them being spared from the nightmare. Again some tried to make a break for it but no one could run with the chains on. The trucks rolled right up to the docks and the people were ushered off the flatbeds and marched up the ramps to the ships.My truck drove up beside the largest ship, a triple-decker with a symbol printed on each of the tall black sails. It was a figure eight lying on its side. My fear grew even more but I marched along. I did not want to die.The ship was so full of people when I was lead onto the deck that there was no more space in the hold. For moments my mind reeled. Would they move us to another ship or would we simply be put over the side?But the strange men had known they would have this problem and had come prepared. On the two lower decks were cages set all around the edges of the boat. Without pause many were herded into the cages until full. The rest of us were then forced to sit along the rails and chained to the deck.Then they began to process us. Quickly, roughly and with as much humiliation as possible we were all stripped bare. One man tried to defend a woman who must have been his mother. He was beaten, then unchained and tossed over the side. No one else fought after that.Then day became night and night rolled into day. The strange men continued to harass us as they pleased. Sparingly we were fed; horrid bread and brown filthy water. More people went over the side.A man who fought to protect his daughter went screaming…A woman and the dead body of her child who she refused to be parted with went over together…An elderly lady who may or may not have been dead because she never responded to the blows from the hammers…Day became night and night turned to day until counting them no longer seemed to matter. The strange men continued the process of beating us into submission.Several young women, the ones who were of age, were taken from the cages and moved to the crew quarters. One woman begged for them not to take her daughter, who was too young but very tall for her age. She offered to go with them instead. The strange men laughed and the one who leered at you, he smiled a wicked smile. He jabbed a fat thumb at a group of girls who were obviously too young and then held up two fingers. The woman cried and shook her head until the stranger grabbed her daughter roughly by the head and forced her to her knees. With tears streaming from her eyes the mother pointed at two of the girls and quickly they were exchanged for her daughter. The strange man smirked at her and handed her and her daughter fresh apples.This went on day and night. The harsh sun burned down on us and the smell of the sea and each others ripening bodies made us gag. I passed the time thinking of ways to escape, of food… of home… or of dying but mostly I thought of you.Another man attempted to resist. The sun beat down on all of us and he was using his own body to provide shade for a sick elderly man. He was beaten and then handed a blade to kill the man. I watched wondering what he would do. The man was not related to the old man. In fact he’d never met him before he was captured. He refused to take the old mans life none the less. But the smirking stranger was not done.He opened a barrel of fresh water and another full of fresh fruit right on the deck and even my mouth watered. Then he took the sword from the man and had three other men unchained. They unchained me.He pointed to the fresh water, the food and then finally to the man. Then he drew his hand across his throat.There was no resisting them.It was him or me.I was starving and perhaps… could share the food with others…But I hesitated… the others did not.It was ugly and horrible. They were not given weapons and none of them had ever killed a man before… at least not with their bare hands. He died slowly, strangled, and then they finished off the old man. We were chained back up and I sat down in shame trying to convince myself that I wasn’t wrong for wanting the water or the apples. I may have thought about joining in but…But I didn’t help…No… I didn’t help…This continued as well until no one was dying at the hands of the strangers anymore. We were killing each other.More days past, the blazing sun sucked the life from our food starved bodies and nighttime rains opened us to fevers. Many died.I did not.One late afternoon after a particularly bad storm broke there came a commotion from below decks. The strangers dragged several prisoners up onto the main deck and dumped them before the rest of us. As bad as it had been on the top deck I had seen more bodies brought up from below and dumped over the side than had died topside. But this was different. These people were still alive and you were among them.The stranger who always smirked was grinning down on your group. He motioned to his men and a few of them began to open the chains of the group of prisoners who had become their favorites. These were Men who killed other prisoners with no qualms and accepted the fresh water and apples happily. These men were given warm clothes to protect them from the sun and keep them dry in the rain. These men had been to the crew quarters to take time with the girls they had imprisoned there.Hammers were placed into their hands. They moved to encircle your group their eyes wide with excitement. You looked up. Your eyes were so defiant so… resolute.There was such strength in your eyes as you looked from one traitor to the next. My breath caught in my throat because then you looked beyond them and your eyes fell on me.It wasn’t anger that I saw in your eyes then although that was what I was expecting. No… you looked into my eyes and I saw… I felt your disappointment, like I had failed to fulfill some unspoken promise.I don’t know you very well, we’re little more than acquaintances. All the same my heart ached with a pain that eclipsed the battering my body had already taken.How dare you? How dare you expect anything from me? How dare you shame me? How dare you fill me with pain that burns worse than the sun? Drains my strength like thirst? Bruises like the beatings? You don’t know me! I owe you nothing!I stood at once and called to the strangers. The Smirking man looked at me with small insect-like eyes. I thrust my hands out to him, open, my eyes looking to the hammer still strapped to his belt. The smirk slid up the side of his face.He gestured for his men to unchain me and quickly I was brought into the circle of his executioners. The smirking stranger unbuckled his own hammer and passed it to me. It was larger and more ornate than the weapons of his comrades. It was heavy in my hands… but not too heavy.The other prisoners still in their cages or chained to the rail began to beg to be given weapons as well. The long voyage had taken its toll on all of us. The deck was alive with promises to kill your small group and cries for food and water. The other prisoners standing beside me glared at me menacingly. They did not want to have their shares of the food and water divided anymore than it already was. They glanced about angrily and began to shout down the other prisoners, raising their hammers threateningly. The smirking man took all this in with satisfaction in his dark eyes.Then he shouted for silence, pointed to your small group who still lay on the ground and drew his finger across his throat.One hammer wielding prisoner grabbed you roughly by your chains and pulled you beneath his weapon. He raised it his eyes wild with the thought of fresh water and the red apples. His eyes remained open even after I brought the hammer down on the back of his head.He dropped limply to the ground. The other executioners backed away from me startled. The deck went silent for a moment and then the smirking man roared. He pointed a thick calloused finger at me…… and then drew his finger across his throat.They came at me at once. They had been fed better for days. They had not been struck or beaten as much as I had.But somehow… I was faster, stronger… and I had the biggest hammer.It was a frenzy of a fight. I swung with wild abandon and so did they. They may have struck each other as much as they struck me. But my body had been tempered by the beatings while they had been pampered by the apples, fresh water, warm clothes and vulnerable girls.The last hit the deck with a thud and lay unmoving as a pool of blood spread from his head. I was breathing hard through clenched teeth and was gripping the hammer above my head ready to continue the fight.The Strange men drew their swords and began to approach me.But I saw fear in a few of their eyes.Had they attacked as a group I would have been killed there on the deck like so many others. But their fear was great and they came at me only as each overcame it in turn. Their sword reach was great but not enough to overcome my longer arm reach. The first to come at me was too hesitant and he fell just like the would-be executioners. The next two tried to surround me but I swung before they could get themselves into position and they fell as well. The smirking man barked gruff orders and the other strangers regrouped. They would be able to take me in moments.I spun on my heels and turned to the cages behind me. One blow was all it took to pop the rusty lock and the gate fell open. A sea of angry, starved prisoners poured out onto the deck……and surrounded me.Behind them walking back up to the third deck was the smirking stranger. That smile had slid almost all the way to his ear.I screamed at them, my fellow prisoners, to fight, that we could take the boat. Their only response was to pick up the dropped hammers of the men that had been killing us all. They converged on me.My heart sank but a part of me knew that I deserved this. I let the strangers take me without a fight. I let them kill my neighbors without argument. I deserved this.I turned slowly, trying to keep any of them from rushing up behind him. They saw how I handled the hammer in my hands. None of them wanted to be the first to fall but they weren’t going to let me go.Then I saw you. You’d been released from your chains and stood foremost among the rest of the prisoners I’d freed. There was a lean and hungry look to you and you had daggers for eyes… and a sword in your hands.The hammer felt so heavy then. I could barely hold it before me. This was going to be bad.You raised your sword… I cast my eyes downward… and you stepped forward.I deserve this.You stopped about a foot away from me and when I look up our eyes met and I was filled with strength. It streamed from your eyes like sunlight and somehow parched my thirst, cooled my skin, filled my body with fire.With a cry you turned into the crowd surrounding us. Blood flew and people fell to the deck. The hammer was light in my hands and devastating to those who tried to stop me. We fought them together and for the first time since they had taken me I was not afraid.The great beast of a ship pitched and rolled as we cut across the deck. Soon people were jumping over the side of the ship to get away from my hammer and your sword. We fought our way into the crew quarters where the men had been taking liberties with the female prisoners. We happened upon a massacre. They had tortured those girls and left none alive.We fought on with a renewed fury and the deck became slick with blood. People cried out for the strangers to help them. They begged and pleaded to them like they were gods.The strange men had no choice then but to answer. There weren’t enough prisoners left to fight for them. The Smirking man advanced with a vanguard of his men, swords drawn.It doesn’t matter. With you standing beside me it felt as if the sea wind was lifting me. We ran into them and they fell too, dropping to the blood splattered floor like all the rest or rushing to the rail to pitch themselves into the sea.At last the smirking man stood alone by the rail on the top deck. His smile still imprinted on his face like a brand burned into his flesh. His eyes no longer smirked though; they glowered instead at his hammer that was held tightly in my hand.Refusing to fall to his own weapon he leapt up onto the rail and pulled a flint box from inside his jacket. With a slight twist to his lips he struck the box and set sparks to the huge black sails. They were ablaze in seconds.With one last twisting smirk he joined everyone else over the side.That last spiteful act had done its job. Soon the triple-decker ship was a whirling inferno. Embers from the burning sails floated through the air like falling snow in a storm of black smoke.I looked to you to saw the tiny embers landing lightly in your hair.Your hair didn’t burn, although it became flame… a brilliant mane of fire that flowed beautifully around your face and reflected in your eyes.I was drawn to you and our lips touched. Such a fire filled my soul.We made love on that third deck as the great ship burned down around us into the deep black sea.
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Posted by Night Manager on September 13, 2008 at 12:39am
This is 1st part of the short story I WAS going to enter into the BSFS Anthology but the whole story got too long and another Idea sparked to me anyway.REBIRTH OF SLICKp100…… 01……10101001100100110101……100001YES01100NO0YESNONO……YESNOYESYESNONOYESNONONO…Oblivion isn’t nothingness. It’s a great weight that presses upon you from everywhere at once. Oblivion isn’t blackness. It’s a stark white light that falls away from you, pulls at you from every direction. It’s maddening. Your thoughts run away from you into the distant nothing and become nothing.…YESNONONOYES……FIRE!One tiny spark in the void that was his entire universe fired. Being the only sensation his mind had been aware of for what must have been an eternity it raked across his being like fire and lightning. The void, he realized as his mind burned, had been peaceful. The weight had been a loving caress and the vast white nothing had been a protective blanket. Now the blanket had been pierce by a spark that struck at him from the distance.…:\?He could not turn away from it. Just as the nothingness had pressed upon him from everywhere so the fire railed against him from every direction. Still somehow the spark was just a spark, only a minute pinpoint paling against the infinite stark white. The second disruption of oblivion was a full conflagration compared to the spark. In an instant the quiet oblivion became fire and he burned. If he could see he would have closed his eyes… if he had eyes or even eyelids.He ached to move but he found that he was just as much nothing as had been oblivion. Nothing… he could feel nothing save the burning. His skin did not burn because he had none. His arms were not on fire because they did not exist.No legs… no voice to scream, no breath… no body… and yet he burned.Was this hell?...:\OPEN:X:The fire burned hotter and yet seemed, thankfully, to grow smaller as he became aware that the vast oblivion was still there. It sat just outside the heat of the fire. Was it shrinking or was he growing?Neither. The spark still burned. His awareness slid from one to the other. He could return to the oblivion or he could burn in the fire. He could decide.…PASSWORD:The spark was ever shifting, he sensed. It rolled and boiled like a sea. It became difficult not to focus on it and he burned again. Why was this happening to him?…*******.The sea of fire rolled out around him and became a horizon. The vast white was split in half; fire on one side of him and stark white oblivion on the other. If he had a body he would have trembled in fear of what could possibly be about to happen to him. In a panic he sought the vast white emptiness but the fire below would not be ignored.…C:\REM [PROJECT LANCER]……X:\EMERGENCYSTARTUP.EXE……LOADING PROGRAM…He retreated but the sea of fire continued to bloom, spreading farther than he could sense. What had he done to deserve this?… LOADING PARSON INTERFACE MATRIX……25%...Now came pain; real pain. A stabbing, throbbing right in the back of his skull. It dwarfed the pain of the fire… but at least he knew that he had a skull.… MAPPING NEUROLOGICAL LINKS……46%...Tiny pricks of pain stabbed at him in a million places inside of his new found skull threatening to drive him mad. He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t bite his lip. He could only pray for it to stop.…ASSOCIATING INTUIT POINTS……53%...The tiny pricks of pain flared then lanced outward from the base of his skull becoming hot lines of fire running down his spine. Again he could do nothing save endure it, not clench his jaw or ball his hands into fists or even writhe in agony. He had no body. He was nothing and he could not even remember who he had been.…HARMONIZING DATA STREAM……73%...A memory, visual. A face… feminine… dark hair… thick black glasses… pretty eyes wide with rage. She was mouthing something but he could not hear her. Then she smiled and raised a gloved hand bearing a knife that dripped with blood. His blood.…RETICULATING LANCER UNIT……77%...More pain and the memory was gone just as quickly as it had come. Only the image of the knife remained. She had killed him… he was dead… this was hell.…IMPORTING UPGRADES……91%...The pain got worse. His spine felt like it was being stabbed by a thousand tiny white hot needles. Then a canon went off. It was the first sound he had heard in… maybe since the woman killed him. It echoed all about him and then… laughter. It was an idiot’s laugh, grunt like and mocking. The canon went off again followed by the laughter again… the exact same laughter. The sound repeated over and over until finally he realized it was not happening now. It was another memory; the sound of someone being shot.…99%...The glow of the fire changed as he changed. The heat that once burned him now radiated against his mind softly, almost coolly. It pulsed now, like a beacon. It seemed to be waiting.…PRIMARY POWER ONLINE…The pain in his spine became a warm strong current of pressure, throbbing in time with the sea of cool fire. The pain in his skull waned until the pulsing pressure rising from his spine was all he could feel.…SERVO CHECK COMPLETE……COOLING UNIT ONLINE…The pulse in his head speed up to a smooth vibration. The cool fire remained steady and still pulsed. He had no eyes but he could almost see it.…HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS ONLINE… SYSTEM LOCKED……PRESURE SENSORS…ONLINE…Walls slammed up against him from all sides, hitting his arms (He had arms!) and his knees (He had knees!). Gravity had finally found him and pulled him down onto a hard……TEMPERATURE SENSORS… ONLINE……cold surface.…GYROSCOPIC SENSORS ONLINE……AUDIO SENSOR SUIT ONLINE…Sounds! Collisions echoing in the distance in a quickening cadence they were… footsteps!…VIDEO SENSOR SUITE ONLINE…They seemed to be stars at first he thought, gleaming points of neon blue light hovering against the white nothing. Then he realized that they were letters and symbols and most of all he realized that he was actually seeing them. Dancing, spinning and scrolling across his universe they were words he recognized:…ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL…A small dark two dimensional void opened up and as his focused on it, the void drew closer, grew larger until it sat behind the neon lettering nearly blocking out everything else. There was lettering inside the void but not neon, hovering, dancing or spinning kind. This lettering was simply black lettering on a dirty wooden surface. It read: PROPERTY OF KNOX CO.He knew that name. Knox was… important.The footsteps drew closer and then stopped. Angry voices replaced them, guttural and harsh. One of them sounded very much like the voice in his memory. The one that laugh mockingly after the canon had gone off. Anger and fear surged through his mind.…HYDRAULIC SYSTEM UNLOCKED…When he told his thigh muscles to push, he felt a surge of pressure where they should have been. Colors rolled across the face of the void floating before him. The dirty white wall with the lettering on it slid out of sight and a dark room moved into its place.…ACTIVATING TRI-D VISUAL SUITE…Two more visual boxes winked into existence one of each side of the original. Then slowly they merged and the objects in side it seemed to bloom to life. The room was suddenly three dimensional.…WELCOME USER 001……CLICK NEXT TO CONTINUE…Read more…
I write everyday. I sit down and I bang out notes and thoughts and essays on social and political philosophy. When it comes to writing for my career, I work every day, with very few exceptions (some Saturdays I'm hung over ;(, some Thursdays I'm tired). I am on the tenure hunt and loving every minute of it. I haven't stopped writing fiction, it gets written. It just doesn't get completed.I just started a new fiction project from some old notes. And the potential that was there four years ago, is still there. The characters talk to me and distract me when I'm writing my other work. And in the last few days, I've written more than I have in months. But I have a decision to make. It's always the same one.Am I writing this novel to finish it and publish it? Or am I writing this story because I love how I feel when I write?This may seem like a strange dilemma to some. Why write if not to publish? to share? When I write I feel -- well, it's hard to write about what I feel when I write. Sometimes my fiction feels like a diary. Not where I tell my one true story, no not a memoir, but a hope. For some writers, writing is like giving birth after pregnancy. A period filled with both joy and pain that pales in comparison to the remarkable finished product. But not for me. I always have postpartum depression when I finish a piece. And I hardly ever willingly share the whole thing.I have a novel that I finished nearly five years ago that I've let a few people see. I've even turned a few of the chapters into short stories that I've shared with friends through an old blog. Those that read parts of it, enjoyed it, encouraged me to pursue an agent. But I have no desire to have that novel published. Funny?Since then, I've only allowed myself to write unfinished stories. I start them, I bring them to crisis, and then.. I find a reason not to finish. I start another story and leave the other one 60 pages from done in a folder marked "old fict" on my hard drive.I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was 7. I wrote my first "book" that same year. When I was 14 my best friend and I passed a notebook in between periods of class, not to pass notes of gossip, but to co-author a weird fantasy tale that we both still remember nearly word for word. When I was 16, my mother forced me to enter a play I'd written into a city-wide contest- it won. And in college, I had a short story published under a pseudonym. And then, I stopped sharing my full works with people. Folks think I never finish them because I can't. I don't think that's it.Lately, however, as I grow more and more productive in my career writing, I remember what I told my friends when I was young..someday I'm going to be on the New York Times Bestseller list. It's inked under a picture of me from 10th grade -- "novelist of the future seeks spot on the Bestseller list." The desire to be a success (not the bestseller so much any more) to be read and known for my fiction has increased in the last few years. And I think this story I'm writing has real potential....To finish or not to finish... that is always the question.^esined.... it's backwards, but it still has meaning*do excuse the random wondering of my thoughts-- I figured this would be as good a place as any to post about it... I had initially planned to post my unfinished stories here.... I may still do that
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Red stood beneath the streetlamp. Facing him were two enforcers: a thin, swarthy male, and a woman with closely cropped blond hair.The youth had dramatically changed: his muscles had tightened over his bulk giving him a handsome, chiseled appearance, and his ginger skin fairly glowed with health.Yet Red’s eyes held the look of a trapped animal. And he kept looking over his shoulder, as if fearing he’d be attacked from behind.He looks good, thought Styx, better than I remember -- but he’s as jumpy as a damn cat. I guess smoking that s-- finally caught up with him. “Alright,” she asked, “what’s so important you dragged us out here?”“I got some work for you…I know who messed up that hit on the Council.”The sergeant breathed a sigh of disgust. “Well I can’t very well lock them up for botching an assassination, now can I?”“They burned those twenty-one enforcers too.”Styx narrowed her eyes. “Can you prove any of this? Because my bosses downtown are gonna want evidence. It’s a new day Red! I can’t just throw everybody in detention you got a grudge against! Lee and Gonzales are making too much noise about political prisoners as it is!”“I don’t want them detained!”“Are you saying what I think you are?”Red’s mouth twitched nervously. “I’ll make it worth your while.”“He speaks the magic words,” Styx drawled her voice heavy with sarcasm. “The corporate heads must want them iced.”“Something like that.”“Two thousand bills.”“Done.”“Coming up in the world are we? Alright, be here tomorrow night, same time.”“That’s everything you need to know.” Red handed her a slip of paper.Styx glanced down at the note, then folded it into her pocket. “I’ll take care of it.”“One more thing,” the youth’s voice trembled, “the one at the top of the list, don’t kill her. Understand?”“I thought you didn’t want them detained?”“Don’t put her in lock up, just hold her somewhere! I know you got some place you can stash her until tomorrow!”Styx curled her lip derisively. “What is she, somebody’s private piece of tail that broke out of her cage?”“I mean it Styx! Or all our a---es will be in a sling!”As Mark pulled his key from his pocket, a taser was pushed against the back of his head.“Don’t move…Now turn around, slowly!”They turned to face three, male peacekeepers. There was a huge Fuchsia officer, another tall, swarthy male with eyes like two black beads, and a stubby, Indigo enforcer with pitted cheeks.All wore the full regalia of enforcers. Helmets with pointed tops strapped beneath their chins, black shirts tucked into their pants and knee length boots.“Lace your hands behind your head,” the tall one ordered, “and walk back down the steps!”You think somebody snitched on us, Mark’s voice resounded clearly in Karla’s head, about those enforcers we iced?Maybe, Consuela replied, but why did they wait so long to pick us up?We can take them, thought Karla. There’s three of them, and three of us.Not yet, said Mark, we don’t where Joan and José are.All at once, Karla realized that none of them had spoken out loud! Mark! Is that you?Yes! How are we doing this?Damned if I know! Consuela, are you there?Right here -- freaking out!They were herded downstairs, where Joan and José were being held at taserpoint by twenty-seven more peacekeepers.Well, I guess we know where they are now, Consuela retorted.A diminutive blond woman sidled to the front, her lips a thin, humorless line. Crows feet dotted the corners of her hard, blue eyes. She was the only officer there not wearing a helmet, and her left sleeve was marked with three diagonal slashes.“Isn’t this cozy?“ Styx said. “Good work Josi.”“Don’t mention it,” the thin, swarthy officer replied.“Which one of you is Karla?” she asked.The Others tensed, but remained silent.“Did you hear me? I asked you a question! Which one of you is Karla?…Alright, we’ll do this the hard way. Read that description Josi."We can take them, thought Karla once more.You crazy? It was José. There’s thirty of them and they’re armed!… Wait a minute! Did I just hear you in my head? Uh-huh.Joan?Yeah…! When did we start reading minds?A few minutes ago, Consuela replied. Isn’t it groovy?How do we get out of this? asked Mark. I don’t fancy spending next six months in lockup.Become wolves, she said.You crazy? They’ll kill us the moment we start changing!No they won’t. A idea took shape in the Bronze woman’s mind, and was instantly communicated to the Others.You better be right, thought Joan. I got a feeling we won’t get a second chance.Josi finished his description: “…tall and dark. That would be you sugar,“ The enforcer smiled unpleasantly, “step to the front.”“Kiss my ass!” Karla snapped.Consuela’s cry rang out like a bell. Now!Before their eyes the Others became feral creatures -- sprouting hair over the length of their bodies, fingernails growing into talons, eyes blazing yellow.“Monster! They‘re monsters!” Without further ado, half the enforcers bolted.Styx gazed wide eyed at the hostages, controlling herself by sheer will. No matter what horrors she saw, bills were involved-- lots of bills. And my life. “Turk,” her voice was quivering, and she tried to steady it, “you and Josi go over there and get her!”“Sergeant,” the big man was trembling all over, “she ain’t human! None of ‘em are!”“That’s an order!”“Yeah Turk,” Karla growled, baring her fangs, “come on over here and get me!”“You better cut this shit out!” Styx yelled, her voice wavering on the edge of hysteria. “Or I’ll deliver you in pieces!…Take her!”As they lumbered toward Karla she became wolf, the Others followed her lead. Nowinstead of monsters, the officers were faced with five wolves ranging in color from snowy white to onyx....Copyright 2007 Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson all rights reserved
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Dr. Phil Brooks stood in a soundproof room surrounded by military brass that wanted answers and they wanted them yesterday. Dr. Brooks handed each of them black files stamped TOP SECRET/BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. “This is what we have been working on here in the labs. I am sure you will understand the seriousness of the situation at hand.”A grunt came from the Chairman of Joint Chiefs Brigadier General William Marks but he let it go.Studying the file, it took General William Thomas, M.D only a moment to understand the experiments that were being conducted at the facility. Concentrating, he studied the charts to determine what were being done to the cadavers. The viral genetic coding that the scientist were manipulating sprung an altered strain labeled the Necrosis or Zombie virus.General Thomas understood the ramifications because he was the leading authority for the U.S. military on destruction and theft of biological weaponry. What he knew was that this virus was scary beyond belief. It had a one hundred percent infect rate, anyone that came into contact with an infected person’s blood or body fluids was infected.“This doesn’t make sense,” General Thomas said, tossing the file onto the table. His gaze was flat. “You people were experimenting on dead people to produce a super-soldier but came across this mutated virus instead.”“The idea was to develop a soldier that didn’t die, so that our young men and women could stop dying on foreign soil at such young ages. So we were green lighted to develop such a soldier. Over the years our research has evolved and we stumbled onto this zombie virus. We isolated it in our underground labs and we continued to produce other medicinal products from its make up,” Dr. Brooks explained.“We did not believe that it could become airborne nor did we believe it could be transferred through a bite. Our experiments were in its infancy, so we were just trying to get the brain synapses to fire in the reanimated corpses.We had controls in place but one of our people was bitten but he never reported it. Over the course of a few days he began to show signs of infection, we quarantined him and documented his transformation. At the same time we tried to reverse the effects of the virus, with no success,” Dr. Brooks continued.“One evening an orderly was sprayed with blood by the infected…”“Sprayed?” General Thomas interrupted.“The infected vomited onto the orderly,” Dr. Brooks blinked. “He was quarantined as well but exhibited no symptoms of the virus so we released him after a few hours. We were wrong, he was the source of the outbreak here in Las Cruces.”“Las Cruces is a hot zone, the situation is critical, and operation orders call for a complete quarantine and total eradication of the infected.”“That is a Class Four Operational Mandate,” General Thomas frowned.Brigadier General Marks stood. “Based on the analysis, I have no other choice but to grant a green light on Operation Flashpoint.”“Are you certain you want to do this, General? If you don’t mind, I would like to know the course you want to take as far as evacuating the uninfected,” General Thomas broke in.“I want the National Guard to cut-off Las Cruces, no one enters or leaves. I want Seal Team Two dispatched to infiltrate the city to conduct search and rescue missions. Dr. Brooks and his staff will be available to test survivors. I want this mess cleaned up, like yesterday,” Brigadier General Marks stared over the room.
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I thank you guys for putting your money where your mouth is. I am coming completely out of pocket for all this because it has to be done. My son is not the only young black child that needs for positive black toys to play with. Second fiddle and sidekicks just won't cut it for him. I have to take a few months to get my skills up to par while the action figure is re-done and the storyboards for the comic book get drawn. The 3d Movie should be ready by Fall 2009. I had a flub with the sculptor in India. I had to fire him because he didn’t do what he was paid to do. He has now been replaced by a seasoned sculptor with 25 years experience in the toy industry, as an in house sculptor at Kenner/ Hasbro toys. The main character “Deacon” is getting an overhaul so he will have moveable part like old school star war or GI Joes. We are still on track for the holiday season so the people that have made donations will get the character during the holiday season. Thank you guys!!! Help spread the word! Visit: www.EarthSquadron.comRead more…
