The Unfinished Song: Initiate by Tara Maya
For anyone new to Rehabilitated Hack Writer Recommends, I target my book reviews towards novelists (you can find my prior reviews here). I also need to point out that this is a review of the first book of a series, not the series itself.
Before we dive headfirst into the fantasy pool of epic goodness that is Tara Mara’s The Unfinished Song: Initiate, we need to take a step back and formally define what epic fantasy is in the novel landscape of 2012. The classic definition of epic or high fantasy is it’s a sub-genre of fantasy set in invented worlds.
I hate that definition.
To me, epic fantasy needs to be, well, epic. Epic. This is fun, but not epic, fantasy:
A mysterious, sexy pale-skinned sword dancer hires an infamous mercenary to find her kidnapped brother. The mercenary learns there is more to women than bedding them, while the sister learns that if she lets her quest define her life, she becomes defeated before the rescue of her brother ever begins.
Bonus points if you can guess that book, by the way.
Now this, this is epic:
The good peoples, it seemed, never defeated the evil that threatened to consume them all, only delayed the final battle. The dark and vile lord who threaten freedom everywhere wrapped his essence into a ring, and now a band of unlikely heroes must cast the ring into the fiery pit of its creation or see it reunited with its maker. Setting out on their quest with the best intentions, the task soon falls to the smallest and unlikeliest hero while the armies of evil marshal to crush everything in its path. If the hero doesn’t destroy the ring and thus the dark lord in time, there won’t be anything left to save.
Epic fantasy is ambitious. Epic fantasy is grandiose. Epic fantasy is bigger than the sum of its parts. It’s heroic, it’s classic, it’s is all-encompassing and all-consuming fantasy. There are stakes. The stakes are high. You could say that the stakes are (wait for it!) epic.
And Mara’s Unfinished Song: Initiate is an introduction into 21st century epic fantasy. Here’s the teaser:
Dindi can’t do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi’s clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.
Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn’t commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don’t kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father’s wars and his mother’s curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her… assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.
Now I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, wow, that sounds cool, but um, that doesn’t sound too epic to me.
Oh, my friends, pour a cup of hot tea and wait for it. Don’t let the girly frou-frou cover and character-driven teaser fool you. Behind the rich, detailed world-building lies the heartbeat of an epic fantasy tale that rises above the bounds of mythology and into a coming-of-age novel that will leave the reader yearning for more. Maya clearly dips her plot and characters in several different mythologies, yet the book has a distinctive voice that tugs at your heartstrings.
Let’s deconstruct the goodness going on here.
World-Building
Maya’s world building kicks ass. It’s unique, it’s ambitious, and it has an undercurrent of femininity that, without the advent of the interweb tubes, the story Maya is trying to tell never would have seen the light of day. It’s so different it is, and I say this with no exaggeration, a high fantasy literary bomb of mass destruction. It is not so much a filled with troupes and familiar themes as it becomes a classic example of the very idea of world-building.
How does she accomplish this? Maya’s neolithic setting latches on the magical undercurrents of the world she envisioned and never lets them go.
For example, stone-aged peoples in the real world were concerned primarily with survival. Gender roles and relations follow a path necessary for the continuation of the individual and the group. There is a reason when an attractive woman smiles at a man she unconscionably puts her hair behind an ear, why rejection impacts men and women differently and why we are creatures of instinct despite our technological advancements.
Yet, toss magic into the fray. Magic, like technology, lends itself to the removal of the disparity of force. Maya takes this one step where few tread: it’s not necessarily what you can wield, but more what you know. Dindi’s quest isn’t so much a classic grab-onto-the-power but an unlocking of a mystery.
That moves us back to the impact of the type of magic Maya puts forth. Women, in her tribal society, have distinct roles but they are far from simple property. Women need to bear children so the society she has shaped takes that into account, but it’s not as if the magic is something that sits around in a feudal or even Victorian society as if it’s a character by itself rather than infused into the setting. It has a distinct feminine vibe without the politically correct bullshit.
This is evident from the ground up. It’s in the way characters talk. You might think ancient peoples would also have a primitive language and culture. But neolithic-era people with magic? Maya nails this. It’s in the way they dress, how they pick their mates, how they relate to other tribes, how they view politics, honor and duty. In a world where magic comes forth from a dance, where pixies, talking bears, and fae abound–Maya uses this magic as the glue to everything: setting, plot and characterization. It is the basis of her world-building and because of the creative and talented way she does it, Initiate comes off as highly original, unique and engrossing.
I’m not exaggerating here. World-building. How To. Tara Maya. Initiate. Read it.
Characterization
My number one surprise with this book is that this book has guy stuffs in it. I could talk at length how fascinating Dindi is, how she comes across as both vulnerable yet puts aside her fears to do what must be done. How she seems like she is fourteen going on eighteen one moment, and fourteen going on twelve the next. Maya pens her as tenacious and doesn’t shy away from giving her a sexuality. Dindi’s great.
My little fantasy heart, however, belongs to Kavio.
Because Kavio kicks ass.
Kavio, actually, is a tragic figure. Maya gives him nobility and youthful idealism as his moral fiber, and tosses him into situations of conflict where it becomes apparent that Kavio greatest enemy is himself. Kavio is a good guy, but he’s also a weapon of mass destruction. He follows the rules when obviously he could, quite simply, make up the rules himself with his magic. He’s like a Jedi Knight being given a ticket by a traffic cop. Press hard, Kavio, you’re making five copies. The cop has a gun and feels superior, but Kavio could turn him inside out, burn his cruiser, go to the station, and have it swallowed whole by a rent in the earth while blood pixies rip out everyone’s eyeballs through their noses making the police station scene in The Terminator look like a scene from a Jane Austin novel.
Instead, he signs.
Did I mention he’s a bad-ass?
As a writer, Kavio fascinates me mightily. I’m beginning to wonder if someone handed Maya an honorary penis because she hones in on the masculine feel of Kavio with laser-like focus. She nails what I call the Tragic Masculine Paradox: when confronted with an attractive young woman coming-of-age, the man of honor is torn with feelings of protectiveness as a father figure yet desires as a lover. You see this in fiction all the time. Rarely do you see it done with such empathy and understatement. Many writers go overboard with this, giving this a tragic (and pervy) element. Maya, however, simply presents it as-is. Kavio has bigger problems than his youthful naïveté.
Dindi’s feminine, innocent beauty, simply highlights Kavio’s main attraction: Dindi is magically powerful. Without going into the rest of the series, he’s slowly falling in love, and love, my friends, is messy. Dindi is more than a girl and then more than a young woman. She’s the catalyst to…
But I digress. Dindi isn’t the only character in a come-of-age journey in Initiate.
Plot
Which leads us to the clever, delicious plotting, and how we come full circle back to our discussion about epic fantasy.
A prevalent, and welcomed trend in speculative fiction is the come-of-age journey set in a fantastic (be it wonderful or dystopian) setting. I am a huge sucker for these types of stories, and in Initiate, Maya plots a literal come-of-age journey as Dindi goes out to become a woman, ready or not (and no, she wasn’t ready).
But epic fantasy has stakes. Big stakes. End-of-the-world (or worse!) type stakes, but unlike much of what is out there today, this book is surprisingly not a coming-of-age novel with an epic plot line to give the character’s punch and excuses to reveal their literary humanity. No, this is a book that provides the foundation for the true story: the battle with the malevolent forces out to crush humanity. It’s not exactly Clan of the Cave Bear meets The Lord of the Rings, but you get the idea.
Dindi is on a personal journey and she yearns to become a magical dancer in the society she was born in. However, if, as a reader, you’re paying attention, you can spot the epic plot that Maya is serving up like drops of water to the thirsty.
And this is where we depart the shackles of traditional publishing. Maya fearlessly has plotted out a twelve book series and each book is building on that plot in a relentless, epic fashion. Let me be very clear, I am not a big fan of many-book fantasy series. Many of them have problems with continuity, editing, and, quite frankly, sometimes as a reader, I feel I’ve been ripped off around book four because I’m being milked rather than being cleverly entertained.
eBooks, and today’s book market, however, has expanded the types of books we can find and buy, and Maya’s greatest accomplishment as a writer is taking full advantage of medium. The twelve book format, based on her world-building, is not only daring but also a little slice of epic fantasy goodness, and her skill at characterization draws the reader right into her world.
It’s epic fantasy by our very definition, and it’s yummy. Give me those twelve books. I’ll gladly ready every one of them. If you love a good fantasy series fix, Maya’s your drug dealer, Baby.
More Please
You can tell I’m a fan. Initiate is a wonderful, rich and diverse book and the series thus far is a fantasy reader’s fantasy series. I do have quibbles with it, but they are nits in the larger picture. I’m not a fan of the cover art. I disagree with some of the editorial decisions made and feel Maya’s talent could easily support books of larger word counts, smoothing some of the abruptness of the plot presentation.
Yet these are mere nits because from a storytelling standpoint, it just doesn’t work, it’s a slice of Awesome Toast with Bacon. I tell my non-writer, but reader friends, the Era of the Reader is upon us. Novels like Initiate proves that assertion. If you are a writer, take a step back from all the meta that goes on with writing, look at the bigger picture, and read Initiate. You’ll realize the sum of the book is bigger than its parts, and, at its heart, epic fantasy many readers want to buy, but haven’t really been able to do so.
I give Initiate four bacon strips out of five. And while this is a singular book recommendation, I’ll just drop a teaser that as good as it is, the other books in the series get better.
Anthony’s 2011 Writing Year in Review
The Rehabilitated Hack Writer Presents: 2011!
(TRUMPETS)
These posts crack me up because they inadvertently become popular with my blog harem and my other 30.7 readers. I’m like… a guy. Who writes… or something. Perhaps everyone loves my dry, sarcastic wit. Or maybe you’re all expecting me to trip over myself. Or perhaps see this post:
The Wife Unit here. I’m sorry, my husband won’t be blogging any more. He made one snarky comment too many and I brained him with a stainless steel Kitchen-Aid sauce pan. No worries, the pan is okay. The DH, however, needs some time to recover.
Admit it you could totally see that.
But I digress. To talk about 2011, let’s go back to 2010.
Somewhere in 2010 I posted a bunch of story ideas. I was really reaching for some direction. Which story appealed to me? Which one could you see me writing?
2011 I figured all that out. Mainly through the mind-clarification process of editing. Here’s the smattering of stories I was considering:
- That book in which stuff blows up in space
- An epic fantasy novel book about dragons and singing
- A book about high school cheerleaders from Utah battling space zombies (you know you want to read it)
- Death by Decades: every ten years someone tries to kill the main character
- The Baby Dancers: A YA novel about two brothers who travel across the Endless Void to rescue a baby
What I Learned
We’ll in 2011, here’s what I learned:
I have a dozen dozen ideas in my head. And none of them matter if, when I sit down and write, the voicing is not there. I can tell if the writing has a proper voice.
Holy crap. I can see the voicing.
It’s as if I’ve climbed a mountain, and found the Writing Guru, who then handed me the gift of a lifetime. It’s not that these ideas have bad plots, or maybe the main character is not interesting. I start a novel, and I can tell if the voicing is rocking the pages or if it’s stilted and flat. If it’s not there, I move on. I may have wasted 10,000 words. But I know. I know it down to my tosies.
I can’t begin to describe how liberating this is. It’s a ray of sunshine. Chorus of angles. A (REDACTED) with a (REDACTED) while (REDACTED).
Let me give you an example. I sent Super Cassie a plot idea and she about exploded in excitement, demanding the book in her mailbox.
I sat down and wrote two chapters. The plot is wonderful, and the main character is interesting, but the voice of the story is flat. It’s a literary sexless wonder, and I say that with total affection. I’ve put the manuscript aside.
So Tell Us About the Writing Already
Other than my voicing breakthrough, I wrote two books.
One was Stuff Blowing Up in Space. The book needs another revision, but I have plans for this novel, oh yes I do. It’s creative and fun. It’s sexy and the story arc is epic. EPIC I TELL YOU.
The other book was The Lightning Giver.
And ho-boy (ho-boy being a technical term) what a novel The Lightning Giver is. I have a manuscript that, based on my beta readers reactions, is not so much a YA novel as it Weapon of Emotional Mass Destruction.
It scares me. It really does. I’m not sure I can handle making so many people cry.
I have yet to have The Wife Unit read that one, by the way. It will push all her buttons and I don’t really want her to chase me around the house with a Kitchen-Aid pan.
I’m querying it anyway. If it doesn’t bite, I’ll move on. Because that is what I do. Which leads me to…
2012: I’m Still a Relentless, Productive Little Snot
What’s next? Besides querying my latest widely, I have a variety of things whispering to me:
- That Baby Dancer book
- That Dragonsong book
- Some henceforth untitled book about a teen boy breaking into Hell to rescue the girl of his dreams
- A book about a starship pilot fighting for a dying race while trying to come to grips with his legacy
- Rat Princess, the aforementioned book Cassie wants in her mailbox
- A sci-fi idea that keeps bubbling up about a warrior poet or something like that
- Cheerleader zombie fighters!
It’s quite the diverse list. Which is good, Someone told me I should enjoy non-contract writing while I could. I believe that was wise advice. Which leads me to…
Self-Publishing: That Thing I Keep Getting Asked About
People ask me constantly if I am ever going to self-publish.
I don’t wanna!
There are many reasons, but here are three that stare me in the face:
- It will cost me about $3000 to self-publish a book. Yes. 3K. I have editorial standards. I have cover-art standards. Both of these things cost money.
- To do it right, it’s a time commitment.
- I am a social creature, a consultant by trade. I like to talk with people and work with other professionals. I am a professional’s professional. That’s what I do. Writing is already a solitary pursuit. Self-publishing to me sounds like a lonely, lonely road.
With that said, I’ve also been told point-blank to stop screwing around. That there was a market for my stuffs and keeping it locked away was simply delaying my back-list.
Okay. That appealed to my “Just Do It” and see what happens nature.
But I don’t know, folks. The positive thing about being unpublished is I’m “allowed” to explore different genres. I could self-publish something and then want to move in an entirely different direction. Yes, I know all about the use of pen names (don’t ask, you don’t want to know). I don’t have any enthusiasm for publishing a novel under a different name. That’s not me.
I don’t have a line in the sand about self-publishing, but I am leery about spending so much time doing something I might dislike immensely. I am a father and a husband and a writer with a full-time job that is intellectually challenging and satisfying. If ever there was someone who should pursue an agent for Team Anthony it would be me.
Then again, the publishing landscape keeps rolling around. eBooks have torn away from traditional publishing methodologies and the path to readership is divergent.
Color me undecided. Which leads me back to…
2012: I’m Still a Relentless, Productive Little Snot
By the end of 2012 I will have written two novels.
That, my friends, is a bit of the awesome.
Weeeeeee!
Oh, and leaving Facebook for a year? Best. Idea. Ever.
Best Christmas Present, Ever!
Does The Wife Unit love me or what?
Oh, Liara!
In Mass Effect, it was FemShep, Liara and Tali. We saved the galaxy.
In Mass Effect 2, she broke my heart, but I won her back.
I wonder if I can get The Wife Unit to dye her hair blue on my birthday…
The following video is the culmination of two epic action role-playing games, with the last installment due in March.
I could write an entire essay over how emotionally compelling the female Shepard romance with Liara was. In Mass Effect, she was this naive, geeky beauty that endeared me to her feminine, yet alien, ways. On the battlefield, paradoxically, she was a holy terror.
In Mass Effect 2, she flat out broke my character’s heart. She was distant, hard, and withdrawn. Stepping outside the context of the Mass Effect Universe, I thoroughly felt the writers had lost it completely.
Then Lair of the Shadowbroker, the DLC of all DLCs comes around and smacks you alongside the head. The setup was perfect. The voice acting was perfect. It was epic.
And it was romantic.
My ending was slightly different because I didn’t lose any team members and I had a little black party dress on, but everything else is on the money.
Games like this is why I don’t go see movies hardly at all.
The Honey-Do List Affair
Katie looked at the Honey-Do List on the refrigerator.
The first item had a line drawn through it. “Move the desk in the office to the other wall.” The desk was too heavy for her to move, but her husband had moved it around the office as if it weighed nothing. The item under it, “Change the smoke detector batteries,” and all the other ones that followed, remained unchecked.
She frowned at the list. Then she stuck her tongue at it. Then she tried to repress a giggle, but failed. It came out as a snort.
Tom knew she hated standing on a ladder. It gave her a mild case of vertigo, the feeling of falling while standing up. She could imagine falling off the ladder and landing on her head. Splat. Blood everywhere. Perhaps a broken neck. She could imagine a loud “snap” and then a feeling of oblivion before sliding into it.
She sighed. She didn’t want to do it. It was the husband’s job. Tom was a funny guy, he would do anything she asked as long as it was on a list and he could plan when he was going to do it, yet the items that remained undone clawed at her gut, a list highlighting a failure of… what, she didn’t know. Her husband? Her aptitude as a wife? How they were a couple?
Nagging of course was out of the question. She was not a nag. She was a beautiful, young lady, thank you very much. Beautiful young ladies do not nag.
She got out the ladder and put on an apron. She put the batteries in an apron pocket, took a deep breath, and climbed the ladder.
When she got to the top, she grabbed the detector with one hand in a death grip. The feeling of vertigo was intense. A third of her felt like she was falling, another third felt like she was building up to an orgasm and the last third that she had to pee.
As she stood there, she briefly wondered if perhaps there was an upside to vertigo. That’s stupid, she thought. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she opened her eyes, the feeling was gone.
She changed the batteries. The worse part, actually, was pressing the test button. The noise hurt her ears. Then she got out earplugs, and that was that.
Look at me, I am all handywoman and stuffs, she thought. She crossed the item off the list.
She put back the ladder, went into her walk-in closet, and cried. She wrapped her hands around her knees and buried her face. Her lovely house didn’t feel so lovely anymore.
***
Katie wrinkled her nose at the next item on the list. It was a doozy. “Power wash the driveway.”
Using a power washer. Like she knew anything about that. Her dad tried to show her once, but by that time, she was putting on a cheerleader uniform and bouncing her boobs at athletic man-boys. One of them could do the power washing.
Her poor dad. Three daughters. And he was such a handyman. She made sure to find someone just like him.
Only Tom was a tiny bit different. Daddy never used a list. He just did it.
“Damn it, Tom,” she said, aloud.
She went to the garage with a little notebook, and wrote down what the washer was. Then she went online. Not only did she find the instruction manual on how to operate it, she found instructional videos.
She easily washed the driveway and porch. The next day, her arms and shoulders were sore. She took a hot bath and remembered the last time Tom and her made love it. She got several bruises, so he went with the not-so-subtle hint of cornering her in the shower instead.
She ran her hand down a soapy thigh before submerging it.
The Honey-Do List wasn’t the only thing under neglect.
***
The next item on the list was worse than the power washing. “Install a new sink trap.” She had to get under the sink, and couldn’t figure out how to uninstall the old one. She couldn’t find purchase to pry it out with her flat-head screwdriver. It seemed melded to the sink.
Vowing to do it all herself, she drove back to Home Depot where she got the new kit and the sealant goop, and tracked down the grandpa-looking guy who found it for her.
“Unhook the drain pipe, and then whack the assembly with a rubber mallet from the bottom.”
She smiled. She was thinking of something with a bit more finesse.
When she did that, the old sealant crumbled loose and landed in her eyes.
She envisioned hitting Tom with the rubber mallet. It was an unkind thought, but it made her feel better. She crossed off the item on the list with a vicious stroke of her felt pen.
***
She hated the next item, feeling like a complete and utter fool for putting it on the list. “Make slow, hot love to my hot little body,” she had put. She thought it would be a cute reward for getting halfway down the list.
Her hot little body. Oh, how vain and stupid she was. She still had a hot little body, all right.
Sometimes she wanted touch so much, she felt like going down to the seedy bar outside of town, in a miniskirt without panties, and fucking the first guy who sent a pickup line her way. Against the dumpster out back. Bonus points if he was wearing a ball cap and needed to see a dentist.
Instead, she got a glass of wine and drank half of it.
She walked over to Tom’s piano. He loved his piano almost as much as he loved her. They met that way. She was sitting in the hotel lobby during a sorority trip waiting for her sisters, looking at this cute guy with quite the bored expression on his face reading a book.
It must have been a bad book, because Tom threw it in the trash, looked around, and spied the piano there. He walked up to it, contemptuously tossed the “Please Don’t Touch the Piano” sign aside, and started to play.
And oh, how magical that was—it was beautiful and sexy and perfect.
And damn it all, if that man didn’t even know she existed. The music consumed him so, that she might as well have been invisible.
But he stopped playing when she sat down next to him on the bench. He looked very surprised.
“I know chopsticks,” she said, and he laughed. She played it for him and he smiled with flashing eyes and that’s when she knew her heart wasn’t her own. Two weeks later, she gave him her virtue.
Now his piano, like her body, had been silent for months.
She drank some more of the wine, and dumped the rest on the hammers in the middle.
“Whoops,” she said.
***
Tom’s piano tuner wasn’t the cuteness of her husband. He was an older gentleman, with an elegant wedding band. Where Tom was tall, he was average. Where Tom was muscular, he was almost too skinny. Where Tom had bright, brown eyes, Rich’s eyes had the beginning of crows-feet behind glasses.
But his eyes were blue. They went quite nicely with his blond and grey hair. She always liked blue eyes on an older gentleman.
Rich played the piano with precision and perfection. Tom played it with passion. Rich was Bach. Tom was Beethoven.
When she called, Rich said of course he could fix it. She insisted on making sure he replaced the felt, not simply repaired it.
How much wine did you spill? he asked.
An entire glass, she said. I feel so stupid, she added.
No worries. I just wanted to know how much time to book.
I would appreciate it if you took your time. The piano means a lot. Could you come on Friday?
I have a volunteer gig at my son’s school, but after that, sure, Katie. You bet. Be there at 1:00.
Thanks, Rich.
More importantly, Rich loved to look at her legs. Rich had a fine appreciation for the beautiful things. His occasionally friendly-wandering eye had made her feel appreciated.
Wanted.
***
Rich was punctual.
“Hey, how are you?” he said when she let him in.
She closed the door. She locked it.
“I’m okay. Do you need something to drink or something?”
“No, I’m good,” he said, heading towards the piano.
“Okay.”
She went upstairs and stripped. She put on black stockings, reapplied her makeup, and put on a black silk slip that stopped halfway up her butt.
She came downstairs as Rich was leaning the lid to the piano on the wall.
“I lied,” she said, feeling hot. She was sure her face was red. “I only spilt a bit of wine. A quarter of a glass.”
“Katie…”
“I know you’re married, Rich. That’s why I picked you. I’m not some pathetic basket case. You’ll never tell, and neither will I. I don’t want men sniffing around me like I’m some lonely looser.”
He stood up straight. He looked uncomfortable, but his eyes betrayed desire.
“You’re taking one for the team, Rich, no more, no less.”
He hesitated.
She walked over and kissed him.
***
Where she would ride Tom’s passions in bed holding on for dear life, Rich was altogether something different. He was in bed as he was—gentle, giving, precise.
But he was also an experienced man. She wanted him to take her from behind, but he did not, ignoring her request and pressing down on her, face-to-face. She wanted him to satisfy his lusts and leave, but he kissed her and filled her with loving strokes until she peaked. She wanted to lie there like a passive lump, the prom queen taken by the band nerd, but she wrapped her legs around him and used her body as she best she could.
Afterwards, Rich held her. She felt like biting him, hard, but kissed him instead.
***
She watched him warily as he dressed. Snuggle time over. He had to go home to his wife.
“You need a lover who isn’t going to leave you lying there, Katie,” he said, stating the obvious.
“That’s what I had,” she whispered, turned her head, and stared at the closed blinds.
When he was gone, she took her pen and put a line through the item on the list.
As if anyone would notice.
Surprisingly, she didn’t cry.
What did that mean?
***
“Put rat poison in the attic.”
The last item on the list.
It took her a long time to find the stuff. She found it in a locked cabinet in the garage of which she had to search all around for the key. The box had a Mr. Yuck sticker on it.
Like she was going to have children. Ha. That would mean having sex. With a husband. Or, at least, with a man without a vasectomy.
As she put down the traps and baited them, she sniffed at the poison. She briefly wondered what it tasted like, and then thought that was the most stupid thing she had ever thought, in, well, ever.
Enough, she thought.
She grabbed her list, crossed the last item off of it and headed towards the city.
Halfway there, she pulled off the road and threw up.
Confession may be good for the soul, she thought, but it was certainly eating her insides.
***
“Tom, I had an affair. I made love to another man. It wasn’t just get-it-over sex, either. I loved every minute of it,” she said.
Tom didn’t say anything back, of course, his headstone silent as always.
She sat next to his grave.
“I finished your list, Babe. See?” She held it out. Then she rolled it up and put it in the flower holder.
“I want someone to pick me,” she said. “Next time. Man Number Three. I’ve picked you and I picked Rich.”
The wind rustled through the trees.
“Yes. I think it’s time for me to be chased. I’m chased-able material.”
She closed her eyes. She could practically feel his arms around her.
“Damn, Tommy, I miss you so, so much.”
She got up and walked away, vowing never, ever, to put a list on the refrigerator again. Her daddy didn’t need a list, and neither did she.
WINNERS of THE IONIA SANCTION Advance Reader Copies!
Free stuff! For just dropping by and saying hello! How cool is that?
I used random.org to select my two winners.
- The winner of the Virgin Never Before Read and Unspoiled by Human Hands ARC goes to Steph Schmidt
- The winner of the Slightly Used By The Wife Unit ARC goes to Brandi Cruickshank
I’ve sent you two mail! Reply back with your address and you can read the book before of the Unwashed Masses(TM).
Damn, I love books.
Best,
Anthony
Win a Free ARC of Gary Corby’s The Ionia Sanction
Details below!
Athens, 460 B.C. Life’s tough for Nicolaos, the only investigating agent in ancient Athens. His girlfriend’s left him and his boss wants to fire him. But when an Athenian official is murdered, the brilliant statesman Pericles has no choice but to put Nico on the job.
The case takes Nico, in the company of a beautiful slave girl, to the land of Ionia within the Persian Empire. The Persians will execute him on the spot if they think he’s a spy. Beyond that, there are only a few minor problems:
He’s being chased by brigands who are only waiting for the right price before they kill him.
Somehow he has to placate his girlfriend, who is very angry about that slave girl.
He must meet Themistocles, the military genius who saved Greece during the Persian Wars, and then defected to the hated enemy.
And to solve the crime, Nico must uncover a secret that could not only destroy Athens, but will force him to choose between love, and ambition, and his own life.
I’m giving away not one but TWO Advanced Reader Copy’s of Gary Corby‘s The Ionia Sanction.
(one, two ARCS AH AH AH!)
All you have to do to win is:
**Comment below with your email
**Have a valid postal address somewhere in the world
That’s it. Don’t you love simplicity? I sure do!
I will randomly select two winners on Sunday, October 23.
I will put that copy in the mail on Monday. That version will be an virgin ARC, waiting for your hands in breathless anticipation.
The other copy will go out sometime next week after my lovely wife is done reading it.
Which leads me to “How Gary’s Book Almost Caused a Divorce,” by Anthony Pacheco, Rehabilitated Hack Writer.
See, there I was, innocently editing my latest novel, when I get an email from Gary. Gary asks hey, do you want an ARC or two for giveaways?
I’m sitting in The Writer Chair(TM) at home, and go something like “Ah, man.” This is where I get into trouble.
Wife Unit: What?
Anthony: Gary wants to send me an ARC of his next book.
Wife Unit: What’s an ARC?
Anthony: That’s an advanced reader’s copy, available before you can buy it. Normally for reviewers and promotional giveaways.
Wife Unit: Cool!
Anthony: Well, it’s my policy to not accept promotional material including ARCs for books I recommend.
Wife Unit: But this is Gary’s book.
Anthony: Yes.
Wife Unit: You know how much I liked the first one.
Anthony: Yes.
Wife Unit: And…
Anthony: And?
Wife Unit: …
Anthony: ?
Wife Unit: It’s a good thing this couch is really comfortable.
Anthony: Um…
Wife Unit: I’m sure you would not be the first husband banished to the couch over an “ARC.”
Anthony: Um…
Wife Unit: The dog could use some company downstairs. He can keep you warm.
Anthony: Um, I think I’ll tell Gary thanks, that is really nice of him and send him our address.
Wife Unit: Thank you, Husband.
Now this story does not end here. Today I get in the mail the two ARCs.
Wife Unit: Oh! My book! Yay!
Anthony: Who loves you?
Wife Unit: You do! But… I just thought of something. If I read the ARC now, I’ll just have to wait longer for the next book.
Anthony: …
Anthony: I am so blogging this.
The Ring
Work in Progress:
The Fleet officer and her attaché, two human women in their impeccable uniforms, turned to her as they were about to enter the tower gleaming in the sunlight. Heisa was amazed at how tall it was. Humans were builders, indeed.
The officer graced her with a frown.
“Huntress, please. You are making a mistake. We’ve trained for this and you have not. Mr. Belton is not your average person. He is a telepath of vast and unknown power. He’s not the type of telepath you’ll run into in Fleet, classified and sorted by ability. It’s all a big question mark. You’re a sish—you don’t have the telepathic ability to help yourself or him.”
Heisa realized she had stopped walking.
Out of all her dealings with humans, no human had ever spoken to her as forcibly as this one did. Indeed, a little part of her brain was now going danger! danger! and that gave her pause.
“Captain. How bad could it be? What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You don’t understand. Fleet doesn’t even allow telepaths like Belton to join. We don’t know. Really. Here’s a scenario. His grief consumes you like flame. It burns into your mind and swirls there like the Winds of Despair, and stays there until you die. We can’t shield ourselves and you at the same time.”
“But humans don’t grieve that way,” she whispered.
“Damn it, Huntress. Stop it. You’ve never lived on Earth. So I’m going to let you in on the big human secret. Are you ready?”
Heisa frowned. She did not like the officer’s tone. “Tell me.”
The officer leaned forward. “Telepaths like that aren’t human. The look human, they were born human, but past puberty, they turned into something else.”
Heisa rocked back on her heels. She licked her lips and swallowed.
She took a deep breath. Then she reached out her hand. The officer looked surprised, but she slowly held her hand.
Heisa held the hand to her breast. Then she let go of the heartache she was holding inside. Her husband. Her daughter. Her mother. Her symbiant and wife, Jennifer. Natalie.
The human hissed, actually hissed, and jerked back her hand. “Oh, Huntress, I am so, so, sorry.” Her eyes watered over, and she looked so sad.
Humans have such expressive, pretty eyes, thought Heisa.
“You see, Captain, I already live in the Eye of Despair. But this day isn’t about me. It’s not. It’s about a promise I made to return a ring. You call me Huntress. You should not. I am, only what you see before you. My only goal is the ring. My life is this ring. Donavan will get this ring, and I will give it to him.”
The human wiped her eyes. “You want to die,” she whispered.
“I’m dead already.”
From My Current Work in Progress
They called themselves the WBKC—The Whimsical Billionaire’s Knitters Club. There were ten of them, and this month’s business was the debacle of the sudden war, and wool-blend socks.
Ha ha ha!
Stand with Her or Not at All
Center of the Sun
Conjure One
***
Young girl in the market
Music to the men
When the men leave
Her eyes are red
When her eyes are closed again she sees the dark market of above
And she sings
‘They say the most horrible things
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done’
Young boy in the market
Follows all the men
When the men leave
He’s out of his head
When his eyes are closed again he sees the dark market of above
And he sings
‘They break the most beautiful things
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done
I look into your eyes
And I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done’
Center of the sun
Young boy in the market
Sees the girl alone
And asks her
‘Have you lost your way home?’
She sings
‘You say the most beautiful things, just like my violins’
I look into your eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done
When I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done
‘Cause
I hear violins
I hear violins
I hear violins
I hear violins
Center of the sun
I hear …violins
What Kind of Writer am I?
Sometimes I come up with characters that resonate with me, but no plot. The characters sit around, probably sipping tea, coffee or some such, waiting for a plot to show up. When one does, I start writing.
Other times, I have a plot and no characters. There is no distinctive character voice(s) that draws me in to start writing.
At some point, I’m going to have a setting show up waiting for both a plot and characters.
Maybe, just maybe, if I have enough of this going on in my brain, they’ll get together and knock some socks off.
I’m hoping!
New Opening Paragraph
Wisteria Heights High School students Jerry, Veronica, Davis, and Will, led by Cheerleader Captain Miranda, were putting the final touches on their plan to kill Alexander, the varsity wide receiver.
***
I shouldn’t giggle at new writing so soon, but I did when I came up with that.
Tee-hee!
So, what do you think?
I’m on a roll.
Yours Alone
The last page.
The panic, the emptiness, the loss of control feeling as a novel goes from me to we. These feelings continue. They go on and on.
Why?
The root of this anxiety is not fear.
The root is not the possibility of rejection.
The root is not swimming in fate’s sea of circumstance .
These feelings come from ownership.
The work is yours alone. Everything that happens after the last page is yours alone. Everything that comes next is by will and by permission.
The novel is the ultimate rebellion against collectivism, even if it rallies for that.
Such a rebellion comes at a price.
Own it.
Ding! Edits Done!
I’ve made my first editing pass through The Lighting Giver, my contemporary YA project, with a slice of urban fantasy.
It is the best thing I have written. Ever.
Oh 30.3 readers, who wants to beta read it?
(it’s spooky how this poignant photo describes a scene in the book!)
The Reader and the Writer
Today no one tried to kill me with a knife.
Today my wife did not miscarry.
Today my wife did not miscarry again.
Today I did not witness a violent crime, helpless to do anything about it.
Today my heart wasn’t broken, making me feel used, dirty and cheap.
Today I did not have to put my beloved cat to sleep myself because I could not afford to take her to the vet.
Today I did not wake up from surgery and cry tears of blood.
Today I did not see a volcano explode and destroy the family vacation spot.
Today I was not homeless.
All of these bad things happened to me, but not today.
When I read I want to forget. Sometimes all I want to do is remember. I want to go somewhere else. I want to be entertained. I want to know what you think at night when the house is quiet. I want to you to be honest with me. I want you to weave your values and moral fiber throughout your story. I want you to tell me what’s in your heart. I want to laugh, I want to cry and I want to snicker at a bad joke.
Show me with words. Show me the feeling when the man you loved lowered himself on you for the first time. Show me how your heart would beat so fast when you saw that special girl in her pretty dress on Sunday during church. Show me the little face sleeping in her bed when you snuck in late at night to stare at her and take comfort that her chest was going up and down, her breath going in and out.
I need it all. I need nothing. I need a connection.
Today nothing bad happened to me today.
The day is not over yet. If something bad will happen to me today, I might cry. I might hug. I might kiss. I might wake up before dawn and feel sorry for myself. I might grieve. I might freak out. I might never be the same person that I was when I woke up this morning.
All of those are maybes. One thing is certain as the blood running through my veins.
I’ll pick up a book and read, either to escape or drown in it. In that moment, it’s just you and me.
The Reader.
And the Writer.
Oh, Hey, I Wrote Another Book
I have a specific, honed, editing process. When I finish a novel, I put that sucker aside and do something else for a few weeks.
Apparently, doing something else turned into write another book.
As my 37.3 readers (Google tells me I had more readers via my RSS feed than previously thought) know, I had these various characters, setting and a ton of world building love for a Space Opera novel I was calling Stuff Blowing Up in Space.
After I finished The Lightning Giver, a plot for SBUIS hit me like an exploding nova.
The plot was all I needed, and I completed the first draft last night. DONE.
People, I am officially OUT OF CONTROL. The novel needs a round of edits, but it’s far, far from me just barfing words out on the page. It’s wonderful Space Opera plot with mysterious and sexy aliens, hunky men, and, of course, stuff blowing up in space. Some cuts, some edits, some polishing and that sucker is ready for some query love.
I’ve titled the book The First Casualty of War and it stands alone but also works as the first book in a trilogy. Now I turn back to editing The Lightning Giver while recharging my creative batteries by reading a bunch of books sitting in my queue.
Below you will find the first draft of a query. It needs work, but I was somewhat surprised I could pull a draft query of a Space Opera book in 249 words.
Bad Day for a Shish Princess
Fleet Commodore Philip Connery thought nothing of giving a sish Huntress a ride to the ass-end of nowhere even knowing the mono-gendered sish used sexual attraction to feed on the blood of both enemy and friends. If the odd crewmember arrived paler than normal for his or hers shift, well, that was the price of doing business with the beautiful sish. The sish saved their humans allies in the last war. A ride was the least he could do.
The impromptu mission was going well until they encountered pirates deep in the sish core.
Sent by the Commodore to obtain reinforcements, Captain James Tilbrook was at the end of his options when the surprisingly young and beautiful sish Space Marshal of Aoe Station refused to believe his story.
So he shot her and tossed her into his ship. Now the entirety of Aoe’s forces is out for his blood. Literally.
Sish Princess Leiesha was feeling lonely and resenting her cruel mother, the Queen, when crazy Fleet humans shot and kidnapped her simply because she didn’t believe their stupid story about pirates. Humiliated and trapped on a Fleet warship with empathic humans, Leiesha realizes that far from committing a heinous crime, the humans have saved her life. Someone had poisoned her!
The Commodore, Huntress, Captain and Princess grapple with these random events, but eventually realize they aren’t random at all. Galactic war looms on event horizon and they must come together or perish separately.
Interested?
Epic Space Rescue is Epic
Got Space Opera? No? Well, here you go.
Here is Chapter 20 in its entirety. Please excuse the grammatical boo-boos and typos, this it it, raw, right out of Suff Blowing Up in Space.
What do you think? Comment below, my 9.3 readers.
***
Chapter 20
“Princess, you are not trained for rescue operations. We’re hot docking to a heavy cruiser that may lose gravity compensation and turn everyone inside into pasty goo. I request you stay on the ship.”
Leiesha stared at James. He was being oh so respectful and oh so proper.
She was going to oh so bite him.
“Captain. That is the flagship of Aoe Sector. Let me be very specific with you. If it goes up, I’m going with it. So if you value my love, and my life, your S&R operation will not fail.”
“Mitty and Kitty won’t leave…”
He shut up.
“My apologies.”
She glared at him. “Damn it, James, stop being so formal. We’re alone in your conference room. It’s just you and me.”
He gave her a little smile and her heart actually started to beat faster. Did the male have to be so good looking?
“I was trying to spare you the horrors of war, Leiesha. When was the last time you saw a dead body?”
She bit her lip.
“You have me there, James. But I have to grow up sometime.”
He paused. “Aye, I just, this bond thing. It makes me want to hold you and shelter you and tell you that everything will be okay and I will fix it.”
She smiled. “You are so romantic.”
She gave him a little kiss.
***
She should have stayed on the Coolidge.
Burt bodies.
Bodies with shrapnel wounds from exploding electronics.
Bodies cut in half by slamming blast doors.
Bodies left like so much litter because the living had better things to do. It was obscene and grotesque.
That’s when she saw Koiea.
She had met Koiea at some Navy function on Aoe Station. The sish was young, and Leiesha had felt a pang of attraction when the young officer marched up to her while everyone else was ignoring the grumpy Princess, and started telling jokes. Leiesha even considered sneaking off with her and making out, but Palace Security had a grip on her lips just as they did on her sex.
Young Koiea was dead. A bar of metal had detached somewhere and impaled her right below her belly, right through her suit. It looked like she died trying to pull it out, hands wrapped around the protrusion.
Koiea’s face painted the tale: she died in pain, from blood loss and alone.
Leiesha opened her faceplate, leaned forward and puked all over the deck.
Mitty and Kitty were right there. One helped her stand straight and the other gave her a .water pouch.
“You’re doing better than I did,” said Mitty. “I puked on body two.”
She rinsed her mouth out feeling monumentally stupid. “What? I thought you came out of the womb wearing armor and spitting hell fire.”
The marine chuckled. “That was Kitty.”
Leiesha could not stop looking at Koiea.
Kitty came up to her. “Ma’am, we need to focus on the living.”
Leiesha gave herself a little shake. She looked at Kitty.
“Let’s go fix this deck’s net and see what’s what,” she said, trying to hold onto something besides the body in front of her.
“Aye, aye, Space Marshal.”
***
No sooner had they plugged in the new net module then Sergeant Koltsov was in the all-channel.
“Listen up, people. We’ve got enough new and repaired nodes to get the missing decks in the battle net. Be lively, the engineers are really busy, and if you asked me how this thing is still under helm control, I really couldn’t say. I guess they got a hamster somewhere and a wheel. Here it comes…”
“Ma’am, watch your inputs, Fleet armor integration is a little different,” said Kitty.
“Thank you, Kitty. You can call me…”
Suddenly her brain was the ship.
***
“Little different, she said,” Leiesha mumbled running down a corridor with her marines in tow. “You think? No, really, a little different?”
“Well, Kitty has been known to be a master of understatement,” said Mitty.
Leiesha snorted as the corridor ended in a closed blast door with red flashing lights over it.
“I don’t know where I end and ship begins,” she said as her armored hands flew over the manual controls, as the automatic ones didn’t respond.
Atmospheric leakage, hull integrity degraded. Magnetic locks engaged. Override required.
“Hey, this door is a better conversationalist than Kitty,” Leiesha quipped.
Mitty snickered.
Leiesha had the override panel open.
“Is this what a battle net feels like in ground combat?” She knew she was babbling but the talking grounded her where she was. It made her feel more real rather than the feeling of being a networked computer node.
“Mostly, minus the oh Goddess we’re going to die, oh Goddess, oh my Goddess,” added Mitty.
The override wheel was difficult to turn. She put a push into it and it started to spin.
“Ma’am, save the telekinetics. Use the power assist in your armor,” said Kitty.
“Right. Sorry, I’ve trained with power armor but never anything so light.” She did as the marine suggested. “I can’t even feel the tube in my butt.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of a bummer,” Kitty said wistfully.
The door came open and wind started whistling past them. The armor was so sensitive, it actually felt like wind on her skin.
“That’s not good,” Leiesha said. “Right? Wind on spaceship bad?”
“Yes. Wind on spaceship bad,” said Mitty.
They were past the blast door and it slammed shut behind them, magnetic locks going clang, clang, clang.
They had a sudden wave of vertigo as they stepped forward. The gravity on this deck was much lighter.
“Just so we’re all on the same page, gravity changes while spaceship is moving also bad,” Mitty added.
“Hurry, they are this way,” said Kitty and they ran down yet another corridor.
Goddess of Space, does the ship have to be this big?
“Whatever you three are doing in that section you better hurry the fuck up, because according the laws of physics it shouldn’t even be there,” said Sergeant Koltsov in her ear.
***
“And to round if off, that’s really bad,” Mitty said.
They were looking at the cabin through a bulkhead, which showed up in her vision as a high-detailed wireframe with structural problems shaded from green to red.
The cabin was yellow with large red cracks over all the surfaces.
Three sish were in the middle of the cabin in slim-suits. They were floating off the floor, arms linked, in a circle facing each other.
“Ma’am, what are they doing?” asked Kitty.
“They’ve, um, this is hard to explain in Common,” Leiesha took a deep breath. “You can say each user of telekinesis operates on a different frequency, unique and not like anyone else’s. If you’re lovers, though, especially with a linked ovulation cycle, you can be in telekinetic harmony.”
She nodded in their direction. “I can feel the push coming from them. They are holding the structural integrity of this hull section intact by meditating and using each other’s strength as an amplifier of their own.”
“Ovulation cycle?” Mitty sounded confused. “I thought sish didn’t have periods.”
“We don’t, but when you really love someone and that person wants to go into heat, sometimes you don’t have a choice and go along with her. Those three are lovers.”
“Awww, that’s so sweet.” Kitty said.
Suddenly the push fluctuated and the entire deck around them groaned.
“Um, Mitty? Gonna remind you that if the structural integrity goes in that section, the intact gravatonics will squish everything inward” said Koltsov over the squad channel.
“Copy that. Death by squish imminent. Sarge, we got ourselves a situation here, we’ll get back to you.”
“Copy that. Shut up and let us think,” he said.
There was another groan and this time Leiesha could feel the deck vibrate.
“So, they’ve been doing that for a long time—almost an entire day-cycle. How long can they keep this up? Can they last until we dock?”
Leiesha bit her lip. “They should have been dead hours ago. We have minutes, maybe less.”
Mitty actually frowned. “Poop on that. Options?”
“I’m leaned towards sheer panic and outright hysteria,” Leiesha said.
“That works for me,” said Kitty.
This time the deck buckled. Her wireframe extended out to the corridor they were in, most of it yellow, and she could feel the deck bend beneath her boots.
Leiesha’s mind whirled. The Goddess of Space spared those three. She would be damned, literally in her mind, if she wasted their efforts. Maybe she could augment their push…
A red crack appeared at the end of the corridor along the wall near the floor.
She had a sudden thought.
“Okay, I have a plan. It is clever and heroic as it is stupid and mostly impossible.”
Mitty nodded, “Hey, you just described life as a Fleet Marine!”
“Awesome,” said Kitty.
Leiesha activated the ship-to-ship channel. “Coolidge, Coolidge, Coolidge, depressurize your aft passenger airlock and open the outer door. We’ll be there shortly. Now here’s the very important part. Don’t open the inner door after we depressurize until Mitty or Kitty gives permission to proceed. Got that? “
“Copy that. Aft passenger airlock depressurizing, door open shortly. Marines give the go for inner door,” said James.
Why does Fleet repeat everything when the armor records it all, she thought, and then told her brain to shut up because they all were about to die.
“What’s the plan?” asked Mitty. She sounded causal, but Leiesha could tell it was an act as the world around them turned a computer generated yellow and red.
Leiesha turned to the short and tasty marine. “There’s going to be a big hole in the bulkhead in front of us and we’ll need to grab those three real fucking fast.” She waved her hands and labeled each sish 1, 2 and 3.
“And then?” Mitty just raised an eyebrow, her face through her helmet a forced blank.
I can appreciate fake calm, thought Leiesha.
“And then I’m going to pull some funky sish shit,” she said, hoping she had rid her voice of all the panic she felt.
“I got 2,” she said.
“I got 1,” said Mitty.
“3,” said Kitty.
Then the deck split in half.
Leiesha pushed and pulled, her telekinetics pouring forth as the ship tried to crush them. She forced a tear right into the bulkhead, which wasn’t too hard since it was breaking apart, defeated by the undamaged portions of the cruiser’s gravity field.
The three sish in the cabin held each other tightly, but they turned as the other three of them skipped and ran over the buckling deck.
RELAX THIS WILL STING A LITTLE came a thought from Mitty, very loud, and right before Leiesha slammed into sish 2, the slim-suited sish turned and looked at her with very wide, hungry eyes.
Wham! All three of the sish were in armored embraces, and the cabin was open to space. The hull seemed to crush in around them.
Leiesha pushed. She pushed outwards in all directions as she had never pushed before.
The hull exploded. It just—exploded—outwards and she screamed with the effort. They were in space, wreckage flying away.
Leiesha reversed her push and latched on with telekinetic tendrils to her two marines. They snapped close to her and she noted dimly the three slim-suits were trailing atmosphere, most likely tears from the exploding composite decking and armor.
Leiesha pushed again and the three of them flew in a tight formation, and she reversed their direction by doing a loop and spinning her body along her long axis.
They flew. They flew back to the cruiser, and then along the hull only meters away from it, faster now. Faster.
“Weeeeee!” shouted Mitty as the hull zipped “underneath” them.
“Goddess in Space! Goddess in Space!” Kitty yelled.
They looped around the entire ship, and there was the Coolidge.
She flew them along the Coolidge’s hull.
Airlock!
Slow down slow down slow down!
They stopped right before all six of them hit the first inner door.
The outer door slammed shut.
“Pressurization!” yelled James.
The three sish were struggling with their suits. Leiesha set her sish on the deck as she clawed at her helmet release.
“Mitty, Kitty, stay suited,” she said in a shaky voice. “This is going to be very ugly. You need to just leave them be while…” she swallowed.
“While what, Space Marshal?” Mitty asked in a command voice.
“While they, um, feed,” she said as she undid the memory seams of her armor.
Leiesha saw that Mitty now understood that the sish were not merely taking off their helmets to get air.
She and Kitty pulled out their stunners.
“No! They can still die! Leave them be. Leave me be. I’m trained for this.”
Leiesha took off her helmet.
“Her” sish crawled to her and jerked at her armor on her leg, peeling it off. She latched onto a calf and bit.
“Ah!” the pain was intense as another ripped at her sleeve and bit her arm. Leiesha started to cry. It hurt. It hurt a lot. The three were indeed in deep need.
The third sish was crying and crawling along the deck.
“Should we help?” Kitty asked, looking very sour.
“No. It… is important for her… to… to … do herself.”
The crawling sish on the deck took a deep breath and slowly stood up.
She was the center, thought Leiesha. So strong.
The sish took faltering steps. She walked behind Leiesha, and with trembling hands, peeled the combat suit away from her upper torso.
Leiesha felt fangs go into her shoulder.
“Oh, oh. Ah,” Leiesha started to pant. It hurt—Goddess did it ever hurt.
“Leiesha! This is terrible. We can’t let them do this to you!” Kitty practically screeched.
“Sorry, my bond… mates. No time… explain. Leave be.”
When do we make them stop, Mitty thought at her. Her telepathy was sharp, almost as if it had an edge.
You don’t. I will do that, she thought back.
She felt the humans’ empathic link as if she was drowning in a sea of their emotions. The marines were sick with worry, the ascension bond causing them mental anguish at her pain. Their suffering was almost too much.
Almost done, my loves. Almost done.
Almost.
Just a little longer.
Let them take a little more…
Only…
“Leiesha!”
As the world faded, Leiesha heard the snap-hiss of stunners, a fist of pain slammed into her, and she thankfully felt no more.
Chapter 20: In Which I Become Snarfy
Chapter 20
“Princess, you are not trained for rescue operations. We’re hot docking to a heavy cruiser that may lose gravity compensation and turn everyone inside into pasty goo. I request you stay on the ship.”
Leiesha stared at James. He was being oh so respectful and oh so proper.
She was going to oh so bite him.
A Careful Literary Seduction
Oh, to be seduced by a book.
The story goes deep within
To caress the heart
To turn the page
That fevered art
A literary sin
Careful now
Careful now
A story just like that
That’s a good story
Just like that
More please
More please
Always more please
Seduced today
Tomorrow starts anew
Careful now
But not too careful!
Epic Space Opera Novel is Epic
So I’ve been chewing on this Space Opera story for, oh, I don’t know. I’ve given it the working title of Stuff Blowing Up in Space. When I started writing on it, I had no plot, just a few characters and scenes. I knew I wanted sexy vampires as one of the species. I wanted humans as the technologically superior species, and I wanted psionics in a way that it created an epic, galaxy spanning mythos so very unlike “The Force.”
But I didn’t have a plot.
Well, no more. I’ve got a solid, epic Space Opera plot. I’ll be banging away at that sucker until my self-imposed “bake time” is up and I start editing my finished novel in a completely different genre (whoops).
Awesome. I always wondered if there was a real plot to this story worthy of a novel. I can’t wait to finish it!
Damn, it’s good to be me.
Ah, a Holiday of Family, Books and the Pacific Northwest
A few days off for moi, so naturally, I’ve jumped into my ever-growing pile of books while enjoying the company of my wonderful family.
The hidden gem so far has been Initiate from The Unfinished Song series by Tara Maya.
What I was expecting: girly fluffy stuff beneath the girly cover.
What I got: epic fantasy with a distinctive and mesmerizing voice and rich world-building.
I feel the need to review this book. More later.
I’ve also come across the rare book that I had to put down. It had several instances of bad guy play. “He clicked a bullet into the chamber.” Really? Clicked a bullet?
HEAD-DESK.
There’s just no excuse for this folks, none. Even if you don’t live in the US, there are many US writers that can help you with proper firearm portrayal. I could not move past it.
But, Ms. Maya made me forget about that nasty book, she did.
All I need now is some space opera and my reading weekend will be complete.
Ding Novel is Done: A Stroy of Cute Boys, Romance, Kissing, and Lightning
Last night I finished my current work-in-progress, The Lightning Giver.
What an amazing journey! I can’t wait to get it into the hands of my beta readers after my Secret Squirrel Alpha Reader has given it a whirl. The novel needs an editing pass, and I’m eager to get opinions of the work.
The Lightning Giver is contemporary young adult and I wrote it in eight months. By far, this was the most challenging and difficult novel to write. Normally I take four to six months.
What’s the book about? It’s about love, of course! DUH. AND KISSING.
If I had to write a teaser, right off the top of my head, like RIGHT NOW, like, I have not put any thought into this AT ALL (really!), it would be something like this:
Before the accident, Sarah and Brandon were two normal Colorado teens, mostly kind, somewhat self-absorbed, and enamored with kissing each other.
When they kissed their world faded away, and while finding true love at a tender age was sweet and romantic, even a little sexy, the lightning bolt that interrupted their latest suck-face marathon was painful and horrific.
As they wake up from their comas, Sarah and Brandon realize that all they have left of their old life is each other. As the weeks of recovery turn into months and the months turn into years, they slowly realize the lightning strike may just be a warm up for the real trouble ahead.
Yeah, that needs work. It is a tease, though.
