Random Short Stories and Novellas (2024 - 2026)

Random Short Stories

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

• "Pleasing the Queen" by Selina Coffey, 2015. (read July 2024)
  I needed something to listen to when walking and this was only an hour long. I originally thought I'd listen to it twice because I always have trouble getting into things and because my mind wanders when I walk. Yeah. When it got to the adult content, I had second thoughts about it. Actually, the thing that really got to me was the terrible AI voice doing the reading, devoid of all emotion, including during the sex scenes. The bot also can't handle dialogue with short sentences between the two parties. It was hard (so to speak) to keep track of who was saying what. Weirdest was the end when the voice switched to make to thank the listener -- the book takes on a new perspective if a man was writing those scenes. But, no, the author is female. Anyway, I downloaded the short story (novella, actually) to read. I skipped the preview.
  It was okay. Nothing special. But reading it was better than listening to that bot. Fully the last 20% of the download was a preview of a book. The entire denouement featured a wedding following by detailed descriptions of their love making after the plot had been resolved. The plot: the new Queen arises to power when her parents are killed. Her older sister is already the wife of a Elven lord. Her councilors all agree on a single candidate for her spouse (totally political in nature as these things are), and that Lord tries to work spells on the Queen to make her desire him. She rebuffs that and does the nasty with an old friend instead who helps save the kingdom.
• "Sweet Maiden" by Ginney Patrick, 2023. (read July 2025)
  This was a booklet that I picked up at World Fantasy Con in Niagara Falls, NY, 2024. Ginny Patrick is the pen name of Virginia Smith.
  Carin MacIntyre is the daughter of the cook of Lord Rimple. On her eighth birthday, he takes a walk in the wood where a unicorn finds her. The unicorn asks her to come away with her, but she can't because it would hurt her mother. The unicorn promises to come again and take her when she's ready. Life takes twists and turns by her seventeenth birthday, when Strathofire is repulsed by how she's changed. Would this be the last time she'd ever see him?
  It was a cute story. The story was about 22 pamphlet-sized pages.
• "A Conspiracy of One" by Leonard & Ann Marie Wilson, 2020 (read July 2025)
  Dark Goddess Chronicles, 28 pages, stapled. I'll call this one a novella, not a short story.
  This was a booklet that I picked up at World Fantasy Con in Niagara Falls, NY 2024. The DGC are fairy-tale themed, inspired by them in a "ripped from the headlines" television show is inspired by real-world events.
  The conspiracy involves the assassination of the queen, which is witnessed by her body double/lookalike/decoy. She has to escape, which she does with the help of alternate personalities, who may or may not be other people (including a young girl and a panther) and who gather in a court that may or may not exist solely in her head. Jenilee escapes by pretending to be the queen, and so she ends up at a party that the queen had been invited to, only to find that everyone is shocked to see that the queen is still alive. Now, she has to escape again.

• "Mud and Brass" by Andrew Knighton, 2014 (read June 2025?, possibly sooner)
  I don't know when I read this. I'd forgotten about it until I was cleaning books I'd already read from my phone. (I leave them on my iPad, usually.) I vaguely remember downloading it. (I just checked my email and saw that it was April 2025.) I probably read it not long after that.
  Good Reads lists this as 26 pages, so I'll call it a novella.
  I honestly couldn't remember much about the story until I saw this description on Good Reads: How far would you go for love, or for justice, or for the perfect gearwheel? Thomas Niggle grew up a mudlark, hunting for scrap on the polluted banks of the River Burr. One of the countless poor living in the shadows of Mercer Shackleton’s vast factories, he has dragged himself out of poverty using his mechanical skills. An encounter with Gloria Shackleton, the Mercer’s daughter, offers Niggle the possibility of love, but it also offers something else, deep in the heart of the Mercer’s domain. What hope can the future hold for a boy raised amidst the mud and brass? A steampunk story of romance, vengeance and twisted technology.

  So, basically, a story of haves and have nots mixed with a love story and a tale of revenge, as a mud person takes on a technocrat.
  Again, I don't remember much, but I didn't hate it. I'd remember that. So it was an okay story.
  As with most steampunk, unless it's written by someone I know, it's likely I read it because I want to know how to write steampunk stories, preferrably a good one.

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• "Mud and Brass" by Andrew Knighton, 2014 (read June 2025?, possibly sooner)
  I don't know when I read this. I'd forgotten about it until I was cleaning books I'd already read from my phone. (I leave them on my iPad, usually.) I vaguely remember downloading it. (I just checked my email and saw that it was April 2025.) I probably read it not long after that.
  Good Reads lists this as 26 pages, so I'll call it a novella.
  I honestly couldn't remember much about the story until I saw this description on Good Reads: How far would you go for love, or for justice, or for the perfect gearwheel? Thomas Niggle grew up a mudlark, hunting for scrap on the polluted banks of the River Burr. One of the countless poor living in the shadows of Mercer Shackleton’s vast factories, he has dragged himself out of poverty using his mechanical skills. An encounter with Gloria Shackleton, the Mercer’s daughter, offers Niggle the possibility of love, but it also offers something else, deep in the heart of the Mercer’s domain. What hope can the future hold for a boy raised amidst the mud and brass? A steampunk story of romance, vengeance and twisted technology.

  So, basically, a story of haves and have nots mixed with a love story and a tale of revenge, as a mud person takes on a technocrat.
  Again, I don't remember much, but I didn't hate it. I'd remember that. So it was an okay story.
  As with most steampunk, unless it's written by someone I know, it's likely I read it because I want to know how to write steampunk stories, preferrably a good one.

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• "The Chief's Boss" by E. Chris Ambrose, 2019 (read February 2026)
  This was a little booklet that I picked up at a convention, probably from World Fantasy Con in 2024 or Phil Con 2024. This booklet was at school, and I think it was with a pile that had been in a locker in summer 2025, so it's probably not from Reader Con in Boston or Phil Con 2025.
  The booklet is basically a short story over 28 pages, probably around 4,000 - 5,000 words. It's billed as "A Bone Guard Adventure", not that I knew what that was. Having read it, I'd say it's likely a prequel to the three books advertised in the back (two out, one coming soon, as of 2019).
  It's a quick, little story about a rescue in Afghanistan in 2003. A female scientist has been captured by al Qaeda and the spec ops Goon Squad is going to go in to rescue her and take out everyone else. Grant Casey is the new kid on the team with a plan to ride in and see if she's still alive and if she can possibly rescue her before the rest of the team attacks.
  The Sarge, Gonsalves, calls Grant "Chief" because he's native. This confused me at first. He's not native American, he's from the area, which is why he's able to approach the al Qaeda hideout on horseback. I didn't get the connection with "Chief" if there is one.

  I'm not advertising, but since this story isn't on Good Reads, and a search for "Bone Guard" gave me wildly unconnected results, I'll list the website in case I want to check this out. (Odds are that I'll pass along the booklet in a Little Free Library.) It's BoneGuardBooks.com
  A quick check shows: there are 7 books, the website redirects to a different publisher, and the little twitter account for Ambrose doesn't exist. I honestly only went looking because I wanted to copy one of the logos or find an image of the cover of this story. I'm not scouring social media if he gave up on Twitter and his publisher couldn't bother to update.




If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. The fourth book will be available by the time you see this!

A Bushel and a Peck of eSpec Stories

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I've particpated in a bunch of Kickstarters over the past few years. As a result, I wind up with not only a bunch of books to read, but bonus stories and gaming pdfs as nice little extras. These get sorted into folders on my hard drive. So I decided to knock off a few of them while I'm between books.

Since my last foray in reading short stories was a A Bushel of eSpec Stories, and before that a Peck of eSpec, this one is a "bushel and a peck", mostly because there isn't a bigger unit to use. Actually, I've been selecting them mostly by file size, starting with the shortest, so there will likely be fewer entries by the time I post it. Once again, this batch should all be from eSpec Books bonuses and stretch goals, unless something else sneaks in.

I sorted the directory by size, smallest to largest, although there are epub, mobi and pdf files all in the same place. In the order that I read them:

• Slow and Steady by John L. French was a special Kickstarter reward (2012). This was a shorter story that must've gotten lost in the shuffle. It should have been read sooner. Captain Emma Wilder is in command of the final flight of the Galapagos as it brings a colony to a new world. She might stay there or take a shuttle back. The ship's name comes from its overall tortoise appearance (complete with the ability for the smaller section to withdraw into the larger one). They are chased by pirates in a rather hare-like vessel which will overtake them. Wilder must come up with a plan to win this race. John L. French is editor of the anthology Devilish & Divine, which I will also appear in, when it is published.

• Time Factor by Michael A. Black was a special Kickstarter reward (date?). The story is reminiscent of "A Sound of Thunder" and Timeline in that there is a time portal, but it goes back to the cretaceous period. Doc Riley is a combat medic who is being sent into the field for a rescue operation. The people needing to be rescued are in New Mexico but are also 65 million years in the past. The portal to get them will be closing. He goes back with two soldiers (Marines?) named Wilson and Coyle to effect a rescue without getten eaten by prehistoric beasts or changing the past. Something will change because a dinosaur skeleton appears in the crater than hadn't been there before. The story is told in "real time" in the past, with flashbacks to present-day inserted, which is interesting to think about. A good read. Michael A. Black will appear in the anthology Devilish & Divine, which I will also appear in,when it is published.

• Comfort Zones by Christopher L. Bennett was a special Kickstarter reward (date?). The story opens on Hayakawa City, Mars, 2142.
  I don't know why I didn't make any notes on this story.

• Of Metal Men and Scralett Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise by Ken Scholes (date?). The story originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy. There is a note from Brenda Cooper about Ken Scholes and selecting this story (I assume for an anthology). Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses, General of the Wandering Army is brought a metallic man found in the ruins of a city-state by his Gypsy Scouts. The metal man initially talks backwards, but Rudolfo figures this out quickly. He questions it about the destruction of the Knowledgable City of Windwir and the death of so many of the Androfrancine Order. The metal man, given the name Isaak, says that a spell on a parchment, the Seven Cacophonic Death, from the ancient Wizard Xhum Y'zir was the cause, and that he, the metal man, must have initiated it. Rudolpho comes to believe that Sethbert, leader of another army was the cause. Sethbert had many metal men in his possession, along with a consort Lady Jim Li Tam of House Li Tam, who prefers Rudolpho's company. Rudolpho knows that Sethbert needs to answer for this.

  I enjoyed this story but it seemed like a piece of a longer work. We learn what happened before the start of the story, but what happens after is only hinted at.

• The Inner Light by John L. French, Kickstarter Reward edition (????). John L. French is the editor of an upcoming angels & devils anthology that I will be included in. This story takes place in Bethlehem on the night of the birth of Jesus from the perspective of the angel, Nika, who was sent to watch over Maryam during childbirth. Started rereading this, realized that I'd read it before, probably in a different document format. But it was short so I read it again because I was already eating and I didn't want to look for something else. Good story.
• Joy to the World by John L. French, Special eSpec Kickstarter Reward edition (????). A "Simon Tombs" story. I was unaware who Simon Tombs was, but he's magical. The story starts a couple days before Christmas at Sebastian's in Baltimore, a place where people who don't have other people can spend for the holidays. Simon is there when he gets a message from someone who glides across the floor unseen by everyone else to rendevous at the top of the Empire State Building. It's there that he meets an angel named Nika. (It did not immediately dawn on me that the angel in the last French story I read, see above, was also named Nika.) Santa Claus is missing and they need to find him before it's too late. He's known to be around NYC at this time of year. Can they find him before the Spirit of Christmas rejoins the Essence?
• Every Second of Every Day by John Chambers, Kickstarter Reward edition (????). Another reread, but from much farther back. I knew it seemed familiar but didn't place the anthology until the name "Henderson" popped up. This story was included in the anthology The Society for the Preservation of CJ Henderson (Ackley-McPhail & Schauer, ed). Henry Lin is the descendant of the great poet Gao Chi Lin. He's also a young man, and an overeager author with his too many boxes of his first book, The Mercurial Hearts of the Stars on his way to his first science-ficition convention, against his mother's wishes. (She'd rather he became a lawyer or a computer programmer.) It seems as if the Universe is against him, which driving down the New Jersey Turnpike or navigating their infamous jug handles (right to go left) would do to any same mind. After a miserable weekend, the Monkey King appears to him to tell him to pack it in (literally, he helps pack). That's when Henderson steps up (though accurately described physically, he doesn't get named as the actual C.J. Henderson, but you just know). Note that you don't have to be aware of who Henderson was in real life or have read anything of his to follow this story. That's an added bonus. Henderson, having written about the Monkey King and extended the King's lengends, has the ability to see what others might miss. He sets both of them straight about who gets to decide what is best for whom. Things pick up a little after that. John Chambers will appear in the anthology Devilish & Divine, which I will also appear in, when it is published.

**** 2022 ****

• Blankets by Jeff Young, Kickstarter Reward edition (????). Military sci-fi. I need to read more of it so it'll be less confusing to me. (Or maybe I should watch more movies?) Also, the more I read of it, the better chance I'll have at writing something more than 500 words. Anyway ... I don't know if these are existing characters from an existing universe. It seems like they should be familiar to the reader. It's far future, and Earth has colonized other worlds. Trips take years, but it appears messages can be sent quicker. The story is divided between a drop team putting down a rebellion, and finding dead people who didn't die of exposure, and a Transcript of a Committee Hearing into the Sylvan Seven Atrocities between Senator Wellheim and Gemeral Pressman. Even though they are interspliced, the hearings take place after the fact. (Yeah, I couldn't write committee hearings, either, if I wanted to.) The general carried out the mission he was supposed to even with the funds, equipment or backing. To explain the title "Blankets" would be a spoiler for anyone stumbling across this page. An interesting story. I do have other military sci-fi (from eSpec, mostly) in my TBR pile, both ebook and paper.
• Parole by Ty Drago, Kickstarter Reward edition (????). Robert O'Malley is a prisoner who stares at gray walls and never sees outside. He doesn't know if there even is an outside. He's brought into a room before the Parole Board, which consists of a female Chairperson, who speaks in a clipped, profession tone, and two disinterested gentlemen, who don't appear to speak at all. She has O'Malley recount the details behind his six murder counts (four first, two second degree). O'Malley is also concerned about his only friend, a fellow inmate named Burt Pinkerton. People in this prison are tortured, put back together again, and totured some more. The Warden is brought in for questioning, and threatens to tear both inmates about. The Chairperson grants O'Malley parole, but O'Malley wants it to go to Pinkerton. That is not allowed and he cannot protest it, but Pinkerton will get an immediate parole review and will be removed from the Warden's charge. Then there's a final twist which seems to come from left field, but you can see Drago setting it up. A quick read, and an enjoyable story.
• Paintbox by Lisanne Norman, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter edition (????). Anne, Heather and Glen are artists on a field trip, staying at a hostel, going out along the city and the beaches to paint. They mention stories of the Culzean Castle ghosts. Later Anne (and the others) meet Cassandra, who tries to paint but she is not skilled at it. Anne and Cassandra become friendly over the week even though Cassandra's brother thinks that the students should avoid his sister. She isn't well. She shows Anne stones she paint that change the nature of the rock in an odd way that Anne can't explain. Anne wants to know more about this. And this becomes one big ghost story. I enjoyed it. There's a mention of a pub in Kirkoswald, which I "googled" and found to be in Cumbria, England. I wasn't exactly sure where the story took place. Somehow I had France in my head, but I don't see where I got that idea.
• House Hunting by Keith R. A. DeCandido, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter edition (????). Glenn and Brandy are looking for a house, and Glenn hates all of them. This is mostly because he is 6'7" and the two of them plan are buying a house for the rest of their lives, so they both have to like it. After several tries, the agent shows them something that's perfect for them that's under market value. It has electrical issues because it's so old. And electricians when they hear the address don't want to go there. And then strange stuff happens that makes perfect sense for a short story, if this case, everything seems to be shrinking and Glenn is hitting his head a lot. Humorously tragic ending followed by a postscript that the author (Keith) has known Glenn and Brandy for decades, and he wrote them into this story. So I'm curious is Glenn is actually 6'7" because that opens a world of possibilities for friendship story writing. Anways ... I didn't know what I'd be getting with an innocuous title like "House Hunting". After the first couple, I thought it might turn into "Haunted House Hunting". It wasn't haunting, but it wasn't alright.
  This story slipped through -- it's one of the shorter ones and should've been read sooner. But it's a good story to end this "bushel" of eSpec with.

This will likely be the last group of eSpec Books stories bundled together into one post. The stories I have remaining to read are getting bigger and bigger, and short probably merit they're own entries. As it is, the next three books to read are all in a series, so depending upon their actual length and how long it takes to read them, they may get one or three blog entries.

Amora: Stories (Borges)

Amora: Stories by Natalia Borges (2015)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

The cover says "Natalia Borges Polesso, translated by Julia Sanches".

This book was part of Amazon's World Book Day 2021, when I downloaded 10 books. Like in previous years, it is likely that I won't read more than 2 or 3 of them. I still haven't read most of the previous books. This one is from Brazil and is described as An exquisite collection of stories exploring the complexity of love between women.

I'm not the target audience for lesbian literature nor is it something that I would think to seek out. Maybe if a friend gave me a book and asked my opinion, that would be a different matter. Anyway, I didn't let the subject matter prevent me from cracking the electronic cover.

I got about 30% of the way through the book. Maybe I'll come back to it when I'm between books and the file is still on the app. I don't know. I might have gotten hooked had it been one long narrative, but of the first bunch of short stories, none of them grabbed me. I don't know how many were pseudo-autobiographical but it was obvious that Borges was drawing on her past experiences.

If I had one problem with it, it was the continuous stream of thought and text. It may have been an appropriate writing style but a couple of stories just seemed to run on to me and were a drag to read.

Anyway, I gave it a shot, and decided to move on. If you found this page while surfing the Internet, don't take this as anything more than one person's opinion.

After this, I'm reading more Sherlock Holmes and Analog and there's another book club book coming up.

A Bushel of eSpec stories

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I've particpated in a bunch of Kickstarters over the past few years. As a result, I wind up with not only a bunch of books to read, but bonus stories and gaming pdfs as nice little extras. These get sorted into folders on my hard drive. So I decided to knock off a few of them while I'm between books.

Since my last foray in reading short stories was a "peck" of eSpec, I'll call this one a "bushel", but don't expect four times as many stories, or even four times the length. It'll be until whenever I stop and post it. The batch should all be from eSpec Books bonuses and stretch goals, unless something else sneaks in.

In order that I read them:

Feeding the Mouth that Bites Us by L. Jagi Lamplighter was originally published in Dreams of Decadnece (date?). No spoiler, that mouth belongs to a vampire. The story is told from the perspective of Hannah, the lovestruck victim who despite giving up only a cup of blood every other week to her lover Ambrose, has lost all of her energy of the past year. While out walking by Central Park, she encounters a group of nuns handing out flyers. She reads it later to discover that they have a clinic that specializes in the very collection of symptons which Hannah suffers from and which no doctor has been able to diagnose. This leads her to the Order of St. George's Clinic, where she's finally able to breathe freely, and where she learns more about the nature of vampires. A fun read.

The Wedding Night: a Death and the Crone vignette by Megan Mackie. It's porn. Maybe the kind you'd find on HBO or Netflix, as opposed to other outlets, but that's what I found myself reading. It's literally the wedding night of the subtitular couple, and you're a witness to all the action. There's no plot, or as my editor might point out, no conflict. I assume these two characters, and perhaps this scene itself, were plucked from other works. I haven't read any Mackie that I recall (and this I would recall). Both characters are old and have been married before, but both have a youthfulness about them.

Seeing Red by Danielle Ackley-McPhail was originally published in In All Their Glory (2010). Samantha is a faerie who freezes when you sees the color red, particularly red caps. "Redcaps" are a type of malevolent, murderous goblin found in Border folklore, and they want to murder her. To overcome her hesitation, she organizes a game of capture the flag, using red banners, but soon she has to confront her fears head on.

The Fiber of Being by Jodie Lynn Nye was originally published in Heaven and Hell (2002). Jasper is dead, and Michael and Gabriel given him lessons on being an angel. Raphael shows up at one point, too. The Fiber of being is that piece of humanity that Jasper retains that angels do not have. It's what will allow people to rise higher than angels, who are as they were created. It takes Jasper a while to get the hang of it. (Nye cowrote The Death of Sleep with Anne McCaffrey, which I read quite a while ago.)

Alien Invasion of Earth by Keith R. A. DcCandido, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter Reward Edition (date?). Dr. Phillips P. Phillips, PhD meets with General Blunt at the Pentagon to discuss an unnatural object in space heading toward Earth. What follows is 7 pages of farce or satire, except those are usually funny. (Note: humor is subjective.) It isn't until the middle of the story that we learn that the story takes place during the Eisenhower Administration, which "explains" the use of the word "Negro" earlier. It also become alternate history very soon after this point. Phillips might seem progressive by having a black (Negro) and a female graduate student working for him, who he insists be brought along with him to assist him, but he berates them and treats them poorly to the point of being annoyed that they involved the gerneral about the UFO without telling him (even though they got him to sign the letter they sent). The general later mistakes the two of them (Lamont Johnson and Maria Chen) for an errand boy and a secretary, because, you know, it's the 50s. The one thing that is universal about the story is the higher-ups getting credit (and rewarded) for work of their underlings. I had an Assistant Principal who was quite smugly proud of himself at the bonus he got from his department doing more work.

On Rocky Ground by L. Jagi Lamplighter was originally published in Bad-Ass Faeries (2006). It starts This story is dedicated to the Freeman Children. It features the Prospero brothers, Erasmus and Mephisto, as they scale Monte Musine in the Italian Alps, along with Mab Boreas, who is an Aerie One. (I don't know what the Prospero brothers are, but they've lived a long time.) They are lugging ground giant bones and salamander poo as a payment to the Oreads, who are feminine rock-type creatures. They run into problems with a grumpy gnome. Hilarity ensues.

Reflections of Amontillado by Ty Drago was a special eSpec Kickstarter Rewards edition (????). It starts With respectful apologies to the master. The narrator is Antonio Santino Argestelli Fortunato, a merchant and a student of no art but business, who happens to love wine. He is married to the Lady Fortunato, who doesn't appear in the story. The tale takes place in northern Italy, where he is approached at a carnival by Monstresor, whom in the opening of the story was refer to as a friend and a foul murderer. Monstresor is the last of a family of wine makers as swamp has overtaken his lands and spoiled his vintage, forcing him to sell off land and let go of his servants. He lures Fortunato there with the promise of an Amontillado (which I had no idea what that was, other than a wine of no particular note). From there it plays out like Poe, in a tale I was first exposed to in a Bradbury story, similarly in a House of Ghosts comic (or another series of that ilk), and even in an episode of Dark Shadows. However, this tale doesn't end there.

A Brief Battle for the Throne by Jeffrey Lyman was originally published in Bad-Ass Faeries: In All Their Glory (2011). The story starts in London, 1850, when Lord Broggon of the Hobgoblin Tribe tries to go through the Door to Fairie but something is blocking it. The building the Door had been attached to has been demolished and the Door should just attach itself to the new structure. Unfortunately, the new building is the King's Cross station for the new iron rails being laid along the ley lines in England. They are blocked off from King Oberon. What to do? A Council meeting of hobgobins, elves, ogres, pixies and others try to come up with a solution. Instead, the tribes end up taking sides and a ninety-year war commences.

Undine the Boardwalk by Keith R.A. DeCandido was originally published in It's Elemental (2013). I don't get the pun of the title, if it's supposed to a play on "Under the Boardwalk". The story is set in Key West, mostly at Mayor Fred's Saloon, where a band named 1812 plays. The main character is named Cassie, who we find about about a quarter of the way through the story that she is a "Disir", a fate goddess, and sometimes referred to as a "Dis". She learned this from the king of the Norse gods, and previously had to stop Loki. So this is a series story. Only a couple of people know about Cassie's background. One is Bobbi, a member of 1812, and Rance, an FBI special agent. Jana, a friend of Bobbi's since childhood, and a friend of Cassie's since she moved there, doesn't know. Jana is also in the band. Jana has a new love in her life named Russ and everyone seems to love this guy, except Cassie, Bobbi and the old curmudgeonly Larry. Cassie doesn't know know why she doesn't like him, but she doesn't, and that's good enough for Bobbi. (There's also a crack about Russ having two middle initials -- so "pretentious".) By day, Cassie is a diver at Seaclipse.

Rance runs a background check and finds that Russ lives on a boat with his mother, so Rance, Cassie and Bobbi take a trip. The boat has "rusalka" etched on the prow. Looking that up, I found that a "rusalka" is a Slavic water elemental, usually malicious. Cassie can see its ugly true form through its glamour while the other two see an older woman who can still pull off a bikini look. Russ, however, looks human, so they figure that his father (who wasn't listed on his birth certificate) is also human. The mother, who goes by the hman name Anne, is horrified that her son is going to marry a human because it will only end in tragedy for both of them, and she speaks from experience. So they have to break up the couple, and get Jana out from under Russ's spell before it's too late. And then we find out more about Russ's parentage.

Tag Team Match with Hell by Patrick Thomas, C. J. Henderson, and John L. French. Kickstarter Rewards edition (????). It is listed as A DMA Casefile, which stands for Department of Mystic Affairs. The copyrights and trademarks list Murphy's Lore and "Bullfinche's Pub" gets a shout-out in the first paragraph. Bianca Jones is listed as a trademark of John L. French; she appeared in the story "Cold Iron", which I read recently. I don't recall reading any story including Lai Won, by C. J. Henderson. This is more of a CW crossover (not of "Crisis" propotions) than the Avengers getting together. Lai Won is a "psychometrist", which is mentioned often, but I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. (I was on the train, so I didn't have a dictionary available. It turns out that it's a real thing, someone who administers psychological tests. Yeah, that's not what she does.)

The story leaves NYC quickly (no Bullfinche) and heads down to Baltimore, which is Jones's home turf. Jones had worked with Agent Karver once before but not his partner Maddi Cobb, or Lai Wan. Wan has called in a marker because of something horrible that she experienced when she accidentally touched a DVD. From there is gets disturbing in subject matter as it involves a demon granting a bunch of people eternal youth 50 years ago, and they end up as children. They make money by making black-maret pornography. It's enough to make everyone sick, including the reader, which is, I guess, the point. On the cosmic reading balance scale, this tips the story so heavily that no amount of light-hearted banter is going to lift it back up again. (And the banter between Karver and Cobb seemed a bit forced, but it was also tossed out there for the benefit of the two other occupants in the car.)

I was only familiar with Bianca Jones before this story, and she had the least to do with it, even though it took place in Baltimore. Maybe that's why they decided to set it in Baltimore.

Vein Glory by Christopher L. Bennet, Kickstarter Reward edition (????). Not surprisingly, it's a vampire story. Vincent Shahan wakes up after a couple centuries in cryo-suspension, having been misplaced during the upheavals in the past. This is understandble. His doctor, Dr. Corazon Lee, is a vampire, and is most of the population. That's a little less understandable. Advancements have led vampires to suffer fewer ill effects and not require fresh human blood. The only cure for disease is vampirism and medical research has come to a halt. But there's more than meets the eye with Shahan

The Inner Light by John L. French, Kickstarter Reward edition (????). John L. French is the editor of an upcoming angels & devils anthology that I will be included in. This story takes place in Bethlehem on the night of the birth of Jesus from the perspective of the angel, Nika, who was sent to watch over Maryam during childbirth. Nika faces off against five of the Fallen. Any doubts are met with a voice reminding her to "TRUST YOUR INNER LIGHT."

A Peck of eSpec Stories

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I've particpated in a bunch of Kickstarters over the past few years. As a result, I wind up with not only a bunch of books to read, but bonus stories and gaming pdfs as nice little extras. These get sorted into folders on my hard drive. So I decided to knock off a few of them while I'm between books.

How many is a "peck" of stories? However many it is that I decide will fit into this post. The batch should all be from eSpec Books bonuses and stretch goals. Update: I gave a "peck" is 12 in this particular instance, but these were mostly the shorter stories.

In order that I read them:

Cold Iron by John L. French was originally published in Here There Be Monsters (2006), which is a Bianca Jones collection. The story begins in Tir no nOg, home of Tuatha de Danann, and quickly moves to Baltimore, and Morgan's Rare Books and Collectibles. There's been a baby swap between our world and Faerie. Bianca Jones is a detective with the Baltimore Police Department, also known as the Watch. When magical means reach a dead end, Bianca puts the BPD resources to work. The differences in the flow of time don't help much.

The Case of the Cursed Weenie by John L. French was originally published in Hellfire Lounge 2 (date?), and is another Bianca Jones story. This tale begins with the statement: The story you are about to read is somewaht true, and could have only happened in Baltimore. A riff on the Dragnet opening? I assume the true part of the story is the fact that no matter whatever else goes down in Baltimore, if some puts lawn chairs in the street to hold a spot, you respect the lawn chairs. Gregory Tanner is new to town and isn't aware of the rule, and when he can't find parking amidst the massive amounts of snow, he takes a space that was reserved with lawn chairs. He gets a warning that the spot belongs to Miss Solomon, who practices witchcraft. Soon after there's a confrontation between the two, and when Tanner refuses to apologize, Solomon curses him. The titular curse refers to neither dachshund nor frankfurter. It's what you think. However, the story isn't played for laughs. Bianca Jones and her crew, which appears to be comprised of people from other stories, are on the case.

Endgame by Patrick Thomas is "a tale of Terrorbelle" and was originally published in Bad-Ass Faeries (2006). I've read Patrick Thomas before in other anthologies, plus his first Murphy's Lore book. I hadn't heard of Terrorbelle before. Thomas takes the "badass" theme to heart with a villain named Badass who has ... what it says on the tin. It's humorous in its own way, but not the humor I go looking for. Terrorbelle is another bad-ass faerie, but only in toughness. And both faeries are described as having hourglass figures with emphasis on where most of the sand is. This one takes place on the streets of Manhattan.

Henkin's Last Lies by James Chambers was originally published in Bad Cop, No Donut (date?). It opens with Detective Gary Henkin giving someone bad news about a case, and he has to lie to do it. Dennis Brancusi is a writer with a nose for racketeering and rooting out crooked cops, and who saw his parents and pregnant sister blown up in by a bomb that was intended for him. They both knew who was responsible for it, a man named Bruno with a nice hideaway overlooking Long Island Sound. My favorite of this batch so far, but also the first non-fantasy story in the bunch.

The Street of All Designs by Brenda Cooper was originally published in Cracking the Sky (date?). There's a brief introduction to the story that mentions "Fremont", which I assume is a reference to Cooper's other works, which I haven't read yet. The story is set on a strange planet called Silver's Home. Bryan and Alicia are walking around the city talking in the strange sites. They are brought by a woman named Induan to the Street of All Designs, which is a like a shopping mall for body mods like wings, extra arms, a camera in the back of your head. Bryan doesn't know what kind of mod he wants as he can't picture himself afterward. By the way, wings are a bad idea. The flyers never seem to be happy.

The Piece at the Fulcrum by Jeff Young was originally published in Realms and then Tales of Indiscretion Special Edition 2: Diversiforms (dates?). Dom Perival and the pregnant Jyn are playing chess. Jyn is a mistress of M'Lord Chanden and looks to Dom Perival for protecting, and bastard heirs tend not to live long, and she wants to keep the baby safe. Aside from teaching chess, Dom Perival tells her a parable before taking his leave. She's been secretive about the pregnancy until the time is right and she can plan to escape. Until that tell, she does her best to collect gold, even though it isn't enough. When Chanden discovers the situation, he isn't happy. I missed the foreshadowing of whatever catalyst set events in motion during the endgame. That said, I still enjoyed the story. (And I might reread the beginning later to find what I missed.) (Okay, I think I got it.)

Child of the Wood by Jeff Young, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter Rewards Edition (date?). Once there was an 8-year-old boy named Jeremy who wanted to be special, so he bizzarely decided to cut off his pinky with garden shears and bury it in the woods. When he woke up in the hospital, it was too late to reattach it, and he couldn't remember where he'd buried it anyway. He and his family move away. In the wood itself, there were only two houses, one owned by widowed Mrs. Hollerbush and other by the nosy Miss Rive (who owns telescopes to spy on people). One night, a dirty, naked boy wanders into Mrs. Hollerbush's home. And it's a bit of a fairy tale from there, but it gets a little Grimm.

Sunday in the Park with Spot by Keith R. A. DeCandido, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter Rewards Edition (date?). This is the tale of two humans, Bob and Sue, who live in a magical place called Riverdate, the Bronx, New York, and is told as a bedtime story between two beings that are neither human nor from the Bronx. Bob and Sue take care of a cat named Mittens, who is a Chaos Wrangler, and a dog named Spot, who is thick as a stump because dogs are even less smart than humans. Humans aren't capable of noticing that when a cat is scratching an itch and dancing around, it is really tracing a sigil, which is important for wrangling chaos. Mittens sometimes sneaks out to give instructions to other animals. However, Bob is taking Spot to the park, a grassland where dogs are free to run about, so Mittens trusts Spot with a mission, giving explicit details so he can't muck it up. Or can he? He is a dog after all. (Funny, I type "god" the first three attempts.) Cute tale. I liked it, and not just because my "Dog Listener" story has simple-minded dogs running around a park. I didn't think to add a cat to my story -- I probably could've gotten another thousand words out of that!

Towfish Blues by John A. Pitts, originally appeared in Talebones Magazine (2008). A dirigible in a lightning storm flying low over the water. What could go wrong? When they do, making EVA repairs can be tricky. A survey team, the low bidders on a contract, are gathering data on a new planet. The storm causes difficulties, and the captain and crew cause some more. The survey people need the money as they are low on funds. Marta, who suffers from migraines, leads the team consisting of Mitch, Robert, Susan and Steve. There's an intro by Brenda Cooper.

Trainer of Whales by Brenda Cooper, originally appeared in The Future We Wish We Had (date?). Kitha is an deep-sea kelp farmer for Downbelow Dome, which gets supplies delivered by blue whale. After an earthquake, the dome is in trouble become a large metal structure fell across three of the dome's six air scrubbers. Communication has been cut off. She's too far to swim back on the remaining air in her tank, so she swims to the break station with her shift-mate Jai. No one is getting in or out of the Dome, as it is reserving all resources. They travel to the dome using a motorized bed used for medical transport. Once there, they encounter a small pod of whales, which have been trained to make deliveries. The problem is that there is no one to remove their harnesses, so they are swimming about the Dome. Using a translation device, Kitha must bond with one of the whales to get them assist in freeing the scrubbers from the debris, before they swim away.
Fun little story.

Damned Inspiration by Hildy Siverman, originally published in Bad-Ass Faeries (2010). A member of the Tuatha De Danann, missing her wings, serves as a muse to a poet in New Orleans, Gabriel Lanier, who writes songs of the sidhe. Time passes (weeks or months), and the faery encounters Gabriel again at a coffee shop in the French Quarter. He chants the tale, but it's now gone terribly wrong, even though the audience enjoys it. Gabriel has been corrupted by a member of the Unseelie Court, who promises him fame but is sucking his life of its energy. He is fine with this arrangement. The narrator is not. (Okay, if there's a name in here, I missed it. Quickly skimming the text isn't helping me.)

Faerie Ring Blues by James Chambers, originally published in In All Their Glory (2011). Rollin' Joe Linnet works six steel strings like no mortal should be able to, and Gorge, exiled from the Faerie Kingdoms, knows it. And what sounds wonderful to mortals is grating to faerie who knows what those songs should sound like when played properly on proper enchanted instruments, by an enchanted person, in an enchanted world. He wants to know the source of Rollin' Joe's abilities. He made a pact with Nick, the Devil, or at least someone or something pretending to be. Gorge and his human companion and soulmate Delilah go off in search of it and find an faerie ring and an old acquaintance, Rade. A showdown ensues.

The Side of Good (Ackley-McPhail, ed)

The Side of Good, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, ed., 2015

First off, this is a bit of a cheat for me, because this is only half of a book. The printed edition of The Side of Good is actually a flip book: if you flip it, you will find The Side of Evil. If you order the ebook, you will get two downloads, each with its own cover (as seen above).

As the names might suggest, this pair of books are anthologies filled with stories of Super Heroes and Super Villains. I get the Heroes precedence and read their tales first.

Editor Danielle Ackley-McPhail has assembled seven stories by Gail Z. Martin and Larry N. Martin, Bryan J. L. Glass, John L. French, Walt Ciechanowski, Kathleen O'Shea David, Robert Greenberger, and James Chambers.

The stories range from the non-powered to the super-powered to the oddly-powered (is it really a superpower?). They not only deal with their heroics but how their actions impact their own lives and the ones around them. And when does it get to be too much?

If I had to pick a favorite, I might go with "Making a Difference", by Robert Greenberger, which reads like an old indie-comic low-powered hero on a motorcycle story, emphasis on old. "Ghost Wolf" by Gail Z. Martin and Larry N. Martin, would come a close second. For fans of Kathleen David, if you're expecting puppets to play a role in her story, you won't be disappointed.

You won't be disappointed with The Side of Good unless you're, say, Lex Luthor. In that case, flip the book over.

* * *

Current reads:

• ebooks: mostly short story anthologies, flipping back and forth, The Side of Evil or The Weird Wild West
• hardcover (for commuting w/o an ereader): Once Upon a Time (she said)
• manga: started getting One-Piece books from the library. Number 11 has been "in transit" for over a week now.
• in the pool: old paperbacks and sci-fi mags that I don't mind if they get a little wet and won't cry over if they fall in. Right now, an old issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 1987

Reminder: for anyone stumbling across this site. These entries aren't really meant to be reviews. I mostly write them for myself because I have a tendency to forget about some of the books I've read -- either about the characters or plot of a book, or sometimes even the book itself. But writing summaries is boring, especially for anthologies, and some of my friends actually like reading this blog, so I'm trying to make it more enjoyable to read, which is all I can ask in a book.

Analog's Lighter Side (Schmidt, ed.)

Analog's Lighter Side, by S. Schmidt, ed, 1982

Anytime I get any kind of notice that some online catalog now has magazines, I check it out. Unfortunately, those magazines are usually either scholarly journal-type publications or popular newstand magazines of the slick and glossy variety. They don't ever have, for example, old science-fiction magazines.

One of the first ones I search for is Analog because I had a subscription from the late-80s to the mid-90s. The problem was I never seemed to have time to catch up with them, so I let the subscription lapse. Anyway, while searching for Analog, I found an anthology, Analog's Lighter Side, a collection of humorous stories, edited by Stanley Schmidt, who was the editor I remember (and could possibly still be editing it today).

The anthology is from 1982, which meant I'd likely never read any of the material before. As you can see from the Table of Contents above, most of the stories date from before I was born (and before Schmidt's reign). How these stories in particular were chosen, I don't know. I read Schmidt's introduction where he acknowledges that humor is subjective and even mentions that one story plays it so straight that you won't see the humor until it's done. Whatever. I tried to enjoy it, but it's a bit dated.

For example, the future tech seems silly, even quaint, in earlier stories, given the advances of the last half century (especially the past couple decades). And at least two stories make like of characters with drinking problems -- being drunk is central to the story. Less enlightened times, sure, but they were back-to-back and I worried the rest of the book might follow suit.

Where it fell apart for me was "The Gentle Earth" from 1957. It was an okay story, but it just seemed to go on and on, pointlessly. It could've been half the length. And it wasn't particularly humorous. More like "Funny Things Happened on the Way to the Invasion" as things are misunderstood and keep going wrong. The final payoff wasn't the effort. I should have skipped the story, but I got so far into it, I wanted to know how it ended ... even if I kept falling asleep. I was on this story when I renewed the book, and I finished the story sitting at a table in the library so I could drop it in the bin.

I then skimmed "A !Tangled Web", which was a little more promising, but I hate when sci-fi and fantasy writers put symbols or punctuation into language and then don't give a clue as to how such things are supposed to be pronounced. Amusingly (hey, it's "lighter"!), given my computer background, I alternated between "not" and "bang" to stand in for the exclamation point.

Final verdict: meh. Maybe I'll borrow it again this summer and read the rest. Or not.

Goals: A good part of the book was written before I was born. It's an anthology. And it was intended as humor. So I covered some bases.

The Giving Plague (Brin)

The Giving Plague, by David Brin, 1987

I don't usually review short stories, but I downloaded this for free onto my iPad and read it with my Kindle app in the same way that I read a lot of books. And since I re-launching my reading list blog, it doesn't hurt to start a little smaller.

First off, if I hadn't read the afterword, I wouldn't have realized that this story was written over 25 years ago. It hasn't dated. What makes that notable is the fact that it was written at the height of the AIDS epidemic, when the public was finally aware of what the disease was and what it was capable of doing. It's not an "AIDS story", but you can see how a plague of that kind influenced it. (Another way of putting that: if it had been written a few years later, it might have been inspired by, say, the ebola virus.)

The story is narrated by a biologist who makes a discovery about a new virus spreading through the population with an unusual property: it makes people more altruistic, starting with a desire to donate blood, which is how the virus seems to spread. Research and ethical questions follow and do consequences and possibilities of accolades and Nobel prizes.

An interesting little story, which isn't dated at all. If anything, now that AIDS is being tamed, it has to make you wonder what could come next that AIDS seem like a case of chicken pox.

"The Giving Plague" should be available for free for ereaders. The story can be found in its entirety on Brin's website in HTML form, usable by any browser.