Inner Peace Is For Losers

Today is the big day, though Space Grunts has has been available at Amazon for a little while now.



Ain't that sweet? There's my name right there on the cover. There's a story by me and good buddy Jason McDowell inside. I'm very proud of the whole thing.

Here's how it went. Invited by daytonward (thanks, Dayton!) Contacted Jason and asked him to work with me. Tossed ideas back and forth until we had a plot and a main character. This was one of those stories where the names suggested themselves, which I appreciate very much, by the way. Other characters grew in the actual writing. Jas invented Mac and Doc, and I came up with Twitch and King, as I recall. We shot emails back and forth, as Jas lives one state over, writing and editing. And then we shipped it off to Dayton.

He said yes.

This is a big one for me. I have had stories in print, but not in a book, so it's quite a thrill.

I also have a new story up at Variant Frequencies. The title is Penny Ante. and it's about a poker game in a very unusual place: a hospital morgue.

The inspiration for this was the real men I knew when I worked at my first job as a nurse: the Veteran's Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I knew these guys and others like them. I just hope I did them some justice.

Weight Watchers™ update: another pound gone, total now 44. I'm getting close to the goal, and looking forward to switching to maintenance mode.

Pleased to note that Adam Lambert is in the finals of American Idol. (Yes, I watch AI. Don't judge me.) I really love the guy's voice, his range is just sick, and the passion with which he sings. And he is so damn easy on the eyes. Adam FTW!

We've been given the word: we can now tell the world.

Coming soon from Flying Pen Press: Full Throttle Space Tales #3, Space Grunts. Check out this cover.



Is that cool, or what?

The book is edited by daytonward, best known for his Star Trek novels. The full lineup is here and yes, that's my name in that list! My good buddy Jason McDowell and I wrote a story called Flashback which was accepted for this anthology. Jason is a terrific writer, and has real war experience from his tour in Iraq. We came up with a piece about a former soldier who goes on the run for murder, and winds up in a mercenary team on a far distant colony planet. We were happy with how it turned out, and apparently so was Mr. Ward.

Really looking forward to getting my hands on this.