I am interrupting your regularly scheduled blog today to bring you news of new and awesome publications!

It’s been kind of a slow year so far for new fiction. I find that frustrating because there’s a whole lot behind the scenes that is in the process of happening, (more on that below) but very little that has actually happened. This means that there’s not a lot new for my readers to read.

So, what I’m doing over on my Patreon Page is I’m launching a new kind of story, a sort of series of humorous vignettes, called “Signs From A Generation Ship.” And we all know the problem: You launch a huge ship across the horrifying void of space on a journey of 1000 years, hoping that your great-great-great-great-ad absurdum-grandkids will get there, but how do you stop them from forgetting they’re on a ship and blowing themselves up when they, I don’t know, try to free God from the fusion reactor, or look for supplies on the other side of that big, sealed double door? What kind of warnings do you post? Here’s a snippet:

Publication BDCH4135M

Location: Helm Station (embedded in the padding, back of helmsman’s chair)

Title: Welcome To The Control Room!

Hello! Judging by the fact that you are ripping apart the chairs, we must assume that you may be the first person(s) to visit the Control Room (or “Bridge”) for quite some time, possibly even for generations. We hope you are literate. If so, please locate a copy of Publication AA1: Your World Is A Ship, hopefully still available in many cabins and public spaces. If you are semi-literate, TAKE BOOK TO READER. DO NOT BURN FOR WARMTH. If not, the flashing red button will play this message in an audio file unless you press it.

This recording is not the voice of a ghost or an evil spirit. It was hidden by your ancestors in case a mutiny or other disaster caused your people to forget their origins. For a detailed description of these origins, please refer to the aforementioned Publication AA1.

In the meantime, the machines surrounding you are very complicated and vital to maintaining your life and that of your children for the foreseeable future, which is why it is so important that you DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THE BUTTONS OR DISTURB ANY MORE OF THE ARTIFACTS IN THIS ROOM. SERIOUSLY, LEAVE EVERYTHING IN THIS ROOM ALONE! IF YOU TOUCH ANYTHING IN THIS ROOM YOU MAY CONDEMN EVERYTHING YOU KNOW AND LOVE TO A HIDEOUS AND PAINFUL DEATH.

To discover whether you or others before you have already condemned everything you know and love to a hideous and painful death, please complete the following steps:

1) Look at the Astrogation Station. That is the panel with three large screens on it.

2) On the upper small screen, there is a gold circle projected. If there is a star glowing within the circle, please leave the Control Room immediately, barricade it with severe warnings and guard it with your lives until the Voice Of Arrival Protocol instructs you or your descendants what to do. Guard it with your lives.

3) If there is no star in the circle, continue to disassemble this chair. Ignore the pamphlet buried in the column. Flip open the transparent cover and press the large, red button.

4) Use the countdown to pray to whatever God(s) your people revere.

This story will update Monday, Wednesday and Friday on my Patreon until I run out of signs, and is yours for the low price of $1.00 per month. Additionally, you will receive my novelette, The Chrysalyx, a tale of steampunk intrigue in the alternate 1920s, downloadable as a .mobi file.

So, what’s in the process of happening? Well, what’s coming up is…

• “All The Colors Of The Darkness,” the story of a girl blinded to keep her from developing her natural talents as a witch, will be appearing sometime this year from Lethe Press in their Survivor anthology.
• “Crying By Remote Control,” the story of a woman who must use prosthetic emotions, has just been accepted to the anthology Mind Candy 2.
• On The Wings Of The Morning, an anthology of my no-longer-easily-available work will be coming from Digital Fiction later this year.

Also, the novel I’m working for at Digital Fiction is nearly halfway done.

So that’s it. Please support me on Patreon; I’ll make it worth your while.