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This morning, while I waited for Gordon’s MRI, my phone made this video for me complete with the overly sentimental music. Apparently I take a lot of pictures of the orange menace. He got in trouble yesterday because he was very pushy about shoving the dogs aside to sit in a specific spot on my lap.

Behold, Tuna the Cat.

He can never see this, or his ego will be even bigger.

The post Tuna’s Video first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Here are seven author shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an…

The post 7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend appeared first on LitStack.

 

Locked In (Zombie Bedtime Stories #1)by Thea Isis Gregory
What is it about:Haley is enjoying her new job as a paramedic on a beautiful summer’s day. Not even her dour and sullen partner, Frank, can deflate her enthusiasm for life. Responding to a routine call near her former high school, she is excited to see her old hang-out spot, the park. On arrival, something is clearly wrong, and Haley is attacked by one of her old friends. Soon, she begins to experience disturbing changes in her personality and food preferences, until she wakes up a zombie. Her consciousness is suspended in a body that she can't control, and she needs to find a way to escape.
What did I think of it:I'm always on the lookout for a good zombie story, so when I encountered the author on Social Media and she mentioned zombies I immediately got hold of her Zombie Bedtime Stories series and read the first book as it's only 18 pages.
And what a cool read!
It's told from the perspective of someone who has been infected and it's so well done! I was immediately hooked and wondering how this could and would end. Those 18 pages flew by. I was very glad I immediately got the whole series of short stories, because this one tastes like more!
You bet you can expect a review of the secons book real soon!
Why should you read it:This is an amazing zombie read! 

The Dreams in Gary’s Basement, Blu Ray version (rpghistory.net, 2023)

On the eve of Gary’s Gygax’s birthday, July 26, 2019, I was in sunny California getting ready to be interviewed by the Dorks of Yore for their documentary, The Dreams in Gary’s Basement: Gary Gygax and the Creation of Dungeons & Dragons.

The interview touched on my experiences working with Gary from 2005–2008, a time that I will always cherish. Gary was so generous with me — a friend and a mentor who not only showed me the ropes, but also put trust in me. It was such an honor and a privilege to get to work with one of my childhood idols.

Getting ready for the interview

Here I am a few years ago at the filming. The interview was conducted by Pat Kilbane and his crew, who reorganized my room at the Marriott just outside of Hollywood. Stephen Chenault of Troll Lord Games was scheduled to be interviewed before me. It was a lot of fun!

It was an incredible honor to be included in this discussion on the history of Dungeons & Dragons, and Gary Gygax’s role in vaulting his co-creation to the stratosphere. My joy is evident in this photo. I had the privilege to work as Gary’s co-author in his final years (2005 – 2008), and I was so happy to share my appreciation of his genius.

The Dreams in Gary’s Basement

The Dreams in Gary’s Basement is very well done, and if you are a fan of D&D, including the history of its creation and meteoric rise to popularity and fame, then I urge you to check it out at rpghistory.net.

Gary, as many of you know, was the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, a game that has enjoyed 50 years of success. Gary taught me a lot, even when he wasn’t actively teaching or instructing me on the development of Castle Zagyg (or Castle Greyhawk, to those who know). I recently relayed the story of Gen Con in 2007, when Gary was signing autographs at the Troll Lord Games booth.

Bonus card included with the Kickstarter version

The line snaked through the halls, filled with fans who wanted to have something signed, or to shake his hand, take a photo, or to tell him how much his creations meant to them or changed their lives. It was inspiring for me to see how he handled his enthusiastic fandom. He listened to and spoke with every one of them. He treated them like fellow gamers, like peers, and he was humble and thankful for their kind words.

It was really nice to see. Gary was more than just a genius creator of games. He was a good guy.

Cheers, Gary!

Jeffrey P. Talanian’s last article for Black Gate was Hal Clement Helped Launch My Writing Career. He is the creator and publisher of the Hyperborea sword-and-sorcery and weird science-fantasy RPG from North Wind Adventures. He was the co-author, with E. Gary Gygax, of the Castle Zagyg releases, including several Yggsburgh city supplements, Castle Zagyg: The East Mark Gazetteer, and Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. Read Gabe Gybing’s interview with Jeffrey here, and follow his latest projects on Facebook and at www.hyperborea.tv.

Gideon the Ninth (Tor Books, September 10, 2019). Cover by Tommy Arnold

The back cover of the hardcover edition of Gideon the Ninth features this assessment from writer Warren Ellis: “The author is clearly insane.”

Three things made me shunt Gideon the Ninth to the front of my TBR stack. First, both my older son and his girlfriend read it, and, once finished, they promptly named their cat Harrow after one of the two main characters. Second, the cover art jumped out like an All Hallows spotlight. Third, that Ellis quote grabbed me by the frontal lobes. A novel featuring skeletons and sword-wielding necromancers written by a writer five cans short of a six-pack? Sign me up, buttercup.

Finally, in the interests of truth-telling or perhaps over-sharing, I must add that a fourth element convinced me to delve into Gideon the Ninth, and that was when I spotted a copy on the shelves at Chaucer’s Books in California, and cracked the cover to explore the opening paragraph. It reads as follows:

In the myriadic year of our Lord –– the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! –– Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.

I was hooked. There’s nothing like a practical protagonist. Sword and shoes, check. Dirty magazines? Clearly a must. Next stop, adventure!

Gideon’s author, Tamsyn Muir, hails from New Zealand, land of the flightless kiwi, and perhaps her nation’s geographic (indeed, geologic) isolation is what prompted her to cast the requisite bones to write this dark but often hilarious tale. (The dialogue, in particular, is a hoot.)

Without going into a dull, useless, and surely uninspiring plot summary, let’s just say that Muir begins on a haunted planet where necromancy is the norm, and where just about nobody alive seems to live –– except for Gideon, who is training to be the galaxy’s best sword-arm, and her much-hated nemesis, Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

Harrow, after all, commits daily sacrilege by referring to proud Gideon as Griddle.

Griddle’s –– sorry, Gideon’s –– daily goal: to get off-planet. Anyplace elsewhere will do. Harrowhark’s goal: to foil Gideon, because –– well, Harrow knows what Gideon does not, that in the very near future, the Nine Houses will convene for a lethal tournament, and Harrow will need Gideon to become her right-hand girl, her one and only cavalier, in order to…

Dag-nabbit, I said I wouldn’t do a plot summary, and look what just happened. Plot! Summarized.

At rock bottom, the hook is that Gideon and Harrow are going to have to work together, because if they don’t, the really nasty side of all things necromantic will seize control of the Emperor’s depleted band of revenant Lyctors, and Lyctors are –– no, sorry, you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.

This could be disastrously simplistic in another writer’s hands. Long-time rivals, forced to work together? Yawn.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (WSP/Pocket Books, 1979)

But Muir has read her Dame Agatha, a la And Then There Were None, and she takes flight from there, bending the tropes of the “locked room mystery” into a “locked tomb mystery.” Sounds cheesy? It isn’t. Muir leavens the super-sharp, bite-me dialogue with creepy grossness straight out of Clive Barker. The action sequences are top-notch, with swords and magic and tricks and traps and self-sacrifice of the highest order. The climactic battle rages for no less than thirty-five pages, and it never flags, not once.

Speaking as a writer, that’s a particularly impressive high-wire act. Action sequences force their authors to forgo most of the tricks in the creative writing toolbox. Asides have to be strictly limited; musings and recollections even more so. Metaphors must be kept to a tidy minimum. Basically, combat scenes are a tight, focused series of “And then, and then, and then, and then!” No letting up allowed, and the ultra-efficient description required has to be vivid, dead-accurate, and electrifying. A great many very well-known authors can’t keep this particular kind of balloon aloft for long, but Muir can, and does. It’s frankly thrilling.

For those ready to frown on yet another book featuring necromancy, never fear. Muir trades in specifics. Each of the Nine Houses has its own specialty. Harrowhark’s particular focus is bones, such that skeletal material is, for her, plastic, expandable, shrinkable. At her will, bones animate. Her Sixth House rival, Sextus (who claims to be the greatest necromancer of his generation) brings a skill set more akin to a D&D cleric, allowing him to impact flesh, living, dead, and in between. The Eighth House channels (and sometimes siphons) departed souls. And so on.

The tournament commences. Each house couplet, necromancer and attendant cavalier, sets out to discover the path to becoming a Lyctor. Their hosts claim not to know the answer. We the readers certainly don’t know the answer. But Muir does. Even when the book leaves a few dangling questions at story’s end, I never had the sense that I was in the hands of, say, the makers of Lost, where in fact nobody knew what was going on.

The second and third books in The Locked Tomb series: Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth
(Tor Books, August 4, 2020 and September 13, 2022). Covers by Tommy Arnold

By choice, I treated Gideon the Ninth as a highly enjoyable one-off, but in fact it’s a quartet, with Harrow the Ninth following next, then Nona the Ninth, to be rounded off by Alecto the Ninth (coming, we are told, soon). The evidence so far suggests that Muir has her universe knitted together and under control, and the fact that she’s still exploring it is a bonus round, not a charlatan’s dodge.

Meanwhile, I suppose it’s only mete and proper to address the front-cover quote, from Charles Stross:

Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!

This is all factual enough, but a tad gratuitous, since Gideon never pursues either long-term romance or specific sex scenes. True, Gideon’s particular predilections influence how she interacts with a handful of her fellow tournament contestants, but mostly, her preferences matter about as much as her shoe size. Honestly, this is a relief. How pleasant to discover a book where sexuality, of whatever type, is just one part of the larger whole, and not something to be exploited for the sake of titillation, bodice-ripping or otherwise.

Harrow the Cat

I expect I’ll catch up with Harrow (the book, not the cat) later in the year. Although come to think of it, perhaps I’ll visit my son, too, in which case, I’ll have the opportunity to read Harrow the Ninth with Harrow the Cat purring on my lap.

Now that’s a sequel worth anticipating.

Onward.

Mark Rigney is a writer and long-time Black Gate blogger. His work on this site includes original fiction and perennially popular posts like “Adventures in Spellcraft: Rope Trick.” His new novel, Vinyl Wonderland, dropped on June 25th, 2024. Reviewer Rich Horton said of Vinyl Wonderland, “I was brought to tears, tears I trusted. A lovely work.” His favorite review quote so far comes from Instagram: “Holy crap on a cracker, it’s so good.” A preview post can be found HERE, while his website lives over THERE.

So I’ve been living under a holiday rock. The tree is still up. Yes, I know, but it’s pretty. I will take it down, leave me alone.

Anyway, I just now saw this.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Elisabeth Wheatley (@elisabethwheatley)

I think Elizabeth Wheatley is in Austin and I so owe her a lunch and a coffee. Thank you for making my day! You can find Elizabeth’s books at her online home, at https://elisabethwheatley.com/.

The post The Book Goblin first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

The Series Collide Kickstarter is winding down. As of this writing, we have hit two stretch goals, which brings the total of short stories you’ll get when you back the Kickstarter to 104. Given the unpredictability at the end of a Kickstarter, we might add anywhere from two to four more stories to that total as we hit even more goals.

That’s a lot of reading.

I don’t know about you folks, but I’m finding myself in great need of escapism right now. Fiction is the best way to block out the problems of 2025. What could be better than concentrating on some made-up adventures right now?

The Series Collide Kickstarter features 100 short stories in 36 series. Fifty stories are by me and fifty are by Dean. Think of the five books in the Kickstarter as a massive sampler. You can sample each series and if you like what you’ve read, you’ll have a lot more series reading ahead of you.

As an illustration, read this week’s Free Fiction story. It’s from my Retrieval Artist series. If you like it, there are 15 novels to grab your attention.

So head on over to the Kickstarter. In addition to the five Series Collide books, you can find other short story collections as well as some writing workshops and the opportunity to submit stories to Pulphouse Magazine (which is usually closed to submissions.)

 

Yoko Tawada’s The Emissary is a breathtakingly light-hearted meditation on mortality and fully displays what…

The post An Emissary For Our Own Fate | “The Emissary” by Yoko Tawada appeared first on LitStack.

I'm still reading this one. So far this is a really fun read, but I got stuck somewhere without physical book, so started on an e-book and read that first before continuing with this book.

But here with two unwanted escorts of dubious reputation, it had become something loud and unfamiliar. But not, thought Tao as their small party clanked on, entirely unpleasant.

(page 38 The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong)
---------
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, previously hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: - Grab your current read - Open to a random page - Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) - Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their  TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan is a writer, editor, and vastly overqualified archaeologist who has lived everywhere from London to Hertfordshire to Manchester to Sydney, which explains the panic in his eyes anytime someone asks “where are you from?”. Thankfully he is now settled in the rolling green hills of the Peak District with his human family and fluffy sidekicks Indy and Maverick, where he writes books, screenplays and comics.
Publisher: Angry Robot (January 14, 2025) Length: 400 Pages  Formats: ebook, paperback

What do you get when you throw 13 strangers into a deathtrap tower, tell them to “ASCEND,” and watch chaos unfold? You get The Way Up is Death, Dan Hanks’ twisted love child of The Hunger Games, Portal, and the most stressful video game session ever.

And it’s great.

The setup is simple: one day, a floating tower shows up in England. A group of randoms—disillusioned teachers, underappreciated artists, and even an obnoxious influencer—find themselves zapped to its doorstep. Their mission? Survive. 

Hanks takes this bonkers premise and runs with it, and the result is exceptional. A true nail-biter that toes the line between horror, sci-fi, and emotional gut punches. Each level of the tower resembles a sadistic escape room designed by a fever-dreaming psychopath. You never know what’s coming, and that’s half the fun.

The cast is awesome. There’s Alden, a grieving teacher, trying to find meaning; Nia, a game designer desperate to prove herself; and Earl and Rakie, a father-daughter duo you’ll probably root for. And then there’s Dirk, the self-absorbed influencer you’ll love to hate—seriously, he’s the worst, and you’ll cheer every time the tower messes with him.

But it’s not all blood and guts. Hanks sneaks in his sharp social commentary, thoughts on grief, loneliness, and even influencer culture. Somehow, between all the horror and humor, he sneaks in moments that genuinely make you feel things. Like, big existential feelings.

Shortcomings? Well, there’s at least one. Some characters are so obviously redshirts that their brutal demises aren’t surprising—they’re expected. The only question is the order in which they’ll die. Plus, they’re all bland and forgettable, especially when compared to a few key players.

Relentlessly paced and surprisingly heartfelt, The Way Up is Death is addictive. It’s weird, wild, and brutal. And if you’re interested in my opinion, it’s a must-read.

He’s tackled haunted houses, possessed teens, and slashers. Now, as the title of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls states, Grady Hendrix gives readers a story about witchcraft. The story takes place at a “home for unwed mothers” – places where young, often teenage girls, stay during their last months of unplanned pregnancy so they can birth…

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Lightfall by Ed Crocker

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (January 14, 2025)

Length: 384 pages

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Books featuring vampires and werewolves have always piqued my interest, especially when they strike the perfect balance between honoring traditional lore and offering something new and unique. Lightfall by Ed Crocker managed to hit that sweet spot for me. While the novel doesn’t stray too far from the established mythology of these classic monsters, it also introduces a richly detailed setting with an immersive history that feels well thought out and significant.

In the world of Lightfall, humanity no longer exists, leaving immortal creatures like vampires and werewolves in charge. The story is primarily told through three main character perspectives, each with their own role to play in the unfolding mystery that drives the plot forward. First, we have Sam, a vampire who works as a palace maid in the city of First Light. Stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder in a society where one’s worth is determined by the quality of blood they drink, she can’t help but dream of a better life for herself and her fellow “Worms.” When the youngest son of the First Lord is found murdered, Sam is tasked to clean his room and comes across a list that may offer a clue to his death. Sensing an opportunity, she decides to reach out to the “Leeches”, a secretive network among the palace staff known for their expertise in handling powerful information.

Next, we meet Sage, a sorcerer whose organization is dedicated to the study of ancient artifacts left behind by the now-extinct human race. Traveling with Jacob, the Watson to Sage’s Holmes, they arrive at Light Fall to investigate the killing of the First Lord’s son. Meanwhile, Raven is a werewolf and former assassin who now dedicates herself to hunting down criminals of her own kind, exacting swift justice upon those who break their laws. Her latest quarry has also brought her to the city, leading her to cross paths with Sam, Sage, Jacob, and the mysterious noble lady who will help guide them into dangerous territory. Together, they will uncover conspiracies far larger than they could have imagined, even as they delve deeper into the mystery of the murdered prince.

Through these POVs, Crocker weaves a tale rich in conflict and intrigue, but at its core are the layered relationships. Each character’s voice was distinct enough that the shifts between them were relatively seamless, allowing the story to flow naturally from one perspective to the next. The contrasting personalities also added a lot of depth and interest to the plot, their interactions enhancing the emotional core of the novel. Even secondary characters felt like they had important roles to play, adding meaningful context to the overarching themes.

Admittedly, though, the book was a bit slow in hooking my interest. Initial chapters took their sweet time building up the foundation to the world of Lightfall—which, to be fair, featured a substantial cast of characters and a complicated premise. Information overload happened rather quickly in this case, making it feel like I had to wade through a ton of exposition just to get to the meat of the story. But once this happened, the pacing picked up substantially. With all the pieces in place, it was like the plot was suddenly given room to breathe because things moved at a fast clip with a steady stream of action and suspense following this point. Crocker pulls off a nice balancing act by countering chapters filled with chaos and violence with more introspective moments, using this ebb and flow to ensure his storytelling remains dynamic and multifaceted.

As a lover of mysteries, especially in the context of fantasy fiction, I was also quite tickled with the overall structure of Lightfall and the involvement of Sage and Jacob—by far my favorite characters. While on the face of it, the mystery of the Lord’s murdered son was kind of simplistic, what made it compelling was the way everything was solidly incorporated into the world-building including its politics and history. Were certain elements rushed or a little predictable? Yes, to both. Still, despite these minor hiccups and other rough edges, the payoff was worth the wait.

In conclusion, Lightfall offers a unique and captivating take on vampires and werewolves and magic in the fantasy genre, offering inventive ideas. It is not without its flaws, particularly with initial pacing, but I am happy to overlook them because the novel has strengths in so many other areas. I’m excited for what lies ahead in this series and to see what Ed Crocker will do to build upon what’s already established.

Polish published Vesper has revealed the cover for Żądlak, their upcoming translation of Stinger, to be published in February 2025! The art is by Maciej Kamuda, and the translation is by Sławomir Kędzierski.

Żądlak on the Vesper website

From the award-winning, bestselling Retrieval Artist Universe comes a story about a pulse-pounding race for survival and a foreshadowing of dangerous events yet to unfold.

Takara Hamasaki made plans to leave the far-flung starbase for weeks, but something always stopped her. Until today. Now, she finds herself running for her life as bodies fall all around her, cut down by dozens of identical-looking men. If only she can reach her ship, maybe she can escape. Because one thing seems perfectly clear: The men attacking the starbase plan to leave no survivors.  

“Sole Survivor” is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Love my series stories, like the Retrieval Artist? Support the latest Kickstarter containing 50 stories from my different series – Go here now to check it out! 

 

Sole Survivor A Retrieval Artist Universe Story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

Takara Hamasaki crouched behind the half-open door, her heart pounding. She stared into the corridor, saw more boots go by. Good god, they made such a horrible thudding noise.

Her mouth tasted of metal, and her eyes stung. The environmental system had to be compromised. Which didn’t surprise her, given the explosion that happened not three minutes ago.

The entire starbase rocked from it. The explosion had to have been huge. The base’s exterior was compensating—that had come through her desk just before she left—but she didn’t know how long it would compensate.

That wasn’t true; she knew it could compensate forever if nothing else went wrong. But she had a hunch a lot of other things would go wrong. Terribly wrong.

She’d had that feeling for months now. It had grown daily, until she woke up every morning, wondering why the hell she hadn’t left yet.

Three weeks ago, she had started stocking her tiny ship, the crap-ass thing that had brought her here half her life ago. She would have left then, except for one thing:

She had no money.

Yeah, she had a job, and yeah, she got paid, but it cost a small fortune to live this far out. The base was in the middle of nowhere, barely in what the Earth Alliance called the Frontier, and a week’s food alone cost as much as her rent in the last Alliance place she had stayed. She got paid well, but every single bit of that money went back into living.

Dammit. She should have started sleeping in her ship. She’d been thinking of it, letting the one-room apartment go, but she kinda liked the privacy, and she really liked the amenities—entertainment on demand, a bed that wrapped itself around her and helped her sleep, and a view of the entire public district from above.

She liked to think it was that view that kept her in the apartment, but if she were honest with herself, it was that view and the bed and the entertainment, maybe not in that order.

And she was cursing herself now.

Then the men—they were all men—wearing boots and weird uniforms marched toward the center of the base. Thousands of people lived or stayed here, but there wasn’t much security. Not enough to deal with those men. She would hear that drumbeat of their stupid boots in her sleep for the rest of her life.

If the rest of her life wasn’t measured in hours. If she ever got a chance to sleep again.

Her traitorous heart was beating in time to those boots. She was breathing through her mouth, hating the taste of the air.

If nothing else, she had to get out of here just to get some good clean oxygen. She had no idea what was causing that burned-rubber stench, but something was, and it was getting worse.

More boots stomped by, and she realized she couldn’t tell the difference between the sound of those that had already passed her and those that were coming up the corridor.

She only had fifty meters to go to get to the docking ring, but that fifty meters seemed like a lightyear.

And she wouldn’t even be here, if it weren’t for her damn survival instinct. She had looked up—before the explosion—saw twenty blond-haired men, all of whom looked like twins. Ten twins—two sets of decaplets?—she had no idea what twenty identical people, the same age, and clearly monozygotic, were called. She supposed there was some name for them, but she wasn’t sure. And, as usual, her brain was busy solving that, instead of trying to save her own single individual untwinned life.

She had scurried through the starbase, utterly terrified. The moment she saw those men enter the base, she left her office through the service corridors. When that seemed too dangerous, she crawled through the bot holes. Thank the universe she was tiny. She usually hated the fact that she was the size of an eleven-year-old girl, and didn’t quite weigh 100 pounds.

At this moment, she figured her tiny size might just save her life.

That, and her prodigious brain. If she could keep it focused instead of letting it skitter away.

Twenty identical men—and that wasn’t the worst of it. They looked like younger versions of the creepy pale guys who had come into the office six months ago, looking for ships. They wanted to know the best place to buy ships in the starbase.

There was no place to buy new ships on the starbase. There were only old and abandoned ships. Fortunately, she had managed to prevent the sale of hers, a year ago. She’d illegally gone into the records and changed her ship’s status from delinquent to paid in full, and then she had made that paid-in-full thing repeat every year. (She’d check it, of course, but it hadn’t failed her, and now it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting off this damn base.)

Still those old creepy guys had gotten the names of some good dealers on some nearby satellites and moons, and had left—she thought forever—but they had come back with a scary fast ship and lots of determination.

And, it seemed, lots of younger versions of themselves.

(Clones. What if they were clones? What did that mean?)

The drumbeat of their stupid boots had faded. She scurried into the corridor, then heard a high-pitched male scream, and a thud.

Her heart picked up its own rhythm—faster, so fast, in fact that it felt like her heart was trying to get to the ship before she did.

She slammed herself against the corridor wall, felt it give (cheap-ass base) and caught herself before she fell inward on some unattached panel coupling.

She looked both ways, saw nothing, looked up, didn’t see any movement in the cameras—which the base insisted on keeping obvious so that all kinds of criminals would show up here. If the criminals knew where the monitors were, they felt safe, weirdly enough.

And this base needed criminals. This far outside of the Alliance, the only humans with money were the ones who had stolen it—either illegally or legally through some kind of enterprise that was allowed out here, but not inside the Alliance.

And this place catered to humans. It accepted non-human visitors, but no one here wanted them to stay. In the non-Earth atmosphere sections, the cameras weren’t obvious.

She thanked whatever deity was this far outside of the Alliance that she hadn’t been near the alien wing when the twenty creepy guys arrived and started marching in.

And then her brain offered up some stupid math it had been working on while she was trying to save her own worthless life.

She’d seen more than forty boots stomp past her.

That group of twenty lookalikes had only been the first wave.

Another scream and a thud. Then a woman’s voice:

No! No! I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll—

And the voice just stopped. No thud, no nothing. Just silence.

Takara swallowed hard. That metallic taste made her want to retch, but she didn’t. She didn’t have time for it. She could puke all she wanted when she got on that ship, and got the hell away from here.

She levered herself off the wall, wondering in that moment how long the gravity would remain on if the environmental system melted. Her nose itched—that damn smell—and she wiped the sleeve of her too-thin blouse over it.

She should have dressed better that morning. Not for work, but for escape. Stupid desk job. It made her feel so important. An administrator at 25. She should have questioned it.

She should have questioned so many things.

Like the creepy older guys who looked like the baked and fried versions of the men in boots, stomping down the corridors, killing people.

She blinked, wondered if her eyes were tearing because of the smell or because of her panic, then voted for the smell. The air in the corridor had a bit of white to it, like smoke or something worse, a leaking environment from the alien section.

She was torn between running and tip-toeing her way through the remaining forty-seven meters. She opted for a kind of jog-walk, that way her heels didn’t slap the floor like those boots stomped it.

Another scream, farther away, and the clear sound of begging, although she didn’t recognize the language. Human anyway, or something that spoke like a human and screamed like a human.

Why were these matching people stalking the halls killing everyone they saw? Were they trying to take over the base? If so, why not come to her office? Hers was the first one in the administrative wing, showing her lower-level status—in charge, but not in charge.

In charge enough to see that the base’s exterior was compensating for having a hole blown in it. In charge enough to know how powerful an explosion had to be to break through the shield that protected the base against asteroids and out-of-control ships and anything else that bounced off the thick layers of protection.

A bend in the corridor. Her eyes dripped, her nose dripped, and her throat felt like it was burning up.

She couldn’t see as clearly as she wanted to—no pure white smoke any more, some nasty brown stuff mixed in, and a bit of black.

She pulled off her blouse and put it over her face like a mask, wished she had her environmental suit, wished she knew where she could steal one right now, and then sprinted toward the docking ring.

If she kept walk-jogging, she’d never get there before the oxygen left the area.

Then something else shook the entire base. Like it had earlier. Another damn explosion.

She whimpered, rounded the last corner, saw the docking ring doors—closed.

She cursed (although she wasn’t sure if she did it out loud or just in her head) and hoped to that ever-present unknown deity that her access code still worked.

The minute those doors slid open, the matching marching murderers would know she was here. Or rather, that someone was here.

They’d come for her. They’d make her scream.

But she’d be damned if she begged.

She hadn’t begged ever, not when her dad beat her within an inch of her life, not when she got accused of stealing from that high-class school her mother had warehoused her in, not when her credit got cut off as she fled to the outer reaches of the Alliance.

She hadn’t begged no matter what situation she was in, and she wouldn’t now. It was a point of pride. It might be the last point of pride, hell, it might mark her last victory just before she died, but it would be a victory nonetheless, and it would be hers.

Takara slammed her hand against the identiscanner, then punched in a code, because otherwise she’d have to use her links, and she wasn’t turning them back on, maybe ever, because she didn’t want those crazy matching idiots to not only find her, but find her entire life, stored in the personal memory attached to her private access numbers.

The docking ring doors irised open, and actual air hit her. Real oxygen without the stupid smoky stuff, good enough to make her leap through the doors. Then she turned around and closed them.

She scanned the area, saw feet—not in boots—attached to motionless legs, attached to bleeding bodies, attached to people she knew, and she just shut it all off, because if she saw them as friends or co-workers or hell, other human beings, she wouldn’t be able to run past them, wouldn’t be able to get to her ship, wouldn’t get the hell out of here.

She kept her shirt against her face, just in case, but her eyes were clearing. The air here looked like air, but it smelled like a latrine. Death—fast death, recent death. She’d used it for entertainment, watched it, read about it, stepped inside it virtually, but she’d never experienced it. Not really, not like this.

Her ship, the far end of this ring, the cheap area, where the base bent downward and would have brushed the top of some bigger ship, something that actually had speed and firepower and worth.

Then she mentally corrected herself: her ship had worth. It would get her out of this death trap. She would escape before one of those tall blond booted men found her. She would—

—she flew forward, landed on her belly, her elbow scraping against the metal walkway, air leaving her body. Her shirt went somewhere, her chin banged on the floor, and then the sound—a whoop-whamp, followed by a sustained series of crashes.

Something was collapsing, or maybe one of the explosions was near her, or she had no damn idea, she just knew she had to get out, get out, get out—

She pushed herself to her feet, her knees sore too, her pants torn, her stomach burning, but she didn’t look down because the feel of that burn matched the feel of her elbow, so she was probably scraped.

She didn’t even grab her shirt; she just ran the last meter to her ship, which had moved even with its mooring clamps—good god, something was shaking this place, something bad, something big.

Her ship was so small, it didn’t even have a boarding ramp. The door was pressed against the clamps, or it should have been, but there was a gap between the clamps and the ship and the walkway, and it was probably tearing something in the ship, but she didn’t want to think about that so she didn’t.

Instead, she slammed her palm against the door four times, the emergency enter code, which wasn’t a code at all, but was something she thought (back when she was young and stupid and new to access codes) no one would figure out.

What she hadn’t figured out was that no one wanted this cheap-ass ship, so no one tried to break into it. No one wanted to try, no one cared, except her, right now, as the door didn’t open and didn’t open and didn’t open—

—and then it did.

Her brain was slowing down time. She’d heard about this phenomenon, something happened chemically in the human brain, slowed perception, made it easier (quicker?) to make decisions—and there her stupid brain was again, thinking about the wrong things as she tried to survive.

Hell, that had helped her survive as a kid, this checking-out thing in the middle of an emergency, but it wasn’t going to help her now.

She scrambled inside her ship, felt it tilt, heard the hull groan. If she didn’t do something about those clamps, she wouldn’t have a ship.

She somehow remembered to slap the door’s closing mechanism before she sprinted to the cockpit. Her bruised knees made her legs wobbly or maybe the ship was tilting even more. The groaning in the hull was certainly increasing.

The cockpit door was open, the place was a mess, as always. She used to sleep in here on long runs, and she always meant to clean up the blankets and pillows and clothes, but never did.

Now she stood in the middle of it, and turned on the navigation board. She instructed the ship to decouple, then turned her links on—not all of them, just the private link that hooked her to the ship—and heard more groaning.

“Goddammit!” she screamed at the ship, slamming her hands on the board. “Decouple, decouple—get rid of the goddamn clamps!”

Inform space traffic control to open the exit through the rings, the ship said in its prissiest voice as if there was no emergency.

Tears pricked her eyes. Crap. She’d be stuck here because of some goddamn rule that ship couldn’t take off if there was no exit. She’d die if there was another explosion.

“There’s no space traffic control here,” she said. “Space traffic control is dead. We have to get out. Everyone’s dead.”

Her voice wobbled just like the ship had as she realized what she had said. Everyone. Everyone she had worked with, her friends, her co-workers, the people she drank with, laughed with, everyone—

We cannot leave if the exit isn’t open, the ship said slowly and even more prissily, if that were possible.

“Then ram it,” she said.

That will destroy us, the ship said, so damn calmly. Like it had no idea they were about to be destroyed anyway.

Takara ran her fingers over the board, looking for—she couldn’t remember. This thing was supposed to have weapons, but she’d never used them, didn’t know exactly what they were. She’d bought this stupid ship for a song six years ago, and the weapons were only mentioned in passing.

She couldn’t find anything, so she gambled.

“Blow a damn hole through the closed exit,” she said, not knowing if she could do that, if the ship even allowed that. Weren’t there supposed to be failsafes so that no one could blow a hole through something on this base?

That will leave us with only one remaining laser shot, the ship said.

“I don’t give a good goddamn!” she screamed. “Fire!”

And it did. Or something happened. Because the ship heated, and rocked and she heard a bang like nothing she’d ever heard before, and the sound of things falling on the ship.

“Get us out of here!” she shouted.

And the ship went upwards, fast, faster than ever.

She tumbled backwards. The attitude controls were screwed or the gravity or something but she didn’t care.

“Visuals,” she said, and floating on the screens that appeared in front of her was the hole that the ship had blown through the exit, and debris heading out with them, and bits of ship—and then she realized that there were bits of more than ship. Bits of the starbase and other ships and son of a bitch, more bodies and—

“Make sure you don’t hit anything,” she said, not knowing how to give the correct command.

I will evade large debris, the ship said as if this were an everyday occurrence. However, I do need a destination.

“Far the fuck away from here,” Takara said.

How far?

“I don’t know,” she said. “Out of danger.”

She was pressed against what she usually thought of as the side wall, with blankets and smelly sheets and musty pillows against her.

“And fix the attitude controls and the gravity, would you?” she snapped.

The interior of the ship seemed to right itself. She flopped on her stomach again, only this time, it didn’t hurt.

She stood, her mouth wet and tasting of blood. She put a hand to her face, realized her nose was bleeding, and grabbed a sheet, stuffing it against her skin.

She dragged it with her to the controls. The images had disappeared (had she ordered that? She didn’t remember ordering that) and so she called them up again, saw more body parts, and globules of stuff (blood? Intestines?) and shut it all off—consciously this time.

God, she was lucky. She had administration codes. She had a sense that things were going bad. She had her ship ready. And, most important of all, she had been close enough to the docking ring to get out of there before anyone knew she even existed.

She sank into the chair and closed her eyes, wondering what in the bloody hell was going on.

She’d met those men, the creepy older ones, and asked her boss what they wanted with ships, and he’d said, Better not to ask, hon.

He always called her hon, and she finally realized it was because he couldn’t remember her name. And now he was dead or would be dead or was dying or something awful like that. He’d been inside the administration area when the twenty clones had come in—or the forty clones—or the sixty clones, god, she had no idea how many.

It was her boss’s boss who answered her, later, when she mentioned that the men looked alike.

Don’t ask about it, Takara, he’d said quietly. They’re creatures of someone else. Designer Criminal Clones. They need a ship for nefarious doings.

They’re not in charge? She’d asked.

He’d shaken his head. Someone made them for a job.

Her eyes opened, saw the mess that her cockpit had become. A job. They’d had to find fast ships for a job.

But if the creepy older ones were made for a job, so were the younger versions.

She called up the screens, asked for images of the starbase. It was a small base, far away from anything, important only to malcontents and criminals, and those, like her, whose ships wouldn’t cross the great distance between human-centered planets without a rest and refueling stop.

The starbase was glowing—fires inside, except where the exterior had been breached. Those sections were dark and ruined. It looked like a volcano that had already exploded—twice. More than twice. Several times.

Ship, her ship said, and for a minute, she thought it was being recursive.

“What?” she asked.

Approaching quickly. Starboard side.

She swiveled the view, saw a ship twice the size of hers, familiar too. The creepy older men had come back to the starbase in a ship just like that.

“Can you show me who is inside?” she asked.

I can show you who the ship is registered to and who disembarked from it earlier today, her ship sent. I cannot show who is inside it now.

Then, on an inset screen floating near the other screens, images of the two creepy older men and five younger leaving the ship. They went inside the base.

“Did anyone else who looked like them—”

The other clones disembarked from a ship that landed an hour later, her ship answered, anticipating her question for once. Did ships think?

Then she shook her head. She knew better than that. Ships like this one had computers that could deduce based on past performance, nothing more.

That ship has been destroyed, the ship sent, along with the docking ring.

“What?” Takara asked. She moved the imagery again, saw another explosion. The docking ring about five minutes after she left.

She was trembling. Everyone gone. Except her. And the creepy men, and maybe the five young guys they had brought with them.

Bastards. Filthy stinking horrible asshole bastards.

“You said we have one shot left,” she said.

Yes, but—

“Target that ship,” she said. “Blow the hell out of it.”

Our laser shot cannot penetrate their shields.

Her gaze scanned the area. Other ships whirling, twirling, looping through space, heading her way.

Their way.

She ran through the records stored in her links. She’d always made copies of things. She was anal that way, and scared enough to figure she might need blackmail material.

One thing she did handle as a so-called administrator: requests to dock for ships with unusual fuel sources. She kept them on the far side of the ring.

She scanned for them, and their unusual size, saw one, realized it had a huge fuel cell, still intact.

“Can you shoot that ship?” she asked, sending the image across the links, “and push it into the manned ship?”

What she wanted to say was “the ship with the creepy guys,” but she knew her ship wouldn’t know what she meant.

Yes, her ship sent. But it will do nothing to the ship except make them collide.

“Oh, yes it will,” Takara said. “Make sure the fuel cell hits the manned ship directly.”

That will cause a chain reaction that will be so large it might impact us, her ship sent.

“Yeah, then get us out of here,” Takara said.

We have a forty-nine percent chance of survival if we try that, her ship sent.

“Which is better than what we’ll have if that fucking ship catches up with us,” Takara said.

Are you ordering me to take the shot? Her ship asked.

“Yes!”

Her ship shook slightly as the last laser shot emerged from the front. The manned ship didn’t even seem to notice or care that she had firepower. Of course, from their perspective, she had missed them.

The shot went wide, hit the other ship, and destroyed part of its hull, pushing it into the manned ship.

And nothing happened. They collided, and then bounced away, the manned ship’s trajectory changed and little else.

Then the other ship’s fuel cell glowed green, and Takara’s ship sped up, again losing attitude control and sending her flying into the back wall.

An explosion—green and gold and white—flashed around her.

She looked up from the pile of blankets at the floating screens, saw only debris, and asked, “Did we do it?”

Our shot hit the ship. It exploded. Our laser shot ignited the fuel cell—

“I know,” she snapped. “What about the manned ship?”

It is destroyed.

She let out a sigh of relief, then leaned back against the wall, gathering the pillows and blanket against her. The blood had dried on her face, and she hadn’t even noticed until now. Her elbow ached, her knees stung, and her stomach hurt, and she felt—

Alive.

She felt alive and giddy and sad and terrified and…

Curious.

She scanned through the information on the creepy men. They didn’t have names, at least that they had given to the administration. Just numbers. Numbers that didn’t make sense.

She saw some imagery: the men talking to her boss, saying something about training missions for their weapons, experimental weapons, and something about soldiers—a promise of a big payout if the experiment worked.

And if it doesn’t? her boss asked.

The creepy men smiled. You’ll know if it doesn’t.

Practice sessions. Soldiers. A failed experiment. Had her boss realized that’s what this was in his last moment of life? Had he indeed known?

And the men, heading off to report the failure to someone.

But they hadn’t gotten there. She had stopped them.

But not the someone in charge.

She ran a hand over her face. She would send all of this to Alliance. There wasn’t much more she could do. She wasn’t even sure what the Alliance could do.

This was the Frontier. It was lawless by any Alliance definition. Each place governed itself.

She had liked that when she arrived. She was untraceable, unknown, completely alone.

Then she’d made friends, realized that every place had a rhythm, every place had good and bad parts, and she had decided to stay. Become someone.

Until she got that feeling from the creepy men, and had planned to leave.

“Fix the attitude and gravity controls, would you?” she asked, only this time, she didn’t sound panicked or upset.

The ship righted itself. Apparently when it sped up, it didn’t have enough power for all of its functions. She was going to need to get repairs.

Maybe in the Alliance. She had enough fuel to get there.

She’d been stockpiling. Food, fuel, everything but money.

She could get back to a place where there were laws she understood, where someone didn’t blow up a starbase as an experiment with creepy matching soldiers.

She’d let the authorities know that someone—a very scary someone—was planning something. But what she didn’t know. She didn’t even know if it was directed against the Alliance.

She would guess it wasn’t.

It would take more than twenty, forty, sixty, one hundred matching (fuckups) soldiers to defeat the Alliance. No one had gone to war against it in centuries. It was too big.

Something like this had to be Frontier politics. A war against something else, or an invasion or something.

And it had failed.

All of the soldiers had died.

Along with everyone else.

Except her, of course.

She hadn’t died.

She had lived to tell about it.

And she would tell whoever would listen.

Once she was safe inside the Alliance.

A place too big to be attacked. Too big to be defeated.

Too big to ever allow her to go through anything like this again.

 

____________________________________________

“Sole Survivor” is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Love my series stories, like the Retrieval Artist Series? Support the latest Kickstarter containing 50 stories from my different series – Go here now to check it out! 

Sole Survivor

Copyright © 2015 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in Fiction River: Pulse Pounders, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, WMG Publishing, January 2015
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2015 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Philcold/Dreamstime

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

I missed December, and apologize: I was writing. I’m still writing; Cast in Blood isn’t finished, and it may undergo a title change by the end. Also, I’m now in the “panic about how long this book is going to be” phase of the novel, but it is otherwise going well. In advance: this will not be the last Barrani book. I am hoping to finish, with a reasonable arc, a book that is going to be followed by another Cast Barrani book. Just saying. My entire household succumbed to the stomach flu a week ago, and we have all mostly recovered, although I’m now in that state were, having eaten almost nothing for a week, my body assumes it is … Continue reading →

As some of you remember, Clean Sweep was adapted into comic book format by Tapas. It has been licensed by Andrews McMeel and released as a beautiful graphic novel. Because of the length, Clean Sweep was broken into 2 volumes.

Volume I

The second volume of Clean Sweep will be released on January 28th. Tada!

Volume II

To be clear: this is not Sweep in Peace. It’s the second half of Clean Sweep. The comic book expanded the story and added new characters.

When the first volume was released, Andrews McMeel offered these stickers below as a giveaway. As an aside, they have been an awesome publisher to work with. Highly recommend.

There was some butthurt regarding people not being able to buy the stickers.

The stickers for Volume I featured cute versions of the characters. These cutified characters are called chibis. In the example below, top panel is regular art and the bottom part is chibi art. Usage of chibis in comic books usually indicates light-hearted or funny moments when a character is comically upset, for example.

Andrews McMeel just asked us about the stickers for Volume II. BDH, we need your help!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

And

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Let your opinions flow!

The post The Clean Sweep: Vol II and the Dilemma of Stickers first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

There are lots of things I would like to write about today. Our lives are busy right now, in a variety of ways, all of them pretty positive. I have professional stuff going on, personal stuff going on. I could write about all of it.

But Los Angeles is on fire. I’m writing this as the weekend approaches. Maybe — MAYBE — by the time you read this, the fires will be under control. But I doubt it. The photographs of damage on the ground are horrendous. The satellite imagery — before and after shots of neighborhoods and towns — is terrifying. The pictures posted overnight of the fires as seen from airplanes on approach to LAX look like something out of a disaster movie.

I don’t live in California (not anymore, but I once did; I love the state), but I have family and friends who do, people I love who have been impacted directly by this mind-boggling tragedy. Chances are, you do, too. Or if not you, then someone close to you does.

That’s the thing about climate change. It touches all of us. We don’t have to be in the path of the latest Category 5 hurricane, or impacted by yet another drought, or threatened by apocalyptic fires, for its impacts to reach us. It’s not all cataclysm and news headlines. It’s higher grocery prices resulting from crop damage (storms, heat, frost, drought, flood — take your pick). It’s stronger winds resulting from greater temperature gradients, which lead in turn to harder headwinds when we fly, or more turbulence, and yes, greater, more frequent delays at the airport.

It’s hotter summers and milder winters. It’s also more storms year-round, except, of course, during droughts. It’s more mosquitoes and ticks. It’s less snow for ski resorts. It’s vanishing glaciers in our beautiful national parks. It’s more mass extinctions, falling bird populations (30% of North American birds have been lost in the last fifty years, not all because of climate change, but it’s a significant factor), and frightening losses in the populations of our natural pollinators.

It’s greater strains on our electrical grid, more blackouts, a greater need for frequent rolling power outages, all of which contribute to higher utility costs. It’s increased insurance premiums, as insurance companies race to recoup the losses caused by the aforementioned floods and fires and storms.

Climate change is a thousand different things. Some cause inconveniences and cost us a few bucks. Some cause deaths, disease, injuries, and cost our society billions.

“We don’t get as much snow as we used to.”

“There are more storms than there used to be.”

“Glacier National Park won’t have glaciers for much longer.”

“Los Angeles is on fire.”

It’s not a hoax. It’s not a left-wing plot to grow government and control our lives. It’s not a figment of some scientists’ imaginations. It’s real. It’s borne out in evidence gathered by meteorologists, physicists, biologists, ecologists, and historians. It is a threat to our economy, our way of life, and the health and welfare of every person on the planet, as well as our children and grandchildren.

If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem. The proof is in all that our planet has experienced over the past half century and more. Refusing to acknowledge the truth of climate change does nothing to slow it down or mitigate its myriad costs. All it does is ensure that future generations will pay an ever greater price for our failures.

But if you still don’t believe me, take five minutes — five full minutes — to look at the images coming out of Southern California. I guarantee, you’ve never seen anything like it. None of us has. We will see it again, though. Sooner rather than later, with ever-increasing frequency.

As to the suggestion made by some Republicans, including the Felon-elect, that California should be denied disaster aid because Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has mismanaged the state’s water resources, I will simply refer you to this article from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czj3yk90kpyo

Not only are GOP claims baseless, they are deeply cruel. Denying aid to the state won’t hurt Newsom. It will hurt innocent people who have lost their homes and businesses. And if blame for this travesty falls on anyone, it ought to be those who have spent the last three decades denying that climate change is real, the political Neros who pander to the fossil fuel industry while the planet burns.

Climate change is here. It’s merciless and indiscriminate. You can see its impact on your televisions and computer screens and smart phones right now. And it’s only getting worse.

There are lots of things I would like to write about today. Our lives are busy right now, in a variety of ways, all of them pretty positive. I have professional stuff going on, personal stuff going on. I could write about all of it.

But Los Angeles is on fire. I’m writing this as the weekend approaches. Maybe — MAYBE — by the time you read this, the fires will be under control. But I doubt it. The photographs of damage on the ground are horrendous. The satellite imagery — before and after shots of neighborhoods and towns — is terrifying. The pictures posted overnight of the fires as seen from airplanes on approach to LAX look like something out of a disaster movie.

I don’t live in California (not anymore, but I once did; I love the state), but I have family and friends who do, people I love who have been impacted directly by this mind-boggling tragedy. Chances are, you do, too. Or if not you, then someone close to you does.

That’s the thing about climate change. It touches all of us. We don’t have to be in the path of the latest Category 5 hurricane, or impacted by yet another drought, or threatened by apocalyptic fires, for its impacts to reach us. It’s not all cataclysm and news headlines. It’s higher grocery prices resulting from crop damage (storms, heat, frost, drought, flood — take your pick). It’s stronger winds resulting from greater temperature gradients, which lead in turn to harder headwinds when we fly, or more turbulence, and yes, greater, more frequent delays at the airport.

It’s hotter summers and milder winters. It’s also more storms year-round, except, of course, during droughts. It’s more mosquitoes and ticks. It’s less snow for ski resorts. It’s vanishing glaciers in our beautiful national parks. It’s more mass extinctions, falling bird populations (30% of North American birds have been lost in the last fifty years, not all because of climate change, but it’s a significant factor), and frightening losses in the populations of our natural pollinators.

It’s greater strains on our electrical grid, more blackouts, a greater need for frequent rolling power outages, all of which contribute to higher utility costs. It’s increased insurance premiums, as insurance companies race to recoup the losses caused by the aforementioned floods and fires and storms.

Climate change is a thousand different things. Some cause inconveniences and cost us a few bucks. Some cause deaths, disease, injuries, and cost our society billions.

“We don’t get as much snow as we used to.”

“There are more storms than there used to be.”

“Glacier National Park won’t have glaciers for much longer.”

“Los Angeles is on fire.”

It’s not a hoax. It’s not a left-wing plot to grow government and control our lives. It’s not a figment of some scientists’ imaginations. It’s real. It’s borne out in evidence gathered by meteorologists, physicists, biologists, ecologists, and historians. It is a threat to our economy, our way of life, and the health and welfare of every person on the planet, as well as our children and grandchildren.

If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem. The proof is in all that our planet has experienced over the past half century and more. Refusing to acknowledge the truth of climate change does nothing to slow it down or mitigate its myriad costs. All it does is ensure that future generations will pay an ever greater price for our failures.

But if you still don’t believe me, take five minutes — five full minutes — to look at the images coming out of Southern California. I guarantee, you’ve never seen anything like it. None of us has. We will see it again, though. Sooner rather than later, with ever-increasing frequency.

As to the suggestion made by some Republicans, including the Felon-elect, that California should be denied disaster aid because Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has mismanaged the state’s water resources, I will simply refer you to this article from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czj3yk90kpyo

Not only are GOP claims baseless, they are deeply cruel. Denying aid to the state won’t hurt Newsom. It will hurt innocent people who have lost their homes and businesses. And if blame for this travesty falls on anyone, it ought to be those who have spent the last three decades denying that climate change is real, the political Neros who pander to the fossil fuel industry while the planet burns.

Climate change is here. It’s merciless and indiscriminate. You can see its impact on your televisions and computer screens and smart phones right now. And it’s only getting worse.

Strange Pictures is the spine-tingling mystery horror bestseller that has taken Japan by storm! An…

The post Spotlight on “Strange Pictures” by Uketsu appeared first on LitStack.

Power tools and alcohol, what could possibly go wrong?

I’ll be in my bunker.

Do I need to be awake? And, maybe, running away?

Naw, I’m sure it’ll turn out fine.