Hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but I need to get this out for everyone asap.

Due to the fact that I have no extra funds available for acquiring additional story rights and do not foresee having any such funds available until I get the works I have already offered on published in anthology form, all stories that are currently in the Darwin’s Evolutions slush pile are officially released. This means I’m deleting them all from my files, unread and without comment.

I apologize for the delay in this action. I have been attempting to acquire additional funding (i.e. find a new a day job) so that I’d be able to keep rolling forward with filling the pipeline in addition to bringing all contracted stories and art to publication. Sadly, my attempts to gain that elusive source of sustaining employment have failed. At this time, I am focusing all that I can scrape together into bringing the previously contracted stories forward to successful publication. If those efforts bear sufficient fruit, I will re-open the slush pile.

Again, my apologies to all who submitted and have so patiently waited. I wish the news could have been better.

Just a post to let everyone know that I’m closing the slush pile for a bit.

I’m working on getting editing done on stories for the antho releases in September and juggling another revenue producing effort on the side, ergo, my time to read the submissions has been curtailed severely.

I’ll do my best to get things back up and open again here shortly. Must get the product I have out the door before purchasing new stock, after all.

This week’s release features the fantasy adventure of a pair of young lovers as they try to make their name in the world. Unfortunately, timing is everything and theirs just plain sucks…or does it? In the midst of conflict lies opportunity, if you can survive long enough to grasp it. Please enjoy this fun novelette by gifted storyteller Nyki Blatchley:

“So this is Hannor.”

Failiu looked around the port’s bustle. Passengers in garish clothes disembarked, grimy dockers loaded and unloaded vessels, sailors swaggered off to spend their pay, and the usual tide-line of peddlers, food-sellers and whores hovered ready to take it.

“Yes.” Karaghr’s infectious smile was eager as his glowing eyes surveyed the scene, oblivious to the doubt in her voice. “The greatest port of the Thaal lands. There’s a fortune to be made here.”

“Oh?” Failiu put into the question all the sophisticated irony she felt appropriate, now that she was nearly seventeen. “By anyone in particular?”

“By us, of course. Don’t be silly, Fai.”

She sighed at the waste of her urbanity, running a hand through the dirty tangles of her black hair. Kari insisted she looked beautiful even filthy and unkempt, but she wasn’t convinced. He looked gorgeous, as always – the gleam in his eyes and the dark hair blowing out rakishly gave him the air of a romantic pirate captain. A very young one.

“Fine, but how are we going to live until we make this fortune, Kari? Remember, you blew the last of our money.”

“That’s hardly fair. We both agreed it was worth getting passage on the ship.”

She cast a grimace back at the battered, leaky merchantman they’d just left. Kari’s wounded innocence had her temper threatening to bubble up. “That wasn’t our last money. Our last money was what you lost on that stupid bet.”

“Well. . .yes.” His face took on such a sweet, woeful expression that some of her anger drained away. “I said I was sorry. I’m sure that man cheated me.”

A burly sailor, reeking of salt and cheap wine, shouldered her aside. Failiu instinctively checked her purse, before remembering it was empty.

“Oh well, it’s done now. The fact remains, we can’t afford anything to eat or anywhere to stay. What are we going to do? Sleep in alleyways?”

“We could.” He shrugged. “That’s how you lived in Errish, after all, before the temple took you in.”

“Thanks for that.” How could he not realise that it hurt when he brought up her childhood? It was all very well for him, growing up in a secure village where the worst problem was boredom, by his own account. He could be so immature at times, for all that he was a year older than her. “And that’s why I know I don’t want to do it again. And I want to eat. And I want to get some new clothes.”

Failiu glanced down resentfully at the knee-length tunic, dirty and threadbare, that she’d been wearing for at least two months. She was sure there were things other than her living in it.

“Don’t worry.” The eagerness was back on Karaghr’s face. “It’ll be easy to sell our sorcery. Remember, they say everyone in Hannor employs sorcerers.”

“Well…yes.” Failiu had heard this, but how useful would it be? “That means there’ll be plenty of them already. Maybe…I don’t know…maybe they have some kind of guild, and they won’t let outsiders in.”

The rest of The Temple of Taak-Resh is available on:

1. Amazon Kindle
2. Amazon Kindle U.K.
3. Barnes and Noble Nook
4. All-format Zip Bundle Direct from DE

Cover illustration by Jesus Garcia Lopez.

See our other fine offerings in The Library Store.

Cool cover that has nothing whatsoever to do with story.

So, once upon a time there was this middle-aged writer/author/editor kind of schmuck who had just received his Kindle. After fiddle farting around a bit and converting some stories of his own into MOBI form just so he could see how the devil device worked, he thought to himself, “I wonder how this ‘instant download’ bull pockey works?”

Thus our protagonist began sifting through the “browse” feature of said Kindle interface, looking for something that wouldn’t either bore him to tears or make him vomit blood. Since he liked space opera, he fastened onto the blurbs for a series that he’d also seen in real life on shelves at the bookstore but never worked up any enthusiasm for parting with his money for: The Lost Fleet series by someone named “Jack Campbell”. Since the Kindle-y versions were, in fact and as is moot and right cheaper than the dead tree versions, our intrepid writer/author/editor hero plunked down a debit against his credit card to purchase one of the books on speculation (which turned out to be right smack dab in the middle of the series) as a test file.

And thus did I end up entrapped in the trials and tribulations of The Lost Fleet and the excellent narrative voice and pacing of “Jack Campbell”, the pseudonym of author John G. Hemry, who is a navy veteran among other things.

Dreadnaught is actually the first book in a follow-on series to the original Lost Fleet saga. In the first go-round, the hero of the tales, Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, is revived from a long suspended animation in a damaged escape capsule to discover that he has been elevated to “heroic” legend by a government desperate to keep up the population’s morale at the tail end of a century-long war. Over the course of six books (Dauntless, Fearless, Courageous, Valiant, Relentless, Victorious), Captain Geary takes the survivors of a truly stupid attempt to achieve final victory from flight for survival to resurgent conquerors and inadvertently cements his “legendary” status by example.

In Dreadnaught, our pseudonyminous author – Mr. Campbell – returns to the universe he has created to deal with the complete and utter mess his main character has made of things between shattering the pseudo-empire that had been his enemy for so long and smiting the nose of a rather screwed-up race of violently introverted aliens who attempted to sneak solar-system killing mines into most of humanity’s safeholds.

That’ll do for an overview. Basically, this entire series is military space opera, naval focus, without any kind of bizarre diddling of physics to make the ships behave like Napoleonic-era men-of-war. There’s hand-waving for the interstellar travel bit and then something of a solid and quasi-rational approach to the almost-reality of Newtonian physics within which we all have to live normally. That makes the whole set-up a lot easier to swallow from a reading standpoint.  There’s only a couple of “gimme”s and you can then get on with the story.

And telling a gripping story is where Mr. Emry’s talents lay. The characters are empathetic, the plots and subplots appear straightforward but rarely are, human behaviors affect outcomes, pro and con, and it’s easy to cheer for the “good guys”, even though they have issues. Best of all, there’s none of that half-rotten squishy leftist politically correct navel gazing stupidity that inundates much of the current fare of fiction in the world.

Is it a little shallow in places?  Well, yeah. He doesn’t do many scene settings. You won’t get great sweeping vistas of alien worlds from the ground level, just orbital views as things are targeted for destruction. There’s a few places the characters go aboard ship, and that’s about it. And, let’s be honest, some of the “bad” guys are totally stupid-shallow. Sorry. There. I said it.

Regardless, the books entrap a reader into flipping on to the next page as fast you can take in the words. The main elements are there in terms of empathetic characterization, engaging plot, very accessible prose, and the author’s innate ability to keep you reading to Find Out What Happens Next. That’s what I like in my entertainment fiction and that’s what Mr. Hemry aka Jack Campbell delivers in spades.

I am very pleased to present today’s release by Lindsey Duncan. Fatecraft introduces her character Pazia Ke’Lieren, a daserii (dice maker) with a special touch and a knack for finding trouble. Lindsey’s style is clear, clean, and easy to immerse yourself in. I hope you will all enjoy this tale as much as I have over the years.

Pazia Ke’Lieren awoke flailing and shouting, nightmare recollections of broken locks and the thugs who had grabbed her hot on her mind. With no clear target in the semi-dark, she felt her foot connect with something soft even as she fell forward and landed hard on the planking of an inordinately fussy carriage. The quiet washed over her: no pounding hooves, no hissing of weather.

Jolted into common sense, she squinted at the pair who reclined on the seats. The man had a flat face, smooth as a river-rock, his frame stone thick. The woman was spindly, long-limbed and gold-complected, accompanied by a touch of stale perfume. They were dressed in tapestried velvet with silk blackwork and discreet jet jewelry, but the fabrics were frayed, a little too old, a little – to the eyes of a mercer’s daughter – out of style. The rest of the carriage matched: the curtains had been repaired past their prime, several layers of paint almost disguised the aging of the wood, and…

A foot to her stomach interrupted her assessment. She tried to curse at the guard who loomed over her, but the sound came out as an airless squeak. Outside, the horizon slid past in a blur of grey, stretched thin and level. Pazia had never seen anything like it before, but she pulled together scattered facts and guessed they traveled at ghostglide, a magical means of transportation invisible to the eye – too imprecise for breaking and entering, but impossible to track. It explained why there was no bump or shudder from the horses, only endless motion.

“You have strong lungs, daserii,” the nobleman said, his voice as rough as his appearance was polished. “I didn’t realize crafting dice was such athletic work.”

“I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know about the art,” Pazia replied, ekeing the words out with her precious remaining air, “if you’ll let me up and pull the carriage over.” Her hand snuck down and clutched the pouch at her side. The point of a pyramidal die poked her in the palm. As if she needed it to tell her that she was in trouble.

A dark and sultry chuckle from the woman, jewel-like fingers toying with a ring on her right hand. “Let her breathe.”

The guard stepped off her, but dropped his hand on the hilt of his sword for warning as he did. Pazia sucked in a lungful of air, not caring how it looked, and scrambled onto the seat opposite. The dice clattered in her pouch. “If this is about a set of dice I might have sold your noblenesses or one of your gambling partners,” she began, “I’ve never, nor would I ever, make a crooked pair of dice. It would be disrespectful to them.”

“Disrespectful to the dice?” Up went a skeptical eyebrow, yet his expression was thoughtful. “Be that as it may, this is not about business gone wrong. My wife Kadret and I…” a flitting smile of sudden tenderness for his companion, and a coy flick of lashes from her in answer “…wish you to carve something for us. We understand you can work with gemstone and have a particular instinct for dice.”

The rest of Fatecraft is available on:

1. Amazon Kindle
2. Amazon Kindle U.K.
3. Barnes & Noble Nook
4. All-format Zip Bundle Direct from DE

Cover art by R.L. Carter

Which is what I would have done had I managed to dodge the July 4 holiday. Sadly, this did not come to pass.

My intention was to opine on something interesting and of immediate interest to the rising e-book crowd. With that plan thoroughly scuttled, I shall now do the minimum necessary to coast through the week.

To whit: No new e-book releases this week.

The combination of the July 4 holiday, a trip to the Kentucky Horse Park in the middle of this week, a hiccup of my last attempted release in the B&N system, and a much-needed cleaning of my contractual bookkeeping has resulted in me being out of time to properly edit the new releases this week.  Ergo, I’ll deal with it on the road and over the upcoming end-of-week/weekend.

Today’s release is by author and artist, A.L. Sirois.  The tale he shares with us today is set in a future some decades ahead of now where a warmer planet and rising seas have resulted in a tropical New York full of interesting and dangerous creatures, both wild and human. It’s a fast-paced race through an infested Gotham as a doctor searches both for a medical breakthrough and for a way to hook back up with his son.

The Bight

by A.L. Sirois

Michael Gradowitz flattened himself against the wet, gritty wall as two scumboys – one black, the other Asian – stalked across the opening of the alley in the drizzling rain, twenty-odd feet away. He was ten hours into the worst assignment of his career, sporting a spiky green topknot along with a dozen studs in his ears and several cosmetic scars, and already wishing he’d never agreed to take the job in the first place. He slapped at a mosquito and shrank into the shadows.

When he drew back his hand, he unintentionally touched the crucifix hidden under his sweaty black T-shirt. Its presence didn’t reassure him in any way. He would have gladly traded it for his iBand in an instant, but none of the denizens of what had been Manhattan wore an iBand. Without his, he felt cut off and defenseless.

Om Burmek didn’t wear an iBand, either. Then again, Om had muscles and Zen awareness, so he didn’t need one. Gradowitz’s son Eli, along with millions of other twelve-year-olds, followed Om’s online adventures. The combat android, samurai-like hero of Eli’s favorite stream showed his wisdom and bravery thrice weekly for his adoring young fans as he went up against brigands and monsters along the lawless Japanese coastline as the islands settled into the tepid sea.

His son wasn’t impressed by Gradowitz’s dedication to medicine. Nothing much about his father had impressed him since his mother had thrown Gradowitz out following his affair with a young hospital aide. Gradowitz saw his son every weekend, but the boy remained distant, behind his own iBand, playing online games or watching online heroes like Om Burmek.

So here he was, competing with a non-existent hero for Eli’s admiration. Never mind that, as a doctor, he could have been healing and bringing comfort to the sick, rather than vanquishing evil-doers.

Some warrior, he thought. Maybe if I had my iBand, I could look up some martial arts moves.

More importantly, he could research the weird encrustations and fungi draping the buildings. He couldn’t begin to judge which ones were dangerous – or beneficial. Even the most basic on-site investigations required carting specimens back to his lab van in Fort Lee. He was willing to hazard the journey, staying up all night running sequences and getting back downtown before dawn, but Manhattan was quarantined and he was embedded for a month – maybe even longer.

He wiped rainwater from his eyes, tabling the self pity. The scumboys, each wearing animated LED gang tats, moved on.

Gradowitz sighed in relief and slunk to the mouth of the alley to peer out. Om Burmek would have attacked the punks at once. “Screw Om,” Gradowitz muttered. He’d have ridden into town on a horse, too, whereas Gradowitz had hiked in across the George Washington Bridge, passing checkpoints there and at the Intrepid on 12th, then down Riverside Drive past the ruins of the Javits Convention Center. There were few, if any, inhabitants that far uptown, which made it ideal for insertions. So he’d had to hoof it from there.

The rest of The Bight is available on:

1. Amazon Kindle
2. Amazon Kindle U.K.
3. Barnes & Noble Nook
4. All-format Zip Bundle Direct from DE

Cover art created by the author.

See our other fine fiction offerings in The Library Store.

I am happy to announce that I have successfully set up a shopping cart that allows our readers another way to enjoy our stories.

You now have the option of obtaining your e-books via Amazon, Amazon U.K., Barnes & Noble, or of downloading a Zip archive directly from Darwin’s Evolutions that includes the MOBI, EPUB, and PDF forms of the story in one handy bundle for direct loading on your e-reader.

I have added the links to all posts and to the Library Store listings for your convenience.

Today’s release is courtesy of Maria Schneider, who has been a font of knowledge that I have leaned on during the restart of Evolutions. Aside from being a talented author with a gift for empathetic characters and gripping plots, she is also an experienced hand with the ins and outs of e-book publishing. A great deal of the efforts being undertaken to expand our reach to readers is being done with her reassurance and guidance.

The story she shares with us today, though, is a classic Darwin’s Evolutions style adventure.  An alternate American southwest wherein legends are both real and unreal, curses true and false, and a young woman betrayed finds herself the object of a hunt by the very tribe who cast her out into the desert to die. Prepare yourselves for the challenges and triumphs of the Year of the Mountain Lion.

Year of the Mountain Lion

by Maria E. Schneider

Jolan ran across the sand and stopped near the top of a gully, crouching. She glanced backwards, scanning the dry, gritty landscape. There wasn’t much time. They were very close now, and if she didn’t lose them soon, their arrows would have her heart.

She jumped and rolled, not away into the sandy center of the gully, but up against the base. From there, she used her agave swish to brush the sand where she had landed. The rolling marks barely showed, and she left them because there wasn’t time. The hunters might easily mistake the slight markings as those made by an animal anyway.

Her clan didn’t know the desert like she did. When they had abandoned her in the cliffs, blaming the lack of rain on her curse, she had learned to live on the scant water that trickled occasionally in the last, drying stream beds. She had learned to move deeper into the desert in the winter, living on even less water, finding it with the same curse that had gotten her cast out from her clan.

Keeping close to the crumbling sidewalls, Jolan headed for the red rock overhang. The harder ledges would give her some cover and the ability to run full out.

This was the third time her tribe had hunted her. Two seasons ago, her comfortable existence had been shattered when she looked down at a curious pattern in the sand. Jagged sticks formed a lightning bolt. Animal hide, representing thunder, was held down with pebbles. It took all her discipline to keep from scattering the pieces into the wind.

“Wat—”  Out of habit, she had started to mutter the name of her people, but her voice was so disused, she uttered only a croaking whisper.

Could it be an enemy of the Watahal who chased her and not a tribe member?

No. Only someone from her clan would know that the lightning bolt with clouds was her old name: Taima, Thunder.

Each time she found the sign, she trembled. Each time she took the old, worn piece of hide, torn from…she could not tell. Whoever followed left only rotted hide, likely desperate, likely out of water.

Leaving a few false trails and wandering in random circles, she had led the enemy away from water until they gave up the chase. Finding water was her forte and traveling her life. If she didn’t stay too long in any one place, her curse didn’t steal the rains for too long.

But the enemy got smarter. She had found the signs again this fall, including a few parched oak twigs from the valley, twigs that signified her new name, Jolan: Dead-Oaks. Part of the wood had been burned, a way of cursing her.

Over the seasons, the clan learned where she roamed: the plains, the mountains or the low hills. And they were close this time.

Her breath came hard as she ran under the protective rock outcrop and then out into the open, sun flashing into her eyes before steady steps took her under the next overhang.

She didn’t slow, even as she tossed her swish into a bundle of fallen rocks. It was nothing there, only a dried branch.

Better they chased her now, rather than in the northern mountains where she stayed after the spring melt.  The heat of the desert would discourage them from hunting her for very long.

Get the rest of the story for your e-reader at:

• Amazon
• Amazon U.K.
• Barnes and Noble
• All-format Zip Bundle Direct from DE

See our other fine fiction offerings in The Library Store.

Illustration courtesy of John Dotegowski.

It gives me a great pleasure to kick off the Darwin’s Evolutions’ Legacy Project today with The Last Arrow of Liang Xi by Brian Dolton.

The Legacy Project is my attempt to do justice to the prose and art that initially filled the pages and web site of Darwin’s Evolutions: A Journal of Speculative Fiction – my abortive first attempt at on-line publishing. The stories that graced the few issues I put out were exemplary and more often than not featured equally impressive illustrations.  To have them disappear into the ether of the web would be a shame.  So, I have been actively contacting both the authors and artists who originally contributed to the webzine and have asked them to consider allowing me to once again share their works via e-book and anthology forms.

I am humbled by the overwhelming support and positive responses I have received. And thus, we begin the project.

Every Monday will be Legacy Release day, when I will release another of the backlist stories.  Eventually, these tales will all be gathered together and released in both e-book and print format anthologies that will help keep them available to a broad readership.

Now, to today’s release.  The Last Arrow of Liang Xi by Brian Dolton is the story that basically caused the revival of Darwin’s Evolutions as a small e-press. This story is one that I did both as an on-line free story and as an e-book available on Amazon as an experiment.  The story is engaging and timeless and well suited for repeat reading.  However, the webzine tanked.  I pulled down the HTML of the story eventually, but completely forgot about the e-book being on Amazon.

Then, one day, I got an e-mail notifying me that I had received something like $5.75 in royalties from Amazon.  I had a major “WTF?” moment before I realized that I’d screwed up and left Liang Xi alive as an e-book.  However, that misstep opened my eyes to how much things had changed in the e-book and publishing world and led me to reconsider the viability of DE – not as a webzine, but as a small e-press.

So, thank you Brian, for not killing me for leaving Liang Xi up and especially for letting me share it once again.  And also, many thanks to all of the authors and artists, past and present, who are even now helping me bring their stories and images into the world for the enjoyment of readers everywhere.

Without further ado, here’s the introduction to The Last Arrow of Liang Xi by Brian Dolton:

The sound of the clay jug breaking disturbed the silence of the mountainside. The arrow had severed the red cord, and only the red one; the five others remained intact, their suspended jugs swinging in the wind that swirled up from the gorge. Jong Huan lowered his bow.

“A masterful shot,” Guo Gong said. “Now the others. In turn.”

“As you wish, Master Guo,” Huan said. He lifted the bow again, nocking the orange arrow, noticing the subtle differences in weight and length. Half a li away, across the gorge, the jugs continued to swing. They were just close enough to bump against one another, adding an extra touch of randomness to their movements.

Jong Huan drew the string back to his cheek and sighted along the thin arrowshaft. He released the breath he was holding, very slowly and evenly; and, just as the last of it escaped his lungs, he released the bowstring. The orange arrow flashed across the canyon. The arrowhead, gleaming and perfectly honed, sliced through the orange cord; the jug fell to the rocks below, shattering as its counterpart had done heartbeats before.

Master Guo tapped an arrow against his leg, in an erratic rhythm.  It was clearly intended as a distraction. Jong Huan paid him no heed. Nothing mattered but the wind, and the jugs suspended from the arc of bamboo, and the arrows carefully lined up alongside him. He nocked the next, and drew, and released.

Six arrows. Six thin cords. Six old jugs.

He made every shot. When he looked back at Master Guo, he found it hard not to smile with pride. Master Guo had a smile of his own; that gentle, unreadable smile that every shang shui Huan had trained under seemed to cultivate.

“You are a very fine archer,” Guo Gong said. “Why is it, then, that you have come to The World Above The World Below? What more do you think we can teach you?”

“It is my dream,” Jong Huan said, “to be the greatest of all archers. Though you may think it foolish pride on my part, I desire to be greater even than Liang Xi himself. This is where he honed his skills. This is where he made himself into a legend. I would be a legend, like him.  I would live forever, in stories.”

“Ah.  Liang Xi.” Master Guo smiled. “You are not the first to come here and speak that name. What do you know, then, of Liang Xi?”
“I know his arrows were as living things once they sprang from his bow. I know he could cut a single hair from a man’s beard, if he chose. I know he could pass an arrow through the handle of a jug a full li away, by the light of Third Moon.”

Master Guo nodded. He put aside the arrow he carried. Why he carried only an arrow but no bow, Jong Huan was not sure. The ways of a shang shui were not easily understood.

“There are many tales told of Liang Xi’s prowess and, though not all are true, there is no doubt that he was as fine an archer as ever lived. But have you heard the tale, I wonder, of the last arrow he ever loosed?”

Jong Huan looked at Master Guo, and wondered why he had asked such a foolish question.

“Every boy who lifts a bow hears that tale,” he said, carefully.

“Of course,” Master Guo said, with a smile. “But such tales change, with every telling, and every teller.”

“If you wish to tell the story, Master Guo, I will gladly listen.”

Master Guo, still smiling, shook his head.

“On the contrary, Jong Huan. I would like to hear it from you.”

Huan tried to hide his surprise, but was not entirely sure he succeeded.

“As you wish, Master Guo,” he said.

The rest of The Last Arrow of Liang Xi is available on:

1. Amazon Kindle
2. Amazon Kindle U.K.
3. Barnes & Noble Nook
4. All-format Zip Bundle Direct from DE

Story illustration by John Dotegowski.

See our other fine fiction offerings in The Library Store.