Lady of the Star Wind Flash Fiction



For my cover translation flash fiction, I have the great good fortune of pulling Veronica Scott's cover for LADY OF THE STAR WIND

 

 

Someone groaned. His vocal chords burned, leading him to believe he'd uttered the sound. Good sign. He wasn't sucking vacuum. Yet. Forcing his eyes open cost him what felt like a laser cannon blast to the head, but when his vision twisted into focus, the worst of the pain retreated to a sullen, persistent thump in his left temple.

Blue-gray bulkheads surrounded him. Centuries of space travel and no one had found a way to create space-worthy building materials in anything other than grim. The depressing bit was that it wasn't his grim, blue-gray bulkheads.

"Oh good," a feminine voice said. "You lived." She'd propped a shoulder against the door frame. Lush. Blonde.

He shook off his body's interest. More pressing concerns. "Where am I?"

"Aboard the cruiser Star Wind."

"Star Wind. Solar wind," he said. What the hell had happened to his brain that he tripped over translating a poetic ship's name?

She smiled. "Something like."

Focusing on the weapons strapped to her waist, he said, "A destructive force of nature."

"Unless you're armored." She looked him up a down, brows slanted in amusement. "Very few are."

Star Wind. Destructive. He frowned. "My patrol skiff was under attack."

She nodded.

"You rescued me."

"Of course I did," she crooned. "Because the great big payday tucked away in the piece of space debris you patrol goons were guarding isn't the least bit necessary to keep the Star Wind competitive in this cruel universe."

He clenched his fists. "Pirates."

"I prefer 'force of nature.'"

"So I'm a prisoner."

She snorted and straightened. Stepping back, she tapped the doorframe. The distortion of a force field splintered her features. But not her words laced with bloodthirsty amusement. "Oh no captain. We don't take prisoners. We procure entertainment."

Flash Fiction based on Damned If He Does

So, we're doing flash fiction based on each others' covers, and I've pulled Marcella.  And, lo and behold, Marcella has a brand new cover, just revealed!  It seems almost foolish to not use this one, especially since it's so dynamic.

Now, a warning: flash fiction?  Not my skillset.  So I'll just pre-emptively apologize to Marcella and the rest of you right now.  But, my first paid publication was for Hint Fiction, so I'll aim in that direction.

----

His touch was explosive.
Her skin, incendiary.
Thank god their tailor specialized in asbestos.

----


No, no.  I'll see myself out.

Flash Fiction based on A Murder of Mages

For the flash fiction we’re writing this week, I am riffing on Marshall Ryan Maresca’s cover for A Murder of Mages.

Legolas Mulder put his shoulder to the heavy bolt-bedecked door and grunted as he pushed. Once the weight of it cleared the threshold the hinges did their work and he straightened, bringing his crossbow into a ready position. Beside him, Tauriel Scully stepped lithely around him, her weapon already aimed into the room, following the door’s edge to cover the expanding space.

Before them appeared a room dark save for a ring of scarlet candles. All had burned nearly to the floor. Some had extinguished themselves but it was impossible to tell if they had run out of wick or if the flames had been drowned by the blood. Seeing no body from which the large puddle would have emanated, Mulder’s eyes scanned upward.

The chamber had a vaulted ceiling, about twenty feet up, a pale and too-slender figure hovered. Its enormous black eyes stared and its big head lagged to one side. The figure had large slits along its spindly limbs, and blood dripped from its toes.

Scully let her aim fall downward and she sighed.

“What?” Mulder asked.

“This isn’t what we’re looking for. It’s far too small to have built this place. The doors are twice our height and three times its height.”

“But we found one! It’s proof!” Mulder said.

At that moment the figure began to make a crackling sound. As they watched, its body disintegrated into dust. “So much for proof,” Scully said.

“Fuck,” Mulder murmured.

Cover Flash Fiction: FATAL CIRCLE by Linda Robertson

FATAL CIRCLE -- Flash Fiction based solely on the cover of Linda Robertson's Urban Fantasy.

Keys.

The keys were upstairs on the dresser. Seventy-eight steps. Seventy-eight steps from the foyer to the master bedroom and back. Seventy-eight opportunities for one of the babies to hear the slightest disturbance in the force and scream his puddin' head off.

Then his brother would hear. And his other brother. And the other. And the other. Then the unholy choir would sound and the babysitter would bolt. Ears bleeding.

She could do this.

Thirty-nine steps one way.  Five bedroom doors. Stealthy like a ninja. Like a ninja wearing thigh-high leather boots that creaked every time she bent her knees. Bending one's knees was a requirement for climbing stairs. Forty-five minutes to lace them up meant she couldn't just whip them off. Five-inch heels made her ass look great, but the ruckus they made on the steps would sound like the Charge of the Heavy Brigade.

They were just babies. She was a grown ass woman. With keys on the dresser. Keys that stood between her and an epic date night.

"Wish me luck, hon. I'm going up."

The Orb - Flash Fiction for K A Krantz

The idea this week is to take the next person in line's book cover and do a flash fiction. This one is for KA Krantz. :)


Larcourt the thief thought she could run. That was her first mistake.

Her second was making him angry.

The sorcerer tied one single strand of his target's hair around his right thumb and carefully pulled the orb from its wooden case and held it in his hands. He stared deeply into the flawless depths of the orb and whispered, "Find her."

There perfect translucence was marred by mists and a moment later he saw the mists clear, revealing the location where she was trying to hide.

There were six stone hounds along the walls of his workshop. They were meticulously detailed, from the wrinkles on their muzzles to the patterns on their carved fur.

"Find her. Bring her to me. Kill any who cross your paths."

He closed his eyes and clutched the orb. Behind him, stone grated and moved....

Clean Fire - Flash Fiction for James A. Moore

We're playing a game this week at the SFF Seven, writing flash fiction inspired by a book cover belonging to the writer who posts on the day after us.

This means I drew Jim.

Hee hee hee.

Oddly enough, it perfectly fits the world of the series I’m currently writing, Sorcerous Moons. Maybe I’ll end up using this. Cheers, Jim!

 *************

Fumes from the fire hung heavy in the desert air, only slightly less choking than the ever present grit. Another day, another sandstorm. And, naturally, a hot fire to eliminate the last wriggling bits. Her iron battle axe cleaved through the foully animated golems easily enough, but it wasn’t worth it to stay there, chopping them into pieces small enough to render them completely harmless. They’d emptied the city of all life already.

Might as well burn it to the ground and move on.

Take A Pinch of This Genre and A Spoonful of That Genre

I don't really give much time or thought to the intricacies of genre, except when I'm trying to pick the best  classification codes and key words for my book at a vendor. I want to help the readers find my book and have a fairly good mutual expectation going on as to what they'll be reading from me. I hope they'll enjoy the story and not be disappointed.

I think I write science fiction romance with adventure.  Or maybe it's space opera with space marines and romantic elements... Or else ancient Egyptian paranormal fantasy romance with adventure. Unless we're calling it Ancient World Romance with fantasy elements. Luckily I guess, no one is trying to slot my books on any shelves at their local bookstore! The world doesn't have nice, neat boundaries any more, if indeed it ever did. I usually have some mythical, mystical or fantastical elements in my scifi romances. While there's no science fiction in my ancient Egyptian tales, they sure can't be classified as 'historical romance" because I take a lot of liberties with details (but backed with in-depth research so I know what I'm changing) and proudly so state ahead of time. Fantasy! Or maybe Paranormal....

I'm livin' in the wide open frontier of book genre classification and loving it! (Except for certain vendors/promo sites/contests who stubbornly do not have a science fiction romance or romance=> science fiction category. I mean, how hard IS that???)

Here's my latest new release, Hostage To The Stars, just out this past week, primarily scifi romance/adventure/suspense with a touch of mystical at one point.

He rescued her from space pirates … but can he keep them both safe from the far greater evil stalking a deserted planet?

Space travel without Kidnap & Ransom insurance? Not a good idea. University instructor and researcher Sara Bridges can’t afford it, so when pirates board her cruise liner, she’s taken captive along with the mistress of a wealthy man, and brought to a deserted planet. When a military extraction team sent to rescue the mistress refuses to take Sara too, she’s left to the mercies of a retired Special Forces soldier, along as consultant.

Reluctantly reactivated and coerced into signing up for the rescue operation to the planet Farduccir where he once was deployed,  Sgt. Johnny Danver just wants to get the job done. But when the team leader leaves one captured woman behind, he breaks away to rescue her himself.

As Johnny and Sara traverse the barren landscape, heading for an abandoned base where they hope to call Sectors Command for help, they find villages destroyed by battle and stripped of all inhabitants. A lone survivor tells a horrific tale of the Sectors’ alien enemy, the Mawreg, returning after being pushed out …

Searching for evidence to give the military, Johnny is captured. He regains consciousness in a Mawreg cage–with Sara next to him. Death is preferable to what the aliens will do to them… And even if they do escape their captors, can they alert the military in time to prevent another invasion of the Sectors?

Standalone sequel to Mission To Mahjundar (mild spoilers for Mahjundar in this story.)

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To Label Is Human

So file this photo into a single genre.

Is it a sunset shot? A wildlife shot? A nature picture? Clouds? Or is it all of those things? If you were looking for a shot of a seagull in profile at sunset, how would you begin searching for it? Likely, you'd start with the keyword 'sunset' but you'd end up with millions of results. Some over mountains or cityscapes or forests or fields. Some with people. Some with animals. But you really, really want that bird for the cover of your special interest mag "Sea Bird Quarterly". So you have to add 'bird' to your sunset search to narrow the results. You get eagles, herons, song birds and vultures. This makes you switch 'bird' to 'sea bird' or 'seagull' and presto. You've found your cover.

This is the power of labels. Genres are nothing more than labels. They're labels meant to make it easy for readers to find what they want to read. Whether or not those labels are accurate or not is another rant. But like anything, genre labels can be used for good or for evil. (Good - you find your next favorite read on your lunch hour and still have enough lunch time left over to actually start your book. Bad - you get stuck inside the box you've been reading in and never entertain anything else.)

What's amusing to me is the notion that I get to pick which genre a story will be. Maybe there are people in this world who can do that. I certainly don't get to. The stories dictate what they will be. I go along for the ride or I give up writing altogether. Because they are adamant. So. This story wants to be in the past, a fictional past at that, with gadgets and improbable hideouts, magic and spies? Why the hell not? Sounds like fun. I have no idea what genre to call it. Historical Fantasy? Steam Fantasy? But yeah, write a story that's one thing? Probably not in my nature. It's at the juncture of genres that I find the things that interest me. There's likely some telling psychological issue there. I'll claim it's just fun.

Are you old enough to remember the commercials: "You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter on my chocolate!" Yeah. Genre blending all the way, because two flavors go great together.