Free Fiction: Doom Cows from Outer Space

Closed | May 19th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

The free fiction story this week is, “Doom Cows from Outer Space.” I won’t say how much sleep I got the night before I came up with this story, but I will admit that it was pretty noisy in the room the following morning when I wrote it. Some stories simply need to be acted out when the fingers are clicking away on the keyboard… or maybe that’s just me.

“The space cows are coming! The space cows are coming!”

For years, the evil alien space cows have looked upon your world. For years, they plotted. For years, they schemed. They never showed themselves. You never knew they were there. Humans eat cows. This is a bad thing. But now the time is finally right.

Puny humans, prepare to die!

 

Read the story free on this website through May 27 by visiting my free fiction page, or check out my bookshelf to find links where you can pick up the story for your favorite e-reader.

Cheers!

Rick

The Europa Connection

0 | May 18th, 2012 | Posted in Short Stories

The Europa Connection

With gangsters rousting the casinos and pirates raiding the mines, newly-appointed frontier marshal Griffin Douglas goes undercover to find the bad guys and shut them down.

But what he discovers on Europa is bigger than anyone imagined, and shutting them down might mean diving far deeper into his cover as a leg-breaking assassin than he was originally planning to go.

Click on the picture or this link to go to my main fiction page. Follow the links there to find a sample of the story.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: The Last Great Lemonade-Stand Showdown

0 | May 13th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

Happy Mother’s Day. Memories of the past are strong for me on days like Mother’s Day. With that in mind, this week’s Sunday Surprise features a story I wrote that’s set in the days of pedal cars and lemonade stands, back when kids did things on sunny summer afternoons that had absolutely nothing to do with smart phones or video games…

Southern California. Summer, 1962. With “Big Al” Torres and his squirt-gun-toting goons moving to corner the Thirty-Ninth Street lemonade-stand racket, Bobbie Johnston’s summer just got a whole lot tougher. But this summer, Bobbie has help: a half-brother from the deep south… a kid who knows his way around squirt guns and water balloons.

The turf war is on. Let the battle begin.

 

Read the story free on this website through May 20 by visiting my free fiction page, or check out my bookshelf to find links where you can pick up the story for your favorite e-reader.

Cheers!

Rick

Nova Warriors: Darkness Falls

Closed | May 5th, 2012 | Posted in Short Stories

This week, I’m continuing with the Nova Warriors series…

When we last saw our heroes, the planet Terra was invaded by a race of dinosaurs who seemed to feel that the planet belonged to them, rather than the mammals infesting the surface (humans). We also discovered that the alien dinosaurs are the “Nova Warriors,” rather than those pesky humans.

(I wonder where that crazy writer is taking this series.)

Nova Warriors: Darkness Falls

Colonel Alan Lane patrols the seas after an invasion by a race of alien dinosaurs, looking for the first signs of trouble. Three weeks after dropping into the Great Oceanic Rift, the aliens have yet to reappear.

But a mystery of missing fishermen soon draws Alan and his team away to the fishing lanes. Are the local pirates up to their usual games, or is something more sinister going on?

Click on the picture or this link to go to my main fiction page. Follow the links there to find a sample of the story.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: Shooting Stars and Electric Sheep

Closed | May 5th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

For the free fiction this week, I think I’ll roll back the covers on that story I wrote a few posts below. It’s not a story of the military science fiction variety that seems to be popular at the moment, but you might check it out if you have an extra minute or two.

Troopers in the Fifth Mobile Infantry Division have the honor of being the first boots on the ground in planetary invasions and the last ones to leave. It’s a proud tradition, and one that’s never caused problems. Until now.

For one trooper, a troubling memory loss leads to an uneasy trip to the shrink and an unsettling revelation buried within the memories of a mystical mission.

Read the story free on this website through May 13 by visiting my free fiction page, or check out my bookshelf to find links where you can pick up the story for your favorite e-reader.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: Road Rage

Closed | April 28th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

Welcome to another Sunday Surprise. This week’s story is a fun little tale with a bit of a twist that I like to call, “Road Rage.”

When cars choke the highway, traffic slows and tempers flare. Common courtesy and good manners go out the window.

Road rage is a curse of the modern world shared by many countries, but that wasn’t always the case. In a time long ago, in a faraway place, one elderly couple flirts with fate as they run smack into the world’s first truly explosive case of road rage.

Read the story free on this website through May 6 by visiting my free fiction page, or check out my bookshelf to find links where you can pick up the story for your favorite e-reader.

Cheers!

Rick

Shooting Stars and Electric Sheep

Closed | April 23rd, 2012 | Posted in Short Stories

Time for a quick change of pace. It’s true that I’ve decided to dive into a couple of military science fiction worlds that I’ve been waiting to explore. It’s true that I’m trying to put the strange stories on the back burner. As with any addiction, though, it takes time to kick certain habits.

This story popped into my head a few days ago and would not leave me alone. When that happens, there’s only one thing to do. Now that it’s finished, I’m off to write the next one in the Nova Warriors series.

Shooting Stars and Electric Sheep

“Troopers in the Fifth Mobile Infantry Division have the honor of being the first boots on the ground in planetary invasions and the last ones to leave. It’s a proud tradition, and one that’s never caused problems. Until now.

“For one trooper, a troubling memory loss leads to an uneasy trip to the shrink and an unsettling revelation buried within the memories of a mystical mission.”

Click on the picture or this link to go to my main fiction page. Follow the links there to find a sample of the story in whichever format suits your needs.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: The Hag’s Handbook to the Tastiest Trick-or-Treaters

Closed | April 22nd, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

This week’s free fiction offering is the short story, “The Hag’s Handbook to the Tastiest Trick-or-Treaters.”

Helgretta the Hag has written several do-it-yourself handbooks with tips to build and run better kidtraps. This was her first. I still think it’s her best, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Let’s face it, there’s nothing we’d like better than to cap a Halloween celebration off with the perfect meal, but chicken fingers and popcorn shrimp can only take an old hag so far. What we really crave toddles around on two tiny legs. Sadly, we’ve largely been forced to strike the little darlings from our menus after news of that unfortunate incident back in the Old Country, the one between the woman with the candy house and those two little brats.

But children don’t have to be a dangerous delicacy. With the proper care, children can once again be the star of your holiday festivities.

I’m Helgretta the Hag. I was once like you, but now I don’t live with the constant fear of being pushed into my own oven by some cute little Trick-or-Treater in pigtails. Now, I do the pushing—right into the pot. I’m here to tell you that with the proper training, you can do that pushing, too. Soon, you can once again be enjoying that most wonderful of all Halloween treats.

It’s so easy anyone can do it.

Let me show you the way.

Read the story free on this website through April 29 by visiting my free fiction page, or check out my bookshelf to find links where you can pick up the story for your favorite e-reader.

Cheers!

Rick

Outward Bound

Closed | April 21st, 2012 | Posted in Short Stories

Continuing with the science fiction theme, I’m getting back to the universe I started to paint with the novel, “Gateway: Left Behind.”

When you think of this universe, think of the movie, “Escape from New York,” but on a bigger scale. The entire Earth is the prison. It didn’t quite get better (like we’d all hoped). In fact, the craazies took over, so the rest of us left. We went to work out in space, leaving the politicians and terrorists to fight for the right to be top dog on a planet that they both had such a big hand in trashing.

Now, we work hard to keep them there. Space is ours, and they can’t come… but it irritates them that we just turned our backs and left. They didn’t want to rule the planet; they wanted to rule us.

Until they figure out how to make that happen, they won’t be happy.

Outward Bound

“After failing to stop anarchy from sweeping the planet, Deputy Marshal Griffin Douglas flees Earth for a quiet posting at a lunar colony; but his ship never makes the moon, answering a distress call, instead.

Pirates raid the frontier mining camps in the asteroid belt. The miners want justice. Justice wants a lawman. And one old-fashioned, disillusioned lawman suddenly discovers that he wants a second chance to make the difference that he was previously denied.”

Click on the picture or this link to go to my main fiction page. Follow the links there to find a sample of the story in whichever format suits your needs.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: Crossed Signals

Closed | April 14th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

This week’s free fiction offering is the short story, “Crossed Signals.”

I don’t normally write stories of First-Date train wrecks. Sometimes, the occasion comes up. When that happens, I’m never quite sure what’s going to materialize on the screen. I wrote this one overnight not too long ago for about thirty other professional writers. I was rather pleased at the way it turned out.

“No question about it, first dates are hell. Forget the awkward moments, forget the twenty-questions, forget the mixed signals. First dates are train wrecks waiting to happen. But in order to get that second date, we must all survive the first… as a man we’ll call “Derek” is about to learn the hard way.”

Read the story free on this website through April 22 by visiting my free fiction page, or check out my bookshelf to find links where you can pick up the story for your favorite e-reader.

Cheers!

Rick

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