New Book Covers

Closed | October 30th, 2012 | Posted in General

The folks at Grey Cat Press have found a new group of artists online. They’ll be working to update some of my book covers in the next few weeks. I’ve started changing the tiles here as I get copies. I like what I’ve seen. I’m hoping to post links to some of the places you can find more of these artists’ work once things settle down a bit. There’s still a lot on the plate before that can happen, though. In the meantime, look for the covers here to be changing real soon. The trickle out to the bookstores might take a little longer.

Cheers,

Rick

Mister Majestor: The Devil You Know (Coming Soon)

Closed | September 13th, 2012 | Posted in General

I thought I’d drop a quick note to let people know of the latest project. About an hour ago, I finished the draft of the third book in the Majestor series. I’ll be running through the second draft for the next few days, then on to Grey Cat Press for Print On Demand formatting.

The series took an unexpected turn last week, when Perry finally decided to share some news with me about his past. It was a bit of an eye opener. I enjoyed the revelation, but I would have appreciated knowing of it a lot sooner in the series. Frankly, I think it’s downright rude for a character to withhold things like that from the writer, but that’s writing. It’s something I didn’t understand before I actually started writing novels, but it happens all the time.

I would imagine all the proofing and editing will be finished sometime near the end of the month, so you can start looking for it in your e-bookstores (and in paperback on Amazon.com, or ordered through your local bookstores) sometime during the first week of October.

I’m very happy with the way this one turned out. For those of you following the series, I think you’ll be happy, too. And if you’re not following the series, you might give it another look.

I’ll drop a note on the website when the books are available. Until then, enjoy the last week of summer.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: A Dish Best Served by the Side of a Roaring Fire

Closed | August 12th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

It’s back to the whimsical for this week’s Sunday Surprise. “A Dish Best Served by the Side of a Roaring Fire” is a tale set in Fairy Town that stars a well-known character from fairy tale fame.

Fairy City, one dark and stormy night. When someone tosses an annoying animated puppet beneath Jack’s car to frame him for a hit-and-run murder, the giant killer’s mood sours. Someone has forgotten a very important rule: never mess with the baddest bad boy in town…

And none come any badder than a giant killer named Jack.

Read the story free on this website until August 19 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: Devil Dogs

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

This week’s Sunday Surprise is a short fantasy tale featuring aliens and World War Two fighter planes. How do they fit together? Read the story to find out.

Streaking through the skies of an alien world, Dras’unat charges into a life-or-death Rite of Passage to prove his right to lead the Forked River Tribe. His weapon? An ancient flying chariot from a long-dead race of ferocious warriors. The Devil Dogs fly again!

Read the story free on this website until August 12 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: Outward Bound

Closed | July 29th, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

Welcome to another Sunday Surprise. “Outward Bound” is a traditional science fiction tale about space and the frontier, although not the final frontier. I’ll leave those kinds of tales for others to tell:

After failing to stop chaos from sweeping the planet, Deputy Marshal Griffin Douglas flees Earth for a quiet posting at a sleepy lunar colony. But when pirates raid the frontier mining camps, his ship diverts to the asteroid belt.

The miners want justice, justice wants a lawman, and one disillusioned lawman suddenly finds that he wants a second chance to make a difference.


 

Read the story free on this website until August 5 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: Prometheus Denied

Closed | July 21st, 2012 | Posted in Free Fiction

This week’s Sunday Surprise is a story called, “Prometheus Denied.”

When a stunning blonde hops into his car, John Keagan begins a race from Los Angeles to Seattle to save humanity.

Chased by aliens known only as Enforcers, he must deliver the girl and her message or risk the unthinkable: the end of the Prometheus Contract—a treaty among alien races that allows oil to remain on the Earth.

But as he learns more about the girl, he begins to wonder about her motives. Nothing is free. There’s always a catch. And he soon learns that her help might come at a terrible price.

Read the story free on this website until July 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

Sci Fi Tales, Volume 3: Crisis Mode

Closed | July 21st, 2012 | Posted in Collections

Sci Fi Tales, Volume 3: Crisis Mode

Crisis Mode: the feeling of electrified panic that hits when you realize that things aren’t just bad, they’re way beyond that. Here are five tales with five different heroes who suddenly find themselves in Crisis Mode. The science fiction tales in this collection include:

- Lunar Command: Condition Orange
- Prometheus Denied
- The Europa Connection
- Atlantis, B.C.E.
- Nova Warriors: Darkness Falls

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 collection.

Cheers!

Rick

Free Fiction: Ringing True

Closed | July 14th, 2012 | Posted in General

Welcome to the Sunday Surprise. This week’s free story stars a man who tumbles onto a rather unique way of telling whether or not his wife is happy with him, thanks to a great group of friends who came to his bachelor’s party. The story is called, “Ringing True.”

“The wedding-band mood ring: saving society, but at what price?”

At first, wearing a wedding ring that’s sensitive to his wife’s mood seems too good to be true. After all, what husband can ever tell what his wife is truly thinking? But when Hank McCoy can’t take it off, the deal begins to sour…

And when he files for divorce and the assassins appear, Hank suddenly discovers the lethal price of his too-good-to-be-true deal.

 

Read the story free on this website until July 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

A Dish Best Served by the Side of a Roaring Fire

Closed | July 13th, 2012 | Posted in Short Stories

I wrote this story on the Oregon Coast at an annual gathering of around fifty professional writers. Someone calls out a title or a topic, we all laugh, we go write stories, we come back and read those stories, and then we laugh some more. (No, there’s never any alcohol involved. Yes, we do occasionally draw some odd looks from the people attending meetings in the other hotel meeting rooms.)

This challenge was to write a story that might fit into a mock anthology titled, “Fantasy Noir.”

A Dish Best Served by the Side of a Roaring Fire

Fairy City, one dark and stormy night. When someone tosses an annoying animated puppet beneath Jack’s car to frame him for a hit-and-run murder, the giant killer’s mood sours. Someone has forgotten a very important rule: never mess with the baddest bad boy in town.

…and none come any badder than a giant killer named Jack.

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

Dream Taker: The Garden of Eve

Closed | July 13th, 2012 | Posted in Short Stories

I always chuckled to myself when my writing friends told me of long-forgotten stories that they suddenly found in drawers. In my former life, I was a relatively well-organized businessman. I just didn’t see how that was possible. You’d need to write a lot of stories before they started falling through the cracks.

Well… um… yeah. Guess what? I found one. As with others that I wrote in the early days, this one has a slightly darker flavor than most of the stories I publish under this pen name, but I think it still fits. It rides the edge where reality starts to break down, and that’s always a little unsettling…

Dream Taker: The Garden of Eve

“To wake them he must kill, but what’s the harm when it’s all a Virtual dream?”

Dream Taker Randall Faust wakes scientists from their voluntary comas within the Dream Centers by assassinating them in their dreams… or so he’s been told. He can’t remember. Too many trips too close together may have fuzzed his memory. But a few missing memories won’t keep him from his critical mission, even if he can’t tell the dreams from reality without them.

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

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