A Giant Penny For Your Thoughts. “The Magic Hat Crimes,” Much-Delayed Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Story for June 2024 from Jeff Baker

Posted on June 16, 2024 by jeffbaker307

The Magic Hat Crimes

by Jeff Baker

Author’s Note: The Draws for the (early) June 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were; a mystery, set in a roomful of hats involving a giant penny. Pure serendipity let me use two characters I’ve written about before and homage something legendary. —–jeff

“Golly! Look at all those hats,” the young man in the cape, mask and tights said.

Compost Boy pointed at the obvious. He and Captain Ecology had tracked the emanations and traces from their stolen property to this abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. But the first floor was a huge room with hats of every description filling the space on the floor and hanging from the walls.

“Careful, Old Buddy,” Captain Ecology said in a grim voice. “Those hats are doubtless booby-trapped.”

A voice rang out from nowhere.

“Yes, you insufferable menaces! Some of those hats are deadly explosives, but the question is which ones? And you’ll have to navigate my roomful of deadly chapeaus to get to me, because there is no other way out!”

There was a metallic clang behind them. The Daring Duo whirled around just in time to see a steel barrier slam down, covering the entrance they had just used.

“I remodeled the warehouse a bit,” the voice said.

“Haberdasher, you’re a fiend!” Captain Ecology said. “In the name of justice I demand you give yourself up!”

“That’s square even for 1973,” Compost Boy muttered.

“You need to get moving,” Haberdasher’s voice called out. “Or I’ll detonate the hats anyway!”

Across the warehouse was an open doorway. Compost Boy sighed. So near, beyond a gauntlet of deadly hats.

“Wait!” Captain Ecology said, pulling out a small device from his flowing cape. “If he’s not booby-trapped every hat it could mean because he’s too cheap. So, he used an inexpensive and non-ecologically friendly explosive. Maybe I can…” He twisted knobs on the device.

Compost boy shook his head. The Ecco serum they had both taken had enhanced their reflexes and intelligence. It also made him, at age 25, a lot better in bed which both the girls and guys appreciated.

“There!” Captain Ecology said, holding the device with its blinking light at arm’s length in front of him.

There was a sputtering and some of the hats in the room gave off sparks and purple smoke. A moment later they flattened like cakes gone bad.

“Golly, Captain Ecology!” Compost Boy said. “It worked!”

“Now we just step over the flattened hats to the next room…no telling whether the other hats have traps as well!” Captain Ecology said as they started to make their way forward.

“Golly, maybe the Haberdasher’s boast was real and he found a magic hat,” Compost Boy said.

“I doubt that but the emanations trail leads to the next room where we’ll doubtless find our stolen trophy.”

The next room was dark, lit by a single spotlight shining on a giant penny standing on one edge.

“There it is!” Compost Boy said ready to rush toward it.

“Hold it, Compost Boy,” Captain Ecology said, “it’s doubtlessly another trap.”

“Right you are, you environmental do-gooders!” The Haberdasher said from his spot in the dimness, the light glinting off his black silk top hat. “I stole your penny and now I’ll steal you with the powers of this magical topper!”

“I doubt that seriously,” Captain Ecology said, tossing a small disc the size of a discus at the giant penny. The disc clamped itself to the ceiling next to the spotlight and the light shone through it becoming a rainbow like a prism. The penny glittered and suddenly there were several giant sections of a penny standing there, some of them distorted like in a fun house mirror.

“Jumping John Tenniel!” Haberdasher swore. “Who will rid me of this turbulent pair?”

“Not us,” Compost Boy said, grabbing Haberdasher by the collar and giving him a good solid right to the jaw.”

“Out like a light,” Captain Ecology said, looking at Haberdasher sprawled on the floor.

“Had to belt him before he could use his magic hat,” Compost Boy said.

“There was no magic,” Captain Ecology said. “Just elaborate trickery. He was able to home in on the only huge copper object shaped like a penny in the area and remotely used the resonator field and distorted the electrons in the light waves around it to make it look invisible. Just like the duplicate penny that was likewise an illusion.” Captain Ecology smiled. “I used the prism setting on the Ecco-Disc to distort the light waves and that drew down the curtain on this illusionist’s illusion.”

—the living end—

—-in memory of Bill Finger and Adam West

Posted in Captain Ecology and Compost Boy, Fiction, LGBT, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Mystery, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Angel Martinez Reads “Dumpster Dive.” A Spooky Story By Jeff Baker. (June 7th, 2024)

Posted on June 8, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Here’s a fine reading by Angel Martinez of my story “Dumpster Dive.” She has read my stories before, and she even spooked me this time! Thanks, Angel! https://angelmartinezauthor.weebly.com/from-angels-cave/friday-reading-day-dumpster-dive?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2myzp0rVw9gn0nB44XNF1xIv1k9BX0ymE76iTYiSdpOvHy0PJnV8uIHZg_aem_AVLAOPeALbv7OPDKLvTro_raYD5Sn2N1awXUzT9Csw8fKfJ-Ik2tARdiwrYl-kog4XM4oiGaOD5FfurKH5VXF8oO

Posted in Angel Martinez, Bryce Going, Fiction, Horror, LGBT, Short-Stories | 2 Comments

A Penny For Your Thoughts In A Roomful Of Hats. Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Draws for June 2024 (Early!) From Mike Mayak, June 1st, 2024.

Posted on June 1, 2024 by jeffbaker307

FFDC Draws, June 1st, 2024

First, here’s the prompts for the June 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:

A Mystery

Involving A Giant Penny

Set at A Roomful Of Hats

Now, on to the details.

Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.

Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!)

As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Four of Hearts (a Mystery), the Three of Diamonds (A Roomful of Hats) and the Eight of Clubs (A Giant Penny.) So we will write a Mystery, set in a Roomful Of Hats, involving A Giant Penny.

Usually I do these draws on the first Monday of every month, but as I may be away from my keyboard for a bit (got to head out of town!) I’m posting this now and will probably post the results around the middle of June, 2024.

So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2024 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)

Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks!

And have fun!

——mike

Flash Draw Sheet for 2024 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)

Clubs

A A Slippery Slide

2 A Rubber Duck

*3 Warm Woolen Mittens

4 A Snow Globe

5 Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

*6 A Pepper Mill

*7. A Giant Mallet

*8 A Giant Penny

9 A Box of Rubber Bands

*10 A Grapefruit

J A Cellphone

Q A Dumpster

*K A Comic Book

Hearts

A. Science Fiction

2 A Romance

3 Paranormal

*4 A Mystery

5 A Thriller

*6 An Adventure Story

*7. A Bedtime Story

8 A Monster Story

*9 A Fantasy

10 A Horror Story

*J A Crime Story

Q A Melodrama

*K A Legend

Diamonds

*A A Burger Place

* 2 A Herd of Horses

*3 A Roomful of Hats

*4 An Empty Gymnasium

*5 The Temple of Diana In Greece

6 A Field of Lettuce

7 A Haunted House

8 A Western Ghost Town

9 A Greenhouse

10 A Giant Teepee

J A Costume Shop

Q A Cake Shop

*K An Outdoor Stage

Posted in Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge | 1 Comment

“Three Kings.” A Blog Post (and Some Nostalgia) From Jeff Baker

Posted on May 29, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Three Kings

by Jeff Baker

I’ve told this story before.

Sometime around the fall semester of 1981 when I was in College, one weekend when I had no homework and didn’t have to go work at my job I grabbed a paperback copy of Stephen King’s first short-story collection “Night Shift” at the school Library just before closing time and took it to my dorm room.

After dinner I sat down to read some of the stories, hoping to find out what all the fuss was about the author. I had read “Carrie,” and hadn’t liked it. (I had read “The Long Walk” by Richard Bachman and thought it was superior to this King guy’s stuff!) I read several of the stories that evening; probably “Jerusalem’s Lot” (which I thought was “so-so”) a couple of others and then a few that really impressed me; “The Mangler” (with its clever twist!) “Strawberry Spring” (“trunk” is still an ugly word!) and the one that really grabbed me; “Trucks.”

King’s perfect description of the diner reminded me so much of places I’d been in, and the grisly descriptions later in the story and the gripping pace convinced me that this guy was damn good! (And that I wanted to write stuff like that too!)

I read a bunch of the other stories over that weekend, especially “Sometimes They Come Back,” and loved them! King didn’t hit the bullseye on every story but most of them worked. And I didn’t realize I hadn’t read all of them until years later when I picked up my Brother’s copy and read “The Lawnmower Man,” which has virtually no relation to the movie!

Fast forward to the early 1990s. I was driving a small delivery truck and trying to teach myself to write by writing as well as by reading all the paperback anthologies and collections I could get my hands on.

One of them was King’s “Skeleton Crew.”

I kept it with me in the truck and read it while I was waiting on customers or having lunch. I read “The Mist” over a couple of days and got spooked reading “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” sitting on a dirt road in a little Kansas town waiting for the customer to show up. The stories were fun, some were excellent and King’s story notes were half the fun! (“I got to thinking about cannibalism one day, because that’s the kind of thing a guy like me thinks about…”)

“Skeleton Crew” was published a few years before I got my copy. A year or two later, King’s “Nightmares And Dreamscapes” was published and I wound up with two copies. Read through it, loved it.

What all three of these books had in common was they were jam-packed with material. A lot of it was early stuff from King’s days selling stories to “Men’s Magazines” or from his College and even High School days. (“An uneven Aladdin’s Cave of a book” King said in the intro.) Critics have tut-tutted about that but much of it is fun.

In his later collections, he is sometimes a bit more literary and the books are not that huge. But I almost miss the Mammoth Books of King Stories. These were new when I was discovering fiction writing for myself, although I am no Stephen King. I look through those three books every now and then. They bring back memories of dorm rooms lit by a bedside lamp, delivery trucks parked in the sunlight or my old bedroom at my parent’s house.

There’s a new collection of King stories or novellas every five years or so now. But I still miss the old days.

—end—

Posted in Books, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Short-Stories, Stephen King | Leave a comment

“Down The River” J. Scott Coatsworth’s New Serial In Rainbow Snippets from Jeff Baker (May 26, 2024.)

Posted on May 26, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974

I promised something newer this week. Last week I gave you something from my friend J. Scott Coatsworth’s “River City Chronicles.” This week, something from the sequel he is writing and serializing on his blog. https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/category/features/serial/ Here’s the opening to “Down the River; The River City Chronicles, Book Two” by J. Scott Coatsworth. Ainsley Kim is taking a customer’s order at Ragazzi.

Ainsley hid a grin. She was good at reading people. “Not a problem. So the tagliatelle?”

Andy nodded. “Sure. With arrabiata sauce. And ask the chef to make it a little extra spicy.”

She tapped it into the POS, feeling more like a glorified data entry clerk than a waitress.

Here’s a bit more…

“Don’t let him fool you. Kel knows what he wants. He just likes to play with his prey.” Andy grimaced, then managed a weak smile. “Sorry for the foul mood. I hate losing.”

Rich, White and a lawyer to boot? You have no idea what losing is. “Not a problem.” She flashed him her best you’re the customer so I’ll pretend I like you smile.

That should whet your appetite! And I’ve worked in restaurants, so this rings true!

And with that, I am going to take a break from snippeting for a few weeks as I am taking a long trip. I should be back at it in the middle of June. Until then, take care! —jeff

Posted in Down The River, J. Scott Coatsworth, LGBT, Rainbow Snippets, River City Chronicles | 4 Comments

“To Warm Their Fellows In The Night.” Friday Flash Fiction Anniversary Story by Jeff Baker. (May 24th, 2024.)

Posted on May 24, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Photo By Kenny Blasco

To Warm Their Fellows In the Night

by Jeff Baker

It was cold, the kind of cold where even the slightest breeze increases the chill. Tarlos pulled his cloak tighter around him, grateful for his warm boots and that the walk to the Horse Barn from the house was not far. He glanced up at the sky; he could see one of the three moons through the clouds.

He smiled. It had only been a few years since his Father had trusted him, the youngest, to do tasks like this by himself. His older brother would have supervised him, especially at night. But he was just three years away from the Age of Ascension.

Tarlos smiled as he fumbled with the lock and went inside.

Inside, away from the door, the horse barn was relatively warm. He stared in the near darkness then pulled out the light sphere from his pocket. It was small, and with only one moon in the sky it would not give off much light. But it was enough for Tarlos to see the horses, beyond the low wooden gate, standing close together beneath their blankets.

Your blankets are probably warmer than my cloak, Tarlos thought to himself. But as his father pointed out; they had a house with ovens, a fireplace and warming plates.

One of the horses looked up as Tarlos walked closer, checking the food and water. The rest of the horses didn’t seem to care.

After a few more moments, Tarlos checked the little gate and went back outside, being sure to latch the door to the Horse Barn behind him. He approached the back of the old farmhouse which offered protection from the blowing winds coming from that direction.

“The horses are secure, Father,” Tarlos said with a slight bow as he walked into the living room where his father was studying a scroll from a soft chair by the fireplace. The room was warm, wonderfully warm.

“I checked their water, they had plenty of it.” Tarlos said.

“And it wasn’t frozen?” Taroc, his father asked.

“No, not at all,” Tarlos said. There was a low-heat warming plate under the horse’s trough. “And they have plenty of hay and straw.”

“Good,” Taroc said, eyeing his son. He was becoming so mature.

“The barn is secure,” Tarlos said. “None of the horses can wander off. Not that they would want to on a cold night like this. And I counted them just to be certain, but…”

“What?” Taroc asked.

“Have you borrowed a horse or two for some purpose?” Tarlos asked. It was not too unusual during planting season for farmers to loan out a horse to help a neighbor pull a plow but this was not planting season. “I counted eight, and I thought we had only six. I know I have only started doing this and I am away all day at school but…”

“Eight horses?” Taroc asked, staring at his son and setting the scroll down. “You’re sure you counted eight?”

“Yes,” Tarlos said. “I counted three times in case I had been mistaken in the dark.”

“Eight,” Taroc said softly almost to himself. “That’s two more than six…”

“I know that, but…” Tarlos started to say but his father interrupted him.

“Come with me, quickly,” Taroc said walking to the back room of the house barely pausing to grab his own cloak. Tarlos followed, putting on his cloak as they strode through the yard toward the barn as a breeze was whipping up.

Taroc paused at the barn door, putting a finger to his lips indicating quiet. He cautiously opened the barn door and entered, Tarlos right behind him. Taroc pulled out his light sphere and looked around. He counted the horses who paid little attention to him.

“Six,” he said. “There are six.” He turned the light sphere off.

“Father, I was sure that I…” Tarlos said. But his father was not listening.

“Zavid and Zannic,” Taroc breathed to the open air. He turned around to face his son, his own face showing awe. “You have seen a rare and wondrous thing tonight. Come back to the house.”

Seated in the living room, small cups of broth at the ready Taroc explained.

“You know the legend of Zavid and Zannic?” Taroc began.

“The patrons of slaves and horses?” Tarlos said. “Everybody does. It’s just a bedtime story from the ancient days, isn’t it?”

“More than that,” Taroc said. “Zavid and Zannic were slaves who cared for their master’s horses. They loved each other but their masters were going to separate them. The Horse Lords took pity on the two young men and transformed them into horses who would always run free together. They are supposedly seen running on summer nights when the three moons are full and they are said to appear in horse barns to warm their fellows in the cold winter night.” Taroc looked at his son. “This night you saw them, and I think I know why.”

Taroc took a deep breath.

“You know your Mother died around the time you were born.”

“I know,” Tarlos said. “Giving birth to me.”

Taroc shook his head. “No. Giving birth to our second son who died an hour later. It was the harvest season and one of the slaves I had engaged to help came to me with his newborn son. He told me that he believed I was a good man and he did not want his son to grow up marked with slave tattoos to labor in the fields all his life, even for good men.”

Tarlos stared at his father, his mouth open.

“He had named his son, Zabar,” Taroc said. “A slave name. But I took him as my own and renamed him after my grandfather, Tarlos.”

Tarlos sat there speechless. Finally he was able to breathe out “Does anybody else know?”

“No,” Taroc said. “Your oldest brother was boarded at school, too young then to help with the harvest. “Zamas, your…father and I buried your infant brother behind the barn beneath the flowers your Mother loved.” Taroc took a deep breath. “We said prayers to Zavid and Zannic that night. As we finished, all three moons came out from behind the clouds.” Taroc looked at his son and smiled. “And you have been my son since that day. And I am proud of the man, the free man you are becoming.”

“Thank you, Father,” Tarlos managed to say.

“Slavery is an evil,” Taroc said. “Someday we will be able to do something about it and all men will be free. My Grandfather Tarlos always said that. Until then we must treat people decently, slave or free.”

“Yes, Sir,” Tarlos said, suddenly feeling older beyond even the Age of Ascension.

“Maybe that is why Zavid and Zannic appeared to you tonight,” Taroc said. “Or maybe they were just warming the horses.”

The two men smiled and finished their broth. Outside a moon peeked out from the clouds and the horses snorted in the barn.

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Eight Years! Wow!

It was eight years ago, May 25th, 2016 that I wrote one flash fiction story for Monday Flash Fics and wrote another the following week just to see if I could do it. Now, eight years and three-hundred-and-eighty-some stories later, most for the Friday Flash Fics Facebook Group and the Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge and others I have pulled off writing at least fifty-two stories a year. (Not counting a few longer stories I manage to write!)

All this has made me a better writer and taught me the discipline I didn’t learn in school. (My fault, not theirs!) In addition It’s gotten me a few writing gigs as well as a lot of writer friends and even a few followers for this blog. And some of the characters who first popped up here have had adventures published elsewhere!

I owe a lot of thanks to Helena Stone, ‘Nathan Smith, Brigham Vaughn, Kelly Jensen, Elizabeth Lister and others too numerous to mention for their encouragement in maintaining these prompt sites. Again, many thanks!

Many of my readers liked my story “Wild Horses,” which appeared here February 27, 2017 https://authorjeffbaker.com/2017/02/19/monday-flash-fics-february-20-2017-wild-horses/ It takes place on my “World Of Three Moons,” a world I originally conceived for a Lovecraftian adventure-quasi-Arabian-Nights-type story I need to finish from about twelve years ago. The world with it’s weird entities behind the scenes was settled by Middle Eastern and European sorcerers who fled Earth and persecution in the Middle Ages as well as Earth colonists who arrived via spaceship thousands of years in our future. So, there’s a blend of magic and sci-fi (or science-fantasy) and a Medieval Europe/Arabian-Nights feel to it.

So when it came time to do an anniversary story I decided to build on a reference in “Wild Horses.” It’s one of the longest stories I’ve done for a supposed “Flash Fiction” series, but I had fun doing it!

Zavid and Zannic get referenced in more of my stories, and I assure you the issue of slavery will be touched on at some point in this series.

For now, I say “Thank You” to everyone who has read my stories and a special thanks to anybody who let me know they enjoyed them. It usually made my day!

As they used to say on the old Tonight Show: “More To Come.”

And with this, I am going to have to take a break from posting these weekly stories. I have to go way out of town for a couple of weeks and I may not be back online at this keyboard until the middle of June. (I may post some pics, but I’m not sure!) Till then, take care! —-jeff

—–jeff baker, May 23rd, 2024

Posted in Anniversary, Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, Kenny Blasco, Legend, LGBT, Monday Flash Fiction, Short-Stories, World of Three Moons, Zavid and Zannic | Leave a comment

A “Cold War” Flashback. An Anniversary Story by Jeff Baker. (May 23, 2024)

Posted on May 23, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Celebrating my Eighth anniversary of posting these near-weekly Flash Fictions, here’s one a lot of people liked. From 2017, “Cold War.”

The two men sat on the park bench in the snowy dusk.

“Snow everywhere, just like in Russia,” said Illianovich.

“Snow like in New Jersey,” Meader said, idly brushing snow off the edge of the bench. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but it was still cold.

“I don’t remember the snow fifty years ago,” Illianovich said.

“We had other things on our mind,” Meader said with a smile. “But the first time we had a meeting here was in September that year.”

“That building across the street wasn’t built yet,” Illianovich said pointing. “And there was a stone building by the pond at the end of the park, remember?”

“I remember. I thought it looked like a mausoleum,” Meader said.

“Appropriate,” Illianovich mused. “Considering what we were a part of.”

“I know,” Meader said. “If we’d each played our intended parts it would have been death on a grand scale.”

“But I was a new father,” Illianovich said.

“So was I,” Meader said. “And we sat right here, shared a bottle of vodka…”

“I remember the vodka!” Illianovich said. “And we wondered what our governments were fighting about.”

“Politics.” Meader said, flicking snow off the bench with a finger.

“Politicians.” Illianovich said.

“We were just cogs. Cogs in a machine,” Meader said.

“Small, unnoticed, pivotal cogs,” Illianovich said, raising a gloved finger. “We were Gabriel blowing his trumpet. Yes, I knew who Gabriel was back then!”

Meader had looked at the other man in surprise.

“But we met, knew who the other was.” Meader said. “We talked.”

“And talked,” Illianovich said.

“And talked,” Meader said. “And your government never knew?”

“That I was colluding with the enemy? And that we were telling our governments what they needed to hear? No.” Illianovich said.

“To avoid Armageddon,” Meader said.

The two men sat in silence in the growing dark.

“When did you come to America? To stay, I mean?” Meader asked.

“1971,” Illianovich said. “I asked for asylum.”

“Mmmmmmm…” Meader said.

“Enough of this chit chat,” Illianovich said. “Did you bring the vodka?”

Meader laughed. “My doctor told me it wasn’t good for me, so I don’t drink anymore.”

“Pity. It would have kept us warm,” Illianovich said. “Well, I’m going home. My wife is with our great-grandchild.”

“Wonderful!” Meader said standing up.

They shook hands and the two old men walked out of the park as light snow began to fall.

—end—

Author’s Note: I know of at least two incidents, one during the Cuban Missile Crisis and one in 1983 where Russians in charge of launching missiles and effectively beginning a nuclear war refused to do so. There were probably a few other incidents we don’t know about. This story is for them. —-J.S.B.

Posted in Anniversary, Fiction, Monday Flash Fiction, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Reading Report For April/May 2024, From Jeff Baker. (May 20th, 2024)

Posted on May 21, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Reading Report April/May 2024

I actually think I did more reading than writing this time around!

Started reading some of the stories in the Crippen and Landru collection of Frances and Richard Lockridge’s “Flair For Murder.” It includes all of their crime stories and their only short mystery story about Mr. And Mrs North. The bulk of the stories are about police Lt. Heimrich, who pops up in one of the North novels and in a bunch of novels all his own. Lots of classic Golden Age fun! (And cats!)

Read “A Haunted Ship,” a.k.a. “A True Story—As Far As It Goes” by Washington Irving which appeared in the Sat. Eve. Post in 1881 and was reprinted on the Post’s website. Irving apparently said it was a true story told to him by a sailor.

Got the graphic novel “The Sandman, Volume 3, Dream Country,” just to read “A Dream of 1,000 Cats,” Neil Gaiman’s homage to Fritz Leiber. More impactful than I thought to me, a cat lover. Also read “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which won the World Fantasy Award, and “Facade” which features a forgotten DC Comics character I did not expect to see!

All the stories excellent and perfectly illustrated.

Read some of ‘Nathan Burgoine’s fine “Triad Magic.” Need to finish it!

Of course, I read Kaje Harper’s weekly offerings as well as E. H. Timm’s “Stranger Safety” which was her Flash Fiction Draw Challenge” story for May.

Finally getting back to my Poe Project, reading neglected, not-as-well-known tales by the Master. Read “Thou Art The Man,” an excellent mystery which I have gone into more (spoiler-free) detail in a separate post.

Read “The Pain Peddlers” by Robert Silverberg in the relaunched “Worlds Of If” Magazine (Issue # 177, Feb. 2024.) A reprint from Galaxy in 1969 but I kept forgetting it hadn’t been written today! Perfect with the amoral producer of a reality TV show and futuristic touches that didn’t feel dated fifty-some years later!

Read “The Witching Hour” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. Also read his “The Mannequin Challenge,” a story with an astounding ending! Both in the anthology “Between Dystopias: The Road to Afropantheology.”

Got a reprint of Rafael Sabatini’s collection “Turbulent Tales,” first published in the late 1940s. I’d never read Sabatini! Read “The Kneeling Cupid,” which was clever!

Started reading J. Scott Coatsworth’s “River City Chronicles.” Originally serialized on his blog (where I DID read some of it.) Now Scott has started writing a sequel; “Down the River; the River City Chronicles Book Two,” which is being serialized on Scott’s blog. https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/category/features/serial/ (Yes, I’m reading that too!)

Celebrated Leslie Charteris’ birthday week by reading his “Fish Story.” Collected in “Mermaids!” Edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. Very clever!

Read a nice story by Fiona Glass “The Visitor” in the 2009 anthology “Queer Dimensions,” which I bought long before I knew Fiona! She has now expanded the story into a novel. Read the 1939 Henry Kuttner story “The Curse Of the Crocodile,” in “The Watcher At the Door.” African setting, oh-so-superior white explorers who scoff at native superstition and fall prey to the juju. A scary horror tale!

And, I have been reading stories in a fine (and very big! 700+ pages!) anthology of Irish genre fiction: “Shadow Voices,” edited by John Connoly which I found at the Library and bought for myself. Covering works from four centuries, the informative introductions are worth the price of the book!

It included Oscar Wilde’s “Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime.” I’d heard about it, never read it before. I did not expect it to be as funny as it was! Lord Arthur’s attempts at murder played out like something Wilie E. Coyote would do!

Lady Jane Wilde’s “The Holly Well and the Murder,” a short fable. Lady Wilde sometimes used the pen-name “Speranza.” And yes, she was Oscar Wilde’s Mother!

“Frank Martin And the Fairies,” by William Carleton.

“The Man In the Bell,” by William Maginn. A story which may have inspired Poe’s “Pit and the Pendulum.” Poe was a Maginn admirer.

Editor Connoly included one of his own stories: “On The Anatomisation Of An Unknown Man (1637) By Franz Mier.” Incidentally, the artist and the work cited were real. I highly recommend this collection!

—-jeff baker, May 20th, 2024.

Posted in 'Nathan Burgoine, Books, Collection, Crippen and Landru, E. H. Timms, Edgar Allan Poe, Fiction, Fiona Glass, Fritz Leiber, Henry Kuttner, J. Scott Coatsworth, Kaje Harper, LGBT, Neil Gaiman, Oscar Wilde, Reading, Reading Report, Robert Silverberg, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Progress Report From Jeff Baker! May 20th, 2024

Posted on May 21, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Photo by Amy Tharp

Progress Report for April/May, 2024. May 20th ‘24, from Jeff Baker.

Yup! Did more reading than writing this month, too!

Did the usual monthly and weekly flash fiction stories, piddled around and wrote on a few other things and plotted out a few others. And submitted some things. (Glad I keep notes!)

Wrote a few paragraphs on “One Dark Night In the Middle Of the Day,” which is starting to come together.

Surprised myself and wrote a poem in the Library about an hour before closing, running around grabbing books from various sections so I could quote their Dewey Decimal numbers! Actually sent it off!

Wrote another poem the other day, the first line of which was a throwaway line from a Facebook post I made late one night.

Re-read my old story “Original Sin” and tweaked it a little. Submitted.

Worked on a fantasy story I’d started last year and had forgotten about! Sat down to write a paragraph and wrote about a page!

Worked on a NSFW story I’d been piddling on and made surprising progress!

Did the usual weekly Friday Flash Fiction stories and the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge story for May.

The next Friday story will mark my eighth year of doing these near-weekly stories. My Anniversary story looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Got one story started in a notebook; it may fit one of the Friday Flash prompts later.

AND I actually did some writing on “Love’s Not Time’s Fool,” as well as taking notes for it. This is the full-length story that I feel I’m meant to finish before I tackle another long project. (Earlier this year I twice typed up a note for two different stories and accidentally typed them at first onto the MS of “Love’s Not Time’s Fool.” I took it as an omen that I was meant to finish this before I did anything else. I don’t believe in omens, but it is a motivator!) I have a lot of the story in semi-connected chunks. I just need to formulate it into a coherent narrative.

I’m trying to imagine the unmotivated, undisciplined College Kid I was back in 1982 saying that!

I’ve got at least a couple of Queer Sci-Fi columns written this month and in the pipe, as well as notes for another one I ought to work on.

I’m going out-of-town and slowing down the writing for a couple of weeks in a couple of weeks. We’ll see how that goes.

And my story “The Ghannidor-Ra” was published in “Schlock! Webzine” in their May 2024 issue! Now that’s progress! The editors liked it and I’ll be doing a sequel!

That’s about it for now!

—-jeff baker, May 20th, 2024

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Rainbow Snippets! J. Scott Coatsworth’s “River City Chronicles.” (Jeff Baker, May 18, 2024)

Posted on May 18, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Friday May, 17th, 2024.

Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974

My friend J. Scott Coatsworth is writing and posting https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/serial-down-the-river-chapter-two/ a sequel to his 2018 novel “The River City Chronicles, which was originally serialized on his blog.

In celebration, here’s a few snippets from the original, https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/book/the-river-city-chronicles/ set in a version of Scott’s adopted home of Sacramento, CA. Matteo and Diego are an Italian couple who moved to Sacramento from Italy and opened a restaurant. So far, business has been underwhelming. So self-taught chef Diego has started a cooking class at Ragazzi, the restaurant they own.

Diego glanced at the clock. It was almost two, and the lunch rush (which today had been four people) was over. His new students should be arriving soon. If there were any. They’d printed up five hundred green fliers after Matteo had helped him with his English, which was terrible. He knew he should learn more, but there was so much other work to be done—sourcing ingredients, preparing the daily menu, cooking. He hadn’t realized what a big job this restaurant was going to be.

Here’s a little more.

Dave reached toward the doorbell, but he hesitated. Usually he would come in the back way, but since Arthur had passed away, it felt…intrusive to presume such familiarity. And truth be told, he’d been keeping more and more to himself in general…

It had been months since Carmelina had tried to play the matchmaker with him. Their cat-and-mouse game had been put on hold by her husband’s death. But apparently it was game on now.

He was glad to see her coming out of her own seclusion. But did it have to be at the expense of his own?

That ran over six lines but it was so true-to life, I couldn’t resist! And I’m hungry for Italian Food, now! Oh, and the book includes recipes from Fabrizio Montanari and his mother and grandmother.

Next week, something a bit newer! Till then, take care! —-jeff

Posted in Books, Fiction, J. Scott Coatsworth, LGBT, Rainbow Snippets | 2 Comments