"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
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
This week we look at the new anthology “Three Left Turns to Nowhere” from Bold Strokes Books https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/three-left-turns-to-nowhere-3805-bthree interconnected M/M romance novellas from three different authors all set in Hopewell, Ontario, a little town with a magical knack for bringing people together.
Possibly, really magical…
In Jeffrey Ricker’s “Roadside Assistance,” Ed Sinclair and his friends are on their way to a science fiction convention when they are waylaid in Hopewell by car trouble and a toppled tree. Here he is with his buddies arguing about which Star Wars characters they resemble. (A line or two over, but worth it!)
“So, I’m Chewbacca in this scenario, is that it?” Ed says.
“Please,” Siobhan says. “You’re clearly the Threepio.”
The neurotic fussy butler android? The grumpy walking carpet would be preferable. Everyone wants to hug Chewbacca. The only one who wants to hug C3PO is…does anyone? R2-D2, maybe.
That’s it for this week! Next week I’ll post another snippet from this fine anthology, a book I highly recommend!
I had not seen Professor Dummkopt for several weeks, not even at the regular meetings of the Radical Club (which studied the unknowable) when I received a note by messenger to meet him at his rooms there in Boston at One-thirty the day after next. When I met him there he had a most remarkable contraption hanging from his ceiling; wires and metal plates and crystals, the latter looking like lenses which focused down on a chair in the middle of the room.
I say “remarkable,” but where the Professor was concerned, the remarkable was common place.
“This device, my young friend,” he said pointing upward “is my Fourth-Dimensional Chronomizer. It is an extension on my previous experiments involving the transfer of souls. With this I intend to transmit my essence, not to another person, but to the future!”
“The future?” I asked.
“Yes!” the Professor exclaimed. “To behold firsthand the wonders of man’s progress!”
“Um, are you really sure that that is a good idea?” I asked, certain that it wasn’t. In the last few years I had heard tell of some of the Professor’s experiments and of some of the repercussions.
He, of course, ignored my concerns and enlisted my assistance in using his device.
I was outfitted in a pair of dark goggles and told to stand by a large lever he had built into the wall. At a per-determined signal, I was to push the lever upwards. Then, I was to wait twenty minutes and push the lever downwards again. In the meantime, I was not to interfere in anything the Professor did, and that I should not be surprised at anything I saw.
The Professor sat down in the chair and I affixed the goggles to my head and stood by, awaiting his signal. When he gave it, I raised the lever. There was a clink and a shudder of movement as the lenses moved into position accompanied by a hum of power from what source I did not know.
I could not see much through the glasses but I could make out the ticking clock at the end of the room. And as I looked at the professor I saw, or I thought I saw for an instant, a blurred copy of his form flying from his seated form. But that might have been a trick of the goggles.
I stood and watched the Professor. He did not move. I counted the ticks of the clock.
At the twenty-minute mark I pushed the lever back down. I tried to keep an eye on the professor to see if the phantom figure had been an illusion but I blinked and the next moment the Professor stirred.
“Terrible! Terrible!” The Professor said. “I traveled into the future! Nearly 143 years ahead! I found myself in a building full of bottles on long, tall shelves. A store where they sold nothing but wine and liquor and beer.”
I smiled. I imagined the Professor was probably familiar with such places.
“I stood there looking around and I realized that nobody there could see me and I stepped effortlessly though a rack of bottles. I felt normal but I realized I was not breathing at all and that didn’t bother me. I walked around the room, not wondering how I did not sink through the floor or fall into space. I glanced out the window and saw a sunlit street with metal vehicles speeding by. I wondered how far ahead I had gone and at the same time realized that while the Chronomizer had enabled my essence to travel this far ahead, I had done the actual traveling myself. With that thought, I endeavored to test my theory and willed myself to travel ahead a year. Instantly the room blurred and I found myself standing in the same shop but with the shelves and racks empty. With a hideous crash, some huge yellow metal machine ripped through the wall! Surely a machine of future war! I willed myself to return to my own era and found myself seated in the chair, drawn back to the moment you turned the Chronomizer off, re-uniting me with my corporeal form.”
The Professor shivered and closed his eyes.
“I figure the 21st Century is one of war and destruction.”
I was not so certain. It seemed that the Professor may have misinterpreted the events which I had no doubt he saw. Nonetheless, I vowed then and there to contact Mr. Mitchell who has carried reports of Professor Dummkopt’s experiments in The Sun. And I will be relieved if the Professor resumes his regular attendance at the meetings of The Radical Club.
So many of our members keep disappearing…
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: One of the disadvantages to doing a story from a prompt every week is that sometimes the story doesn’t go the way you want it. The story I planned to do here, a mystery/crime story, wouldn’t be ready by the deadline at least I couldn’t do it justice. So, noting that March 24th is the birth-date of pioneering 19th-Century sci-fi author Edward Paige Mitchell I decided to revisit one of his characters and ape his style. Hope you enjoyed it1 —-jsb
My friend Helena Stone has just released a box set of her wonderful stories about Mitch and Cian!
Mitch & Cian – The Full Story Box Set – Helena Stone
A chance meeting leads to the romance of a lifetime. Can two young men hold tight to their blossoming love?
Ireland. Seventeen-year-old Mitch McCann isn’t out and isn’t sure he wants to be. When he’s bullied by his classmates for perceived gayness, he seeks refuge in an out-of-the-way library. But in the stacks, he meets the gorgeous guy he’s longed for, and one kiss is all it takes for his heart to be lost forever.
Cian Leavy may have made it to college, but he’s still new to romance. So when he falls for the handsome high school senior, he doesn’t know how to handle them living so far apart. But after they share a touching St. Patrick’s Day weekend together in Dublin, he realizes this could be everything he’s ever wanted.
When Mitch starts university and makes plans to move in with his beautiful beau, he’s nevertheless nervous about how it will go. And just when they’re about to reunite, Cian is devastated by the housing crisis threatening to destroy his plan for an eternity of bliss.
Can the sweet young couple find their way through turmoil to the relationship they both deserve?
Including 5 brand-new stories, Mitch & Cian -The Full Story is an unforgettable collection of M/M new adult romance. If you like heartfelt confessions, undeniable chemistry, and steamy moments, then you’ll adore Helena Stone’s pulse-pounding saga.
Buy Mitch & Cian Lessons -The Full Story Box Set to fall for the first time today!
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 snippet this week is from my just-published story “Nereus,” and follows our twenty-something narrator in the world of Ancient Greece and Rome as he has been tossed overboard by a wave of the ship his father owns and pulled down beneath the waves to a bearded giant on a throne who says he is Nereus, a sea-god:
“I am Akamas, son of Akadios, the merchant.” I said. “How can I speak and breathe under the ocean?”
“Because the things that are mine are the things of the sea bottom and you are now mine,” said Nereus. He moved forward, shifting like a river current surrounding me like a fog and his kiss was like a breeze on the shore just after a storm. “You will be with me for the night and then you will join my followers.”
The man kissed me again and his hair seemed to flow and surround us both.
Here’s a link to the premiere issue of Orion’s Beau, the new quarterly where my story first appeared:https://www.orionsbeau.com/
Jack gripped the wheel, his fists opening and shutting.
Just drive, Jack, he kept saying to himself. Just drive.
Don’t freak out. Speed limit. Watch the stop signs.
Rob and Joey are in the back seat. Trying to stay calm. Don’t speed over the damn speed bumps, it’ll make the stuff in the trunk bang around.
Maybe get hurt.
How much money were they going to get? Rob said they were just dealing in money. Maybe in bootleg hooch like that guy Capone.
He hoped Eddie wasn’t too uncomfortable banging around in the car trunk. Not too uncomfortable with his hands and feet tied or the big gag stuffed in his mouth.
Stop light ahead. At the intersection. Pull up easy. Stop. Yeah.
Deep breaths. Deeeep breaths. You can do this.
Oh Hell. Cop. Right beside me. At the stoplight.
Come on light, turn. Turnturnturn.
What’s that banging? Someone shooting? And that noise?
Just got my autographed (thanks, Jeff!) copy of “Three Left Turns to Nowhere” from Bold Strokes Books. The anthology features three interconnected Gay romantic novellas set in the same little town.
Three groups of strangers on their way to a science fiction convention in Toronto, find themselves temporarily stranded in the town of Hopewell, Ontario thanks to breakdowns and a large, toppled tree on the roadway. Once in Hopewell they find that the town’s reputation for being “magical,” especially when it comes to bringing couples together, may be more than idle rumor.
The stories are “Roadside Assistance,” by Jeffrey Ricker; “The Scavenger Hunt,” by J. Marshall Freeman and “Hope Echoes,” by ‘Nathan Burgoine.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the March Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Horror or Dark Fantasy, set at the Bottom of the Ocean, involving a Broadsword. So I drew my sword and put on my Robert E. Howard hat.
Sorion the Wild stared at the bubble that surrounded the ancient City of the Prophets. The bubble was thin and murky, like the few soap bubbles Sorion had seen. He rubbed his thick biceps with one hand, clenching the hilt of the broadsword with the other. He stared at the curious fish which poked their noses against the bubble which held back the deep dark green of the ocean..
Only the magic of the Prophets of Kesh held back the force of the sea and kept the inside of the bubble filled with fresh air.
Sorion had fought his way to the city through the fabled Tunnel of Snakes beneath the ocean and he wiped the greenish blood off the sword on the sea grasses that grew on the ocean floor. The broadsword had cleaved monsters before and doubtless would again.
“Ho, foolish mortal,” came the voice of the sorcerer. “You are all that stands between myself and the sacred library.. Stand aside or die!”
Sorion did not know how the sorcerer had gotten there. Doubtless by sorcerous means, he did not look like he had fought through a tunnel of serpents. He did know that the sorcerer could not enter the library if it was defended. Powerful magic saw to that.
“I fear no wizard, certainly not you Elam of the Crossed Plains,” Sorion said defiantly, planting his sturdy feet on the somehow dry ground. “Bring on death! I have faced him in combat before and defeated him!”
Sorion stood several hands taller than most men and his arms and legs were the thickness of young trees. His loincloth shimmered with worn threads of gold and the bands around his chest were inlaid with the skulls of the evil ones he had defeated.
Elam the Sorcerer, standing tall next to the bubble wall, waved his ancient arms and a section of bubble parted like a curtain and the water held back as a figure strode through—a skeleton holding a sword, a glint of half-life in its eye sockets, shreds of tattered clothing clinging to its form.
“You face my First Sword-man, my Herald,” Elam called out. “You face death!”
Sorion raised his sword.
The sounds of battle echoed off the bubble and the stone walls of the city. Sorion’s broadsword striking the skeleton’s blade. The scuffing of Sorion’s sealskin boots on the ground. The skittering of the skeleton’s feet, the clatter of its bones with every strike. Sorion’s grunts as he thrusted and struck, missing the bones by a coin’s width.
He imagined every thrust going into the chest of the sorcerer Elam. He saw the bubble, the sea, the skeleton and his sword tinted in a haze of red.
The skeleton’s sword hissed in the air. Sorion felt a sharp tug as some of his hair was sliced off of his head. As the hair was falling to the ground, Sorion swung his sword and this time connected with the skeleton’s spine. Sorion’s sword arced through the air and the skeleton’s ribcage shattered. A backward thrust and the skeleton’s sword arm fell to the ground. Sorion readied a final shattering thrust when something bit into the back of his leg.
The detached arm had slashed out with the sword.
With a howl of rage and pain, Sorion plunged his sword into the skull of Elam’s First Herald.
The skeleton clattered to pieces. The skeletal arm dropped the sword.
The sorcerer laughed and applauded.
“Well done, Sorion the Wild. You have shattered my Herald, but as you will see, he was only the first!”
The bubble-curtain parted again and a line of sword-wielding skeletons marched toward Sorion, swords held high.
“I have an army of all the dead in all the oceans at my command!” Elan said. “How long can you stand and fight?”
The sorcerer cackled evilly.
“And then you will join my army of the unwilling dead. Forever!”
Sorion tensed his muscles and gripped his sword as the skeletons clattered forward their grins fixed in silent laughter.
Among my favorite TV shows to re-watch is “Soap,” the soap-opera spoof from the 1970s (which I saw first-run.) The picture prompt for this was a young father holding his young daughter. I always wondered what happened to Burt and Mary and Mary’s gay son Jodie and his little daughter. So I did this version and set them about ten years after the series ended.
This first snippet is a bit over six lines, but what the hey! Liz has awakened her husband Carl. She’s been fretting about the picture of their son and his little daughter…
“What picture? What about a picture? I thought you loved that picture.” Carl said.
“Our son has a baby,” Liz said. “We’re grandparents. We’re old. I’m old.”
“Forty nine isn’t old.” Carl said.
“Forty nine years, three months and six days.” Liz said, sulking. “Next come wrinkles, age spots, grey hair. I’m old. Oh, God, I remember ‘Your Show of Shows’ being on when I was a kid.”
Here’s snippet two:
“I guess I’m just in one of those moods,” Liz said. “But I love that picture of Jeremy and little Margie. Oh, my God…My Little Margie! I just realized! I wonder if Jeremy caught that?”
“He’s Gay, of course he caught it,” Carl said. “I’m turning out the light.”
Snow flurries were skittering through the air as the huge black dog jumped in the snow. He hadn’t been in snow in a long time.
“Cerberus!” came the voice. His master kept himself from saying “here boy!”
The Elysian Fields gave away quickly to the icy purgatory where the dog was merrily romping. His master, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, stalked across the plain in his dark armor. Hades grumbled under his breath that while black spiked armor was intimidating to the newly-dead it was no good for trudging after a wayward dog.
Usually Cerberus stayed at the entrance where he was supposed to, as a guard dog to Hades’ realm. But sometimes he wandered off.
“The Hell with it,” Hades muttered. “Here boy! Here boy!” The Lord of the Underworld whistled for the first time in hundreds of years and was rewarded with a happy barking. But not with the sight of the animal bounding towards his master. He did see the dog’s tracks in the snow, however.
“All right, all right,” Hades grumbled again as he trudged on the ice. “Here’ boy! Come on!”
Hades quickly realized that armored iron boots were no good for walking on ice and snow as he slid, then slipped and landed with a clatter on his backside.
The sound echoed off the icy walls and over the icy river that ran through the realm, a river of woe and torment. In the river, the six young men in thin tunics had been shivering hip-deep in the icy water since the Trojan War. They hadn’t smiled in all that time. Now they were laughing at the sight of Hades sliding on his butt on the ice.
Hades paid them no heed. He saw Cerberus romping in the snow a few yards away. He had a thought.
“Here boy!” Hades called loudly as he tossed a snowball in the dog’s direction. Cerberus happily yapped and dove for the snowball which burst between his jaws. His only set of jaws, it was a Greek writer who had never seen him who started the story that the dog had three heads.
The dog looked up expectantly, happily wagging his tail.
“Here, boy!” Hades said, waving the snowball and tossing it in the direction of the Elysian Fields which those condemned to the ice fields could neither see nor enter. The dog barked and happily ran in the snowball’s direction followed carefully by Hades.
“Good boy, good boy,” Hades said scratching Cerberus behind the ears. The dog gave his master the look which universally said: “Where did my snowball go?”
“Come on, we’ll find something for you,” Hades said as he and the dog walked toward the main portion of the Underworld.
Hades made a note to himself to contact Hephaestus about making iron boots with better traction in snow. Because he wasn’t running after the dog in these slick boots again.
authorjeffbaker 