Creepy 13

             Creepy 13

A book by C.M. Marcum on Smashwords

Almost Halloween!  Thirteen short stories to get you in the mood.  Each one is easily consumable for a lunchtime read.  Most of these stories are lightly sautéed in science fiction.  Some are salted with dark humor.  All of them are boiled over a creepy flame.  Goosebumps high, blood splatter minimum.   

“Trashy Ways“  An old man and his mute wife find a dead girl at the city dump, but they’re in for a big surprise when the body turns out to be not so dead and not so girly.

“Galaxy Real Estate”  Two hungry aliens travel across the universe in a rented spaceship to make a deal for Earth.  One is a carnivore; the other is a vegetarian, but who will win possession of the planet?

“Life”   A poor farmer desperately wants to cheat death, but can anyone really cheat death?  The future is not exactly what he expects when he ends up in a government funded cryonics study?

“Deleting Divorce”   The proverbial happy bachelor just wants to make it to the next paycheck, but his controlling and lovesick computer has other ideas.

“The Sybil Gale”   An elderly sailor wants to dock his ship at the nearest space station, but he must choose between the past and the future, and that’s only after he wakes up to find a dead crew, plague and an alien infestation.

“Last Historical Footnote”  Uh-oh, the world ends again.

“He Said, She Says”  Two sides of the same story.  One from the victim, and the other from the victim.  Yes, I said victim on both.

“ Worshiping Lilith”  What would happen if only the men turned into Zombies?

“The Grid of Life”  What will the gods do when mankind is gone?

“Not in My House”  OMG, talk about extreme body modification.  What will Dad say?

“Tomorrow Does Not Exist”  Meet a super freak with a paintbrush.

“Remembering Henry”  Alzheimer scares me, does it scare you?

“Flying Potion”  Someone is looking for some very specific ingredients, and they don’t care how they get them.

Blurb on Blurb

Well, my big mouth has gotten me published in the form of a blurb for a magazine.  Unintentional on my part, I was just making one of my opinionated comments on an article, but I think it’s great.  It’s wonderful to get a little attention now and then– keeps the fires burning.

When you’re a writer, you sometimes feel like you’re pouring all your words down a dry well or shouting into an empty void. Check out my comment on Harry Steven Lazerus’ article ‘The Contrarian:  Keep Your Mask On, Your Face is Disturbing.’  Published by the Change Magazine.

Find me yakking on page 4.  More important, check out Change Magazine and Harry’s articles .

Wrapping up lose ends

After reviewing ‘Are we Programmed to Fail,’ and listening to your words, I must conclude that the process of critiquing remains another example of the old cliché:  Two’s company, three’s a crowd.

On the issue of ‘100 Degrees’ and not being able to write at length, I’ve decided to settle for one glorious and purr-fect page per day.  Hell, I’ll inch down the road if necessary.

Next post up:  I think it’s time for some humor.  Let you know when I think of something funny.

Plug for a Pal

Are you ready for a Sunday opinion column?  A good friend has landed a gig at Changes Magazine.  Check out ‘The Contrarian,’ written by Harry S. Lazerus.  He gets to offer counterpoint–dream job.  I’m jealous.

It’s a women’s magazine.  Gosh, I hope they don’t beat him up too bad.  He’s so brave.  Comments are open to the public.  Posted one myself this morning.

Plug for Me

Oh my gosh, I just self-published a short story on Smashwords.com.  If the link below doesn’t work, look under Sci-fi and FREE.  I wanted to see if I could manage the techno stuff.  The story is published but still pending review, so maybe this is a premature annoucement.  If I get a lot of hits, I’ll do a collection.  (Dreaming now, heh?)

I have spotted two typos.  (Don’t know why I can’t see them, until after I hit the Publish Button. It’s the little stuff that gets me.)  I’ll wait to fix them, after I see if the formatting is correct, which is my main concern right now.  HTML looks good.  The style guide was a bit of a booger.

Story title: ‘Let Me Read Your Mind’ by  ME.