Jumped by a Deadly Cholla

I’m back! Yes, I’ve been gone a long time.

The prostate cancer treatment hasn’t been that troublesome, but it slowed the writing process. No surgery, no chemicals—just external radiation five days in October and five in December. Plus quarterly hormone injections. We won’t go into the details or side effects, but my energy and clarity still is lacking. I’m back at the local fitness center on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That helps the muscle aches and the vigor.

I’m back here now, because the book is finally done! It’s shorter and less complicated—no verse, no memoir. The collection is all speculative fiction from flash through short and all the way to a novelette. All but one once were blog posts,  but they bear only a resemblance to the original. All were edited, most substantially, and some changed from paragraphs to thousands of words. The work totals a little more than 30, 000 words.

For all my friends and fellow writers/bloggers, you can definitely expect any missing reviews of your books ASAP, and comments on your posts coming regularly again–starting this week.

It’s available NOWon Amazon Kindle. ASIN: B0C382VJ73 

Check this link to see samples (even if you’re not in the US maybe you can see it)

FREE days: April 26 & 27 plus April29-May 1 (12 am PDT to 11:59 PDT)

IF you’re on Kindle Unlimited–the book is free all the time–until I go off Kindle Select.

Jumped by a Deadly Cholla, plus ten more speculative fiction stories

Cactus roots draw microbes from a meteorite—Lois nearly dies. One of eleven stories in a diverse collection of speculative fiction. A potpourri of fantasy and SF. Humor and horror. Supernatural and time-travel. Quick reads from flash fiction through short works, but a novelette too. Like twists? Find them here.

Jack hears the Dog Star’s Bark; an invite from the sun goddess of Sirius—a funny story. The Wishing Bellevil reminiscent of The Monkey’s Paw.  A sentient (alien) shrub offers gene modification tools in Climate Crisis Changes Humans. Werewolves—good ones and bad, in Dog Is my Copilot.

The stories:

  1. The Star Catcher–keeping them from escaping
  2. Fencing the Sky–A scam
  3. Vampire Bodhisattva–The guilt becomes too great
  4. The Leap–Demonic forces invading his mind–or were they
  5. I Think, Therefore I When–A visit with time traveling Derek
  6. Harry and Sarah—a Dark Job–expanded from a prior post
  7. The Wishing Bell—Never in a blog post
  8. Beware That Jumping Cholla—Greatly expanded from the blog
  9. Dog Star’s Bark—Substantially developed; a longer story from a previous post (funny)
  10. A Climate Crisis Changes Humans—A paragraph grows to nearly 4,000 words (a sentient alien shrub)
  11. Dog Is My Copilot— from a paragraph to a novelette

4 thoughts on “Jumped by a Deadly Cholla

  1. I’m happy for you on two accounts: 1. You’re feeling better and regaining your strength. (I take none of that for granted.) 2. I’m always happy for any writer friend that gets to the finish line.

    I know that you are wired like me in that it’s not in your nature to rush things before they’re ready. Much better to take the time. I look forward to reading your book in the next month. Nice to have you back, John.

  2. Welcome back my friend. Glad to hear you are working toward mending and have aced your treatments. Looking forward to reading and reviewing your new book for you. 🙂 🙂

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