Richard Lee Byers's Blog, page 45
April 18, 2013
An interview
Sean Taylor interviewed me. Here's the link:http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-wizard-finds-his-path-interview.html
April 17, 2013
I'm very flattered
Though I generally try to withstand the temptation to load up this blog with every positive review I'm lucky enough to receive, I can't resist sharing this comment a reader made after finishing BLIND GOD'S BLUFF: A BILLY FOX NOVEL:
"That scared the liver out of me!"
If you'd like the liver scared out of you...
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Gods-Bluff-Billy-Novels/dp/1597804436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366229917&sr=8-1&keywords=blind+god%27s+bluff
"That scared the liver out of me!"
If you'd like the liver scared out of you...
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Gods-Bluff-Billy-Novels/dp/1597804436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366229917&sr=8-1&keywords=blind+god%27s+bluff
April 13, 2013
Da Vinci's Demons
Anybody watch the debut episode of Da Vinci's Demons on Starz last night? (If you missed it, you can see it via the link.) Da Vinci is a universal genius (obviously) and a master swordsman who uses his skills to defend the oppressed. He's insolent to authority and has troubling mysteries in his past and an amusing rogue for a sidekick. By the end of the pilot, a good secret society has told him to find a lost book of secret knowledge that an evil secret society is also trying to obtain. In short, if you like the pulps, comics, Indiana Jones, sword and sorcery, or pretty much any kind of fantastic adventure, you might like this.http://www.starz.com/originals/davincisdemons
April 11, 2013
The Fun and Excitement of Indie Publishing
The fun and excitement of indie publishing, step by step:
1. Rummage in drawer full of dusty paper manuscripts from the 90s looking for the story you wrote for a long-forgotten anthology that you have for whatever reason decided the world needs to see again.
2. Sneeze.
3. Locate manuscript.
4. Scan manuscript, thus turning it into a PDF.
5. Open account with online OCR service; give them money.
6. Upload PDF.
7. Download Word file the OCR service created.
8. Curse when you find only the first page of PDF was converted to a Word file.
9. Mindlessly repeat Steps 6-8 exactly as you performed them before.
10. Grope around OCR site; discover that you need to click the Multiple Pages button.
11. Perform Steps 6-7 again, only properly this time.
12. Remove headers and all the glitches the OCR process created from Word file.
13. Change all underlining in the text to italics.
14. Reformat text for Kindle.
15. Upload text to Amazon to be a Kindle Single; answer Amazon's questions; write blurb text.
16. Inspect Kindle version of story; discover it doesn't look right.
17. Re-reformat story for Kindle.
18. Re-upload story to Amazon.
19. Look at clock; realize what a ridiculous amount of time it has taken to deal with this one short story; curse.
1. Rummage in drawer full of dusty paper manuscripts from the 90s looking for the story you wrote for a long-forgotten anthology that you have for whatever reason decided the world needs to see again.
2. Sneeze.
3. Locate manuscript.
4. Scan manuscript, thus turning it into a PDF.
5. Open account with online OCR service; give them money.
6. Upload PDF.
7. Download Word file the OCR service created.
8. Curse when you find only the first page of PDF was converted to a Word file.
9. Mindlessly repeat Steps 6-8 exactly as you performed them before.
10. Grope around OCR site; discover that you need to click the Multiple Pages button.
11. Perform Steps 6-7 again, only properly this time.
12. Remove headers and all the glitches the OCR process created from Word file.
13. Change all underlining in the text to italics.
14. Reformat text for Kindle.
15. Upload text to Amazon to be a Kindle Single; answer Amazon's questions; write blurb text.
16. Inspect Kindle version of story; discover it doesn't look right.
17. Re-reformat story for Kindle.
18. Re-upload story to Amazon.
19. Look at clock; realize what a ridiculous amount of time it has taken to deal with this one short story; curse.
April 7, 2013
Another preview of The Impostor #2: The Blood Machine
Here's another excerpt from my next "Impostor" collection. Here we see the supervillain Svergr (real name Pervis Underwood) coping with the vicissitudes of life in a world overrun by alien invaders where he and his gang are contending with them and a rival supercriminal gang for control of a city in ruins:
The civilians in the parking lot were working hard shoveling the dirt the dump trucks had left into wheelbarrows, rolling it inside the Home Depot, unloading it, and then coming back for more. Growing up in the hills, Pervis had despised that kind of mindless, repetitive chore, and it was obvious these city people, who mostly weren’t used to it, hated it even more. Grubby, hot, and tired as they were, some of them still found the energy to glower at their guards, or up at the armored supervillain doing his own work on the roof, when they thought no one was looking.
Pervis understood their resentment, but they wanted to go on eating after the food in the groceries and houses ran out, didn’t they? If so, they needed to farm, and they’d be safer doing it indoors, under sunlamps, where the wasps wouldn’t see. They were lucky the store with its gardening center stocked with seeds, fertilizer, and tools was just a short distance from “Camp Two” where the WMDs had herded them together to live.
Maybe they were pissed off partly because of the weapon system Pervis was installing on the roof. If they thought it was to keep them in line, well, they’re weren’t completely wrong. But mostly it was a defense against the aliens.
The tricky part wasn’t making missiles and guns that would shoot by remote control. It was camouflaging them so the bugs wouldn’t spot them when flying around on routine reconnaissance. Despite dissecting their dead bodies and examining the monitors in their airships, Pervis still didn’t really know how their eyes worked, what colors and shapes popped out at them and what they were likely to miss.
Clicking a cable into a port, he reflected that he could have used some help from the Abductee. The guy was creepy, but there was nobody better at the Frankenstein side of outlaw science. Unfortunately, the last Pervis had heard, the Abductee had been in Manila trafficking in human organs with custom specials available for those who could afford them. Even if he’d survived the invasion—
Pervis’s armor beeped three times, two short notes and then a long one.
The signal meant his radar and camera array had detected something flying in WMD airspace. Naturally, it detected wasps all the time, but he’d programmed the system to discriminate between routine and significant events. At the moment, it thought it was registering one of the latter.
He snapped the faceplate of his helmet shut and said, “Display.” Luminous green words, numbers, and a map with a trajectory traced on it flowed and flickered in front of his eyes. “Visual.”
The inner surface of the faceplate cleared for a few moments as the system tried to obey the command. He understood the delay. The array was still unfinished, with plenty of holes in it, and didn’t have cameras where he needed them. Finally it served up a glimpse of a snakelike shape twisting through the air.
Pervis looked over the edge of the building at the people below. “Get inside!” he shouted.
Everyone, even the gang members, stared back at him stupidly.
“Now!” he bellowed, using the microphone in the helmet to amplify his voice.
That got them scrambling. He pivoted back to the weapon system he’d been hooking up. Could he get it fully operational by the time the flyer came into range? Doubtful; concentrate on arming the SAMs and forget the
maser.
As he worked, he commanded other rooftop systems to target the threat. But like the cameras, most were poorly positioned to do so, and when one did launch a missile or fire a beam weapon, the shot either missed or failed to do much damage.
The flyer wasn’t approaching along the safest route by dumb luck. Somebody had scouted the defense network to find out where the gaps were.
Of course, no aerial route was shielded from the view or attentions of the hive ship floating above the city, and for once, Svergr would have been glad to see the insects launch a battle squadron. They didn’t, though. Maybe they somehow realized one group of humans was on its way to attack another and were all for it.
That left it all on Pervis. The guards’ AKs and other guns wouldn’t do jack to the thing that was coming, and the other superpowered WMDs were too far away to reach the Home Depot in the moments remaining.
Its gray steel scales gleaming a little even on an overcast day, the AURA Skyserpent emerged from among the taller buildings of midtown. As long from its nose to the tip of its tail as the home-improvement store, it looked like everybody’s mental picture of a sea serpent and moved like one, too, writhing and swimming through the air.
The closer it came, the better Pervis’s chances of hitting it where it was vulnerable. But it was still hundreds of yards away when a pair of its own missiles dropped into view under the sculpted dragon-like head that was actually the cockpit. Then he had to shoot and hope he was quicker on the draw.
The four missiles in the SAM launchers streaked upward. By itself, the automated targeting worked pretty well, but interfacing with the system right here on the battlefield, Svergr figured he could improve its aim, and no one could argue based on the results. The Skyserpent’s head vanished in a burst of flame. The ground-shaking, glass-shattering boom and pressure wave rocked him back an instant later.
He grinned, and motors whirred as the SAM battery loaded the next four missiles in its magazines. Then, however, the world vanished in a searing flash.
The civilians in the parking lot were working hard shoveling the dirt the dump trucks had left into wheelbarrows, rolling it inside the Home Depot, unloading it, and then coming back for more. Growing up in the hills, Pervis had despised that kind of mindless, repetitive chore, and it was obvious these city people, who mostly weren’t used to it, hated it even more. Grubby, hot, and tired as they were, some of them still found the energy to glower at their guards, or up at the armored supervillain doing his own work on the roof, when they thought no one was looking.
Pervis understood their resentment, but they wanted to go on eating after the food in the groceries and houses ran out, didn’t they? If so, they needed to farm, and they’d be safer doing it indoors, under sunlamps, where the wasps wouldn’t see. They were lucky the store with its gardening center stocked with seeds, fertilizer, and tools was just a short distance from “Camp Two” where the WMDs had herded them together to live.
Maybe they were pissed off partly because of the weapon system Pervis was installing on the roof. If they thought it was to keep them in line, well, they’re weren’t completely wrong. But mostly it was a defense against the aliens.
The tricky part wasn’t making missiles and guns that would shoot by remote control. It was camouflaging them so the bugs wouldn’t spot them when flying around on routine reconnaissance. Despite dissecting their dead bodies and examining the monitors in their airships, Pervis still didn’t really know how their eyes worked, what colors and shapes popped out at them and what they were likely to miss.
Clicking a cable into a port, he reflected that he could have used some help from the Abductee. The guy was creepy, but there was nobody better at the Frankenstein side of outlaw science. Unfortunately, the last Pervis had heard, the Abductee had been in Manila trafficking in human organs with custom specials available for those who could afford them. Even if he’d survived the invasion—
Pervis’s armor beeped three times, two short notes and then a long one.
The signal meant his radar and camera array had detected something flying in WMD airspace. Naturally, it detected wasps all the time, but he’d programmed the system to discriminate between routine and significant events. At the moment, it thought it was registering one of the latter.
He snapped the faceplate of his helmet shut and said, “Display.” Luminous green words, numbers, and a map with a trajectory traced on it flowed and flickered in front of his eyes. “Visual.”
The inner surface of the faceplate cleared for a few moments as the system tried to obey the command. He understood the delay. The array was still unfinished, with plenty of holes in it, and didn’t have cameras where he needed them. Finally it served up a glimpse of a snakelike shape twisting through the air.
Pervis looked over the edge of the building at the people below. “Get inside!” he shouted.
Everyone, even the gang members, stared back at him stupidly.
“Now!” he bellowed, using the microphone in the helmet to amplify his voice.
That got them scrambling. He pivoted back to the weapon system he’d been hooking up. Could he get it fully operational by the time the flyer came into range? Doubtful; concentrate on arming the SAMs and forget the
maser.
As he worked, he commanded other rooftop systems to target the threat. But like the cameras, most were poorly positioned to do so, and when one did launch a missile or fire a beam weapon, the shot either missed or failed to do much damage.
The flyer wasn’t approaching along the safest route by dumb luck. Somebody had scouted the defense network to find out where the gaps were.
Of course, no aerial route was shielded from the view or attentions of the hive ship floating above the city, and for once, Svergr would have been glad to see the insects launch a battle squadron. They didn’t, though. Maybe they somehow realized one group of humans was on its way to attack another and were all for it.
That left it all on Pervis. The guards’ AKs and other guns wouldn’t do jack to the thing that was coming, and the other superpowered WMDs were too far away to reach the Home Depot in the moments remaining.
Its gray steel scales gleaming a little even on an overcast day, the AURA Skyserpent emerged from among the taller buildings of midtown. As long from its nose to the tip of its tail as the home-improvement store, it looked like everybody’s mental picture of a sea serpent and moved like one, too, writhing and swimming through the air.
The closer it came, the better Pervis’s chances of hitting it where it was vulnerable. But it was still hundreds of yards away when a pair of its own missiles dropped into view under the sculpted dragon-like head that was actually the cockpit. Then he had to shoot and hope he was quicker on the draw.
The four missiles in the SAM launchers streaked upward. By itself, the automated targeting worked pretty well, but interfacing with the system right here on the battlefield, Svergr figured he could improve its aim, and no one could argue based on the results. The Skyserpent’s head vanished in a burst of flame. The ground-shaking, glass-shattering boom and pressure wave rocked him back an instant later.
He grinned, and motors whirred as the SAM battery loaded the next four missiles in its magazines. Then, however, the world vanished in a searing flash.
April 2, 2013
Pathfinder Chat this Thursday (April 4th), 7 PM PST
I'll be doing a live chat at paizo.com at 7 PM PST on Thursday, April 4th.
2013 Gen Con Writer's Symposium Press Release
Here's more info about the 2013 Gen Con Writer's Symposium:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Author List Released for 2013 Gen Con Writer’s Symposium
INDIANAPOLIS (April 2nd, 2013) – The Gen Con Writer’s Symposium recently released the list of participating authors for 2013, and it includes some of the greatest science fiction, fantasy, and media tie-in writers working today. More than fifty talented authors and experts will participate in the panels planned for this year’s Writer’s Symposium, including Guests of Honor Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon.
Participating authors include:
Saladin Ahmed, Lou Anders, Brad Beaulieu, Donald J. Bingle, Dylan Birtolo, Maurice Broaddus, Jennifer Brozek, Richard Lee Byers, Wesley Chu, Lawrence C. Connolly, Larry Correia, Larry Dixon, Maxwell Alexander Drake, Erin M. Evans, Dave Farland, Matt Forbeck, Jaym Gates, Paul Genesse, Geoffrey Girard, Jerry Gordon, Dave Gross, Sarah Hans, John Helfers, Jim C. Hines, William H. Horner III, Kerrie L. Hughes, Howard Andrew Jones, Gary Kloster, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Kristoff, Mercedes Lackey, James Lowder, Scott Lynch, Ari Marmell, Robert Mosher, Daniel Myers, Chris Pierson, Patrick Rothfuss, Jason Sanford, Ken Scholes, Erik Scott de Bie, Lucy A. Snyder, Mike Stackpole, George Strayton, James L. Sutter, Kelly Swails, Marc Tassin, Howard Tayler, Monica Valentinelli, Elizabeth Vaughan, Gregory A. Wilson
This collection of talented writers includes New York Times bestsellers, USA Today bestsellers, and winners of numerous prestigious literary awards. This year alone, Writer’s Symposium panelists received eight nominations for the coveted Hugo and Nebula awards.
“We’re extremely excited,” said Marc Tassin, the Gen Con Literary Coordinator and the Symposium organizer. “The list of authors that have signed on to participate this year is quite incredible. This year’s Symposium is an unprecedented opportunity for both experienced and beginning writers to learn from some of the greatest writing talents out there today.”
"Having participated in numerous writing seminars both in and out of genre over the years, I am stunned by both the caliber of the participants and sheer size of the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium," said Lou Anders, Hugo award-winning Editorial Director of Pyr books. "I'm not sure anyone quite realizes that this symposium has quietly built itself into one of the largest and most impressive writing symposiums in the field. Anyone with an interest in writing science fiction and fantasy literature, whether media tie-in or not, should definitely have this on their radar."
A full event list for the Symposium is scheduled for release later this month. Tickets to Gen Con are available at www.gencon.com .
For more information, please contact Marc Tassin ( contact@genconwriters.com ).
About the Writer’s Symposium: The Gen Con Writer’s Symposium is one of the largest writing conferences in the world. Established in 1995, it offers more than 110 hours of events for both new and experienced authors. The Symposium features more than fifty authors and has served as a springboard for the careers of many accomplished writers. The Symposium will be held August 15th to 18th, 2013, in Indianapolis, Indiana as part of the annual Gen Con gaming convention. For more information on the Symposium, visit www.genconwriters.com .
About Gen Con: Gen Con, LLC produces the largest consumer hobby, fantasy, sci-fi and adventure game convention in North America. It was acquired in 2002 by former CEO and founder of Wizards of the Coast Peter Adkison, who owns the company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Gen Con is a consumer and trade experience dedicated to gaming culture and community. www.gencon.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Author List Released for 2013 Gen Con Writer’s Symposium
INDIANAPOLIS (April 2nd, 2013) – The Gen Con Writer’s Symposium recently released the list of participating authors for 2013, and it includes some of the greatest science fiction, fantasy, and media tie-in writers working today. More than fifty talented authors and experts will participate in the panels planned for this year’s Writer’s Symposium, including Guests of Honor Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon.
Participating authors include:
Saladin Ahmed, Lou Anders, Brad Beaulieu, Donald J. Bingle, Dylan Birtolo, Maurice Broaddus, Jennifer Brozek, Richard Lee Byers, Wesley Chu, Lawrence C. Connolly, Larry Correia, Larry Dixon, Maxwell Alexander Drake, Erin M. Evans, Dave Farland, Matt Forbeck, Jaym Gates, Paul Genesse, Geoffrey Girard, Jerry Gordon, Dave Gross, Sarah Hans, John Helfers, Jim C. Hines, William H. Horner III, Kerrie L. Hughes, Howard Andrew Jones, Gary Kloster, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Kristoff, Mercedes Lackey, James Lowder, Scott Lynch, Ari Marmell, Robert Mosher, Daniel Myers, Chris Pierson, Patrick Rothfuss, Jason Sanford, Ken Scholes, Erik Scott de Bie, Lucy A. Snyder, Mike Stackpole, George Strayton, James L. Sutter, Kelly Swails, Marc Tassin, Howard Tayler, Monica Valentinelli, Elizabeth Vaughan, Gregory A. Wilson
This collection of talented writers includes New York Times bestsellers, USA Today bestsellers, and winners of numerous prestigious literary awards. This year alone, Writer’s Symposium panelists received eight nominations for the coveted Hugo and Nebula awards.
“We’re extremely excited,” said Marc Tassin, the Gen Con Literary Coordinator and the Symposium organizer. “The list of authors that have signed on to participate this year is quite incredible. This year’s Symposium is an unprecedented opportunity for both experienced and beginning writers to learn from some of the greatest writing talents out there today.”
"Having participated in numerous writing seminars both in and out of genre over the years, I am stunned by both the caliber of the participants and sheer size of the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium," said Lou Anders, Hugo award-winning Editorial Director of Pyr books. "I'm not sure anyone quite realizes that this symposium has quietly built itself into one of the largest and most impressive writing symposiums in the field. Anyone with an interest in writing science fiction and fantasy literature, whether media tie-in or not, should definitely have this on their radar."
A full event list for the Symposium is scheduled for release later this month. Tickets to Gen Con are available at www.gencon.com .
For more information, please contact Marc Tassin ( contact@genconwriters.com ).
About the Writer’s Symposium: The Gen Con Writer’s Symposium is one of the largest writing conferences in the world. Established in 1995, it offers more than 110 hours of events for both new and experienced authors. The Symposium features more than fifty authors and has served as a springboard for the careers of many accomplished writers. The Symposium will be held August 15th to 18th, 2013, in Indianapolis, Indiana as part of the annual Gen Con gaming convention. For more information on the Symposium, visit www.genconwriters.com .
About Gen Con: Gen Con, LLC produces the largest consumer hobby, fantasy, sci-fi and adventure game convention in North America. It was acquired in 2002 by former CEO and founder of Wizards of the Coast Peter Adkison, who owns the company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Gen Con is a consumer and trade experience dedicated to gaming culture and community. www.gencon.com
March 30, 2013
ANTI-Realism in SF/F
"ANTI-Realism in SF/F" is my new post to The Night Bazaar.
http://night-bazaar.com/anti-realism-in-sff.html
http://night-bazaar.com/anti-realism-in-sff.html
March 29, 2013
Ghost Hunting Tips
Ghost hunting tips I picked up from "100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck" (and many other movies just like it.)
1. Don't lock yourself in the haunted house.
2. If you insist on locking yourself in the haunted house, make sure every member of the team has a key. Heck, several keys.
3. No matter how traumatized you get, don't let a teammate give you a pill to calm you down.
4. Don't taunt the ghost. Don't insult it or dare it to manifest and attack you.
5. If a teammate has been attacked and dragged off into the darkness, leaving a continuous streak of blood for dozens of feet of corridor, don't go searching for him thinking he might still be alive. He is very dead.
1. Don't lock yourself in the haunted house.
2. If you insist on locking yourself in the haunted house, make sure every member of the team has a key. Heck, several keys.
3. No matter how traumatized you get, don't let a teammate give you a pill to calm you down.
4. Don't taunt the ghost. Don't insult it or dare it to manifest and attack you.
5. If a teammate has been attacked and dragged off into the darkness, leaving a continuous streak of blood for dozens of feet of corridor, don't go searching for him thinking he might still be alive. He is very dead.
March 25, 2013
Proof That I Really Am Writing The Impostor #2
Back in 2011, I self-published The Impostor #1: Half a Hero. It was the first installment of a post-apocalyptic superhero saga.
Various contractual obligations kept me from turning out The Impostor #2 as quickly as intended. But to prove that I really am working on it and it will be along presently, here's a little taste of the next story in the sequence. As you may recall, at the end of #1, Matt Brown, our hero, was just about to put on the magic wristbands that gave the deceased hero Red Bear his astonishing strength. Here he is doing it while Solomon, his AI ally, kibitzes:
Matt jerked a claw-studded leather band onto his left wrist. The feeling of awe and dread that came over him whenever he handled the talismans exploded into outright terror. The room with its rust-colored sketches of animals drawn on the walls seemed to tilt and spin. He staggered backward, caught his heel on the piece of wood Red Bear had supposedly used for a drum, and fell on his butt.
“What is wrong?” Solomon asked, his calm, intellectual voice sounding from some inconspicuous speaker.
Shaking, his heart pounding, Matt struggled to control himself. Damn it, he’d stood up to aliens, supervillains, and killer robots. He was not going to fall apart just because he’d slipped on a glorified tennis accessory!
Once he stopped hyperventilating, he managed to respond to Solomon’s question, though his voice came out high and thready. “It’s nothing. It’s just that the vibe the bands give off is a little stronger.”
“It is reasonable to infer the ‘vibe’ is a warning. I recommend removing the wrist brace.”
“I can’t. I need Red Bear’s strength to fight the wasps.” And his unblemished reputation, so he could associate with somebody besides criminals and sociopaths.
He’d dropped the second wristband when he was flailing around. His hand still shaking, fumbling, he retrieved it and jerked it on like he was yanking off a Band-Aid.
The fear stopped. The relief was so profound that it took him a moment to realize everything else had changed, too.
Except for the wristbands, he was naked, and the air was cool enough to make him shiver. He wasn’t sitting on a smooth tile floor anymore but an irregular surface of dirt and rock.
A little light leaked in from a horseshoe-shaped opening where the doorway to the corridor had been. It was just sufficient to illuminate the same drawings he’d seen before, or others like them. But the walls had turned stony and rough, like the walls of a cave.
Something thumped. After a moment, the beat and rhythm became apparent. On the other side of the opening, people were drumming. From the slapping sound of it, maybe on sections of log like the one Red Bear had used.
Matt guessed he was supposed to go out and join the party.
Wishing he had clothes, he rose and walked out into the warmth of a leaping, crackling fire. Trees made a black wall at the edge of the clearing, and more stars than he’d ever seen burned in the night sky.
Then, suddenly, he caught sight of the inhabitants of this place. It made him jump, like other people did when he switched off Dr. Umbra’s invisibility and popped out of nowhere.
The men and women had thick, muscular bodies and low skulls with brow ridges, big noses, and receding chins. A little apelike. A number were as bare as Matt, while others wore fur tunics and wraps, although not necessarily in ways that covered their privates. Some carried spears and hatchets with heads made of flint.
Yet they didn’t seem primitive but primal. The sight of them filled Matt with the same awe as handling the wristbands.
And if they were wonderful, the animals in their company were more so. As high at the shoulder as Matt was tall, its pelt gleaming bronze in the firelight, a saber-toothed cat stared at him with yellow eyes. So did a snake so big and long that the back end of it twisted away into the forest and out of sight. A shaggy elephant with dramatically curved tusks barely fit between two trees, and the weight of an enormous eagle bowed the branch on which it perched.
Various contractual obligations kept me from turning out The Impostor #2 as quickly as intended. But to prove that I really am working on it and it will be along presently, here's a little taste of the next story in the sequence. As you may recall, at the end of #1, Matt Brown, our hero, was just about to put on the magic wristbands that gave the deceased hero Red Bear his astonishing strength. Here he is doing it while Solomon, his AI ally, kibitzes:
Matt jerked a claw-studded leather band onto his left wrist. The feeling of awe and dread that came over him whenever he handled the talismans exploded into outright terror. The room with its rust-colored sketches of animals drawn on the walls seemed to tilt and spin. He staggered backward, caught his heel on the piece of wood Red Bear had supposedly used for a drum, and fell on his butt.
“What is wrong?” Solomon asked, his calm, intellectual voice sounding from some inconspicuous speaker.
Shaking, his heart pounding, Matt struggled to control himself. Damn it, he’d stood up to aliens, supervillains, and killer robots. He was not going to fall apart just because he’d slipped on a glorified tennis accessory!
Once he stopped hyperventilating, he managed to respond to Solomon’s question, though his voice came out high and thready. “It’s nothing. It’s just that the vibe the bands give off is a little stronger.”
“It is reasonable to infer the ‘vibe’ is a warning. I recommend removing the wrist brace.”
“I can’t. I need Red Bear’s strength to fight the wasps.” And his unblemished reputation, so he could associate with somebody besides criminals and sociopaths.
He’d dropped the second wristband when he was flailing around. His hand still shaking, fumbling, he retrieved it and jerked it on like he was yanking off a Band-Aid.
The fear stopped. The relief was so profound that it took him a moment to realize everything else had changed, too.
Except for the wristbands, he was naked, and the air was cool enough to make him shiver. He wasn’t sitting on a smooth tile floor anymore but an irregular surface of dirt and rock.
A little light leaked in from a horseshoe-shaped opening where the doorway to the corridor had been. It was just sufficient to illuminate the same drawings he’d seen before, or others like them. But the walls had turned stony and rough, like the walls of a cave.
Something thumped. After a moment, the beat and rhythm became apparent. On the other side of the opening, people were drumming. From the slapping sound of it, maybe on sections of log like the one Red Bear had used.
Matt guessed he was supposed to go out and join the party.
Wishing he had clothes, he rose and walked out into the warmth of a leaping, crackling fire. Trees made a black wall at the edge of the clearing, and more stars than he’d ever seen burned in the night sky.
Then, suddenly, he caught sight of the inhabitants of this place. It made him jump, like other people did when he switched off Dr. Umbra’s invisibility and popped out of nowhere.
The men and women had thick, muscular bodies and low skulls with brow ridges, big noses, and receding chins. A little apelike. A number were as bare as Matt, while others wore fur tunics and wraps, although not necessarily in ways that covered their privates. Some carried spears and hatchets with heads made of flint.
Yet they didn’t seem primitive but primal. The sight of them filled Matt with the same awe as handling the wristbands.
And if they were wonderful, the animals in their company were more so. As high at the shoulder as Matt was tall, its pelt gleaming bronze in the firelight, a saber-toothed cat stared at him with yellow eyes. So did a snake so big and long that the back end of it twisted away into the forest and out of sight. A shaggy elephant with dramatically curved tusks barely fit between two trees, and the weight of an enormous eagle bowed the branch on which it perched.
