Kevin L. O'Brien's Blog: Songs of the Seanchaí, page 2

Completed a New Story -- The Adventure of the Contrite Vixen

I have finished a new story:

The Adventure of the Contrite Vixen-- a Team Girl Bedtime story

Kojoro the Fox Princess is babysitting Connie and Liza, Team Girl's daughters, and when she puts them to bed they ask her for a funny story about a fox.

So Kojoro tells them of how a fox princess, like herself, steals chickens from a poor farmer and his wife, like their parents Eile and Sunny, and when caught makes them rich and prosperous in restitution.

This story will be included in my future collection, "Tales of Adventure".

Inspired by the Hungarian folktale of Pinko:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BpnX...

Sword & Sorceress 30: Update

Both stories I submitted were rejected.

Try again next year.

Completed a New Story -- The Adventure of Bojangles

I have finished a new story:

The Adventure of Bojangles -- a Team Girl Alternative Reality story

In an Alternative Reality, Eile is a drifter, wandering from town to town, working as she needs to for room and board. She considers herself a failure, even at suicide, and now she just waits to die. In the latest town she is arrested for vagrancy, trespassing, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest, and thrown in jail for the night, a not uncommon experience for her. There she meets Sunny, a softshoe tap dancer, sleeping off being drunk. They start talking, telling each other of their lives and dreams, and out of that develops a mutual friendship. Unfortunately, it is doomed to tragedy.

This story will be included in my future collection, "Tales of Adventure".

Inspired by the song "Mr. Bojangles":

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nittyg...

Clothing Tropes -- Part 2

Continued from Part 1

[My apologies for taking so long to post this. I have included a link back to Part 1 for your convenience.]

I like to paint pictures in people's minds using description, but I also understand that too much can be distracting, even mind-numbing, and that description works best when it suggests ideas that people can use with their own imagination. As such, I do describe costumes, when it seems necessary and important, but I seldom go into much detail unless I'm describing clothes that are outside the experience of my readers, or when they say something about the character's personality or her culture or her world. Tropes can help make this easier, because consciously or otherwise they trigger concepts in the mind of the reader he is already familiar with. So when I describe Eile and Sunny as being fashionistas, a reader can imagine them wearing popular haute couture without my having to describe their clothes, and when I say that Differel wears professional pants suits, he would have an idea of what that would look like from ads and TV shows. Sometimes I go further, such as when I describe Dr. Mabuse wearing a double-breasted lab coat. Being a mad scientist I would expect a reader to imagine her in a lab coat, but I describe it more precisely so that he knows what kind of lab coat it is. The point is, I do this only when I want to make sure a reader understands what a character looks like, when I believe that otherwise he might not properly interpret my description.

Male Frontal Nudity -- the male penis must never be shown; do you hear me?! NEVER!!!!!

***** This is technically a visual trope, but in literature there is still a tendency to avoid describing a man's genitals.

In "Fun 'n' Games", Differel mentally compares the size of Billy the Stableboy's erection with that of her deceased husband's, and later thrills at how his penis feels inside her.

In "In An Octopus's Garden", there is a scene where the married couple "display" to one another, including the husband showing off his erection.

In "Redshirt", a man seduced by a witch is assaulted by a fungal organism and has his penis ripped off.

In a future story, Victor is captured by a female Undead creature that consumes a man's semen followed by his genitals.

In a more general sense, "Do Unto Others...", "Adventurer's Honeymoon", "Dark Vengeance", and "A Little Hospitality" prominently feature naked men.

Murderous Mask -- a mask that through magical or mundane means kills the person wearing it

***** In the forthcoming "Whiter Shade of Pale", the Metropolitan Police Service ask Differel to consult on a serial killer that mutilates the faces of his victims until they become unrecognizable. The damage always forms the shape of a volto mask.

Naked Apron -- the practice of wearing an apron over a scantily clad or outright nude body

***** Sunny wears one at the beginning of "The Cats' Peril".

Nerd Glasses -- nerds wear glasses

***** Dr. Mabuse and Aislinn Sile in the Dreamlands are nerdy types and both wear glasses.

Sunny and Differel are double subversions in that they wear glasses for practical reasons, but both are in their own way quite smart and scholarly.

Nice Hat -- an elegant or distinctive head covering

***** Differel wears berets or military caps. Vlad wears a hat with a low flat crown and a very wide brim. Margaret wears whatever counts as haute couture. Eile wears baseball caps. Sunny prefers a tilley hat. Victor wore a fedora.

In the Dreamlands, Differel wears a hat identical to Vlad's, whereas Sunny wears a Robin Hood bicorn with a large golden plume.

No Dress Code -- if a fictional school doesn't have uniforms, there will be no rules guiding clothing at all

***** Gresham's School, where Differel started her education, has a uniform policy. So does Downham Market High School, where Henry goes to school.

Subverted; in Denver, Colorado, where Team Girl's daughters Connie and Liza go to school, there are no uniform policies, but there are nonetheless strict rules regarding what is an acceptable clothing style.

Pink Means Feminine -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; the color pink is the color meaning femininity

***** Subverted; none of my female characters wear or like pink. Sunny prefers gold; Margaret wears whatever is considered haute couture. Medb, Eile, and Differel are tomboys.

Real Women Don't Wear Dresses -- a woman is shown as weak, incompetent, and ineffectual unless she dresses and behaves in a masculine manner

***** Played straight with Differel; no one took her very seriously until she started wearing pants suits.

Subverted with Team Girl, Margaret, and Medb; they can be quite assertive, even aggressive, while wearing skirts.

Scary Shiny Glasses -- Villains wear glasses that hide their eyes using reflected light

***** Though not a villain, Differel sometimes uses this as part of her interrogation technique.

Sensual Spandex -- Stripperific uniforms

***** Medb's costume in "The Price of Folly".

Sexy Spectacles -- glasses are hot

***** A number of men have told Differel that her glasses make her look hot. Only Victor escaped unscathed.

Sunny wears her reading glasses as much as a fashion statement as for actual reading.

Shameful Strip -- a helpless victim is stripped of her clothing as a form of torture or humiliation

***** In "Sacrificial Offering", the Black Ram With a Thousand Ewes strips Medb naked before raping her.

In "Gourmand Hag", a hag strips Differel naked in preparation to eating her.

In "Pyrrhic Victory", the ghouls summoned by Whateley strip their women victims before carrying them off into the underworld. Also, a female soldier is stripped by zombies before they eat her.

In "Fun 'n' Games", Differel's staff strips her down to garter belt and stockings in preparation to being gang raped to death.

In "The Surrogate", Ms. MacCandels orders Shasta the prostitute to strip before taking her to her son.

In "In An Octopus's Garden", the Matisses are stripped by the Saudeleurs before they were marooned on the atoll.

Sharp Dressed Man -- clothes make the man

***** Aelfraed wears what is essentially formal evening clothes as his butler's uniform.

Vlad considers himself a fashion plate, but he follows his own style, and he tends to dress a century out of date.

Victor dressed in the casual day style of an upper-crust gentleman, except when formal wear was demanded.

Shirtless Captives -- captors often relieve male prisoners of their shirts

***** In "Differential Damsel", Victor was stripped to the waist by his Leng Men captors.

In "Adventurer's Honeymoon", Victor starts out as naked; then the pirates that capture him and Differel give him a pair of braies to wear, but no shirt.

Shirtless Scene -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; the most common form of fanservice for anyone attracted to men

***** In "Dark Vengeance", Medb's companion, Tlingit, strips down to his loincloth before they confront the Crusher in battle. He conducts the entire battle shirtless.

In "Fun 'n' Games", Aelfraed has a brief shirtless scene at the very beginning before everyone gets naked, including Differel.

In "Barbarians R Us", Rothgar the Reaver fights Medb in a combat challenge naked to the waist. Medb is totally nude.

Shorttank -- tank top, short shorts, and attitude (the costume is not absolutely necessary, as long as the character is a girly-girl with attitude, comfortable with both her femininity and her inner strength and will)

***** In an odd sense, Team Girl together. Eile is the tomboy, Sunny the girly-girl, but as a partnership those two aspects compliment each other perfectly. They sometimes even wear the costume.

Margaret to Differel; at once feminine but also tough as nails, with an on-again off-again romantic relationship with Differel. And she wore the costume once when she wanted to seduce Differel away from a desk-load of work.

Medb is borderline at best, but she can switch from sex-kitten to bloodthirsty Amazon and back almost without thinking. But she refuses to wear the costume.

Shoulders-Up Nudity -- when a character is supposedly naked, a woman will be shown from the shoulders up

***** This is a visual trope and so doesn't appear in literature very often.

However, in "A Little Hospitality", I depict Differel skinny-dipping in a pool, and at one point she breaks the surface exposing her head and shoulders.

Skirt Over Slacks -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a woman wears a skirt over a pair of pants

***** In "The Beast of Exmoor", Differel wears woolen leggings under her skirt to help keep warm.

However, she generally wears leggings under dresses or skirts, so that if she must remove the over-garment to run or fight, she isn't reduced to knickers.

Team Girl, and their Vampire BFF Giovanna Mencia Borgia, often wear stylish outfits that combine pants with a short skirt.

Skunk Stripe -- a character has dark hair, with a white streak running through it

***** Joyce Luasaigh, DVM, Snowshoe Kitty's veterinarian, has black hair, with a white stripe running through it from her forehead to her back. See "The Cats' Peril"

Slip Into Something More Comfortable -- spoken by a Femme Fatale as part of a seduction scene

***** In "A Deliberation of Morality", Differel's shoulder devil, Differel Diabolique, uses these exact words, except all she does is grow to normal size.

Otherwise, Team Girl use this with each other, Differel used it with Victor, and Margaret uses it with Differel.

Slipknot Ponytail -- the chance that a ponytail will become undone during a fight or action scene

***** Eile sometimes secures her ponytail with a scarf, which can come loose during combat.

Space Clothes -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; clothes worn in space

***** I use the more stereotypical kinds in various Alternative Reality stories, in "The Price of Folly", and when the Princess in Orange turns Differel and Margaret into sexy Sailor Scouts.

Subverted in a future story when Eile and Sunny visit the International Space Station and wear the clothing normally worn on that facility.

Spy Catsuit -- an impossibly tight catsuit used for any infiltration or stealth operation

***** In the forthcoming "Saw the Differential", Team Girl wear special suits developed by Mabuse to rescue Differel and Henry from a sadistic torturer.

Medb's space-catsuit in "The Price of Folly" could double as this.

Stocking Filler -- stockings used as Fanservice

***** At the start of "Fun 'n' Games", Differel is stripped down to her garter belt and stockings by members of her staff, but later the Princess in Orange removes her stockings as well.

Speaking of which, in the same story the PiO stripped herself down to little more.

Strip Poker -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; any Poker game that involves the loss of one's clothing

***** Team Girl play this with each other all the time, and they introduced it to Dribble & Maggot.

Stripperiffic -- impractically sexy clothing for its chosen application

***** The costume of the Princess in Orange, though justified in that she is supernatural, and that's entirely the point.

In "Sacrificial Offering", Medb goes to offer herself to the Black Ram With the Thousand Ewes wearing only a filmy white shift too small for her.

In "The Steel Gazelle", Vichnia, the dancer at the Amethyst Scorpion in Hlanith, wears a costume so brief and clingly it looks like her skin. Justified in that it is part of her act, and allows complete freedom of movement.

In "Fun 'n' Games", Differel is stripped down to her garter belt and stockings, and Maggie King wears just one sock. The rest of the staff wear hardly more, if anything.

In "The Surrogate", Shasta Taffaday wears a tube-top, short-shorts, and thigh-high boots. Justified in that she is a streetwalker.

Team Girl sometimes dress this way for each other, or when on a special assignment for the police or government.

The costume of Differel Diabolique. Again, justified in that that is entirely the point.

Dribble & Maggot sometimes dress this way for each other.

Differel has worn costumes like this for undercover operations.

Sunglasses At Night -- wearing sunglasses when it's impractical to do so

***** Deborah Alice Wechsler, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Mhorrigan Group, wears wrap-around sunglasses all the time to hide her non-human eyes.

Vlad often wears sunglasses as a fashion statement regardless of circumstances.

Superheroes Wear Tights -- the most common type of outfit in superhero stories

***** A fair number of superhero costumes depicted in my Alternative Reality stories have this design. Also, the Princess in Orange is found of this trope.

Tank Top Tomboy -- girls who wear tank tops are considered tomboys

***** Eile doesn't make a habit of it, but when she wants to be really casual, she'll wear one with panties and nothing else. (She also knows that drives Sunny sex-crazy.)

When Differel toured the English back roads as a renegade biker, she wore tank tops instead of shirts. See "One-Percenter Vendetta".

Thigh-High Boots -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; used to show the female character is aggressive

***** Det. Sgt. Dolores Cadera-Hueso of the Denver Police Department wears these as part of her street costume.

Tomboyish Baseball Cap -- tomboys wear baseball caps

***** Eile prefers wearing baseball caps when adventuring outdoors in the Waking World.

Tomboyish Ponytail -- tomboys wear ponytails

***** Eile binds her hair in a ponytail.

Toplessness From the Back -- a supposedly naked or topless woman shows her bare back

***** This is a visual trope, so it is difficult to portray in literature, but I have used it on the covers for "Sacrificial Offering" and "Do Unto Others ...".

Transvestite -- dressing in the clothing of the opposite sex

***** Differel wears pants suits tailored for the female form, but they look enough like male suits that people assume she dresses as a man.

However, her thin figure allows her to pose as a man, with suitable padding and disguise elements, when time traveling or visiting parallel earths.

Eile can also pose as a man, or better yet a boy.

Vlad can take a number of different forms. Two are a dark femme fatale and a little girl.

Unlimited Wardrobe -- some characters never seem to wear the same outfit more than once

***** Margaret is a clotheshorse with a huge wardrobe, and prides herself on never wearing the same outfit twice in one season, except under extraordinary circumstances.

Otherwise subverted, in that no other characters have a wardrobe that big. Especially for Eile and Sunny in the Dreamlands, who have half a dozen costumes, and that's it.

Waistcoat of Style -- used to indicate the wearer is especially stylish, pretentious or eccentric

***** Both Aelfraed and Vlad wear waistcoats as part of their uniforms.

Victor wore them as part of his casual day dress.

When Differel turned elderly, she started wearing waistcoats with her pants suits.

White Shirt of Death -- the death of a white shirt wearer will be much bloodier than that of your traditional Red Shirt

***** Victor; though he did not always wear white shirts, he was wearing a white nightshirt when he was killed by the Antonian Archangel while protecting Differel.

Whole Costume Reference -- dressing in an outfit practically identical to that worn by another character or Real Life person

***** Differel has three doubles who have been surgically altered and extensively trained and drilled to closely resemble her. That includes dressing as she does.

In "Double Image", Eile and Sunny are blackmailed into impersonating their alter egos on a parallel earth. Aside from certain cosmetic changes, that mostly means dressing as they do.

Future Publishing Projects

I wanted to alert all my readers of my future self-publishing plans for the rest of the year.

I have three projects in the works:

The first is a 28,000-word novella entitled "Vengeance Game"; this is a Dribble & Maggot story. Lady Margaret attends a private dinner party hosted by a former member of her father's army battalion, and she drags Differel along for companionship. Unfortunately, her father had cashiered their host and forced him to resign his commission, and he wants revenge. He would have preferred to take it out on her father, but she will do nicely. As such, he forces Differel to play a game of death traps to save her life.

This will be a free ebook.

=====

The second is an 88,000-word collection of my remaining completed but unpublished stories, entitled "The Dregs of the Barrel". It will contain the following stories:

Ambition's Appetite -- In ancient Ireland, Medb hErenn helps a timetraveler to capture an interdimensional being. She wants to dispel it, but he hopes to use it to gain absolute power over time and space.

The Assault on the Overland Express -- In an Alternative Reality that uses a magic-based technology, Differel is a troubleshooter for an insurance company, who intercepts a transcontinental train to warn its owners/operators, Eile and Sunny, that a group of bandits plan to rob them.

The Cat Who Saved the Ark -- A story based on Medieval folktales, of how the Devil tried to sink the Ark, and where cats came from.

Euchred -- A paranormal investigator teams up with a police detective to solve a series of mysterious and gruesome murders.

The Ghoulish Wife -- A Colorado businessman meets and marries a mysterious woman with a dark and sinister secret.

I Want to Be With You-Forever -- A homophobic trial judge pays her female paralegal intern to be her lover, but then the later wants to make it permanent.

Love Triangle -- A woman is assaulted by two ghouls in a cemetery, who fight over her, allowing her to escape. Later, however, they try to woo her, and she humors them.

Making Lemonade -- How to take advantage of a zombie apocalypse.

Men of the City -- A story based on one of Clive Barker's amateur paintings, "Men of the City". http://clivebarker.deviantart.com/art...

The Adventure of Lion's Heart -- In the Dreamlands, Eile and Sunny are returning from an adventure and decide to spend a few days with a family of friends. They find the family slaughtered, except for a newborn baby and a kitten. As they take them to safety, they find they are being followed by the creatures that killed the family.

October Surprise -- In 1979, a secret cabal of government employees hope to create an "October Surprise" that will get Jimmy Carer reelected, by attacking a Deep One city with a nuclear device.

The One That Got Away -- A new acquaintance tells Differel's father about an unusual hunting trip into the woods of New England.

The Adventure of the Princess Skunk -- While playing the online roleplaying game Otherworld, Eile and Sunny encounter a princess turned into a skunk. That's when the crap hits the fan.

A Region Yet Unknown -- Medb hErenn, Jeremiah Arkenton, and January Ian Mariposa team up to investigate a haunted house. Inspired by "Rose Red" by Stephen King.

The Road to Hell -- Two elderly survivors of a zombie apocalypse meet and await their deaths at the hands of the force that wiped out the zombies.

Sauna Mates -- Differel builds a Finnish sauna and invites Eile and Sunny to help her break it in.

Supermodel -- The Princess in Orange lands Differel a nude modeling gig.

Birthday Surprise -- The Princess in Orange treats Differel to a special birthday celebration involving make strippers.

Bathtub Fun -- The Princess in Orange joins Differel for a bath.

The Adventure of Team Mail Girl! -- In the Dreamlands, Eile and Sunny agree to deliver a valuable package to a wealthy recluse, but Marseilles Sheraton wants to steal it for herself, and she will kill them if necessary to get it.

They Never Learn -- A space cargo transport escapes from the moon's space station with zombies on board, and the crew's sole survivor tries to warn Earth command.

The Adventure of the Toxic Celebutante -- In the Dreamlands, Eile and Sunny agree to help a primitive tribe discover the source of a mysterious plague killing them, and find Marseilles Sheraton behind it.

Vice Versa -- A time traveler from the future tells her lover how dull and boring her life is, being forbidden to drink, smoke, eat red meat, or have casual sex.

Wendigoes -- In an Alternative Reality, Differel with Eile and Sunny investigates a secret base on a snowbound world that has mysteriously gone silent.

Who Put the Man in Human? -- Two scientists, who are former lovers, investigate primitive humanoids captured in unexplored Africa.

A Wizard of an Agent -- A wizard in a fantasy world supplies young women for the entertainment industry in our world.

Xerox -- In the Dreamlands, Differel, Eile, and Sunny track a pair of shapeshifting predators that have been killing and eating people. But the real danger is that their quarry could impersonate them.

This will be a free ebook; in fact, it will be my last free ebook for sometime to come.

=====

The third project will be another collection of stories, except these will be brand new, never before published or submitted, written especially for the collection. Tentatively entitled "Tales of Adventure", my goal is to include at least 120,000 words of new stories, with perhaps some bonus materials as well. So far I have accumulated 41,000 words of stories.

This will be the first ebook that I will try to sell rather than give away for free. I have tentatively set the price at $2.99 (USD). In addition to offering it through Smashwords, which distributes to Banes&Noble, Apple, and various other online retailers, I will also offer it through Amazon (non-exclusive Kindle) and Kobo. An excerpt will be available both through Smashwords and on GoodReads.

As of this writing, the contents will include:

Demon Lovers -- All the men in the world have been turned into demons, and are raping all the women in the world. Differel teams up with her mad scientist Dr. Mabuse to reverse the disaster.

Redjack -- Differel and Margaret (aka, Dribble & Maggot) are on the trail of a serial killer dubbed Redjack, when he kidnaps Differel to be his next victim. Margaret must rescue her before it's too late, but a police inspectors suspects her of killing her frenemy.

The Sewers of Khwarezm -- In the Dreamlands, Medb hErenn searches for a runaway princess, and they are both captured by slavers. To escape, they flee into the sewers beneath the city, only to encounter a grave danger even Medb cannot handle.

Misunderstood -- A paparazzo trails a hot new female pop singing star to find out who she really is.

Completed a New Story -- The Sewers of Khwarezm

I have finished a new story:

The Sewers of Khwarezm -- a Medb hErenn/Dreamlands story

In the Dreamlands, Medb hErenn has been commissioned by the potentate of a city to find and return his runaway daughter so she can marry a foreign prince. Accompanied by her companions Conaed the Zoog, Teehar'owan the Bird, and Cremedeyoyageur the Cat, and her friend Morgiana the Master Thief, Medb tracks her to the port city of Khwarezm, but then loses her when she disappears. As they search for her, Medb is captured by slavers, and discovers they took the princess as well.

With no other option, they escape through the sewers under the city, but rather than being their salvation, they just might turn out to be their doom.

Inspired by this image:

Completed a New Story -- Redjack

I have finished a new story:

Redjack -- a Dribble & Maggot story

Sir Differel and Lady Margaret -- aka, Dribble & Maggot -- are on the trail of a serial killer the press has named "Redjack", but he captures Differel, and somehow prevents Vlad Drakulya from locating her. She will become his fifth victim unless Margaret can find her, but she has her own problems in the form of Detective Inspector Halpren of the CID, who all but accuses her of kidnapping and killing her frenemy.

Meanwhile, Differel awakens to discover that she is at Redjack's mercy, as he prepares to mutilate her. She must find a way to delay him until she can be rescued, but in doing so discovers that he is not entirely what he seems.

Partially inspired by "Wolf in the Fold", a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series written by Robert Bloch. While the crew of the Enterprise is on shore leave at Argelius II, Chief Engineer Scott is accused of brutally murdering three women by stabbing them to death. He will be executed by slow torture unless Kirk and Spock can prove his innocence, but the real culprit is something totally unexpected.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7ndT...

Robert Bloch was a famed horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction writer, most famous for his novel Psycho, which Alfred Hitchcock adapted into the movie of the same, starring Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. He also wrote the Star Trek episodes "Catspaws" and "What Are Little Girls Made Of?".

Starting New Story -- The Adventure of the Buccaneer

This evening I watched The Buccaneer (Paramount Pictures 1958), starring Yul Brynner as Jean Lafitte, Charlton Heston as Gen. Andrew Jackson, and Charles Boyer as Dominique You, with Claire Bloom, Henry Hull, E.G. Marshall, and Lorne Greene. It is considered to be one of Cecil B. DeMille's blockbusters. It depicts a fictionalized (but still fairly accurate) history of the days prior to and during the Battle of New Orleans, the pivotal battle of the War of 1812 and one of the most lopsided victories in the history of the US.

In my story, Differel, Eile, and Sunny go back in time to establish a base in France to study the upcoming Battle of Waterloo, but end up in America. They are captured by the pirate forces of Lafitte, and witness events from the movie and actual history, even participating in the battle. Eile and Sunny also spend a few days in the British camp as spies. Afterwards, when Lafitte is accused of sinking a ship with all hands lost, Differel and Team Girl flee New Orleans with him, and he takes them to Cartagena so they can then go to Europe.

I dearly love this movie, and I've wanted to do something inspired by it for some time. This story will be a long one, which could become a novel, or at least a long novella.

Go here to read the synopsis: http://teamgirl-differel.deviantart.c...

Completed a New Story -- Demon Lovers

I have finished a new story:

Demon Lovers -- a Sir Differel Van Helsing story

Sir Differel is hosting a government conference at her ancestral manor, when all the men are suddenly transformed into demons. They immediately attack the women with the intent of raping them to death. Differel barely escapes and seeks refuge with her resident mad scientist, Dr. Mabuse. The threat is rapidly spreading all over the world, but as mankind approaches extinction, Mabuse claims to have an explanation, and a solution.

The problem is, to implement the latter, Differel must go outside, where the demons are waiting for her.

Inspired by "The Screwfly Solution", by Raccoona Sheldon (a pseudonym of James Tiptree, Jr.):

http://web.archive.org/web/2002102217...

"Screwtape" is the name of a fictional devil invented by C. S. Lewis for his series of lectures entitled "The Screwtape Letters".

Praise for "A Fidus Aranea"

... on Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-fid...

"I ... was very impressed by the definition of what is evil and what can be good." -- 5 stars

"The faith and trust of a child was depicted in such a way, that it was child-like, and not childish. In other words, this isn't a story for young children, but it's about a young child. I recommend this story." -- 4 stars

"The author almost lovingly combines the wonder and strength of an innocent child with the horror of domestic violence, and a good bad guy. If any short fantasy story should win a prize, this is it!" -- 5 stars

Also available on Smashwords:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...