Richard Raley's Blog, page 34
January 11, 2016
"Shadow Running" Sample (FM5.5 Eva Chapter)
Eva sneak peek as promised. You don't see it here but some mega Crazy happens in this story. It might be my favorite of the bunch. As always, still an unfinished sample with plenty of typos so sorry about that. Also as always, if you want to share it please link back here instead of copy and pasting to your fellow fans. Copyrighted by me, Richard Raley, and all that jazz...you aren't reading this are you, you skipped immediately to the sample, didn't you?
***
“The things I do for you, Lover Boy,” Eva mumbled to herself as she sat in her stolen car, thumbing the steering wheel with a chaotic beat that made little lyrical sense. “Not really for you, to be fair. For the Asylum, like always, but you’re involved so I’m blaming you, okay? Always liked blaming you when something went wrong on one of our adventures and you must admit, usually it was your fault. So this is too . . . I’m bored . . . I’m on a stakeout . . . must be your fault. All. King. Henry’s. Fault. Yes. It. Is.”
Eva took a sip of her water bottle, gray eyes never leaving the dentist shop she was casing. “I mean, I might have already found Iscariot and delivered Samson’s message to him if you didn’t decide to get yourself mixed up with the Curator. Now Jackson’s dead and every inch of you smells like Isabel Soto and well . . . I’m pretty disgusted with you. Someone should be, shouldn’t they?
“Boomworm won’t be. Never could understand how she just let your crap go on by with a chuckle at it all. Pissed me off from time to time, didn’t it? And I’d tell you it did and we’d yell and get it out and then we’d be ready for the next leap to take together. I fought to keep you on the path with me . . . Boomworm just let you roam around like a herding dog after wolves, and you kept coming back to her with dirt all over your fur and brambles in your paws . . .”
It was jealousy really. Not even jealousy that he might have been with other women and she’d never have known it. It was jealousy that Eva hadn’t been out their roaming with him, getting her own bit of dirt and bramble in her fur, the smell of strange and exciting journeys the only perfume she craved. What did you do without me, Lover Boy? How dare you! You’re mixed up with all that intrigue and I’m out here chasing a shadow’s shadow!
To be fair . . . she was pretty sure she’d found it. Isabel and Conan Sapa’s hideout at least. The corner that the shadow’s shadow is living in . . . argh, I just can’t stand this spy metaphor junk. Lying, deceit, subterfuge. That was the part of her job that she had the most trouble with. The training, the sneaking, the spying, even the killing she’d done in the name of the Asylum was all fine, not a single stain on her conscience, but the lying to the few friends she had . . .
“Killing easy . . . lies hard,” she said to herself.
Lots of talking to herself lately too.
She just couldn’t talk to her friends about what she did or even the world she’d fallen into by accepting Samson’s training. Most of them didn’t even know how dangerous vampires really were to mancers or that the upper structure of Vampire society existed. They didn’t have a clue how much work the Learning Council did to keep them in check and to keep the peace alive. Add in wild mancers going insane week by week, Weres expanding the black market for supernatural goods, and now the Curator . . . Eva was never without something to do, something she couldn’t talk about.Another adventure that couldn’t be shared.
“You know what this is like, don’t you, Lover Boy?” she asked the invisible presence King Henry seemed to have this week in Las Vegas. “Only difference is that I was invited into this world by our teachers and you seemed to fall into it, probably on your face, just like usual. Or that nice plump tushy you got.”
Maybe she should stop with the metaphors and talk to him about it some time. They used to talk all the time . . . best part of their relationship after the sex really. They just never admitted to each other that the talking was up there . . . always pretended it wasn’t what they were about. Sex, adventure, fun . . . casual . . . nothing more. Then when it might have been something more . . . what if that stopped all the rest? Couldn’t risk it . . . we have to break up!
Sure, sure, yeah, good idea!
Eva wasn’t sure about going back to that particular relationship with him. Or even any relationship that included physical activities of any sort . . . even with him clear of Boomworm again, she wasn’t too interested. “Sleeping with Isabel Soto and that Anne Boleyn months back, what is wrong with that boy?”
But conversation . . . conversation she wouldn’t mind.
Compare notes.
“I can tell you the names of the Divines and what they look like, what do you have?” she whispered the imaginary future that she knew she could never walk towards. “You know how to split a pool, but what if I can still rock your world when it comes to anima, Lover Boy?”
She’d never do it . . . but it was nice to pass the time thinking about doing it.
Truth was . . . she’d left the majority of her peers behind. King Henry, Welf, maybe Boomworm if Miss Dale kept feeding her info, but the rest? In another world. “Isabel too, I guess, just on the wrong side of it all . . . they’ll just make me hunt her down and put her back in her cage one day, so why not get it out of the way right now? Especially since once I have her Iscariot will have to come to me . . . then I can deliver Samson’s message, let Lover Boy deal with Sapa, and hand Isabel back to the normal goons in ESLED . . . what a brilliant plan, right?”
Fines Samson talked a lot about finding weak points. Conan Sapa was the weak point in all of this. “Even if he killed Jackson somehow, poor big, bastard . . . competing in an underground Were event, why don’t they learn that Weres always mean trouble and it never works out? Think King Henry would know after that mess in Los Angeles, but did he learn? Never!”
If hunting Iscariot was a chore then hunting Isabel would be a nightmare. “Locking the most powerful corpusmancer on the planet up in the Pit just to keep the Anima Quota down; talk about being stupidly optimistic . . . if only the Learning Council was nearly as good with plans as I am!”
Iscariot: chore.
Isabel: nightmare.
Conan Sapa though . . . hard to hide when you’re a seven-foot-tall corpusmancer who has had who knows what kind of anima experimentation done on you. Seriously, men and their stupid muscles. Like all those muscles would matter anything once the Mancy was brought into the equation. Even without the Mancy, that much bulk would be nothing but a hindrance. If Jason hadn’t been surprised that the fight took the deadly turn it did, Eva would have put money on him winning over Sapa.
But it had taken that turn . . .
“You expect me to tell you to always fight like your life depends on it,” Eva tried to do a Fines Samson impression, “but you don’t get to fight for yourlife. You get to fight for the life of every mancer on the planet. So doubly don’t be a moron and ever consider to play fair. You’re the blade that darts in from the shadows, not some stupid ass crusader with a shield screaming as you charge in, never forget it!”
Conan Sapa, too many muscles or not, was the key to finding Isabel and Iscariot.
One: find Conan Sapa.
Two: track Conan Sapa.
Three: Confirm Isabel is present.
Four: Call in the Calvary in the form of King Henry and Welf.
Five: Capture Isabel.
Six: Use her as bait to lure out Iscariot.
“Eva Reti, she’s a planner,” she said about herself before lapsing into awkward silence. “Eva Reti, she spends too much time alone in stolen cars.”
Recruiters and ESLED proper got their pick from the Asylum fleet of modern transportation, but not her. Too obvious, Samson had whispered with a shake of his head, get you killed. You need to know how to always obtain your own transportation.
So he brought in one of the best car thieves in the United States to teach her and Eva had been stealing a car every week for the last couple years. “Alone . . . with my phone and Candy Crush as my only friends . . . at least they let me borrow one of the jets occasionally.”
Alone, but still a planner. When everyone else had rushed through the Ouroboros Casino trying to track Conan Sapa’s quick departure, Eva had tracked his arrival, particularly the car he arrived in. “Thus proving Samson’s point that company cars are a bad idea, especially a black Hummer still registered under a subsidiary of your mercenary company, despite the fact that everyone knows you’re working for the Curator.”
Too many muscles, not enough brains.
“The description of every corpusmancer on the planet except for Isabel Soto . . . whose problem is that she has twenty or so brains all in one head.”
Eva sipped some more water. Once she found out about the Hummer, and really, a Hummer? “Big muscles, small where it counts,” she chuckled. Once she found out about the Hummer, she put in a call to ESLED’s computer club—where most of the electromancers, cryomancers, and mentimancers ended up—and they returned a list of Hummers spotted in Las Vegas during the last week. NSA, be super jelly.
Next came an assumption that Sapa wouldn’t be in an affluent neighborhood or near the Strip itself, which cut down her list to a dozen. Finally she put in the footwork and crossed off five possibilities before finding a black Hummer outside a dilapidated dentist office in a not-so-happy part of town.Given the way she kept seeing shadows on the edge of her vision, the sciomancer sign of nearby anima pooling, she knew she was in the right place. “Only he’s not alone and I don’t know who’s inside with him.” Two other cars, a SUV and a Mini-Cooper. She ran the plates . . . both stolen, unless George Derek Pleck—a seventy-two-year-old retired high school principal of Lancaster, California—was working for the Curator. “Someone knows how the game is played at least.”
She tried to imagine the Curator driving a Mini-Cooper.
“Just terrifying.”
There was no way the Curator was inside of that dentist office. Whole idea was unthinkable, really. Isabel probably stole one of them, but what about the third? “And someone had to drive the Hummer after they dropped off Sapa . . .”
That put her at a minimum of four people inside the building.
Sapa, Isabel . . . but who else?
“Come on, Sapa, keep being stupid. Come on out so I don’t have to go in there and get a look at all of you.”
***
Three weeks! Check back next week for a King Henry sneak peek!
***
“The things I do for you, Lover Boy,” Eva mumbled to herself as she sat in her stolen car, thumbing the steering wheel with a chaotic beat that made little lyrical sense. “Not really for you, to be fair. For the Asylum, like always, but you’re involved so I’m blaming you, okay? Always liked blaming you when something went wrong on one of our adventures and you must admit, usually it was your fault. So this is too . . . I’m bored . . . I’m on a stakeout . . . must be your fault. All. King. Henry’s. Fault. Yes. It. Is.”
Eva took a sip of her water bottle, gray eyes never leaving the dentist shop she was casing. “I mean, I might have already found Iscariot and delivered Samson’s message to him if you didn’t decide to get yourself mixed up with the Curator. Now Jackson’s dead and every inch of you smells like Isabel Soto and well . . . I’m pretty disgusted with you. Someone should be, shouldn’t they?
“Boomworm won’t be. Never could understand how she just let your crap go on by with a chuckle at it all. Pissed me off from time to time, didn’t it? And I’d tell you it did and we’d yell and get it out and then we’d be ready for the next leap to take together. I fought to keep you on the path with me . . . Boomworm just let you roam around like a herding dog after wolves, and you kept coming back to her with dirt all over your fur and brambles in your paws . . .”
It was jealousy really. Not even jealousy that he might have been with other women and she’d never have known it. It was jealousy that Eva hadn’t been out their roaming with him, getting her own bit of dirt and bramble in her fur, the smell of strange and exciting journeys the only perfume she craved. What did you do without me, Lover Boy? How dare you! You’re mixed up with all that intrigue and I’m out here chasing a shadow’s shadow!
To be fair . . . she was pretty sure she’d found it. Isabel and Conan Sapa’s hideout at least. The corner that the shadow’s shadow is living in . . . argh, I just can’t stand this spy metaphor junk. Lying, deceit, subterfuge. That was the part of her job that she had the most trouble with. The training, the sneaking, the spying, even the killing she’d done in the name of the Asylum was all fine, not a single stain on her conscience, but the lying to the few friends she had . . .
“Killing easy . . . lies hard,” she said to herself.
Lots of talking to herself lately too.
She just couldn’t talk to her friends about what she did or even the world she’d fallen into by accepting Samson’s training. Most of them didn’t even know how dangerous vampires really were to mancers or that the upper structure of Vampire society existed. They didn’t have a clue how much work the Learning Council did to keep them in check and to keep the peace alive. Add in wild mancers going insane week by week, Weres expanding the black market for supernatural goods, and now the Curator . . . Eva was never without something to do, something she couldn’t talk about.Another adventure that couldn’t be shared.
“You know what this is like, don’t you, Lover Boy?” she asked the invisible presence King Henry seemed to have this week in Las Vegas. “Only difference is that I was invited into this world by our teachers and you seemed to fall into it, probably on your face, just like usual. Or that nice plump tushy you got.”
Maybe she should stop with the metaphors and talk to him about it some time. They used to talk all the time . . . best part of their relationship after the sex really. They just never admitted to each other that the talking was up there . . . always pretended it wasn’t what they were about. Sex, adventure, fun . . . casual . . . nothing more. Then when it might have been something more . . . what if that stopped all the rest? Couldn’t risk it . . . we have to break up!
Sure, sure, yeah, good idea!
Eva wasn’t sure about going back to that particular relationship with him. Or even any relationship that included physical activities of any sort . . . even with him clear of Boomworm again, she wasn’t too interested. “Sleeping with Isabel Soto and that Anne Boleyn months back, what is wrong with that boy?”
But conversation . . . conversation she wouldn’t mind.
Compare notes.
“I can tell you the names of the Divines and what they look like, what do you have?” she whispered the imaginary future that she knew she could never walk towards. “You know how to split a pool, but what if I can still rock your world when it comes to anima, Lover Boy?”
She’d never do it . . . but it was nice to pass the time thinking about doing it.
Truth was . . . she’d left the majority of her peers behind. King Henry, Welf, maybe Boomworm if Miss Dale kept feeding her info, but the rest? In another world. “Isabel too, I guess, just on the wrong side of it all . . . they’ll just make me hunt her down and put her back in her cage one day, so why not get it out of the way right now? Especially since once I have her Iscariot will have to come to me . . . then I can deliver Samson’s message, let Lover Boy deal with Sapa, and hand Isabel back to the normal goons in ESLED . . . what a brilliant plan, right?”
Fines Samson talked a lot about finding weak points. Conan Sapa was the weak point in all of this. “Even if he killed Jackson somehow, poor big, bastard . . . competing in an underground Were event, why don’t they learn that Weres always mean trouble and it never works out? Think King Henry would know after that mess in Los Angeles, but did he learn? Never!”
If hunting Iscariot was a chore then hunting Isabel would be a nightmare. “Locking the most powerful corpusmancer on the planet up in the Pit just to keep the Anima Quota down; talk about being stupidly optimistic . . . if only the Learning Council was nearly as good with plans as I am!”
Iscariot: chore.
Isabel: nightmare.
Conan Sapa though . . . hard to hide when you’re a seven-foot-tall corpusmancer who has had who knows what kind of anima experimentation done on you. Seriously, men and their stupid muscles. Like all those muscles would matter anything once the Mancy was brought into the equation. Even without the Mancy, that much bulk would be nothing but a hindrance. If Jason hadn’t been surprised that the fight took the deadly turn it did, Eva would have put money on him winning over Sapa.
But it had taken that turn . . .
“You expect me to tell you to always fight like your life depends on it,” Eva tried to do a Fines Samson impression, “but you don’t get to fight for yourlife. You get to fight for the life of every mancer on the planet. So doubly don’t be a moron and ever consider to play fair. You’re the blade that darts in from the shadows, not some stupid ass crusader with a shield screaming as you charge in, never forget it!”
Conan Sapa, too many muscles or not, was the key to finding Isabel and Iscariot.
One: find Conan Sapa.
Two: track Conan Sapa.
Three: Confirm Isabel is present.
Four: Call in the Calvary in the form of King Henry and Welf.
Five: Capture Isabel.
Six: Use her as bait to lure out Iscariot.
“Eva Reti, she’s a planner,” she said about herself before lapsing into awkward silence. “Eva Reti, she spends too much time alone in stolen cars.”
Recruiters and ESLED proper got their pick from the Asylum fleet of modern transportation, but not her. Too obvious, Samson had whispered with a shake of his head, get you killed. You need to know how to always obtain your own transportation.
So he brought in one of the best car thieves in the United States to teach her and Eva had been stealing a car every week for the last couple years. “Alone . . . with my phone and Candy Crush as my only friends . . . at least they let me borrow one of the jets occasionally.”
Alone, but still a planner. When everyone else had rushed through the Ouroboros Casino trying to track Conan Sapa’s quick departure, Eva had tracked his arrival, particularly the car he arrived in. “Thus proving Samson’s point that company cars are a bad idea, especially a black Hummer still registered under a subsidiary of your mercenary company, despite the fact that everyone knows you’re working for the Curator.”
Too many muscles, not enough brains.
“The description of every corpusmancer on the planet except for Isabel Soto . . . whose problem is that she has twenty or so brains all in one head.”
Eva sipped some more water. Once she found out about the Hummer, and really, a Hummer? “Big muscles, small where it counts,” she chuckled. Once she found out about the Hummer, she put in a call to ESLED’s computer club—where most of the electromancers, cryomancers, and mentimancers ended up—and they returned a list of Hummers spotted in Las Vegas during the last week. NSA, be super jelly.
Next came an assumption that Sapa wouldn’t be in an affluent neighborhood or near the Strip itself, which cut down her list to a dozen. Finally she put in the footwork and crossed off five possibilities before finding a black Hummer outside a dilapidated dentist office in a not-so-happy part of town.Given the way she kept seeing shadows on the edge of her vision, the sciomancer sign of nearby anima pooling, she knew she was in the right place. “Only he’s not alone and I don’t know who’s inside with him.” Two other cars, a SUV and a Mini-Cooper. She ran the plates . . . both stolen, unless George Derek Pleck—a seventy-two-year-old retired high school principal of Lancaster, California—was working for the Curator. “Someone knows how the game is played at least.”
She tried to imagine the Curator driving a Mini-Cooper.
“Just terrifying.”
There was no way the Curator was inside of that dentist office. Whole idea was unthinkable, really. Isabel probably stole one of them, but what about the third? “And someone had to drive the Hummer after they dropped off Sapa . . .”
That put her at a minimum of four people inside the building.
Sapa, Isabel . . . but who else?
“Come on, Sapa, keep being stupid. Come on out so I don’t have to go in there and get a look at all of you.”
***
Three weeks! Check back next week for a King Henry sneak peek!
January 9, 2016
King Henry and the Three Little Trips (FM5.5) Update
The first word back from the beta readers has been positive, in fact so positive and adamant that some changes are being made as concerns how this work is being categorized and where it is placed in the series.
Nothing of the story itself is changing, it's still three different interconnected stories (first novellas and now chapters) with T-Bone, Eva, and King Henry in 3rd Person POV. But, it will no longer be called "King Henry Short Pack Two" and will instead be called "King Henry and the Three Little Trips" with FM5.5 plastered all over it so potential readers get the point.
It's not a full novel in the series (which are like 600 pages now but that's another discussion!), it's in a different style even, but beta readers pretty much commented, "they have to read this, if they don't read this, and they don't read this because they just think it's short stories, they'll be pissed and clueless once FM6 rolls around!"
I took this reaction as good news, since excitement is always good news, and have gone ahead and renamed it to better get the point across that yes, if you're a fan, you'll want to buy and check out this smaller, intermediate, more personal novel in our wider, epic story. It was also pointed out to me that even at almost 200 pages, it's actually not that much shorter than FM2, and at a dollar cheaper than the full FM books, it's nothing anyone should complain about. I'm sure I'll still get some complaints on that front, but I'll just roll my eyes at them.
So, not "The Foul Mouth" worthy, but very much worthy of more recognition than just "short pack". I think calling it "King Henry and the Three Little Trips (The King Henry Tapes #5.5)" sets the stage for it well, marking it's place exactly where it belongs and that's how you'll need to search for it when it comes out on February 1st.
This all started because I figured if there was a Short Pack One there should be a Short Pack Two. It'll be fun! Easy! No problem! In the writing it became something a bit more, maybe more than I wanted when I started it, and I'm finally accepting that. There's humor, there's diplomacy, there's danger, there's romance, and there's even death. Those a novel makes.
I've always been very mindful of not overpricing my products and have always wanted to be a "bang for your buck" writer. Perhaps this fear of being called out for abusing my fans wallets has led me to downplay this work up until now. I know some found the 99 cent price tag for the first short stories to be steep and I always worried that I would be accused of double-dipping when I decided to release them again bundled together in Short Pack One.
I wasn't and now with this second ancillary work coming out, maybe I have been a bit too defensive. I wrote a 200 page intermediate novel. Hope you enjoy it. There might even be another one after FM6, how about those apples?
King Henry and the Three Little Trips (The King Henry Tapes #5.5), Feb 1st, get hyped!
Look for the Eva sneak peek on Monday!
Nothing of the story itself is changing, it's still three different interconnected stories (first novellas and now chapters) with T-Bone, Eva, and King Henry in 3rd Person POV. But, it will no longer be called "King Henry Short Pack Two" and will instead be called "King Henry and the Three Little Trips" with FM5.5 plastered all over it so potential readers get the point.
It's not a full novel in the series (which are like 600 pages now but that's another discussion!), it's in a different style even, but beta readers pretty much commented, "they have to read this, if they don't read this, and they don't read this because they just think it's short stories, they'll be pissed and clueless once FM6 rolls around!"
I took this reaction as good news, since excitement is always good news, and have gone ahead and renamed it to better get the point across that yes, if you're a fan, you'll want to buy and check out this smaller, intermediate, more personal novel in our wider, epic story. It was also pointed out to me that even at almost 200 pages, it's actually not that much shorter than FM2, and at a dollar cheaper than the full FM books, it's nothing anyone should complain about. I'm sure I'll still get some complaints on that front, but I'll just roll my eyes at them.
So, not "The Foul Mouth" worthy, but very much worthy of more recognition than just "short pack". I think calling it "King Henry and the Three Little Trips (The King Henry Tapes #5.5)" sets the stage for it well, marking it's place exactly where it belongs and that's how you'll need to search for it when it comes out on February 1st.
This all started because I figured if there was a Short Pack One there should be a Short Pack Two. It'll be fun! Easy! No problem! In the writing it became something a bit more, maybe more than I wanted when I started it, and I'm finally accepting that. There's humor, there's diplomacy, there's danger, there's romance, and there's even death. Those a novel makes.
I've always been very mindful of not overpricing my products and have always wanted to be a "bang for your buck" writer. Perhaps this fear of being called out for abusing my fans wallets has led me to downplay this work up until now. I know some found the 99 cent price tag for the first short stories to be steep and I always worried that I would be accused of double-dipping when I decided to release them again bundled together in Short Pack One.
I wasn't and now with this second ancillary work coming out, maybe I have been a bit too defensive. I wrote a 200 page intermediate novel. Hope you enjoy it. There might even be another one after FM6, how about those apples?
King Henry and the Three Little Trips (The King Henry Tapes #5.5), Feb 1st, get hyped!
Look for the Eva sneak peek on Monday!
January 3, 2016
"Driving Miss Vicky" Sample (FM5.5 T-Bone Chapter)
Release is still set for Feb 1st. Beta read starts today so this sample is still unfinished rough cut, but I'm sure you lot will enjoy it just the same. As usual, copyrighted by me, Richard Raley, if you'd like to share please post back here instead of copy and pasting elsewhere!
"Driving Miss Vicky" is a T-Bone novella, about T-Bone and Vicky Welf's trip into the Coyote Nation compound.
Enjoy!
***
The Fresno airport was perfect as far as Tyson was concerned.
Just big enough to get you where you needed to go, but not big enough that it had ever lost its little-big-town charm. King Henry would have called it an airport worthy of a shithole, but then . . . he called everything a shithole.
Especially Fresno.
Tyson had a different view on it all. He was born and raised in the town, and yes, it did have its problems with poverty and theft and gangs, it also always seemed to be the butt of jokes from Los Angelinos and San Franciscans—it wasn’t some perfect little town—but it was in the odd place of having some big city advantages without having big city disadvantages. Like having a working airport where you could actually park your car and enter inside of it without having a massive security pat down every five feet.
Tyson was ten minutes early—he was always ten minutes early—so he bought himself and Vicky a cup of coffee from a small cart inside of the airport waiting room and sat down at an empty bench. He hadn’t a clue what Vicky put in her coffee . . . or if she even drank coffee . . . Yet she’s supposed to be my girlfriend, is she? Tyson grumbled to himself. King Henry had a much looser definition on that term. King Henry was also more likely to find himself having lots of amazing, mind-blowing sex with a stranger than Tyson, but, well . . . they had sort of traded places in Vegas on that front.Though we did talk a lot too . . . she’s not a stranger at all really . . . I just don’t know her as well as I will one day . . .
Tyson liked Vicky. Victoria. Lady von Welf. He still wasn’t sure which he should call her. She smiled when King Henry used the nickname, but never frowned when her brother used her full name either. Tyson felt like he was in the middle. He could see both girls. Vicky, the free spirited spectro-artist. Victoria, the noble lady of House Welf. He liked her. Liked both of them. Maybe more than liked them . . . girlfriend . . . he would like that too.
It was just a . . . thing . . . a King Henry thing . . . and maybe it will be another King Henry thing this weekend, but that doesn’t mean it’s more than that, he told himself to fight off rising expectations. He wasn’t as inexperienced with women as King Henry liked to tease him about. Tyson actually had a three-year long relationship at the Asylum, which was more than King Henry could ever say about the subject.
He wasn’t some romantic fool of a geek who fell in love the moment a woman showed interest in him . . . it’s just . . . he did like her. Especially all the talking. And . . . the King Henry thing hadn’t been so bad . . .
Other than him walking in on us the one time.
A plane landed on the runway. Not Vicky’s plane. Apparently, the Welfs had a pair of small jets just for their personal use. More proof that I might be an Ultra and a businessman and firmly middle-class, but I would be fooling myself if I thought Victoria von Welf would ever have more than a fling with me, even if she wanted to. She wasn’t like that, he knew, but . . . her brother surely was and her parents would be even worse. Plus there’s the race thing . . . especially with King Henry running around spewing jokes left and right about my big black wang . . .
Seriously, T-Bone, that thing is so big that I think Vicky should get a purple heart . . . or maybe a purple vagina!
Hey, T-Bone, what up? Trip on your dick lately?
So your dad’s Asian and you’re packing the BBC, even as a baby I’m betting, do you think there’s any chance yours was bigger when they adopted you, or did it at least take you till like four or five to eclipse the old man’s tool?
Tyson took a sip of his coffee as the passengers filed out of one of two airports gates. If you wanted on a plane then of course you had to go through a line of metal detectors, but just waiting you had a whole central area to explore. True to Fresno form, the airport designers had built a massive redwood forest display in the middle of it, trying to show off how close the city was to Yosemite Valley National Park.
Tyson had been once as a child, back before the Asylum, when family vacation was a possibility. Not necessarily a bad thing that it’s not much of a possibility anymore, given the vacation I just tried to take ended up the way it did. He remembered it differently as a child, alone with his parents in the car; heading all over California’s many destinations. Theme parks had been his favorite, a two-week trip to Disney World when he was twelve winning the top spot. Nature . . . he had never been much into nature. Less into it now that I know Half Dome might have a dimensional portal to a dragon’s lair inside of it!
Rides, mechanisms, video games: those were what he enjoyed. Both riding them and figuring out how they worked. Planes and the airport were included in all this. Before the Trade Towers fell, back when Tyson was quite little, his father used to pack up a laptop and drag Tyson to the airport, where you could sit truly close to the runway, ooohing and awwwing over the planes as they landed nearby.
I suppose even Fresno had to grow up and get a tiny amount of security installed after that dark day . . .
“Is that extra cup for me? I’m so thirsty!”
Tyson blinked in shock as Vicky appeared from a crowd of normal coach passengers, only to pick up her coffee cup and tilt it back like she’d recently crossed the Sahara instead of the United States in an American Airlines 777. She put up a finger while she gulped mouthful by mouthful, forestalling questions.
Tyson stood up from his bench, asking one anyway. “I thought you had your own jet? I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to pick you up at the normal gates . . .”
“Brother’s resolve broke last night and he finally told Mother about what the two of us did in Las Vegas,” Vicky explained while taking a big breath to refill her lungs, all before attacking the second half of what remained in the coffee cup.
“Wha . . . .what?”
Another breath. “I know! I’m so mad at him! I’m protecting your honor! Even for a Welf, what year does he think it is?”
“Wha . . . what exactly did he tell her about me . . . exactly?”
It was Vicky’s turn blink at him as she causally tossed her empty coffee cup in a recycling bin. “That we had sex.”
“Oh . . . right, we did do that.”
“And that I would have even more sex with you when I arrive in Fresno.”
“ . . . And . . . and did he guess correctly about this?”
“I mean, who does Brother think he is?” Vicky Welf asked the entire universe, not so much Tyson Bonnie, who was again trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up about more fling, if not more between the pair of them. “Do you remember how he was hanging all over Veronica? Mother neverapproved of him having an Intra for a lover and now he’s indignant when I spent time with someone who’s a Second Tier Ultra?”
Tyson frowned as he tried to work through the culture differences of normal-ish people butting up against Old Mancy families, all without shooting the Not-So-White elephant in the room. “It’s only about me being just an Electromancer then?”
“No . . . it’s not about any of their complaints about you really: either that you’re King Henry’s friend and are somehow tainted by the association or that you’re interested in me for my money or that you’re only Second Tier or First Generation and, what would my fifteen-year-dead grandfather say about it? Well, why don’t we go collect his skull and ask him? Mostlyit’s just about the fact that you have a penis and that it’s been between my legs in my precious, Welf, baby-spewing womb.”
“It has . . . indeed . . . been there,” Tyson confirmed blankly, at a loss of words even more than when he was around King Henry.
“And who does Motherthink she is?” Vicky kept going. “Telling me I should have saved my virginity for my husband! I’ve counted the months from her and Father’s wedding to Brother being born! Eight! I told her so too this time! You should have seen the look on her face . . . I’ve never seen her so angry before . . .”
Manners and feelings he dared not speak of warred inside of Tyson, as always manners won out. “I don’t want to come between you and your family. I—”
Complaining partly out of the way, Vicky seemed to realize they were together in one space again and suddenly threw herself at him. Part hug, part leaping kiss, for once Tyson was glad he was as tall and as heavy as he was or they both might have fallen to the floor. Vicky was rather well built herself, if not overbuilt like Tyson. When she jumped or bumped or grabbed you, you very much felt her muscles and her weight behind it. He just barely managed to keep them upright until she pulled back, a smile on her face.
“Don’t ever say that again, Tyson,” she ordered like she expected him to do exactly as she told him.“I’m never sure where I stand with you,” he admitted. “It always seems like you’re nicer than any person should be, Victoria, especially to me.”
“Don’t ever say that again too,” she ordered him again before pulling his head down for another kiss.
“We’re making a scene,” he mumbled around her lips.
She pulled away reluctantly. “It’s good you have such wonderful decorum, I seem to be losing mine the older I get. Throwing that barb at Mother . . . what was I thinking? It’s my own fault really. I should have just lied about it all, claimed you were busy and that I was going alone. But then Brother would have tried to invite himself just to be sure and they really shouldn’t talk about you. I do have a temper, believe it or not. Brother, Mother, and King Henry on occasion set it off and I just do the emotional thing . . . not the Welf thing . . .”
Tyson finally got a moment to study her. Or better to say he got a moment to recover from her sudden arrival. Vicky had mentioned King Henry making her angry, but the one trait both of them had in common was the ability to blow over a person and dominate an introduction. And let that always be where the comparison ends, dear Mancy, Tyson prayed silently.
The last time he had seen her, she had been at her most formal, wearing a black dress for Jason Jackson’s funeral. Now, she wore white for the most part: white pants that were somewhere between full length and shorts—Tyson would never be accused as a fashion expert—a white, wool knit top that hung loose on her—capris, that’s what the pants were called, weren’t they?—a white belt with a cross pattern of golden studs made of real gold knowing the Welfs, and platform sandals on her not-so-dainty feet. Her only deference to the fact that, March though it may now be, it still wasn’t quite yet spring, was a knitted scarf thrown around her neck, which was colored like a rainbow—not in a Gay Pride way, but in a Spectromancer uniform kind of way.
“Was I meant to wear blue and yellow and missed the hint?” he teased her.
She smiled up at him, taking in his usual khakis and sweater-vest, perhaps more stringently ironed than usual. “If I had my way, you would be wearing nothing at all, Tyson, but I daresay that would cause more of a scene than the one you’ve already complained about.”
He barely managed to keep from blushing, falling back on manners. “Would you like another coffee?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed at the idea. “Then we need to find your car and I’ll tell you about how I escaped!”
“You . . . escaped?”
“It’s not like I was locked in my room,” Vicky hurried forestalled, “but Mother wouldn’t let me borrow her jet after I called her a whore.”
“You . . . called your mother a whore?”
“Well, she insinuated that I was one and then I rebutted, as I said earlier. Can I use this card thingy for the coffee? They wouldn’t let me buy drinks on the plane with it, just the ticket. Do you think we can get some of those pastries too? All I’ve had is peanuts since I left the Mansion.”
***
Feb 1st! Month away!
"Driving Miss Vicky" is a T-Bone novella, about T-Bone and Vicky Welf's trip into the Coyote Nation compound.
Enjoy!
***
The Fresno airport was perfect as far as Tyson was concerned.
Just big enough to get you where you needed to go, but not big enough that it had ever lost its little-big-town charm. King Henry would have called it an airport worthy of a shithole, but then . . . he called everything a shithole.
Especially Fresno.
Tyson had a different view on it all. He was born and raised in the town, and yes, it did have its problems with poverty and theft and gangs, it also always seemed to be the butt of jokes from Los Angelinos and San Franciscans—it wasn’t some perfect little town—but it was in the odd place of having some big city advantages without having big city disadvantages. Like having a working airport where you could actually park your car and enter inside of it without having a massive security pat down every five feet.
Tyson was ten minutes early—he was always ten minutes early—so he bought himself and Vicky a cup of coffee from a small cart inside of the airport waiting room and sat down at an empty bench. He hadn’t a clue what Vicky put in her coffee . . . or if she even drank coffee . . . Yet she’s supposed to be my girlfriend, is she? Tyson grumbled to himself. King Henry had a much looser definition on that term. King Henry was also more likely to find himself having lots of amazing, mind-blowing sex with a stranger than Tyson, but, well . . . they had sort of traded places in Vegas on that front.Though we did talk a lot too . . . she’s not a stranger at all really . . . I just don’t know her as well as I will one day . . .
Tyson liked Vicky. Victoria. Lady von Welf. He still wasn’t sure which he should call her. She smiled when King Henry used the nickname, but never frowned when her brother used her full name either. Tyson felt like he was in the middle. He could see both girls. Vicky, the free spirited spectro-artist. Victoria, the noble lady of House Welf. He liked her. Liked both of them. Maybe more than liked them . . . girlfriend . . . he would like that too.
It was just a . . . thing . . . a King Henry thing . . . and maybe it will be another King Henry thing this weekend, but that doesn’t mean it’s more than that, he told himself to fight off rising expectations. He wasn’t as inexperienced with women as King Henry liked to tease him about. Tyson actually had a three-year long relationship at the Asylum, which was more than King Henry could ever say about the subject.
He wasn’t some romantic fool of a geek who fell in love the moment a woman showed interest in him . . . it’s just . . . he did like her. Especially all the talking. And . . . the King Henry thing hadn’t been so bad . . .
Other than him walking in on us the one time.
A plane landed on the runway. Not Vicky’s plane. Apparently, the Welfs had a pair of small jets just for their personal use. More proof that I might be an Ultra and a businessman and firmly middle-class, but I would be fooling myself if I thought Victoria von Welf would ever have more than a fling with me, even if she wanted to. She wasn’t like that, he knew, but . . . her brother surely was and her parents would be even worse. Plus there’s the race thing . . . especially with King Henry running around spewing jokes left and right about my big black wang . . .
Seriously, T-Bone, that thing is so big that I think Vicky should get a purple heart . . . or maybe a purple vagina!
Hey, T-Bone, what up? Trip on your dick lately?
So your dad’s Asian and you’re packing the BBC, even as a baby I’m betting, do you think there’s any chance yours was bigger when they adopted you, or did it at least take you till like four or five to eclipse the old man’s tool?
Tyson took a sip of his coffee as the passengers filed out of one of two airports gates. If you wanted on a plane then of course you had to go through a line of metal detectors, but just waiting you had a whole central area to explore. True to Fresno form, the airport designers had built a massive redwood forest display in the middle of it, trying to show off how close the city was to Yosemite Valley National Park.
Tyson had been once as a child, back before the Asylum, when family vacation was a possibility. Not necessarily a bad thing that it’s not much of a possibility anymore, given the vacation I just tried to take ended up the way it did. He remembered it differently as a child, alone with his parents in the car; heading all over California’s many destinations. Theme parks had been his favorite, a two-week trip to Disney World when he was twelve winning the top spot. Nature . . . he had never been much into nature. Less into it now that I know Half Dome might have a dimensional portal to a dragon’s lair inside of it!
Rides, mechanisms, video games: those were what he enjoyed. Both riding them and figuring out how they worked. Planes and the airport were included in all this. Before the Trade Towers fell, back when Tyson was quite little, his father used to pack up a laptop and drag Tyson to the airport, where you could sit truly close to the runway, ooohing and awwwing over the planes as they landed nearby.
I suppose even Fresno had to grow up and get a tiny amount of security installed after that dark day . . .
“Is that extra cup for me? I’m so thirsty!”
Tyson blinked in shock as Vicky appeared from a crowd of normal coach passengers, only to pick up her coffee cup and tilt it back like she’d recently crossed the Sahara instead of the United States in an American Airlines 777. She put up a finger while she gulped mouthful by mouthful, forestalling questions.
Tyson stood up from his bench, asking one anyway. “I thought you had your own jet? I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to pick you up at the normal gates . . .”
“Brother’s resolve broke last night and he finally told Mother about what the two of us did in Las Vegas,” Vicky explained while taking a big breath to refill her lungs, all before attacking the second half of what remained in the coffee cup.
“Wha . . . .what?”
Another breath. “I know! I’m so mad at him! I’m protecting your honor! Even for a Welf, what year does he think it is?”
“Wha . . . what exactly did he tell her about me . . . exactly?”
It was Vicky’s turn blink at him as she causally tossed her empty coffee cup in a recycling bin. “That we had sex.”
“Oh . . . right, we did do that.”
“And that I would have even more sex with you when I arrive in Fresno.”
“ . . . And . . . and did he guess correctly about this?”
“I mean, who does Brother think he is?” Vicky Welf asked the entire universe, not so much Tyson Bonnie, who was again trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up about more fling, if not more between the pair of them. “Do you remember how he was hanging all over Veronica? Mother neverapproved of him having an Intra for a lover and now he’s indignant when I spent time with someone who’s a Second Tier Ultra?”
Tyson frowned as he tried to work through the culture differences of normal-ish people butting up against Old Mancy families, all without shooting the Not-So-White elephant in the room. “It’s only about me being just an Electromancer then?”
“No . . . it’s not about any of their complaints about you really: either that you’re King Henry’s friend and are somehow tainted by the association or that you’re interested in me for my money or that you’re only Second Tier or First Generation and, what would my fifteen-year-dead grandfather say about it? Well, why don’t we go collect his skull and ask him? Mostlyit’s just about the fact that you have a penis and that it’s been between my legs in my precious, Welf, baby-spewing womb.”
“It has . . . indeed . . . been there,” Tyson confirmed blankly, at a loss of words even more than when he was around King Henry.
“And who does Motherthink she is?” Vicky kept going. “Telling me I should have saved my virginity for my husband! I’ve counted the months from her and Father’s wedding to Brother being born! Eight! I told her so too this time! You should have seen the look on her face . . . I’ve never seen her so angry before . . .”
Manners and feelings he dared not speak of warred inside of Tyson, as always manners won out. “I don’t want to come between you and your family. I—”
Complaining partly out of the way, Vicky seemed to realize they were together in one space again and suddenly threw herself at him. Part hug, part leaping kiss, for once Tyson was glad he was as tall and as heavy as he was or they both might have fallen to the floor. Vicky was rather well built herself, if not overbuilt like Tyson. When she jumped or bumped or grabbed you, you very much felt her muscles and her weight behind it. He just barely managed to keep them upright until she pulled back, a smile on her face.
“Don’t ever say that again, Tyson,” she ordered like she expected him to do exactly as she told him.“I’m never sure where I stand with you,” he admitted. “It always seems like you’re nicer than any person should be, Victoria, especially to me.”
“Don’t ever say that again too,” she ordered him again before pulling his head down for another kiss.
“We’re making a scene,” he mumbled around her lips.
She pulled away reluctantly. “It’s good you have such wonderful decorum, I seem to be losing mine the older I get. Throwing that barb at Mother . . . what was I thinking? It’s my own fault really. I should have just lied about it all, claimed you were busy and that I was going alone. But then Brother would have tried to invite himself just to be sure and they really shouldn’t talk about you. I do have a temper, believe it or not. Brother, Mother, and King Henry on occasion set it off and I just do the emotional thing . . . not the Welf thing . . .”
Tyson finally got a moment to study her. Or better to say he got a moment to recover from her sudden arrival. Vicky had mentioned King Henry making her angry, but the one trait both of them had in common was the ability to blow over a person and dominate an introduction. And let that always be where the comparison ends, dear Mancy, Tyson prayed silently.
The last time he had seen her, she had been at her most formal, wearing a black dress for Jason Jackson’s funeral. Now, she wore white for the most part: white pants that were somewhere between full length and shorts—Tyson would never be accused as a fashion expert—a white, wool knit top that hung loose on her—capris, that’s what the pants were called, weren’t they?—a white belt with a cross pattern of golden studs made of real gold knowing the Welfs, and platform sandals on her not-so-dainty feet. Her only deference to the fact that, March though it may now be, it still wasn’t quite yet spring, was a knitted scarf thrown around her neck, which was colored like a rainbow—not in a Gay Pride way, but in a Spectromancer uniform kind of way.
“Was I meant to wear blue and yellow and missed the hint?” he teased her.
She smiled up at him, taking in his usual khakis and sweater-vest, perhaps more stringently ironed than usual. “If I had my way, you would be wearing nothing at all, Tyson, but I daresay that would cause more of a scene than the one you’ve already complained about.”
He barely managed to keep from blushing, falling back on manners. “Would you like another coffee?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed at the idea. “Then we need to find your car and I’ll tell you about how I escaped!”
“You . . . escaped?”
“It’s not like I was locked in my room,” Vicky hurried forestalled, “but Mother wouldn’t let me borrow her jet after I called her a whore.”
“You . . . called your mother a whore?”
“Well, she insinuated that I was one and then I rebutted, as I said earlier. Can I use this card thingy for the coffee? They wouldn’t let me buy drinks on the plane with it, just the ticket. Do you think we can get some of those pastries too? All I’ve had is peanuts since I left the Mansion.”
***
Feb 1st! Month away!
"Driving Miss Vicky" Sample (FM5.5 novella #1)
Release is still set for Feb 1st. Beta read starts today so this sample is still unfinished rough cut, but I'm sure you lot will enjoy it just the same. As usual, copyrighted by me, Richard Raley, if you'd like to share please post back here instead of copy and pasting elsewhere!
"Driving Miss Vicky" is a T-Bone novella, about T-Bone and Vicky Welf's trip into the Coyote Nation compound.
Enjoy!
***
The Fresno airport was perfect as far as Tyson was concerned.
Just big enough to get you where you needed to go, but not big enough that it had ever lost its little-big-town charm. King Henry would have called it an airport worthy of a shithole, but then . . . he called everything a shithole.
Especially Fresno.
Tyson had a different view on it all. He was born and raised in the town, and yes, it did have its problems with poverty and theft and gangs, it also always seemed to be the butt of jokes from Los Angelinos and San Franciscans—it wasn’t some perfect little town—but it was in the odd place of having some big city advantages without having big city disadvantages. Like having a working airport where you could actually park your car and enter inside of it without having a massive security pat down every five feet.
Tyson was ten minutes early—he was always ten minutes early—so he bought himself and Vicky a cup of coffee from a small cart inside of the airport waiting room and sat down at an empty bench. He hadn’t a clue what Vicky put in her coffee . . . or if she even drank coffee . . . Yet she’s supposed to be my girlfriend, is she? Tyson grumbled to himself. King Henry had a much looser definition on that term. King Henry was also more likely to find himself having lots of amazing, mind-blowing sex with a stranger than Tyson, but, well . . . they had sort of traded places in Vegas on that front.Though we did talk a lot too . . . she’s not a stranger at all really . . . I just don’t know her as well as I will one day . . .
Tyson liked Vicky. Victoria. Lady von Welf. He still wasn’t sure which he should call her. She smiled when King Henry used the nickname, but never frowned when her brother used her full name either. Tyson felt like he was in the middle. He could see both girls. Vicky, the free spirited spectro-artist. Victoria, the noble lady of House Welf. He liked her. Liked both of them. Maybe more than liked them . . . girlfriend . . . he would like that too.
It was just a . . . thing . . . a King Henry thing . . . and maybe it will be another King Henry thing this weekend, but that doesn’t mean it’s more than that, he told himself to fight off rising expectations. He wasn’t as inexperienced with women as King Henry liked to tease him about. Tyson actually had a three-year long relationship at the Asylum, which was more than King Henry could ever say about the subject.
He wasn’t some romantic fool of a geek who fell in love the moment a woman showed interest in him . . . it’s just . . . he did like her. Especially all the talking. And . . . the King Henry thing hadn’t been so bad . . .
Other than him walking in on us the one time.
A plane landed on the runway. Not Vicky’s plane. Apparently, the Welfs had a pair of small jets just for their personal use. More proof that I might be an Ultra and a businessman and firmly middle-class, but I would be fooling myself if I thought Victoria von Welf would ever have more than a fling with me, even if she wanted to. She wasn’t like that, he knew, but . . . her brother surely was and her parents would be even worse. Plus there’s the race thing . . . especially with King Henry running around spewing jokes left and right about my big black wang . . .
Seriously, T-Bone, that thing is so big that I think Vicky should get a purple heart . . . or maybe a purple vagina!
Hey, T-Bone, what up? Trip on your dick lately?
So your dad’s Asian and you’re packing the BBC, even as a baby I’m betting, do you think there’s any chance yours was bigger when they adopted you, or did it at least take you till like four or five to eclipse the old man’s tool?
Tyson took a sip of his coffee as the passengers filed out of one of two airports gates. If you wanted on a plane then of course you had to go through a line of metal detectors, but just waiting you had a whole central area to explore. True to Fresno form, the airport designers had built a massive redwood forest display in the middle of it, trying to show off how close the city was to Yosemite Valley National Park.
Tyson had been once as a child, back before the Asylum, when family vacation was a possibility. Not necessarily a bad thing that it’s not much of a possibility anymore, given the vacation I just tried to take ended up the way it did. He remembered it differently as a child, alone with his parents in the car; heading all over California’s many destinations. Theme parks had been his favorite, a two-week trip to Disney World when he was twelve winning the top spot. Nature . . . he had never been much into nature. Less into it now that I know Half Dome might have a dimensional portal to a dragon’s lair inside of it!
Rides, mechanisms, video games: those were what he enjoyed. Both riding them and figuring out how they worked. Planes and the airport were included in all this. Before the Trade Towers fell, back when Tyson was quite little, his father used to pack up a laptop and drag Tyson to the airport, where you could sit truly close to the runway, ooohing and awwwing over the planes as they landed nearby.
I suppose even Fresno had to grow up and get a tiny amount of security installed after that dark day . . .
“Is that extra cup for me? I’m so thirsty!”
Tyson blinked in shock as Vicky appeared from a crowd of normal coach passengers, only to pick up her coffee cup and tilt it back like she’d recently crossed the Sahara instead of the United States in an American Airlines 777. She put up a finger while she gulped mouthful by mouthful, forestalling questions.
Tyson stood up from his bench, asking one anyway. “I thought you had your own jet? I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to pick you up at the normal gates . . .”
“Brother’s resolve broke last night and he finally told Mother about what the two of us did in Las Vegas,” Vicky explained while taking a big breath to refill her lungs, all before attacking the second half of what remained in the coffee cup.
“Wha . . . .what?”
Another breath. “I know! I’m so mad at him! I’m protecting your honor! Even for a Welf, what year does he think it is?”
“Wha . . . what exactly did he tell her about me . . . exactly?”
It was Vicky’s turn blink at him as she causally tossed her empty coffee cup in a recycling bin. “That we had sex.”
“Oh . . . right, we did do that.”
“And that I would have even more sex with you when I arrive in Fresno.”
“ . . . And . . . and did he guess correctly about this?”
“I mean, who does Brother think he is?” Vicky Welf asked the entire universe, not so much Tyson Bonnie, who was again trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up about more fling, if not more between the pair of them. “Do you remember how he was hanging all over Veronica? Mother neverapproved of him having an Intra for a lover and now he’s indignant when I spent time with someone who’s a Second Tier Ultra?”
Tyson frowned as he tried to work through the culture differences of normal-ish people butting up against Old Mancy families, all without shooting the Not-So-White elephant in the room. “It’s only about me being just an Electromancer then?”
“No . . . it’s not about any of their complaints about you really: either that you’re King Henry’s friend and are somehow tainted by the association or that you’re interested in me for my money or that you’re only Second Tier or First Generation and, what would my fifteen-year-dead grandfather say about it? Well, why don’t we go collect his skull and ask him? Mostlyit’s just about the fact that you have a penis and that it’s been between my legs in my precious, Welf, baby-spewing womb.”
“It has . . . indeed . . . been there,” Tyson confirmed blankly, at a loss of words even more than when he was around King Henry.
“And who does Motherthink she is?” Vicky kept going. “Telling me I should have saved my virginity for my husband! I’ve counted the months from her and Father’s wedding to Brother being born! Eight! I told her so too this time! You should have seen the look on her face . . . I’ve never seen her so angry before . . .”
Manners and feelings he dared not speak of warred inside of Tyson, as always manners won out. “I don’t want to come between you and your family. I—”
Complaining partly out of the way, Vicky seemed to realize they were together in one space again and suddenly threw herself at him. Part hug, part leaping kiss, for once Tyson was glad he was as tall and as heavy as he was or they both might have fallen to the floor. Vicky was rather well built herself, if not overbuilt like Tyson. When she jumped or bumped or grabbed you, you very much felt her muscles and her weight behind it. He just barely managed to keep them upright until she pulled back, a smile on her face.
“Don’t ever say that again, Tyson,” she ordered like she expected him to do exactly as she told him.“I’m never sure where I stand with you,” he admitted. “It always seems like you’re nicer than any person should be, Victoria, especially to me.”
“Don’t ever say that again too,” she ordered him again before pulling his head down for another kiss.
“We’re making a scene,” he mumbled around her lips.
She pulled away reluctantly. “It’s good you have such wonderful decorum, I seem to be losing mine the older I get. Throwing that barb at Mother . . . what was I thinking? It’s my own fault really. I should have just lied about it all, claimed you were busy and that I was going alone. But then Brother would have tried to invite himself just to be sure and they really shouldn’t talk about you. I do have a temper, believe it or not. Brother, Mother, and King Henry on occasion set it off and I just do the emotional thing . . . not the Welf thing . . .”
Tyson finally got a moment to study her. Or better to say he got a moment to recover from her sudden arrival. Vicky had mentioned King Henry making her angry, but the one trait both of them had in common was the ability to blow over a person and dominate an introduction. And let that always be where the comparison ends, dear Mancy, Tyson prayed silently.
The last time he had seen her, she had been at her most formal, wearing a black dress for Jason Jackson’s funeral. Now, she wore white for the most part: white pants that were somewhere between full length and shorts—Tyson would never be accused as a fashion expert—a white, wool knit top that hung loose on her—capris, that’s what the pants were called, weren’t they?—a white belt with a cross pattern of golden studs made of real gold knowing the Welfs, and platform sandals on her not-so-dainty feet. Her only deference to the fact that, March though it may now be, it still wasn’t quite yet spring, was a knitted scarf thrown around her neck, which was colored like a rainbow—not in a Gay Pride way, but in a Spectromancer uniform kind of way.
“Was I meant to wear blue and yellow and missed the hint?” he teased her.
She smiled up at him, taking in his usual khakis and sweater-vest, perhaps more stringently ironed than usual. “If I had my way, you would be wearing nothing at all, Tyson, but I daresay that would cause more of a scene than the one you’ve already complained about.”
He barely managed to keep from blushing, falling back on manners. “Would you like another coffee?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed at the idea. “Then we need to find your car and I’ll tell you about how I escaped!”
“You . . . escaped?”
“It’s not like I was locked in my room,” Vicky hurried forestalled, “but Mother wouldn’t let me borrow her jet after I called her a whore.”
“You . . . called your mother a whore?”
“Well, she insinuated that I was one and then I rebutted, as I said earlier. Can I use this card thingy for the coffee? They wouldn’t let me buy drinks on the plane with it, just the ticket. Do you think we can get some of those pastries too? All I’ve had is peanuts since I left the Mansion.”
***
Feb 1st! Month away!
"Driving Miss Vicky" is a T-Bone novella, about T-Bone and Vicky Welf's trip into the Coyote Nation compound.
Enjoy!
***
The Fresno airport was perfect as far as Tyson was concerned.
Just big enough to get you where you needed to go, but not big enough that it had ever lost its little-big-town charm. King Henry would have called it an airport worthy of a shithole, but then . . . he called everything a shithole.
Especially Fresno.
Tyson had a different view on it all. He was born and raised in the town, and yes, it did have its problems with poverty and theft and gangs, it also always seemed to be the butt of jokes from Los Angelinos and San Franciscans—it wasn’t some perfect little town—but it was in the odd place of having some big city advantages without having big city disadvantages. Like having a working airport where you could actually park your car and enter inside of it without having a massive security pat down every five feet.
Tyson was ten minutes early—he was always ten minutes early—so he bought himself and Vicky a cup of coffee from a small cart inside of the airport waiting room and sat down at an empty bench. He hadn’t a clue what Vicky put in her coffee . . . or if she even drank coffee . . . Yet she’s supposed to be my girlfriend, is she? Tyson grumbled to himself. King Henry had a much looser definition on that term. King Henry was also more likely to find himself having lots of amazing, mind-blowing sex with a stranger than Tyson, but, well . . . they had sort of traded places in Vegas on that front.Though we did talk a lot too . . . she’s not a stranger at all really . . . I just don’t know her as well as I will one day . . .
Tyson liked Vicky. Victoria. Lady von Welf. He still wasn’t sure which he should call her. She smiled when King Henry used the nickname, but never frowned when her brother used her full name either. Tyson felt like he was in the middle. He could see both girls. Vicky, the free spirited spectro-artist. Victoria, the noble lady of House Welf. He liked her. Liked both of them. Maybe more than liked them . . . girlfriend . . . he would like that too.
It was just a . . . thing . . . a King Henry thing . . . and maybe it will be another King Henry thing this weekend, but that doesn’t mean it’s more than that, he told himself to fight off rising expectations. He wasn’t as inexperienced with women as King Henry liked to tease him about. Tyson actually had a three-year long relationship at the Asylum, which was more than King Henry could ever say about the subject.
He wasn’t some romantic fool of a geek who fell in love the moment a woman showed interest in him . . . it’s just . . . he did like her. Especially all the talking. And . . . the King Henry thing hadn’t been so bad . . .
Other than him walking in on us the one time.
A plane landed on the runway. Not Vicky’s plane. Apparently, the Welfs had a pair of small jets just for their personal use. More proof that I might be an Ultra and a businessman and firmly middle-class, but I would be fooling myself if I thought Victoria von Welf would ever have more than a fling with me, even if she wanted to. She wasn’t like that, he knew, but . . . her brother surely was and her parents would be even worse. Plus there’s the race thing . . . especially with King Henry running around spewing jokes left and right about my big black wang . . .
Seriously, T-Bone, that thing is so big that I think Vicky should get a purple heart . . . or maybe a purple vagina!
Hey, T-Bone, what up? Trip on your dick lately?
So your dad’s Asian and you’re packing the BBC, even as a baby I’m betting, do you think there’s any chance yours was bigger when they adopted you, or did it at least take you till like four or five to eclipse the old man’s tool?
Tyson took a sip of his coffee as the passengers filed out of one of two airports gates. If you wanted on a plane then of course you had to go through a line of metal detectors, but just waiting you had a whole central area to explore. True to Fresno form, the airport designers had built a massive redwood forest display in the middle of it, trying to show off how close the city was to Yosemite Valley National Park.
Tyson had been once as a child, back before the Asylum, when family vacation was a possibility. Not necessarily a bad thing that it’s not much of a possibility anymore, given the vacation I just tried to take ended up the way it did. He remembered it differently as a child, alone with his parents in the car; heading all over California’s many destinations. Theme parks had been his favorite, a two-week trip to Disney World when he was twelve winning the top spot. Nature . . . he had never been much into nature. Less into it now that I know Half Dome might have a dimensional portal to a dragon’s lair inside of it!
Rides, mechanisms, video games: those were what he enjoyed. Both riding them and figuring out how they worked. Planes and the airport were included in all this. Before the Trade Towers fell, back when Tyson was quite little, his father used to pack up a laptop and drag Tyson to the airport, where you could sit truly close to the runway, ooohing and awwwing over the planes as they landed nearby.
I suppose even Fresno had to grow up and get a tiny amount of security installed after that dark day . . .
“Is that extra cup for me? I’m so thirsty!”
Tyson blinked in shock as Vicky appeared from a crowd of normal coach passengers, only to pick up her coffee cup and tilt it back like she’d recently crossed the Sahara instead of the United States in an American Airlines 777. She put up a finger while she gulped mouthful by mouthful, forestalling questions.
Tyson stood up from his bench, asking one anyway. “I thought you had your own jet? I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to pick you up at the normal gates . . .”
“Brother’s resolve broke last night and he finally told Mother about what the two of us did in Las Vegas,” Vicky explained while taking a big breath to refill her lungs, all before attacking the second half of what remained in the coffee cup.
“Wha . . . .what?”
Another breath. “I know! I’m so mad at him! I’m protecting your honor! Even for a Welf, what year does he think it is?”
“Wha . . . what exactly did he tell her about me . . . exactly?”
It was Vicky’s turn blink at him as she causally tossed her empty coffee cup in a recycling bin. “That we had sex.”
“Oh . . . right, we did do that.”
“And that I would have even more sex with you when I arrive in Fresno.”
“ . . . And . . . and did he guess correctly about this?”
“I mean, who does Brother think he is?” Vicky Welf asked the entire universe, not so much Tyson Bonnie, who was again trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up about more fling, if not more between the pair of them. “Do you remember how he was hanging all over Veronica? Mother neverapproved of him having an Intra for a lover and now he’s indignant when I spent time with someone who’s a Second Tier Ultra?”
Tyson frowned as he tried to work through the culture differences of normal-ish people butting up against Old Mancy families, all without shooting the Not-So-White elephant in the room. “It’s only about me being just an Electromancer then?”
“No . . . it’s not about any of their complaints about you really: either that you’re King Henry’s friend and are somehow tainted by the association or that you’re interested in me for my money or that you’re only Second Tier or First Generation and, what would my fifteen-year-dead grandfather say about it? Well, why don’t we go collect his skull and ask him? Mostlyit’s just about the fact that you have a penis and that it’s been between my legs in my precious, Welf, baby-spewing womb.”
“It has . . . indeed . . . been there,” Tyson confirmed blankly, at a loss of words even more than when he was around King Henry.
“And who does Motherthink she is?” Vicky kept going. “Telling me I should have saved my virginity for my husband! I’ve counted the months from her and Father’s wedding to Brother being born! Eight! I told her so too this time! You should have seen the look on her face . . . I’ve never seen her so angry before . . .”
Manners and feelings he dared not speak of warred inside of Tyson, as always manners won out. “I don’t want to come between you and your family. I—”
Complaining partly out of the way, Vicky seemed to realize they were together in one space again and suddenly threw herself at him. Part hug, part leaping kiss, for once Tyson was glad he was as tall and as heavy as he was or they both might have fallen to the floor. Vicky was rather well built herself, if not overbuilt like Tyson. When she jumped or bumped or grabbed you, you very much felt her muscles and her weight behind it. He just barely managed to keep them upright until she pulled back, a smile on her face.
“Don’t ever say that again, Tyson,” she ordered like she expected him to do exactly as she told him.“I’m never sure where I stand with you,” he admitted. “It always seems like you’re nicer than any person should be, Victoria, especially to me.”
“Don’t ever say that again too,” she ordered him again before pulling his head down for another kiss.
“We’re making a scene,” he mumbled around her lips.
She pulled away reluctantly. “It’s good you have such wonderful decorum, I seem to be losing mine the older I get. Throwing that barb at Mother . . . what was I thinking? It’s my own fault really. I should have just lied about it all, claimed you were busy and that I was going alone. But then Brother would have tried to invite himself just to be sure and they really shouldn’t talk about you. I do have a temper, believe it or not. Brother, Mother, and King Henry on occasion set it off and I just do the emotional thing . . . not the Welf thing . . .”
Tyson finally got a moment to study her. Or better to say he got a moment to recover from her sudden arrival. Vicky had mentioned King Henry making her angry, but the one trait both of them had in common was the ability to blow over a person and dominate an introduction. And let that always be where the comparison ends, dear Mancy, Tyson prayed silently.
The last time he had seen her, she had been at her most formal, wearing a black dress for Jason Jackson’s funeral. Now, she wore white for the most part: white pants that were somewhere between full length and shorts—Tyson would never be accused as a fashion expert—a white, wool knit top that hung loose on her—capris, that’s what the pants were called, weren’t they?—a white belt with a cross pattern of golden studs made of real gold knowing the Welfs, and platform sandals on her not-so-dainty feet. Her only deference to the fact that, March though it may now be, it still wasn’t quite yet spring, was a knitted scarf thrown around her neck, which was colored like a rainbow—not in a Gay Pride way, but in a Spectromancer uniform kind of way.
“Was I meant to wear blue and yellow and missed the hint?” he teased her.
She smiled up at him, taking in his usual khakis and sweater-vest, perhaps more stringently ironed than usual. “If I had my way, you would be wearing nothing at all, Tyson, but I daresay that would cause more of a scene than the one you’ve already complained about.”
He barely managed to keep from blushing, falling back on manners. “Would you like another coffee?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed at the idea. “Then we need to find your car and I’ll tell you about how I escaped!”
“You . . . escaped?”
“It’s not like I was locked in my room,” Vicky hurried forestalled, “but Mother wouldn’t let me borrow her jet after I called her a whore.”
“You . . . called your mother a whore?”
“Well, she insinuated that I was one and then I rebutted, as I said earlier. Can I use this card thingy for the coffee? They wouldn’t let me buy drinks on the plane with it, just the ticket. Do you think we can get some of those pastries too? All I’ve had is peanuts since I left the Mansion.”
***
Feb 1st! Month away!
December 22, 2015
Update to Explain Lack of Updates (Plus FM5.5 Release Date)
It's been awhile.
Wish all the news was good, most of the news is good, just...well, I've been sick on and off since Thanksgiving. Three times. First two weren't too bad but the last one sucked whole bunches.
But, RR, you haven't updated since before Halloween!
And the reason for that at first was very good news. November 1st I went into Mad Scientist mode and finally started working on FM6. Enter a glorious two weeks were I wrote 4 chapters and began what is going to be such an awesome book. Seriously, so excited for it, just the beginning and all this cool stuff is happening. Last book I had to write chapters of drunk and mopping King Henry at this point, but THIS time the Crazy is out in full force. I can't go into more detail without spoiling you, and harping on it probably just gives you pain, so I'll stop now. Point is: having fun writing it, it's everything I expected it to be, can't wait to go back into Mad Scientist mode.
Then Fallout 4 happened...my bad. About ten days later I finally pulled myself away from one-shotting deathclaws with my gauss rifle loving AGI-LUCK build and got around to productivity again. Still haven't finished the game, it's waiting there for me, eager to steal another week of my life, but so far I've been strong.
And sick.
But first I got in the final edit on King Henry Short Pack Two. Which I'm really happy with, especially the Eva novella. There's also a Plutarch-KH conversion in it that makes me bust up laughing every time I read it. It's great stuff. It's also kind of necessary stuff. Having started FM6 and suddenly realizing how much I bring up things that happen in King Henry Short Pack Two in the beginning chapters, King Henry Short Pack Two really has become FM5.5 more than I expected it to. Maybe that's a dick move on my part, since I've never made shorts, be they 20 pages or 80 pages, required reading, but this time...you'll feel lost if you don't pick it up.
It just kind of happened to grow in the making. Hey, you put all those stories into a short pack, why not write a second short pack? Why not make it three novellas that take place after FM5 on the same day? Oh look, I accidentally wrote a short bridge novel. Hope you all will enjoy it, it will be releasing on February 1st and it will be marked as FM5.5 when I publish it.
Then Thanksgiving with Mom's White Beans and Ham instead of turkey, yummy, then moderate sickness followed by barely deserves to be called sickness, followed by Lung Rattling, Maybe I'll Die in My Sleep sickness. I can write while sick up to a certain point. I don't ever like to, especially King Henry since he requires a certain amount of swagger, but I can and I did on and off. Never Mad Scientist mode, but here and there with the editing and writing to almost finish another chapter. But I'm also asthmatic, so if something really hits me, really goes into my lungs...it's not happening. I'm a very grumpy, wheezing blob covered by blankets and surrounded by about twenty empty Kleenex boxes. No writing in sight. Unless it's a plea for help written in snot.
I finally felt decent yesterday, so I got back to the most important thing in my life...
I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens!
What?
Priorities, people. I was sick and couldn't go opening weekend! It was horrible! Had to dodge spoilers for a whole week! I barely made it. Especially when the Visual Dictionary I ordered arrived. I almost spoiled myself with my own fandom prowess!
Movie was awesome. Not perfect, but awesome. Star Wars is awesome again! I don't have to feel the weight of disappointment and defend the indefensible! The relief! Go see it...like three or four times, I know I will.
Now, I'm talking to you to explain things and tomorrow I'll finally boot up the writing laptop. One month successful, one month wasted, this is life as a writer.
Feb 1st, FM5.5, get ready! I'll be posting some previews/samples leading up to it, probably a small scene from each novella. Don't expect a full on novel, but... relevant shit happens! Yay!
Wish all the news was good, most of the news is good, just...well, I've been sick on and off since Thanksgiving. Three times. First two weren't too bad but the last one sucked whole bunches.
But, RR, you haven't updated since before Halloween!
And the reason for that at first was very good news. November 1st I went into Mad Scientist mode and finally started working on FM6. Enter a glorious two weeks were I wrote 4 chapters and began what is going to be such an awesome book. Seriously, so excited for it, just the beginning and all this cool stuff is happening. Last book I had to write chapters of drunk and mopping King Henry at this point, but THIS time the Crazy is out in full force. I can't go into more detail without spoiling you, and harping on it probably just gives you pain, so I'll stop now. Point is: having fun writing it, it's everything I expected it to be, can't wait to go back into Mad Scientist mode.
Then Fallout 4 happened...my bad. About ten days later I finally pulled myself away from one-shotting deathclaws with my gauss rifle loving AGI-LUCK build and got around to productivity again. Still haven't finished the game, it's waiting there for me, eager to steal another week of my life, but so far I've been strong.
And sick.
But first I got in the final edit on King Henry Short Pack Two. Which I'm really happy with, especially the Eva novella. There's also a Plutarch-KH conversion in it that makes me bust up laughing every time I read it. It's great stuff. It's also kind of necessary stuff. Having started FM6 and suddenly realizing how much I bring up things that happen in King Henry Short Pack Two in the beginning chapters, King Henry Short Pack Two really has become FM5.5 more than I expected it to. Maybe that's a dick move on my part, since I've never made shorts, be they 20 pages or 80 pages, required reading, but this time...you'll feel lost if you don't pick it up.
It just kind of happened to grow in the making. Hey, you put all those stories into a short pack, why not write a second short pack? Why not make it three novellas that take place after FM5 on the same day? Oh look, I accidentally wrote a short bridge novel. Hope you all will enjoy it, it will be releasing on February 1st and it will be marked as FM5.5 when I publish it.
Then Thanksgiving with Mom's White Beans and Ham instead of turkey, yummy, then moderate sickness followed by barely deserves to be called sickness, followed by Lung Rattling, Maybe I'll Die in My Sleep sickness. I can write while sick up to a certain point. I don't ever like to, especially King Henry since he requires a certain amount of swagger, but I can and I did on and off. Never Mad Scientist mode, but here and there with the editing and writing to almost finish another chapter. But I'm also asthmatic, so if something really hits me, really goes into my lungs...it's not happening. I'm a very grumpy, wheezing blob covered by blankets and surrounded by about twenty empty Kleenex boxes. No writing in sight. Unless it's a plea for help written in snot.
I finally felt decent yesterday, so I got back to the most important thing in my life...
I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens!
What?
Priorities, people. I was sick and couldn't go opening weekend! It was horrible! Had to dodge spoilers for a whole week! I barely made it. Especially when the Visual Dictionary I ordered arrived. I almost spoiled myself with my own fandom prowess!
Movie was awesome. Not perfect, but awesome. Star Wars is awesome again! I don't have to feel the weight of disappointment and defend the indefensible! The relief! Go see it...like three or four times, I know I will.
Now, I'm talking to you to explain things and tomorrow I'll finally boot up the writing laptop. One month successful, one month wasted, this is life as a writer.
Feb 1st, FM5.5, get ready! I'll be posting some previews/samples leading up to it, probably a small scene from each novella. Don't expect a full on novel, but... relevant shit happens! Yay!
October 23, 2015
Quick Notes #7
1. Following a huge burst of writing, I've finished the first draft on King Henry Short Pack Two. As has been the plan, I won't be stopping to edit it right away. One, because I like writing over edit hell. Two, the entire point of this short pack is to give me some breathing room with Amazon's algorithm punishments for not publishing for over a year.
2. King Henry Short Pack Two comes in at 60k words, or about 200 pages. Shit happens in them. It's all mainline stuff, it's all post FM5. You're going to want to read this set of stories. "Driving Miss Vicky" has T-Bone and Vicky at the Coyote Compound, or as they call it First Lie Ranch. "Shadow Running" flashes back and forth between the Lady and Evelyn Strange's attempts to save Eva Reti and the mistakes that got her into her coma. "Home is Where the Crazy Is" sees King Henry return to the Asylum, with the thought of asking Plutarch to help him with something, but ending up with lots of conversations with lots of people. No, it's not required reading, but...you'd hate yourself as a fan of the series if you skipped it. Again: shit happens. War. Peace. Death. Taxes.
3. So, I put FM6 up on the status updates. I outlined it today...the outline itself was three thousand words. I am not an in-depth outliner. This probably gives you some idea of how massive and epic this novel will be. It's going to take me awhile to write it. I've estimated it at 200k words and 32 chapters (8 of which are school story). I will probably start working on it within the next month. If I've underestimated this one then the Mancy help us.
4. Speaking of the school story...I'm really worried about the school story this time around. Epic, remember? I've always felt a need to really balance the action between the two timelines so the average reader (I'm sure there are outliers) doesn't become very annoyed by the change from one to the next. I've been a reader on occasion, I know what happens when you're reading a book, in a groove, then you get to the POV that's either not as interesting as the others or just plain dreadful. You stop fucking reading for awhile. "Guess I'll start with that crap tomorrow, shitty ass Elayne chapters!"
5. Being worried about the school story, I might have to play with it a bit more than I have in the past. Stack the school story so it ends quite a bit for the insane shit happening at the end of FM6 starts and the like. Guess we'll see what comes up when writing it all. I'm writing the mainline first this time around. So, could be months and months before I get to 18-year-old King Henry.
6. Gush is still a thing, I promise!
7. Going to try to get back to doing the editing and formatting for the print-on-demand editions early next year. I might just do FM1 first as a test and then have the others follow. One thing I'm waiting on is the "first female president will be a MILF joke" in FM2, cuz...we might have a first female president soon and ya know...the story takes place in 2018. Might have to change that joke. Or the Donald could save me...screw the rest of the country, but save me some work...so ya know...look on the bright side???
8. Time is catching up on me, I imagine as we near the end of the series the real world will pass it by and it will feel much more alt world than before. FM6 takes place six months after FM5 btw.
9. Star Wars Trailer...HOLY FUCKBALLS!!!
2. King Henry Short Pack Two comes in at 60k words, or about 200 pages. Shit happens in them. It's all mainline stuff, it's all post FM5. You're going to want to read this set of stories. "Driving Miss Vicky" has T-Bone and Vicky at the Coyote Compound, or as they call it First Lie Ranch. "Shadow Running" flashes back and forth between the Lady and Evelyn Strange's attempts to save Eva Reti and the mistakes that got her into her coma. "Home is Where the Crazy Is" sees King Henry return to the Asylum, with the thought of asking Plutarch to help him with something, but ending up with lots of conversations with lots of people. No, it's not required reading, but...you'd hate yourself as a fan of the series if you skipped it. Again: shit happens. War. Peace. Death. Taxes.
3. So, I put FM6 up on the status updates. I outlined it today...the outline itself was three thousand words. I am not an in-depth outliner. This probably gives you some idea of how massive and epic this novel will be. It's going to take me awhile to write it. I've estimated it at 200k words and 32 chapters (8 of which are school story). I will probably start working on it within the next month. If I've underestimated this one then the Mancy help us.
4. Speaking of the school story...I'm really worried about the school story this time around. Epic, remember? I've always felt a need to really balance the action between the two timelines so the average reader (I'm sure there are outliers) doesn't become very annoyed by the change from one to the next. I've been a reader on occasion, I know what happens when you're reading a book, in a groove, then you get to the POV that's either not as interesting as the others or just plain dreadful. You stop fucking reading for awhile. "Guess I'll start with that crap tomorrow, shitty ass Elayne chapters!"
5. Being worried about the school story, I might have to play with it a bit more than I have in the past. Stack the school story so it ends quite a bit for the insane shit happening at the end of FM6 starts and the like. Guess we'll see what comes up when writing it all. I'm writing the mainline first this time around. So, could be months and months before I get to 18-year-old King Henry.
6. Gush is still a thing, I promise!
7. Going to try to get back to doing the editing and formatting for the print-on-demand editions early next year. I might just do FM1 first as a test and then have the others follow. One thing I'm waiting on is the "first female president will be a MILF joke" in FM2, cuz...we might have a first female president soon and ya know...the story takes place in 2018. Might have to change that joke. Or the Donald could save me...screw the rest of the country, but save me some work...so ya know...look on the bright side???
8. Time is catching up on me, I imagine as we near the end of the series the real world will pass it by and it will feel much more alt world than before. FM6 takes place six months after FM5 btw.
9. Star Wars Trailer...HOLY FUCKBALLS!!!
September 30, 2015
Quick Notes #6
1. FM2 and FM3 have returned to their usual price at $3.99. I only saw about a 20% increase in sales and when you consider I gave up $2.35 in profit for each one to drop it down to not only a lower price but a lower royalty percentage for me...well, we won't be doing that again. It is however nice to know that once readers get hooked on the series with FM1 that the price point of the next book has little impact on whether they pick all of them up.
2. Continuing with some interesting business side stats for those of you that might be Indie authors yourself one day, I gave away about 2k worth of books this month and saw a 5% pickup rate of those possible readers becoming "fans" (people who go through and buy the second latest book in the series; since the newest book has old fans returning even this late in release it usually isn't a good idea to use it as a measuring stick ever). This is very different from people who end up picking up FM1 during a new release period, where I see 40 to 50% of them carry on through the series, which shows to me that releases are far more valuable than the vast majority of internet advertising you can do (Bookbub probably being the exception).
3. That being said...The Betrothal will be free on Amazon from October 1st to October 5th. So if you're interested in checking out the first book I ever finished writing and about exploding cushions and how exactly a hippo takes a crap, grab it then.
4. Still working on King Henry Short Pack Two. I'm pretty excited by it. It's not a full Foul Mouth book, but it has quite a bit more weight to it than a normal short has in the past. I really hope that when it is released next year, that more fans try it than usually do with the short stories, because you'll be missing out if you don't. It's three interconnecting novellas on the same day, two weeks after FM5, so calling it FM5.5 isn't really wrong to do.
5. That being said, it's not as awesome as FM6 is going to be, cuz I mean...wow...FM6. Just you guys and gals wait until you read it 5 or so years from now. Dang, what an epic book.
6. Haven't worked much on Gush, which is bad of me. Me not working on Gush is kind of Gush's history though. Eventually...one day we'll get there Ullie and Merr.
7. Foul Mouth Survey of the Month: Which of King Henry's "villains" do you HATE/DESPISE/ICKY-POO the most?
2. Continuing with some interesting business side stats for those of you that might be Indie authors yourself one day, I gave away about 2k worth of books this month and saw a 5% pickup rate of those possible readers becoming "fans" (people who go through and buy the second latest book in the series; since the newest book has old fans returning even this late in release it usually isn't a good idea to use it as a measuring stick ever). This is very different from people who end up picking up FM1 during a new release period, where I see 40 to 50% of them carry on through the series, which shows to me that releases are far more valuable than the vast majority of internet advertising you can do (Bookbub probably being the exception).
3. That being said...The Betrothal will be free on Amazon from October 1st to October 5th. So if you're interested in checking out the first book I ever finished writing and about exploding cushions and how exactly a hippo takes a crap, grab it then.
4. Still working on King Henry Short Pack Two. I'm pretty excited by it. It's not a full Foul Mouth book, but it has quite a bit more weight to it than a normal short has in the past. I really hope that when it is released next year, that more fans try it than usually do with the short stories, because you'll be missing out if you don't. It's three interconnecting novellas on the same day, two weeks after FM5, so calling it FM5.5 isn't really wrong to do.
5. That being said, it's not as awesome as FM6 is going to be, cuz I mean...wow...FM6. Just you guys and gals wait until you read it 5 or so years from now. Dang, what an epic book.
6. Haven't worked much on Gush, which is bad of me. Me not working on Gush is kind of Gush's history though. Eventually...one day we'll get there Ullie and Merr.
7. Foul Mouth Survey of the Month: Which of King Henry's "villains" do you HATE/DESPISE/ICKY-POO the most?
September 14, 2015
Quick Notes #5
1. Fuck cockroaches and black widows. Yes, the drought in Fresno has just made everything lovely with every water-seeking pest on the planet. Please, El Nino, rain, floods, whatever, just don't go Noah on our parched asses.
2. I've given away over two thousands copies of FM1 this month thanks to advertising promos, let's hope this means more super fans for you lot to play and argue with.
3. King Henry Short Pack One is selling better than I thought it would for an anthology of already released short stories, nice to see people who have stayed away from the shorts finally join the club.
4. I've been focusing on writing King Henry Short Pack Two for the last three weeks. It's about a third done, all three novellas have been started and are partially complete. As usual with my shorts (even if they're way longer than the older ones) my goal is more slice-of-life and holiday special than an epic, twist-filled adventure like with the novels themselves. Lots of world-building, lots of POVs you don't get to see when everything is from King Henry's viewpoint, more flesh and less blood.
5. Even if I finish King Henry Short Pack Two in the next month, don't expect it before 2016. I will not be stopping to edit it, but will instead be continuing the hard work on Gush and will start in on FM6. After months of real life and my brain being mush I am finally into a decent (if not amazing) writing groove this month and don't plan on interrupting it with Edit Hell.
6. Watching Netflix's Narcos (amazing series btw) while T-Bone and Vicky are in the middle of the Coyote Compound is great mood synergy!
7. Foul Mouth Survey of the Month: Who is your favorite non-KH character in the King Henry Tapes? Bonus Points for saying why!
2. I've given away over two thousands copies of FM1 this month thanks to advertising promos, let's hope this means more super fans for you lot to play and argue with.
3. King Henry Short Pack One is selling better than I thought it would for an anthology of already released short stories, nice to see people who have stayed away from the shorts finally join the club.
4. I've been focusing on writing King Henry Short Pack Two for the last three weeks. It's about a third done, all three novellas have been started and are partially complete. As usual with my shorts (even if they're way longer than the older ones) my goal is more slice-of-life and holiday special than an epic, twist-filled adventure like with the novels themselves. Lots of world-building, lots of POVs you don't get to see when everything is from King Henry's viewpoint, more flesh and less blood.
5. Even if I finish King Henry Short Pack Two in the next month, don't expect it before 2016. I will not be stopping to edit it, but will instead be continuing the hard work on Gush and will start in on FM6. After months of real life and my brain being mush I am finally into a decent (if not amazing) writing groove this month and don't plan on interrupting it with Edit Hell.
6. Watching Netflix's Narcos (amazing series btw) while T-Bone and Vicky are in the middle of the Coyote Compound is great mood synergy!
7. Foul Mouth Survey of the Month: Who is your favorite non-KH character in the King Henry Tapes? Bonus Points for saying why!
August 31, 2015
King Henry Short Pack One Released + 4th Anniversary for the Tapes
King Henry Short Pack One, the occasionally asked for anthology version with all presently released King Henry Shorts is now out! I repeat again: it has no new material. It contains "Little King Henry", "Conquering Hero", "Friendship is Madness", "Second Take", "Griefing" and "Meet the Bonnies."
If you haven't read any of the short stories, it's a great deal! Six of them in one place for only 2.99, that's 50% off buying them separately. How much content is it? About 200 pages of stuff, some in the School Story, others in the Mainline, just sprinkled around all over the place. If you're at all interested in how King Henry met T-Bone, or Vicky Welf's introduction into the series, or need to know all the details about the Spy Van Incident, it's in there, plus more.
If you have read the short stories and are a complete super fan, then thank you, first of all! Second of all, all you're getting from this is the formatting of having the stories in one file on your Kindle. Or the joy of going the extra mile to support your favorite author with 2 whole dollars. Yippie!
Linkage:
King Henry Short Pack One by Richard Raley on Amazon Kindle
As for King Henry Short Pack Two, still working on that one! Have started two of the three novellas that are going to be inside of it, so far so good. Also still working on Gush, Ullie and Merr are currently trying to find a place where they won't get stabbed to death in their sleep. Plus Real Life has struck with family and dentists and doctors and room remodeling. Updated all the old files and blurbs and stuff last night too. Writing stuff so much more fun than real life stuff. Oh...I'm currently fighting with my cat to decide if my new comfy recliner-as-writing-chair is mine or if I'm merely renting it from her.
Also still chipping away at the Print-on-Demand versions of the series. Finished the copyedits for FM1, 1/3 of the way for FM2. After that you have formatting, then me messing with Createspace, so we're getting there slowly. Hey, at least I've started, right?
Quick! Distract them with King Henry Short Pack Two Teasage:
In honor of the anniversary, I'm putting FM2 and FM3 on sale at 99 FREAKIN' CENTS each for the month of September. That's two bucks for the first three books in the series. 1000 pages of Pulpanormal, Urban Fantasy goodness! If you have friends or family who haven't made the leap, tell them to get in on the action now. Cuz that's cheap even by my standards and probably won't be happening again for a long time. I've also set up advertising runs with Ereader News Today and Freebooksy, because I have new book money and new fans are awesome.
See? I've been busy. Just not...FM6 busy. Did have a couple really awesome ideas for it though...
Now if you're excuse me, I'm sick of this "Real Life" stuff and will be going hermit for the foreseeable future. Books to finish after all! Keep all you monsters from threatening me with whips and chains and calling me a lazy fat-ass.
If you haven't read any of the short stories, it's a great deal! Six of them in one place for only 2.99, that's 50% off buying them separately. How much content is it? About 200 pages of stuff, some in the School Story, others in the Mainline, just sprinkled around all over the place. If you're at all interested in how King Henry met T-Bone, or Vicky Welf's introduction into the series, or need to know all the details about the Spy Van Incident, it's in there, plus more.
If you have read the short stories and are a complete super fan, then thank you, first of all! Second of all, all you're getting from this is the formatting of having the stories in one file on your Kindle. Or the joy of going the extra mile to support your favorite author with 2 whole dollars. Yippie!
Linkage:
King Henry Short Pack One by Richard Raley on Amazon Kindle
As for King Henry Short Pack Two, still working on that one! Have started two of the three novellas that are going to be inside of it, so far so good. Also still working on Gush, Ullie and Merr are currently trying to find a place where they won't get stabbed to death in their sleep. Plus Real Life has struck with family and dentists and doctors and room remodeling. Updated all the old files and blurbs and stuff last night too. Writing stuff so much more fun than real life stuff. Oh...I'm currently fighting with my cat to decide if my new comfy recliner-as-writing-chair is mine or if I'm merely renting it from her.
Also still chipping away at the Print-on-Demand versions of the series. Finished the copyedits for FM1, 1/3 of the way for FM2. After that you have formatting, then me messing with Createspace, so we're getting there slowly. Hey, at least I've started, right?
Quick! Distract them with King Henry Short Pack Two Teasage:
"Mostly it’s just about the fact that you have a penis and that it’s been between my legs in my precious, Welf, baby-spewing womb.”Last, it is the 4th Anniversary for the release of FM1 on September 1st! Woohoo! In that time I've gone from no fans to thousands of them! King Henry has gone from a punk who doesn't know about extended pooling to a powerful mancer on the cusp of understanding and greatness! T-Bone even got laid, how about that?
In honor of the anniversary, I'm putting FM2 and FM3 on sale at 99 FREAKIN' CENTS each for the month of September. That's two bucks for the first three books in the series. 1000 pages of Pulpanormal, Urban Fantasy goodness! If you have friends or family who haven't made the leap, tell them to get in on the action now. Cuz that's cheap even by my standards and probably won't be happening again for a long time. I've also set up advertising runs with Ereader News Today and Freebooksy, because I have new book money and new fans are awesome.
See? I've been busy. Just not...FM6 busy. Did have a couple really awesome ideas for it though...
Now if you're excuse me, I'm sick of this "Real Life" stuff and will be going hermit for the foreseeable future. Books to finish after all! Keep all you monsters from threatening me with whips and chains and calling me a lazy fat-ass.
August 3, 2015
Sky-Island Free Week + Minor Updates
As I said in my last post, Sky-Island 1827-E is free on the vast variety of Amazon sites and ereaders this week, through the 7th. So if you haven't read that book yet, now is the perfect time to get started!
Sky-Island 1827-E
Update-wise, I'm still getting my ass kicked by real life with dentist appointments for the next couple weeks. Other than that, I've been piddling about with Gush, pretty happy with where that book is headed now, and I just started a readthrough/format pass on FM1 for the eventual Print-On-Demand version that should be coming...eventually. But sooner than the old eventually, just...eventually. Mostly it's about typos and commas, but a print book's formatting obviously sits differently than an ebook, so have to deal with that too.
So if you have any typos you hate in FM1-FM5, now's the time to email me about it before I start putting the book through Createspace...eventually.
But mostly, FREE BOOK:
Sky-Island 1827-E
August 3rd through the 7th.
GRAB IT.
READ IT.
ENJOY IT.
Sky-Island 1827-E
Update-wise, I'm still getting my ass kicked by real life with dentist appointments for the next couple weeks. Other than that, I've been piddling about with Gush, pretty happy with where that book is headed now, and I just started a readthrough/format pass on FM1 for the eventual Print-On-Demand version that should be coming...eventually. But sooner than the old eventually, just...eventually. Mostly it's about typos and commas, but a print book's formatting obviously sits differently than an ebook, so have to deal with that too.
So if you have any typos you hate in FM1-FM5, now's the time to email me about it before I start putting the book through Createspace...eventually.
But mostly, FREE BOOK:
Sky-Island 1827-E
August 3rd through the 7th.
GRAB IT.
READ IT.
ENJOY IT.
