New story (and series) just started: THE HYPNO-TALKER OF ZLAR

Cover art rendered by Doug Sturk a.k.a. Sturkwurk

Instead of writing another long novel, I’m starting a series of short stories, each of which I’ll publish for three dollars. Eventually I’ll publish all the short stories in an anthology.

Here’s the basic premise:

• Aliens from the planet Zlar land their flying saucer on a suburban street, then kidnap humans for mysterious purposes. To get the humans to go onto their spaceship, the Zlarians use a handheld device that gives subliminal commands to humans.

• To be specific, the Zlarian device takes a digitally recorded spoken command, then digitally changes the pitch of the “voice” to an ultrasonic frequency. (Think “helium balloon on steroids.”) When the ultrasonic command is played back, humans don’t consciously hear the command, but they obey it.

• Kevin is an old man, an electrical engineer who, thanks to a stint in Vietnam, has high-frequency hearing loss. He is unaffected by the Zlarian technology.

• Kevin can’t stop his neighbors, Judy and Karen, from becoming mind-controlled and walking into the flying saucer. (Judy is the MILF blonde on the cover; Karen is the redhead.)

• I’m skipping lots of interesting parts of the story, because I want your three dollars!

• When the dust has settled, Kevin has written a how-to article on how to build your own hypno-talker, from parts you can buy at any well-stocked electronics store; and the article is posted to a pirate site. Anyone, anywhere in the world (provided he knows enough electronics) now can build his own hypno-talker.

Later stories will be about guys who build their own hypno-talker, and what happens when they use it.