I'm Reading Again: Here's the Proof

Well, I’m officially finished with the school semester. I got my grades turned in on Sunday and took two days pretty much completely off. Then I got back to work on some writing and it has been going well. I’ve also been doing a lot of reading and much enjoying it. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve read.

A Rip Through Time, by Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, Chad Eagleton.
From a concept created by David Cranmer.

What a great fun read this one was. A grand romp across time by four authors working in serial form, the kind of pulp adventure you don’t often see anymore. It’s no secret that I did installment two of the story, and I tell you I just loved seeing how Garnett Elliott and Chad Eagleton played off some of the ideas that I introduced into the work, just as I enjoyed playing off what Chris Holm had put into the opening chapter.

At present, this is available at Smashwords, and for the Nook.

Miles To Little Ridge, by Heath Lowrance

This is a fast paced western of novella length. The main character, Gideon Miles, was created by Edward Grainer, but here the writer Heath Lowrance takes over the reins to tell a hard hitting tale of revenge and justice. I liked the detail on this one. I found the settings and characters very believable. Good stuff.


Monsters & Mormons, Edited by WM Morris and Theric Jepson

I’ve only read one story from this collection so far, David J. West’s “Fangs of the Dragon.” I enjoyed it very much. The gunfighter, Porter Rockwell, is sent to investigate tales of a lake monster who is killing locals. He finds a wide ranging conspiracy related to the sightings, and then comes face to face with the monster itself. The results are unexpected, and cool.


I’m also reading Bolo!, by David Weber, which consists of stories about the infamous “Bolo” war machines originally created by Keith Laumer. I haven’t finished it yet but I’ve just loved the first two stories, both of which had me a little misty eyed at the end. This is the first work I’ve read by David Weber. It won’t be the last.

Time Travel and Sword and Planet Action

I’ve been needing to post this information for a while but work has been crazy this whole semester. Seems mostly I’ve been putting up holding pattern blog posts. I have a test to grade today but Monday is the last day of class and then we’ll have final exams. I’ll be incommunicado for a few days then before I get finally to Christmas break. If I’m gonna get this post up it needs to be today.

First up, the collected Simon Rip adventure, A Rip Through Time has been published from Beat To A Pulp. It’s available from Smashwords for .99 cents and that’s quite a lot of reading, over 38,000 words. You can get it there for Kindle, Epub, PDF, or various other formats. Many of you already know that this is a serialized story based on David Cranmer’s ideas and character, and that I did one of the sections. Below is a quote about the work that I took directly from the Smashwords site, and it’ll give you the writers and the titles of the various sections:

“A Rip through Time follows the time-cop's travels in a series of five short stories written by several of today's top pulp writers. Chris F. Holm opens the collection with the fast-paced "The Dame, the Doctor and the Device." Charles A. Gramlich's "Battles, Broadswords, and Bad Girls" and Garnett Elliott's "Chaos in the Stream" breathe new life into the time travel story. Bringing the saga to a gripping conclusion in "Darkling in the Eternal Space" is Chad Eagleton, who then takes it a step further with a mesmerizing coda, "The Final Painting of Hawley Exton." And for all the time-traveling enthusiasts, Ron Scheer provides an insightful essay, "Are We Then Yet," which explores the mechanics of time travel in popular fiction.”

I’ve got my copy and look forward over Christmas break to reading the whole thing together. I was so pleased to be a part of this. I much enjoyed writing my segment, and was lucky to be chosen to be among this crew of fine writers.

*****

Next up, I want to mention a new, and “illustrated” collection of Sword & Planet stories called Strange Worlds. This anthology is edited by Jeff Doten, who also did all the wonderful drawings for the work. I believe this may be the first illustrated collection of S & P stories ever. And I’m very happy to say I have a story in the collection called “God’s Dream.” I had an incredible amount of fun writing it.

You can find out more about the anthology here. There is a review of the book up at Black Gate. I will be posting more about it as I read the rest of the stories in the collection. Here's the front and back covers below:

Battles, Broadswords, and Bad Girls

I'd normally leave the last post in my "100 Books Everyone Should Read" series up a bit longer, but I have breaking news I want to share with the crew. Many of you may remember the award nominated story that Chris F. Holm set up over at Beat to a Pulp featuring Simon Rip through time. The next installment of this serial story is up now over there, and it's by yours truly. It's called Battles, Broadswords, and Bad Girls." I hope you'll check it out.

Before you read the story itself, though, you might want to check out David Cranmer's post about the story and about where it's been and where it's going. That's over at his personal website.

Thanks for tuning in.
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Rip Through Time

Some breaking news. I revealed something about the secret project I worked on this past summer in a previous post. It was a serial time travel story conceived by David Cranmer and executed by several guest writers, including me. The first installment of “A Rip Through Time” is now up online at Beat to a Pulp. This opening segment is by Chris F. Holm, so I hope you’ll check it out. My piece follows Chris’s in the story sequence. I had a lot of fun with my part, and from what Chris says here he had a lot of fun as well.

In other news, I’ve been kindlizing some old pulp stories, Doc Savage and The Shadow, for listening to on my Kindle while I make my commute to school. A problem was that the Kindle’s volume output was not enough to overcome the travel noise at much above 40 MPH. I first hooked up a set of speakers to the Kindle and used a cigarette lighter plug-in to power the whole thing, but this was pretty awkward and still didn’t produce enough volume to cover all contingencies. I finally bit the bullet and went to Mobile One on Saturday and had them put in a new radio/CD player for me with an auxiliary port, which I can plug the Kindle into directly so that it plays through my radio speakers. This is working out well. My 2005 Scion didn’t come with an auxiliary port, and I was needing a new CD player anyway so I killed two birds with one stone.

And speaking of Kindle and ebooks, sales have fallen off dramatically, (shall I say, precipitously), on my western collection, Killing Trail, so if you are hungry for some shoot outs and shoot-em-ups, please give the collection a try.


And for a final note for today, The Lovely Lana is running a contest over at her blog where you can pick up one of her great photos. Check it out.
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Secret Project Revealed

Since the (in)famous “Sheriff” Cranmer let the cat out of the bag over on Meridian Bridge, I can at last reveal something about the secret project I referred to a few times this summer. David came up with an idea for a time travel romp featuring the hard-boiled Simon Rip in a desperate race through the ages to confront the end of time as we know it. David recruited a few writers to put more flesh on Rip’s bones and the results will begin to appear as a serial on Beat To a Pulp in September.

Chris F. Holm wrote the first installment and I picked up the baton for part 2. Matt Mayo has taken over for part 3. I had a tremendous amount of fun working on this project. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken part in a serial/shared world type adventure like that and it was a great learning experience. Challenging, but fun.

I’ve read Chris’s opening but will be reading Matt’s conclusion along with the rest of you when it hits BTAP. I’m looking forward to seeing the whole thing together.

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I know I've mentioned these before, but I didn't have the cover for one of them. In a follow up to my last post, these are two recent anthologies that have stories in by me.



Here are a couple of books on writing that I read years ago but don't own copies of. I'll be looking for these soon.


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