Inkshares Update: January 7th, 2021
It’s been eight months since my last update and I keep clicking my heels together and still flying monkeys rain down upon us spewing their virulent exhortations. Anyway, without rehashing the obvious that we’re all living, I did want to bring to your attention that Dean Fearce hasn’t given up. MINE is at this point in time still a viable work in progress and I thank you one and all for your patience and support. If something truly remarkable changes in the manuscript’s status, you will be the first to know. But do know this: I’ve produced another one-hundred thousand words in a single document and they are far better with more amazing characteristics than any previous thousands upon thousands of words I’ve strung together, creating multitudinous documents before they went to their final resting place at the bottom of a litter box. Requiesce in pace. But, that’s just my opinion so we shall wait upon the prophecy as foretold by the man behind the curtain to reveal the true nature of such a thing. You see, writing is easy. Creating delightful characters is harder. Stringing chapters together with continuity and a plot line that serves those characters with an arc that truly delivers them somewhere over the rainbow is harder still. I won’t even bring up those wicked witch revisions. And yes I do go on. It amuses me. I do so hope it amuses you but I still have my day job in any event. Hope you are safe and healthy and I love you all. Now go follow those writers in the 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest. Oh-Ee-Yah! Ee-Oh-Ah!

Hello friends. Exciting news today! My new short story, Reliquary, is available now as part of Writing Bloc’s Passageways anthology. This exciting new collection features short stories by nine brilliant authors, each one a brand new addition to a different, expertly crafted fictional universe. These nine stories are ambassadors and tour guides, here to introduce you to vast, intricate worlds, each delicately formed with the utmost care by its author. You’ll find an excellent selection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror tales here, and I could not be prouder to have Reliquary number among them. 

What is Reliquary, you ask? Reliquary is the newest story from my own anthology series, The Calling Void. That’s right, my series has an official name, now! The Calling Void is the dark, hard sci-fi universe of my previous two short stories, Breach and Countermeasures, and my upcoming novels Tantalus Depths and Proteus. 

 Reliquary explores new locations and concepts in this universe, as we make our first visit to Showalter: the first and only planet yet discovered that can sustain human life. We are also introduced to the Aftothysian movement: a radical group of extremists who oppose interplanetary colonization of any kind, and are willing to go to grim and desperate extremes to stop humanity’s expansion into the stars. They have recently acquired their greatest and most terrifying asset yet: the Biscayne Relic. A unique piece of technology created by the near-omnipotent AI that almost destroyed the Earth during the apocalyptic Corsica Event most of a century ago, the terrible destructive potential of the Biscayne Relic cannot be underestimated. But the Aftothysians are not the only ones with an interest in the Biscayne Relic. Nor are they the greatest threat to humankind. 

You can read Reliquary right now in Passageways right here on Kindle or right here on paperback. I look forward to sharing this exciting new adventure with you, and many more very soon!