Two new e-books available: Spiked Tea and The Faulty Television Receiver

Regular readers of this blog as well as the Pegasus Pulp blog may recall that I occasionally enjoy doing writing challenges such as the eight hour fiction challenge.

I’ve been doing another writing challenge this past month, hence also the light blogging. This challenge was inspired by Dean Wesley Smith, who announced on his blog that he was planning to write one short story per day in July. This challenge was discussed on two writing groups, of which I’m a member. Initially, I didn’t expect that I’d find the time to play along. But then July 1 arrived and I had time, so I wrote a short story. And then I wrote another on July 2 and then another on July 3 and so on, until I had written 31 short stories in 31 days.

I’ll blog a bit more about my experiences doing the story a day challenge over at the Pegasus Pulp blog. However, having written 31 stories in the past 31 days also means that I have a lot of new releases coming up in the near future. Not 31, since several of the stories are very short and also thematically linked, so I’ll do themed collections.

And today, I want to announce the first release that originated with the story a day challenge, a collection of two crime shorts about family heirlooms, inheritances, tea and murder. I wrote those two stories fairly early in the challenge, which is why I’ve been able to put them through the editing and publishing process already.

So brew up a cup of your favourite tea and settle back with:

Spiked Tea
Two tales of family heirlooms, inheritances, tea and murder.

Spiked Tea

Matthew is getting tired of waiting for the cancer to finally claim his eccentric aunt Annemarie. So he decides to help nature take its course… by adding some morphine to Annemarie’s beloved tea.

The Milk Jug

It’s neither beautiful nor valuable, but the milk jug has been in Beth’s family for four generations now, passed on from mother to daughter and travelling from France via Germany to America. But when Beth brings it home to her apartment in a hipster suburb of Philadelphia, the milk jug stretches her relationship with her boyfriend Ryan to a breaking point…

More information.
Length: 4400 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Oyster, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Der Club, Libiro, Nook UK, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral, You Heart Books and XinXii.

The second new release I have to announce for today actually predates the July writing challenge, since I finished it sometime in June.

This story also marks the return of Alfred and Bertha, the troubled couple living a marvellous science-fictional life in the 21st century, whom we already met in The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg.

In many ways, this is a challenge story as well, for it was written in response to the “Not Really SF Short Story Challenge” issued by writer E.P. Beaumont.

Basically, the idea is to write a perfectly mundane short story in the clunky style of Golden Age science fiction complete with “As you know, Bob…” dialogue and overexplanation of every single bit of technology the characters interact with, no matter how mundane.

The return of Alfred and Bertha was once again inspired by a skit by brilliant German comedian Loriot, in this case Der kaputte Fernseher (The broken television), though the twist at the end is my own.

The Faulty Television Receiver
Bertha and Alfred, married for twenty years, enjoy a truly science fictional life in the twenty-first century. But in spite of all the technological marvels surrounding them, a faulty television receiver can still lead to argument and cause them to examine their marriage.

This parodistic piece is a mundane short story of 4100 words, written in the style of science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1940s and 1950s.

More information.
Length: 4200 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Oyster, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Der Club, Libiro, Nook UK, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral, You Heart Books and XinXii.