Spring Read an Ebook Week Coming Soon

I’m excited to announce ALL OF MY BOOKS will be promoted as part of a special sale on @Smashwords to celebrate Read an Ebook Week 2024 from March 3-9. Be sure to follow me for more updates and links to the promotion for my books and many more! #ebookweek24 #Smashwords

To see all the books I have on sale, click on the Ebooks on Smashwords tab at the top of this post or click this link https://mgddasef.blogspot.com/p/ebooks-on-smashwords.html

https://smashwords.com/shelves/promos

Free Short Stories

FREE EBOOK 2/23-27

Mixed Bag 2: Supersized is packed full of short stories which were published somewhere and sometime in the past 14 years. Here's a sample to get you started. Hey! It's free. What have you got to lose?

No Deposit, No Return

Literary Science Fiction/Horror

Originally published in Diddledog Flash Fiction

The woman in the black trench coat darted her eyes down the darkened alley. The smell of the overripe dumpster turned her stomach. Her nausea came not only from the rotted food odor, but from her already nerve-twisted guts.

“Did you get it?” she whispered to the man.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. Piece of cake.” He reached inside his jacket, withdrawing a small package no bigger than the palm of his hand.

She reached for it, but the man jerked it back.

“The money first.”

She took an envelope from her purse and held it out. The man pushed the package toward her and grabbed the envelope at the same moment she snatched the brown-paper-wrapped container.

“I don’t know why you want this, lady. It creeps me out,” the man said, as he thumbed through the hundred-dollar bills in the envelope.

Without another word, the two parted, the woman toward the far end of the alley and the man back to the street.

* * *

Nine months later, the woman named Karla lay in a hospital bed, staring at the newborn in the crib beside her. She and her boyfriend, Curt, had planned every detail. The demand for ten million dollars went with a tissue sample, a simple scraping from inside the child’s mouth. It would take some time for the family to check that the baby’s DNA came from the dead man, but when they got the results, the money would surely follow.

The billionaire died without an heir, despite marrying a young trophy wife in a last, desperate attempt for progeny. She put him off until it was too late.

* * * For the Rest of the Story, Get the Free Ebook 2/23-2/27 * * *

This story and a bunch more are all available in "Mixed Bag 2: Supersized." The book is free on Amazon from February 14th - 18th. One whole week of free reading if you haven't got a date.

Gung Hay Fat Choy - Year of the Dragon

Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) happens this year on Saturday, February 10, 2024. This year ushers in the year of the Dragon! What is the Lunar New Year, and who celebrates this holiday? What does the dragon symbolize, and what is your special animal symbol? Learn more.

When Is the Lunar New Year?

Lunar New Year begins on the date (in East Asia) of the second new Moon after the winter solstice, which always occurs in late December. This means that the first day of the Lunar New Year can occur anytime between January 21 and February 20. 

In 2024, the second new Moon will occur in China on Saturday, February 10, marking the start of a new lunar year.

What Qualities Does the Dragon Represent?

Those born in the Year of the Dragon are believed to be ambitious, energetic, and charismatic, often inspiring others with their passion and enthusiasm. They are considered to be natural leaders, confident and unafraid to take risks, making them magnetic personalities in social and professional circles.

How Is the Lunar New Year Celebrated?

As with many winter solstice celebrations, the symbolic darkness of night is banished by the light of fireworks, lanterns, and candles. Man-made paper lanterns are hung by the hundreds in public areas, bringing good luck to the new year.

There are dragon dances, performances, and festival parades with music and acrobatics. The festivities continue for two weeks, finishing with a special lantern festival, which signals the end of the New Year celebration period.

“Good Luck” is also a common theme of the New Year. Many children receive “lucky money” in red envelopes. Sometimes, offerings are made to temples. 

People clean their homes and open their doors to let good luck enter. According to tradition, no one should pick up a broom in case you sweep the good luck for the New Year out of the door!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Much of this material came from other sources describing the Lunar New Year. Mainly, the Farmer's Almanac's article by Catherine Boeckmann provided most of the words.

Ultimate Duty - Space Opera, Exploding Ships, Hot Sex

Re-edited and formatted properly, ULTIMATE DUTY is now available on Amazon re-issued by me. I think the $3.99 price point is much more reasonable than the out-of-contract but still being sold edition from Eternal Press. Giving fair warning you'll be seeing some promo stuff on this new edition.

Ultimate Duty
A military officer must choose between her sworn duty or her rebellious blood ties.

Remy Belieux, a woman born into a life of servitude on a repressive factory planet, is desperate for a different life. When she's accepted into the Space Service Academy, run by the organization that enslaves her planet, she discovers the truth behind generations of rebellion. Now, she must decide what to believe, where her ultimate duty lies, and fight for more than her life against impossible odds.

Available on Amazon for only $3.99. I actually get a few cents if you use this option.

I'VE GOT EPUB, MOBI, AND PDF. IF I LIKE THE CUT OF YOUR JIB, SELECT THIS BLANK SPOT XR78X TO SHOW A FREEBIE COUPON CODE FOR BOTH FIRST DUTY* AND ULTIMATE DUTY AT SMASHWORDS. OKAY, YOU DON'T REALLY HAVE TO SHOW ME YOUR JIB.

* First Duty is the PG version of the R-rated Ultimate Duty.

Excerpt

One day, Remy spotted a small ship where it had no good reason to be. “Sir, we have a blip heading toward the planet. Its course isn’t on the prescribed jump route within this planetary system.”

Captain Micah glanced at Remy, then spoke to the communications officer. “Hail the ship.” The radioman worked for a few seconds. “I can’t locate their frequency, sir.”

The Captain stared through the view screen at the rapidly receding ship. “Try a broad-range hail. Tell them to stand down.” He glanced toward the communications station. “Any luck?”

“No, sir. I don’t think they have their ears on, at least in the usual frequencies.”

The ship shot away from the Excalibur and Remy tracked its course. “It’s heading for that planet. It’s not classified as habitable.”

Captain Micah opened ship-wide communications. “Captain Micah here. Crew, go to battle stations. This is not a drill.” He looked at the pilot who punched in coordinates for a wide turn toward the fleeing ship.

Remy’s stomach tightened as the klaxon alarms alerted the entire ship to ready for attack. Disappointment replaced tension as she watched the ship reach the small planet and circle behind the lifeless orb. We’ve lost it!

“Coward should stay and fight,” grumbled an ensign near Remy. She glanced his way and hushed him, tilting her head toward the captain. “Pay attention.” The ensign’s cheeks flared in embarrassment.

“Ahead slow,” the captain ordered. “This could be a trap. Put us into high orbit and extend all scanners to maximum range and power.” Excalibur edged its way slowly around the airless planet thousands of kilometers below.

“I’ve got him, sir!” a crewman reported. “A single blip on the short-range scanner.”

Remy added the short-range display to a corner of her own screen and saw the flickering dot representing the fleeing ship. She grinned. “Gotcha!” But nothing else appeared in range. She hoped they might get some action now, even if only the capture of a small ship.

“All right. Take us in slow,” the captain replied. The pilot cut back power and brought the ship around to the planet’s far side. The small ship came into view, hovering in a stationary orbit.

“Hail them.” Again, the ship didn’t respond, and the captain gestured to the pilot to move in. Remy turned her scanners toward the planet surface, searching for any activity. Seeing nothing, she switched to thermal scan. Out of nowhere a red-hot dot appeared on the screen, then another. “Captain, I’m getting heat signatures moving near the surface.”

Captain Micah glanced her way, not expecting to hear from the long-range scanning console. “What do you have, Lieutenant?”

“Ten, no, twelve, maybe more heat signatures. Nothing bigger than a cutter, and they’re all in motion. It looks like they’re coming out of a fissure. I don’t detect any structures.”

Remy feared her warning came too late to do any good. Excalibur was fast, once it got moving but, like most ships its size, not very maneuverable this close to a planet.

The smaller ships exploded from the surface. Too fast for normal takeoff velocity, the tiny vessels clearly had a lot of extra power. It was a dangerous move since it’d be easy to lose control traveling way over the limits for the small ships. But it worked.

Some attackers split to flank the cruiser on both sides. Two of them took station above and two below the ship, while two more moved to the stern, effectively surrounding the cruiser. The engineers had designed Excalibur, like most ships in its class, as a pursuit ship, with most of its weapons aimed forward. They could only fire on the ships facing them until the gunners brought the smaller, less effective peripheral weaponry to bear.

Captain Micah glanced at his display. “Weapons, recalibrate for port and starboard, max angle. Fire at will.”

The bridge crew cheered when a burst of laser fire destroyed one of the ships. Metallic fragments drifted outward from the single brief flash of the exploding drive.