Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Countdown: 365 Days of Flash Fiction Releases this Week

Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre it can lay its hands on. C.M. Simpson explores new worlds, new settings and lets loose some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of her head.

If short stories are your thing—and the shorter the better—you can find tiny tales from a wide variety of genres in 365 Days of Flash Fiction.

Here’s a final taste of the kinds of tales you’ll find:

Troll-Gate Guardian


Written on December 15, 2013, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece once again explores the Worlds Collide universe, and the trouble with associating with they fey.


“They have a troll.” Llew’ sounded far from pleased.
I marvelled at the lengths the queen’s enemies would go to undermine her authority, but a troll? You would have to be pretty low to do that. Still, they do say that all’s fair in love and war, and the queen had just rejected the hand of a powerful fey lord. An earl or duke or somesuch. He was the fifth in the last month. At this rate, we’d be at war with every petty noble in the fey world. I dreaded to think of what would happen when she got started on the princelings and their fathers.
I drew the bow, eyeballing the troll then adjusting for distance and the light breeze blowing across the culvert. It’s hard to see if the beast is being driven or led, but in the end I don’t care. I’ve fitted the arrow with an explosive head —don’t ask, let’s just say the local constabulary wouldn’t be too happy. The elves have augmented it with magic, so this should be fun.
Aim, allow for lead, fire.
I’m not the only one who gasps as the rejected suitor rides up alongside the troll. If the wizard riding with us hadn’t been such a quick thinker, we’d have had a real war on our hands, instead of this power skirmish. He thrusts out a hand, screaming a one-word spell, and the arrow shatters without touching the intervening lordling.
It surprises the guy’s horse, who shies away from the sharding missile, snorting and jostling the troll alongside. Course, trolls being the bad-tempered critters they are, this one takes offence and knocks the earl from his saddle. The noble steed bolts, getting clear before the troll can strike out again.
I am swearing a blue streak as I nock another arrow and raise the bow. This time no one ruins the shot by getting in between, and the troll goes down—it also goes up like a roman candle and explodes into several steaming chunks. I see movement in the shadows of the bridge and run forward. No way am I going to lose the ex-suitor to a bunch of small-and-shaggies, when I’ve just saved his ass from one of their larger cousins.
He comes round a little later and rolls unsteadily to his knees before the queen, glaring at me all the while.
“My lady, your wizard saved my life,” he says.
I roll my eyes, but his next words are like a slap to the face.
“I demand vengeance.”
I wait, not sure which way this is going to swing; the fey are so unpredictable. The queen is implacable, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“You owe me a debt.”
“I owe you my life,” he confirms, and I get the feeling some sort of ritual is being enacted before me.
“I cannot accept your suit.”
“I understand, my lady. Forgive me.”
“It was a mistake,” she continues, referring to the whole arrow-and-troll debacle. I notice she doesn’t point out it was his own damn fault.
“Payment is still due.”
“I agree.”
Uh oh. I wait. The elf noble, whatever, looks up at the queen, and I hold my breath.
“You will wed.”
He recoils. I gasp and take two steps back, bump into her head bodyguard and his 2IC. Their hands coil around my upper arms. I get the feeling they’re laughing like a pair of hyenas at my discomfort. Give the earl this, he doesn’t throw up, explode with rage, or argue. He just turns his head and looks at me. The bow slides from my fingers and I go weak at the knees.
He is beautiful, but he is also very, very angry.
“When?” he says, getting slowly to his feet, his voice cold.
“Twelve months courting,” she replies, with the slightest of smiles—damn her! She’s enjoying this far too much—“and then mid-summer. She is my strongest ally in these lands, the Sunlight-Against-the-Trolls. Midsummer is fitting for such a union.”
Midsummer is their most-celebrated day of the year. His expression changes, and he looks me over once again. Even so, his next words are carefully chosen.
“You honour me,” he says, and cannot keep the sneer from his voice, “but she is human.”
“She is a human who can wield elven magic, and who was the first to see the gates open,” the queen responds. I notice she doesn’t mention I have also wielded an elven blade, and drunk three drops of her blood.
“She is troll plagued.”
“As are all guardians against that particular form of the dark. It could be worse.”
“Not much,” he says, and sighs. “I obey, my lady.”
Then he places his fingers to his lips and whistles for his horse.
“Yeah, and I love you, too,” I mutter, as he mounts and rides away.
My two guardians start to chuckle. Soon they’re laughing too hard to hold me, and I shrug them off. I remember to make the smallest of obeisances to her trouble-making majesty and then stalk, over the iron drawbridge and back into the house.
I can shut the door against the coming dawn and the trolls fading back to their lairs. I can shut the door on the sight of my unwanted allies riding into the mist. But I cannot shut the door on the sound of the horn’s dancing silver notes as they bid me an all too temporary farewell.

365 Days of Flash Fiction is scheduled for release on October 4, 2014.


Monday, September 29, 2014

Pre-Ordering and a PROMOTION: 365 Days of Flash Fiction by C.M. Simpson

Due for release on 4 October 2014, 365 Days of Flash Fiction is now available in e-book for pre-order from Smashwords, and will shortly be available from Amazon.com.



Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre C.M. Simpson could lay her hands on. In it, she explores new worlds, new settings and some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of herhead. If short stories are your thing, and the shorter the better, there are a bunch of them to be found in this collection. Go ahead and take a look.

TO CELEBRATE: we are offering this collection at SMASHWORDS at a 50% discount until 11 October 2014.

Just use the following coupon PRIOR to completing checkout:

DG44F


Usually available for US$7.99.
 
Warning: 365 Days of Flash Fiction *does* contain some swearing.
 




365 Days of Flash Fiction is scheduled for release on October 4, 2014.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Countdown: One Week to 365 Days of Flash Fiction


Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre it can lay its hands on. C.M. Simpson explores new worlds, new settings and lets loose some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of her head.

If short stories are your thing—and the shorter the better—you can find tiny tales from a wide variety of genres in 365 Days of Flash Fiction, which releases in one week and four days’ time.

Here’s another taste of the kinds of tales you’ll find:

A Victim of the Storm


Written on December 14, 2013, and inspired by watching the arrival of a winter storm on the Russian news, and the building storm around my own home.

There is something special about winter’s first storm—the way it announces itself with a crash of thunder and suddenly dense black cloud. The swift gust of wind, hurling leaves, twigs, paper debris and the occasional branch. For me it’s the smell—the sudden icy hit of rain-soaked ozone, the scent of imminent lightning—as storm giant’s armpit as you’ll get. The birds secrete themselves in the deepest leaf tangles they can find. I should have joined them, but I was caught out in the open. Now, I ride a storm crow, and wield lightning at a storm giant’s command.


365 Days of Flash Fiction is scheduled for release on October 4, 2014.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Countdown: Two Weeks to 365 Days of Flash Fiction



Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre it can lay its hands on. C.M. Simpson explores new worlds, new settings and lets loose some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of her head.

If short stories are your thing—and the shorter the better—you can find tiny tales from a wide variety of genres in 365 Days of Flash Fiction.

Here’s another taste of the kinds of tales you’ll find:

Storm-Riding Raiders


Written on Sunday, September 15, 2013, for this collection. Another battle, but not with swords.


They came in the clouds, riding the wings of a storm. Mighty predators, they struck, driving fear deep, driving it through bone, triggering bladder and bowel, making those who faced them feel fuelled by ice with innards to match. How could we hope to face them, defeat them, when our limbs trembled and sweat slicked our weapon hands, making grips tricky.
“Your families need you to stand!”—a healthy bellow—“Archers! Fire!”
Arrows whistled, upwards-falling rain, matching them shriek for shriek. The sky turned black, and not from clouds—the second volley. The third volley brought them down, saved us.



365 Days of Flash Fiction is scheduled for release on October 4, 2014.

Friday, September 12, 2014

About Candy Cane Dancer

This post was originally featured on the Dark Side Downunder blog in March this year. Here, Ellie talks about Candy Cane Dancer, the first in her Downtown Wizards and Weres series. This is what she had to say to the questions asked at the time:



Can you, in less than five words describe your book/story Candy Cane Dancer?

No, but I can do it in six: erotic, explicit, captivity, dubious consent, disturbing

Who is your favourite character in this book? Or Who would you get to play your hero / heroine in a movie?
     
      This is always a hard question to answer. I like my werewolf captain and Rajanigandha, the nagini. I also like the slightly deluded and hopeful Martinette, but I think my favourite character has to be Selene, the margot fairy who was meant to be the central character to this novel. She has the immortality of fairies, but has grown to care for those around her in a way that many fairies don’t—and certainly not the Scottish fey. Overcoming her fear of werewolves to acknowledge her attraction to the werewolf captain heading the hunt for the serial killer stalking the club, is just one example of her ability to adapt. Preparing to face down the killer is an example of her courage. She deserved a romance of her own, but ended up sharing a dark tale of erotica with the enemy she had to hunt, and did so very graciously.
      
      What inspired you to write it?

I think the inspiration came while I was while reading a book on different kinds of fairies (which I cannot find and cannot remember the title of – frustrating, as I want to buy it for my bookshelf). Anyway, there was a section about a German fairy called a margot who loved to dance and adored sweets, and a section about an evil male sea fairy who played beautiful music and then killed his victims, trapping their souls in a bottle. I was, at the time, writing a piece about a werewolf-run gentleman’s club (not based around pole dancing) and decided to have another club in the locality where dancing was the feature, because what else would a margot fairy be doing in modern times (and don’t say Swan Lake, although that is an idea). The sea fairy became a threat to the dance club, and the story kind of grew from there, but not with the margot as the main focus as I had originally planned. This tale ended up a lot darker than I originally intended, metamorphosing into a tale of erotica and suspense, as opposed to the erotic romantic suspense I originally intended to write.

Excerpt (abridged to remove the naughtiest bits)

“Are you a vampire?” Martinette asked, feeling her face rapidly lose its look of lazy post-coital contentment. “You should have told me.”
“Then there’d have been no surprise,” Hubert replied, shifting to wrap an arm around her shoulders, and crushing her to his chest. She wrapped her arms around him and arched against him.
“Are you going to kill me now?” she asked.
“No, but you live because I want you to dance for me, again,” he murmured, letting his lips brush her ear lobe. He shifted against her. Martinette gasped, but it wasn’t one of protest.
“So, you’ll kill me later?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I am growing fond of you.” He slowly laid her on the floor and she pillowed her head on one arm and gazed up at him. Her expression showed confusion and pleasure, and just a little fear, the emotions rushing across her face as he started again, letting her feel how her body reacted to his, seeing the moment when she thrust the fear aside to accept the pleasure he offered. That acceptance was flavored by apprehension when he spoke again. “Don’t make me change my mind.”
He dipped his mouth to the small tear he’d made at the base of her throat and licked it, raising his head, so she could see her blood on his lips.
“You taste good,” he said, watching her eyes widen half in horror, and half in surprise, “and there’s a large part of me that wants to drain you dry, but I like your body. I love the way you move it when you dance, and I love the way you feel.”
He propped himself on his elbows so he could watch the battle of emotions raging across her face. One part of her couldn’t resist the purely physiological reaction her body was having to his, one part of her fascinated that she could be enjoying something with a creature like him, and one part terrified of what he might do next.
“I’m going to let you live just a little while longer,” he said. “How much longer is up to you. I love the way you dance. Say you’ll dance for me, Martinette. Say you want to live.”
He saw the moment she gave in to her desire to survive.
“I’ll dance for you,” she whispered, and as she relaxed beneath him, he gently tilted her head sideways and drank.
She tasted divine, but Hubert knew he had to stop, that the rest of his hunger would have to be sated by the salmon and reef fish he’d had his servants prepare. It was a hard-fought thing. He desperately wanted more, to drain her dry as he had the dancer he’d taken two nights ago, to feel her death throes as he rode her over the edge and desecrated her still-warm corpse.
Martinette was lucky he loved the way she responded to his music. She was lucky she could make him jealous of the pole on his private stage. She was lucky she drew him in a way he could not explain. As much as he didn’t want to acknowledge it, for the first time in a century Martinette, his flame-haired dancer, made him feel something for his intended prey. And it felt good.
Slowly standing, Hubert gave a soft whistle, summoning his servants.
“Care for her,” he ordered. “Give her private quarters and see to her comforts. Feed her like a queen, for she has my heart.”
Even as the words left his mouth, Hubert was surprised to find they were true.
With a small smile of surprised satisfaction, he returned to his chair and retrieved his flute. While he often travelled without it, tonight he wanted it nearby, at least until he went hunting. There were other dancers at the Candy Cane.