Print-on-Demand now available for C.M. Simpson: Short Stories and Poems from 2012

C.M. Simpson: Short Stories and Poems from 2012 is now available in both normal-print and large-print versions from CreateSpace. This collection includes the contents of the four anthologies released in 2012. In print-on-demand this is the equivalent of a two-for-one deal, with extra content thrown in. In e-book version its four-for-three with extra content. Check it out :-)

New Release: C.M. Simpson: Short Stories and Poems from 2012

This is a collection of all the short stories C.M. Simpson published and wrote in 2012. Many of these pieces can be found in earlier anthologies or on C.M. Simpson’s blog, but some have not previously been published. Genres range from paranormal urban fantasy to dark fantasy to space opera and comedic science fiction and magic realism. With tales ranging from her earliest years of writing to more recent times, this collection showcases one writer’s exploration of the worlds in her head and outside it.

This collection contains all short stories and poems included in An Anthology of Battle, An Anthology of Dragons, An Anthology of Those Who Walk Among Us, and An Anthology of Worlds, as well as previously unpublished content.

This collection is currently available from Smashwords and DriveThruFiction.

Published on: June 29, 2013

First Pages: Screams for the Dying by C.M. Simpson

Screams for the Dying is the fifth and final short story to be found in An Anthology of Worlds. It is also available as a stand-alone short story.

Screams for the Dying is a short science fiction story that blends myth, fantasy and science fiction. In the time in which this short story is set, banshees and star ships are real, and so are a lot of other things.

Screams for the Dying is available as part of An Anthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Page: Screams for the Dying

 I had lived here from childhood to my thirtieth year but, in spite of the wattle dancing on the breeze and the eucalyptus-scented air that brushed across my skin, I knew I no longer belonged. My nostrils remembered the faint fizz of Kelfa blossoms from the sun-drenched planet of Bolan, and my eyes recalled the darkness of subterranean living on the asteroid of Quorbet.

Now, as I stood, again, beneath the gold-flecked grey of the acacia and stared at the red earth of my home, I felt my homecoming a farce and found myself cursing the accurate wisdom of another older than myself.

I had doubted her when she said that few who had wandered as long as I had, could retain the links to the lands of our birth. It had been the truth.

I was different now. I had learnt so much. I had discovered the truth of legends and the reality behind fairy tales.

I knew there were creatures for whom death was but a step in the cycle of life, another stage in their own strange metamorphosis. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, the fey; all were real. I no longer doubted the existence of banshees.

I had disbelieved that the banshee’s wail meant death, only to discover it true, and I had also found that not all impending death compels the creatures to scream.

Take the man now walking towards me, his dark face a picture of anxiety as he searches for his daughter. She has been missing for just over an hour. I know where she is hidden, but I will not tell him. He is about to die and, if he finds her now, she will die with him. I have discovered that banshees suffer prescience to a merciless degree, but never when they need it. 

The explosion comes. I hear it as a dull ‘crump’ above us. Red rock hurtles through the air. It swarms as helplessly as ameleorites in a solar wind. I will be showered by pebbles and sharp shards. He is buried beneath a boulder. Someone comes.

END EXTRACT

If you'd like to read more, Screams for the Dying is available as part of An Anthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Pages: Nettlefold Princess by C.M. Simpson

Nettlefold Princess is the fourth short story to be found in An Anthology of Worlds. It is also available as a stand-alone short story.

A single gold coin shines on the pavement, but no one except me seems to have noticed it. I watch it, hoping someone will take it and claim it as their own. Needing someone to take it. Please take it.

Nettlefold Princess is available as part of AnAnthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Page: Nettlefold Princess

Nettlefold Hollow took its name from the myriad nettles that grew there. Stinging nettles mingled with greater and lesser nettles as well as wood and hedge nettles. Clambering amongst the rocks and mingling with clumps of grass or peeking from beneath the blackberries, the nettles dominated the hollow. With emerald leaves, highlighted in silver and dripping diamonds from the morning dew, the nettles were beautiful… until some unwelcome visitor brushed against them. Rumors of fairies were rife.

At first, no one lived in Nettlefold Hollow. No one even lived near it. No one visited it or traveled through it. No one. Even when settlers came and built farms, people left Nettlefold Hollow alone. When the farms grew into a small town, people stayed well away. It was only when the small town grew into a large town that the developers moved in.

Nettles can’t hurt bulldozers, and fairies fare poorly against cold iron and steel. Within a few short months, the suburb of Nettlefold Hollow was born.

New houses with green roofs sparkling in the morning dew lined the streets. Roses bloomed where white nettle flowers once ruled. Neatly trimmed lawns replaced the jostling tangle of blackberries. Not one fairy was seen welcoming the brightly painted garden gnomes.

People came to the Hollow and shattered the quiet with the sound of cars, buses and children. Moving vans brought whole families to settle there. Dogs and cats took over from squirrels and raccoons as the dominant animals in the valley. The Hardangers with their pet cocker spaniel were the first family to arrive.

They said nothing of fairies, or nettles, but their garden was wilder than most. This was more because they were too busy doing other things to care for it, than any other reason. On the weekends, Mr. Hardanger made pottery, and Mrs. Hardanger brewed herbal remedies. During the week they worked in the office towers in the center of town. 

Their daughter, Amity, had the darkest hair and bluest eyes of all the girls on her street. She went to school on the bus, and rode the internet at night. She did not roam the Hollow once the sun had set. When asked why, she said the shadows freaked her out, that something moved within them.

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If you would like to read more, Nettlefold Princess is available as part of AnAnthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Pages: Finders-Keepers by C.M. Simpson

Finders Keepers is the second short story to be found in An Anthology of Worlds. It is also available as a stand-alone short story.

A single gold coin shines on the pavement, but no one except me seems to have noticed it. I watch it, hoping someone will take it and claim it as their own. Needing someone to take it. Please take it.

Finders Keepers is available as part of AnAnthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Page: Finders-Keepers

The two-dollar coin lay on the pavement, shining. Its golden surface gleamed beneath the sun, casting a knife-edged wedge of shadow where it touched the concrete.

I sat on a bench at the bus stop and watched the coin shine. I watched the different shoes walking past it and hoped someone would take it. No one had, yet.

A mother wheeling a pram paused, the front of the pram casting enough shadow to block the sun from the coin. I wondered if anyone else saw how the coin shone despite the shade. The mother hadn't.

A pepper-haired, wiry-coated terrier noticed the coin. It paused, in lifting its leg on a nearby wall, and growled, its wiry coat standing more on end than usual. Growl over, object intimidated, the terrier finished placing its mark and trotted away. Its wiry hair remained spikier than usual, but it didn't look back.

I sighed. Even the terrier would have done.

The mother with the pram didn't notice the still-shining coin. She was too busy reading the timetable pasted beneath the glass of the bus shelter. Satisfied with the whens and the whiches of buses, she walked away. Her baby gurgled at me as she passed, but I ignored it, knowing it would do me no good to tuck the offending currency into its pram. I continued to stare despondently at the coin.

Behind me, from the post office, I heard the clock strike, and counted the chimes. One, two, three. Good, three o'clock. That meant there’d soon be children on the street. Bigger children, I mean, than the one in the pram. Children who were likely to pounce on the sparkling bounty on the pavement. I needed only wait a little longer, and my trials would be over.

A bus arrived, pulling up beside the shelter with a hiss of brakes and a sigh. The bus driver looked at me to see if I was interested in his bus. I wasn't, so I looked deliberately away. He... 

END EXTRACT

If you want to read more, Finders Keepers is available as part of AnAnthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.