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What we have this issue:
Just click on the title to take you to the story
Soul Stealer by Martin Turton
History Repeats Itself by Chad Weiss
No Vacancy by Gustavo Bondoni
There Is No Sin by Pembroke Sinclair
The Stragglers by Frank Roger
Daydreams by Fran Jacobs
The Hit by Mark Wolf
an Initiate by Lindsey Duncan
Whispers in Amber by David McGillveray
Left-Right-Center Boom by Matt Bowers
The Missionary by Garrett Calcaterra
Alien on the Edge by Guy Belleranti
The Marked Man by Guy Belleranti
Star Crossed by Ursula Warnecke
Rainy Season by Nyki Blatchley
Online vote winner for favorite author 2008
Elliot Richard Dorfman
Adonis and the Witch by Tala Bar
Charcoal Tip by Mr. Curtis Lee
see what Holmes has to say about these brave souls attempts to tease, tantalize or torture him with their writing skills. It's done for fun, learning and free!
IISSN NO 1942-4450 ONLINE EDITION
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Issue No. 8- October-November- December 2009
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"SFNovelist.com" at http://www.sfnovelist.com
SFNovelist.com is the premier Internet-based critique group for writers of "hard science" science fiction novels. We have SF writers from all over the world who focus on writing novels of hard science SF, where the science is believable, with a wink toward FTL (faster than light travel), time travel, and a few others. Specifically excluded are SF Fantasy or SF Horror. The minimum length of the "completed" work must be over 17,500 words. Submissions may be smaller if they are chapters of the overall work.
http://www.crayne.com/markets.htm
"Victory Page for Fiction Writers"
at http://www.crayne.com
Polish your novel to make it more salable! Are you having difficulty getting someone to review chapters of your novel, someone who will give you professional level feedback? Someone who can be your personal writing coach to help you write a better novel?
-- Victory Crayne, Independent Editor, Writing Coach, Ghostwriter, Public Speaker
Look here for other online magazines, critique groups, writing help sites and more...link to Ralan or Duotrope, as well as other valuable sites.
What's in the October 2009 print issue?
C L Rossman- The Old Hunter- another adventure with the space faring tausche hunters.
Lee Clark Zumpe- The Black Tide- a fantasy adventure that explores the realms of the unknown.
Robert E Keller- Breathing Space- who can resist a story about a haunted house?
Paul Williams- The Soul Collectors- aliens who can save a life- but at what cost?
TS Rider- Lost in the Labyrinth- fantasy involving a mythological maze and family secrets.
Richard Marsden- The Traveling Tyrant- an evil ruler makes a dangerous bargain to reclaim his planet.
Kenneth Goldman- Swing A Sparrow on a String- living in a perfect world isn't always so perfect afterall.
Richard Zwicker- Late Programming- a future that holds little promise as we give up too much humanity.
Todd Hunter- Profit and Loss- join Aston West as he learns the bitter lessons of ill gotten gains.
V.Ulea- Death of a Star- mythology mixes with fantasy in this short offering of stellar porportions.
Another unique comic from Ivy Reisner and John Collins as Light Bulb Man returns with a knee slapping adventure!
More wonderful cartoons by Randy Glasbergen
Trivia
And- learn how you can send a message or a greeting to a loved one, friend, or family member in a future issue for only $25.00. Birthday greetings. Congratulations. Or just hello- and have the issue mailed to the address of your choice. contact us for details. what a deal! A special message and a copy of the print issue for one great price! editorgvm@live.com
The GAMs kept closing.
In spite of her terror, Joanne retained enough presence of mind to release countermeasures, but they didn't help.
At fifty-six thousand, Johnny knew he wasn't going to get away. He was going to die on his very first combat mission. The missiles were twelve seconds back and still closing. There wasn't even time to eject safely. He felt suddenly angry. And disappointed. What would his mother think when she got the news that he died his first time out? And that bastard Dunn — another Lincoln killed in action. This would make his freaking day.
Then Johnny's instincts took over and he forgot his fear. He killed his rockets, rolled inverted, and fired them again, diving headfirst toward the ground at mach 4, right back into the sights of more Sirian gunners. Joanne let loose a strangled scream, but the G forces prevented her from doing more.
The PulsarFighter dove right out from under two of the missiles before they could track. The third was coming at a flatter angle, and Johnny did a corkscrew as he leveled out. He began to twist and spiral, changing direction constantly at high G. The missile tried to match, but Johnny continued to evade, turning faster than the missile could adjust.
After forty seconds he climbed again, at a forty-degree angle. The two missiles he'd left up high were diving back down, searching for him.
He kept it up for over a minute, until all three missiles were miles behind and finally lost their fix. They eventually fell back into the mountains where they exploded on Sirian territory.
Johnny felt weak. His heart still hammered from the close call, his mouth so dry his tongue seemed stuck to his lips. He had the awful feeling that he could use at least an hour in the head.
Checking his nav holo, he wasn't sure of his position, especially in relation to the rest of the squadron. By now several more pairs of PFs would have hit the target, but where were Onja and Tommy?
* * *
Flying strictly on jets, Tommy Royal had pulled up to twenty-six thousand feet, closely monitoring his cockpit sensors and taking readings from his AI. It quickly became apparent that his problems weren't over; not only had the port rocket engine failed, but his port jet engine had also sustained damage. It was still turning, but the temperature had risen alarmingly. Tommy gritted his teeth and began to sweat. He leveled off at thirty thousand and babied his engines, flying back into the rainstorm to cool the portside jet. As yet he was still unaware of Johnny's problems.
But Onja was aware of them. Her VR holo showed Johnny's sudden desperate climb, and she could see why — three GAMs were after him, and Onja felt her heart stop. If he was triangulated …
She wanted to call out to him, but years of experience told her he had his hands full — he didn't need advice from a spectator. Instead she watched silently, following him electronically, and prayed to every god and goddess she knew of. She saw him elude the first two and then begin his twisting, dodging run to safety from the third.
She didn't see how it ended, for at that moment her own alarms went off. Swinging around to her other holo, she saw a GAM streaking up from the surface after her and Tommy.
"Incoming, Tommy!"
Tommy already knew; his HH showed the rapidly closing missile. He quickly forgot about babying his engine and banked hard left, away from the GAM, jamming maximum throttle to both jets. He managed to make mach 2.2, but that was all. He climbed, but the GAM was still closing. He turned and dove again, turning left, trying to keep the damned thing behind him. If he turned the other way, the missile would cut him off, so he kept bearing left, watching the temperature climb into the red on the port engine.
"This isn't looking too good, Major!" he reported tersely. "You better stand by to eject!"
"I'm not ejecting over Sirian territory," she told him bluntly. "I'll go down with the ship first."
"Better to get captured than to get killed!" he said.
"There's a price on my head, Tommy. You know what they'll do to me."
"I know. But they won't kill you. I don't want you to die, Onja."
"Then outrun that missile!"
He tried. He really tried. As the warhead approached ever closer he lit the starboard rocket, letting it push him to the left. At least it was pushing him away from the GAM.
But it wasn't enough. To outrun one of those things you needed both rockets, and it didn't hurt to have a good head start. Thirty thousand feet wasn't much of a lead.
* * *
"Joanne, can you pick out the Major's fighter?" Johnny asked as he skimmed the tops of the clouds at forty-three thousand. "We need to form up on them."
There was a brief hesitation, then his gunner's voice came back, fraught with tension.
"They're about ninety miles dead ahead, Johnny! God, it looks like they've got one after them, too! They're evading, but it's gonna get them!"
Johnny's heart froze, and he increased thrust on his rockets. Five seconds later he saw them burst out of the clouds thirty miles ahead, a single plume of rocket exhaust gleaming in the sunlight. He frowned; why weren't there two rocket exhausts? He began to climb after them, closing the range to twenty miles.
Johnny saw Tommy climb to sixty thousand, staggering to the left in a steady slow turn, depending on a single rocket engine. He also saw smoke trailing from the port side. The jet engine was billowing black smoke, and then he knew they'd taken some kind of damage on their attack run.
"Look out, Johnny! The missile ... "
He saw it through the cockpit window on the left, a pencil line of white exhaust as it leaped out of the clouds and continued to pursue his flight leader …
… as it continued to pursue Aunt Onja.
Johnny saw the weapon's incredible speed and intuitively realized that Tommy Royal wasn't climbing nearly fast enough. He didn't have a prayer of outrunning that thing. In fifteen seconds, maybe twenty …
Johnny made no conscious decision. Without warning he veered hard left, into the path of the rising GAM. He passed across its trajectory, within five thousand feet, then jammed jets and rockets to maximum thrust, driving everything past the red line, ignoring his AI's squawks of protest. Joanne's gasp over his headset told him she realized what he was doing, but there was no time to worry about her. Right or wrong, he'd done it, and there was no taking it back.
Now he had to fly.
John Bowers would like to thank everyone for making his first novel a best-seller. A Vow to Sophia has set sales records for AKW Books and remains at the top of the list.
His second novel is now available for sale.
The Fighter Queen
You can find it at: http://www.akwbooks.com/BookStore/product.php?productid=17
----an excerpt from the novel is below:
Other recommended sites that you might enjoy....
New Myths-at newmyths.com you can find Fiction Poetry Non-Fiction Artwork With biographies of more than fifty artists, poets, and writers.
Editor: Scott T. Barnes
Scott grew up on a farm in Julian, California where his family raised apples and flowers. After living all over the world and engaging in several mini-careers, Scott finally got enough self-discipline to sit down every week and write. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop, 2008 and has published short stories in more than a dozen magazines. He began New Myths with the dual purpose of giving writers a paid venue for their writing and for a little, gulp, self-promotion. His complete autobiography can be found at www.scotttbarnes.com (three ts).
Assistant Editor: Victory Crayne
Victory Crayne is a professional independent editor for novels and memoirs at http://www.crayne.com, with clients from all over the world. She writes science fiction, having completed two novels and 30 short stories, is the president of SFNovelist.com at http://www.sfnovelist.com, and is active in several local writers groups.
Abandoned Towers Magazine- Abandoned Towers is a unique magazine which provides a wide range of high quality, enjoyable reading material, audio stories, video clips and entertainment. Our online version provides a nice mixture of classic, public domain material and brand new, never
before published material, with a sprinkling of enjoyable reprints thrown in for spice.
Abandoned Towers magazine is published in two ways:
Online, which is free
Print, which is not free
Crysalwizard- Editor (see our featured author section and scroll down)
One of these days we're going to find out that "organic" is just Latin for "more expensive."
Our Unusual Alien Lifeforms Contest ends November 15th.
visit our Contest page for details. Only the top three stories that place will be notified. Winners will be listed online December 15th.
Our January print issue will be huge! Not only will we have our Unusual Alien Life Forms contest winners- we will have a special surprise for you. SFNovelists (an amazing group of extremely talented authors) has offered us a unique opportunity to publish one of their writing exercises- which turned out to be a pretty darn good story! Fourteen writers contributed to this effort, and I think you will all be delighted with the results.
Along with several new writers, as well as some old favorties, we are putting together one totally awesome magazine (radical, far out man, way kewl- for those of you into the older lingo) New stories, online vote winners (three this time) and of course our cartoons, trivia and fun facts are sure to make reading this issue a thrilling adventure. Pre-orders will be accepted beginning December- and you will save big by ordering the January issue early! It may be your last chance to get your hands on one of our print issues for at least six months or more- as the print version will be going into hiatus for about 6-9 months. Our online issue will continue as normal- and free- as it always is! We also are changing our payment scale beginning April 2010. So check out our submissions section for details.
You could earn more money for less work...........
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you...we are thankful for our readers and our writers....
