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Goth Chick News Presents: “Tots:” A Wonderfully Uncomfortable Short Story by Peter Schneider

Goth Chick News Presents: “Tots:” A Wonderfully Uncomfortable Short Story by Peter Schneider

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Flights, edited by Al Sarrantonio (Roc, 2004). Cover by Steve Stone

In December I told you about my magical meeting with Peter Schneider, author and owner of boutique publisher Hill House Press. During the course of one of our many conversations since, Peter let me know he had written a short story called “Tots,” which he thought I would like. It had originally appeared in a 2004 collection called Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy edited by horror and science fiction writer Al Sarrantonio. In the introduction for “Tots,” Sarrantonio states that Peter’s sense of humor is reminiscent of National Lampoon. When Peter sent me a copy of original manuscript of “Tots,” I absolutely agreed. I’ll also add that it’s just the right amount of wrong and knew I had to share it with you.

So, reprinted here with Peter’s permission, I am excited to share…

TOTS

By Peter Schneider

It is 2:45 a.m., in the parking lot of one of the massive superstore shopping centers that have sprung up like a series of mushrooms across the country.  But the action at this time of the morning isn’t in the Barnes & Noble or Home Depot–it’s in an isolated corner of the lot, surround on two sides by security fencing and hemmed in on the remaining sides by a variety of vehicles, circled like wagons and facing inward with their headlights shining.  The halogen illumination reveals a ring, roughly twelve feet in diameter, crudely outlined on the pavement with a can of purple spray paint.  Outside the circle perhaps fifty or sixty people, mostly men but including a smattering of well-dressed women, stand and watch.  Money changes hands here–big money.  But their attention right now is on the two combatants standing within the ring, long and deadly sickle-like blades strapped securely to their right arms.  One fighter takes a tentative step in the direction of his foe and raises his hand in preparation to strike.  He’ll have to get in closer, however–his four-year-old arms aren’t long enough to deliver a killing blow from such a distance.

This is the world of totfighting.

…

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 14 and 15

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 14 and 15

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So, last year, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did  a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Hortsmann. I have already reposted days one through thirteen. Here are days fourteen (April 4) and fifteen (April 5). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries. I enjoy channeling Archie more than any other writing which I do.

 

DAY FOURTEEN – 2020 Stay at Home (SaH)

Okay – it’s been two weeks and things are starting to get a little…close, around here. I’m the only one of us who spent a lot of time away from the brownstone, so I’m feeling the strain the most. Of course, I’m the one who goes out for ‘essential’ errands, like taking Wolfe’s laundry to the cleaners. And I try to take a walk at least every other day. Fresh air, stretching my legs, and seeing other human beings – properly social distanced – has been the best medicine.

Fritz hasn’t needed help with the food provisions yet, though I’ve offered. And I have enjoyed watching Bogart movies with him. Last night we saw To Have and Have Not. He liked the suspense and the adventure, and I’d say that he was rather smitten with Lauren Bacall. I admired her spunk when she poked fun at Dolores Moran’s flirting with Bogie. Reminded me of a certain blonde I know. I told him the story that the movie came out of a bet. Ernest Hemingway bet Howard Hawks that the director couldn’t make a good movie out of his worst novel. So Hawks changed a few things around, cast Bogart, and made that film. For my money, Hawks won the bet hands down.

Tonight, I think we’ll watch They Drive by Night. I have a sneaking suspicion Fritz will be hooked by Ida Lupino’s courtroom scene.

…

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: No Voting Day

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: No Voting Day

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Last week, I mentioned that I wrote over 40,000 words about Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe enduring Stay at Home together. And that the series was inspired by how I felt on the day that Ohio postponed its Primary Voting Day. That scene is below. So, if you’re a Nero Wolfe fan, read on. If not – well, you’re here for my weekly column, so read on anyway! The elevator made its usual groans of protest as it carried Wolfe’s one-seventh of a ton down from the rooftop plant rooms, where he spent two hours in the morning, and two more in the afternoon, with Theodore Horstmann, tending to 10,000 orchids. It was my personal opinion that the elevator needed more than a two hour recovery period period after having to move him from the ground floor to the roof level. Gravity was not its friend. No man ever followed routine like Nero Wolfe. Mycroft Holmes looked like an undisciplined lout compared to my employer. Every morning at 11 AM, he came down from the plant rooms, entered the office, greeted me with “Good morning, Archie,” crossed to his desk, and followed a routine there. So imagine my surprise, sitting at my own desk, when I heard him turn and take two steps down the hall, towards the front door, or the kitchen. I looked up as silence settled in the hall. He had stopped. “Archie, stop this foolishness. Why is the car not ready? Get out here.” While I am by no means a sigher in Wolfe’s class, working for him has made me a pretty good one. I let one out, got to my feet, and went out of the office. It was Election Day: except, it wasn’t. There were only a few things guaranteed to get Nero Wolfe to venture out of his office and undertake a journey into the wild world outside. And Sunday Mass wasn’t one of them. But he had never failed to sally forth to vote since I had come to work for him. He viewed voting as his side of a solemn contract with the government. But this April 28th, 2020, was different. The coronavirus pandemic had started parts of America into shutdown mode the prior month. Those who thought that pre-emptive action was a good thing touted the governor of my old home state, Ohio, as the kind of leader we needed in Washington. Others, who probably would have said we should stay out of World War II, thought that it was too soon. Regardless of which side you were on, by early April, it was clear that America was in trouble. Rumors were that Ft. Knox was switching its gold reserves over to toilet paper, because it was harder to find. …

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A Solstice Story

A Solstice Story

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There’s just something magical about snow at Christmas time. Image by zanna-76 from Pixabay

It’s going to be a rough Christmas for many of us. Where I am, the government is considering an immediate, province-wide shutdown. Just a few days before Christmas. This means that I won’t be able to see my brother, who had been planning to come up and see us (he’s been very good about quarantining, so I feel safe hanging out with him). It is all for the best, though, as cases of our particular plague are spiking and hospitals are struggling to cope as it is. It’s looking increasingly like this Christmas I’ll have my cat, and Zoom. It’s a good thing my cat is a cuddle-monster. I’ll at least have some affection.

What I also have in these difficult times are stories. Stories, in fact, have gotten me, in particular, through so really tough times. Really tough. Since I have nothing else to offer today, I thought that I’d offer a story. I wrote this last year for my publisher’s Christmas season blog hop, so it’s not an original. I mean, it’s original to me, but it’s not new. Sorry. I’ve been a bit caught up making my Christmas gifts this year and I’ve run out of time.

In any case, here it is.

…

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On a Mission to Disable a Gigantic Robot: Tangent Online on “The Ambient Intelligence” by Todd McAulty

On a Mission to Disable a Gigantic Robot: Tangent Online on “The Ambient Intelligence” by Todd McAulty

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Lightspeed Magazine Issue 125 October 2020-smallIt’s been a while since I’ve been reviewed at Tangent Online, so it was a delight to find a review of my Lightspeed story “The Ambient Intelligence,” written by Tara Grimravn.

Due to a mysterious government program called the Deep Temple Project, the water in Lake Michigan has been steadily boiling away. Its shoreline is now little more than a series of mudflats and interconnected stagnant pools that go on for at least a mile before one reaches the water. Barry Simcoe is on a mission by AGRT, an international peacekeeping organization, to disable a gigantic robot destroying large portions of Chicago and killing its citizens. According to his friend Zircon Border, it was spotted coming and going from the exposed remains of an old shipwreck. In order to do this, Simcoe must navigate the treacherous bog that is now the lakebed and try to disable his opponent before it can kill him.

McAulty’s SF story is a great read. It takes a little while to get to the more exciting bits, but that’s necessary to give the reader enough background to understand what’s happening and why. The ending doesn’t disappoint either. The characters are quite well-done, and I especially liked the interactions between Simcoe and True Pacific. Give this one a read!

“The Ambient Intelligence” appeared last month in Lightspeed magazine, and it’s free to read online. It’s published under the name Todd McAulty, the name all my stories appeared under in Black Gate magazine all those years ago. It’s the story of Canadian Barry Simcoe and his robot friend Zircon Border, who face off against a mysterious 60-ton killer robot hiding in a shipwreck on the shores of Lake Michigan… one that’s hiding a very big secret. It shares a setting (and two characters) with my debut novel The Robots of Gotham, but it’s not otherwise related to that book, and stands completely on its own.

Read “The Ambient Intelligence” in its entirety here. And if you enjoy it, why not help support Lightspeed with a subscription? Six-months subs will run you just $17.94, for more than 50 stories — a whopping 350,000 words of fiction. It’s one of the true bargains in the field.

Read Matthew David Surridge’s Sword & Sorcery Novella “The Great Work” at Patreon

Read Matthew David Surridge’s Sword & Sorcery Novella “The Great Work” at Patreon

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Matthew Surridge The Book of Days

Matthew David Surridge’s novellete “The Word of Azrael” first appeared in Black Gate 14, and was one of the most widely acclaimed stories we ever published. Tangent Online called it “One of the strongest heroic fantasies I have seen in years,” and Rich Horton selected it for the 2011 Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy. In his Locus review Rich said:

Even better is Matthew Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael.” It concerns Isrohim Vey, who sees the Angel of Death on a battlefield and as a result is spared — more a curse than a blessing — to search again for the Angel. His search almost takes the form of a catalog of sword & sorcery tropes, his many adventures told briefly but with style and an ironic edge. Surridge both celebrates and winks at the genre. It’s very entertaining, clever, and even thought-provoking.

Matthew’s name will be familiar to regular readers of this blog; he’s published nearly 500 articles and reviews here over the years, and he’s especially well known for his extensive coverage of Montreal’s Fantasia film festival. He also maintains a Patreon feed, which he’s described as “a way to help me fulfill a long-planned project: writing short stories, across a range of genres, that together will create a vast mosaic of fiction.” Last month Matthew unveiled a major new project he’d recently completed:

I’ve got a new novella-length story at my Patreon. And it’s sword-and-sorcery! It’s a dungeon-crawl carried out by the adventurers’ hirelings. Dark fantasy, maybe; maybe some horror-y elements. And it’s about 20 000 words long.

“The Great Work” is available in its entirety as part of Matthew Patreon, you can join and support him for as little as $1 a month. You’ll also receive access to 31 articles and other works. Check it out, and support one of the most talented fantasy writers at work today!

Rogue Blades presents: “Deep in the Land of Ice and Snow”

Rogue Blades presents: “Deep in the Land of Ice and Snow”

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Return of the Sword-smallMy short story “Deep in the Land of Ice and Snow” originally appeared in the collection The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure by Rogue Blades Entertainment. Enjoy.

The wolves were too many. Belgad knew that as he soon as he spotted the beasts. There were nearly a score of them, and if that were not bad enough, the creatures were huge, each nearly the size of a riding pony. What was worse, the wolves were quiet and had managed to surround him without his spying them sooner.

No, this was no ordinary pack. They had appeared from nowhere, and they had no qualms about scaling the side of a mountain for their human prey.

Belgad forced himself to climb higher, the bitter cold winds whipping at his long yellow hair. His fingers, the tips protruding from rags he had used to swaddle them, gripped the edge of another boulder and lifted him with the help of solid placement from his fur-lined boots.

On top of the boulder, Belgad found a flat spot and sat there, letting the cold air fill his tired lungs. His body needed rest after days of hiking dense forests and climbing steep hills, but he would not close his eyes; the wolves were drawing nearer, below and above. It would only be a matter of time before they would pounce.

After what felt like hours to the big man wrapped in furs, one of the wolves, the largest, began to creep its way along a narrow path toward him.

Belgad watched the animal with anticipation, knowing soon he would be in battle.

Eventually the wolf was below Belgad, just out of reach of the man’s legs hanging off the side of his stone seat.

“Will you eat me today, wolf?” the large man said to the animal.

The wolf’s only reply was uplifted ears and a tilted head.

“I think not,” Belgad said, drawing in his legs and pushing off them so he was standing on the boulder.

The wolf blinked, and that was when Belgad took notice of its eyes. The animal had eyes the shade of morning blue ice.

…

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A Shipwreck, a Mystery, and a 60-Ton Killer Robot: “The Ambient Intelligence” by Todd McAulty

A Shipwreck, a Mystery, and a 60-Ton Killer Robot: “The Ambient Intelligence” by Todd McAulty

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Lightspeed Magazine Issue 125 October 2020-smallHey hey! This is exciting — my first short story publication in many years appeared last week in Lightspeed magazine!

The story is “The Ambient Intelligence,” and it’s free to read online. It’s published under the name Todd McAulty, the name all my stories appeared under in Black Gate magazine all those years ago. Here’s what John Joseph Adams said about the story in his editorial for the October issue:

Welcome to Lightspeed’s 125th issue! Do you love power armor? Do you love giant robots? Do you love people in power armor fighting giant robots? Well then, we’ve got you covered! Todd McAulty’s newest short story (“The Ambient Intelligence”) is here to meet all your power armor vs. robot needs.

He’s not kidding about the robots. “The Ambient Intelligence” is the story of Canadian Barry Simcoe and his robot friend Zircon Border, who face off against a mysterious 60-ton killer robot hiding in a shipwreck on the shores of Lake Michigan… one that’s hiding a very big secret. It shares a setting (and two characters) with my debut novel The Robots of Gotham, but it’s not otherwise related to that book, and stands completely on its own.

Black Gate subscribers may remember (stretching back many years now) that Todd McAulty had four stories in the print magazine:

“The Haunting of Cold Harbour” (Black Gate 3, 2002)
“There’s a Hole in October” (Black Gate 5, 2003)
“Amnesty” (Black Gate 7, 2004)
“The Soldiers of Serenity” (Black Gate 12, 2008)

Read “The Ambient Intelligence” in its entirety here. And if you enjoy it, why not help support Lightspeed with a subscription? Six-months subs will run you just $17.94, for more than 50 stories — a whopping 350,000 words of fiction. It’s one of the true bargains in the fields. And thanks for your support!

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Tired Captain”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Tired Captain”

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CuriousIncidents_CoverEDITEDTwenty years ago, I had a short story published for the first time. Charles Prepolec and J.R. Campbell had not yet put out their four Gaslight collections of Holmes horror stories. Their initial book outing was a little collection called Curious Incidents. For some reason that escapes me now, I thought it would be clever to have a story in which Arthur Conan Doyle plays Dr. Watson. The part that made it really clever, was that he would be assisting William Gillette as Holmes. And they’d be solving one of Watson’s untold cases! I’ve since gone on to write ‘straight’ Holmes pastiches – several of them published. As well as short stories featuring Solar Pons, and others with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. But getting my name in print began with a twist on Sherlock Holmes.

It was a blustery evening in the Fall of 1901 when I received an unexpected visitor to my hotel room. I had come down to London to meet with my editor at The Strand, Martin Greenhough Smith. Dining at the Westminster Palace Hotel, where the fare is always excellent, we had discussed some particulars relating to the new Sherlock Holmes story that I had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to provide him with. Returning to my home in Southsea upon the morn, I was still debating upon the merit of bringing Holmes back to life, albeit for only one more adventure.

I arose at the knock upon my door and opened it. To my considerable surprise, I found myself gazing upon the face of Sherlock Holmes. Well, not quite Sherlock Holmes, but the man who had become most identified with him on two continents. The talented actor William Gillette had come to pay his compliments to me.

I shook his hand and relieved him of his wet coat and cap. I bade him make himself comfortable in the over-stuffed armchair by the lamp and poured him a warming glass of good brandy. William Gillette was a famous actor in America. He had starred in several plays and was quite popular. In 1899 he had rewritten an offering of my own, entitled it ‘Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts,’ and achieved new levels of success. It had been the toast of New York City and every show had played to a full house. He had recently brought it across the ocean and presented it at our own esteemed Lyceum Theater. It came as no surprise that it was an even bigger smash here in London. Though I considered these detective stories as less important than my other writings, Sherlock Holmes was immensely popular and, I had to admit, financially profitable.

Ensconced in my own chair, Gillette regaled me with his tales of Holmes in America. He certainly made an excellent portrait of the sleuth. Of course, Sidney Paget had drawn a more handsome Holmes than I described, but that had probably been for the best, as it attracted more female readers to the stories. Gillette was tall and lean, with a very distinctive profile. His nose wasn’t quite the hawkish affair that I had pictured, but I could easily see how playgoers had come to identify his visage with that of Sherlock Holmes.

…

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That Short Story Thing

That Short Story Thing

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book-2040901_1920

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay

Good morning, Readers!

Remember a while ago when I asked for story prompts for a sort-of communal writing jam? Yeah, well, neither did I until recently. I had a month to work on this, and so naturally I completely forgot about until the week it was due. University essays all over again. Nevertheless, I figured I’d try my hand at it anyway.

This was the only prompt I received:

She impatiently checked her watch, sighing and rolling her eyes as burning debris rained onto the ground around her.

Many thanks again to Jaina for that prompt.

Short stories are not my strong suit, so it’s probably going to be stupidly rough and less than brilliant. I’ve not written a short story in a long, long time. So, if you’re reading it, feel free to have a good chuckle at my expense. I tried. Also, I’m terrible at titles.

If you can do better (and I don’t think that’d be difficult), link to your story in the comments!

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