Tag: short story

18 May Updates – Preview of Lacunashka

This Week’s Excerpt
Instead of a preview this week I have something different for you. For a long time I have been a fan of Russian literature. As a tribute I wrote Lacunashka some time ago, but it has been languishing quietly on my computer. I think I may have published it briefly on Amazon or Books2Read but I withdrew it, probably because it is such a relentlessly dark tale. People who lived through the terror of Stalin’s reign must have experienced such darkness and a bleak existence, so as a tribute to them I have placed it inside Vampire: Beneficence (Short Stories Volume III). Here is an excerpt:

Lacunashka

Lacuna: a blank gap or missing part.
-shka: Russian diminutive ending for male names.

For Comrade Ilya it was like any other day in the Ministry. At 9.30, after already working for two hours, they broke for coffee or a shot of vodka. Volodya, as usual, was holding forth in his loud voice, leaning back against the edge of his desk.
“Ilya! Have a shot of vodka. Just once?”
“No, Misha,” he said placing his hand over the dirty porcelain cup. “I have to work anyway.” He walked the short distance, past dirty mullioned windows to his office and started to check through the list of mail for the day. Continue reading “18 May Updates – Preview of Lacunashka” →

Fighting a Dip in sales – 6 April Updates

Here is this week’s sneak preview – a short story provionally entitled Vampire: Beneficence, to be published as the first story in the new Short Stories Volume III along with The Jesus Monster. The punctuation may seem a little strange without the paragraphs before this excerpt but it is correct.

Vampire: Beneficence

On a warm evening at the end of the 2010 summer, I was stalking the Vicar of St James Church in Clerkenwell. I am what is commonly called a vampire, d’you see …?
“Let me get one thing straight, though. We have been around forever. Homo Sapiens wouldn’t be Home Sapiens without us. We are the more evolved manifestation of the species. I know all this because I was once a writer, and have spent many lifetimes researching the subject. I have even visited the far-past … but that is another story … Continue reading “Fighting a Dip in sales – 6 April Updates” →

I Finished a New Short Story

I just finished a new story Eighteen, Blue. I am going to publish it on Kindle quickly along with the free first chapter of The Ice Boat Volume II am going to take my time to respond to Gary’s recent comment comment that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is depicted with wings in some cases. and either another short story Another One for No 19 or the free first chapter of Ordo Lupus and The Temple Gate – haven’t quite decided yet. It’s a formula that seems to work.