July Stories Released~! “The Girl in the Glass Case” and Other Stories

July Stories Released~!

#afterlife #lover #baby #suicide #redemption #gallows #vampire #hunger #dark #virtual #devotion #future #masturbation #isolation #slave #android #dance #asperger #homosexual #love #spiritual

#online #scifi #suspense #adventure www.bdlit.com

‘Til Death Do Us Party
Kelly Schrock
Bucky died hand-cuffed to a chair, trying to escape. Face brutalized almost beyond the point of recognition. Wrists oozing. When I show up, he’s still cuffed down. I think he spends the whole night that way. We’re all too afraid to touch him. What if he finds out he’s dead? How could you digest that kind of end? He looks like shit. The whole idea of getting your perfect body back when you die is bullshit. Read more…

Call for Help
Zack Miller
She waited. As soon as Jenny was certain her caller had bled out, she stood up, put the rough rope noose over her head, and let her legs fall out from under her. She twitched against the rope for a good two minutes before her legs went limp. But, Spencer helped her to her feet and removed the noose from around her neck, almost falling over backwards in the process. She gasped for breath. He said, “We can’t have our top performer taking early retirement.” Read more…

Unfinished Things
Ethan Fast
“They put me down here,” Fell says, “to punish the ones they wanted to put down here later. Because they knew I couldn’t control it. They send down the others, and it’s terrible for everyone concerned.” Fell sighs. “You see I need you, to keep me living. It’s really quite simple.”  Read more…

What Pavel Found
Geoffrey W. Cole
The dead Turk’s mustache held its curl despite the early November downpour. Pavel pushed it aside, gripped the soldier’s false tooth with his pliers, and gave a tug. The wine-bottle pop was the sound of him becoming a richer man. With the tooth and the spoils he liberated from the other soldiers who littered the battlefield, he’d make enough. 1912 might not be such a wretched year after all. Read more…

The Girl in the Glass Case
Matthew Di Paoli
Fred stared into the glass case, wishing he could hold her. Her skin glowed even in the darkness, and the shadows of her lips moved slightly as if speaking, though he heard nothing. He figured she probably had a name of her own. She was slender. They were all made slender unless you special ordered. Short, shorter than he was. She had no belly button. He wondered if living in a glass case all your life gave you a different perspective on the human condition.  Read more…

Uncanny Valley
M.T. O’Byrne
The next day was Sunday. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. It wasn’t just that it was the robots’ day off, nor even that it was the day for some of them to go to dance class, it was the sound of the word: Sun-day. They all had decided (based on hours of philosophical discussion) that the word ‘Sunday’ was a happy word, at least in English. In Russian — voskresenye — it sounded like a day of praxis and prayer. And in German — Sonntag — it sounded like a day for calisthenics and self-criticism. Read more…

The Teacher’s Connection
T.D. Edge
At the end of a table, on her own, someone new, obvious by her gaze flicking constantly from her plate to the other people, hoping but also dreading someone more experienced in here would sit with her. He nearly didn’t, for her large green, curious eyes, long black hair and the challenge of her youth triggered his habit of not wanting to try. But this time… “Do you mind if I join you?” he said. Read more…

Local News
Benjamin Schachtman
He supposed he could get hit again, beaten, raped, maybe tossed in the back of … of a what? A Camaro, of course. He tried to picture a Camaro trunk full of drag-queens. It had become surprisingly easy not to take his life seriously, almost reflexively natural to dismiss threats, even legitimate ones. He was aware that this was dangerous, like fighting drunk where you couldn’t feel the injuries you were sustaining. He knew that free-fall and flight have the same strange feeling of stillness… Read more…

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If BlackDenimLit had a VIDA count…

Since we are so small, we’re not part of the VIDA count, but we intend to pay attention to this important metric. If you are a woman in the literary arts, please know that we are listening. Here is where we are at as of the “acceptances sent” from 2/21/14 through 5/5/14:

Progress?

• May 5, 2014: 19.23% cumulative for 2014 Yes~!
• Apr 9, 2014: 15.79% cumulative for 2014

Call to Action~!

As always, we are calling women #writers for #literary #fiction and #scifi #shortstory and #flashfiction #submissions at http://bdlit.com

Where in the World is George R. R. Martin? Probably surfing

As a reader, I am not sure I care if George R. R. Martin wants to surf a little and travel and maybe write other stuff before finishing up A Song of Ice and Fire. If it were me, as an author, I would have the events of the remaining story framed up at least. If there are five of seven books published, then it’s not hard to know what happens in the last two.

I’m thinking of all this because Anisa A. Claire asks, “Where in the World is George R. R. Martin?” – which I take to mean roughly, “he’s old and had better not take seven years a book to finish out the GOT universe.” As for Martin, I get the sense that hyper-focus on the one project for decades is not all its cracked up to be. If you look at creators like Rowling (who spent roughly ten years doing one thing) they are now spent … and are looked at with some skepticism.

However, the books are a big soap opera. The built-up expectation of the public is a lot to deal with. The soap is leading to spectacular, all-out war with the creatures of the true north, who will invade as far as a good cold winter will take them, maybe Dawn, maybe more. It’s a soap and my favorite soap of all time. I admit to hoping for an ice dragon that will face off with Drogon, wiping out half the continent in their contest. However, whatever the finish is, it will not be big enough, because the reader will think, “Seven Hells, you just cancelled my soap. Bastard.” I digress.

As for Martin not wanting to have his baby in any other author’s control, well that may be out of his hands to some extent. It depends on what kind of license he will grant for a post-Martin GOT universe of books, games, movies and the possible spin-offs. Jordan wrote till he died and Sanderson did just fine with picking up the sword. Lucas licensed his all beyond the capacity for any one fan to take it all in and then gave it away (although I think he got some money). Even older book “franchises” (Wizard of Oz) had new contributors.

Other “properties” … not so much. Is anyone writing LOTR universe? No. Christopher Tolkien has been quoted saying, “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.” If Martin follows a similar line of thinking in the next twenty years, either directly or through his estate, then it will be a loss.

Although, I would argue that, by then, the public will recover and produce something new and more relevant. And by relevant, I mean that all the sensibilities played out in Ice and Fire books are a product of this generation. The books would not have resonated with us a hundred years ago, and may not yet, even twenty-five years from now. I digress.

The lasting creations from such weirdly diverse creators as Baum, Tolkien, Lewis, Roddenberry, Lucas, Jordan, Sanderson and even Martin–they never were and never will be enough to satisfy our imagination and lust. There will always be more. We should not slight the authors (or their estates) for how they think of or treat their babies. There will be more.

“Salticid” New Serial Fiction from Black Denim Lit on Wattpad

“Salticid” on Wattpad

Read complete serial fiction “Salticid” Parts 1 through 3 on @wattpad

Dr. Carson Deming has an embedded AI creature in his head to keep him company while marooned on Jesson VII with his daughter and surviving crew from a wrecked space freighter. Taking refuge underground from violent storms, they face a hazards in an unfamiliar, dangerous darkness.

#scifi #shortstory #empath #doctor #marooned

http://www.wattpad.com/story/15473276

 

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