Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“Give it back,” Jennie growled.

“Give what back? This?” The Zaar let Jennie’s pendant slip between its wax fingers, sending it toward a floorstrike shattering before pinching the chain at the last minute.

The Fáidh redoubled his chant, as did Cary and Syke at the other corners of the triangle hemming in the malicious spirit garbed in a wax-museum copy of Eamon de Valera. “You won’t let it break,” Jennie said with what she hoped was a convincing facsimile of courage. “My family jewels are too important to your boss.”

“Such naughty and ignorant words for a piece of clay,” sneered the Zaar. “But you have shown a certain promise in hunting me down and casting a circle, I must admit. I haven’t been bound since Aix in 1611.” Its dull eyes gleamed maliciously from behind its spectacles. “Perhaps it’s time for a new approach.”

The creature carefully replaced Jennie’s pendant in one of his pockets and then leapt at her with astonishing speed and ferocity. Its cold, waxy hands wrapped around her throat with surprising strength, while foul incantations hissed not from the Zaar’s borrowed mouth but from every point in its form.

“κατοχή του σώματος, αποβολή της ψυχής! κατοχή του σώματος, αποβολή της ψυχής! κατοχή του σώματος, αποβολή της ψυχής!”

“Break it apart, Jennie!” cried the Fáidh. “Its spirit is potent but the body is just wax! It only has the power you’ll let it have!”

The small ceremonial dagger Jennie had taken from Whelk’s corpse flashed, and the wax form stumbled backwards, stumps where its hands had been. A swift follow-up blow to the left leg led to total collapse; the simulacra of de Valera toppled to the stone and shattered into pieces. Knife in hand, the waxwork’s vanquisher fished the pendant out of the pocket that contained it and donned the jewel with a triumphant smile.

“All right, Jennie! cried Cary. “Rah rah rah, that’s how it’s done!”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Jennie’s companions crowded around, offering their congratulations.

“Thanks, but there’s no time to waste. We need to move, and quickly.”

The Fáidh nodded. “Come, let’s away from this dank and fetid place of suck for groovier environs.”

Jennie watched as she led her friends away, utterly perplexed at how she could see herself moving and speaking from such a detached viewpoint. “Hey, where are you going?” she cried. “That’s not me!”

Not only could her friends not hear her, but Jennie herself couldn’t either. The words were dead upon entering the world, and with horror Jennie realized that she had no lips to utter them with…not to scream with.

Through some dark trick, the Zaar had torn her from her body and left her an aimless and un-anchored spirit.

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“Well, my friends, we have put our latest vintage through the usual tests: color, swirl, smell, taste, and savor. As per the tradition of the competition, you will all be provided with another glass and asked to render your judgement,” said Sommalier Quislyng.

The first judge, Graf von Blutmord, sipped daintily at the crimson liquid in his glass. “It has a fine bouquet. Woody, complex, and round with a hint of basil and nuances of toast. I would surmise it’s a vintage Hungarian AB-positive from a 35-year-old female in the Budapest area.”

“I hate to differ with you,” said Earl Vätskasuga, the second judge, as he dabbled his fangs in gently swirled liquid. “While I agree in the fineness of bouquet, I find it has much more a delicate coconut flavor, and a sinful sushi essence with velvet overtones. A young and prime B-negative male from the Pyrenees, most likely Andorra. I do so enjoy these Andorran boutiques.”

Countess du Nălucăamor made a derisive sound and took in her entire goblet in a single suck. “You’re both naive old fools. It’s a raw vintage from the parts of Romania where there’s still a taster in every village and the old ways have been refined for a new century. Intoxicating gingerbread essences, a bouquet of passionate molasses, and a caramelized chocolate perfume undercurrent. It’s an A-positive from the Sighişoara region, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, now that you’ve all rendered your verdicts, allow me to reveal the truth,” said Sommalier Quislyng. He pulled the velvet covering from the bottle on a refrigerated and gently vibrating pedestal to reveal…幸运的777快乐的猫血, a Chinese O-positive vintage from Guangzhou commonly disparaged as a cheap garbage brand in connoisseur circles.

“Impossible!” cried Graf von Blutmord.

“Ridiculous!” shouted Earl Vätskasuga.

“Treachery!” roared Countess du Nălucăamor.

Their verdicts praising the cheap 幸运的777快乐的猫血 vintage have been known ever since as the “Judgement of Chateau Bloodtooth” and remain controversial to this day.

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As surely as autumn follows summer, the latest contribution by Willam “Black Bill” Cubbins has been followed by a counter-post by Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi. In the interests of balance we present it to you here. Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi is a noted participant in the Anti-Pirate Freedom Flotilla, the Port Elizabeth Tribunal for Buccaneer Crimes, and the Boycott Booty campaign. She is a current Distinguished Fellow at Kaizoku University and is the current Tokugawa Chair of Shinobi Studies there.

Rather than feeling sorry for the plight of pirates who are being undermined and reduced in number by so-called foreign competition, we should rejoice in the fact that this vile way of life is slowly and naturally becoming extinct. Ninja activists like myself have long since held that there is no room in the modern economy for pirates or piracy, and the racist, disenfranchising, and bigoted attitudes they encourage.

Piracy is, no matter how “locally” and “sustainably” conducted, an inherently dishonorable and disenfranchising profession built around taking–taking of land, of lives, of booty. It has no value in any economy, much less an economy as bad as the one now facing the world. Activists in the pro-pirate media can talk all they like about “cherished” and “ancient” ways of life, but all pirates are nothing more than thieves and cockroaches.

Contrast that situation with that of the shinobi–or “ninja” to use a less-aware but more popular term. The silent, amoral assassins that make up the major ninja clans have value in any economy. As scouts, as spies, and as dealers of death to those who deserve it, ninjas have no peers–and those skills are needed more in a bad economy than in any other. While pirates only take, ninjas give back by cutting away the dead wood of society with a surgical knife. There will always be a need for the subtle art of honorable killing, and ninjas will always be there to provide it from the shadows.

This makes them unlike pirates, whose days are limited by both a world that increasingly sees them as the disenfranchising barbarians that they are. A skyrocketing ninja birth rate that will soon see the pirates’ one advantage, that of numbers, whittled down to nothing as they are hurled back into the sea.

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Partial transcript from the February 24, 2013 interview of Petra Burgess by Jerry Sovak of WKΔD Radio.

JERRY SOVAK: I’m here with Petra Burgess, who has recently been at the center of come controversy over her “Fair Trade Coffee for the People of Syria” sketch on LNTV.

PETRA BURGESS: “Some controversy?” Don’t soft-pedal it, Jerry. My Twitter feed turned into a river of fire not seen since the days of Vesuvius.

SOVAK: You’ve been accused of being insensitive to the plight of the Syrian people, and sexism and racism for the parody of Halle Berry suggesting that the Syrian rebels ought to be more concerned with the provenance of their coffee than anything else. Stubb’s Coffee didn’t like seeing their logo on the fair trade coffee that was being “airlifted” to the people in the sketch, either.

BURGESS: I was worried they wouldn’t notice, actually. I’m also very upset that I haven’t heard from anyone about making the Predator drone pilot an effeminate Marine or from the dig at the Sarah McLachlan commercials about the icky puppies, only this time with the puppies replaced with coffee beans.

SOVAK: So you’re…you’re upset that more people weren’t offended? Unpack that a little for us, Petra.

BURGESS: You see people talking a lot about being gadflies and equal opportunity offenders. What that usually means is that they’re gadflies to people they don’t like and their idea of equal opportunity offensiveness means offending both moderate and conservative Republicans. The problem is that there are so many unspoken sacred cows in entertainment in general and Hollywood in particular that no one dares to touch. It might as well be blacklisted, against the Hays code.

SOVAK: So you were trying, with your sketch, to offend everybody at once?

BURGESS: Well I tried to be as offensive as possible to as many people as possible, sure. But I also focused on those sacred cows, people and causes that never get critiqued or tweaked or smeared with satire because they’re too near and dear to the hearts of Hollywood.

SOVAK: Is that an expression of your own political views, then?

BURGESS: In as much as I have any, yes. Don’t go mistaking me for a Republican; their starched collars need to be tweaked, and often, and badly. But don’t go lumping me in with the Democrats, either–if anything they need a harsher beating because they have so many friends in my industry. My politics are simple: everything needs to be made fun of in the most uncompromising terms to keep them defensive. Keep ’em off-balance and people are less likely to let them get away with murder.

SOVAK: Could you…distill that a little bit for us? It sounds like you’re giving advice to other would-be satirists out there. Break that down to a one-liner for us, if you would.

BURGESS: Satire: if there’s a group out there who isn’t burning you in effigy, you’re doing it wrong.

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“Open it! OPEN IT!” The gun was pressed against the man’s temple.

“All right, all right,” the man sobbed at the black-clad home invader. “I’ll open it.”

He swung his dryer open, unlatched the lint catcher, and handed it over.

Five thousand miles and two days later, the man in black handed the lint to his handler.

“Excellent,” the older man purred, adding it to the massive pile accumulating behind his vault door. “Most excellent.

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This essay was contributed by our regular pirate affairs commentator, William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV and based on a speech he delivered at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the William Kidd Center for the Study of Pirate Culture at the University of Plunder Bay. In addition to his other pro-pirate activism, Black Bill Cubbins is currently serving as pirate-in-residence at UPB, and he remains a practicing pirate with three galleons and a Dutch party cruise boat to his name so far this year.

At one point in time, 37% of the world’s sailors earned their living through piracy. Today that number is less than 1% despite an explosion in the number of ships at sea and cargoes (and crews) that are more valuable than ever before. Yet the only sustained growth in piracy has been in Somalia and Malacca, both prime areas of pirate outsourcing. The plundering once done by Caribbean pirates, for instance, is now sent to cheap pirates off Somalia that work for pennies on the dollar and often do not enjoy the same benefits, like elected officers and relatively equal distribution of spoils, that pirates elsewhere fought and died for. I’m not criticizing our pirate brothers-in-arms, simply saying that our drive for cheaper plunder, globalized plunder, has negatively impacted both our livelihood and theirs.

The solution, my friends, is to make sure you source your plunder locally and sustainably. Be an informed consumer. Ask whether the precious gems in that overflowing trunk came from standards-compliant corsairs in the Caribbean or North Africa, ripped from the hold of a freighter belonging to Spain or the Holy League, or whether it is cheap outsourced plunder ripped from a Liberia-flagged bulk carrier off Singapore and processed in the illicit prize courts of Guangzhou. Don’t support businesses that rely on outsourced piracy to keep their coffers stuffed with argent; don’t support jewelers that trade in conflict doubloons.

Act globally but pirate locally. Support your local pirates by buying their plunder at local prize courts. Invest in sustainable sources of piracy like the Spanish Main or the Golden Triangle rather than the lucrative but unsustainable trade in looted North Korean freighters off Socotra. If you can, pirate a little yourself on the side. Not much; a frigate or two every now and again, or even a station wagon on the Mexico trade route, is enough to help keep the sacred connection that pirates have felt to their profession for many years. Many young pirates are choosing not to follow in the family business, preferring instead to move to the big city to try and pass as non-pirates. Our culture is in danger as never before, beset by this decay on one side and negative portrayals by media and biased ninja activists on the other.

Only through education and action can we stem this tide. So I urge you: find or found a local prize court or pirate co-op. Speak pirate to your children or support those who do. Support pirate studies programs at universities and organizations like the FPA, the Future Pirates of America. And most importantly of all, support your local pirates in whatever way you can.

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Marauders from the Republic of Pisa seized the artifact from North Africa during a raid. Once placed atop a pillar in a now-sacked city, the great bronze dragon was rumored to ward off bad luck and the machinations of the devil. The Pisans took it as a prize ad because of a local legend that claimed its interior was filled with gold.

The dragon was displayed in Pisa for some time, but as the Republic’s fortunes began to decline, the citizenry became more and more adamant that it be cut open and its golden contents shared. Warnings in Arabic had been etched into the dragon’s bronze, cautioning against the dire consequences of opening the statue, which would release all the misfortunes that it had absorbed over the years.

Eventually the pressure was too great, and the authorities ordered the dragon smashed. It turned out to be hollow, with most of the weight being in the form of lead weights ornately etched. Only a small golden cup was found, barely larger than a thimble, and not enough to offset the cost of dismantling the dragon statue and its plinth.

Ten days later, the Pisan fleet was decisively defeated–annihilated–by the Genoans. Within a few years, the city had lost its independence and ceased to be a port of major importance.

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These days it seems like every other movie, book, or TV show is some kind of a sequel, in one of the most annoying side-effects of the rampant creative bankruptcy in entertainment circles. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most annoying sequel trends that have infested popular culture like so many mutant cockroaches:

Subtitles
Originally, sequels would either get a number (Death Wish 3), a Roman numeral (Rocky II), or a completely different title (Magnum Force, the sequel to Dirty Harry). It was an elegant system that relied on simple numerals or appealing characters to link films in the popular imagination. So, needless to say, it couldn’t last.

First sequels started tacking on subtitles (often after numerals) to give them a sense of gravitas (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Rambo: First Blood Part II). And sometimes not so much gravitas (Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo). Pretty soon we were reduced to sequels with just subtitles, with Star Trek VII: Generations becoming just Star Trek: Generations. Eventually even the colon was too much bother, as Star Trek Into Darkness demonstrates.

Prequels
Why spend time and money hiring back now-famous actors and actresses made expensive by a popular original when you can recast the roles younger and start anew? People were doing it long before George Lucas made “prequel” a four-letter word starting in 1999. Why, 1979 alone brought Zulu Dawn and Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. Now they’re legion, with prequels being the cheap answer to wringing a few dollars out of something like Carlito’s Way.

But since we already know how things are going to end, there’s never going to be a strong investment. More often than not it becomes a forced series of oblique references to the original that fails the single most important criterion for a prequel: that it be intelligible without the original film. I don’t think one has ever been made, just like good prequels are few and far between. Can anyone think of one offhand? I sure can’t.

Sequels with the same title as the original
The sixth Rocky is…Rocky Balboa. The fourth Rambo is…Rambo. The fourth The Fast and the Furious is…Fast and Furious. Even if the title isn’t exactly the same, it’s damn confusing, and it’s part of a trend that’s making it difficult to talk coherently about a franchise.

You see it a lot in video games too. There’s a Tomb Raider (1996) and a Tomb Raider (2013), a Medal of Honor (1999) and a Medal of Honor (2010). God help you trying to keep those straight. And why? A bankrupt attempt to revive a little of the original brand magic, tarnished by terrible encores, which more than often ends up joining them, like Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) isn’t fit to bear the monicker of Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

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In this, part two of our third blogiversary celebration, the editors at EFNB would like to recognize out long-term contributors who have continued to submit over the past year. While many of the “old guard” have had less productive years in terms of submissions, we have considerable pull with these imaginary authors, and requests for additional submissions by any of them will be honored. Whether the author in question likes it or not!

Mark Amiton
Bar to Ashes, The Most Permeable of the Permeable

Mark has continued to work on his magnum opus, a tale of a place where certain people can reshape reality with the power of their minds. “It’s kind of like Dubai, only with mental power instead of rapacious oil wealth as the driving force,” he says.

Eric Cummings Jr.
Dumpee, Dumper, and Dumpest, The Worrying of ECJ, The Paper Reel, The Bottom of the Night IM, A Conversation, To Delerue Hall, Pursuit by the Numbers

Beginning work in earnest on his autobiographical “college graduate student slacker novel” this year, Eric submitted most of his excerpts from “in the zone.” He confirms that as of this writing he is “out of the zone” but hoped to have a draft of his text finished by July.

Sonya G. Goldman-Haines
Slaying the Mondragon

After a long silence, Ms. Goldman-Haines has rejoined our ranks with a second tale from her forthcoming collection about a psychic gunsmith who ascertains the various and sundry stories behind the rare firearms that cross her desk.

Kenny Idlewild
Only Further Truth

Philosophy professor Dr. Kenneth Idlewild is not a prolific writer, but his second submission after a long drought is taken from his well-reviewed text The Philosophie of Being.

Sandra Cooke Jameson
The Birdsong Code, The Stephens Island Wren, The Counsel of Vultures

Expanding her repertoire of avian stories outside of her beloved sparrows, Ms. Jameson favored us with excerpts from her forthcoming book of short stories and novellas, Stories Borne on a Fair Wing. She has also added 27 birds to her life list in the past 18 months,

Bernard S. Roberts
Of the Vyaeh Conscripted Races, Of Vyaeh Counterfeits

“Most of what I’ve shared with you guys is from my private world building notes,” writes Roberts, “rather than any finished work. I’m still getting the foundations set for a lot of thing, and making sure to expunge all traces of their former life as video game design notes.”

Nokin Kobayashi and Irene York
The Mountain Shrine

Mr. Kobayashi and his paramour Ms. York have spent much of the past year on an extensive lecture tour, which has notable decreased his literary output and her translation efforts. Kobayashi’s self titled, self-translated “777 Magical Raccoon Cats” tour may soon be coming to a city near you.

C. Alton Parker
Gambler’s Prosperity, Eschatology of the Ide, The Prosperity Ambush, The Prosperity Spoonerism, The Prosperity Alarm Clock, The Prosperity Ride, The Prosperity Pueblo<

Ms. Parker has expressed to our editors that 2013 will be “the year” for her long-in-gestation epic Western. Her previous declarations that 2010, 2011, and 2012 were “the year” have been set aside for the time being.

Jordan Iverson Peers
The Halfling Tuesday, The Gorgon Evryali

Jordan Peers returns to the critically acclaimed “Weird Manhattan” universe that won a Pluto Award (now known as the Eris Award). These recent excerpts are from a short story detailing the life and misadventures of a wannabe hardboiled detective who also happens to be a hobbit.

Phil “Stonewall” Pixa
The Review Page

Phil Pixa has been writing for The Hopewell Review, a literary journal out of Southern Michigan University Press, of late. In addition to serving as under-editor, he has written reviews, criticism, and recycled a few of his more highbrow stories in its pages. The Hopewell Review is currently the most widely-read literary journal in Michigan, with well over 25 subscribers.

T. W. Reyauld
Taarin’s Tale

Still plugging away at his massive fantasy opus, Mr. Reyauld has also been serving as a consultant, uncredited polish writer, and fifteenth unit director for the acclaimed HMC series Rage of Tenmosh. Due to its unprecedented success, he has been making more getting coffee for the actors than in his acclaimed career as a fantasy writer.

P. Elizabeth Smalley
The Squirrel Lama

“Avatar of Aquerna” has long been one of EFNB’s most popular posts, so after much cajoling and pleading, Ms. Smalley deigned to provide another piece of writing relating to squirrels, though she declines to indicate whether it is connected or in continuity with her previous submission.

Jeanne Welch
Locke’s Revenent

“It’s been slow going on my story about love, social media, and modern life,” says Welch. “But I feel like I’ve turned a corner.” By the editors’ count, this marks the 37th corner Ms. Welch has turned. She is averaging approximately 12.3 corners turned per submission at this point.

Altos Wexan
Beneath Metromart #832, Mutt of Ice and Fire, Petting the Beyond, Across an Age, A Muse’s Unvarnished Perspective, A Poem for my Grandmother, Why I Don’t Celebrate Mardi Gras

As always, Mr. Wexan continues to dominate in terms of sheer number of submissions. His esoteric output has run toward the maudlin of late, largely a reflection of circumstances in his personal life. I think you’ll all be willing to join the editors of EFNB in wishing Mr. Wexan a very lucky 2013.

Well, it’s hard to believe, but today marks the third anniversary of Excerpts From Nonexistent Books, your blog source for quality selections from authors and texts that are resolutely imaginary. 1096 posts, 365 per year plus one leap day, which puts EFNB ironically in sync with the IRS this 2013 tax season. this has been the site’s best year yet; more comments, more watchers, and more hits than the last two years combined! We even made it to Freshly Pressed this December!

As before, this post will serve to highlight those imaginary authors who either began submitting to EFNB in 2012-13 or submitted the majority of their work during that period. Let’s wish these new authors the best of luck! Please do comment if you would like to see more from any of them; they all take requests or can be…convinced…to do so!

Natalie J. H. Able
Character Sheet for a Fictional Rogue, Character Sheet for a Fictional Rogues’ Gallery

Natalie works for Warlocks of the Interior, the publisher of the famous Ruins & Rogues roleplaying game. She started out as a pimply teenager submitting creatures and dungeon modules to Mageozine, the official Ruins and Rogues rag, but the quality of her submissions has earned her a place in the most recent editions of the Ruins & Rogues Creature Compendium. She hopes to collect her pre-made characters into an upcoming publication, 1001 Characters for Every Occasion.

Carla Minch Betts
The Lost and Found Detective, The Lost and Found Parlor

C. M. Betts declined to fill out our questionnaire, insisting that the only information we needed was in the public domain. As such, we can only report that Betts lives at [redacted] and earned $212,287 last year working as a short order fry cook.

William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV
A Pirate is Not a Halloween Costume, A Pro-Pirate Counterpoint

A noted Buccaneer-American activist, Black Bill Cubbins has devoted his life to advancing the cause and cultural perceptions of his people. Most readers will be familiar with his “Reclaim Pirates” campaign, which seeks to appropriate the once-insulting word “pirate” as a term of pride, albeit one only to be used by pirates to refer to themselves.

Bridget-Alicia Elba
Lady of the Boon, A Guide to Sapient Creatures Vol. 1, The Jack-of-Cards, A Guide to Sapient Creatures Vol. 2

Another prominent contributor coming to us from the role-playing world of Ruins & Rogues, Bridget-Alicia wrote and maintains the “Mistworlds: Modernity” campaign setting, which posits fantasy races in a modern setting. She wished us to express how diligent she has tried to be in the creation of these races, trying to avoid the usual stereotypes of basing fantasy races off of existing human cultures.

Madelyn Aisha Goeke
Crisis at SciCon 2012, All Tapped Out

Madelyn Goeke writes a series of short stories and novels revolving around a core group of hardcore nerds who solve extremely nerdy crimes. The Nerdcore Sleuths, as they’re called, have recently been picked up for international distribution by Kyoto Processed Ricepaper Concern Press.

Petra Natalia Langley
Odessa Mullen Slips Into the Zombieworld, Odessa Mullen Slips Back Into the Zombieworld, Odessa Mullen’s Zombieworld Revealed

A self-described “zombaddict” university student from the Midwest, Ms. Langley admits that her character of Dessie Mullen is essentially herself “turned up to 11.”

Odis Perun
Καλλίστη, Brewster’s Dictionary of Psychic Phenomena, 17th edition

A paranormal researcher and erstwhile medium, Dr. Perun teaches at a non-accredited degree mill in northern California. In his spare time, he writes fiction that reflects his interest in paranormal phenomenons and mass panic. He assures us that there is nothing sinister behind these interests, and certainly no prototype panic projectors in his woodshed that anyone should be concerned about.

“Lady” Kaila Pisciotti
The Other Book of Changes, Fastest and Highest, The Forever Swim, Up the Ladder

All of Ms. Pisciotti’s submissions have been postmarked from places that do not exist with stamps that have never been issued. Nonexistent, that is, even by the standards of EFNB, which maintains a robust imaginary correspondence network with subscribers and authors. As none of our mail can be delivered, and her provided email address is for a top-level domain that was proposed but never implemented, we cannot with certainty provide anything other than Ms. Pisciotti’s self-description as “a minor noble from the northernmost part of the Inland Empire where it touches the Beral Lands.” Opinion is divided as to whether this is an elaborate prank or mail arriving from an alternate dimension.

Victorina Rudolf
The Girl and the Teddy-Bear, Astride the Great Fish

Ms. Rudolf’s selections are from what she calls “an achingly nostalgic and painful exploration of childhood’s end through the lens of fantasy.” The editors did not think that talking teddy bears and flying fish were indicative of concrete reality, but it was nice to see this confirmed.

Andrew A. Sailer
Why I Hate MMORPGs, Why I Hate Reboots

A self-described “larval curmudgeon,” Mr. Sailer is a journalist who channels his inability to express his own opinions on issues into a series of rabid online essays about things that irritate him. He generally shies away from hot-button political or religious topic, preferring to save his bile for “the little annoyances that help make everyday life a festering cauldron of inconvenience.”

Hazel Pace Santiago
Tripping on the Green, A Caryatid Fashionista, Minimum Wage Fig Tree Dryad, Pendant of Generations, In A Weird Place

Ms. Santiago submitted her first writing to us shortly before the site’s two-year anniversary and has since gifted us extensively with excerpts from her forthcoming young adult urban fantasy novel. “I hate that I have to call it that,” she told us, “because those terms have been so thoroughly debased by overmarketing, bad Harry Potter wannabes, and worse fan-fiction with serial numbers filed off.”

Arkady Tuvalev
Marshal Nedelin, Cradle of the Elbrus IV

An ethnic Russian nuclear engineer, Tuvalev lives and works in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. Further details, he says with a smile, are “classified.”

Tune in tomorrow for a retrospective on our established contributors who have written for us during 2012-2013!