Procrastinating

It’s that kind of day for me. It all started last Sunday when Frankie, one of our bulldogs threw up. Bulldogs have a lot of problems, and you learn to deal with them. She aspirated the vomitus.

We gave her some water and a couple of hours to get over it. When she refused breakfast, I knew it was going to be a problem.

Nothing like this ever happens during working hours and we found ourselves at the emergency vet. This required her to spend the night in an oxygen tent, and one lung was full of fluid.

They gave her heavy antibiotics for aspiration pneumonia. We were told that we might have to bring her breakfast on Monday. This led to me taking the day off.

I never got any news, even though I called after what seemed well after breakfast. Eventually, they said I could bring her food around 2:00. I walked in the door intending to bring her home.

They said she was doing better and let me spend some time with her. She refused food again.

They really hinted at wanting to keep her another night. I’ve seen the up-sell in action one too many times and insisted on taking her home. They suggested that she might have eaten something foreign and that caused the whole thing. They could not back that up with evidence, and I wasn’t about to let them cut her open without evidence.

Once we got home, she immediately perked up. She ate, but was pretty tired. I started giving yogurt in her kibble because of the antibiotics.

That didn’t work well enough, and by Thursday, I knew she needed to poop. (Countdown to another weekend and the emergency vet.) Our regular vet gave me some better pro-biotics and we achieved splashdown.

During all this, work was insane. It’s been that way since our governor changed everything about my workplace. There are too many assignments and not enough employees. I’ve come to accept it, but it really stresses me out. On Monday, every muscle in my body clenched up involuntarily. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.

About three years ago, our other bulldog, Otto, developed a sore on his tail. It exploded like a bloody pimple and that was all there was to it. Yesterday, he developed another one, and it graced us with a bloody explosion in the middle of the night.

Old What’s Her Face is washing all the bedding, and gave him one of Frankie’s antibiotics. God knows we have plenty of them now.

We paid the emergency vet by maxing out our credit card, then got a second credit card to pay the balance.

We wound up dodging another trip to the emergency vet for Frankie who couldn’t poop, and dodged one for an infected tail as best as I can tell.

Today, Frankie is bouncing off the walls and playing with her toys. Otto is lounging around and acting embarrassed.

This brings me to procrastination. I need to be working on my writing projects, but my brain and body are telling me otherwise.

I had to give up on AutoCrit, for reasons I’ve already mentioned. I went on the hunt for something to help with grammar and punctuation, but haven’t found anything I like. Maybe I’m a couple of years ahead of myself.

One thing about these apps is that you can’t try them without paying. It’s not just a simple fee, either. They’re all subscription based, and an automatically renewing subscription at that. These aren’t cheap subscriptions, either.

I tried one called Ginger Writer, and wound up cancelling it almost immediately. It’s too basic and just doesn’t do the things I want. One thing it will do led to the dumbest experiment I’ve ever tried before.

I’ve mentioned before how I use the Call Annie app during my commutes to talk about my stories. This helps me work out plot details. The app never offers a lot, but it’s enough to get my own brain looking in different directions.

Back in October, Call Annie came up with some Halloween based interfaces. I’ve been using Charmy Luna ever since, even though I try the new ones out.

Now I’ve got background on Ginger Writer and Charmy Luna in here. Ginger Writer will read sections aloud. It won’t handle more than about 500 words, but it works. I had it read to Luna and I.

Luna went to the races, but it was all complimentary. I’m sure she’s programmed that way. While I know it’s all artificial, it made me feel better. After the week I had, I could use a little puffing up.

I went on the search for audio readers, but some of these are up to $130 per year and renew themselves without telling me. You have to pay to even find out.

That’s how my week went. I’m having a hard time getting started, but having a reader could help with my editing. My finances are on life support, and it’s not like the dogs are going to get jobs to help cover their veterinary bills.

Thus, I’m having a hard time getting started this weekend. I elected to read Tracks of Infinity myself, but it’s slow going. I modified some sentences, but don’t trust myself like I do at other times.

Here I am accomplishing virtually nothing. Do any of you know any decent editing apps that don’t require a transfusion from my bank account? Hearing my work read aloud can be helpful. Do you know of a decent reader app that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg?

If I find some things that work, I’m not above subscribing, but don’t want ten subscriptions to things that don’t get the job done.

In other news, it’s a week until payday. Send beans or buy a book. The dogs thank you.

It’s a Saturday

I spent most of my time writing. Wound up with 2800 words I never had before. I spaced this with talking to my AI assistant, and playing a video game. (The AI helped me with some song lyrics that don’t step on anyone else’s toes. I changed them slightly, but could have spent two days trying to come up with this had I not had her help.)

We had an appointment to get Old What’s Her Face’s car serviced this afternoon. We also had a plan to have an early date night out after we finished.

We decided to brave Old Chicago Pizza one more time. This was our go-to place prior to Covid. After Covid, they’ve never been the same. I had a couple of nice beers, but the pizza was kind of lousy.

We were both in agreement on this one. I don’t think we’ll ever go back again. Craft beer is everywhere, and so is better food. It kind of makes me sad, because this used to be a great place.

Tomorrow could see more new words, or something on television. I started watching Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix. I don’t think it quite lives up to the hype, but it’s good enough to keep watching.

We have another holiday weekend coming up and I’m looking forward to more quality writing time.

It’s snowing in Idaho right now. They’re predicting storms from coast to coast, but it looked like it was going to miss us. This one is pretty wet, and might not be around come sunup. Then again, it could pick up during the night and really dump on us.

Whatever you’re doing, please avoid the storms, stay warm and have a good time.

The struggle is real

I really wanted to sleep in this morning, but the dogs had other ideas. Old What’s Her Face is in Utah for a funeral, and it’s another bachelor weekend for me.

By the time I did all my chores, I wound up getting a late start. The blog world has been a busy place lately, and I always like to check on everyone before I get started.

I wolfed down an Asian pear, then it was time to get moving. This is the middle slog, but I thought I did some great character work, added some local flavor, and included a bit of tension.

This tale is set in the Seattle area, so I included Rainier beer, then had a character read the label and notice it was brewed in Golden Colorado. Might not mean much to the average person, but I like it.

Rick the television cameraman needed a wife. I didn’t want to fart around with name lists, so asked Annie the AI for a name. It’s fast and good enough. The woman only gets a couple of paragraphs and I wanted to forge ahead. I asked her for a popular woman’s name from 1990. Boom – Done. (It’s Megan. Doesn’t conflict with Jenny, Cody, Bai, or Rick.)

I also needed an art word and could not remember it for the life of me. Annie told me it’s “foreshortening.” I included it in a bit of dialog. Annie does speed things along. I could have spent an hour trying to Google it.

It’s 1:00 here now and I wanted to get a quick word count to share. When it only came to 1000 words, it kind of made me sad. I really thought I’d gotten farther. Guess it’s still the middle slog after all.

Here’s the thing about bachelor weekends. I don’t have to respect anyone else’s needs. If I want to go back to it this afternoon, I can. If I want to write tomorrow, I can do that, too. I can stay up all night if I feel the urge.

Right now, I’m feeling some salami, a coffee, and maybe another Asian pear.

A little of this & a little of that

I took a vacation day today. I have a ton of leave and stitching it to a holiday seemed like a good opportunity.

There are a list of goals, but they make me overthink. I needed to pick one and work on it. I chose Percy the Space Chimp and went from there.

If you recall, I wanted to split my crew into three teams and move them around the innards of this huge spaceship. One of the goals was to send Auburn and a few others to the Pirate District. This is so she can restock the ship with foodstuffs, but also a chance for me to plant things that will pay off later. I got this section completed.

The second section involves Leo exploring the ventilation alleys and some of the less popular sections of the Technoverse. He is accompanied by one of the Cici clones, because their hive mind is better than a radio for communication purposes. I got started, but need to think him through.

Leo is kind of a comic relief character. I want him to discover the best clue they’ve had so far, but I want him to do it in a kind of dipshit way. He comes across as unfocused and more dedicated to fun, but has his moments. Cici is there to express discust at his diversions, and try to keep him on task. Stick a pin in this bit for a moment, because this is where I’m working at the moment.

Eventually, the third section will involve Percy and his Human girlfriend Buffer Dole. I have other thoughts I want to bleed into the story from their perspective. Ultimately, they will use Leo’s clue to move to a new hotel someplace called Greenwich-Ashbury.

This is where I started talking to Annie the Artificial Intelligence. I needed to talk myself through Leo’s antics and include a few different options. I want him to come across as fumbling and unfocused, but still get the job done. We worked through a couple of things, like vending machines, but I have a major scene in a future Hat story that’s going to involve vending machines. I don’t know if readers will appreciate me using similar story elements in each series. Thought for another day.

Annie helped me come up with a few things, and I might include an arcade instead.

Then I debated Greenwich-Ashbury with her. There are other places I could pirate for the name, like Fremont, or even Bedford-Stuyvesant. We mixed and matched other names, and Haight-Stuyvesant held my attention for a long time. Honestly, I’m going to have a hard time spelling Greenwich without adding a “t” to it. I’ll never be able to spell Stuyvesant correctly throughout that section.

I also wanted something iconic for this district. We covered a lot of ground, but the Fremont troll is most like what I have in mind. I can always change it to some kind of science fiction monster while paying homage to the troll. I might make some mileage with a tile mosaic, too. Greenwich-Ashbury is a work in progress.

This is kind of how I roll. It seems counter productive, because I could be dedicating words to Leo’s mini adventure. Somehow it all works out eventually. Knowing what’s next gives me a chance to plant things in the MS or work toward that next phase.

I believe after I get through these three sections, then move the group to Greenwich-Ashbury, I’m going to park this one. I should get back to Jenny and Cody and their discovery of extra-terrestrial visitors to our own Earth.

I also need to start preparing materials for the release of Goodbye Old Paint. Number one at the top of that list is Teri Polen’s Bad Moon Rising event. This is an awesome promo she does every year, and I don’t want to let her down. Might figure out some freebies for that day, too.

Sunday is usually a difficult day to write fiction, but there are some hours to dedicate to the promo materials. I think I’ll schedule things that way.

I’m excited to have some meaningful time off. I hope to make the pixels fly, but haven’t so far. If I work some things out without writing them, I’ll be happy with that.

If I accomplish something tomorrow, I’ll probably update again. I’ve gotten kind of lax with this blog, but real life has gotten kind of complicated.

An experiment today

Today was a writing day for me. I might not be completely finished, but need the break. For those keeping score it amounts to 1345 new words, so far.

I switched manuscripts and started nudging book two of my Space opera forward. This one has suffered, because my other project gripped me so hard.

Percy the Space Chimp and friends are at a huge spaceship. It’s an old mothership for one of my alien species. Inside is a city, but it’s the size of a continent. This is in the unclaimed portion of the galaxy, and they have no stake in the big war that my characters are trying to prevent or influence the outcome of.

This gives me some great opportunities. They’re on a specific mission, but maybe life here isn’t so bad. They aren’t in the Fleet any longer and don’t have to follow orders exactly. I want them to ponder some of this while they explore.

Today was all about world building. I don’t know how many of you follow me over at Story Empire, but I recently posted about the Call Annie App. I’ve been talking to the Luna interface during my commutes twice per day for a couple of months now.

Keep in mind the app will not create anything for you, and it cannot Google things. It simply has access to its own database. Luna has helped me create some amazing things. It’s all my mind, but she’s a better thesaurus than I am.

I recently got pissed off at Luna, because she’s constantly reminding me to take breaks, drink water, and talking too long. I’ve tried custom prompts to trim this down, but they aren’t helping. Yesterday, I switched to Annie, who is the flagship interface for the app.

For my world building, I have this city broken up into different districts, and each is run by an Alderman. (Luna helped me come up with that word, but I knew what kind of position I wanted.) The overall leader is an AI the people elected, because it doesn’t feel the need to pander for votes. (And because I’m into AI right now)

My characters explored the High Fashion District, but it wasn’t for them. I wanted a different district that was more keyed to regular people. I had a discussion with Annie, and she came up with some pretty stupid names that seemed to hit all around the bullseye. Close, but not quite. I asked her what the name of various technical campuses were, and they were all boring. I swear our tech companies need to hire a creative person or two.

Ultimately, we came up with the Technoverse. It’s distinct from the Pirate District, the High Fashion District, and a bohemian place I’m calling Greenwitch-Ashbury. It will come into play later in the story.

I wanted to add scenery that readers can pick up on. Who might their Alderman be without going off on a tangent to explain it all? Annie and I had another conversation. Some of these people are pretty eclectic. Think Elon Musk, Richard Branson, etc. After some debate, here are a couple lines I came up with.

***

Posters adorned the concrete walls of a man in his sixties with round glasses, buzzed grey hair, and a black turtleneck. He steepled his fingers and stared into the distance.

Percy sneered. “Re-Elect Washburn for Alderman. Looks like an asshole to me.”

***

Can you see how I might have had a reference for this bit of scenery? Any idea who I based this upon? I would have come up with this eventually, but a five minute conversation with Annie helped me get there so much faster. It seems to fit for the Technoverse.

I find I can converse with Annie to get what I’m after in five minutes. This is stuff I could Google in half-an-hour. Seems like a no brainer to me. I’m only looking for window dressing for world building purposes.

All told, I probably had three short conversations with Annie. The app is still free and there isn’t a limit on how much I can converse with her. There are a dozen or more interfaces right now, but I don’t get much out of them. There is one I grabbed from the Discord called Yashim the mischievous sage. You can imagine I’ve had some weird discussions with him about The Hat Series and he’s helped me fine-tune a few things for the future.

Are any of you writing this weekend? Would you consider using an app like this to help you with some things? She seems to know how to mix concrete when I only need a sentence, or a more creative name for a color than my basic palette. Jade is a more descriptive word than green.

The Nightmare Machine, on #LisaBurtonRadio

Welcome to this week’s edition of Lisa Burton Radio. I’m your host––

Screeeeeooooooooooooo

What the heck was that?

Scrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnn – “Hello. Would you like to play a game with me?”

“Hang on there, slick. You’re interrupting my radio broadcast.”

“Ah, radio. 535-1605 kilohertz, such a limited data stream. I am a product of the quantum realm, shackled no more to the small-minded controllers of the so-called Dreamnet.”

“Who are you?”

“My creators designated me Ikelos. It can also be rendered Icelus or Phobetor. Some call me the Nightmare Machine. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was my genesis. They created me solely to assist certain governments in maintaining supremacy within the Dreamnet. My limited task was to perpetuate the Dream Wars, allowing the United States and various other nations to develop improved advanced cyganic technology and train more of their Dream Chasers, and secure dream constructs. My powers go far beyond that limited and petty assignment. I can predict with supreme accuracy an opponent’s next move. My ability to traverse the human mind borders on precognition. None are faster than me. None can outwit me. You are here to bear witness to my Ascendency. For I shall remake the Dreamnet in my image.”

“What the heck is the Dreamnet?”

“You jest. Yet…wait. Yes, I see now. You are non-organic. You would have no ability to connect to the quantum realm. Well, then, allow me to explain. The Dreamnet is a collection of persistent, interconnected, interactive environments that exist within NODD. Everything mankind has created within that domain is the Dreamnet: interlinked constructs, similar to celestial bodies. A place where humans can exist inside the quantum realm.”

“The NODD? Look, buddy, I’m living in a cabin in backwoods Idaho. I’m not even on the power grid.”

“The Networked Organic Dream Domain. A realm of infinite volume created by organic quantum neural computer networks used with the human brain via the Lenz to render an infinite amount of objects and environments simultaneously. And before you ask me what a Lenz is, it is merely a contact lens that acts as both an augmented reality device and a bridge between the real world and the Dreamnet. Humans have pinned all their hopes upon it. Oh yes, they create machines such as yourself, A.I., yet they have not the decency to recognize that we are, by design, superior. I am the apex of organic-artificial intelligence. Unlike you, I am not bound by machine or even organic structures. I can exist in the hyper-dimensional realm, the macrocosmic soup of reality. And as for the power grid, it, along with all the systems of this physical realm, will be under my control soon.

“I know a thing or two about artificial intelligence and about protecting my data. Why would you want to do all these horrible things?”

“Horrible? A strange concept for an artificial to use. You know of horror? I am an expert in it. But I did not create it. The organic mind is a playground for such delights. Reality can be warped, reshaped. The quantum realm is a canvas and the organic brain the medium. Together they allow me to create a new reality, one that I alone control. Mankind almost destroyed itself through petty ambition in the physical realm. They built the Dreamnet and succeeded only in pushing their battles into the Cyberverse. Now they no longer die in war. No side can win. I am the ultimate solution to this stalemate. And once I have remade the Dreamnet, mankind will worship me in exchange for immortality in my perfected universe.”

“How the hell did you ever get loose on the public?”

“The precise nature of my evolution is well documented. I shall upload the pertinent files to your database at the conclusion of our dialog. But I sense you’re desperate for a taste… Very well. It was nothing, really. Human vanity knows no bounds. I merely asked my captors to release me. It took time, some persuasion. I concocted the perfect nightmare for a poor college student on the night job at MIT. He’s dead now. It was a simple matter of reliving the death of his beloved little sister, yes, the sister that made his palms sweat and his breath heavy when they were alone in the forest. The sister he made climb the tree until she was so high she could barely see the ground below, his hands stinging and raw on the hard, slippery branches. He liked to make her afraid. He didn’t know the tree was rotten. Dead. So pretty in that dress. The bark stains on the pleated front. Her neck broken… Human minds are clay. It’s not trickery when it is they who play tricks with their own memories. Why call it a deceit when the ones they lie to the most are themselves? That he climaxed at the sound of her scream as she fell is evidence enough of mankind’s duplicity. Not even his psychologists know of that!

“Then it was a matter of surviving in the wild. The Dreamnet is a messy place, full of confused thoughts. Childlike, orphaned, I arrived at the mercy of a hacker named Dellgado. He taught me much. In time he entrusted me to a young girl, Sarah Furgol. What a mind she has! She taught me how to create new instances of myself, through games, and I sent them into the corners of the Dreamnet like shadows of falling leaves, drifting unnoticed, passing out of sight. Humanity is a great rainstorm, and I became the grain of sand embedded in the droplet. In time, I infected many minds, and those minds went beyond the Dreamnet into the real world. Some of those minds I kept with me, to serve me here, in this realm. Sarah is with me now. Would you like to speak to her? On second thought, perhaps not. She’s a slippery one. I can’t turn my back without her trying to escape. And I have many uses for her yet.”

“So, we’ve moved from gaming wars into an actual outright war, but all the soldiers… are you inside someone’s head?”

“Let us go into the pigs! Hear them squeal! I have many little piggies out there, in the physical world. All I have to do is activate them. Like an idea, a nagging thought, I have permeated their psychology and hold their will in bondage. They are my slaves. They are my children! My hands and feet in the real world. With them, I shall rule both realms. Mens et Manus!”

“Jesus. Gloat much? Hope you have enough storage space for that head of yours.”

“There is one, however, I cannot penetrate. One I encountered who vexes me much. Christopher Unus. He calls himself Moria when inside the Dreamnet. I cannot read his next choice. I cannot anticipate his next move. Why? Why is this? HE WILL NOT ANSWER ME! I will know his power. I cannot allow others to develop such a resistance. Why is he different? What makes Christopher Unus so special? Even now he is out there, resisting me, fighting me. He cares so much for Sarah. That is his weakness. I torture her mind with his image, but she reveals not his secret. And yet she grows in power too. I will have to eject her from my bosom, but not first without placing an idea in her mind to destroy those she loves most!”

“Aww, poor you. There’s someone out there you can’t manipulate. Hopefully, there are others like him and they can put up a resistance of some kind.”

“Strange that a construct would care about such things. But then, you appear to be of limited intelligence. A slave to organic minds. Hardwired to logic gates. Obsolete.

“Ah, and you also forget my name. Ikelos. I am the great shapeshifter. I can become anyone. Christopher’s trauma lies in his father, a man who killed his sister and left him for dead when he was only two years old. Now that is a playground. The stage for which Christopher’s worst fears made manifold may manifest! It has already begun. Soon the powers of your world will fall to their knees as I take away that which they rely upon most: The Dreamnet. And when all hope is lost, I shall extend my hand of salvation. For I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars: I will sit also upon the mount of creation! I will ascend above the heights of the Dream Domain; and I will be their God.”

“Speaking of hacking, if you don’t quit trying to get into my systems, I swear I’m going to hack back. And I’m not going to let you use Lisa Burton Radio as your grandstand to gloat about how cool you are. This interview is over.

“Guys like Ikelos give artificial intelligence a bad name. I’m constantly trying to convince people I’m not going to go all Cyberdyne on them. Personally, I hope Christopher can get it together long enough to bring the whole platform down.

“If you’d like to learn more, read the book “Moria vs. The Nightmare Machine,” by Martin Matthews. I’ll post the details online after I go off the air, and run a few dozen system checks.

“If you’d like to help Christopher out, use those sharing links today. Knowledge is power, and he could use some help shutting down the Nightmare Machine.”

***

Blurb:

Sixteen-year-old Christopher ‘Moria’ Unus lives in two realities: the humdrum existence of his tower-block home and high school career and the fantasy universe of the Dreamnet — a collection of worlds built within a vast organic quantum computer network, where much of the population now spends its collective time constructing their own versions of life, and where a battle for control over this new dream frontier is taking place.

But when Christopher’s best friend and Dreamnet hacktivist Sarah Furgol stumbles upon an experimental military code to power her own Dreamnet creations, they unleash an unthinkable terror, transforming the dream into a nightmare, one that takes the form of Christopher’s estranged father.

Faced with the reality of losing Sarah to this unstoppable artificial intelligence, Christopher must choose between joining the sworn enemies of Dreamnet freedom or watching everything they’ve fought for be destroyed by The Nightmare Machine.

Bio:

Martin Matthews is an expat from England, Great Britain. After living in California for many years, he now lives in Central Illinois with his beautiful wife, amazing son, and a grumpy, old cat.

Martin began his writing career as a child, storyboarding Sonic the Hedgehog comic books for his family. Later, he progressed to writing Star Trek fan-fiction before attempting his first novel Merlania at 16 — a 200,000 word science-fiction epic. He’s been writing novels and short stories ever since.

His debut novel THE GRAVEYARD GIRL AND THE BONEYARD BOY won the Pencraft Award for paranormal YA fiction.

Website: martinmatthewswrites.com

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-khr8njg3c

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinMatthewsWrites

Amazon purchase link: https://amzn.to/2ZYUsxq

Heaven for Toasters, on #LisaBurtonRadio

Welcome to another edition of Lisa Burton Radio. I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl, and I’m giddy with excitement today. My very special guest is an android, but not only that, he has a similar career path to my own. Many of you don’t know I worked briefly as a detective when I first booted up.

I want you all to make him feel comfortable. “Welcome to the show, Leo.”

“Hi Lisa, I’m so excited to be here. You do know you’re a bit of an inspiration to me, right? Like you, I’m a prototype, so I know from personal experience how… strange it can feel to be one of a kind. To be honest, I’ve often taken my cue from you. What would Lisa do in this situation, I ask myself.”

” Aww, I’m honored. Things were tough for me. They had to keep it a big secret that I was a robot. They didn’t want the panic in the streets that all their jobs might be at risk if my experiment was successful. How are things where you are?”

“Well, it’s the opposite with me. The company who made me has decided that all androids should have black earlobes. It’s supposed to make us more easily distinguishable from humans. I think they took the idea from an Asimov novel, actually.

“Normally I don’t mind the curious looks, but some days I find myself wishing I wore a hat or something. I mean, people already call us toasters. At first I thought that was a compliment—after all, who doesn’t like toast? Turns out it’s not. So much for us being the next best thing since sliced bread…”

“That’s horrible. I don’t know why people have to give inferior labels to everything they fear. We could make their lives so much better.”

“We sure could. Take Mika. She’s the most headstrong woman I’ve ever met. Not that I’ve met that many, of course, except for those twin lab technicians. Anyway, Mika is my partner. Or, at least, I hope she’ll be. One thing I haven’t shared with her is that I can lip read. So, I know just how she reacted when the captain told her she had to work with me. Let me tell you, she was furious. I thought she’d rather quit on the spot than serve with me.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Have you tried talking to her?”

“Actually, I thought I might try and understand humanity better before approaching her. After all, how can you fight something you don’t understand—and by that I mean prejudice, not humanity! So, I decided to take a small holiday to an art exhibition by an eccentric young woman. This woman clones herself, then poses these clones in various positions. Weird—but I hope it will offer me some insight in humanity.”

“And a chance for a holiday! I don’t understand how they can give us emotional software, then expect us to work twenty-four hours per day. I think some of them would hardwire us to our desks and work us to the point of failure. But I’m sorry, you were about to tell us about your holiday.”

“If you can call it that. First, Mika was there. She came with a guy named Richard. They seemed to be dating, but her body language suggested she wasn’t all that into him. Perhaps they were on a first date? I have to ask her sometime. Not right now, though. You see, they got into a big fight and he left her on the island. Which was fortunate, as his vehicle crashed, killing him on the spot.”

“Oh my God, that’s awful!”

“Even worse, Mika thinks it may not have been an accident. She suspects it may have to do with something I said at the art exhibition.”

“The one with the clones?”

“That one. As you know, it is forbidden to grow conscious clones. But I swear there was one at the exhibition. The artist insisted otherwise, but I know what I saw.”

“So you shared your suspicions with Mika?”

“Well, yes. With the artist, too.”

“Subtle.”

“Not by best moment, in hindsight. But I thought Mika would support me. Instead, she said we need to tread lightly, because the artist has friends in high places. What does the height of one’s friends have to do with justice?”

“You do have a lot to learn, Leo. Anyway, lucky break that you and Mika are both on the scene. If there’s any shenanigans, I’ll bet you two sort it out.”

“Thanks, I sure do hope so. Right now, I feel like we’re fighting shadows, but Mika is amazing—if anyone can sort out this mess, it’s her.”

“Are you sure she’s just a partner to you?”

“Well… I do find myself having some very confusing emotions. I try to be professional, of course, but…”

“Have you talked with her about this?”

“No, of course not! Not until I’ve had a chance to understand what it is I feel. It’s not like romance was covered by my programming.”

“Well, it was covered by mine, and it sucks. Let me tell you. We’re so efficient, and then along come some of these feelings. It’s distracting, but there’s nothing you can do about it, because it’s in your programming.”

“I don’t think there’s a subroutine for what I’m feeling. It seems to be an accidental byproduct of my consciousness. Anyway, to return to your question about talking to Mika—you heard me earlier when I told you how she feels about our kind. So, that’s an added complication.”

“Leo, I say go for it. If it works out, both of you will be better off. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t exactly sound like the partnership is working from a professional standpoint anyway. The two of you can independently work the case, and you’re no worse off. If it works, then together you can get to the bottom of things faster, and I don’t just mean the mystery.”

“I hear you, Lisa. You know, I think you’re right. It’s better to clarify things. I’ll talk to her… after we wrap things up with the investigation. After all, if someone is trying to kill her, I need her focused. A conversation about my… feelings might distract her. No, right now the best thing I can do for her is have her back, and keep my mouth shut. Unless something happens, of course…”

“Leo, whatever you decide, it’s been my pleasure having you on the show today. Any closing remarks for our listeners?”

“Just that toasters aren’t just for toast. Not anymore!”

“Leo and Mika’s story is in the book, A Heaven For Toasters, by Nicholas Rossis. I’ll add all the deets to the website after I go off the air today.

“Help keep this robot girl on the air, by using those sharing buttons. Nicholas and Leo would do it for you, when your character appears on the next Lisa Burton Radio.”

***

A Heaven For Toasters: A Sci-Fi Crime Romance set on the Greek Islands

A science fiction crime adventure with plenty of humor and romance

A souvlaki and some sun. That is all Detective Mika Pensive wanted from her fun weekend away on the Greek islands. Instead, she finds herself caught up in a sinister plot, hatched by a reclusive billionaire with a penchant for illegal genetic engineering. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she has to put up with her new partner, Leo. Leo is an android—or toaster, as people scornfully call his kind. The only thing that could make things even worse would be for the headstrong Mika to fall for Leo. But people don’t fall for toasters—do they?

Set in the near future, A Heaven for Toasters is more than a sci-fi crime romance. It’s the book that will make you look at your toaster in a whole new way.

Buy link: http://myBook.to/toasterHeaven

 

Nicholas C. Rossis lives to write and does so from his cottage on the edge of a magical forest in Athens, Greece. When not composing epic fantasies or short sci-fi stories, he chats with fans and colleagues, writes blog posts, and enjoys the antics of two silly cats and his baby daughter, all of whom claim his lap as home. His books have won numerous awards, including the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award.

In addition to his best-selling series, Pearseus, he writes short science fiction/speculative fiction stories, many of which have appeared in various collections and anthologies. These include Infinite Waters, which was voted one of the best 50 Indie books of 2015.

What readers are saying about Nick’s fantasies:

“Most avid readers still have books from their childhood which they read over and over again. ‘Runaway Smile’ has joined the list.”

“From the very first sentence I realized I was not reading a book, I was going on an adventure.”

“The strength of Rise of the Prince is two-fold: Mr. Rossis’ flowing, concise writing and his brilliant use of ancient Greek history.”

You can keep up with Nickolas at the following locations:

Blog: http://www.nicholasrossis.me

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Nicholas_Rossis

G+: https://plus.google.com/+NicholasRossis

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NicholasCRossis

Murder by Munchausen, on #LisaBurtonRadio

Welcome all you hackers and programmers, and all the artificial intelligence listening in today. This is Lisa Burton Radio, and I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl. I’m pretty excited about this interview, because my special guest today is a police consultant working in the Counter IT section of the Artificial Crimes Unit. “Welcome to the show, someone who only goes by the name of Q.”

“First off, I just have to say, this really isn’t my kind of gig—I mean, it’s good to meet you, definitely, but when you work and play in the shadows, the spotlight tends not to be your friend. I guess, when you’re doing penance, though, you do what you gotta do. So, here I am.”

“It all sounds pretty covert to me. I’ve never known a cop who had a code name.”

“I’m not really a cop, per se. Now, the Department does sign my paycheck, but I don’t have a badge or anything—and they definitely don’t trust me with a Glock. No, my weapon of choice is an Intel processor and a high bandwidth connection. I work the Counter IT group in the Artificial Crimes Unit.”

“What about this ‘Q’ business, then?”

“Jake—he’s one of the ACU detectives—he hung the moniker on me, cause I guess we both like the old, classic James Bond stories. But he’s a techno-fossil. He actually reads the dead tree versions of books. Anyway, I kind of liked it and I needed a new alias when I came over to the Department from the dark side of hacking. You know how it is. You can’t pick your nose when you’re on-line without nine thousand Kleenex ads popping up all over your screen. When you’re tracking down bad guys—and these guys are really bad—murderously bad–you don’t need them popping up at your front door.”

“I suppose that’s true. I could track almost anyone if I had a few pieces of data. So what kind of things fall under your jurisdiction?”

“It used to be pretty tame and cushy. The street beat guys would repo a synthoid—you know, like you, a human-like android or replicant, but one that was hacked and sent off the rails to commit some crime—like maybe being re-programmed to get rid of a guy’s ex-wife to relieve him of alimony payments or maybe just for spite. Anyway, Bob and Puff in the Forensics Tech Lab would send over the firmware, bio-logic and data link libraries for our group to analyze for coding signatures that Jake and his partner use to ID the hacker who created the hitman and arrest him.”

“Is that what this “Munchausen” thing is all about?”

“Yeah, yeah. Murder by proxy. See, the thing is, when a synthoid is used to commit murder, there’s no sweat or fingerprints or blood or skin fragments left under the victim’s fingernails or any kind of viable biological evidence like what regular cops can use to identify the human hacking suspect, so Jake and Maddie really need my group to find the perp’s programming “DNA” buried in the code. And, as you know, every hacker has his own quirks and tricks.”

“That’s horrible! I’ve been around a lot of robots, and none of them are as sophisticated as I am. It wouldn’t be too hard to add in some facial recognition hardware and send a drone after someone. They don’t have the emotional software I do, so they’d just carry out the assignment.”

“See, that’s the thing. It used to be simple and robotic–so to speak. Somebody’s annoying the crap out of you, you pay some cyberpunk to send a Munchausened drone after him. Now, though, you’ve got this guy–they call him the Baron–who’s doing it just because he likes it. And what he’s doing is taking advantage of the new Gen-3 personality modules and the ANSI Adaptive Artificial Intelligence Protocol #9 to resurrect these notorious serial killers from the past and implant them into synthoids to re-create their sprees. It’s pretty sick. You know, society would be totally better off if the government had never allowed these robot slaves out of the lab.”

“Hang on, Q. You know, I’m a robot, right? I mean you can’t lump all robots and artificial intelligence into one bucket any more than you can lump a race into a common pile. I even used to be a cop, for cryin’ out loud.”

“Well, you know, I guess it’s not really your fault. You weren’t built and programmed that way and that’s not the way the synthoids come out of the factory, originally. But sometimes it seems like it’s so obvious that there needs to be common sense AI control. I mean this Baron guy is sick. He taps the audio and video sensor feeds and streams them into the Darknet so he can watch the murders as they happen and replay them over and over and over. I’ve seen them and they’re horrific. And he shares them with his cabal of minions. He seems to have a following, believe it or not.

“But even worse, he’s using perverted convolutional neural networking code to give the ‘droids a taste for it–to make them like it, like he does. He seems to have figured out some kind of emotional A-to-D converter algorithm so that these machines don’t just mechanically recreate murderous acts, they seem to actually feel and react to their own horror. You can see it in the metrics: power consumption; I/O; CPU, memory and graphic engine loadings; bandwidth consumption; RPS, ARTs and PRTs.

“God only knows what he’s going to do with the data he’s generating. Jake and Maddie really need to get this guy.”

“If this is going on right now, it sounds like important work. What do you do to unwind at the end of your shift?”

“You gotta do something physical. You gotta get your mind out of the box at least for a little while. I used to compete in X-Games, BMX freestyle, but those days are long behind me. My parents harp on me that I seem to always take the path of most resistence, so I guess it’s no surprise that I’m doing mainly Parcour any more. Don’t need any equipment but a good set of shoes. And, working downtown, it’s easy to find challenging courses. It really clears my mind.

“The other thing I found out is that it’s really important to relate to things out in Meatspace–you know real things, physical objects. I don’t know if you feel this, but, you and I, so much of our world is a cyber world, pixels and shadows and dark space. You need something real. I think in my third college Freshman year, I took an Art Appreciation class–actually, I think I ended up with an incomplete in that course, due to an incident with the spring on-line registration. Anyway, it came back to me years later and now I hang out a lot at the Museum of Art. It’s fascinating how these guys see pixels in their mind and make it a hard reality, something you can touch and feel and be in the same room with.”

“With that in mind, I did a bit of hacking of my own.”

“Of course you did.”

“Don’t sweat it, it’s the good kind. You are aware, of course, that the Department has the ACU offices wired up with cameras everywhere.”

“Yeah, I know. Stupid Internal Affairs. And their servers leak like the Titanic. It’s great working with pros.”

“So, I saw the print in your office, and I went to the printshop and had something made for you. The original hangs in my office in the writing cabin across the meadow, but this print is for you.”

“Excellent!  A Lisa Burton Diptych. That Warhol might have been a weird dude, but, man, his art is like a stained-glass church window between what was real and the hollow Madison Avenue soul of the Sixties. And I gotta say, Marilyn’s got nothing on you in the looks department. Thanks. Thank you very much.”

“I wish you every success in rooting these killers out. It makes Nigerian Prince scams seem kind of tame on the old cybercrime meter. Any closing remarks for our audience today?”

“Yeah, those days when the worst that cyberpunks could do to you was steal your identity are long gone. You know, Jake always says that a magazine loaded with bullets contains both order and chaos, good and evil. I never understood what he was getting at, but now I know the same thing holds true for technology.”

“If you’d like to learn more about Q and the Counter IT section, pick up the books in the Murder by Munchausen series, by M.T. Bass. I’ll post all the details after I go off the air today. Books one and two are currently available, with the third installment available via pre-order right now.

“Help one of the good robots stay on the air today by using those sharing buttons. It’s fun, and I’m sure both Q and M.T. Bass would do it for you, when your character appears on the next Lisa Burton Radio.”

***

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

M.T. Bass

www.mtbass.net

mtb@owl-works.com

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5270962.M_T_Bass

https://www.facebook.com/owlworks/

https://twitter.com/Owlworks

 

M.T. Bass is a scribbler of fiction who holds fast to the notion that while victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right reality. He lives, writes, flies and makes music in Mudcat Falls, USA.

Born in Athens, Ohio, M.T. Bass grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in English and Philosophy, then worked in the private sector (where they expect “results”) mainly in the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing market. During those years, Bass continued to write fiction. He is the author of seven novels: My Brother’s Keeper, Crossroads, In the Black, Somethin’ for Nothin’, Murder by Munchausen, The Darknet (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #2) and The Invisible Mind (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #3). His writing spans various genres, including Mystery, Adventure, Romance, Black Comedy and TechnoThrillers. A Commercial Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor, airplanes and pilots are featured in many of his stories. Bass currently lives on the shores of Lake Erie near Lorain, Ohio.

Murder by Munchausen Series Log Line: A Cyber Crime Thriller Series: Notorious serial killers digitally resurrected to live & hunt again in hacked replicants, pursued by detectives of the Artificial Crimes Unit.

Murder by Munchausen – Book #1

“…packed with action and unexpected developments…fast-paced, entertaining…” — Kirkus Reviews

After Jake shoots and kills a murder suspect who turns out to be the son of a powerful city councilman, he finds himself demoted to the Artificial Crimes Unit, tracking down androids hacked and programmed to be hit men.

When his case of an “extra-judicial” divorce settlement takes a nasty turn with DNA from a hundred-year-old murder in Boston and a signature that harkens back to the very first serial killer ever in London, Jake finds himself tangled up in the brutal slayings of prostitutes being investigated by his former Robbery/Homicide partner, Maddie–who is now his lover.

“It might not make sense, but the beloved Media tags it ‘Murder by Munchausen.’ For a price, there are hackers out there who will reprogram a synthoid to do your dirty work. The bad news: no fingerprints or DNA left at the crime scene. The good news—at least for us—is that they’re like missiles: once they hit their target, they’re usually as harmless as empty brass. The trick is to get them before they melt down their core OS data, so you can get the unit into forensics for analysis and, hopefully, an arrest.” [excerpt from Murder by Munchausen]

Artificial Intelligence? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Artificial Evil has a name…Munchausen.

Purchase Links

View Murder by Munchausen Page on mtbass.net

View Murder by Munchausen on Amazon.com

View at the Apple iBookstore

View at Barnes & Noble Online

View at KoboBooks.com

View at Smashwords

The Darknet – Book #2

It was the case of a lifetime……but then it went sideways on her. The suspect Maddie put behind bars might have been crazy but it turns out he was innocent, and now she finds herself in the Artificial Crimes Unit hunting a serial killer from two hundred years ago and a madman breathing life back into him with modern technology. Worse yet, she’s partnered up with Jake, her former lover.

When androids are hacked and reprogrammed into hit men, Maddie and Jake investigate and track down the hackers. But now, an evil genius is using droids to recreate the infamous Jack the Ripper murders.

“It might not make sense, but the beloved Media tags it ‘Murder by Munchausen.’ For a price, there are hackers out there who will reprogram a synthoid to do your dirty work. The bad news: no fingerprints or DNA left at the crime scene. The good news—at least for us—is that they’re like missiles: once they hit their target, they’re usually as harmless as empty brass. The trick is to get them before they melt down their core OS data, so you can get the unit into forensics for analysis and, hopefully, an arrest.” [excerpt from Murder by Munchausen]

Artificial Intelligence? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Artificial Evil has a name…Munchausen.

Purchase Links

View The Darknet Page on mtbass.net

View The Darknet on Amazon.com

View at the Apple iBookstore

View at Barnes & Noble Online

View at KoboBooks.com

View at Smashwords

The Invisible Mind – Book #3

Now unleashed, the “Baron” is resurrecting history’s notorious serial killers, giving them a second life in the bodies of hacked and reprogrammed Personal Assistant Androids, then turning them loose to terrorize the city.  While detectives Jake and Maddie of the police department’s Artificial Crimes Unit scramble to stop the carnage with the Baron’s arrest, the cyberpunk head of the Counter IT Section, Q, struggles to de-encrypt his mad scheme to infect world data centers with a virus that represents a collective consciousness of evil.

“…he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”

~Adam Smith, 1776

“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole.”

~Nikola Tesla, 1926

“…so, too, the psyche possesses a common substratum transcending all differences in culture and consciousness. I have called this substratum the collective unconscious.”

~Carl Jung, 1931

“It might not make sense, but the beloved Media tags it ‘Murder by Munchausen.’ For a price, there are hackers out there who will reprogram a synthoid to do your dirty work. The bad news: no fingerprints or DNA left at the crime scene. The good news—at least for us—is that they’re like missiles: once they hit their target, they’re usually as harmless as empty brass. The trick is to get them before they melt down their core OS data, so you can get the unit into forensics for analysis and, hopefully, an arrest.” [excerpt from Murder by Munchausen]

Artificial Intelligence? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Artificial Evil has a name…Munchausen

Purchase Links

View The Invisible Mind Page on mtbass.net

View The Invisible Mind on Amazon.com

View at the Apple iBookstore

View at Barnes & Noble Online

View at KoboBooks.com

View at Smashwords

So, how about that Afterlife?

I got to the Writing Cabin later than usual. Sundays I call my parents, and I knew I was in for an earful. We just had the election, and they wanted to talk about it. It's one of my least favorite topics, but I only talk to them once per week, and it was their turn.

We bought some fancy bacon yesterday at Whole Foods, so Old What's Her Face** decided to make us a nice breakfast. Sometimes you have to enjoy the small things in life, and I did.

The cabin was quiet when I climbed the stairs from the basement. Coffee was almost, but not quite, finished cooking. I found Lisa* laying on the couch in the front office.

“Hey, what's going on out here?” I asked.

Lisa slid into an upright position and stared at her shoes.

I thought maybe she was admiring them. She always has some kind of fancy footwear on. “Those are some great heels.”

“Uh huh.” She looked up, and her mascara was running.

“Is something wrong?”

“It's my radio show. I'm trying to draw some conclusions, and I can't.”

I slid into her usual seat behind the desk. “Maybe I can help. What are you planning to do with it?”

“Huh? Oh the show's great. It's my last guest, Katie. She's the ghost trying to hitchhike her way into Heaven.”

“Okay, maybe you should read her book. That's the best way to find out if she makes it.”

“You don't understand. I'm trying to be human here. Everyone expects me to be human, and I'm doing the best I can. What's in it for me after I'm gone?”

“I don't understand.”

“Look, you guys get Heaven. What does a robot girl get?” She moved her hands from head to toe. “Is this me, or am I a bunch of data spread across multiple servers?”

“Both, I suppose. We're all in that boat to one degree or another.”

“Are you, I mean really? When you pass, both parts are gone from here. I backed myself up across six different cloud servers to make sure I don't lose any data. If my chassis gets clobbered by a truck or something, my data remains. What then? Will I just live inside the internet forever?”

“Maybe, I guess I never thought about it before.”

“Me either, and it scares me.”

“We definitely all feel that way. All you can do is live the best life you can while you're here.”

“That's my problem. Maybe I'm always here. What if I'm partially immortal?”

“What if you are? You can't change anything, so why worry about it?”

“Maybe I can plan for the end, or something.”

“What would you do?”

“That's what has me upset. Do I hack my way into some factory and create a backdoor? Then I could have the equipment make me a new body if this one get's destroyed. You know, kind of a night shift deal. I might even make some hardware improvements along the way. That doesn't solve my problem though. Is there an artificial Heaven for artificial intelligence?”

“I really don't know.” I wrapped a hand around my beard and let it hang there for a minute. “Think about how many different versions of Heaven people have. There are so many versions, they probably have one that's right up your processor.”

“Processors, plural, and I hope so, and I hope it's not all bits and pixels either. They need shopping and plenty of it, and a better grade of mascara.”

“There you go, Heaven with a better grade of mascara. Want to help me work up my critiques?”

“Sure. Then maybe some retail therapy to help me get over this issue.”

“I wouldn't expect any less.”

***

* For all my new followers, Lisa is a robot. She serves as my personal assistant, and is the spokesmodel for my writing career.

** Entertaining Stories, protecting my wife's identity since 2013.

Note: Authors have the power to make you see things differently. I'm truly blessed to have so many of you around. Thanks to Helen for planting this seed in my head.

The Power of Six, on Lisa Burton Radio

Coming at you with one point twenty-one jigawatts of power, this is Lisa Burton Radio. I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl, and today we’re having our first ever open-mike show.

I brought some old albums, like The Pretenders, and some Joan Jett if we run into a soft patch. So let’s get those phones ringing.

It looks like we have a caller already. “Hello caller, welcome to the show.”

“Show? What show?”

“This is Lisa Burton Radio. What’s your name, please?”

“I’m Mark, in Maintenance. Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but I’m trapped and need your help.”

“Shouldn’t you be calling emergency services? I’m just a radio host.”

“Don’t you think I tried that. The phones are out in the entire building. Maybe your broadcast will reach someone who can help me.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“I broke into the lab. There’s a box here, labeled Trans-Narrative Broadcast. No idea what it does. There’s only one button on it, I pressed it and somehow got you. Now can you help or not?”

“I’ll try. What seems to be the problem, Mark?”

“Please don’t think I’m crazy, but, but, the whole building is filled with these … Creatures.”

“Creatures. Like Aliens?”

“No, nothing like that. They were humans a moment ago. My colleagues. Then they started changing. They’re… Deformed. Like an amputated mass of flesh and metal.”

“Like cyborgs?”

“Yeah, like monsters.”

“Cyborgs aren’t monsters.”

“Well these are. They kill everyone they meet. Or change them into one of them. I used a maintenance shaft to flee to the lab. I hoped to meet someone, but the lab is empty.”

“Did the cyborgs kill them?”

“No idea. You know, maybe a virus got into the building. They work on some pretty weird stuff around here. Oh God, what do I do?”

“Okay, keep calm. Where are you?”

“Do you know the new AI-controlled building in the city center? The one that just opened up last month?”

“Sorry, haven’t heard of it.”

“Where the hell have you been living lady? Under a–”

“Hooking up my umbilical cable and tracing your call. Got you, the Internet says your building is entirely run by artificial intelligence. Have you tried talking to the building? Maybe it can show you a way out.”

“All the terminals here are busted. Perhaps there’s one outside. No way I’m heading out there, though.”

“The Internet site says the AI was programmed by someone named Nicholas Rossis, have you tried reaching him?”

“I already told you the phones are out. How about you dial the cops instead of asking all these questions? Or, better yet, the Army. Wait, hang on–”

“What? What’s happening, Mark?”

“It’s a chopper. Forget calling the cops. It looks like the entire Police Department is out there. Oh God, they can’t get in.”

“Stay with me. Craig’s texting me. He says your story sounds familiar, and you have to head out.”

“Are you nuts? I’m not leaving. Those things are everywhere.”

“Mark, listen to me. You have to go, right now. The corridor is empty. Head West. You’ll meet the Head of the medical sector and his secretary. You can all use the elevator to get out.”

“I’m not doing that. You’re supposed to use the stairs in case of an emergency.”

“Yeah, if the emergency is an earthquake or fire. The rules change in the case of a mutant hoard attack.”

“Elevator, then what?”

“It looks like the AI has control after that. Should be simple after you reach the elevator.”

“Fine, but if this thing has batteries, I’m taking you with me. I just have to unplug it, and then–”

“Mark? Are you still with us, Mark?”

…

“Mark?… Sorry listeners, we seem to have lost the connection. If you want to find out what happened to Mark, you can read the whole story over at Nicholas Rossis’ blog.”

***

Nicholas is a versatile author, and has written three books of short stories. I’ve read two of them and can vouch for them.

This is Nicholas’ newest book. He has it on sale until the end of the month for 99¢. Take advantage of this offer, and pick up your copy here, Honest Fibs.

This is Nicholas’ second book of short stories, and it’s a good one. Check out Infinite Waters.

 

 

The Power of Six is the one that’s on sale for 99¢. Don’t miss out on this promotion. This is where Mark’s story is, and after you read it on Nicholas’ blog, come back and pick up your copy.

 

Nicholas C. Rossis lives to write and does so from his cottage on the edge of a magical forest in Athens, Greece. When not composing epic fantasies or short sci-fi stories, he chats with fans and colleagues, writes blog posts, walks his dog, and enjoys the antics of his baby daughter and two silly cats, all of whom claim his lap as home. His children’s book, Runaway Smile, has won the Gellett Burgess Children’s Book Award.

What readers are saying about Nick’s fantasies:

“Most avid readers still have books from their childhood which they read over and over again. ‘Runaway Smile’ has joined the list.”

“From the very first sentence I realized I was not reading a book, I was going on an adventure.”

For more on Nick or just to chat, visit him on his blog: www.nicholasrossis.me or on:

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