It’s weekend Writing Warriors/SnipSunday again today, and you’re invited to read and (we hope) comment on both. Click on the logos to get the lists of participants. I’ll try to get around and comment today, though I can’t promise anything a week from now.
Horse Power is free again today on Amazon, so I’m giving a short, repunctuated excerpt from that story today. It’s not a space opera, but a story of colonization of a frontier planet with the colonizing company trying to make debt slaves of the colonists. Yes, you’re seeing esper powers in this snippet, which is from just after the point where Amber hears the stampede and asks Roi to get them to the top of the hill.
Amber spared a quick glance at the mirror mounted on her handlebars as she pedaled wildly downhill, and cursed as she saw Roi standing next to his bike at the crest of the hill. Debating the ethics of getting involved, she thought furiously, and began waving her arms and screaming at the oncoming tide of silkies.
The leaders hardly slowed, but she suddenly realized that the rearmost animals were shaking their heads as if waking up, seeing the fresh greenery on either side of the trampled stampede path and turning toward it as if starved. She could almost see the wave of hesitation working forward through the herd until it reached the leaders, who were only a few armspans away when they stopped to graze. No running over the leaders, no piling up when they reached a barrier they could not cross, no broken legs or other injuries she could see. Just a quietly grazing herd, and a frantically pedaling cyclist following the stampede track. Twice the front wheel twisted and the cyclist fell, but each time the rider scrambled back onto the vehicle and continued the pursuit.
“A bicycle?” asked Roi, who had rejoined Amber so quietly she was not aware of his presence until he spoke.
Next weekend will be the last snippet from War’s End for a while, at least until I get it a lot closer to publication. I’ll still be here, but I’ll be posting snippets from my published books, Homecoming and Tourist Trap. If I feel up to editing Rescue Operation (the first of the trilogy of which War’s End is the third) I may give you some short bits from that.
Buy Homecoming from iUniverse
'Homecoming' Blog 