StoryAngles Newsletter #3

Once upon a time, the Centrist World Party ruled the world, by popular consent. The Liberation Party assumed control. After public deliberations, it was decided that, rather than just executing the remaining Centrist politicians and all who still agreed with them, there was a more humane solution: Expulsion.

The colonists of each rocket ship had each voted to name their ship. For now they were simply calling the planet New Earth, at least until they could send delegates to a common committee that would decide upon all the preliminary things needing to be quickly done, including writing a constitution and naming the planet.

The ship’s crew stepped out onto the wide outside hull of the rocket, now a walkway about fifty yards wide, extending the entire length of the ship. Gyroscopes maintained this one side as the surface. There were inflatable extenders within each ship that would fit across the hull and turn this small surface area into a floating platform a half-mile across.

When the others had all gone back inside, Jada remained, looking out over an ocean she had never seen. Right now, the waters were a chromatic sapphire that you could look through for the top several feet before becoming a darker blue and then black below.

She walked to the left side, then stepped carefully near the edge where the waves lapped gently over the metal. She lay belly down and extended her arms, scooping up water.

Carson Edwards also waited in his own quarters for the meeting with the Captain. He wasn’t so eager to participate. In his training, he excelled but it was more due to his quickness in quietly grasping technical subjects than because of any showboating for an instructor. He especially didn’t care for the politics that what the Captain wanted his help with would necessarily involve.

Carson and Jada converged on the Captain’s quarters from opposite ends of the hallway at the same time. They smiled at each other for their punctuality, and Carson tapped twice lightly on the door.

Matt hung up the phone and looked at his two officers on the opposite side of his desk. They just looked back at him. Jada looked appalled, but Carson was noncommittal.

“Damn it,” Matt said. “We’re all alone here.”

Carson nodded his head in agreement, then said, “Perhaps it is for the best at this time, Captain.”

Matt walked into the ship’s control room, looked around. No station was left empty, and all hands were busy performing their jobs.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but even here he felt the slight roll of the increasing turbulence outside. The spaceships had been designed to absorb situations much more extreme than the straightline winds that Adam Fleming predicted. After all, they’d had no problems with the rigors of space travel, so a small storm should amount to nothing in comparison. Any aberrations would most likely be attributable to their own human errors.

In a small-town horror/thriller, the dead of winter multiply. The kidnap of a young boy from the dark forest by perhaps supernatural creatures (animals or aliens?) is the beginning of an adventure that threatens the survival of all townspeople. As survivors dwindle, Sheriff Will Harris sends out a search party looking for Sonny. A man cheating on his wife, a killer on the run and others meet dramatic fates.

Short-short stories, vampires, time travelers, shadow people, eaters of the present, dystopian worlds, episodic stories and other real & imagined scenes from the macrocosm. Jimmy Didn’t Come Home Last Night is a young vampire’s coming-of-age story. Toolie builds a time machine from scratch, but forgets his dyslexia. A family moves into the country then the son discovers the dream well. When a record storm floods a major river, an ancient evil swims up from the depths into a submerged small town.

The sunspots were getting bigger. Observatory officials watch massive solar flares head for earth. A paranoid living in a shack with an abundance of cats believes the government is responsible for halting the all-night radio broadcasts of The Unexplainable so heads to L.A. to save the host. A retiree who grows pansies for those in hospitals has strange dreams of an exploding sun and a young girl in the back seat of his car. In the aftermath, survivors must adapt to a changed world.

An eclectic mix of short-short stories: sci-fi, speculative, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, alternate universe, fantasy, horror, thriller and other genres, with a cast of characters including survivors in the aftermath, vampires, time travelers, interstellar colonists, haunted house explorers, good samaritans and more! … AND you can read one or more in a very short sitting!

Bobby & Kyra observe the comet’s explosion overhead. Something comes down with its remnants. Bobby watches Kyra’s dissolution after she ingests something in the greenish air. Jessie discovers spumelike globules pulsing over the landscape, breathing. In this new post-apocalyptic dystopian world, Earth’s remnants battle whatever came down in the comet as an invasion force. Survivors face obstacles they must overcome. Groups form (some attempt to regain civilization, others with sinister intent).

Leaving home, Melanie moves into the top floor of an old building, now turned into a duplex. However, the bottom floor is presently unleased, so she is alone there. Not long after moving in, she begins to hear a low gnashing sound. The source is difficult to find. Then, shadows begin to enter her room. She doesn’t want to move back to her father’s house, but may be forced to find some solution. Is the house haunted? Are the shadow people real or imagined? And what is that gnashing sound?

SPECULATIVE ENCOUNTERS: New Stories from the Slipstream – Speculative fiction stories from C. L. Nichols In “Jump!” a lineman is transported to an alternate reality after a lightning strike, or is it only an hallucination? Someone awakens to find handwriting actually within his concrete bedroom floor in “The Silent Chatter.” A man’s wife is turned by a group of vampires; he follows and teams up with a female vampire to find them in “Till Death Do Us Part.” Other speculativve stories explore the unusual and bizarre environment of the slipstream. Added bonuses include selections from novels by C. L. Nichols for your enjoyment.

Schizogenesis – Kindle edition by Nichols, C. L.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Schizogenesis.

My Guitar Book Complete: 4 Books in 1! About My Guitar Book Complete My Guitar Book Complete : 4 Books in 1! All 4 books of the My Guitar Books series are collected in this one book. Go from the basics of learning to play guitar to becoming a competent rhythm player then on to mastering the skills of the lead guitarist!Books in the My Guitar Books series: 1) My Guitar Tutor : Basics & Beyond 2) My Guitar Progressions : Beginner to Pro 3) My Guitar Scales : Play Lead Guitar 4) My Guitar Journal : Save Your Music Here 5) My Guitar Book Complete : 4 Books in 1

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