Cover reveal: BEYOND: SPACE OPERA #scifi anthology edited by @mfowler76

Pleased as intergalactic punch to be included in this gorgeous collection, which comes out on August 15. Here's the plug from editor Milo James Fowler:

Mark your calendars, bold starfarers. Beyond: Space Opera will be available wherever eBooks are sold on August 15th, and it'll be chock-full of rollicking space adventures the likes of which you've never seen!

Included in this collection:

"The Ungreat Escape" by Siobhan Gallagher 

"All Comms Down" by Anne E. Johnson 

"Remembrance Day" by Simon Kewin 

"The Lion's Den" by Devin Miller

"Captain Clone" by Deborah Walker

"Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the Kolarii Kidnappers on Zeta Colony 6" by yours truly

When will this awesome anthology be available? August 15th. Where will it be available? Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords. How much will it cost? My goal is to make it FREE, but Amazon usually takes a few days to price-match. The list price will be $2.99, and I plan to have it perma-free by August 15th.

 

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#SciFi is no joke: Milo James Fowler seriously serializes his Captain Quasar novel

Always a pleasure to welcome Milo James Fowler to Jester Harley's Manuscript Page. I admire anyone who writes as well and as consistently as he does, who shows such determination to get his work out there, and -- most important -- who isn't afraid to put some funny in his science fiction. I'll let him tell you about his latest project:

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Meet Captain Quasar

by Milo James Fowler

For me, writing fiction is all about the characters. And when I create a protagonist I enjoy, I can't help but write more stories for him.

When I came up with Captain Bartholomew Quasar back in the spring of 2010, I was going for a mash-up between William Shatner's James T. Kirk and Dudley Do-Right from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (but in Quasar's case, things seldom ever go right). He's one of those classic pulp heroes with a heart of gold whose narcissistic tendencies often land him in hot water. The captain hasn't changed a whole lot in the dozen other tales I've written, but his relationship with Hank and the other characters is deepening with every story, as Quasar realizes he needs them in order to continue being as awesome as (he thinks) he is.

I don't write hard science fiction with a whole lot of actual science in it. I focus on the characters, and everything else I just make up—or I rely on osmosis to filter enough jargon into my brain from all the SciFi that I've read. I do my best to aim for universal themes and relatable characters, and I try to shoot for a high entertainment value that transcends any barriers to enjoying these space opera tales.

I hope readers can laugh at Bartholomew Quasar and root for him at the same time. He's ridiculous, but there's something about his fallible nature that most of us can relate to on some level.

My debut novel Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the Space-Time Displacement Conundrum started serialization on April 20. 

Blurb:  

Captain Quasar is out of time.

Pursued by vengeful Goobalob toll collectors, savage Arachnoid bounty hunters, and formidable Amazonians, Captain Bartholomew Quasar must do whatever he can to keep the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude out of harm's way. All in a day's work—except time is not on his side.

Torn from the present to relive his past, he vows to keep mistakes from occurring the second time around. But is he doomed to repeat the past? Or can he erase his regrets?

Villains will be vanquished. Lives will be lost. Bonds will be betrayed. Heroes will be heroic.

Join the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude for a hilarious time-travel space adventure the likes of which you've never seen.

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You can learn more about Milo James Fowler on his website.
Read more about the series and subscribe to it here and read the teaser/prologue right here.

Milo James Fowler on writing short and making every word count

Milo James Fowler writes short fiction. I mean short. No, even shorter than that. He's really good at it and has published a great deal. I asked him to discuss this skill for brevity.

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Small Packages

I used to be verbose.

When I was a kid, I wrote 300-page novels and never felt the need to revise. I was having way too much fun for that.

But revision is important. Cutting and polishing are very good things.

So's a writing challenge every now and then.

When I started Write1Sub1 in 2011 to follow in Ray Bradbury's footsteps (writing and submitting a story a week), I couldn't halt the ideas once I opened the floodgates. While I didn't have time to flesh them all out into full-length tales, some were so evocative that they stood well enough on their own, despite their brevity.

Once I discovered microfiction and sci-fi/horror-flavored haiku, it was like the heavens opened and I saw into the glorious beyond. Microfiction—6 word stories, Twitter fiction, 6 sentence stories, drabbles—became a new creative outlet for me. I started jotting down mini-stories that could later become full-fledged tales of their own, and I brainstormed other ideas in a more poetic form through haiku.

Then I sent them out into the world in search of good homes.

Some of my favorite micro and haiku publications are Trapeze, Scifaikuest, Cuento, and 101 Ficton, and I've enjoyed sharing my byte-sized tales with their readers. What writer doesn't like being published?

But I also appreciate the challenge—particularly with drabbles and haiku. 101 Fiction publishes 100-word stories with 1-word titles. Cramming a Captain Quasar tale into 100 words has been a lot of fun, and as far as haiku goes, I'm a stickler for the 5-7-5 syllable count—not because it really matters anymore in English language haiku, but because it provides me with a higher hurdle to cross. Next month, I'll be the featured poet in the winter issue of Scifaikuest with 11 of my haiku included in their print publication. I'm super stoked and can't wait to get my contributor's copy in the mail.

Will all of my micro tales and haiku eventually become full-length stories of their own? "Identity Thief" started out as a haiku and became a short story available from Musa Publishing. "Grandpa's Bluetooth," published by Liquid Imagination, started out as Twitter fiction. Maybe the rest of my small packages will evolve in like manner; maybe not.

I'm okay with that.

I don't have to be verbose all the time, after all.

But I can keep challenging myself to make every word count.

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You can learn more about Milo James Fowler on his website.

You can purchase Maikro, his collection of haiku and microfiction, on Amazon.