Tag Archive for: #Sci-fi

A Fun Interview with Bethany Maines

Interview by Kathryn Lane

(Bethany
Maines is such a dynamic interviewee that I’ve kept the interview pretty much
as it happened. To edit would lose the spontaneity of her responses.)

Bethany, I’m amazed by your dexterity as
an author. You write in various genres, from crime fiction to
mystery, to action adventure
to
sci-fi. Do you move from one to the other to keep your stories flowing?

Growing up I
read mostly sci-fi/fantasy and mystery. I always assumed that if I wrote it
would be sci-fi/fantasy based, but as with most half-baked childhood notions, it
hasn’t turned out that way. Mystery/Adventure/Romance seems to be where I sit
most easily, and my occasional visits into sci-fi are usually with co-writers.

By the
time this interview is published on November 2, you will have launched your
mystery, Hardest Hit, the third book from your Deveraux Legacy series. Congratulations!

Share
with us what worked for the launch and what you’d do differently next time.

I can tell
you what doesn’t work. Accidentally scheduling the launch for nearly the same
time as a work conference is… not the best thing I’ve done lately. I work with
a marketing company; they give me lots of support, and I don’t think I could do
it another way considering my scheduling conflict. But other than that, my
number one tip, is plan ahead.

Moving to
your mystery/action adventure books, you have taken an innovative approach to
undercover work. Your protagonist, Nikki Lanier in the Carrie Mae series, is a
no-nonsense investigator who takes on drug smugglers and arms dealers.

How did
you get the idea for the Carrie Mae series?  

OK, true
story, I once received a cease-and-desist letter from Mary Kay corporate to not
mention Carrie Mae in the same breath as Mary Kay. Meanwhile, Mary Kay Ladies
love every book in that series. And they should because they gave me the idea. I
once had to pick up lipstick from my MK lady. She was at a meeting and invited
me to stop by. When I stepped into the Red Lion Inn… it was a packed ballroom!  They were recruiting new Mary Kay Ladies. On
stage, an imposing woman was laying down the MK rules like she was Patton in
pumps. And I thought… these ladies could take over the world and they’re
kind of scary. It’s probably a good thing there isn’t a militant wing of Mary
Kay
. (Lightbulb!) Later I went out for drinks and told my girlfriends I had
a great idea for a book. They laughed, saying they loved the idea of Nikki and
her team.

Nikki and
her team set out to save the world from gangs, smugglers, and arms dealers, all
the while looking fabulous. You do mention, though, they try to remember clean
underwear! Is humor in your genes or do you work at it?

Surprise! It’s
nature AND nurture. My Dad is an excellent and humorous storyteller. In
childhood I watched him hone a story from one telling to the next. That method
of refining the funny until it’s the funniest is something that takes years to
perfect, but I feel that I got a leg up through proper parenting.

You write
several novels and novellas every year. Do you program your writing for the year
ahead and decide which series will get the bulk of your time? Or are you a
complete pantser that gets up in the morning and decides what you’ll work on
that day?

I used to
pants it. I loved the discovery and joy of finding out what happened. But
sadly, I don’t have the time anymore. Pantsing is joyful but inefficient, and
if I want to tell ALL THE STORIES… well, I need to plot. However, I do employ a
strategy of “cheat stories”. If one isn’t cooperating I go cheat on it with a
different story. That will teach it! 

I’m
intrigued by your sci-fi novellas, The Beast of Arsu being the latest. For the Galactic Dreams series, you write with two
other authors, Karen Harris Tully and J.M. Phillippe. Do the three of you get
together to discuss and plan the next collection of Galactic Dreams? 

Karen and
J.M. and I came up with a simple proposition (such innocent, foolish, past
selves): we would create a shared universe and spread the hard parts of world-building
around. Then we would each write stories within that universe. And, just to keep
it interesting, we would base our stories on fairy tales. Clearly none of us
had read fairy tales recently – they’re insane. None of us counted on the fact
that each of us would want to break the rules of the universe at some point, or
that we would have to keep track of all the weird words and technology we
invented. At this point, we have a massive spreadsheet and a five-page single-space
word doc on our universe. Fortunately, our friendship has survived the great
battle over whether or not to include the word OK in space. Surprisingly,
we were all 100% fine with bringing in Octopus aliens. We touch base multiple
times while writing our individual stories and use each other for research, as
sounding boards, and as spare memories. Then, at the end, we all read
everything for universe cohesion.

Bethany, let me tell you, I’d
be lost in space if I could not use the word OK. One last question. If
you were not writing, what would you be doing?

I actually love
my day job of graphic design. If I weren’t writing I’d be getting to all of the
art projects that are languishing in my office that I swear I’m TOTALLY getting
to. Stop judging my art supply purchases!!

That was a fantastic interview, Bethany. Thank you!

Biography

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of
mystery, crime and romantic suspense novels, as well as many short stories.
When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her
black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the
computer working on her next novel. bethanymaines.com

Galactic Dreams

 by Bethany Maines

Welcome to a brave new age – the future!  When my co-writers and I agreed to collaborate on Galactic Dreams – a series of sci-fi fairy tale adaptations – we had no idea that the project would stretch into three volumes. Galactic Dreams (from Blue Zephyr Press) is a unique shared universe that I, along with my co-writers, J.M. Phillippe and Karen Harris Tully, developed and set the rules for, and then set our own stories within that universe.  In Volume 3, we’ve adapted some classic fairy tales: Beauty & the Beast, Hansel & Gretel, and Jack & the Beanstalk.  

As you can imagine, agreeing on rules, let alone deciding what they are can be quite challenging.  Particularly, since sci-fi is not a genre I generally write in.  I enjoy sci-fi. I read a good deal of it when I was a teenager. And don’t get me wrong I have plenty of weird ideas, but I’m more in the Flash Gordon style of sci-fi—toss in some jet packs and some fantastic costumes and I’m all set. My more fact-adherent co-writers seem to prefer that gravity not take a vacation without an explanation. (So picky!) However, I have to admit that their insistence on basing my science in… you know… science has been beneficial to my stories. 
In this volume, all of our stories are intertwined through a time traveling villain, which added a whole new level of headache to keeping our stories and science straight. We also decided to do a phased release plan—releasing the individual stories first and then the collection.  My book, The Beast of Arsu, is out now. And the next two installments will be released by September, with the digital collection following shortly thereafter.  As with any group project it’s been hard to keep track of all the details.  But despite the very literal headaches, I have enjoyed the challenge of writing in this genre, and I hope other sci-fi fans will enjoy these stories as well.
Galactic Dreams Vol. 3 contains three novels  and each tale is a chapter in a connected tale of villainy, time travel, and the consequences of hate. Journey through these sci-fi fairy tales today!


The Beast of Arsu
(Beauty & the Beast)Bethany Maines – When Bella Glass is thrown a 140 years into the future she finds a world she doesn’t recognize and love in Kai Craig, a man fighting against the effects of a bomb that turns him into a rage-filled beast. But someone else has traveled into the past and Bella must choose between preventing a devastating alteration of the timeline and a love she was never meant to have. 
Read Chapter 1 >>https://bethanymaines.com/galactic-dreams/

A Trail of Stardust (Hansel & Gretel)J.M. Phillippe – When the Hexx siblings, Rax and Lex, are forced to flee into
space by their malevolent step-mother, Hila, they have no idea what is waiting
for them and a damaged space craft throws them from the frying pan into the
oven. Captured by pirates, Lex and Rax are facing certain death and the only
way out is to rely on each other, but what will be waiting for them at home?

Break the Sky (Jack & the Beanstalk) Karen Harris Tully – When Jakarta “Jak” Moon climbed up the giant elevator that leads to the low-orbiting space station above her irradiated planet, she has one goal—don’t die. But when she returns to the ground, she finds herself targeted by the winged-dictator known as the Godmother. Now Jak is on the hook to climb through the clouds and bring back the treasures the Godmother craves or she, and her planet, could face destruction.

Buy Beast of Arsu Now

**

Bethany Updates:

Blue Christmas received a Maincrest Media Award! It was also a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards and an award winning screenplay.

The Second Shot Audio Book is now available! 

Buy Now: https://www.audible.com/pd/B093C8MWYH/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-253261&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_253261_rh_us


The Moonlight & Misadventure Anthology: 20 Tales of Mystery & Suspense, featuring my story Tammy Loves Derek is now available! 

Buy Now: https://books2read.com/Moonlight-Misadventure

**

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae MysteriesSan Juan Islands MysteriesShark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, FacebookInstagram, and BookBub.


I Dream in Science Fiction!

By Kathryn Lane

Fiction
writers take ideas from everywhere, the reason a saying says, “Be careful what
you say around me – I’m a fiction writer.”
To prove the point, I’ll paraphrase one of T.S. Eliot’s
quotes: “Good writers borrow; great writers steal.”

Dreams
offer me a favorite reservoir of ideas to borrow. I dream in full technicolor,
and in Spanish and English. Several short stories have come directly from stuff
obtained during my REM sleep.

However,
I was shocked when I had a science fiction dream, complete with language from
an Orwellian future. I read sci-fi, but I’ve never attempted to write it. I do
not have the grasp of physics, astrophysics, astronomy, chemistry, and artificial
intelligence to write convincing sci-fi, so I limit myself to simply reading
it.

Years
ago, I’d read a lot of Ray Bradbury, who said, “Anything you dream is fiction,
and anything you accomplish is science; therefore, the whole history of
humankind is nothing but science fiction.”

Now back to my sci-fi
dream.
I was at a
party, complete with fireworks, set in futuristic
 surroundings. An older couple
left the party and drove away in a self-driving car. In the amorphous
environment of dreaming, I was concerned about them so I called to make sure
they were okay.

I heard an automated voice inform me
through my implanted earphone that “Public driver 00Z1921 was detained by a
squadron of public protectors for bypassing the self-driving controls of
00Z1921’s auto.”

“What’s
the accusation,” I asked.

“Reckless
speeding and endangering the disciples,” the automated voice responded
. The voice further instructed me to
locate 00Z1921 at the hostile crisis center.

Still dreaming, I arrived at the center and found the small
self-driving car surrounded by ten hostile-looking storm trooper types.

Then I woke up! Unfortunately,
the dream ended before I learned the outcome of poor old 00Z1921.

Guess I’ve been reading too many futuristic articles
on the speeding up of technological advances resulting from our lockdown, and
those ideas zoomed me into a future time zone!

Or
maybe, as Ray Bradbury might have said, we are all living in a science
fictional world.

***

Do you dream in technicolor?
Do you have dreams set in a sci-fi future?

Kathryn Lane started out as a starving
artist. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked
on a career in international finance with a major multinational corporation.
After two decades, she left the corporate world to plunge into writing mystery
and suspense thrillers. In her stories, Kathryn draws deeply from
her Mexican background as well as her travels
in over ninety countries.

https://www.kathryn-lane.com

https://www.facebook.com/kathrynlanewriter/

The Nikki Garcia Mystery Series: eBook Trilogy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GZNF17G

Photo Credits:

Fireworks: “Looks like the Sky will
bleed with Colors tonight. Wishing everyone a wonderful evening of fun &
excitement!”
 by williamcho –
licensed under 
CC BY-SA 2.0

Waymo
self-driving car front view
by Grendelkhan – licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Storm
Trooper
at Oxford by Sheng P. – licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Kathryn’s books – designs by Bobbye
Marrs

By Genre!

By Bethany Maines
One of the best parts of the Stiletto Gang is hearing about
the spectrum of genres that our authors work in.  I work in several and I know that can get
confusing for readers, so here’s a primer of genres and how they apply to me.
Mystery – A detective either professional or amateur
must attempt to solve a mystery, usually a murder.
  In my San Juan Island Mystery series amateur
detectives Tish (an ex-actress) and her grandfather Tobias (an ex-CIA agent)
solve murders in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. 
Crime – The main plot revolves around some form of
crime. There can be elements of deduction and mystery, but the main elements
involve some sort of criminal behavior.
 
In my Shark Santoyo Series, Shark is attempting to navigate his way out
of the criminal life, but faces enemies on both sides of the law. 

Thriller – While a mystery detective finds a crime and
steps in to solve things, the thriller protagonist has the crime happen to them
and must fight their way out to simply get back to his or her ordinary
life. 
In my Deveraux Legacy Series,
the Deveraux family must face a series of antagonists who seek to bring them
down. 

Romance – A book where the relationship between the
two protagonists takes center stage.
 
The best part about Romance is that like a good wine, it pairs well with
anything.  Most of my novels contain an
element of romance, but not all of them push the romance to the forefront.  But in the Deveraux Legacy series, each of
the cousins will find love while battling the baddies, making the series genre “Romantic
Thriller”.  
Want a free romantic thriller from me?  Get Blue Christmas today: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/to271maetc

Science-Fiction –
Sci-fi explores the future of science and
humanity as they intertwine.
  I
participate in an anthology series called Galactic Dreams that translates fairy
tales to science-fiction.  Each author in
the anthology assists in building the shared universe of Galactic Dreams,
meaning that each of our stories share the same background, timeline and rules.

Fantasy – Fantasy stories contain elements of magic
and wonder. 
My mother read us The
Hobbit when we were quite young and so I always assumed that fantasy was
something that everyone enjoyed. Then I grew up and realized that some people
think that it’s not “real” literature (what does that even mean?!) and
sometimes hate it for appearing to have no rules if magic can simply make
things happen.  So fantasy is my little
secret.  I don’t write a lot of it, but I
periodically dabble to make myself happy. 
 
**
Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel.
You can also catch up with her on Twitter, FacebookInstagram, and BookBub.

The Perfect Ending

by Bethany Maines

Sci-fi season is done and I’m back to working on
mysteries!  Yay!  Something I’m utterly comfortable with and
totally know how to do.  Wait… how do you
do this again?  I think I’ve got genre
whiplash.  Can I just toss in some aliens
at the end of this thriller and solve everything?
As I plug away toward the ending on my latest WIP
(work-in-progress) I find myself struggling to find the perfect stopping point
(that doesn’t include aliens). Some genres are more forgiving of ambiguity in
an ending, but I think that across all genre’s the perfect ending is one that
feels satisfactory to the characters. I’ve read many books where it was as
though author just wandered off and their lead character is left twisting in
the wind. (Grapes of Wrath, I’m looking at you. 
Just because you couldn’t come up with more tortures for your characters
does not mean you just get to quit writing Steinbeck.) I’m all for leaving room
for character development and a sequel, but… uh… let’s have a little bit of
satisfaction for the reader and character.
And an author probably shouldn’t subvert their genre too
hard.  Hamlet is not meant to end with
Hamlet and Ophelia riding off into the sunset. 
Romances should definitely have the two main characters getting together
and mysteries should solve the damn mystery. 
Don’t betray the audiences trust just to be clever.  But that still leaves a lot of leeway.  Just HOW do I want my characters to get
together?  What’s the perfect way to expose
the murderer?  It’s like I’ve got a
choose-your-own-adventure in my head and I’m the only one who can figure out if
I’m supposed to flip to page 42 or 117. 
So wish me luck as I venture off to page 117.  Hopefully I don’t die.
***

3 novels, 1 low price
Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future.

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery SeriesSan Juan Islands MysteriesShark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTubeTwitter and Facebook.

Galactic Dreaming

by Bethany Maines

The sci-fi fairy tale anthology Galactic Dreams Volume 2, featuring my novel The Seventh Swan will be released next week. Today, I’m interviewing one of the the other authors featured in the anthology: Karen Harris Tully.  Karen generally writes sci-fi YA novels, including The Faarian Chronicles trilogy, and creates elaborate worlds for her novels aided by her bachelor’s in political science and economics. We met through a mutual friend and I have had the pleasure of beta reading some of her manuscripts.

For the Galactic Dreams series, myself, Karen, and fellow Stiletto Gang author J.M. Phillippe, were given the task of creating a literary universe that could be shared across the anthology series. We have to agree on the history of the universe as well as technology and vocabulary.  Each of us is venturing into unexplored territory, whether it’s by sharing a world, trying out the sci-fi genre (that’s me!), or attempting to write on a shorter deadline than normal, the Galactic Dream series has been challenging for all of us. I’m asking Karen about some of the challenges that came with writing as part of the Galactic Dream Team.

What is the best/worst part about sharing a universe with two other writers?
KHT: Like Cerberus, three heads are simply better than one. I may come up with some good ideas, but when I’m lucky enough to put those together with the imagination brainpower of JM Phillippe and Bethany Maines, well, the stuff we come up with as a trio is mind-blowing. And when our brains flow and mesh together to create something bigger, that I never could have imagined on my own, that’s the fun part. Of course, the worst is when they don’t like my amazing ideas! As if that could ever happen, right? 😉

BMM: You have great ideas—we’re probably missing out on sheer awesomeness whenever one gets voted down.

How do you develop the technology in your books?
KHT: The ideas, you mean? They come from extrapolating real, amazing s**t that is happening right now! I am so fascinated with CRISPR gene editing for example. I love science news and listen to a lot of NPR and science podcasts. I read online articles about new tech that scientists and companies are developing that isn’t even out yet, from gadgets and tech to clean up our oceans, to weapons of the future, to tiny interstellar disk probes on shiny, laser powered sails, and pretty much everything else. I think to myself, what happens with this technology next, what does this look like in a hundred or a thousand years? And then I write it in. 
BMM: I’m interested in the tech, but I think the social ramifications of a technology become more interesting for me. I think you’re more science-minded than me. Which is beneficial.  Definitely don’t leave me in charge of the tech.

Do you think fairy tales adapt better to sci-fi than other genres (and if so, why)?
KHT: Of course! Because what used to be magic, strictly relegated to the realm of fantasy, is becoming real, through technology. Waving a magic wand is too easy. Making miracles happen in real life, that’s science. I love it most when science and fiction, fantasy and imagination, all crash together to create something new, weird, and wonderful.
BMM: I completely agree with this, but also, I think some of the disjointed plotting of fairy tales can more easily be explained in sci-fi because… aliens.  😀

The core of your plot is a mystery of who is behind an impending war—do you approach that plot line differently than the sci-fi portions? 
KHT: I think all good sci-fi starts off with a mystery. Strange stuff is happening in a weird location and the science and imagination of that fascinates me. But, without the mystery of why the drama is happening, and who’s behind it all, fighting the alien horde would just be visceral stimulation without a purpose, you know?

BMM: That’s right. You heard it here, folks. Even the sci-fi people admit… Everything is Mystery!
Many thanks to Karen Harris Tully for being interviewed today!
**
3 novels, 1 low price
Release: 2/19/19
**
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San
Juan Islands Mysteries
, Shark Santoyo
Crime Series
, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to
exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in
karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working
on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.

The Shape of Tales

by Bethany Maines

Last year two other authors and banded together to invent GalacticDreams—a shared sci-fi universe for novellas based on fairy tales. As I
mentioned in a blog at the time I was shocked to go through the fairy tales and
realize how full horrible things they really were. The shock only deepened when
I learned that these were the sanitized versions. Apparently, the Grimm
brothers put out a first edition and found out that they were a little too gory
and horrible for even their 1800’s audiences. So they switched some of the
baddies to step-parents (instead of full parents) and pulled out some of the
most egregious elements and put out a new edition that is more similar to the
stories we’re familiar with today. However, as the shock of cannibalism,
incest, and limb removal wore off, I began to notice another strange thing
about the stories: they don’t make sense.
The story I’m using this year for my sci-fi novel The
Seventh Swan is based on the story of the Six Swans. The story involves at
least 2 witches, 2 kings, and 3 queens and not one of them has a name.  But you won’t need to worry about which is
which because they never interact. The witch at the start of the story
disappears after she’s set events in motion. Ditto to the evil queen witch
step-mother.  The doting father of the
swan brother and heroine puts them in a tower to protect them from the evil
queen witch step-mother, but when his daughter says “Dad your wife turned my
brothers into swans.” He’s all “Nah, she wouldn’t do that.”  And the story is called the Six Swans, so
clearly it must be about the brothers, right? 
No.  They show up once and
disappear again until the end.  And then
the heroine, now sworn to silence to save her brothers (and how did they know
that was what had to happen to save them?) gets married has not one, but three
children, and her mother-in-law steals them and accuses her of eating them. Because…
that was so common that people would buy that story? Eventually, (after the
third baby) the husband’s like “I guess she’s a cannibal” and he decides to
burn her at the stake. But fortunately the six years of silence is up and she
saves the brothers and avoids the stake.
None of that makes sense. However, the story still makes sense. 
A girl must save her brothers from an evil curse by suffering in silence
and setting herself to a menial task. 
The flow of the story works, but the actual events and characters are
insane.  And in fairy tale after fairy
tale the same holds true.  Characters pop
up and then disappear. Characters contradict their own statements.  Random events occur. But they all move the
story toward the mandated happy ending.  Fairy
tales are not a lesson in how to write beautiful descriptions or develop fully
fleshed out characters, but they have been an amazing lesson in how stories
function and how much a reader will forgive to get to the happy ending.
***

Buy now on Amazon – $4.99 – Look for Volume 2 in February 2019!
Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future. In each Galactic Dreams novella you’ll find an old tale reborn with a mixture of romance, technology, aliens and adventure. But beware, a perilous quest awaits behind every star and getting home again will depend on a good spaceship, true love, and maybe just a hint of magic. The Galactic Dreams Volume One boxed set features three novellas inspired by Mulan, Thumbelina, and Sleeping Beauty, from authors Bethany Maines, Karen Harris Tully, and J.M. Phillippe.

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San
Juan Islands Mysteries
, Shark Santoyo
Crime Series
, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to
exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in
karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working
on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.

OK, Not OK?

by Bethany Maines

Happy Valentines Day! Who doesn’t like to celebrate the bloody death of man in third century Rome?  I, for one, am all about the guy that no one really knows why he died, or how, but heck, if he somehow wants to spawn a greeting card industry associated with romantic and courtly love then I’m all for it. I am so for it, in fact, that I have written a book for the occasion – When Stars Take Flight!

When Stars Take Flight, a retelling of Thumbelina, is part of the new Galactic Dreams collection from Blue Zephyr Press featuring fairy tales retold as science fiction adventures.  Each story is unique, but all the stories take place in the same universe.  Galactic Dreams Volume 1 also includes Soldier, Princess, Rebel Spy (inspired by Mulan) by Karen Harris Tully and Aurora One (Sleeping Beauty) by the Stiletto Gang’s own J. M. Phillippe.

Writing this book was a fascinating process involving a lot of “research” aka reading of fairy tales. And the first thing I have to say is what the hell is wrong with fairy tales? What sick twisted bastard invented these things? So much limb chopping, incest, and cannibalism.  Apparently, cannibalism was a far greater problem back in the old days than I gave it credit for. The second part of the process was the “world building”. The other authors and I had to establish, build and agree upon our science-fiction setting. Monetary systems, space travel, religions—just how do all of these things function in our universe?  As we developed rules, we created some artificial stumbling blocks for ourselves to push how we were writing. One rule was that only people directly from Earth would use the word OK. Until I couldn’t use it, I had no idea how often I used OK.  But there is no word more distinctly American than OK. Would space colonists who were originally from Iceland use the word OK five hundred years or a thousand years from now?  It seems unlikely.  But even with that in mind, I ended up having to do a find and replace in my manuscript to find all the places I typed it without even thinking about it.  I believe that the result of our hard work are a fun, romantic, adventurous stories that stays true to the fairy tale tradition (I mean the ones about torture and true love, we skipped the cannibalism), but creates something entirely new and unique. I’m excited by this collection and hope that other people (aka readers) are too.




Buy now – three sci-fairy tale novels for $4.99!



Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future. In each Galactic Dreams novella you’ll find an old tale reborn with a mixture of romance, technology, aliens and adventure. But beware, a perilous quest awaits behind every star and getting home again will depend on a good spaceship, true love, and maybe just a hint of magic.


Buy now – three sci-fairy tale novels for $4.99!


Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, Tales From the City of Destiny, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found
chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You
can also view the Carrie Mae YouTube
video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

3 Firsts for Me!

By Kay Kendall

Here are my three firsts:                                                   


1) My first short story.
2) My first venture into
sci-fi.
3) My first
self-published project.

The shortest way to
explain that list above is  – I seized an
opportunity.

A group of writers asked
me to come aboard an anthology of short stories written around a common theme—called
The Prometheus Saga. There were rules to what we could do with our alien
character who dropped to earth, plus rules for making our stories as Kindle
shorts available only on Amazon. Set price = 99 cents. Such a bargain.

On Monday, January 26,
twelve of us published thirteen stories in The Prometheus Saga. Settings
include pre-history, the American Revolution, and the sixties. That latter was mine, entitled “Strangers on a Plane.” The sixties is what I write
about, always.

Fans of the suspense
genre will recognize my title as an homage to the great Patricia Highsmith’s
sinister novel, Strangers on a Train.
But my story is not sinister. Instead, it shows my amateur sleuth Austin Starr
traveling across the North American continent, rushing to the rescue of her
dear friend, Larissa Klimenko. Readers who know my debut mystery DESOLATION ROW
will recognize these characters.

New is an odd elderly
woman who calls herself Promethea. Strange things happen. Then Austin and
Promethea disembark from the plane, never to see each other again. This short
story is a bridge to my next mystery, RAINY DAY WOMEN (due out this summer), and
the sci-fi touch is so light that I don’t bend the mystery genre—not too much.

Why did I seize this
opportunity? Advice to writers is to issue short stories in between major books
as a way to keep your readers interested. While some of my author pals crank
out more than one book a year, I don’t do that. Thus, this advice seemed wise.

Moreover, there was a
chapter I dearly loved that for various reasons my editor suggested I chop from
my next book. Here was a way to save it.

Finally, authors are
encouraged these days to become “hybrids.” That means that you mix up your
projects—some issued through publishers and others self-published. When I
checked, the wonderful Ken Coffman, owner of Stairway Press of Seattle, was
fine with my participating in The Prometheus Saga.

So, here’s the bottom line. If you ever felt a tiny urge to
read my fiction and never acted on it, you now can do so for only 99 cents. You
don’t even have to own a Kindle. There’s an app that lets you read “Strangers
on a Plane” on your tablet, cell phone, PC, or Mac. Return to the time of
America’s first moon landing, the week of the horrid Manson murders, and
endless bad news from the Vietnam War. August 9, 1969—with just a hint of the
paranormal!


LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A FREE E-EDITION
 OF “STRANGERS ON A PLANE”

13 stories make up The Prometheus Saga

*******   
Kay Kendall set her
debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY
DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving
her best friend didn’t murder women’s liberation activists in
Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay does for the 1960s
what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 1930s–present
atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an
award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband,
three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves
them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too.