An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
I finished the Tri-Galactic Trek story I was working on last night! So, that means I can release COLLIE COMMANDER next month, but it also means I have to decide what I’m working on next…
I have several projects already underway that I could go back to, but I might want to do NaNoWriMo, which would mean sticking to shorter projects for the next two weeks. And I do have a lot of short stories I could be working on… Continue reading “Between Projects”
by Mary E. Lowd
Fluffy & flowing
Secure in knowing
She’s the answer to a riddle
That should never have been asked Continue reading “The Fluffy Unicorn”
My older kid passed their driving test!
I have a kid who can drive…
Time is a wild trip.
Doing a quick run of the numbers, it looks like I’ve sold 44 times as many copies of my books this year as the publisher who unceremoniously dumped them managed to sell last year.
And this year isn’t over.
That publisher was holding me back. Self-publishing is the way.
There’s a lot of art and random commentary from people devoted to the idea that even as you age, you still feel like the same young person inside, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that. At least, in my experience so far, yes, it seems mostly true.
Except for one thing I’ve noticed. Continue reading “Decades and Waking Up”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1 or return to the previous chapter.
In the morning, Grawf walked with Mazel to the medical bay, by way of Scharm’s Bar where they each had a bracing mug of hot jumaria nectar. Once Mazel felt good and jittery from the jumaria nectar, she figured she was ready to face Doctor Jardine — who probably didn’t need jumaria nectar to feel energetic.
When Mazel hesitated outside the doors of the medical bay, Grawf put a giant paw on the small cat’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything. They hadn’t talked about Mazel’s fear, uncertainty, and general quandary since their brief conversation aboard Star-Skipper 1 the night before. Sometimes, it helps more to spend time with someone and not talk about your problems. Just take a break from them. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 12: Resolved”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
The tension aboard the shuttle was palpable. With every minute they waited, Mazel expected a Hiviiarchy warship to find them. When an answering message from Bataille finally came, the Morse code translated to: “Sending probe. Standby.”
With bated breath and scanners running, Mazel waited for the probe. Finally, bright lines of color flashed across the shuttle’s main viewscreen, dimmer than they’d been before but recognizably an opening to the nexus. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 11: Big Decisions”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Omoleura heard Neera’s sad song, and zhe dragged zirself, limping and in pain, out of the barracks and toward the front of the shuttle. Quincy hopped after zir, gallumphing about how the insect was supposed to stay still until the medical foam on zir talon hardened. The frog had replaced his expensive color-changing shirt with a simple synthesized one in plain, bright green.
But Omoleura couldn’t stay out of the way when zhe could hear in Neera’s voice that something was so clearly wrong. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 10: Visions Revealed”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
While Mazel and the rest of her team — minus Omoleura the traitor — waited for the Carapids to return, Quincy lightened the mood by telling stories. Most of the frog’s stories seemed to end with the moral: “And so the soggy swamp swallowed them up, along with everything they had and everyone they knew.”
After a while, Unari suggested that the rest of them should steal the frog’s color-changing pants as well as his shirt and watch captioned episodes of “Small Dog, Big Heart,” but Quincy objected both to the idea of being left naked and to the idea of having everyone stare at his legs for entertainment. So, they were left with his swamp stories. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 9: Cracking Eggshells”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Rheun’s reality shrank down to a pinpoint — pure thought, no physicality. Time could only be measured by the shape of her impatience, which came in waves. With no external anchors, only darkness, it was hard to keep track of who she was. Mazel the cat? Darius the dog? Augrula the bear? An octopus? Maybe even human.
When reality returned, the truth of being Mazel melted away like frost in sunlight. The cat was only a memory, and the physical truth of Rheun’s existence had changed. Zhe extended an arm to look at zir paws, but instead two limbs moved — a wing and an arm, zhe thought — and the appendage that appeared in zir view was not a paw. A talon, perhaps; covered in blue fuzz with darker ridges, creating a feathery pattern. Except the talon appeared dozens of times in overlapping, multitudinous views until Rheun figured out how to resolve all of the images into one. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 8: A Different Perspective”