sci-fi

Cover Reveal – Break/Interrupt

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

Break Front Cover

I shared the cover of my new book, Break/Interrupt, over on my personal website, but I wanted to make sure to share it here, too.

I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. Glen Hawkes, who did the cover for the last book in the series, Broadcast Wasteland, knocked it out of the park again. Check out his website for his art, comics, and kids books.

The sample copy of the book is in the mail and I hope to have copies to sell in the next couple of weeks. I’ll make another short post when it’s officially available.

Break Banner 1

Coming Soon – Break/Interrupt

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

Ben here.

20200419_115528I’m working hard on the last edit of Break/Interrupt before I start on the layout and send the book off to the printer. I have two weeks to get it all wrapped up before my self imposed deadline (and before I miss out on the discount at the printer).

I should have plenty of time to get it finished in time (if I’m at all to be trusted). The plan is (similarly as the other novellas in the series) to order copies within the first week of April. I’m not sure how long it will take to get them to me. Last year there was a delay due to the pandemic, but it wasn’t too bad. I had Broadcast Wasteland in hand well before the end of the month.

20200418_131556I expect things will be similar this year. Thankfully, as soon as the book is approved with the printer, it is available to order and therefore, technically released. The prices fluctuate wildly online (at least in Canada) so I’m sure most people will be interested in getting the book directly from me. I haven’t made a decision on distribution yet, but that will be all sorted out by the time the books are delivered. (Because I won’t have much of a choice at that point).

I like to keep the cover under wraps until I know the books are on their way. There’s so much that can go wrong with the printing process that I have to resist jumping the gun. Even though Glen Hawkes really outdid himself this time. He did a great job with Broadcast Wasteland, so you can imagine how good this one is.

I won’t take up any more of your time for now. I’ll do another post when the book is out (showing off that amazing cover). I’m really excited for this one. I hope you are, too!

Happy New Year from AWP!

/ Ben Van Dongen / 1 Comment

80367398_10156568917196389_1550900823590961152_oHello fine readers. Happy New Year from us at Adventure Worlds Press!

Together, we managed to get through a tough year and we’ll keep striving forward in 2021! We hope you had some good moments that you can hold tightly. We sure did.

While we weren’t able to attend any events for the majority of 2020, we did manage to put our collective noses to the grind stone and get some down and dirty writing done.

Christian got several short stories published in a number of collections, wrote the first draft of a literary fiction novel, and continued to edit his latest horror book.

Brittni Brinn released her latest sci-fi novella, A Place That Used to Be, and finished the first draft on her new sci-fi novel.

Ben Van Dongen finished the first draft of his own sci-fi novel and is in the middle of editing the latest book in The Synthetic Albatross series, Break/Interrupt.

120108498_4451387658266981_1926075961421334201_oWe plan on having new books to share with you this year. While it may be some time until we can have physical release parties and get out to events across the province, we will continue to work and experiment in the virtual space.

Hang in there and do what we do when things get tough. Read genre fiction (especially the quality books released by Adventure Worlds Press).

Genre Mash-Up! workshop.

/ Christian Laforet / Leave a comment

 

MASHUPPOSTERMAINWEB

Back in January, Ben and Christian were asked to host a workshop for Gertrude’s Writing Room. The evening focused on Science Fiction and Horror writing and was a blast. It was so fun, in fact, that they’ve been asked to do it again. This time as part of a month-long series of workshops called the Genre Mash-Up!

The series begins with the boys returning to dish out a second helping of the spooky, weird and futuristic, and then continues each week with workshops on: Poetry, Fiction and Screen Writing. From fine literary talents as: Vanessa Shields, Casey Plett and Nick Shields. Continue reading →

Exclusive Excerpt from The Time Traveller’s Resort and Museum

/ Christian Laforet / 1 Comment

Have you bought your copy of No Light Tomorrow Illustrated edition yet? If the answer is yes, then you’ve no doubt noticed that there is something special at the back of the book. A bonus sneak peek at The Time Traveller’s Resort and Museum.

For those who haven’t gotten their hands on the No Light Illustrated edition, have no fear, we’ve got you covered.

The Time Traveller’s Resort and Museum is the newest release from Mirror World Publishing, and we’ve got an exclusive excerpt for your reading pleasure!

So with that, we are happy to deliver to you an exclusive look at the fantastic new novel, The Time Traveller’s Resort and Museum! Enjoy. Continue reading →

Hole in the Wall: The Fifth Monday Three – Part Four

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

By Edele Winnie

“Jocelyn, is it really you?” Carol asked the white-coated woman up on the catwalk. “I am so…. muddled.” Carol ran her hands through her brown hair but the confusion remained. They were surrounded by buzzing machines, tubes and metal catwalks. “What is this place?”

Jocelyn laughed. “It’s definitely not the bank. The Jocelyn who works there with you is just one version of me. A sister, if you like.”

Carol pointed at one of the large glass tubes. It was filled with green liquid and an exact copy of Carol herself, floating languidly. Beside that there were more tubes and copies. Carol shook her head, unable to find words. Beside her, Gary shifted into a quivering red cylinder shape.

“I see you’ve met Gary. He’s a portal jumper. A creature that can transfer between dimensions without decomposing.”

“You make me sound so dull.” Gary complained and transformed into a star shape. “I’m actually a star.”

Everything seemed to be swirling in her head and Carol looked for a place to sit. She settled on the bottom step of a metal ladder that led to a catwalk above.

Gary changed into a rhombus. “There was a cloh enforcer right behind us.” Continue reading →

In a Perfect World

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

By Edele Winnie

“Are you Mrs. Dununzio?” The doctor asked. At lease she assumed he was a doctor. He was wearing scrubs, had a pulled down mouth mask around his throat and a smear of blood that was just disappearing from his white coated chest.

Carol Dununzio nodded. “How is she?”

The doctor shook his head sadly.

“She’s not dead then?” Carol had to be certain.

“No.” The doctor said, frowning. “She lived. She’s going to be fine. I’m sorry.”

Carol Dununzio tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Her daughter still lived. Jessica, aged eleven, had survived. What was she going to do now?

A moment later another doctor wheeled Jessica out in a wheelchair. The young girl looked dazed, and the brown hair on the side of her head was matted with dried blood. The doctor tipped the chair and Jessica slid out and landed at her mother’s feet.

The doctors walked away, commenting on how awful the sunny weather currently was.

Carol grabbed Jessica by the arms and hauled her to her feet. The girl wobbled, but her legs held and so Mrs. Dununzio tugged her towards the emergency room doors.

The family car was easy to spot, for it was the least damaged in the lot. It was a fiery red and only the passenger side had been crashed in. The car in the spot next to it had been in so many accidents that it was now a patchwork of different colours as replacement parts had been added. One door was light blue, the next black, the roof was orange and there were other colours and some rust too. The car on the other side had been in a head on and all that remained of the windshield was jagged glass.

Mrs. Dununzio pushed Jessica into the back seat where the dead cocker spaniel was.   They’d found it by the side of the road about a week ago. It was long dead though and there were barely any insects in it anymore. Jessica was still bleeding lightly from her head wound. She lay down on the ripped seats in the back and wrapped her arms around the dead dog. Continue reading →

Hole in the Wall: The Fifth Monday Three – Part Three

/ Christian Laforet / 1 Comment

By Christian Laforet

Carol stared at the wall. She wore an oven mitt on one hand, a baseball glove on the other, and a Kiss beach towel wrapped around her face. Clutched in the oven mitt was the biggest knife she could find in her silverware drawer. She wasn’t sure what she would do with the weapon if the ball-thing returned. Thanks to the fact that the towel kept sagging, blocking her vision, she was just as likely to stab herself as anything else.

The wall were the thing had disappeared looked the same as ever, sunflower yellow with a framed picture of a horse wearing a stovepipe hat hanging off to the left. But she knew what she had seen, and whether it was visible now or not, there was a hole in her wall.

She edged closer to the spot and slowly leveled the knife until the tip of the blade was half an inch from the yellow surface. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the rest of the way. The point of the knife did not stop at the wall, but slid right in. At first she told herself that the knife had cut through the wall itself, but there was no resistance. Besides, that theory was put to bed when she retracted the blade only to find the end of the knife gone. Continue reading →

Hole in the Wall: The Fifth Monday Three – Part Two

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

Ben Van Dongen

Gary rolled into the portal and fell to the ground, landing with a splat. “Ahhh! Damn that hurts! Tanya? Where are you? That crazy thing threw acid or something at me!” Composing himself, he became a ball again.

The ground was a piece of land, ten metres around, floating in the ether. The bare earth beneath it bowed out, like the bottom of a bowl, but at a sharper angle and uneven.

A large tree sat in the middle, stretching up to the empty nothingness, its roots dangling below the platform. Shrubs and tall grasses sprouted all around, making it look like the tree was dug out of a forest, taking the ground coverage with it.

Hundreds of other platforms floated in the void, stretching out into blackness. Each of them had a single tree, roots dangling below the convex bottom, nothing tethering them, nothing holding them up.

“Tanya? Did you hear me?” Gary formed a cube, a tall cylinder, and went back to a ball. “Tanya!” Continue reading →

Hole in the Wall: Fifth Monday Three – Part One

/ Ben Van Dongen / 1 Comment

Edele Winnie

The man in the long coat shuddered and his left arm fell off. The breeze was toying with his long black hair, pulling it off his head and whirling it away. His other arm detached and hit the ground with a dull thud.

“The hole in the wall,” he said. His teeth were drooling out of his mouth, and falling away. His nose slid off and his eyeballs rolled out and splatted to the ground. “Hole in the wall,” his bloody mouth said and then his legs crumpled and what was left of his body thumped to the ground.

His clothing seemed to unravel and the flesh began to slide off of the torso, leaving shiny white bones. The blood and flesh withered and vanished as the bones settled and then began to crumble. In just a few moments, all trace of him was gone.

Carol was rooted to the ground. At first she’d been afraid, then horrified, and now disbelieving. She took a few tentative steps towards the spot where the body had vanished. When ferns started sprouting before her eyes, she backed away, her thin legs shaking. She stumbled and had to grab on to a nearby wall to remain standing. Somehow she managed to find her way back to the bank. She tried telling Jocelyn, a fellow teller and her friend, but Jocelyn just laughed and accused Carol of drinking on her lunch.

 

The rest of the day played out like a parody of normal life. Customers came and went; the clock charted the extremely slow voyage of the afternoon. The people lined up to do their banking didn’t seem real. Carol felt they were robots, or paid actors. When it was finally time to go home she stood at the bus stop and shivered even though the breeze was warm. The same breeze that had torn away the man’s black hair. Continue reading →