New Short Story Published

Well, actually, it's an old short story that has been re-published as an ebook. As Lev Raphael said, ebooks allow us to keep our backlist in print. This story, The Big Dance With Death, appeared in FUTURES in 2001. FUTURES was a small magazine with limited circulation so not many people had a chance to read it. As an ebook, it will have a potentially larger audience. That's one of the advantages of ebooks. They can correct for an earlier failure of the market. The story is currently available for Kindle and other devices through Smashwords. Eventually, it will be part of the collection of stories called Game Face, which should be ready next month.

Compared to other stories, this one was particularly difficult to write. I struggled making all the parts fit together. I don't recall how many drafts I did before it was accepted by FUTURES, but that wasn't the end of the struggle. Three editors worked on it. Each editor had a different take and suggested changes that would send it in a different direction. I'd make the changes and return it only to discover that the editor had left and a new one had come on board. Earl Staggs might be the only FUTURES editor who didn't work on it. By the time it was published, I was tired of the story. I didn't read it again until I decided to put this collection together.

To be honest, I didn't expect this story to hold up well, so I was very surprised to find, when I read it again after ten years, that it's still something to be proud of. There are some hard-boiled elements that I'm very pleased with. At the time, I was experimenting with hard-boiled themes and menacing antagonists. The experiment seems to have worked.

As I said, I struggled to make all the parts fit. It wasn't until I added the main character's backstory that everything fell into place. I introduce the backstory as a conflict between the main character, Val, and another woman, Carol, in the opening scene, which takes place on a college basketball court. Carol is the head coach of the team and Val has just signed on as her assistant. The conflict is some unfinished business between the two of them. The last time the two women had met, sixteen years earlier, was on that very court. They were the stars of rival college teams meeting in a game that was highly anticipated by the two of them, by the teams, and by the fans. The game would determine which woman was the best. Unfortunately, Val made a mistake which kept her out of the game. Her team lost and Carol went home with a hollow victory. The loss had haunted Val for all those years. Now she was back because one of the current team's stars was making the same mistake Val had made and Val has to stop her before she ruins the team's chances again.

If you do happen to read it, I would like to know what you think about it. David Shackelford (david@idrawbooks.com) did the cover. He'd like to know what you think of the cover. Do you see the death's head in there?

Mark Troy
Hawaiian Eye blog

Game Face

Last month I made an appeal for help and so many of you responded. I asked you to suggest titles for a collection of short stories I'm preparing for publication. I promised to send everybody who responded a copy of the ebook when it is published. That promise still holds, but it will be a while before the book is ready. I am on track for a mid-September publication date. So sometime in late September Ricky Bush, Morgan Mandel, Mike Dennis, Cozy in Texas, J.D. Webb, Kevin R. Tipple, Jean Henry Mead, Art Burnett, Jerry House, and Fred Zackel will get copies of the book. Thank you all.

Now for an update. You guys gave me some great suggestions which spawned a lot of ideas. I can't say that I chose one suggestion over the other, but I tried them all and experimented with tag lines for each. While working on the tag lines, the title popped up.

The title is Game Face
The tag line: Val Lyon puts on her game face when the competition heats up, but death has his game face on so Val had better bring her A game.

Here's the cover blurb:

Honolulu's hottest private eye, Val Lyon, has her game face on in these eight tales of love and lust, greed and corruption, murder and revenge, sports and cheating. Lots of cheating. On the court and off the court. In bed and out of bed. 

 Never one to shy away from adventure, Val drops from the sky, navigates a turbulent ocean and mixes it up on the hardwood. She faces man-eating sharks and ferocious bulls, but the most fearsome opponents are the two-legged ones. 

 Whether team sports or individual sports, the competition is fierce. It doesn't matter if the game is basketball or volleyball, or golf or surfing, the opponent is always the same—Death—and he always scores first. 

 So put your game face on and get in the game. These games are for keeps.

A game face signifies an intent to win, to prevail against tough odds. That's the one theme, besides sports, that runs through the stories. So keep watching this space and I will keep you updated on the progress and let you know when the book comes out. For now, thank you for your comments and suggestions on the title.

Mark Troy
Hawaiian-eye Blog