(This is not—as can readily be determined by the heart-shaped collar, dazed expression and intact left eye—the Pirate King, but rather Muffin, aka the Floof, aka Moosh-Vazool the Night-Hob. And so on and so forth. But you get the idea.)

As promised (though belatedly): here, in mp3 format suitable for bedtime listening, is my newest story about that lovable, ass-kicking, non-boot-wearing-yet-still-swashbuckling cat, William-O the Pirate King. From the TNEO Slam 2008. Please reproduce, distribute, etc.

William-o the Pirate King in: A Steely-Gray Christmas 3.75 mb.

Oh—and if you’re interested in back issues, the other two audio stories can be had here.

is tonight at 6:00 PM at the Manchester, NH Barnes & Noble. I am readying the sixth episode of the epic saga of William-O the Pirate King even as we speak.

Obviously I’m due for a bunch of updates on Readercon, the Homeless Moon chapbook, TNEO and suchlike, but that stuff will have to wait until next week.

Oh, I almost forgot. Today is international Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch day (or something like that, see the original post about it by Jo Walton), which I think is some kind of mass protest about the grumpy old man comments of Howard V. Hendrix, the outgoing vice-president of SFWA, on how people who offer up their fiction on the internet are selling their souls for free. Basically, it’s an experiment. We are supposed to give away fiction on the internet and see if we still have souls. I am cheating a bit with my contribution, giving away an mp3 audio recording of a story so that I still retain the right to sell the text.

Odyssey peoples will no doubt recognize this from the TNEO Slam 2006.

William-O the Pirate King in: The Rodent Revenge (10 Mb, right-click to download)

I do not normally write cat mysteries.

I am back, my allies. Boy has it been awhile. Post-Odyssey Slump felt like it segued quite seamlessly into Computer Hit by Lightning. Things got a bit tight. Better now.

So! A fun bit of publicity for me–Gwyneth Marner’s radio show “The Grain of your Voice”, on Valley Free Radio at 8 AM on Mondays, recently was so kind as to air a story of mine–William-o the Pirate King in: “Of Mice and Machinations.” I have an mp3 of the recording here; drop me an email if you’re interested in hearing it.

Lots more new stuff to come. New pictures, the rest of the dreams. Maybe me figuring out what the heck RSS is.

I carved a pumpkin:

(An Odyssey Journal)

Rain dripped from the barn’s eaves: plip, plip, plip, plip, and so on. After sixty plips, a fallen maple leaf at the puddle’s edge tipped, trickling the excess in over the floor. Dahlia the cow chewed her cud and digested: fourteen chomps, then a rest, then three, then a rest. She never once batted an eye. Hammy the farmhand dozed leaning back on two legs of a rickety chair. Every four breaths, a greasy lock of hair caught in his nostril and caused him to snore.

William-o the Pirate King, the barnyard cat, lay sprawled out on a wooden beam seven feet up, his legs dangling high in the air. On either side of him the age-dark wood was scored with marks where he’d sharpened his long, black claws. His one good eyelid drooped, then fluttered open, then drooped again. He twitched his scarred and battered tail. He yawned. He watched a spider crawl all the way along the beam from the empty stall at the barn’s southwest corner to the tool cubby on the other side, and begin a new web between the riding mower’s front left bumper and the handle of a hoe.

Outside in the rain, toads frolicked in the puddles. In their dry birdhouse in the crook of the maple tree, the bluebirds warbled unceasingly. Far away in the house, fat mice played shuffleboard with toothpicks and piecrust crumbs across the newly-polished kitchen floor.

And William-o the Pirate King could ruin none of it.

The spider’s new web was nearly finished when a new leak began to form in the roof. A fat water droplet fell on William-o’s battle-scarred left ear. He yowled and twisted, batted at the offensive droplet, lost his balance, and fell from the beam into a pile of musty green hay.

Enough is enough, thought the Pirate King, and bounded out onto the muddy floor.

He leapt straight through the spider’s new web, tearing it to shreds, and smooshed the spider. He stalked into Dahlia’s stall and dug his teeth into her udder. She lowed and stamped and kicked, but he was gone long before her hooves hit. He went over to Hammy’s rickety chair, and knocked its legs from underneath him with one swipe of his paw. Hammy roared and cursed, and grabbed for a switch.

But William-o had disappeared into the rain.