Message received by Battle Barge Glad of War, in service of the Rune Bearers chapter of the Adeptus Astartes

My Lord Grettir;

Contact has been reestablished with the xenos provisionally designated Splinter Fleet Mordiggian



As my lord can see, Splinter Fleet Mordiggian has grown significantly since the last report was submitted. Previous contact was with small forces which displayed minimal diversity. This is sadly no longer the case. Recent sightings have indicated large numbers of genestealers, termagants and hormagaunts, indicating the explosive growth and rapid development of the Splinter Fleet.



Larger genus have been seen at a distance. To the right, a Trygon can be seen, and an enormous Tyrannofex crawls below it. I think I need not remind my lord the dangers such horrors present. Where before this splinter fleet had a single zoanthrope, now there are two. Two hyperintelligent psyker minds now guiding these Tyranid horrors.



Most distressing is the identification of this enormous Tervigon, capable of spawning hundreds of hormagaunts. None of this genus have previously been seen in this sector.

The fleet is known to have clashed inconclusively with Chaos Space Marines and was badly mauled by incursions of Eldar as well as Orks. None of these have managed to rid us of the menace.

I pray that my lord would make haste to deal with this tenacious enemy. The Adeptes Astartes have ever been the hope and savior of Mankind, and the Rune Bearers known for their victorious action against the Tyranid foe.

May the Holy Emperor guide your hand,

Johann of Eorthscraef

Viva Las Vegas!

OK, not my first glimpse of New Vegas, but the first dramatic enough for a screen capture.



So I give you "Viva Las Vegas," the Dead Kennedys version:

Bright lights city gonna set my soul
It's gonna set my soul on fire
Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn
So get those stakes up high
There's a thousand pretty women waiting out there
They're all waiting the Devil may care
And I'm just a devil with love to spare, so

VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!

How I wish that there were more
Than the twenty four hours in the day.
Even if I ran out of speed, boy
I wouldn't sleep a minute away

Oh there's blackjack, poker and the roulette wheel
A fortune won and lost on every deal.
All you need is sonar and nerves of steel, so

VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Viva Las Vegas with the neon signs flashing and
The one arm bandits crashing
All hopes down the drain.
Viva Las Vegas turning day into night time
Turning night into daytime
If you see it once, you'll never be the same again.

Gotta keep on running
Gonna have me some fun
If it costs me my very last dime
If I wind up broke
Then I'll always remember
That I had a swingin' good time.

Oh, I'm gonna give it everything I've got
Lady Luck's with me, the dice stay hot
Got coke up my nose to dry away the snot, so

VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA! VIVA!
Las Vegas!!!

Dead But Dreaming 2 Lineup

The table of contents for Dead but Dreaming 2 has been posted to Yog-Sothoth.com. It looks like an excellent line-up, and I'm very pleased to be included, especially since I loved the first Dead but Dreaming, and also because my words gets to appear with Wilum Pugmire's.

"Foreword: Messrs. Cthulhu and Lovecraft Have Arrived", Kevin Ross
"Taggers", Walt Jarvis
"The Unfinished Basement", William Meikle
"Plush Cthulhu", Don Webb
"Class Reunion", Darrell Schweitzer
"First Nation", Scott David Aniolowski
"Your Ivory Hollow", Wilum Pugmire
"The Spell of the Eastern Sea", Michael Tice
"Dark Heart", Kevin Ross
"Transmission", Ted E. Grau
"N is for Neville", John Goodrich
"The Timucuan Portal", Daniel W. Powell
"No Healing Prayers", Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
"The Dissipation Club", Adrian Tchaikovsky
"Lure", David Annandale
"The Call", Rick Hautala
"Christmas Carrion", Donald R. Burleson
"The Depopulation Syndrome", Erik T. Johnson
"Uncle Sid’s Collection", Cody Goodfellow
"Father’s Day", Brian Sammons
"Innsmouth Idyll", Darrell Schweitzer
"The Hour of Our Triumph", Will Murray
"Here Be Monsters", Pete Rawlik

The Praise of the Praiseworthy...

Writing can be a very daunting task. Unless you're damned good at it, you're going to get more rejection than acceptances, and those are going to be weighted towards the beginning. Which can be discouraging. Do I persevere? Will I ever get any accepted to anything?

And once the story is bought and released, there is still the worry that said story sucks. Did I spend enough time making sure that this point was made? Did I spend too much time hammering away at that one? The most frightening thing about writing is that there are precious few guidelines. And when reviews come in, they can be enormously mixed, depending on what the reader was expecting, which is sometimes not the story they read.

That said, yesterday Brian Keene posted his Top 10 Books of 2010. And I'm on it.

The review of some random person carries some weight. When an Amazon reviewer is moved to write: "I was confused as to why this had been written, as it seemed to have no overall point or connection to the cthulhu concept." Then perhaps I didn't pay as much attention to the words as I should have.

Positive words by a professional writer such as Ellen Datlow or Brian Keene, outweighs this by far. And I have to keep remembering that out of two stories eligible to get name-dropped in Year's Best Horror, both have been singled out for praise. I may not be taking the publishing world by storm, but I'm not even close to the bottom of the barrel, either.