Parody & Satire Series

Julie Montcalm had a problem, or two of them. Horace Hackett Jr. was behind deadline for a story she needed. But the worst of that is he had written her into the story itself, as a character. Along with her friend and fellow classmate Micah DeWolf, she was living the story itself as Hackett wrote it. Worse, it was a hack-job version of his father's pulp fiction story about Caribbean wars between the English and Spanish. And the two of them were right in the middle of it! Fictional characters aren't supposed to die in real life, right? Luckily, they both have their smartphones and can edit the story. Maybe even save their lives in the bargain. These two find plenty of adventure and even romance as they work to fix the story before it fixes them... Excerpt: Horace Hackett Jr. was head down on his desk, the laptop filled with rows of b's and the machine bleeping. Horace's nose pressed neatly on that letter, regardless of the machine's discomfort. Nearby were several empty bottles of a variety of alcoholic beverages. "Looks like it was beer, then whiskey with a beer chaser, then straight whiskey as the beer was all gone." Julie Montcalm was looking over the disheveled mess of the dorm room though the open door. Behind her stood Micah De Wolf. Both students were in the same school as Horace. And both were similarly disgusted by the state of Horace and his dorm room. Laundry was everywhere but the hamper, with scattered pages of print outs. The printer was blinking and obviously out of ink. Several empty cartridges sat nearby, and more on the floor. They had completely missed the trash can. Some of his school texts hadn't. Shelves for those books were filled with food wrappers and RPG manuals. In and amongst them were grade reports and various bills from equipment dealers and pawn shop receipts. Micah crossed behind her to the keyboard on it's stand against the wall. Moving some old shirts and unmentionables over to the bed, he clicked the device on and started a riff with the volume dialed low. Julie meanwhile had crossed to Horace and pushed his head to the side, stopping the insistent beep. She brushed his thick locks away from his face with a soft touch, more as an elder sister than an editor asking after her story. The alcohol on his breath rose to her nose and she stepped back, raising her hand to it as if to shield it from further offense At that, Horace moaned and slowly squinted his eyes to see who was bothering him. He saw someone standing there, sideways in his vision as it cleared. Slim, in tight jeans lit from the hallway light, it was obviously a her or a she. The curving hips on long legs was definitely not his room mate or any of the many female visitors that infrequently graced the male dormers. These were black jeans, cut for dual purpose of business while displaying her feminine charms. Not that he'd ever bed this one. He recognized the ring on her hand as it left his forehead. His head jerked upright and collided with the unlit desk lamp. The effort made his vision swirl again. Rubbing the bump was more a habit than needful. His scalp was numb from the result of all those bottles that had emptied themselves into his mouth not far below. "So it's obvious that there is no story for me tonight." The tight jeans had a commanding voice. Horace's ears felt assaulted by the volume. He opened his eyes wide at this. "Julie! I'd say this was a pleasant surprise, but apparently you're here on business." "Do you even know what day this is? Do you know the Atworthy College Quarterly is due to ship tomorrow? Do you?!?"... Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

Ever wonder how all these Romances and Academic papers get written?  Interestingly, most of these authors have pets. Cats, particularly, who like to type. Seriously. But you'll never know it. Because they get into your dreams at night and make you think you did all that typing.  Of course, this might explain some of the wild theories that come out of Universities these days, as well as the exotic Romances... Excerpt: F. D. C. Willard, a red tabby cross-bred house cat, was at his usual location for 3am. Typing out a new paper about helium-3 isotopes and the cosmic interrelationships of theoretical sub-orbital particles within nuclei. Not that he was all that interested in the subject, but it was another chore of his. His "master" complained sometimes of F. D. sleeping all day. But when you're up most of the night writing a research paper, the one he would take credit for, the one that would advance his career, the one that got his pay raise, sometimes F.D. thought his master was really being a little hypocritical... If he only knew his cat was writing them for him. F. D. (who the family called "Chester") looked down at his red-tabby paws and sometimes wished he had regular hands. But didn't want all the baggage that went along with it. A human body ate such strange things and needed more exercise. And then there was these odd "social engagements" they went to. He was happier being a cat. And so kept typing one paw after the next, one key at a time. "Hey F.D. How's it going today?" A calico female slunk across the polished mahogany table and settled down next to him, reading the screen. "I see you're into the meat of it now. How do you do all that math and keep it straight?" "That's not the problem, it's translating it into Academicese that's the trick. I sometimes wish I had it as simple as you and just wrote romances." "Sure and don't you think it gets a bit difficult describing human sex and foreplay in veiled terms? Talk about running out of modifiers..." "You do have a point there." The red tabby continued typing with his "two-paw" method, careful precisely to hit the grey laptop keys exactly. The calico sat quietly, reading along with his typing, respecting the tabby's concentration. Occasionally, the tabby would have to stop and stretch, as sitting arched over the keyboard to hit the number keys, as well as the Ctrl-function combinations, was a stretch. Fortunately, there were shift and Ctrl keys on both sides of the old laptop keyboard, so a little forethought and practice made the typing easier. At one of these breaks, the calico again broke the silence of the early morning study. "Hey, that was great news that you'd been cited over 50 times for that paper." "How did you hear about it?" "Oh the neighbor's cat sent her congrats via their jack terrier..." Bonus Short Story Included:  The Maestro - He'd traced down the old man who had swindled him out of all his savings and his life. To a Denny's, where he sat in a back booth, nursing a "bottomless" cup of coffee. Sitting there, playing solitaire with a deck of 53 cards. Now it was time for payback. But the old man was expecting him or someone like him, so he had his story ready... Get Your Copy Now!

Only a Frump could be elected in this modern age.  Because no one trusted a man to get anything right anymore. The first female president fit the model, and this reporter was putting the pieces together on how she got elected.  She simply put a new approach to classic poltical ploys. The right gal at the rigth time. All wasn't smooth sailing though... Excerpt: "About time you showed up." "Hey, I'm right on time!" "Yea, but I needed to talk to someone hours ago." "Oh, that research assignment..." "Right. Why did I have to be assigned researching the Frump Presidency?" "Wasn't it about the trend of older female candidates being elected?" "Yea, frumpy ones. Not young, not necessarily married, preferably divorced after their hubby ran off with a younger woman, not particularly photogenic - Frumps." "Is that your result after all your research? Older women make frumpy politicians?" "Of course not. It's just a marketing angle I was working on. That's the key point all these women had in common. The ones who could claim they were victims of a womanizer got better poll results, especially after they could show that they ‘persisted and resisted’ and made their own way afterwards." "Well, it seems a bit narrow..." "Sorry, but the facts came out that way. Suddenly, we had only women running for office, and no younger ones. No one wanted to work for the good-looking ones, as it was an invitation to have harassment charges thrown at you." "You can't be serious! That's a little over the top, isn't it?" "That's what the research showed. OK, maybe the marketing needs to be massaged a bit. You have to admit that being a male became political dynamite in those early 2000 elections, particularly after 2020 or so." "Because of all the harassment claims and publicity?" "Exactly. Male celebrities and politicians were getting slammed all over the place. Meanwhile, media was under-reporting court cases about female teachers bedding their underage male students." "Are you serious?" "Sure, just check the Drudge archives. That and Blaze were showing those while everyone else was chasing the skirt chasers." "How did that fit your research into female Presidents after 2020?" "Polls were all over the place, and so were news reporting. Corporate news channels were reporting according to whoever was in charge of the newsrooms. And you started seeing a shift once the various complaints got rid of most of the male reporters and their complicit execs..." With Bonus Short Stories:  The Integrity Implosions - A simple electronic circuit was developed that would detect anyone lying or skirting the truth by giving them the runs. And then it's circuit was released to the Internet and soon was mass produced to put into gag gifts. Of course, when these found their way to Congress... The Chardonney Conspiracy - Mrs. C_ was effectively limited to walking her woods and drinking Chardonnay while she continued to work on an endless memoir. All because they told her she'd had a "breakdown." She knew it was a conspiracy to keep her from running for office again... Get Your Copy Now!

Indecision has been known to kill people. In politics, it just makes fund-raising harder. That's why we gremlins love the politicians. When they built Washington on our swamp, we got the best deal out of it. Us and the faerie-folk. Until then, we only had the natives and the migrant colonists to work with. Influencing their minds and helping them to live more "interesting" lives." But when they paved over that swamp and replaced it with all sorts of statuary, and homes and lots of unelected bureaucrats, then the fun began. It's said that the Beltway changes people. No - they are all listening to us - and changing their minds, constantly. Just to keep from going crazy... Except: Let's be clear: Gremlins bring out the worst in humans. They make them say the "darnedest" things. Because humans are often more like children than adults. All that poppycock about brains "maturing" is more gremlin-speak for having parents who were sheltered and spoiled as children raising spoiled children of their own who also can't determine fact from dreams or from opinion. There. I said it. Even fairies like me have to stomp our pretty feet at times. Not that it bothers gremlins. It only bothers humans to be "wrong" about something or to not get their "way." And our job as fairies to to bring out the best in humans. So we work to balance the gremlins as we both ride on the shoulders of our selected humans. All around the Washington Beltway. If you can see us "faerie-folk" you can probably see the gremlins, too - they are just on a different wavelength. We're both over-talking the other at the same time. Over-shouting, in many cases. That's the stupid, blank looks you see on TV. Deer in the headlights. Non-sequitur responses when people are interviewed. Losing their "train of thought." Even going so far as quoting song lyrics as statistically-proved facts. (I think Meat Loaf still holds the record for direct quotes to support the senator's arguments.) Not that they don't have a lot of actors there (regardless of any witness's ability to swoon the press.) In general, it seems that if you had a character that ended in -er, like "Gopher" or "Cooter" you had a better chance at a nationwide office. (And this doesn't include so many who made the transition just up to or beyond local May-or, like Salvato-re Bono) And having a president with an acting background seems to help on the campaign. Apparently, the more movies you've been in, the more Republican you get... All this constant play against the Gremlins has made my own otherwise light-hearted responses a bit sarcastic, so I apologize. We fairies often have to take breaks in Statuary hall, and read the inscriptions on the buildings around Washington, just to get our balance back. Something like the observation – that you become like the five people you most associate with. So we try to rotate our staff occasionally. It's unfortunate that the humans cannot "tag-team" their position. This is what makes their infection become more permanent.   Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

The third time she was beaten up by a different roving city gang and this time left for dead. The guy who saved her life wanted to help solve how she ended up that way. What wasn't working was to be anything they wanted. White, Black, Male, Female, Gay, Straight - someone was always offended, no matter what.  And now she had no choice. They had taken all she had, even her job, her apartment... Even her identity. Now she was a no-one.  It was only when she met a fat, jolly fellow who everyone liked that she got a clue what she must do to survive in these modern "tolerant" times. Whatever his secret was, she had to find out. She had to solve herself. Otherwise, she didn't have long to live - without becoming one of the gangs who had left her like this... Excerpt: That left me was traveling the long and gerrymandered route along the edge of where they would protect me until I could get close enough to sprint to the relative safety of my apartment complex and their snoring, dull paid "guards." The ones who would only protect you if you got through that armored front door in one piece, preferably not bleeding on their carpet. And it wasn't my luck that night. Because the borders had shifted again, always without warning to their victims. Soon I saw myself surrounded by a bunch of dark hoodie-wearing thugs. Male-female, it didn't matter. They were out to hunt. Turning left and right, I saw only that the noose was tightening. Standing bodies with their faces in shadow. Weapons in their hands that I could see, and more weapons underneath their long sleeves I couldn't. Part of that money had been spent in martial arts training, after the second time I was mugged. And that had occurred right outside the front door of my apartment. I could still see the shocked fear and remorse of those security guards as they kept themselves protected behind the armed glass. Broward. That was my apartment. And still a block away. Not that it would matter in a few minutes. I decided. Throwing my bag at the face of the biggest one, who was instantly swarmed by the smaller (females?) who were at his sides and behind them. They wanted my dress clothes. Then I launched behind me at some smaller thugs, who still were taller than me by a head or so. Unexpected, I was able to deck three of them and take off running through that gap. In the wrong direction to get to my apartment. At least I was wearing my street running shoes. And I ran for my life. But they knew the turf better, as they lived it. And no matter how many turns I took, how I dodged into and out of traffic, they boxed me in again. The trick was to protect my face and my right arm. The rest I could heal. But heavy makeup and shades to cover eye bruises would only go so far. I needed my job to survive. Feinting right and left, I worked to get an opening. But found none. The ones carrying the long pipes came closer, where they could strike and still be safe. I was dodging them OK for now, but was being pushed back against the others who had knives. Turning my back on any of them was the trick. Any wrong move would save or cost me my life. One, a smallish one, jumped on my back. That one was simple enough to hurl. But then I felt my right wrist seized. And I panicked, trying to desperately free it. My jacket was pulled and hood ripped from my head and down around my shoulders. "An-dro! An-DRO! AN. DRO!!" The shout became a chant. I still struggled to free myself. That just got me a pipe across the back of my head. And blackness...

She told the magistrate she had been abused, taken advantage of, her reputation ruined. Or had she? The village law said that the benefit of the doubt lay with the most vulnerable. And so women were believed when they said some male had fondled or groped or acted in a threatening manner. For Lyla, it had happened many times. All to her shame. The men she accused were penalized and their own reputations marked. Simply denying it was no defense. For in every accusation Lyla presented, there was no witness to say what had happened. Most of these men stayed far away from Lyla after that. Many left the village. All to Lyla's benefit. Or was it? The village started shrinking, people moving away. And few other villagers - male or female - would talk to her. Unless several other people were present. She was being shunned for nothing she had done wrong. Or had she? Except: Regardless of the magistrate's decision, she felt - just perhaps - that something else was going on. Her head high, she walked the village street toward her small cabin on the village limits. She hadn't wanted to shop, but even if she did, all the stores had their "closed" signs turned. Some just as she passed them. The day was young, so why were so many taking the afternoon off? Lyla hoped she hadn't missed hearing about a party or gathering. There had been a few of them recently that she had only accidentally found out about. And didn't feel like walking in uninvited. She had her weaving and her garden to occupy her time these days. And running her booth on Saturdays at the Market. These kept her more than busy. In recent weeks, she had fewer visitors to her home to place special orders or to see what crops of hers were ready. She'd even quit hatching chickens as her eggs weren't selling enough to pay for the rations they needed to lay high-quality eggs. Frankly, it would soon be cheaper to only keep what she needed for her own needs, and feed them off table scraps and old bread crusts. Market day was becoming more sparse, even this fall. There were fewer booths, and many people were trading in other villages than locally. She now had two empty spaces on each side of her booth, where a couple of years ago, it was hard to even fit her booth into a space. Market day meant having the entire main street lined from one end of the village to the other. And the livestock auction was held beyond that. But hard times had come. Many of the storefronts were now empty. Families had moved out. Single men had begun looking for jobs in other villages, not returning to their native-born origin once they had built up a nest-egg investment. And the village didn't seem as pleasant a place as it had been. She would often not talk to anyone for days. But she was beginning to think something else was happening. She had noticed that conversations ceased just as she walked up. When she visited a store, the shopkeeper would be terse and speak in short answers. There were always someone else present, but just within earshot, not carrying on conversation. .... At nights, she had her books to read. Her mind was occupied all the time. Some might call it lonely, but she called it solitude... Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

What happens when politicians get old and can no longer be trusted? Out of power, living on a trust fund, her philandering husband living his own life without her.  Only her dreams of one-time fame (and an often re-filled case of wine) to keep her company, and her old campaign adviser to visit now and then to help her with her biography. Trapped in her own, private, white house. A form of retirement. But she knows they are all up to something. A conspiracy. So she quietly quits her meds. And starts conspiring back... Excerpt: Every day, after she got up and had her first cup of bitter black brew, Mrs. C_ stopped the clock. Then she turned the hands back 5 minutes. That was why she kept the old thing. She had to bring the clock weights up every night to "wind" it, and that's when she would then re-set it to the correct time according to her flip-phone. This routine was one way she could turn back time, if only for a short while. She'd done this ever since her breakdown. She didn't remember what that Foundation-hired psych called it. Something with "denial" in the middle of it. Gradually, over years, she weaned herself off the drugs. They kept prescribing them, and she kept storing them daily in the toilet. Just before she flushed. They thought she had gotten better because she was taking them. Let them be happy with that thought. She had gotten better as her revenge. It was all their plot to keep her down and out. To keep her from speaking. They told her no one would listen to her talks any more. Didn't want to interview her. It was all a conspiracy. She knew her adoring fans still loved her. But she quit mentioning it to her few visitors, as it upset them. And keeping them happy meant they wouldn't change her prescriptions. As long as she kept "getting better." Two can play at this game. Her only request was to keep the Chardonnay coming. A case every week. That was her best friend these days. She used to have a cat, but it ran off one day. So she would talk to the empty bottle, recording her memoirs on her phone. An old campaign adviser, fired and rehired more than once, came by once a week to transfer her recordings and drop off a sheaf of papers with the new transcriptions. Then they'd talk over her changes to them and what she had on the recordings, how she thought the outline could improve. That old press agent, named Ron, was a big fan of outlining and detailing the story so it would be just perfect. That was to be her legacy, he often told her. He said she just needed to take her time and get this one absolutely right. After the fiasco's of her last two memoirs, they both agreed that time was on her side with this last one. He also wanted her listen to motivational talks as she walked in the woods behind her big white house. But she found that when she did, she didn't have anything to record when she got back. After a few months of nothing to write down, she decided to change things. Ron kept leaving her new motivational recordings on her phone when he'd take her personal recordings away. That was the only electronic piece she had. Like winding the clock, everything else was manually operated. Of course, he liked to check she was listening to them, so she would skip around just before he came and look up the titles and listen to bits and pieces. Just so he thought she was paying attention to them if he asked. Two can play at this game. Their conspiracy would lose... Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

A Second Collection of the Dark Humor Satire of R. L. Saunders Life in our dystopian near-futures has never been funnier. Sauders gets inspiration from our daily news, and these stories are therapy for us as well. Skewering what is accepted as conventional wisdom, Saunders explores concepts which are more easily delivered with entertainment than op-eds or tweet-storms. Always taking the "what if" of current controversies to their slippery-slope results, Saunders reminds us constantly to not take the world around us seriously. This anthology contains: Smart Home Revenge by R. L. Saunders and S. H. Marpel For the Love of 'Cagga by C. C. Brower & R. L. Saunders Synco (TM) by J. R. Kruze & R. L. Saunders The Lonely Witness by R. L. Saunders Beltway Gremlin by R. L. Saunders Excerpt from "Smart Home Revenge": "What do you mean we can't get back in to my own house? What about cutting the power?" "I can't get the power company to send any more people here. They keep getting shocked even before they touch the disconnect." "At their own pole?!?" "Yes. Their own power pole is shocking them." "What about cutting off the whole block?" "Not that simple. There are a lot of lawyers who live in this neighborhood of yours and they already know about your haunted 'smart home'. They've let us know that it will be costly if we try. Besides, the next closest substation takes out dozens of blocks around here. We aren't going to turn everyone off just because you lost the password to your own smart home." "It's not the password, I tell you..." The owner was fuming by now, fists clenched. "Oh, just never mind." Then the smartphone was pocketed. The windows on the house pulsed red and green. And no, they didn't leave their Christmas decorations up. The last technician who was willing to come out and have a look at their house said that it reminded him of breathing. And after we fired him, no other company would agree to take it on - but would schedule us their "next possible opening" - some months from now. The owner, his wife, and two kids were just standing on their sidewalk. With their pets on leashes. Even their cars were locked inside the garage. All they had been able to take with them were their smartphones, a game controller, and a tablet. But accessing their smart home control panel only gave them a PAC-man-era pixelated sad face. Worse than sad - angry. Calls to the company who made the programs and installed them went unanswered, or were refused. And after that, their phone went dead. All like some horrible prank-turned-harassment. At last, one of the neighbor's wives came over and called a cab for the family on her own phone. The cab arrived, the family left. And the on-looking neighbors went back inside – or got in their own cars to leave and stay elsewhere until that spooky house was resolved. Or at least knew their house wasn't going to be next. It was close to sunset now. And while all the houses had power, the streetlights on that street and the others near them failed to come on. Police sent patrol cars to manage traffic in those streets, but wouldn't come down to that vacant house. The one that breathed red and green - and looked far more ominous in the dark... Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now

A Simple Job: Make a Delivery and Get Paid a Fortune - Or Die. What he was driving was an up-armored trailer rig. And was getting paid a fortune to deliver something to a fortified city. To someone who had a fortune to spend on it - if he only survived long enought to cash in. The boxes were unmarked and had to stay sealed. But when he arrived at the delivery location, there was no building there. Just someone jamming all the frequencies except the one that showed bombs going off... Dark humor. True love. An instant family. And a city gone psychotic. Excerpt:  The drive up to 'Cogga was almost as bad as working down from upstate to N'Yack. Only you got to see more farms and less plantations.  I'd driven them both and didn't much like one or the other. But I somehow survived both trips, more than once, and so I kept getting hired to make them. Sure, they paid more, but that was the deal. You had to have a human driver to get across their borders and through their security. And you had to be a mean SOB to get out in one piece. Of course, it didn't hurt that my rig was built from a pair of surplus MRAPs. Built to survive even IED's that these polite, "Tolerant" urbanites left around as their form of "free speech" to make their "statement" on the underside of one of the trucks that was bringing them their food and other vital supplies. Food wasn't the same as raw material like sawdust. They didn't have no trees in there, so they didn't make anything out of actual wood. But they didn't mind we brought them leftover sawdust from the cutting some farmers did to make real furniture everyone else bought. In those cases (like our scrap metal salvage, plastic recovery, and gravel-rebar mix) they just had these big lots outside where trucks didn't have to go into the city proper and security was more devoted to keeping track of their own cranes as the tractors outside filled the bucket to unload somewheres inside. But the land outside the city was owned by some individual with connections and they took the risk that someone would sneak out and sabotage their tractors. They'd tried importing containers of raw stuff, but those usually got a hole blown in them once they were left inside the city's high border walls and so wouldn't be worth anything when they came back across. So that owner had a crane that reached over the city walls and would drop down to pick up a load in its big claws, then hoist it into the city to dump for re-manufacturing. I don't recall the last time anything got built inside one of those places. Things just got rebuilt. And the people in there were mostly rebuilt, too. Hardly anyone come in or out these days, except us driving fools. But we were just crazy enough to try, and had enough sense to be able to count toes and fingers to make sure we came out with the same amount as when we went in. Anyways, I like to talk, and so I'm getting far off the mark for this story. You wanted to know how I got hitched and started a family all on the same day, the one where I almost lost my life a few times before I met her.

Our Second Civil War was over in minutes - while the conflict took decades. As in all wars, both sides lost heavily and then proclaimed victory.  I knew this all too well, serving as a paramedic to patch up their wounded and dying. I'd gotten myself into 'Cagga to solve my nightmares. After I'd sworn off coming back into the cities where the only real violence happened. She was in my dreams every night, and turned them into the same hell on earth she was experiencing.  Because she only wanted to be rescued from a fate and destiny she could not control. In the old days, it was called human trafficking, but in our time it was called normal. Just because she was pretty, single, and defenseless.  And once I found her, we'd only have until sundown... Excerpt:  I could hear her scream in my dreams. Every night. Who she was and how to find her was a mystery. But I knew I had to try. Or the dreams would never let me sleep normal again. Not that it was going to be easy. Ever since the Great Secession, it was nearly impossible to get people into (or out of) the big city areas. You could get news out of their jammed "acronym media networks" easier. But 'Cagga was less impossible than most. And that was where my dreams told me to search first. I was here to get those dreams out of my sleep.  I'd been called many times, for many things, but this was the most annoying one I'd ever had to live. Not that you'd call it living. Because sleep was one continuing nightmare for me. Not really a lot of sleep, just a lot of waking in a cold sweat, plus a lot of tossing and turning. I even had to get my own room because of all the yelling I'd do.  So going to 'Cagga was for my own survival, as well as anyone around me.  Lots of smiles got me through their gates. They didn't want to shake my hand, but waved me through from behind their glass guard booth. Us "unclean" were only going to another slightly less unclean space - where the guards never went.  Just to find this woman or girl or whoever is keeping me awake at night.  She was in here somewhere. I hoped.

John Earl Stark had a problem. If his book sales didn't pick up, he'd have to go get a real job. So he called an old friend, a fellow author just returned from a "digital rehab" and wanting to get back into the swing of writing. Their styles and approaches were completely different. And each had nothing to lose by comparing notes with the other. Both of them needed a re-start at their "writing life". Of course, this was in between John's playing amateur sleuth for his very feminine spirit-guides, and goddesses. But his friend brought a couple of six-packs of "near-beer" so they could relax at John's cabins and just open up about what did and didn't work. This is the beginning of their long discussions about how to write fiction and make a living at it - or at least enough to enjoy a good life pecking at the keyboard.... The First Four Rules - Exceprt: Recently, I had an author return to my stable after a short dint in a "digital rehab".  He was a bit more gaunt, a bit hollow-eyed, but calmer. He seemed to have lost a nervous "edge" that he'd always carried around - along with a sharply barbed wit that had a hair trigger. His name is R. L. Saunders. Perhaps you've read some of his books. Maybe not. He said he was back and he wanted to get back into writing. We both knew it wasn't going to be easy. That "addiction" he went off to cure was also his crutch - the one he leaned on to write his satire and parodies. So I gave him a job. We had a bunch of works around that needed to be polished up and re-cataloged and so forth. I figured that by having to read our other author's works, maybe their style and approach would rub off on him. Maybe he'd be able to get some inspiration from their stories to build some new ones of his own. He gave me a weak smile, a nod, and then found himself a desk in one of the back rooms. Not too soon after, I got a note from one of my other authors, name of John Earl Stark. He asked if I knew any one to recommend - that could help him with his flagging sales. A light bulb went off right then. I called up Saunders and told him that he needed to go out to interview this Stark fellow, that I'd be shipping a care package of materials out there with instructions on how to use them. Of course, I had to "loan" Saunders gas money to make the trip, and the use of my "Triple A" card in case his "beater" truck didn't make it all the way. Saunders was to write me a letter every week on their progress. And I sent an email to Stark saying that I was sending someone out - he just had to put the guy up and keep him fed. By the time Stark replied, Saunders was well on his way. Just yesterday, I got his the first report back. Here it is... Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

She could still remember the look on his face when they closed the Riot Wall for the final time. She could barely find him at first beyond the chain-link fence a few hundred yards away. If not for that red-plaid shirt he always wore when he visited her. Standing in the closed "visitor" queue on his side of that wall. After this day, there would be no more visits. Because this wall was the long-overdue solution to the long-running riots. Riots meant businesses closed, meant tax payments dropped, meant fewer jobs - even if you worked for the government. And the government jobs were the safest, as they only really depended on sucking up to whoever was in charge at the time. It was a coward's way of surviving. But at least you survived. Beyond the walls were more jobs, but lower wages for them. Still, those people seemed to like it out there. They liked working for themselves. Rob had promised he was going to take her there. And one thing after another kept making him break his promise. When the Riot Walls shut for good - that was the final straw. It didn't mean her heart wasn't breaking. And she knew his was, too. But she had to turn away. Because everyone had to turn away. Someone in power was addressing their "citizens" over the city's PA system. And they had to listen "attentively" - If they wanted to keep their jobs, their housing, and what they considered a life here inside these walls... Excerpt: He told me I should shut my eyes. But when I opened them at last, it was still worse than I expected. Of course, his warning was about the effects of time-space transmogrification, not what we would find when we arrived at wherever "there" was. "They call this 'Cagga." Joe was concerned about the way my face looked back at him. He'd let go of my hand, but I missed its reassurance. "You'd know it as Chicago in your own time-space." "Wow. What a wreck." Joe nodded. "Yes, Carol, but people still live here." "You can't be serious?" He shrugged. "You wouldn't probably call this a life." "And yet you say I'm here to avert a tragedy? It looks like that already happened." Joe stayed silent, letting the city speak to that question. The noises of a quiet city loomed in my ears. Sounds of some traffic, but distant. The elevated train rolled through overhead, on a clattering track, echoing off the high rises to its sides, but loudly. Some pneumatic piston machines were running in the background, distant. Out of sync, one faster than the other, and only occasionally striking near the other's beat. What I didn't hear was the people. These streets were empty. A quick look around showed no reason for people to be here. The storefronts at street level were either boarded up or burnt-out shells. No sidewalk diners, no newspaper kiosks, not even street vendors. In this "Windy City", there was no one here to complain about papers being blown about, or the grit arriving unwanted in your eye. A post-apocalyptic mess. Only without the gunshots and sirens. I had to ask, "Where are..." "Everyone?" Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

A Collection of the Dark Humor Satire of R. L. Saunders Life in our dystopian near-futures has never been funnier. Sauders gets inspiration from our daily news, and these stories are therapy for us as well. Skewering what is accepted as conventional wisdom, Saunders explores concepts which are more easily delivered with entertainment than op-eds or tweet-storms. Always taking the "what if" of current controversies to their slippery-slope results, Saunders reminds us constantly to not take the world around us seriously. This anthology contains: The Tunnel People Mind Timing Becoming Michelle A Sweet Fortune Keyboard in the Sky Cats Typing Romance The Maestro Rise & Fall of President Frump The Integrity Implosions The Chardonnay Conspiracy Note: Mind TIming and Becoming Michelle were co-authored with C. C. Brower Except from A Sweet Fortune: The drive up to 'Cagga was almost as bad as working down from upstate to N'Yack. Only you got to see more farms and less plantations. I'd driven them both and didn't much like one or the other. But I somehow survived both trips, more than once, and so I kept getting hired to make them. Sure, they paid more, but that was the deal. You had to have a human driver to get across their borders and through their security. And you had to be a mean SOB to get out in one piece. Of course, it didn't hurt that my rig was built from a pair of surplus MRAPs. Built to survive even IED's that these polite, "Tolerant" urbanites left around as their form of "free speech" to make their "statement" on the underside of one of the trucks that was bringing them their food and other vital supplies. Food wasn't the same as raw material like sawdust. They didn't have no trees in there, so they didn't make anything out of actual wood. But they didn't mind we brought them leftover sawdust from the cutting some farmers did to make real furniture everyone else bought. In those cases (like our scrap metal salvage, plastic recovery, and gravel-rebar mix) they just had these big lots outside where trucks didn't have to go into the city proper and security was more devoted to keeping track of their own cranes as the tractors outside filled the bucket to unload somewheres inside. But the land outside the city was owned by some individual with connections and they took the risk that someone would sneak out and sabotage their tractors. They'd tried importing containers of raw stuff, but those usually got a hole blown in them once they were left inside the city's high border walls and so wouldn't be worth anything when they came back across. So that owner had a crane that reached over the city walls and would drop down to pick up a load in its big claws, then hoist it into the city to dump for re-manufacturing. I don't recall the last time anything got built inside one of those places. Things just got rebuilt. And the people in there were mostly rebuilt, too. Hardly anyone come in or out these days, except us driving fools. But we were just crazy enough to try, and had enough sense to be able to count toes and fingers to make sure we came out with the same amount as when we went in. Anyways, I like to talk, and so I'm getting far off the mark for this story. You wanted to know how I got hitched and started a family all on the same day, the one where I almost lost my life a few times before I met her...