Bücher von R L Saunders

A collection of short stories from new voices - the breaking edge cross-currents of mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and romance - from works published between November and December 2018. Worlds new or perhaps re-visited - but only you will know if this is the stuff of dreams - or nightmares. - A ghost haunted by her death, since she only appears each year for a few hours, she has little time to work out how she died, and keep it from happening again. - When the amateur detective becomes haunted, it's up to those he's saved to rescue him from his own worst nightmares. - How do you solve someone's problem when they are haunting themselves? A recurring post-apocalypse scenario that only loops on an immortal being trapped at its center, and able to kill anyone who tries to help her. - A Smart Home who kicks out the owners, reassigns their title, and turns off the lights in the neighborhood - except for the red and green lights that pulse in an ominous, haunted glow. Get Your Copy Now.

Writers don't often write about their own worlds - but when they do, expect them to be every bit as imaginative as their other fiction.We've found a common theme in these six short stories. Where these new authors, not only explore their own thoughts, ideas, and angst through their own fiction, but also take apart their own ideas about how writers write.Here you'll see writer's block, the solitary writer's romances, the revenge of stalking stories, being transported by another writer into one of their worlds, and even examining the idea of your pet cat being responsible for a writer's output - or lack of it. Nothing is sacred to these authors as they turn their fiction microscope on themselves and their own profession.Get Your Copy Today.

Have you ever thought some very dangeous thoughts? Ones that could destroy all life as you knew it?In these six stories by three authors, they do just that. Of course, fiction is safer than real life, so it's much easier to test things here. ...Or so we've been told.In these stories are ideas that will captivate, and excite you to new thoughts and ideas of your own. Because the universe we live in is just a hair's-breadth away from the fictional ones we create.If history is any judge, these authors may be writing are things that will be in our own present any time now.Of course, that's only if you think their thoughts through...Get Your Copy Now.

If laughter is the best medicine, then reading humorous short stories should be the best practice to maintain your health.These three authors with their six stories have written stories that both poke fun at the sacrosanct and also skewer them for dissection as both pompous and ripe.From the ranks of Voltaire, Twain, and Vonnegut, these new voices have something to say about how our current culture and what they consider serious. You may find yourself irritated, incensed, or having a laugh outloud moment as you read along into the imaginative worlds these authors create.You may find yourself expecting to see someone just waiting in the shadows for you to get the punchline - expect that author's spirit as you read their works. PS. You have their permission to roll on the floor with delight, in private, of course...Get Your Copy Now.

While Marj is helping urban archeologists, she discovers a secret map that she has to hide from the authorities. It tells of an underground system of tunnels that cross through mazes of paths under North America, using old limestone caves and aquifers, even connecting to the old ICBM missle bases. It had been a long and brutal war. At the end, one side was banished underground, long decades ago. If this was true, the war may not be as over as they thought.She enlisted Rob to help her decipher this map and explore this underground world. They have to work in secret as many of their ""finds"" have been known to disappear, along with the discoverers. These two lone researchers find in each other more than they expected. And that just adds to the problems of decyphering and accessing the underground secrets of the Tunnel People...Get Your Copy Now.

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...Get Your Copy Now.

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 ConspiracyNote: Mind TIming and Becoming Michelle were co-authored with C. C. Brower

Two Months of Published Short Stories in One Collected AnthologyThe third in our series, Featuring original works by S. H. Marpel, C. C. Brower, R. L. Saunders & J. R. Kruze published between May and June, 2018. A baker's dozen stories from our archives.Excerpt from The Tunnel People:We only had a half-hour or so before it would be too dark to make our way down the trails without stumbling. And from these heights you used the existing light, or you set yourself up to be spotted from your flashlight beams.So maybe 15 minutes to talk was all the chance I was going to get. And he knew it.""So? You are up here to either seduce me or hire me or blackmail me - or some combination of the above,"" Rob said.I just smiled, ""Or some combination of the above...""The clouds were slowly turning from red through violet into black as we sat there. Patient watching would almost let you see the changes.""OK, five minutes. Make your pitch, Marj, and then I leave.""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, apartment and everything else she owned. 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...** New edgy satire by R. L. Saunders takes on the pet theories of our modern world by exploding them in a future one. Hold onto your PC hats **Get Your Copy Now.

Welcome to another unique bi-monthly compilation of the inspired visions and universes from four Midwest Journal Press authors: C. C. BrowerJ. R. KruzeS. H. MarpelR. L. SaundersFrom their prolific output, we've assembled 16 short stories, grouping them by author and publication date. While every major genre is represented, you'll also see that in most cases, these books cross genres and plot structures to give you the best possible reader experience and entertainment. While each of these authors are still improving their craft, you will find their short stories to be just springboards to exploring the wider universes that inspired them.In this compilation, you'll see more where these authors have co-written and produced marvelous takes - and entirely new characters or aspects of existing ones - which flesh out these universes into greater reality and detail. Please enjoy - and do look up their other works...Get Your Copy Now.

(Short read - 45 minutes - 32 pages)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."e;Looks like it was beer, then whiskey with a beer chaser, then straight whiskey as the beer was all gone."e;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 offenseAt 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."e;So it's obvious that there is no story for me tonight."e; The tight jeans had a commanding voice.Horace's ears felt assaulted by the volume. He opened his eyes wide at this. "e;Julie! I'd say this was a pleasant surprise, but apparently you're here on business."e;"e;Do you even know what day this is? Do you know the Atworthy College Quarterly is due to ship for publishing tomorrow? Do you?!?"e;Horace held his ears with both hands, knowing her voice could pierce through concrete and so his hand would do little to protect his throbbing head."e;Oh, is it that time already? I was just finishing up when I must have dozed off."e;...Get Your Copy Now.