More than 25 years ago, while I was still in college, I had an idea for a story of some kind: two thieves who, by happenstance, happen to rob the same house at the same time.
It was an amusing scenario, and I had a few of the details filled in, but I didn’t have a full blown story I wanted to tell. It needed a hook. I didn’t have one.
The story was never far from my thoughts — I knew I wanted to do something with it — but there it lived, furtively, quietly, in a drawer, and lingering like an ancient mist in the back of my mind.
Enter Crazy 8 Press.
Enter Tales of the Crimson Keep.
The Keep has wizards and ghouls. Magic and spells. Secrets. And, of course, the Keep itself.
In a flash the story that had been percolating for all those years finally had an elixir. I was able to conjure the tale. The hook was provided for me.
And so I bring you “Thief in the Night”.
The core is still there, two thieves with the same target. But this tale being part of an anthology filled with magic, demons… and danger… their night of burglary in no way ends the way either of them had in mind.
But that’s the thing about being a thief. No matter how much you plan and plot, you aren’t the only thing that goes bump in the night.
Enjoy.
Tales of the Crimson Keep the Newly Renovated edition will be out later this month.
I don’t consider myself a funny writer. I can’t dash off humor with the ease that my pal Peter David does. I know better than to even try.
As a result, “Assessment”, my contribution may be the most serious offering found in Tales of the Crimson Keep.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Since I am teaching these days, it occurred to me that we had not done anything that tested the students’ skills. I decided to take love-struck and somewhat awkward Athis and the more self-possessed Klaria and pair them up, strip them of their magical skills, and see what happened.
They had to go on a quest, which allowed me to expand the world of the Master. We knew there were Demon Wars and other sorcerers, but what else was there? I do enjoy the worldbuilding aspects of a story so that was a highlight.
I also had to ensure they each had a chance to shine on their own while working in tandem, which also allowed me to address their relationship as allies and maybe friends. This also meant getting them to be intimate with one another, to trust one another, without a sexual component. I was reminded of the training Steve Austin and his female OSO partner had to do in Cyborg, which meant extracting water from their urine (ewww).
Does it work within the more amusing context of the anthology? I hope so considering it’s the longest solo effort in the book. By all means, find out for yourself and let us know with a review at Goodreads, Amazon, or anywhere else.
Tales of the Crimson Keep , the newly renovated edition, goes on sale in August.
Way back in 2010, Mike Friedman walked out of the Men’s Room at Shore Leave and wound up creating Crazy 8 Press, making its debut at the show a year later. And here we are again, back with more news, new books and lots of fun.
As you know, we killed our co-founder Glenn Hauman. We did this with malice aforethought and everyone is now arguing who had the most fun. The discussion will no doubt continue throughout the weekend.
Russ Colchamiro, Peter David, Mary Fan, Mike Friedman, Bob Greenberger, the late Glenn Hauman, and Aaron Rosenberg will be participating in a variety of panels and events but you can also find the collective at the following events:
Come pay your respects as we celebrate a life lived to its utmost, pissing people off, angering them into a murderous rage, suing him for all he’s worth (joke’s on them), and worse. The body will lie in state and members of the professional community will offer up eulogies.
Workshop 1: Worldbuilding, Noon-1:00 p.m., McCormick Suite
Bob, Glenn, and Mary will take teen writers through the process of creating a reality that suits the needs of your story.
Crazy 8 Press, 3:00-4:00 p.m., Salon F
Here we are at the 2011 launch panel.
They did it. They killed Glenn Hauman. He will be lying in state during their annual presentation so make sure you pay your respects. Learn what is coming, dead or alive, from your favorite writers. Peter David (M), Russ Colchamiro, Kathleen David, Mary Fan, Michael Jan Friedman, Bob Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, Aaron Rosenberg
Workshop 2: Group Story 4:00-5:00 p.m., McCormick Suite
Mike, Peter, and Bob have been working together and will bring their collaborative experience to the teen writers as they walk everyone through the steps of creating a story on the spot.
Sunday
Workshop 3: Character Creation 11:00 a.m.-Noon, McCormick Suite
Aaron and Russ are joined by our fellow author (and teacher) Kelli Fitzpatrick as they teach teen writers what goes into making interesting, unique, and fascinating characters for your stories.
Crazy 8 Press traces its origins to a chance encounter with Mike Friedman as he exited the Men’s Room at Shore Leave in 2010. A gaggle of fellow authors began lamenting how traditional publishing was increasingly closed off to ideas they couldn’t immediately fathom how to sell.
We decided to band together and support one another’s efforts in a communal effort. At Shore Leave a year later, we announced our existence and did so by writing a round-robin story in full view of the public. Working from a line suggested by Kevin Dilmore, we created a brand new fantasy world set within the stonewalls of the Crimson Keep. The finished effort was a novella, “Demon Circle”, which was our first item for sale (doubling as a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund).
In 2014, we decided to revisit the world of the Crimson Keep with a full-fledged anthology as each member of the team, which now included Paul Kupperberg, wrote their own story. Tales of the Crimson Keep debuted at Shore Leave, of course.
Just as the Keep grows and alters its interior configuration with surprising regularity, so too has C8 changed. We welcomed Mary Fan last year and we’ve been together for seven years now. That’s cause for celebration when most bands don’t last that long. As a result, we agreed to write a brand new round-robin story, with Mary and Paul included, and wanted to announce our newly renovated edition.
We needed a new cover, one that more accurately reflected the whimsical tone of the world. It was agreed few were better for the assignment than Ty Templeton. He flipped through the first edition and readily agreed, whipping up a variety of sketches.
Here’s the finished result, which we think is lovely. The book itself will be out in August and the various contributors will be chatting about their contributions in the weeks ahead.
“DuckBob: Killer Service” by Aaron Rosenberg is the wackiest (and final) tale of the bunch, wherein good ole DuckBob Spinowitz and his sexy gal pal Mary find their lives in peril thanks to a miscommunication between DuckBob and the funky new gadget he bought for home his home entertainment unit. Who knew that a mail-order gift to self could be so deadly?
To find out how—or if—DuckBob gets out of this one, here’s an early look:
DuckBob: Killer Service
By Aaron Rosenberg
“DuckBob—get down, my love!” Mary shouts as she hurdles the couch in an amazing display of beauty and grace—yes, I stop to admire her form, even in the midst of all this chaos—and dives behind it. The couch, ever helpful, rises and solidifies into a small shield wall to protect her.
It always did like her more.
For my part, I duck—yeah, ha ha, never heard that one before, only been ten years since the little gray aliens most people just call Grays abducted and altered me, you think in all that time no one’s ever made a “quack” at me before?—as something small, flat, circular, and silvery goes whizzing past right where my neck had been.
“Hey!” I shout, straightening back up and glaring at the room in general. “Was that my Rockford Files soundtrack? Do you have any idea how hard it is to come by one of those? That took me weeks of searching, and an entire hour of listening to the vendor’s sob story about the death of vinyl!”
A second CD shoots toward me—The Best of Johnny Mathis,
I think, so I’m a little less upset about that one—and I quickly dive to the ground, thrusting my arms out in push-up position to keep from slamming my bill against the floor. See, Tall, I do work out when given the right motivation! A whole bunch more silvery discs follow, racing overhead to imbed themselves in the couch, the wall, and anything else in their path.
Why oh why did I ever think it would be so awesomely cool to buy the seventy-six-disc changer?
“Knock it off, Iris!” I bellow from my forced-exercise pose.
“That is what I am endeavoring to accomplish,” her perfectly modulated voice replies from all around me. Which was always creepy to begin with, and is twice as bad now that she’s literally trying to kill me.
You just can’t find good help these days.
It all started the day before. And, as usual, I didn’t really have anyone to blame but myself.
“Check this out!” I told Mary as I returned to bed holding the mail—a handful of bills (it’s amazing that you can literally go to the ends of the universe—or its center, anyway, since the Matrix is here at the Galactic Core—and deliberately not leave a forwarding address but somehow they always find you. Especially medical bills—I’m convinced that most physicians’ assistants should really moonlight as bounty hunters, if they aren’t already. Nobody would escape them! Especially if they’ve ever gone in for elective surgery), a bunch of ads, two fast-food menus (one for Langnock’s Sweet and Sour Stir-fried Mineral Balls, which I order from sometimes as much so I can giggle over the name as because I love the food), a letter from the local Galactic Neighborhood Association (which always has at least one reference to “that glittering pink monstrosity in our midst.” Hey, what can I say, I live in a show home.)—and a small box from Tek R Us, delivered by the UPS (Universal Postal Service, what else?). I dropped all the rest at the foot of the bed and clambered back onto the mattress cradling the box like it held my child.
Which, in a way, I guess I did.
To read the rest of “DuckBob: Killer Service” click here.
“Make it Didn’t Happen: by Glenn Hauman is a time travel tale, in which a teenage girl gets a visit from the future, to protect her from an act of violence that will forever alter her fate. Does her protector arrive in time? Does she even believe he’s there to help? Or does someone have revenge on their minds?
To find out, here’s an early look:
Make it Didn’t Happen
By Glenn Hauman
The creepy old perv had been following me around for three days before he finally came up to me outside of school.
And he was old. Older than any of the teachers, probably older than that pile of bricks, too.
I don’t know why I noticed him at all, really—he stayed a good distance away from the schoolyard, and he never came any closer than two houses away. He just seemed to be lurking. He spent a lot of time fiddling with branches and things like an old guy does instead of feeding pigeons, but he always seemed to be keeping an eye on me. No one else seemed to notice him, and the teachers didn’t do anything.
But when I was supposed to be walking home on Thursday, I felt like there was something itching at the back of my neck. I wished I hadn’t been wearing a dress, but it was picture day and BitchMom insisted that I wear something nice.
I was sure that I was being watched.
So I took another way home that I knew, one that would take me near the woods. No one had bothered me there since 6th grade, so I was pretty sure I could get away if I had to.
I guessed wrong. He was there waiting, leaning on the big tree at the front of the path.
“Hello, Kelly,” he said. Now that I could see him better he didn’t look like a pervert, but he was sizing me up as if he was trying to fit a piece of the puzzle into place, like he’d seen me before from a distance, and this was just him wondering what he was going to do with me now that he had seen me up close. Like a stalker meeting his favorite actress for the first time, he seemed unsure as to what to say next.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a friend, I promise.” He raised his hands to his chest like I had a gun pointed at him. I wish I had.
“The hell you are. How long have you been following me around, old man?”
He paused and his eyes darted back and forth, like he was trying to figure out the answer and didn’t want to tell me the truth. “A while, kind of. Look, I’m just going to reach into my pocket, very slowly, and then I’m going to show you something. I know this will convince you.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” His hand pulled out a little piece of shiny metal, about the size of an index card but about as thick as a pencil. He looked at it like he was looking into a mirror, and dragged his finger across it, and tapped it a few times. Then he smiled and turned it around. A picture flashed on the metal like a tiny television.
Then I saw her.
“Hey, Kelly-Belly.”
She looked like my mom, but with the same little mole over her eyebrow that I have.
“Wow, this is really weird—I’m saying the exact words I remember her telling me. It’s just happening. This is just the way I remember it happening. Kelly, this is going to sound crazy, but . . . I’m you. From the future. I’m here with Matt—show her,” she said, and the screen’s point of view swished around and showed a close-up of the same man in front of me, who waved at the camera, then panned back.
“This is going to sound strange—maybe impossible to believe—but there are two things you have to know right off the bat. One: I’m you, from years in the future. Let me show you—Matt, zoom in here—see, here on my foot? This is the scar that’s left from where you dropped Mom’s good scissors. Two: Matt has invented a way to travel through time, and he’s fit it all into a belt. He’s wearing it now.”
To read the rest of “Make it Didn’t Happen” click here.
Talk about a long time coming.
same time.
