Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

This week's Wendig Challenge was simple: write a story around the idea that sometimes you have to break something to fix it. I suspect he was thinking about politics, but it made me think of good old Xavier Xanthum, since he's pretty good at messing up.  And hey--if you like flash fiction, consider joining us next week for the Fiction in 50 (words) feature. Write your 50 words, post your story, and link back to my #Fi50 post (goes live on Sunday). It Ain’t Fixed Until You Break It “Blethering belugans!” Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, cursed as he struggled to reach into the narrow adjustment slot for the left thruster, scraping the skin off three knuckles. Wanderlust was showing a decided tendency to veer off-course if he or Larry didn’t keep an eye on it, and Xavier wanted to save the cost of a repair. Of course, Larry had two eyes he could keep wherever he wanted, along with enough bandwidth to do everything else around the craft at the same time. At the moment, he was adj

  Title: The Fourteenth Goldfish Author: Jennifer L. Holm Publisher: Random House, 2014. 194 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary: Galileo. Newton. Salk. Oppenheimer. Science can change the world . . . but can it go too far? Eleven-year-old Ellie has never liked change. She misses fifth grade. She misses her old best friend. She even misses her dearly departed goldfish. Then one day a strange boy shows up. He’s bossy. He’s cranky. And weirdly enough . . . he looks a lot like Ellie’s grandfather, a scientist who’s always been slightly obsessed with immortality. Could this pimply boy really be Grandpa Melvin? Has he finally found the secret to eternal youth? 
 My Review:  I wasn't quite sure what I thought of this at first. The premise is a little silly, and it kind of put me off by a combination of realistic middle-school issues and this over-the-top science-fiction element. And yet...it works. Halfway through, I just sat down and read the rest, because I did want t

Another wonderful random-draw prompt from Chuck Wendig , this time two lists of character-things. Draw one from each, and set them against each other. To my delight, my first roll got me the utter appropriate Librarians vs. Robots. In 999 words, then, my take on it. You know who's gonna win :) Librarians vs. Robots Abigail let her glasses slide down her nose so she could look over them at the patron who had just entered the library. Hers was a quiet and well-run library, and she did not allow troublemakers. This one looked like a troublemaker. The patron approached the desk with the slightly awkward gait that gave away even the best robots. It was unaffected by the over-the-glasses gaze of the librarian, and made its request in a surprisingly human voice. “Might I get a library card?” Very polite. Abigail wasn’t fooled. Nor was she willing to discriminate against any potential borrower of books. She might see trouble coming, but even an obvious troublemaker could get a library car

After a long absence while he was busy doing author things, Chuck Wendig was back this week with a new flash fiction challenge. I used the random number generator to pick my genres, and ended up with Near-Future Sci-Fi and Biopunk. Had to look up the latter, but in the end they kind of ended up being the same thing. I stuck with it, though, because I'd just finished reading an article about CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and it seemed kind of obvious. Chuck gave us 1500 words, and I ran longer than usual at 1380. The Crispins We Crispins were the result of the hubris of the 2030s, when the genetic scientists were sure they had all the glitches worked out of the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing protocols. The big challenge had been solving the problem of not just removing bad DNA, but replacing it with what should be there. They finally got that worked out in 2029. That was when someone got the bright idea of creating enhanced humans. The result was us. They gave us all the name “Crisp

Z is for Zito, from the Viridian System In a Nutshell: He is one of very few big cheeses in the Viridian System, and part of the organising group (aka Council) on Pleasant Valley.  Basically the six most powerful/rich people get together whenever anything looks like causing trouble that would threaten their own interests. Biggest secret: where he originally came from. Nobody knows, and he claims to have forgotten: “Most people have changed their identity at least once, so if you know you don’t know, you don’t have to remember a lie.” Favourite line:  “I can get hold of anything for you except space hardware, and if you want that, I’ll introduce you to someone." The Viridian System series will be resumed next year: Book 1 - The Perihelix (an interview with the author about this is here ). Book 2 - Curved Space to Corsair Book 3 - Zanzibar’s Rings Sign up for the newsletter for the Viridian System series here . Check out the Viridian System Sampler - second edition (and update your

  X is for Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer   In a nutshell: Possibly the most luckless space explorer ever, Xavier specializes in getting into scrapes, and counts on Larry, his ship's computer, to get him out of them. Biggest Secret: Most of the time, he thinks of Larry as human. No quote, because you get a whole story! Xavier was invented several years ago to allow me to write a flash fiction for the A to Z Challenge, and he's hung around, with an ever-growing collection of tales of his adventures (see list under Short Stories , above). Today he takes another dive into a voyage of dubious desirability. I also have a late-breaking reminder that this is #Flashback Friday. I'll consider this a flashback, even though it's a new story, because using Xavier for X is a bit of recycling! Xavier Xanthum and the X-Galaxy Error Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, leaned back in his command chair and closed his eyes. He had just finished his greatest triumph to date over Larry, the AI

Two-for One: L is for Lars and Larry Today it's one from my stories, one from Jemima Pett.  Lars Nilsson In a nutshell: Asteroid miner with a murky past and uncertain temper, trying to get through life with as much leisure to enjoy women as possible Biggest secret: His motto may be 'if you can't beat them, join them' Lars is one of the central characters in the Viridian System books by Jemima Pett . The second character is mine: Larry the disembodied eyeballs. In a nutshell: Larry is the manifestation of the AI/onboard computer of the good ship Wanderlust, home of Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer. Being an AI, he thinks fast and knows everything, but has a little trouble with things that require hands. Biggest Secret: Larry is trying hard to develop a sense of humor and other human attributes. Xavier, Larry, and the Wanderlust (and the ship's cat, Kitty Comet), feature in a series of flash fiction on this blog. Stories about the intrepid space explorers appear

Following the suggestion of fellow blogger and amazing author Jemima Pett, I'm doing a very simple A to Z with characters from my writing and the books of my author friends! I'm just posting a brief profile, sometimes a quote, and the book cover with links. Though you may also see some of my typical reviews (when I feature other peoples’ books) and the usual Friday Flash Fiction.  E is for Eva Husdson     In a Nutshell: Eva Hudson is a new wave 1930s teen, who thinks school is a breeze and has a great head on her shoulders. From an early age, she has known she didn’t want to be 'normal'. She wants a life full of challenge and adventure that will break her from the stereotype of the times. Biggest Secret: While her mind is full of great dreams, her biggest secret is that she's still figuring out the detail. Whatever she ends up doing, it will be something that makes a difference. I haven't reviewed these books myself, but I will direct you to this review by

  Title: The Martian Chronicles Author:  Ray Bradbury; read by Stephen Hoye Publisher: Blackstone Audio, 2009. Original stories published between 1947 and about 1951. Source: Digital library Publisher's Blurb: There were a lot of these to chose from, since there are dozens of editions of the book out. I share here the one that goes with the Blackstone Audio version: In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster enthralls, delights, and challenges us with his vision, starkly and stunningly exposing our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.  
 My Review:   I think I have to start with Bradbury's own take on the book, from the introduction to the audio book. He describes the stories as not really science fiction, or about Mars, but rather fables or parables, the author's exploration of humanity. Certainly the prose is lush and at times the stories are pointed. In fact, one

In keeping with his theme this month, last week Chuck gave us another rather pointed writing prompt last week: hope in the face of hopelessness. I wrote it, but didn't post last week because it was Flashback Friday time. To my delight, this week's challenge, "Acts of Rebellion," fits the story too. So here it is. While I was thinking about the prompt, one line (the opening line) crawled into my brain and stuck, so I built the story from there. I was originally wanted to try to make it impossible to tell if this was a 19th-Century sailing ship or a space ship, but in the end, I had to go with outer space. Chuck gave us 2000 words, and for once I used most of them. So here, in 1852 words, is: Lost Hope   “Look at them go. Like rats deserting a sinking ship.” More like fleas deserting a dead rat, I thought, but had more sense than to say. Aloud, I asked, “Can you blame them? I only give us about a 25% chance of making it through. Most of them figure it’s a lot less tha

It's Flashback Friday, and time to pull something out of the archives that I think could stand a little more exposure. I found this one which also fits the Wendig Challenge, more or less, and only got a couple of comments when it first aired in 2015. The funny thing is that it goes the opposite way of the story I wrote (about hope) for this week's challenge (which I'll share next week). So here we have... Helplessly Hoping When everything has already gone wrong and there’s nothing more to do, they say that all you have left is hope. At that point, “hope” is a four-letter word. I had always thought hope meant you had guts. You didn’t give up, even though things looked bad. Turns out there’s a world of difference between looking bad and being hopeless. I knew that now. When you are helpless and there is no one to come save your ass, hope is for cowards. I wasn’t going to die helplessly hoping. I’d die with my eyes wide open, grinning right back at Death. *** Today start

For this month, while I'm very busy trying to juggle a NaNo project and the release of The Problem With Peggy (Book 3 of the Ninja Librarian series), my Friday posts may be either short, photographic, or re-runs. Just a warning :) Today, however, I got inspired and we have a full length (990 words) flash--another voyage with Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer. Xavier Xanthum and the Alien “Comet, we need some excitement.” Xavier Xanthum addressed the comment to the large black-and-white cat that lay, weightless, on his lap. “I do not think it is wise to wish for excitement.” The answer didn’t come from the cat; to the best of Xavier’s knowledge, the animal couldn’t speak. The only other voice in his one-man spacecraft was that of Larry, the AI. Xavier looked around for the floating eyeballs that Larry liked to use as his physical manifestation. “Why not? We’ve been in transit for a month, and I’m bored out of my mind. We need to do something to break up the trip!” He and Larry had bee

This week Chuck Wendig challenged us to write a story in which insomnia plays some role . I picked on poor Xavier Xanthum again, and went just 3 words over the 1000-word limit. Sleep Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, was regretting having landed on his latest discovery. Granted, it was what he did. And the planet looked good; money in the bank if it checked out. Larry’s scans had shown no particular hazards or dangerous life-forms. Larry didn’t make many mistakes. Xavier was pretty sure, looking at the five-legged beast with very large teeth, that he’d made one this time. The creature looked dangerous, and Xavier didn’t want to stick around to find out if he was right. The trouble was, he was too far from the landing pod to retreat. Xavier couldn’t even begin to imagine how a five-legged creature could keep track of its feet, let alone run, but he was pretty sure the mind behind those teeth knew the answer. There was only one place to go, and Xavier went. The planet had a lot of plant li