You cannot find the Door if you’re looking for it. It is fickle, and chasing it is like trying to catch a river in your hands. It is only when you give up that you gets anywhere. You spot it as a dark shadow in a photograph you don’t remember taking or as a rectangle of strange light in the distance off a dark highway. It always disappears every time you get close. The Door is a predator, and it knows when it is being hunted. But you swore to shut it for good before it could steal anyone else.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
In this episode, Rain becomes a magical girl, Domon defeats his master only to be bullied by a horse, and the giant Gundam clock is real, and spectacular. Plus, the laser turnbuckles still work, and the rest of the Shuffle Alliance could’ve just carpooled.
When the strange old recluse who lived up the hill challenged Johnson to a fight, he agreed, even though he smelled a trap. Johnson was the best bare-knuckle boxer for miles around, and his honor would be mortally wounded if he refused to fight a man two decades older and a foot shorter than himself. As expected, the challenger requested a substitution, and Johnson assented. He’d whip the old man’s nephew or whomever he found to take his place. It wasn’t until the squid-like automaton squared up on a bunch of pneumatic hoses that Johnson suspected he was in trouble.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
He stood before the temple, staring up at the statue of the goddess with fear in his heart. He did not feel worthy to enter Her holy place, even though he knew the goddess was everywhere and knew everything. But the crowd of worshippers surged forward, and he was swept into the building anyway. He took a pew in the back and knelt. The facial recognition camera recognized him instantly, and he felt a hot stab of anxiety. But the goddess, the first true AI to emerge from the foam of the sea of computational chaos, loved and forgave him.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
The inventor read the headlines of a monster stalking the streets and knew he needed to do something about them. He read every report he could find, separated the most likely accounts from the sensationalist chaff, and noted the time and location of the incidents. He plotted them out on a map and despaired. He designed weapons and countermeasures to bring it down, working tirelessly as the occurrences escalated. He went to his brother’s laboratory in the epicenter of the incidents and waited. He had gone too far in his experiments. He would save him and the city as well.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
As it turned out, the witch’s curse was quite specific, and the princess that kissed the frog was, in fact, a princess consort. This created two problems for the frog. First, attendants discovered the missing prince kissing his cousin’s newly arrived wife. Secondly, the kiss did not fully break his curse. In order to ease tensions in the palace, the frog-headed prince decided to go on a quest. He headed to new lands to find both a cure and a bride. But his cousin was still dissatisfied, and his assassins dogged him at every step. Love truly was a battlefield.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
When the weather was agreeable, the old man sat in the park and told stories. He’d collected a number of them and loved to share them. They had gotten him through the darkest times in his life. Whenever he appeared, he would gather a small audience of children, parents pushing strollers, walkers getting their steps in, and other seniors feeding the birds. When he first came back in time, he learned that you couldn’t change the future. It was too big, too powerful. But stories have their own subtle power. He hoped they would prepare them for what was coming.
I’ll be appearing at Pulp 716 for a popup signing today, July 1st starting at 1PM! I hope I see you there! Get all the details HERE!
Hugh J. O'Donnell 