CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

The stand-alone edition of the novelette, Jalaya , released on January 7, 2024, and is now available for purchase. It can be found individually at any of the platforms on this Books2Read link , and it can be found as one of the stories in: A Collection of Battle and its Aftermath. For those of you wondering what it's all about. Well... The Short Version: It's about family, duty, love and war, and the perils of past secrets. The Longer Version: It's about: A yearly tradition. A dance not forgotten. A planet torn by a long-running war. Hunted by an implacable foe, and driven into the ruins of a town he once called home, Mark Leader, Michael, must try to save his people against savage odds. And try, too, to save the woman he loves. Will the secrets of their past save or doom their future? How It Begins: Michael looked down at the town in the sand. Red, flat roofs of clay interspersed by the elegant, wooden gables of buildings from northern climes, still stood in ...

There are 20 short stories in the latest volume of Craig Martelle’s The Expanding Universe anthologies. Today, with his permission, we are taking a sneak peek at the start of Bill Patterson’s story, ‘Duty’. Here’s how it begins: ---------------------------------------------------------------- The greatest problem with doing one’s duty sometimes it deciding exactly where one’s duty lies. Lieutenant James Benison leaned back in his command chair, surveying the crew of his small corvette.   It wasn't his first command, but a runabout just doesn't count.   Not when your corvette mounts enough weaponry to equal all the bombs released from both sides of World War II.   Sometimes, James marveled that the Grand Fleet of Earth would allow someone of his age to command a vessel capable of such destruction, but the constant war losses had the Fleet really dipping into its reserves recently. "Lieutenant, we have a contact at three twenty-one, range ninety-two AU...