CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Road Trip , April's second stand-alone urban-fantasy short story is now available on pre-order. This time, instead of colony ships and science fiction, Road Trip takes us to the crime-ridden corners of a world where What's It About? In Road Trip , when a curious fairy senses a truckload of distress and goes to investigate, she finds herself in more trouble than she could have imagined. This story is built around a curious fairy, discovering a terrified cargo hidden in a truck, an illegal auction, a troll, and desperate measures. When Mélange sneaks aboard a long-distance hauler to look for those in despair, she finds herself taken far from home, to the sinister side of humanity’s contact with the Otherworld. Faced with unfamiliar technology too big for a fairy to operate, and hunted by a troll, can she stay alive long enough for Paranormal Operations Squad to arrive and save her?   How Does it Start? Mélange watched the lorry pull up at the rest-stop. It was like a hundre...

This week’s short story takes us from a s cience fiction tale of a crashed colony and its salvation to an urban fantasy world of pixie-dust and policing . Welcome to Road Trip . When Melange feels the pull of utter dread emanating from a road train parked at a rest stop near her home, she investigates. She had no intention of being trapped in the cab on the driver’s unexpected return, nor of being stuck in the truck when he is murdered during the first delivery. But she can’t stay there. She’s discovered the prisoners that were the source of the dread, and the trolls are coming to take them away. With time running short, she must find a way to avoid capture, and summon help, and that means getting past the troll and humans standing guard. Road Trip is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/31g1Mw . You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com . Why don't you go a...

This week’s short story takes us from the urban fantasy tale of farming, inheritance, family and flying pigs to the urban fantasy world of elven-human politics across dimensions and policing pixie-dust. Welcome to Reluctant Liaison .   I woke up in a car—upside down, staring into the faces of a half dozen pixies sitting on a tree branch. To one side, was a cliff face, to the other, sky, and things were starting to shift. Apparently, I’d had an interesting night… if only I could remember what it was, and why I’d run, and why following the pixies scared me almost as much as the idea of staying in the car… Reluctant Liaison is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/bPJp6A . You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com . Why don't you go and check it out?

Last week we had a a piece of science fiction set in the oceans of our home world. This week, it’s an urban fantasy look at the war on drugs, and the illicit trade in fantasy creatures from the February 22nd entry in 365 Days of Flash Fiction . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Pixies Dance the Storm Dance The pixies danced in the stormlight. They danced with steps that shook with anger, making the leaves tremble and curl at their passing. They danced until their passage burnt a circle in the grass, and then they stopped and raised their hands to the sky. The dust runners didn’t stand a chance, but at least the local chieftain thought enough of me to warn the strike force away from the warehouse. We couldn’t stop them, but we could bear witness. What the dust runners had done to the rest of their clan, deserved something of what they wreaked, and the pixies could not let the remnants of those unicorns run through the city u...