Ephemera & Tales

I was lucky enough to get an ebook reader for my birthday a couple of months back (an Elonex 5" e-ink model, should you want to know that), and I love it!

It's really made me aware, though, of the benefits of having stories available to read in a variety of formats - I always used to jump for .html or .pdf files for reading on my pc or for printing out, but now I love the flexibility of epub goodness, and I imagine Kindle users feel the same way about .mobi

This weekend, I've been experimenting with using smashwords.com to convert my centaur short story, Fall, into a range of ebook formats. It seemed like a good candidate - long enough to be worth the effort of downloading for your device, and a story that's close to my heart, and that I'd love to get into as many people's hands as possible (which is why it's been a free read here for a while).

It's now available in epub, html, PDF, LRF (for Sony Reader), PDB (for Palm reading devices) and .mobi for Kindles, as well as here, under the 'centaurs' tag

It's free, and perfectly legal to pass around, although I'd love it if, should you want to give it to a friend, you'd give them a link to download a fresh copy, so I get some download figures to let me know that people are reading. http://bit.ly/FallDraven

As always, I love to hear from readers - comments, or twitter messages, or email are all good - so let me know how that works for you?

I've been thinking about the turn of the year, and this came along : a little snippet of an epilogue for my centaurs.

*****

The solstice night had come quickly. ( Read more... )

This is the first story I ever sold, something over two years ago. The anthology it was in has now gone out of print, and the contract ended. I thought about maybe trying to find the story a new press, seeing as I am pretty proud of itbut, actually, I think I want it to be avaliable to all. At this moment I'd rather hear what you think of Pet and Matthias, than try and earn a few extra dollars from them. I am awfully fond of this story.

Read, enjoy, leave comments.

***** ***** *****

Fall
By Alex Draven

***** ***** *****

"Fuck off!"

The second centaur didn’t budge.

For fuck's sake. It was too hot to move, the air heavy and about set to start pissing down with rain, and he'd left his cigarettes inside. Nigh on twenty minutes since the knock had rung through the warehouse and he still wasn't quite self-destructive enough to turn his back on a strange stallion standing in his own front drive.

"I said, fuck off. I'm not interested."

The little bastard just stood there, arms crossed, and one hind leg cocked, the very picture of relaxed patience.

It was winding him up. Another few minutes of silence and nothing had changed except his mood.

"Oh for fuck's sake. Stand there as long as you like. I've got things to do."

Pet backed up a couple of paces, shaking his head and whisking his tail, and then snagged the door, pulling it closed.

Fuck.

He let out a kick that left the walls of the warehouse ringing.

Roll on thunder.

Roll on thunder and air conditioning and Cashman's Royals, and a bottle or six of beer.

Roll on forgetting and not having ghosts from your fucking past turn up on in the front yard and look at you, like you owed it to them to live up to whatever fucked-up expectations they had. ( Read more... )