Pulp

Olson fired another six rounds into Mercer, who just threw back his head and laughed. Olson started crying then, calling on the name of the Lord, beseeching all of Heaven to intervene. “Why won’t you die?”

My Week#13 story from last year's Write1Sub1 is up at Big Pulp this week, one of three previews the editors have unveiled prior to the release of their summer issue. Big Pulp is a "modern version of the classic corner newsstand where writers and readers can find pulp and popular fiction of all kinds: science fiction, adventure stories, horror, fantasy, jungle tales, mystery and true crime, romance, and super-hero sagas." In other words, this summer's issue will be chock-full of pulpy goodness.

"Mercer's Ghost" is the third Mercer story I've had published so far. "Soul Smuggler" introduced him as a netherworldly antihero, and "The Second Option" established his sacrilegious smuggling activities in direct conflict with the Church. But in "Mercer's Ghost," I take him back a couple hundred years, and I tell the story from the POV of an outsider who is both horrified and amazed by Mercer's abilities, and who can't understand why such a strange specter of a man would want to help him reclaim his life.

Where will Mercer be appearing next? "The Coyote" (my first Mercer tale from 2010 which has survived two years of rejections) was recently purchased by Bent Masses, and "Abomination of Desolation" will be included in the next issue of The Red Penny Papers.

Mercer, Cal, Quasar—these guys keep me writing. And they sure do make it fun.