Blog tour: Innovation

Queer Sci Fi's sixth annual flash fiction anthology is here - "Innovation" - and there's a giveaway too!

IN-NO-VA-TION (Noun)

1) A new idea, method, or device.

2) The introduction of something new.

3) The application of better solutions to meet unarticulated needs.

Three definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell. Here are 120 of our favorites.

Innovation features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Giveaway

Queer Sci Fi is giving away your choice of a $20 Amazon gift card OR a print copy of four of the other five flash fiction books in the series – Flight, Renewal, Impact, and Migration (US only unless you are willing to pay the shipping outside the US) with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47138/?

Excerpts

“The fields are overgrown, have been for years with all the Bios underground. The wind kisses the grass in serpentine patterns long forgotten, patterns the Bios couldn’t imagine anymore. My mechanical hand stores the seed envelope in the mechanical pocket in my androgynous torso. In these suits, there is no gender. Gender is, always has been, in the mind. And I am finally, unequivocally, female.” —Seed, by Val Muller

“No one in the village knew what the Change would bring. They never saw it happen. They only knew what they had been promised: the Change would bestow three gifts.” —A New Way, by Rory Ni Coileain

“The girl kissed her, hard. Then backed away, grinning, teasing, drawing her to the end of the hallway and a flight of stairs leading downward. She took two steps and gazed back up at Lilian, one hand outstretched. Her brilliant red lipstick wasn’t even smudged. Her skin glowed in the harsh white torchlight.” —The Thing With the Bats, by Mary Francis

“Interspecies sex is outlawed on the Freespec Interplanetary Space Station. Politicians call it a safety measure. But I’ve been in the Medical Corps for half my lifecycle, and I call it criminally negligent prudery. Leaders would rather let innocents die needlessly—punctured by sperm darts and dissolved in sacks of voltaic pleasure mucus—than give them the knowledge to express their feelings safely.” — Are My Underwater Sperm Darts Normal?, Brenna Harvey

“The bell’s brassy gong echoes through the flat; the walls blush crimson. See, see! He’s at my door. The live feed shows him sniff his armpit; cup his breath. He wants to impress, but I’m impressed already. His lips softly part; he brushes them with stubby fingers, as he waits. Ugly fingers. Ugly hands. Scrawny neck. Milky eyes. But those lips, see, they’re perfect, just perfect. Plump n’ pale, a slither of my future.” —Just perfect, by Redfern Jon Barrett

“Lekke looked down over the valley, First People’s home for as long as any tales or dreams could tell. Now only Spirit Dreamer Manoot, neither he nor she but both, and Lekke, elder healer, were left. Lifetimes of Long-legs’ raids had driven First People to their deaths—or, some few, to the Way. If there truly was a Way.” —Going Back,” by Sacchi Green

“Savinna limped into her lover's workshop, her hip still sore from tangling with the marabbecca which had knocked her into its well before she managed to kill it. Such was the life of a monster hunter. Not at all surprised to see Larissa hunched over her bench, hard at work tinkering with something, Savinna ghosted her hand over Larissa’s back.” —Those Who Hunt Monsters, by Jana Denardo

“The baby cried as Freya lowered the bartering bucket into the wishing well. Many had come to the tree-shrouded clearing to make exchanges—a bushel of azure apples for a sword, a woven blanket for a day of rain. The well had been the final creation of a thousand-year-old inventor. But dead wizards often don’t anticipate how their gifts birth consequences.” —The Bartering Bucket, by Diane Callahan

Author Bios

120 authors contributed stories for this volume:

Adrik Kemp

Alex Silver

Alex Stargazer

Allan Dyen-Shapiro

Andi Deacon

Andrea Speed

Andrew Vaillencourt

Ava Kelly

Barbara Johnson-Haddad

Barbara Krasnoff

Beáta Fülöp

Benoit Lafortune

Blaine D. Arden

Bob Milne

Brenna Harvey

Brooke K. Bell

L. McCartney

Cassidy Frazee

Chet Gottfried

Chloe Spencer

Chris Bannor

Christine Wright

Christopher Koehler

Clare London

J. Clarke

M. Rasch

David Gerrold

Devon Widmer

Diane Callahan

L. Harrison

Romeis

D.E. Bell

M. Hamill

Edie Montreux

Elaine Burnes

Eloreen Moon

Emilia Agrafojo

Emma Johnson-Rivard

Eric Warren

Evelyn Benvie

Gareth Worthington

Ginger Streusel

Howard V. Hendrix

Needham

Zachary Pike

S. Garner

Jade Black

James Alan Gardner

Jamie Lackey

Jana Denardo

Jasie Gale

Jeff Jacobson

Jennie L. Morris

Jet Lupin

Jon Miller

Jonathan Fesmire

Joshua Ian

Julian Maxwell

Kitts

L. Townsend

K.S. Marsden

KA Masters

Katelyn Cameron

Kellie Doherty

Kevin Andrew Murphy

Kevin Klehr

Kim Fielding

Kitt Harris

Koji A. Dae

S. Reinholt

V. Lloyd

LC Treeheart

Lee Jordan

Lee Soeburn

Lou Sylvre

X. Kelly

Maria Zoccola

Mary E. Lowd

Mary Francis

Mary Kuna

Matt Doyle

Mere Rain

Milo Owen

Minerva Cerridwen

Naomi Tajedler

Nathan Alling Long

Nathaniel Taff

Nicole Dennis

Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Noah K. Sturdevant

Patricia Scott

Paul Uebler

E. Carr

L. Merrill

Raine Norman

Ray Lidstone

RE Andeen

Redfern Jon Barrett

Rory Eggleston

Rory Ni Coileain

Rosalie Wessel

S S Long

Sara Testarossa

Sean Ian O'Meidhir

Shannon Brady

Shannon Yseult

Skip J. Hanford

Stephen B. Pearl

Stephen J. Wolf

Steve Carr

Stone Franks

Stuart Conover

Susan James

Sydney Blackburn

T. Thomas

W. Cox

Tom Jolly

Val Muller

Warren Rochelle

William Tate

"Innovation" Unique Excerpt: The Blood Witch
by Joshua Ian

We came to the foot of the eldritch tree, its goldenrod leaves rustling above us.

"Chantel." I caressed her face, committing every detail to memory. "Do you love me?"

"More than anything, Marie. Don't you love me the same?"

Nodding, I kissed her deeply.

Then I plunged the dagger into her belly.

Her eyes went wide with shock and hurt. She tried to protest but her voice came out strangled, a sound like the crash of a waterfall.

When the life finally left her eyes, I fell to my knees. The world went black.

In the darkness, the Woodwitch revisited me. I protested that this blood magic was not the way of my tribe. But she assured me transformation was due. The spell was sealed with my sacrifice, with my soul-promise.

When I awoke, I would be new. An amalgamation. A new kind of witch entirely.

As she spoke, in some dark corner of consciousness, I heard Chantel's voice. Her voice lifted in song, as always, compelling me.

When I opened my eyes, I was changed.

Washing my lover's blood from my skin in the stream I saw it was now the color of eldritch bark. My nails, black and green, like river mud. Sunlight stung my eyes.

I tried to call out, to drown the songs in my mind. But my voice came out strangled, a sound like the crash of a waterfall.

Now I was new.

Now I would have the power. To crush the soulless fleshlings who doomed the earth. To grind their bones into glittering sand, mix it with their blood, and anoint my body.

To make my skin shimmer like the goldenrod leaves of the eldritch tree on whose boughs I would have their bodies hanged.

Oh, but I had so much work to do.

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