Steven J. Anderson's Blog

I’ve been thinking of Dave Lopez again. He was born in 1873, died in 1952, and is buried in Trinidad, Colorado. His gravestone is crudely made and may not last many more winters without serious maintenance. There. You know as much about Dave Lopez as I do. I happened across him a few years ago while helping with a genealogy project. We’re not related, but I feel for him. I’d like to believe he’s enshrined in someone’s memory, his black and white visage watching over great grandchildren from a dusty shelf. I’m afraid he’s been forgotten, which is why I wrote this. Now you know his name and that he lived.

Writers write for many reasons but seeking a kind of immortality is one of them. In a hundred years, my life will be forgotten, but maybe the stories I told will still find an audience. If I can delight someone I’ll never meet, that’s a legacy better than the prettiest gravestone.

Take a little bit of the series Castle, add some Supernatural and a dash of noir. The result is If These Walls Could Talk, my first foray into Amazon’s Kindle Vella. Ten short stories cut into over thirty serialized episodes, perfect for a short read before bed, or to binge on a lazy afternoon.
“If these walls could talk. Isn’t that what people always say? Well, walls don’t talk—or they shouldn’t, but sometimes they do. At least to me.
Detective Lindell of the St. Louis PD pays me a few bucks to consult on cases that don’t feel right to her, money from the funds the department gives her for snitches and other anonymous sources. I’ve helped her before, providing inadmissible evidence that guides her to evidence she can use. Tonight, she owns me. Tomorrow, my name would start its long slide down the list of recent calls on her phone. But I’ll take tonight, and survive through however many tomorrows until she needs me again.”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WKDR3S4/

My story 'House of Dreams' is in the new anthology 'Dream: Tales from the Pikes Peak Writers' which is out today! The editors placed my romantic ghost story set in Boulder, Colorado first in the book, so you can read the opening pages in the online preview. Check it out! Tell your friends! 27 stories by 27 very talented writers await you.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/173...

I’ll have a short story coming out later this month (March 2022) in an anthology called Dreams. The story, House of Dreams, is about a man who shares his life with a diverse group of spirits who love his very perfect house as much as he does. When the city sends him a letter of Imminent Domain, they must work together to save their home.
Coming in May will be If These Walls Could Talk, a ten-part series of short stories. We follow Professor John Calais, a man with the gift to hear the memories of past events captured in the walls, walls that see and hear all that we do. Johnny consults with Detective Emily Lindell of the Saint Louis PD. The feel is film noir-ish as the two bond over mystery, blood, and murder.
Book 5 of the Reunification series, Wandering Free, will be released later this year. Mala Dusa’s journey will conclude with the betrayal of old friends and a questionable new alliance with the notorious trickster, Coyote.

The last reliably hot days of the year passed by us this week. The calendar is drifting into September, a special and uncertain month in Colorado. There’s a quick tumble into shorter days and longer nights. The clouds building behind the mountains already seem to be in a hurry to dump the rain they carry so they can prepare for months of distributing snow across the front range of the Rockies.

The coming days might be hot; some probably will be. Equivocation will fill the long range forecast. Don’t plan anything outdoors, it will warn, not without a backup plan. Another month, and it will be upon us. A time of fire pits, warm jackets and hoodies, and cold noses that might brush against your cheek if you are very lucky. The best part of the year is ahead of us. I can’t hardly wait.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a cautionary tale about an oppressive future where the government burns books. All the books. The protagonist saves one before burning it, and starts down the dangerous path of reading.
I’ve been looking for places to hide books ever since I watched the 1966 adaptation by François Truffaut when I was in 7th or 8th grade. In the novel, people hide their books to keep them from the flames. In walls, in secret holes in the floor, concealed by pictures hanging on the wall. Every house I’ve lived in, the thought occurs to me. Maybe there’s room inside the return air vent, or behind a loose bit of paneling.
Books are dangerous to society. They give people ideas they would be better off without. Every book banner and burner has believed they are making the world a better place. If you destroy the book, you destroy thought that should never be thought.
Ebooks, for all their convenience and portability, make it that much easier for the government to erase a writer’s words. Or change them. I’ll keep buying paperbacks and looking for places to hide them should the day come when I’m all that stands between what an author thought and cared about, and the oblivion that awaits paper at 451 degrees.
Where will you hide your books?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Please join me and a select group of talented writers this Thursday (6/25) at 7pm MDT for Stories Live.
(There may be some adult content)
https://www.facebook.com/events/88341...

The audio book for Wandering Soul has been released!
This is the beginning of Mala Dusa’s story, and part 2 of the Reunification Series. I have free Audible.com codes available for Wandering Soul and a few for book one, but reading Wandering Star is not required to enjoy Wandering Soul. Email me at RuComm352@gmail.com if you are interested in a free audio book. The narrator's performance is awe inspiring.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Wandering-...

No Comic Cons, Pop Culture Cons, or Dragon Con. We, the fans of Comics, Science Fiction, Fantasy and worlds more enchanting than our own reality, are stuck in a dystopia that is all too close a match to the dark media we love. Yet, we are denied the opportunity to triumph over the evil that is the source of our unjust confinement. What to do? This much creative energy cannot be contained much longer. I’ve seen cosplayers hiking in full regalia through the mountains looking for orcs, and Stormtroopers selling pizza. Zoom gatherings and Adam Savage on YouTube can only provide so much relief. We must gather, and soon. But safely. Masks are terribly comfortable, I’ve heard. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.

On Monday, 18 May 2020 (fingers crossed), Winged Lion will go live on Amazon. Winged Lion is a standalone novel in the Reunification Series, meaning you don’t need to know Mala Dusa or her friends the Tarakana to enjoy this story. (MD's journey isn’t over yet. She has another tale to tell soon in Wandering Free. And, yeah, she does have a cameo in this book. She asked nicely, and you don't say no to the Princess Mala Dusa. )

Winged Lion is set a few years after the events of Wandering Storm. The Tarakana have a new cast of flawed characters to mess with, leading the crew of the Gattino Alato into an adventure none of them may survive.

From the back cover:
You play the hand you’re dealt. Anything else they call cheating.

Captain Thomas Benson pushes cargo between worlds for the Trade Guild of the Most Serene Republic of Venice. His Gattino Alato is a small ship and the crew is tight. The cards turn over easy most days, and the memory of what he left behind is far away.

Now the rebellion has dealt him a new hand. Privateers haunt the trade routes between planets still loyal to the Union. Tales of broken ships, stolen cargoes, and dead crews fill the Shipping News. His only protections are speed, luck, and the vast cold dark. But luck can run out and the Trade Guild is not forgiving of captains who lose their cargoes, especially not a container critical to the Union Aerospace Force.

On the run from the Guild, the Union Marines, and a pirate captain looking for revenge, rescuing his crew is just the first step toward redemption. With the survival of the Union at stake, the cards have turned unfriendly and walking away from the game is no longer an option.