Author Archives: James Pyles

Uncle Chun’s Chicken with Oyster Sauce

chicken

PHOTO PROMPT © Mr. Binks

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

“You’re going to love this. Uncle Chun serves the best chicken with oyster sauce.” Mike and his wife had retired and left San Francisco years ago. Now he was helping his daughter Liz move into the City.

“Mikey.” The older man felt a hand on his shoulder and Chun’s voice sounded all too worried. “You and Liz come with me to the back. Hurry, please.”

The two men had known each other for a long time and Mike took Liz’s hand to follow him.

“Daddy, what…?”

They barely made it into the kitchen when the two rival gangs started shooting.

Continue reading →

“Far Futures: Book Three” Available for Pre-Order Now!

far futures 3

Cover art for the upcoming Blue Planet Pres anthology “Far Futures 3”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that my science fiction short story “Confluence” will be appearing in a Blue Planet Press anthology. “Far Futures Three – An Anthology of Deep Space” is now available for pre-order at Amazon!

You can read my original announcement for further details including a short sample of my tale.

The book will become available for sale on October 8, 2024 but you can reserve a copy now. Then in October, it will download onto your Kindle device.

Continue reading →

Review of “Deadpool and Wolverine” (2024)

DP/W

Movie poster for “Deadpool & Wolverine” (2024)

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Yesterday (as I write this) I went to see Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) in the theater with my teenage grandson. We had a blast.

Oh, if you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to be surprised, I do not promise a Spoiler free review.

The following is in a flashback while Wade is fighting

With his relationship with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) on the rocks, Wade (Ryan Reynolds) attempts to join the Avengers around 2018 and interviews with “Happy” Hogan (Jon Favreau) not getting as far as “the big guy” (implying Tony Stark). Hogan turns him down because Wade is motivated by his own needs rather than the needs of others.

In the present day, we see him as a used car salesman alongside his endlessly optimistic “wingman” Peter (Rob Delaney). Wade sucks at that, too but it’s all he has. Wade still lives with Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) and taking his friend home, Peter lures Wade into his surprise birthday party (the guy’s a Merc and would be incredibly difficult to surprise).

Continue reading →

Waiting for the Geese Again

Geese

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

“We wouldn’t have this infestation if we didn’t make so many parks,” groused Mickey impatiently.

“What, Grandpa?” Fifteen-year-old Lydia stared out the passenger window.

“I said these damn geese are just like people. They’re always in the way, shit all over everything, and if one walks into traffic, all the rest follow.”

“Is it the Olympics or the elections?”

“Both,” he complained. “Everything.”

“You just don’t like change,” she countered with a sly smile.

“I don’t like stupidity and that’s what this is, all of it.”

“They’re almost across the street. “

“Ever taste goose pate?” Mick floored the accelerator.

Continue reading →

The Happy Birthday Circle

card

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

“Spanish dancer in green cap. What the heck?” Al set the pen down on the greeting card and envelope trying to work out why Emmie liked this kind of art.

“Looks like some sort of mermaid stuck in the muddy Mississippi to me.” Then after a moment, “Oh, well.”

He picked up the pen and opened the card. After all, it was her birthday and getting her a card he knew she’d like was the least he could do.

Alastair wrote the expected greetings and added a few designs of his own. She’d appreciate the new circles for binding demons.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Fool Moon” (2001) by Jim Butcher

Fool Moon

© James Pyles

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

If you read my review of Jim Butcher’s novel Storm Front, you know I love not only his writing, but the beginning of his “Dresden Files” series.

Last night, I finished off book two in the series Fool Moon. As you might imagine, the primary “baddies” are werewolves, but it’s not that simple. Nothing is ever simple in the life of the world’s only openly active and investigative wizard Harry Dresden.

We pick up about six months after the first novel when once again, head of the Chicago P.D. Special Investigations unit Karrin Murphy calls Dresden in on a series of particularly gruesome murders, ones that look to have been committed by wolf-like creatures.

The victims again throw Harry in the path of the city’s most dangerous gangland boss “Gentleman” Johnny Marcone.

Murphy is in plenty of hot water with internal affairs after the events of the previous novel and to make matters worse, the FBI have an interest in the “Lobo murders.” Special Agent Phil Denton leads a team of federal investigators which includes Deborah Benn, who upon first meeting Murphy almost shoots her.

Continue reading →

My Short Story “Confluence” to be published in the anthology “Far Futures Three – An Anthology of Deep Space”

far futures 3

Cover art for the upcoming Blue Planet Pres anthology “Far Futures 3”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

My science fiction short story “Confluence” has been accepted for publication in the Blue Planet Press anthology “Far Futures Three – An Anthology of Deep Space”

The story requirements are:

Space exploration. From the outer planets of our solar system to the edge of the Orion Spur and the even more distant Andromeda Galaxy. How will we get there? Generation ships? Faster than light engines? Dimensional warping? Wormholes?

Hopefully, my tale has a unique perspective on the subject. Here’s a small preview:

Continue reading →

Dark World

window

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Cameron Hall’s invention worked. The filter over his living room window let him see the world outside at a different time than the present. He had run the calculations repeatedly and they always came out the same. He was seeing the world as it would be one year from now.

Cam slapped his forehead with his palm. “The side effect.”

He wasn’t a spiritual man but the math seemed to disagree with him. It predicted not only a shift in time but a metaphysical one, too. He was seeing the soul of the world to come. It was very dark.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Replay” (1986)

replay

© James Pyles

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I forget where I saw Ken Grimwood’s 1986 novel Replay promoted, but it sounded like an interesting story, so I picked up a copy at my local public library. It’s a highly unusual and compelling time travel story.

Jeff Winston is a radio news producer in this late 40s. His job is lackluster as is his childless marriage. He’s at work and gets a phone call from his wife. As she starts speaking, he has a sudden heart attack and dies.

Jeff wakes up in his dorm room, an eighteen-year-old college freshman in the early 1960s. He has all of the memories of his life up to the moment he died twenty-five years in the future. Except that none of that has happened yet. Does it have to happen at all?

The first quarter of the book follows Jeff as he reconstructs his life based on what he knows of the future. In this case, he makes himself fabulously wealthy. Of course he drops out of college. Still feeling like a middle-aged man, the prospect of going through another four-year drudge as an undergraduate looks so depressing. But he does know a lot about major sporting events and which companies are going to be successful in the 1960s and beyond.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Storm Front” (2000)

storm front

© James Pyles

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

When I was seven years old, I got a bad case of strep throat and was out of school for a whole week. During that time, my sisters bought me my first fantasy and sci-fi novels: the boxed set of Lord of the Rings and the boxed set of the Han Solo adventure novels by Brian Daley. I devoured them all during that week.

My first love as a fan is swords-and-horses fantasy. After Tolkien, I went after C.S. Lewis. After Lewis, it was Lloyd Alexander. After them came Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Robert Howard, John Norman, Poul Anderson, David Eddings, Weis and Hickman, Terry Brooks, Elizabeth Moon, Glen Cook, and before I knew it I was a dual citizen of the United States and Lankhmar, Narnia, Gor, Cimmeria, Krynn, Amber — you get the picture.

-Jim Butcher from the Acknowledgements section of his 2000 novel Storm Front

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’ve become a fan of Jim Butcher’s Cinder Spires series, having reviewed both The Aeronaut’s Windlass and The Olympian Affair.

Continue reading →