Promotional image for the upcoming Starry Eyed Press anthology “Second Wave.”
Ten of my drabbles (the maximum number allowed) are featured in this anthology.
A SINGLE MOMENT –– A HUNDRED WORDS –– A UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITIES
What happens after the unknown has arrived? When the echoes of first contact fade, humanity is left to navigate the tremors of change — new alliances, fragile peace, simmering conflicts, and the birth of strange, dazzling futures.
Promotional image for the upcoming Starry Eyed Press anthology “Second Wave.”
I’ve just had seven (out of the ten submitted) of my science fiction drabbles accepted into the Starry Eyed Press anthology “Second Wave.”
Here’s the short blurb:
For Second Wave we are looking for stories centering on the aftermath of initial contact with aliens. Show us what impact first contact had. Give us changing politics, cultural and social transformation, alien perspectives, reinforcements at the front, veteran viewpoints, colonization, interracial exchange… but keep in mind we do enjoy adventurous, thoughtful and uplifting stories.
Here are some samples of my stories:
© James Pyles
I expected Cosmic Convocation: A Space Opera Anthology published by Starry Eyed Press, to contain an uneven collection of stories and that’s exactly what I found. I won’t mention all of them (although I took notes for every single story), but here are some of the more mentionable works.
Promotional image for my stories in the anthology “Drabbles: First Contact.”
My first publications for 2025 are now available in the Starry Eyed Press anthology Drabbles: First Contact (Amazon US). Click the following for the global link.
For those of you who don’t know, a “drabble” is a complete story that is exactly 100 words long, no more, no less.
“First Contact” is a reference to humanity’s first encounter with an extraterrestrial species. These contacts can be friendly or terrifying or a lot of other things.
Twenty-six authors contributed a total of over thirty drabbles to this anthology. It is currently available for Kindle but will also be coming out soon in paperback.
Four of my stories made the cut:
Cover art for “The Fallen Shall Rise”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
My space opera novelette The Fallen Shall Rise, a 224-Verse tale published by Starry Eyed Press is available to download onto your Kindle device FREE!
From today (as I write this), December 17th through Saturday the 21st, just go to the book’s Amazon page and download it absolutely free.
The Amazon blurb for my book says:
Promotional image for the television show “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” with Frankie Thomas as Tom Corbett and Patricia Ferris as Dr. Joan Dale.
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
I know I just announced my space opera serial Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure last week, but I wanted to give everyone an update.
To test the Kindle Vella platform for the story, I clicked the Follow button. So now I’m “following.” It didn’t ask me to sign up or for any money. I didn’t get any email announcements or anything. However, when I clicked the URL to the serial today (as I write this), I saw that episode 2: Flight to Freedom had been published yesterday (Saturday, April 13th).
I clicked on it expecting to get a “pay me” notice, but instead, I got the second chapter. The first chapter’s still there as well. I clicked on the second chapter and it was immediately available to read.
So far, I’m doing all this on my home computer rather than a tablet or phone but please stand by.
There are two IMPORTANT things to know if you read these stories:
Promotional image by “Starry Eyed Press.”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
I am totally thrilled to announce that my 16-part serial “Our Destiny, The Stars” featuring Tom Corbett, Space Cadet is now available through Kindle Vella.
If you’re old enough, you may remember the Tom Corbett television show which ran from 1950-1955, pretty much pre-dating even me. When the fine folks at Starry Eyed Press asked me if I’d write a brand new Corbett adventure, one modernized with our current understanding of space travel and knowledge of our solar system, I was over-the-moon excited.
Cover art for “Over Still Waters” (2022)
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
What am I supposed to say about Ben Serna-Grey’s very short book Over Still Waters? It was an impulse buy which I discovered when going over the recent publications of Starry Eyed Press (which has published a number of my short stories and novelettes).
Although I have it on my Kindle Fire, a paper version would contain only 48 pages, so I breezed through it last night before bed.
It tells the tale of Jaine, a music composer living in the Puget Sound area (interestingly enough, my daughter graduated from the University of Puget Sound). The story is set in the 22nd century and a century before, an event written in her family history occurred, one which involved the appearance of massive alien structures in the nearby waters. The aliens came, stayed for a while, and left.
Jaine was pregnant when she and her husband got into a car accident. Her husband was killed and she lost her unborn child. Events pick up sometime later as she has fallen into inactivity and apathy, no longer caring for the world or even her music.
Screenshot from Facebook.
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
I received this wonderful compliment on Facebook this morning (see the image above). As you may know from this announcement, nine out of ten of my submissions to “Pocket SciFi: Drabble Contest One” was accepted for publication.
You can find this Starry Eyed Press anthology at Amazon in kindle or paperback formats.
Cover art for the anthology “Pocket SciFi: Drabble Contest One”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
“Pocket SciFi: Drabble Contest One” is now available from Amazon both in Kindle and paperback formats. This is a unique publication from Starry Eyed Press in that it came to life as a drabble contest.
A drabble is a complete story that is told in exactly 100 words. You might think that writing such a story would be difficult, but with a bit of practice, it can be done.
For instance, every week, I participate in a fiction writing challenge at Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Addicted to Purple. She sends out emails every Wednesday for her “Friday Fictioneers” challenge, asking anyone who wants to participate to craft a poem or short story no more than 100 words long (also see this blog as mine are available here weekly).
It can be less, but I like to make it into a drabble challenge.
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