I gave a story to the anniversary edition of Ultraverse, an online 'zine run by Chris Africa. I'll link to the story in a moment, but first, some comments. Chris is devoted and passionate about her 'zine, and I gave her a couple of reprints last year, but my great reservation about her site has been that it doesn't pay authors, not even a token. We've had a lot of e-mail correspondence about this subject, and she's agreed that paying authors, even a mere $10 a story as a show of good faith, is important. So she's now accepting donations. If you like what you read at the site, consider kicking a dollar or two or ten to her so she can pay her authors. The story I wrote for her was inspired by Janet Chui's fine painting Cupid R3load3d, and is entitled "Eros and Thanatos".

In other online-fiction news, you needs must go read "Is You Is/Is You Ain't? by Michael Canfield, up now at Futurismic. I went to Clarion with Mike, and read an early draft of this story back then, and it blew me away. This was the story that first made me sit up and take notice of this guy's work, and I'm glad it's available now for the world to read. Mike is, of course, a Flytrap contributor, with a story in #2 and a story upcoming in #4. He's also had great work in Borderlands 5 and MOTA: Courage. Mike's writing career is just taking off, so it's still possible to buy and read every word the guy has published. You might want to think about doing so! Still not tempted enough to go read the story at Futurismic? Then I have one sentence for you: The story is all about NinjaBaby. How the hell can you resist reading a story about NinjaBaby?!

I have temptations. Oh, my, yes. Two new games. We just got Fable (pre-ordered it ages ago, it just arrived). Looks good, Heather's already into it. I also got Bloodrayne 2, which is so very self-consciously gratuitous and satisfying. It's pretty much a straight ass-whooping action game, complete with grotesque dismemberments -- it's like Grand Guignol on my television screen! You can slide down the banister of a spiral staircase, lopping off the heads of your enemies with a sword as you go! You can hang upside down from scaffolding and shoot people's legs off! It rocks! And almost every object in the game is breakable, from pianos to suits of armor, and the wreckage stays sprawled on the floor when you're done. I like it.

But today I will resist temptation, and work on Rangergirl, because I have priorities. And tonight, we will finish addressing Flytraps, and mail a big batch on Monday, so contributors and subscribers need not wait much longer. Also because I have priorities. And late in the night, I will chop off the heads of my digital enemies.