Back of the Envelope

Surprise, surpise, it's another two weeks in the update. At least this time I sort of have an excuse, as I was out of town last week.

Sluggy Freelance — So, Riff's developed a way to cut people in half, placing one half in another dimension while keeping the first half here. His experiment leaves both Gwynn and Kiki divided, but when Torg tries to convince Gwynn to stand still, he gets stuck, and the amazing Gworg is born.

Day by Day — The New York Times and Cernig get some mocking, but there's more interesting stuff happening when Zed finds out that Sam's pregnant with twins. Jan and Damon seem to be switching places on Iraq, and Jan learns a bit more about US soldiers and Iraqi insurgent strategy.

Scary Go Round — Shelley and Mike are tasked with reporting on The Great Tackleford Show, a sort of county fair. They're not exactly thrilled with the assignment, and while Shelley tries to make the best of it, Mike appears ready to get drunk. Amy is busy trying to help the mayor through the fair with a minimum of embarrassment. Meanwhile, something weird is going on with "Bessy."

Dominic Deegan — Gregory's in the doghouse with Pam, and Dominic's in the jailhouse. But he's not held for too long, and Snowsong's about to receive some counseling from the Luanian church.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — After a week with no comics, we're back in action, with Roger completing taking Joe home, and deciding that he wants to take werecoyote lessons from Joe, who is well on his way to becoming a full time were. Dave does his best to convince Roger that Joe's evil.

Schlock Mercenary — Schlock's been infected by nanites from Xinchub's body. After isolating and vaporizing some of his body, Schlock's taken to the ship and isolated for further testing.

Welcome to the seventy-seventh Storyblogging Carnival. There are seven entries today. Enjoy.

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Mist Magic 27 (Beginning)
by Dave Gudeman of Doc Rampage
The next 310 words of a continuing story rated PG.

Help approaches. Either help for me or help for the killer.

[I knew Doc was blogging again. Now it looks like he may actually finish Mist Magic. -DSC ]

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Thag mad at teenager!
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 450 word brief story rated PG.

The continuing adventures of Thag: he learns that teenage crushes can be dangerous (and annoying).

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A taster... of what's to come?
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 491 word brief story rated PG.

"I have been pondering a new novel in the last few days. It won’t be another mythos tale but more of my techno-thriller writing. Here is a taster of what its about. Not telling too much."

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Selling Tickets To Brooke Astor's Funeral — Scam or Satire?
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Political Madness
A 588 word short story rated G.

Every so often a journalist will ask me to comment on a news story, hoping I'll send him an amusing quote. This time the story concerned a Brooke Astor ticket sale scam.

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Perils of Peeping
by Goemagog of This Space for Sublet
A 788 word short story rated PG.

Spying on others won't save you from the giant chicken attack.

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Dirty Old Man
by Elvis D of 365Fiction
A 1,500 word short story rated R.

A man in his mid-thirties wonders whether he's turning into a dirty old man.

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Speedy Date
by Elvis D of 365Fiction
A 1,607 word short story rated PG.

Speed dating for the struggling writer.

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This concludes the seventy-seventh Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

I'll be hosting the next Storyblogging Carnival, the seventy-seventh, here at Back of the Envelope. If you use your blog to share your fiction, then the Storyblogging Carnival is your opportunity. Here we host any and all forms of storytelling in blog format. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. This next carnival will be going up August 27th.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, August 25th. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

Once again, I'll be covering two weeks in this "Weekly" update.

Sluggy Freelance — Aylee, returns to her people and leads them to Eden, only to double-cross them so that the humans can kill the hive-king Leono. She's not too happy over this, and is mighty angry at Torg, but Leono really did deserve to go. Rammer then pretends to arrest Torg and Aylee, only to let them go, against President Kesandru's orders. Turns out he's not such a bad guy after all--in fact, he's quite insistent on remaining the good guy. He does insist that Torg and Aylee share their information on Aylee's species and Riff's DFA. Aylee shares quite a few details, while Torg launches into some story concerning Kiki.

Day by Day — Jan's beginning to appreciate Damon's point of view, now that she's spending time with the military in Iraq, and riding along with them to find out what the rules of engagement are really like. Back home, the Beauchamp story receives some attention.

Scary Go Round — Ryan tells the Captain Beefheart story. The story of the rise and fall of a rock legend whom nobody's ever heard of. After that, there's a bit of a non-canonical story, where Amy and Shelley visit a San Francisco comic-con to meet an artist's whose comic strip bares a remarkable resemblance to Garfield. I think it was a guest comic, but as it isn't in the normal archives, we won't worry too much about it.

Dominic Deegan — Gregory manages to turn Snowsong back from ice, destroy her golem, and rescue the town. Yay, everyone's happy. Everyone except Pam, that is, who wasn't let in on the secret. Dominic explains to her how he arranged everything--and he really was behind just about all of it--but he doesn't have an explanation for why Gregory didn't tell Pam.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — A quick interrogation of Joe reveals firstly, that he's blind, and secondly, that he has no memory of being possessed. That's not very helpful, is it? But we do learn something, as Margaret shows Dave Mike's handkerchief, on which he wrote, in his own blood, "No deals with Satan." Dave has to explain Mike's deal to Margaret, and then face his punishment for messing up at Joe's place.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon arrives and parks his ship on the lawn of the palace. After deciding just how much he and the Prandial representative distrust each other, he manages to get Elf a look at the body. The Prandials are a little bit reluctant to let her look at the casket, but eventually open it up and let her collect a tissue sample. But not until Schlock's had a taste. His chemical analysis ability is pretty good, but it's still disgusting.

Welcome to the seventy-sixth Storyblogging Carnival. There are eight entries today. Enjoy.

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Proceedings
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringeblog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A woman finds a note in her husband's pocket.

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She's a Lady
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringeblog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A vamp finds a new lover.

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The Last Journey
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringeblog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A well-traveled individual finds his jaded experience is no good to him on his latest and last journey.

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Sunburnt
by the Dodges of Dodgeblogium
A 143 word brief story rated PG.

"Sunburn...it’s the heat from your lies."

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The Five Second What???
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A 279 word brief story rated G.

Not everyone knows the five second rule.

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Thag Grok Free Will!
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 500 word brief story rated PG.

The continuing adventures of the caveman Thag: in this story, he wrestles with the difficult question of free will vs determinism.

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My Friend Peter
by Ian Welsh of The Agonist
A 993 word brief story rated G.

My clothes were threadbare, and I would look in the mirror and I could already see myself at fifty, living the same hand to mouth, job-to-job life. Through it all two people helped me; two people stuck by me and never made me feel worthless. One of them was Peter.

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Paparazzi Fodder
by Elvis D of 365Fiction
A 1,861 word short story rated R.

A disturbing tale about disturbing people.

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This concludes the seventy-sixth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

I'll be hosting the next Storyblogging Carnival, the seventy-sixth, here at Back of the Envelope. If you use your blog to share your fiction, then the Storyblogging Carnival is your opportunity. Here we host any and all forms of storytelling in blog format. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. This next carnival will be going up August 13th.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, August 11th. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.