Oh, it’s been forever since I last posted. The reason for that: I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my Crandall novel A DEATH IN DEEP SPACE — which is done! Really, seriously, ready-to-show-people done. Man, that’s weird to type. I’ve been working on that story in one form or another for five years, starting from a novelette that formed the basis of the longer novel and resurrected in a novel draft two years ago.

Anyway, I seem to have been tagged by my friend A. T. Greenblatt to actually show people some of my recent work, and to challenge a few other folks in turn. The “rules”: ‘The rules are simple: Post 7 sentences of your work, start on page 7, count 7 lines down. ‘ OK, I can probably handle that. As it happens I have the Scrivener document open for my next project already, a Claudius Rex mystery with the working title THE WRONG CLIENT, starring Claudius Rex and kind of an enormous run-on sentence.

“My apologies that I cannot join you in person. I
rarely ever leave my home in the Caribbean, least of all for
Boston where it is cold and damp.”
That was a lie, of course. He’d incorporated in St.
Martin–as a corporation, I mean, not any kind of physical
manifestation–but otherwise he existed in Boston as much as he
could be said to exist anywhere: his main routines were executed
by a small experimental device in the brownstone’s basement, a
location that a dozen spy agencies would not only kill to know,
they’d even say ‘please’.
“Ah, hello,” said a squirming Polder. “It’s, um, a pleasure
to meet you, Mr. Rex.” Again with the hand, but at least he
seemed to catch himself before offering it to an empty desk.

And now I get to tag three other folks… How about Nathaniel Lee, and my Viable Paradise roommates Micah Joel and Peter Sursi. (If you don’t want to post on your own blogs, I’ll be glad to host!)