A New Release for February - In Search of the Creators

 

Just in time for 2022, here is February's offering of short stories for the price of only 99¢ US.

When humanity discovered they were alone in the cosmos, they returned to Earth and uplifted their animals, seeding them throughout the Milky Way. They then waited for their creations to evolve and relieve the loneliness of humanity.

But then the humans disappeared.

In Search of the Creators is coupled with Canticle of the Wolf, an SF retelling of the legend of Saint Francis and the wolf of Gubbio.

Enjoy these two parables of humanity's responsibilities when they uplift animals.

And please, if you purchase the eBook, please consider leaving a review.

Amazon US site and it will be available in all foreign Amazon markets on Wednesday, February 23rd if not before.

RIP Fred Patten (1940-2018)

Early this morning, I received news that Fred Patten passed away at the age of 77 on Monday, November 12th. My relationship with Fred Patten was only through email correspondence, but if ever I had a personal, professional editor, it was Fred. 

I first became acquainted with Fred when I asked him if he would review Opal Wine for me and I was delighted when he said yes. The result was a wonderful review and one I am both grateful for and proud of and you can read it here.

Sometime later, he asked me to consider contributing to an anthology he was collecting and unfortunately life events prohibited any work toward his vision. However, in the ensuing anthologies, I worked with Fred on contributing three titles:

• To The Reader..., published in the anthology Gods With Fur (2016)
• The Shrine War, published in the anthology Dogs of War (2017)
• In Search of the Creators, published in the anthology Exploring New Places (2018)

It was The Shrine War that served as the biggest challenge to my career and Fred and I corresponded frequently over its creation. Throughout all the dialogues I had with him, Fred always remained professional, friendly, and polite and his recommendations for edits were always correct.

It was a delight working with Fred. He taught me a lot and I am very grateful that he was the one who inspired me to write The Shrine War. Up until now, Coventry House that was published in my Opal Wine collection has always been my best-known work. I believe that if my extended version of The Shrine War is ever published, that is the novel that will make my career and it will be dedicated to Fred Patten's memory.

In closing, a jaw-dropping list of his accomplishments is found here. 

In Search of the Creators Released in a New Fred Patten Anthology

During Anthrocon 2018, FurPlanet released its new anthology, Exploring New Places, that contains my short story, In Search of the Creators. Coupled with 18 other short stories, the theme deals with anthropomorphic animals venturing into unknown places.

In Search of the Creators centers on Illatha, an anthropomorphic rabbit, and her crew searching the galaxy for the strange beings that uplifted her ancestors millennia ago before mysteriously disappearing. Exploring another solar system, they discover a planet that shows signs of habitation. Could it be, after fruitless years of searching, Illatha and her crew have finally found the answers to their genesis?

Exploring New Places is not yet available from Amazon, but can be ordered directly from FurPlanet.

Story Excerpt:

Illatha and her crew stayed in silent orbit waiting for orders from Homeworld. A subspace squirt took one week out and back and assuming a few days for the leaders of Homeworld to debate what they should do, a response was expected soon.

Illatha stared at the dots of light that speckled the night side of the planet, each one declaring the presence of a city. Sensors had shown the lights were not electrical in nature, but the glow from fires that appeared to be from natural gas.

One of the lights dimmed slowly and then brightened again. Illatha’s gaze focused on it.

It blinked again, twice in succession in a slow, but steady pattern.

Illatha’s furred brow furrowed in curiosity and concentration.

The light blinked again, three times in succession.

Immediately, the captain’s four-fingered hands flashed over the control board to put her ship in a stationary orbit.

Fascinated, she watched as it blinked five times and then went back and blinked once. And then twice, then three times and then five, cycling back to repeat the pattern of prime numbers in a base ten system.

Fear welled up in Illatha’s heart. They had been spotted.

Contact had been made.

In Search of the Creators to Be Published

From "current work" to "completed work."

Today I received some badly needed good news from editor Fred Patten:

Dear Alan; 

Hello again. I am happy to say that your story, "In Search of the Creators", has been selected to appear in Exploring New Places, to be published by FurPlanet Productions in time to go on sale at the Anthrocon 2018 convention in Pittsburgh on July 5-8. It will be on sale through the FurPlanet online catalogue, on Amazon, and other places after that.

I wrote back:

Totally delighted. Thank you for the good news. I wish you success on the anthology. As always, it's a pleasure to be part of the team.

This will be the third or fourth anthology edited by Fred Patten I have had the pleasure of being part of. It is always an honor. 

In Search of the Creators is Finished

This afternoon, I put In Search of the Creators through its final edit and, for weal or woe, I sent it off to Fred Patten for consideration in his upcoming anthology.

In Search of the Creators was a challenge in several arenas as the character with the main point of view is an alien. When she encounters another alien race, I have to tell a story in English where characters who know no English have to communicate with each other, especially when my main character cannot speak in labials. After a lengthy struggle, I think I was able to clearly tell the story:

Slowly, the man put his open hands on his chest. “Blayne,” he said. His voice was deep. Again, he put his hands on his chest. “Blayne,” he repeated. Then with his hands still opened, he motioned toward Illatha. 

Illatha knew what he wanted. Her name. “Illatha,” she said repeating his actions with her own hands. 

“Illatha,” the man repeated. 

Slowly the man stood. Illatha’s head came up to his chest and she shuddered from how small she was in comparison. He pointed at the sun that shone down on the meadow. “Odo,” he said. 

Illatha already knew what the creature wanted. He was working on a basic vocabulary. She squinted up at the bright sun and pointed at it. “Nae,” she said in her own language. 

“Nae,” Blayne repeated. “Nae.”

First Draft of In Search of the Creators is Finished

The oldest legends say that when the Creators left blue-green Ur to explore the stars, they found themselves alone in a cosmos without boundaries. Grieved at their loneliness, they returned to their world, took their animals, and gifted them with sentience, hands, and a bipedal stance. The Creators then scattered their progeny across numerous stars and today, they patiently wait for their children to return and ease their solitude.

At slightly over 4,700 words, the first draft of In Search of the Creators, a short story written specifically for Fred Patten's upcoming anthology, is finished.

Now comes the hard work: revision and editing.

In Search of the Creators: Opening Scene

What follows is the opening scene of my current work in progress, In Search of the Creators, in response to a request to submit a story to an upcoming anthology.

The end result may be dramatically different and bear in mind that this is a rough draft:

In Search of the Creators

by Alan Loewen

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The oldest legends say that when the Creators left blue-green Ur to explore the stars, they found themselves alone in a cosmos without boundaries. Grieved at their loneliness, they returned to their world, took their animals, and gifted them with sentience and the ability to stand on two feet and use hands. They scattered their progeny across numerous stars and today, they patiently wait for their children to return. ~ Histories and Legends

“Sensors at full. Keep your ears up.”

Captainess Ilassa brushed her hair out of eyes, flipping her long lop ears to hang over her back. The rest of the crew studied their monitors intensely. Outside the ship, the neverending gray of the warp manifold enveloped the ship and the timers ticked off the seconds when they would pop into real space and a new star system.

Tension filled the air of the cramped control deck. The ship lacked weapons and the instinctive response of Ilassa’s race, exactly like the rabbits from which the Creators had upraised them, was to flee if danger threatened. 

Ilassa checked her monitors. All five crew members stood ready to feed her important information the moment they appeared out of warp. Within seconds she would make the decision to either stay and explore this new planetary system or flee back into the safety of manifold space.

She mindlessly tapped her pen on her incisors that peeked out from behind her upper lip, a nervous habit borne from the many times she had entered a new system.

The timer ticked down and suddenly the main viewscreen snapped from formless gray into the dark of space with a brilliant mainstream sun shining like a bright dot in its center.

Information started flashing over her monitor as her crew shouted their findings.

“Five planets, Captainess!”

“No radio signals detected.”

“Captainess, I detect a ship! Wait! It’s dead, Captainess. No heat at all. No electromagnetic signals. Just floating.”

“Captainess, there is one planet that is the proper distance from the sun to maintain life. I detect no electromagnetic signals. Nothing artificial in orbit.” 

It was only then that Ilassa realized she was holding her breath. She let it out with a shudder. “Set a course for the derelict,” she said. “Let’s see what information it can give us.”

A Small Change of Plans

Though I have already started working on Incident at a Japanese Inn, I was approached by anthologist and editor Fred Patten to consider submitting to his upcoming anthology.

The official release for submissions follows:

FurPlanet Productions is announcing its next original short story anthology: 

Exploring New Places; an anthology of furry stories about going someplace new. That journey can be anything, from a comedy about someone going on a packaged vacation to an exotic resort where everything goes wrong, or a romance where they find Mr. or Ms. Right, to a horror story about an expedition to explore a new planet, or a historic drama about a sailing ship blown off course in a hurricane to an unknown continent. 

Length: 4,000 to 20,000 words. Lesser will be accepted. Longer … let’s discuss it. 

Opening: March 1 st , 2018. Deadline: May 31 st , 2018. To be published at Anthrocon 2018. 

Rating: G to PG. Keep it for all ages, for a family audience. 

No explicit erotica, but tasteful romance of any orientation is okay. Authors who want to contribute are urged to check with me (Fred Patten) first to make sure that their story ideas are not too close to others which are being submitted. Multiple submissions by an author will be considered, but simultaneous submission of a story to different anthologies will not be. 

Payment:  ½¢ per word upon publication and a contributor’s copy of Exploring New Places, a $19.95 anthology.  Contributors may buy additional copies at a 30% discount. 

Send submissions to fredpatten AT earthlink.net.

Now let me make it very clear. If Fred Patten asks me for a story, I'm going to do my best to make sure he's going to get a story.

I'm working on a short story I've entitled, In Search of the Creators and will reveal more about it in a future blog post.

Graphic courtesy of Max Pixel

Note: My completing the story does NOT imply automatic acceptance into the anthology. The divine right of editors outweighs the divine right of kings. If not accepted, the story will be released on my Wattpad site (and you should visit that link for some free stories from yours truly anyway).