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    C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 8
    C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 8
    C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 8
    Ebook61 pages55 minutes

    C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 8

    By C. C. Blake

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    About this ebook

    C. C. Blake returns with a pair of stories in this action-packed eighth issue. There are unusual adventures to be found in these sweaty, lived-in space opera worlds!

    Rick Cave finds himself once more outside of his Slav Space comfort zone, visiting the crime families dominated sector tucked away behind a blue energy shield. He is not exactly running a smuggling op, but still he is up to his neck in trouble delivering a cryonically cooled infant to the golden child of one of the most ruthless gangster families in the galaxy. Cave is outgunned and overwhelmed. To make already messy matters even more chaotic, the unstoppable menace known as PedeSTAIN shows up. Can Rick and PedeSTAIN put aside their past differences to get both their necks out of the wringer?

    On a backwater jungle world, a former CORE forces StarBar gunnery sergeant turned mercenary lieutenant commander finds himself stranded and facing impossible odds. Inside a makeshift fort besieged by two-headed natives, he strives to stave off an army until help arrives. His resources are low, his chances are even lower, but he will not give up until the last round is fired and the last ounce of strength leaves him.

    With a brief non-fiction update from Blake himself and over 15k words, the eighth issue of C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas has plenty of thrills for the space opera fan.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTwice Told Tales II
    Release dateJan 20, 2019
    ISBN9780463289723
    C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 8
    Author

    C. C. Blake

    C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

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      Book preview

      C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 8 - C. C. Blake

      C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas

      Issue 8

      C. C. Blake

      Table of Contents

      Blake's Take

      Rick Cave and the Dragonfly Tattoo

      Fieldy in an Emerald and Azure Hell

      About the Author

      Blake's Take

      There's something about recurring characters that gives me a smile. It's the whole purpose of a series, right? Familiar faces return, characters get an extra chance to grow and develop, worlds get to be built up over a long scale. As this Sweaty Space Operas thing continues into its second mini-arc, I have the pleasure of seeing not only Slav Space develop but other regions of my weird little universe unfolding. This issue give Rick Cave a peek behind the Blue Energy shield that blocks off Crime Space.

      Now, that little sector of space first got a mention in my short story, Laurie Parker and the Intergalactic Girl Show, and at the time I wanted a hive of scum and villainy for a weird little story about a woman and her bizarre revenge story—Laurie Parker herself is likely to return in the upcoming culmination to this mini arc BTW. Now, Rick Cave gets the chance to do the same, and he will also have the chance to meet up again with a certain killer cyborg.

      That's right, PedeSTAIN returns but in a different role. The story in Issue 6 ends with a certain disfiguring mark that prevents him continuing service to the Astro Nazis. What's an out of work 'borg with lethal power supposed to do? Well, read this month's Rick Cave story to find out! It's a longer piece than I typically turn in for Cave, but it was hella fun to write and I hope it will be hella fun to read.

      Just because it's a double sized Cave story does not mean I am skimping on the backup feature either? Last issue, we met Wynn Moss, a burglar with a rather flexible methodology (heh-heh), and this month we meet Fieldy, a military man marooned on a lethal jungle planet.

      Although I have never read Harry Harrison's DEATHWORLD series of novels—an oversight I should probably fix in the near future—I love the concept of a planet where everything can kill you. Reminds me of the South American rainforest on steroids. Of course, where Harrison went, others have followed and there's a wealth of killer planets out there. The backup feature in this issue is my contribution to these sorts of tales, which are essentially sf-ified Robinson Crusoe tales. I hope my readers will enjoy Fieldy's trials and travails and he defends himself from some lethal indigenous aliens while waiting for rescue. Will he make it off world and what shape will he be in when/if he does? Well, read on to find out!

      Next month's issue will give us a brand new Rick Cave tale and a reprinted story from my early Sweaty Space Opera work in the Man's Story 2 era of my career. Long time readers may recall that when I kicked off seeking publishers for my modern pulp tales, I was lucky enough to find the Man's Story 2 series of periodicals that specialized in tales inspired by the very pulps I was inspired by. Rick Cave, Chuck Cave, Burn Job, and other characters and stories found their starts in the pages of those magazines. Alas, the publishing empire has come to an end, though the owner and editor-in-chief has transitioned to films, but the stories I wrote for him continue to this day. One of those, which was written for his science fiction wing (but maybe didn't get into the print magazine, it's hard to recall) got included in an early release of my Rick Cave material for Twice Told Tales. I'm not going to make you hunt up that edition, however. Never month, get ready to delve into the Star Sultan's Labyrinth of Doom!

      I owe you, my readers, a hearty thank you. You are the ones who are keeping me in the publishing biz, giving me the chance to tell my stories the way I want to tell them. I would not be able to do this without you!

      Now for my obligatory Call To Action. Apologies if these things annoy you. An indie writer like myself is only able to keep pursuing this hobby if he can make some scratch. I write for the love of writing, but I publish that writing to try and make a living. Every copy I sell helps me justify continuing the venture. If you

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