For me, that has been the purpose of my writing. Last year in June, I had this crazy idea to also publish a book that contained all my published works in one volume called All My Fiction. Because it is an eBook, I would update it whenever I wrote another piece under the B.C. Young name.

At first, the book became my fastest seller. And why not? For a flat rate, whoever purchased it could get everything I wrote. I still think it is a great idea, especially because it benefits the reader many times over.

Here I sit in May 2012, and I realize I can’t do it anymore. Not because I’m losing money or anything like that. Rather, the eBook submission process across multiple channels creates a challenge for updating the book and distributing to those who have purchased. It also has become more difficult to add to the book because of my focus writing under Desmond Shepherd and reading/writing in general.

Couple all this with the fact that my other eBooks sell better than All My Fiction, and I’ve decided to forego future updates of the book and I am unpublishing it. You might say I should keep it up for sale, but since the premise of the book is that it will be continually updated, I can’t offer the book for sale knowing full well there are no further updates coming.

For those of you who purchased the book, I thank you for trying the experiment with me. If you contact me with proof of purchase of All My Fiction, I will gladly give you a free gift to show my appreciation.

So, I’m unpublishing All My Fiction, but of course, you can still get all my fiction in individual eBook format and paperback for my books available in print.

Currently, I’m looking at a June 15, 2012 release date. For the lead up to the release of the second book in the Fram Gage series, I’m offering the first book for only $0.99. This discounted price is in effect now via Smashwords. In the coming weeks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and other locations will get the discounted price.

Enjoy!

Fram Gage and The Three Adversaries

Chapter 1 Excerpt

© 2012 Desmond Shepherd

“Sean! Get me out of here, or he’ll die!”

The voice rammed into Sean’s ears with a dull thud. A black void caressed him, telling him to sleep. He attempted to move his arms and legs, but he was paralyzed. In the distance, children loudly played. Their joyful screams relaxing him. But that voice, yelling at him with an intensity he had trouble pinpointing, began to annoy him. The man was angry. No, panicked.

“Sean! Now!”

The ground vibrated, relaxing Sean even more. Everything told him to remain still but that man’s voice. It continued yelling, begging him to release him out from somewhere. Without a way to see the man, Sean couldn’t help. He would assist the man, if he knew how.

“Sean. He’ll die. Fram will die!”

Fram.

He knew Fram. Why would he die? How could he die? The boy meant a lot to him. In many ways, Fram was like a son. He wanted to protect, help, and teach him. If Fram were in trouble, Sean would help. He never wanted to see any of the kids in his orphanage hurt. If this man, whose voice Sean began to recognize, wanted to help Fram, he should do it. He didn’t need Sean’s permission.

“Let me out of this cage, Sean!”

Metal rattled like loose change falling on the ground. The voices of the playing children grew louder as if they approached. They might not be happy. In fact, the girl cried so severely, her words were unintelligible.

“Dr. Traisal! Dr. Traisal,” a boy’s voice yelled. “Fram is under that rock. We have to get him out.”

More rattling happened, this time louder. That boy’s voice, he recognized it, too. As he fought to recall, a gentle throbbing started at the back of his head. It slowly reached around toward the front, transforming into the pounding of a hammer on wood. The pain was great and excruciating. It pulled Sean away from the peaceful relaxing state he wanted badly.

“Lank, you can’t do it. We’ve got nothing,” the boy said. He paused a second. “Please, Dr. Traisal. Wake up. You got to get out of there and help Dr. Samor, too, or Fram will die.”

Lank. Dr. Samor. It all came back to him. The competition to see what Fram was capable of in The Ability Chamber. Dr. Samor taking control of it for his selfish means. Discovering that Fram had Infinite ability. And finally, Sean being trapped in a cage, finding a way to trap Dr. Samor, too, and making one last attempt to pull the children to safety. In his last thought before falling back and slamming his head against a metal pole of his cage, the portal opened.

Sean opened his eyes with a rush of adrenaline shooting through his veins. The scene left him confused. Dr. Samor shook the metal chain link fence and yelled, “I can help him. I can help him.” Bagger and Tia were next to Sean’s cage, Bagger pleading with his eyes and words, “Please, Dr. Traisal. He’ll die. You can’t let him die.”

In the distance, a large red boulder at least 30 feet wide laid on the ground, and Lanker squatted next to it, his arms under the mass of rock. He tried to lift the boulder. But why?

“What happened?” Sean asked, rubbing the back of his head.

“The rock!” Bagger screamed and pointed behind him. His normally proud, spiked, purple Mohawk hung to the side of his face and dirt covered his body. “It fell on Fram.”

“Fram?” Sean asked.

He got to his feet and grabbed at the chain link fence of the cage that had him trapped. He pressed his face up to it to view the large boulder, his skin pushing through the holes in the fence. Lanker continued to try lifting the boulder without success.

No. How could I let this happen? No one was supposed to get hurt.

Sean stepped back a couple feet, shocked at his hubris. He wondered how he fooled himself into thinking he could control it all. Now Fram might meet the same fate as his son, Steven.

Shock and sadness paralyzed him. His ears tuned out the sound and everything began to move in slow motion as Sean became overwhelmed with the situation. Bagger screamed something at Sean again, a frantic, wide-eyed look on his face. He gestured wildly with his hands. Behind him, Tia held her face, crying uncontrollably. How could he help? Rolland had trapped him in the fence cage. Even if he could get out, the time needed to overwrite the code for the weight of the boulder would take longer than the time he had. In all likelihood, Fram was already dead, crushed under the weight of the boulder, his bones pulverized to dust.

“Sean, listen to me,” Rolland yelled.

Sean snapped his attention to Rolland, who also was trapped in a cage. It prevented him from accessing any part of TAC. It was how Sean managed to bring the children to safety. Anger built up inside of Sean like a rolling avalanche. If he could reach out, grab Rolland, and wrap his hands around his neck, strangling the life from him, he would.

But that would be impossible, and if he could, the one chance of saving Fram, if he was still alive, would be lost.

“Sean, if you let me out, you know what I can do. I’m trapped here, without access to the competition software.”

“You did this! You killed him!” Sean clenched his teeth, baring them, as his face turned a shade of red. “I won’t let you out.”

The rumbles in the ground began to settle and the wind died down. A calmness came over the scene in The Ability Chamber, but for everyone involved, it resembled more and more people clinging to a hope that faded away with every second.

“Sean, you have to.” Rolland’s voice became calm. His eyes pleaded with Sean, and in that instance, more emotion came from him than he ever witnessed. “I swear to you, when this is done, I will allow you to do whatever you want to me. Get rid of me or completely change me, I don’t care. Just let me out.”

Sean turned toward the boulder. Lanker, his small body tired from the exertion, had fallen back on his butt, giving up on lifting the large rock that fell on Fram. He rubbed at his eyes as tears rolled down his cheeks. Sean had a similar emotion. He knew his one hope was in someone he detested, who created the entire mess they experienced, and who used to be a trusted companion.

Rolland’s eyes and their sympathetic appeal worried Sean. Rolland was incapable of such compassion, but obviously good at mimicking it. He was Fram’s only hope, and if Rolland was willing to help him, he had to let him. He had one choice. He had to release Rolland.

He stared hard at Rolland, the anger still in him, festering like a disease spreading quickly in his bloodstream. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you swear to me you’ll do no other harm to these children.”

“Sean,” Rolland said. His voice was calm and almost condescending. “Fram is all I care about right now.”

“You don’t care about anything,” Sean said.

Sean reached down into the dusty ground and picked up his clipboard. It had been the one thing that saved the entire situation. It gave him the ability to open the portal and bring the children to the end of the competition. The hard brown backer used to support the paper that sat on top for writing was much more than that. Sean flipped the papers off the back, a small cloud of dust puffing into the air. He tapped the upper corner of the clipboard and the brown surface transitioned into a computer screen.

“Hurry, please,” Tia said through her sobs.

Sean looked up to her; her gray jeans were nearly maroon from the dust that had settled on them. Even her bright red hair had dulled from the debris. A wave of guilt came over him that wouldn’t recede, but rather lingered there like a beached whale. These poor children. What have I done to them?

“It’ll be okay,” Bagger said as he stepped toward Tia and put his arm around her. “Dr. Traisal and Samor can save him. We can’t get hurt. We can’t get hurt.”

“That’s a lie!” Lanker suddenly said. He approached them with a look of anger. His faced turned red, causing the freckles on his face to disappear. Tears had dried to his face, washing away dust, and leaving trails of clean skin on his cheeks. “Fram said we couldn’t get hurt. But look at everything we went through. He lied to us! He did this.”

“How can you say that?” Tia yelled. “He saved us.”

“Only because….” Lanker began.

Sean’s time for dwelling on Lanker’s anger and disgust had to come later. He ignored the children’s argument, turning his attention to the monitor on his clipboard. He went into the software for Rolland’s cage, preparing to tap the button that would remove it. Rolland stared at him, waiting. But for what? His chance to save Fram? Or his chance to take over control of TAC? There was one choice, and Sean had to take it.

He tapped the button on the screen and immediately the cage around Rolland that stopped him from accessing any part of TAC’s software, lifted into the air at great speed, disappearing into a white, cumulus cloud.

“Thank you,” Rolland said, nodding his head. If any deceit was behind his words, Sean didn’t hear them.

Rolland ran the 30 feet to the boulder in a graceful stride, like a gazelle chased by a lion. He stopped a moment when he reached it. The cage around Sean also lifted up into the air, freeing him from the trap. Maybe Rolland was being sincere. He’s helping Fram and he released the cage.

Sean ran toward the boulder to find a sign of life from Fram. He reached it and another wave of horror washed over him. If Fram was under the boulder, he couldn’t tell. But everyone around him—Rolland, Bagger, Tia, and Lanker—reminded him that Fram was under there, most likely dead.

“Bagger, Tia, Lanker, get over here!” Rolland called over to the children.

Tia and Bagger ran over without hesitation. Sean turned to see Lanker staying where he was, his arms folded across his chest, his head turned in disgust.

“I need you to help me lift this,” Rolland said. “My strength is … well, it’s hard to explain. But you two can do it.”

“What?” Bagger said with a confused look. “We can’t do a thing. We don’t have an ability.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve turned it on. You both have Super Strength. You should be able to lift the boulder.”

“But … how?” Tia asked. “We haven’t had them the entire time.”

“I’ll explain later. Now are you going to help or not?”

Bagger and Tia exchanged a look, and without a word, stepped up to the boulder, scooping their hands under it.

Sean knew this wasn’t right. The children never had the dosage of Bilt. Without the drug, a child’s brain reacted in an unpredictable manner upon exiting TAC. The impact could be dizziness, vomiting, or, as was the case with Sean Traisal’s son, death.

“Stop!” Sean said. Bagger and Tia took their hands away from the boulder. “Rolland, they can’t do this. Without the drug, the results could be—”

“Disastrous, Sean,” Rolland interrupted. He stepped up to Sean, towering over him, as if he had grown a few inches in stature. “They might get ill from this one moment of exertion, but Fram could die. Do you want that?”

Sean cowered as Rolland loomed over him. Fear and dread washed over his body, making him feel filthy for releasing Rolland. While he seemed to want to help Fram, his demeanor and tone said more. This man, no this thing, he created had turned into his worse idea.

“Fine,” Sean gave in to Rolland. He stepped toward him, adjusted his white lab coat, and moved toward the large boulder. “Fine. But I’m helping.” It was pointless since Sean would lack an ability, but he wanted to do whatever he could to help Fram. This would not be like Steven’s death.

Bagger and Tia moved toward the boulder, along with Sean and Rolland. The four of them squatted to reach their hands under the large maroon rock. Sean’s face came within inches of the boulder as a soft breeze blew some of the red dust off it and onto his face. Its chalky odor reminded him of times he taught the children normal things like math, science, and English. Those lessons, as he wrote equations and sentences on a chalkboard, were beneficial. Why he ever thought giving them abilities in a special room would be the same, he couldn’t answer.

“Lift,” Rolland called.

Sean lifted with all his might, the boulder moving inches from the ground. He strained as his muscles ached, begging for him to stop. The weight was more than he could bear. His arms gave out, dropping the boulder. He barely pulled his hands away within a second of the boulder crashing back to the ground. He imagined the weight would have crushed his bones into the fine dust that coated the rock, and he would have deserved it.

The other three pulled away safely, too. Tia again began to cry.

“Lanker, get over here!” Rolland called. “We can’t do it without you.”

Lanker hesitated in the distance. Whatever anger and frustration he had toward Fram, Sean couldn’t understand. But it must be something great and intense. Lanker didn’t respond, instead looking to the dirt and kicking at it with his left foot. He stared at the foot, bent down, and touched it. His head snapped up to the four of them, but he still said nothing.

“Wait a minute,” Sean said. “Why are we doing this? Just make the boulder lighter.” His words came out quickly in the moment, the children giving him confused looks.

Rolland turned his attention to Sean, staring at him for a moment.

“You can do that, Roll. It makes the most sense.”

Rolland turned his gaze back to Lanker and said, “Lanker, we need you! Fram needs you!”

Lanker stood from his position, bit the side of his lip, and ran toward the boulder. The boy appeared to have aged several years during the predicament he experienced. His lack of glasses, giving him a more mature, proud, and confident look.

“Thank you, son,” Rolland said. He placed his hand on Lanker’s shoulder and smiled. Lanker turned his head away in embarrassment, but returned the smile to Rolland with beaming pride. “Now, reach under this boulder with us and help us save Fram.”

Lanker stepped up to the boulder, as did the other four. In their squatting positions as they prepared to lift the rock, they resembled sumo wrestlers preparing to fight—their conquest the giant rock in front of them.

“Lift!” Rolland called again.

This time, the boulder lifted with the weight of a feather. The change was astonishing. But he suspected the change had nothing to do with Lanker’s assistance. He had little time to ponder that thought as the boulder moved upward. The four of them now stood, Lanker with his arms outstretched, Tia and Bagger nearly the same, and Sean and Rolland with their arms slightly bent.

“Now,” said Rolland. The entire thing was within his control. Sean hated that. “We will bend down some and push up with everything we have. Ready.”

Sean bent down as instructed, the weight of the rock above him little more than a heavy box he lifted above his head. He hoped Rolland knew what he was doing.

“Push!”

As they began to push upward in a quick motion, they grunted. Even Rolland made a noise, despite the fact that he shouldn’t have to. The large rock tumbled back in a quick motion, quietly tipping. Before completely falling, it hit the mountain behind it, causing a cracking of the rock and a thunderous boom.

Sean turned his eyes to the ground. Fram Gage laid on the dirt, impressed into it completely due to the weight of the boulder sitting on him. His left leg, bloody and torn, no doubt from the Fleck that chased them, bent in the opposite direction it should.

“Oh no, Fram!” Tia yelled. Bagger grabbed her around the shoulders, and she laid her head on his chest.

A tightness around Sean’s heart prevented him from breathing properly. All that came to mind was his son, lifeless and not breathing, the death that followed shortly after, and his guilt for having been responsible for it. The moment here was the same. Sean had killed again.

He ran up to Fram’s body, scooping him up from the dirt. He barely recognized him with the dust and blood covering his body. He cradled him like a baby, tears beginning to flow from his eyes. He feared there was no hope, and Fram had died.

As the tears blurred his vision like rain on a windshield, Fram’s bottom lip moved. He tried to say something. He was alive! Sean bent his head toward him, but the words were too quiet to understand. A soft breath blew across Sean’s cheek, lifting his spirits.

“He’s breathing. Hurry,” Sean said to Rolland. “We have to get him to First Aid.”

Sean ran at a speed he never managed before. He moved through the blowing dirt of TAC, passed his clipboard that laid on the ground, and toward a single tree that stood proud. Bagger and Tia followed close behind. Sean reached the tree, tapped a button on the side of it, and a door slid to the left, exposing the hallway of Biality Orphanage. Before running down the hallway to get to the First Aid Room, he turned to make sure Rolland was behind him to help.

Instead, Rolland held his hands on Lanker’s shoulder as he walked him to the exit of TAC. Lanker wiped at his eyes as Rolland bent down and said something to him. How could Rolland be so caring, compassionate, and sympathetic when he was at fault for everything the children endured over the previous eight hours?

“Rolland. I need your help,” Sean yelled.

Rolland looked to Sean, nodded, and turned back to Lanker. Lanker nodded his head, and Rolland turned away, running toward Sean. Lanker followed, but he walked. They exited TAC, Sean hopeful that this time a death would not occur.

Fram Gage and The Three Adversaries will be available in eBook form June 15, 2012. Catch up on the series now by reading Fram Gage and The Infinite Ability for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or other eReading device.

A couple months ago, I began watching the television show Awake. The premise—a man is in a car accident with his family and finds himself in two realities where one has his wife surviving the crash and the other his son surviving the crash, every time he falls asleep and wakes up he finds himself in the other reality—seemed perfect for all sorts of fun plot lines.

And it is! Some of the episodes of this show have been so intense I can’t believe it. Over the past few weeks, I kept thinking that I was watching the season finale of the show each time it aired. But it wasn’t. That’s how good this show is.

So where’s my complaint?

Here it is: The show has been cancelled!

Nooooooooooo!!!!

Now, I will get over it. But with today’s multiple avenues to watch TV, can we really trust Nielsen all the way? Can a network allow a show to go off the air because they can’t track the complete number of potential viewers now and in the future? Netflix. Hulu. And so on. The answer is, “Yes they can.”

So I am disappointed the show is done (the finale airs this Thursday), but it looks like the writers at least have a chance to wrap up the show properly instead of having a cliffhanger that ends up like Alcatraz (which is also cancelled by the way).

If you haven’t watched Awake, do yourself a favor and watch it. You will not be disappointed.

Photo © Iperl / Dreamstime.com

There’s nothing like watching a movie together as a family and eating some hot popcorn with it. In my family, we really love to make kettle corn. The mixture of sweet and salty, along with the crunch popcorn, combine to make the perfect snack.

It’s also a great snack because my daughter has a lot of food allergies, so she can’t eat the normal buttery popcorn most people enjoy. Kettle corn allows her to enjoy the same snack food with us, which makes her smile from ear to ear.

If you haven’t tried kettle corn, I suggest you try making it using the recipe below. If you like it, but never made it, the same applies.

Ingredients

1/3 Cup of Vegetable/Canola Oil

1/3 Cup of Sugar

2/3 Cup of  Popcorn (white or yellow and unpopped)

4-5 pinches of Sea Salt (or regular salt)

Directions

I highly suggest you use an aluminum popcorn popping pot with a crank in it such as the Whirley-Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper I use.

Place the popper on the stove setting the heat in between high and medium. Pour 1/3 cup of vegetable/canola oil into the pan and allow it to heat for 30 seconds to a minute. Pour in 2/3 cup of unpopped popcorn into the popper. Crank at a fast rate. When the first kernels begin to pop, pour in 1/3 cup of sugar (this is a crucial step as it properly dissolves the sugar because of the high temperature and it fuses it to the popped popcorn). Continue to crank popper quickly until popping stops. Dump popcorn in a large bowl. Careful its hot! Take one pinch of sea salt and spread over popcorn. Using your hands, mix up the popcorn to spread out the salt. Do this 3-4 more times or to your preferred taste. Serve and enjoy!

Kettle corn is best served warm. Trust me! But it is still good even if it reaches room temperature. Also, my kids love cranking the popcorn popper and putting on the salt, so be sure to get them involved for an added level of fun for your family.

Warning: Do not expect this one batch to last you more than 20 minutes of a movie. In my family of four, we eat it all up in less than that amount of time.

If you gave the above recipe a try, I’d love to know how it came out. Post your thoughts in the comments below.

———————————————————————-

B.C. Young is the author of many science fiction eBooks available on the Amazon Kindle, Nook, and other eReader devices. He also writes under the pen name Desmond Shepherd. He enjoys spending time with his family, reading,  and watching movies.

He hopes you’ll give his kettle corn recipe a shot. He knows for a fact you will love it!

I’m offering these for $7.99, which is $2.00 cheaper than what they cost without a signature and bookmark. That’s quite the deal if you ask me! Which you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway.

If you would like a copy of the book, click the PayPal buy button below, buy it, and I will ship it out to you!

If you bought one of my books during April, I thank you greatly.

Enjoy!

April 2012 Sales Numbers

• 3 - The Present
• 3 - Sunrise (Miscorrection)
• 2 - Fram Gage and The Infinite Abiltiy (Print Edition)
• 1 - Awry (Miscorrection)
• 1 - Copy Bird
• 1 - Felix Culpa (Miscorrection)
• 1 - Panacea (Miscorrection)
• 1 - Sundown (Miscorrection)

Total Sales: 13

Total Money Earned: $21.38

UPDATE: Along with the criteria listed below, allow this question to influence your decision on which cover is better: Which book cover has more of a superhero/comic book feel to it?

With the release of Fram Gage and The Three Adversaries about one and a half months away, I had to start thinking about the cover for the book.

The nice thing about a series is the fact that once the initial cover is made, subsequent books work from that cover. There’s a little less work in the design, because the general layout is already established.

Still, that doesn’t make it easy to make the new cover. Which is why I have narrowed down my book cover options to two. But I really don’t know which one I like best. I have reasons to say each is the better cover.

I figured you might be able to help me in this regard. Below are images for my two proposed covers. Take a look at them. Figure out which one catches your eye the most and compliments the cover of the previous book, too. Which one makes you want to read the book more?

After you have decided, scroll to the bottom of this post where you can vote for your favorite cover. The cover with the most votes will be the one I use.

I’d appreciate it if you could share this post with your family and friends. Feel free to do so my using any of the “Share It” options at the end of this post.

Thanks for you help!

Cover #1

Cover #2

It’s been a while since I posted under this name. The main reason for this is that I have been hard at work writing the next Fram Gage novel.

The writing of the book is going well, and I expect to have the first draft complete at the end of April or beginning of May. The tentative (emphasis on tentative) title for the book is Fram Gage and The Three Adversaries.

As I approach completion of the first draft, I will need to have some people read the book after I have completed my personal editing.

So, I am putting a call out to all readers, looking for willing participants to be in a beta reading program for Fram Gage and The Three Adversaries. This would involve you checking the MOBI or EPUB file I sent you for formatting errors and finding typos and inconsistencies within the story. Grammatical errors are not as much an issue, because many times I intentionally make the grammar incorrect to give stories a more organic feel. However, sentences that are hard to understand as a result of the grammar error would need to be corrected.

I expect to have a beta version of the book ready by the middle of May and would give 2-4 weeks for readers to read the book and send back their corrections.

Why is this worth it for you? First, you’ll get to read the story before publication and you receive it for free. Consider yourself very important to have this opportunity. You can brag about it to your friends and say how you’re all chummy with me. In a word, it makes you special. Second, all beta readers will receive a copy of the first book in the series, Fram Gage and The Infinite Ability. That’s an extra incentive, though not nearly as cool as being special.

If you think you are interested, please contact me via the About section of this site.

For those willing to participate, I thank you in advance for you help!

Let’s hope I see an upward trend in the coming months!

Paid Sales for March 2012:

• 3 - Miscorrection: Dimensions
• 1 - All My Fiction
• 1 – Don’t Blink
• 1 - Fram Gage and The Infinite Ability
• 1 - Fram Gage and The Infinite Ability (Print Edition)
• 1 - Felix Culpa (Miscorrection)
• 1 - Going Home
• 1 - Miscorrection: Preludes
• 1 - The Present
• 1 - Sunrise (Miscorrection)