Foreshadows: The Ghosts of Zero is a 19-story anthology of dark science fiction intertwined with a 19-track album of songs and soundtrack music, created collaboratively by a veritable shadow gallery of speculative fiction authors and musicians, under the banner of the Very Us Artists, to be published by Blindsided Books.

In this essay, editor and author Jeff LaSala tells us what sort of stories are contained therein…

A visceral ride through a bio-punk future where life is cheap and death is the only way out. Welcome to 2085, the year of the rabbit. Fluorescent Black takes the reader into the hard-hitting dark future of South East Asia where gene-tech has divided humankind into two races: the rich, healthy Superiors and the sick, crazy Inferiors. These two races live in neighboring cities separated by a heavily fortified border. A superior named Nina is the test model for cutting edge genetic designs. She is a paragon of physical and mental health: her brain and body represent billions of dollars worth of corporate research and development. During a bio-terrorist attack, Nina is kidnapped by a street gang and taken across the border into a ghetto full of man-made splice animals, psychopathic hookers, drug addled freaks, deadly insects, poisonous ecosystems, and abandoned tenements. When the corporations tighten their dragnet, the gang quickly discovers that this is no ordinary captive… but she may be the key to solving all of their problems.

Foreshadows: The Ghosts of Zero is a 19-story anthology of dark science fiction intertwined with a 19-track album of songs and soundtrack music, created collaboratively by a veritable shadow gallery of speculative fiction authors and musicians, under the banner of the Very Us Artists, to be published by Blindsided Books.

In this essay Jeff and John LaSala tell us a bit about how the project got started and just what readers can look forward to as this project continues…

CCP, one of the world’s leading independent game developers, has announced a new expansion for all subscribers and trial users of EVE Online that will be released in November, 2010. EVE Online: Incursion will feature the escalating attacks of the deadly Sansha’s Nation which is bent on instituting its own utopia and exacting vengeance against the pilots who stand in its way. Pilots can join public fleets and co-operate to destroy the Sansha incursions and return the universe to normal, receiving wealthy bounties, earning loyalty rewards and high commendation.

EVE Online: Incursion will also include many improvements as suggested by the Council of Stellar Management, as well as hardware upgrades, software improvements and new cluster components aimed at increasing game and fleet battle performance to even higher levels.

So when we last everyone’s favorite and most famous gunner, Avery Cates, in the Digital Plague, he was on his knees and smiling. Hoping that this was the end, and that the universe would just put the bullet in his head and let him rest. I mean he had already survived an uprising from cybernetic monks, being patient number zero for a world killing nano robotic plague, and of course the seemingly endless stream of System Security Force cops trying to take down public enemy number one. You know what? I would be smiling too.

Last week David Hill shared some of his thoughts on the creative process that went into the new RPG, Maschine Zeit in an essay called: Ghost Stories on Space Stations here at Flames Rising.

Now we’re pleased to show you a sneak peek at the setting of this game with a little bit of fiction called The Scholar and The Sages.

Maschine Zeit is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Weird “Haunted Science-Fiction” ongoing comic book series celebrates the end of its beginning by entering the doomed domain of retail pamphlet comics.

Dead Man Holiday, a well-received “Haunted Science-Fiction” ongoing comic book series self published by Colin Panetta, will release its third issue on December 30th, 2009. The series’ plot centers around Thad Planck, a low-rent security guard in a flooded and abandoned neighborhood known as Little Atlantis, where there have been some strange things growing and walking around as of late. The first two issues of Dead Man Holiday can be downloaded for free at the comic book’s website, DeadManHoliday.com. The fittingly aloof blurb for the new issue reads: “Little Atlantis is getting weird. So when a straw (in the form of a falcon carrying a dismembered hand) breaks the camel’s (our man Thad Planck’s, that is) back, the camel decides to strike back and show the weirdness who’s in charge. But not before making a sandwich. Can Thad keep Little Atlantis in check? Not without a little help from his friends. Or maybe just not at all.”

After a brief short story demonstrating how a diverse group of different backgrounds might come together and meet foes known to at least one of them, this work dives straight in to present some new magical traditions. These traditions incorporate the underlying philosophy that a magic user might study, different ways of thinking about magic, and suggest the sorts of ritual practices suitable for a student of that tradition.

The first one is the Egyptian tradition. Magic users raised in this tradition base their beliefs on those of Ancient Egypt, using imagery and items from that period, scribing hieroglyphs and visualising their powers as emanating from an appropriate deity of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon.

Kitty Norville didn’t mean to become a popular radio personality. In fact, she could remember when she didn’t even enjoy having the night shift. But as a werewolf, her habits have gotten more and more nocturnal, and one bored night at the microphone discussing the paranormal becomes a talk-show phenomenon. Suddenly syndicated at two hundred stations, Kitty is the center of attention, and not all good. From a professional werewolf hunter named Cormac, to Arturo, head of the local vampire Family, to her own Pack, Kitty’s meeting opposition on all sides.