Release Blitz, Innovation by Various Authors

Innovation

Author Name: Various

Publisher: Other Worlds Ink

Release Date: Saturday, August 8 2020

Format: Paperback, eBook

Word Count: 36000

Cover Artist: J. Scott Coatsworth

Genres: sci fi, fantasy, paranormal, horror, romance

Pairings: various

Tropes: LGBTIQ+

Series Title: Queer Sci Fi’s Flash Fiction Contest

Position (Number) in Series: 6

Necessary to Read Previous Books: No

Book Blurb:

IN-NO-VA-TION (Noun)

1) A new idea, method, or device.

2) The introduction of something new.

3) The application of better solutions to meet unarticulated needs.

Three definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell. Here are 120 of our favorites.

Innovation features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Series Blurb:

Every year Queer Sci Fi holds a flash fiction contest that solicits stories from writers around the world, and publishes the best stories as an annual anthology.

“Innovation” Unique Excerpt: Fairy Circle

Maria Zoccola

Alex knows they’ve been left behind when dusk is dimming the edges of the hawthorn trees and the IAH Kaga Maru (Trading Class) still hasn’t reentered Oby’s atmosphere. Alex accesses the dataport on the inside of their wrist and shuts off the keys for both sorrow and regret, which are unhelpful responses. A helpful response: internal systems scan. Unhelpful
result: powercell at twenty percent. Helpful action: find charging port. Alex starts walking.

The hawthorns give way to rowans and chestnuts and great spreading oak trees, green arms locked overhead like the aluminum ribs inside the IAH Kaga Maru (Trading Class). Alex shuts off the key for homesickness, an unhelpful response. They climb over roots and fallen logs, and startle at small mammals darting from the underbrush. Alex shuts off the key for startling. Dark comes, and then dawn, and then day. Powercell at two percent. There are no charging ports. Alex shuts off several more unhelpful response keys. Helpful action: undefined. Repeat request.

Helpful action: undefined. Alex lays themself down in a clearing ringed with spotted fungi where the small mammals do not seem to go. They shut off the key for fear. They shut off the key for hope. They power down.
Alex blinks awake to the burning star of a full powercell in their chest and a great white light dancing all around them, reaching out tendrils of energy like arms and legs and long sharp teeth, but Alex has shut down all keys. They have no response. Blank as an empty ship, Alex offers up their wrist to the light. They feel nothing as the energy drowns their dataport: a single
overwhelming command, an agonizing override, and then Alex feels all of it, feels everything, resistors flooded with pure emotion, gorgeous and ugly and new new new.

Giveaway:

Queer Sci Fi is giving away your choice of a $20 Amazon gift card OR a print copy of four of the other five flash fiction books in the series – Flight, Renewal, Impact, and Migration (US only unless you are willing to pay the shipping outside the US) with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47138/?