Saying Farewell to a Coworker

Sometimes the people I know find their way into my stories. I usually will honor a friend by naming a character after them but that character never looks or acts anything like the person they are named after. Such was the case for a friend who works with me at my day job. He has always been one of my best fans and has read many of my books. When I was writing Devon’s Blade I decided to honor him by creating a character named after him. That character was called Hank in the novel. For those of you who haven not read the novel, Hank dies in the end. But my friend always insisted that his death was never confirmed and that Hank lived!

This week is my friend’s last week with my work group. He’s moving on to bigger and better things and we’re all going to miss him around the office. To honor him, I wrote him a short story about Hank and what happened after Devon’s Blade finished. I hope you enjoy it as much as my friend did. Maybe someday I’ll include it in a new version of the ebook. But for now, you can read it right here, on the blog.

Goodbye, Hank.

Short Stories Now On Kobo

Are you a fan of short fiction? Did you read the Star Saga books and wish there were more stories set in that universe? Really? Wow, I thought only I wanted that. Cool. Well, if you want more Devon Ardel, Red Allen and Thirty-seven, you’re in luck. Just head on over to your phone’s app store and get the Kobo ebook app. Then you can start downloading ebooks of all my short stories set in the Star Saga universe. Kobo is the exclusive publisher for my short fiction. You can’t get these stories on Amazon or anywhere else in ebook format.

Each short story ebook will set you back a whole US dollar! So choose wisely. Collect them all for hours of reading adventure.

There are eleven individual shorts and one anthology – Tales From Ocherva, that contains many of them. I’ll be adding more stories soon, and from now on when I write a new short story, they will appear on Kobo, and nowhere else!

Free Short Story Ebook

To celebrate the release of my first novella, Devon’s Blade, I’m offering a free short story. Ambush! is set on Kew and is the antithesis of Devon’s Blade in that we see life from the Votainion side. What it’s like to be a pilot flying the KiV-3 against the Alliance pilots. You can get your free ebook for Kindle (mobi) and epub with the links below. If you like the story, please take a moment to purchase Devon’s Blade because you’ll really enjoy that one.

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(epub) http://ken-mcconnell.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=12

(mobi) http://ken-mcconnell.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=13

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Pre-order the novella here. –> http://www.amazon.com/Devons-Blade-Ken-McConnell-ebook/dp/B015Y01CO8

This novella ebook is only available for Kindle for the first 90 days. I’ll be going wide with it after that.

New Covers for Short Stories

I’ve been spending some time fixing up the ebook versions of my short stories this weekend. I only managed to finish four of them and upload them to Amazon. You should see the new covers appear early next week for them. While I’m in there fixing up things, I’m also turning off Kindle Select on all of them. It looks like come August, I’ll be able to move these stories to Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Kobo’s reader. This will increase my product catalog by 12 titles.

OchervaShortStory      RedAllenShortStory

SlagShortStory      TinStarShortStory

 

As well as putting new images on the covers, I’ve made the “spine” text reflect the correct Star Saga universe. This should lead to much less confusion in the market place. I’ve left the same marble background for these spines, to show that they are from the Starforgers Era. I really don’t think anyone notices these things, but I do. So far I’ve managed to use stock images and do very limited Gimping to them.

 

Ocherva Short Story Free on Kindle

My first published short story, Ocherva is FREE on Kindle for the next five days. This story was featured in the anthology Barren Worlds from Hadley Rille Press. If you like this story, please go and pick up the anthology, you won’t be disappointed.

This Space Western story is the first to feature the main character of the Starforgers Era trilogy from the Star Saga. Devon Ardel is the fast shooting, hard drinking sheriff of the Stellar Ranger unit on the barren, Outer Rim moon of Ocherva. This is what happened when she first got to the moon and how its mysterious features changed her forever.

New Short Story and Some Drawings

I found a remnant of a short story and decided to finish it up. It’s a starfighter story from the enemy’s point of view. Set in the years just after the start of the Great War, it tells the story of the birth of “The Red Ace” of Voton. The war’s first hated enemy ace, Kron. He flew the KIV-3 fighter from a base on , a remote Alliance planet known as Alifax.

That’s about all I’m at liberty to discuss about the story for now. But I’m authorized to show you these thumbnail sketches of a Votainion resupply freighter in the story. It’s a three canister model with a single, C class tunnel drive. The Votainions had tunnel drive ships before the Alliance.

Here are some draft sketches I did as I was finalizing the design. The KIV-3 is shown for scale because its a single seat fighter. I might just have to build this bad boy for a cover art photo shoot.

The story will be offered to subscribers of my newsletter for free. So if you want to read it when it comes out, best hand over your email address and join the fight. For the Emperor, of course! *slams fist over chest in salute. (Below is a model of a KIV-3)

New Pa’adhe Story Up

Late Roman Shipwreck voyageAnatolia.blogspot.com via Compfight

My writer friend Bill Blohm has posted a new short story in his Pa’adhe Series today. It’s called Dreamland. I’m one of Bill’s Beta readers and I have to say, I really love this series of short stories. If you’re into historical pieces, old ships or just very interesting Fantasy stories based on a common cast of characters, you will love them too.

Do check it out and let Bill know if you like them!

 

Free Kindle Short Story – War Stories

Today and Saturday you can download my short story – War Stories for free on Kindle. This experimental short tells the stories of three human soldiers who fought in The Great War between the Alliance and the Votainion Empire. The stories are taken from the Life Recorders implanted in the soldiers and each person is brought to life using a holo-projector.

This is the only short story that is set in the Third Generation of the war, the same time frame as the final book in the Star Trilogy – Starveyors. That is why the spine is steel colored and not marble or concrete. Starveyors will be out this fall.