New Release: Space Vacation, Special Edition!

As a writer, let me tell you it’s no small thing to have people tell you good things about your work, or sharing with you how your writing made them feel, or how they enjoyed it. It’s deeply meaningful to us as writers – and I am no exception to this rule. Looking back, this was one of the stories I’ve enjoyed writing the most in my career – and that enjoyment also carries over to the reader. That’s why, for me, “Space Vacation” has always occupied a special place in my writing career – not because the first people who gave me feedback only had good things to say about it – or because they happened to be friends, but because this story was both a stepping stone in my journey of growth as a writer – and a product of it.

This story represented a litany of “firsts” for me; at just over 14,000 words, the first iteration of “Space Vacation” was, until 2014, the longest short story I’d ever written. It was also the first time I’d ever attempted to write a story in the first person – and succeeded at it.

I’d started writing it from scratch, and from the moment inspiration struck me, I wrote at a blistering pace until I finished the first draft in just over three days!

“Space Vacation” was first published in “Fearotica”, a 2015 sci-fi/horror anthology by JEA, and in 2016 it was one of the first new titles I published shortly after taking the plunge back into indie publishing again. The paperback version was presented in pocketbook format, a size I felt was the correct one for a novel, and still do. Included in the first edition were a few illustrations drawn by yours truly, but in the first edition, they were small and in grayscale. That didn’t mean it was all smooth sailing for this story however. Space Vacation was right at the leading edge of my early growth and learning curve as an author, and so it fell whim to some of my uncertainties about how to do things while I was learning the indie ropes as it were.

In 2017, I took the first edition version of the story out of print again and reworked it into a considerably longer iteration approaching 40,000 words. At the time, I considered rebranding it and entertained the notion of sticking it into the fourth slot in the Galaxii Series under the title “Lange’s Legacy”. I changed my mind about that however, and instead included it as a sub-plot in “Life Signs”, volume 2 of my Panic! Horror In Space series. It’s still there, and it works just fine where it is – but something was still lacking to me – the original standalone version of “Space Vacation”!

So here it is, presented once again in its original unadulterated, unattached form – complete with color illustrations, for your enjoyment! I hope you enjoy this story in its original form, as much as I do.

Space Vacation

Everybody likes to take a vacation now and then, and perhaps on the rarer occasion, people like to take an extra-special holiday.

In the more likely case of the wealthy – and less frequently, the extremely lucky – this means a cruise off-world on one of those really fancy star-liners that go from one system to the next, picking up and dropping off glittering and excitedly chattering passengers along the way. People bluffed themselves that space travel was perfectly safe, allowing the numbers and statistics to persuade them that if anything bad was going to happen, then it would more likely happen to someone else, on some other ship, on some other voyage, in some other star system. Except when it didn’t.

‘Paradise between the planets’, they called it. Most of the time, that’s how it was. But not this time.

On the last voyage of the Demeter – a deep space star-liner with the Red Star Line, passengers and crew got more than they bargained for. Way more.

Read more.

Critical Reviews:

A trio of enjoyable sci-fi tales filled with mystery, fun and revelations…

“…I particularly enjoyed ‘Lange’s Legacy’ [“Space Vacation”] which carried a certain detective vibe while also being full of twists and revelations.” – Lee Hall, UK writer & reviewer of ‘Life Signs‘, May 09, 2023.

Reader’s Comments: 

“You started my day with a boom with that fun read – and I was kinda running late. I started in bed, in the bath, then on the bed, and then halfway out the door, LOL I COULDN’T STOP!” – Luna Eir, 2014.

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