Three things I love in science fiction: giant robots, punk rock teens, and hostile colony planets. So it’s probably no surprise my SF novelette, ONE LAST SEASON, combines all three.
Maya is a technically gifted kid on the ice planet Javal, the daughter of a punk afficionado and a passionate terraforming activist. When Maya’s dad pawns the one thing her dead mother left her—a battered Fender Stratocaster worth thousands of credits—Maya’s only hope of getting it back is winning first price in Javal’s racing mecha racing circuit.
It should be easy: Maya’s built her own mech out of spare parts and rewritten code, and her best friend Alex is one of the hottest mecha pilots on the planet.
Pity Alex’s kleptocratic family has their own ideas about the races, and their friendship will be tested when they race their own high-end mech in this year’s circuit. Maya and her mech Cee-Bee-Gee-Bee might be good enough to beat any other robot on the planet, but defeating Alex and her state-of-the-art racer Ruby-Go-Go will take something special.
Maya’s got an idea that just might do it, but the price may be more than she’s willing to pay…
ONE LAST SEASON is now live on my Patreon, accessible for patrons at the $1 a month level and upwards. The rest of the world won’t get a chance to read this one for at least three months, so if you’d like to access this and over thirty other speculative fiction short stories (with new stories rolling out every week) hie yourself over to www.petermball.com/Patreon and throw a little spare change my way.
Mal and Jill Cooper’s Help! I’m An Author! series. Three books on blurbs, Facebook ads, and launch rhythms, all short enough to be consumed in a day or so.
I’ve ended up taking a short, unscheduled break from writing newsletters over the last fourteen days. Regular GenrePunk Ninja transmissions will resume
Like many of you, I have good weeks and bad weeks on the writing front. This week has been rocky, and if
Welcome to GenrePunk Ninja supplemental, where I occasionally post foundational essays written before I launched the GenrePunk Ninja newsletter, especially if they’re
