{{contact.first_name}}, your July 1 issue of The Dirt is live! New story!
Jul 01, 2021 8:06 pm
THE DIRTY NEW STORY
A few weeks ago I promised a sneak peek at my work in progress if you got me a certain number of clicks in my promo section. You didn’t quite get there, but I said I would think about it. And, well, I’ve thought about it long and hard. I've thought about a lot of other things, too.
So, if we’re having a frank discussion here, my first couple of books didn’t do as well as I hoped. I don’t regret writing them—I learned a lot; I had a blast, and I still adore the craterloving flare out of the rag-tag group of miscreants from my Worlds of Craterball series. Heck, I even have a pretty stellar outline for a third installment that makes me giggle when I think about it. But to describe how I feel in classic dad talk: I’m not upset, I’m just disappointed. I spent a lot of really late nights with little to no sleep working on those stories and it burned me out. For personal sanity, I needed to step back and evaluate.
So I took a couple months off and I started working on something else. It’s a little different from Slab Steele, but I’m having fun writing it. And here’s the kicker, folks. You can read it right now. Not all of it, mind you, but what I’ve posted so far. I plan on adding a few chapters a week as I progress towards the big finish.
You can find my new story over on Royal Road. I go by Starke over there, by the way. If you aren’t familiar with Royal Road, there’s a lot of great fiction that you can read for absolutely free (He Who Fights With Monsters, anyone?). I’ll post a link and a blurb in the next section. Oh, and be sure to click that follow button. I’ll be dropping a new chapter after this goes out tomorrow afternoon, and you don't want to miss that notification.
Thanks for sticking with me, folks. Welp. Without further ado, I bring you…
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Lars Ochre had it all. Success. Fame. Fortune. A forest of back hair. A never ending hunger for snack cakes. Most of all, Lars had a passion for wrestling—he lived for that perfectly choreographed spectacle of showmanship night after night in front of thousands of adoring fans.
But when a strange young man wheels into Lars' lonely life, he suddenly finds himself doing something he thought he would never do—playing that hot new video game all the kids are raving about. There's only one problem: it just might be the thing to kill him.
Unless... he can figure a way out.
Pro Dungeon Impact is a high stakes virtual thrill ride mashing GameLit elements with professional wrestling, and written by a dude whose passions are puns, lame jokes, and maintaining a mental encyclopedia of pop culture references.
READ THE STORY SO FAR HERE
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THE DIRTY PROMO SECTION
Click, click, click, Señora. Click a promo time.
Sci-Fi and Fantasy Giveaway
Out of This World Giveaway
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FREEBIE OF THE FORTNIGHT I
The Neighbor You Don't Know
by Shane Shepherd
After countless years of preparation Mission Terra Firme One is finally ready to commence and give Earth the answers it has long awaited for about the planet Neighbor.
The TSS Cartographer is about to arrive and its First Officer Baldwin “call me Win” Tavares believes that he might just be able to touch his hand to that rocky ground and that’d be enough for him to learn everything there is to know about their old Neighbors, the things they’d done and what they’d left behind.
But not everyone is as kind-hearted or has such noble intentions, and Neighbor holds more mysteries than anyone could have imagined. Exploring it might open the gates for a flood that threatens to drown everything, and Win must make decisions that hold his life, and that of all around him, at stake.
GET YOUR FREE COPY
* * *
FREEBIE OF THE FORTNIGHT II
Tethered
by Vaughn Ashby
This book has Laughs, Sex, Monsters, Mysteries, and a dick ton of other really cool stuff that I won’t spoil here. You want to be cool, right? Well, then you better read this book, I mean all your cool friends already have. Don’t ask them, just trust Vaughn.
GET YOUR FREE COPY
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READ OF THE FORTNIGHT
Rupture: Nine Sci-Fi Stories
by HW Taylor
!
The stories of Rupture by H. W. Taylor are full of wounds and triumph, alien wonder and stark reckonings. These nine stories are a razor sharp shaft of light in the world of science fiction, tackling the gamut of desires. From the romance of Rut, Ice Souls, and Discount Baby, to the beautiful, broken humanity and brutal horror of Paradox Lost, Grey Lady, and Chimera, there is a fierce grace that enlivens every tale. With The Last Song of Mars, Defiance, and the Prisoner of Sand, Taylor renews the magic of classic sci-fi, rendering its brooding guilt and bright hope for the modern age.
GET YOUR FREE COPY
***Head's Up from Ron: This book was for sure free on 07/01 when I sent this out. These free promos only last a couple of days, so it could be back to full price if you were slacking on checking your email.***
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I know, I know. I’m beating a dead horse here. But if it’s not too much trouble, please take a moment to leave a review or rating of my work at one of the links below. Hearing a few nice words, seeing a new rating pop up, or finding out that someone actually got a laugh out of one of my stupid jokes makes me glow like I’ve been lit with the fires of Sol. Plus, in a world obsessed with stars and algorithms, every bit of exposure helps.
-Ron-
Slab Steele and the Venusian Exchange
Slab Steele and the Outer Rim Job
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"You have no right to challenge! You are not Thark!"
https://www.ronstarkebooks.com
https://www.facebook.com/RonStarkeBooks
Haven’t got your copy of Slab Steele and the Venusian Exchange yet? What are you waiting for? Now on Amazon and Audible.
Itching for more Slab Steele? You can buy the sequel, Slab Steele and the Outer Rim Job, today.
Okay, so you’re looking for a freebie. Grab The Mercurian Endeavor then.
