I, Effing Feline, don’t believe in this human nonsense of reviewing the year that is ending. You wouldn’t want to look behind either if the only tool you had to wipe your butt was your tongue. The view ain’t great.
Christmas is over and so are the snippets from Alien Contact for a Christmas Nutcracker. (Ed might disagree; he played a performance of Nut C Saturday and has another today — but tough. I declare it OVER.) In its place, I’m snippeting from a book that Ed is revisiting, renaming, and re-covering, It used to be called The Midas Rush. Now it isn’t.
Here we meet the hero of the tale, Tresky Buffrum, a rather naive young shepherd from the mountains of the colony planet Jones. A few days before, he came to visit the planet’s largest city, population 50,000, for the first time. Here we find him on the morning after overindulging on his wedding night.
Tresky made the mistake of opening his eyes. Light stabbed his brain like a firespear thorn. He groaned.
“Awake, are ye?”
The words filled Tresky’s ears with boiling agony. He groaned again and rolled onto his side. The speaker was a short, squat man, bald except for a fringe of kinky auburn hair with a gold streak over his ear.
Moving his head as little as possible, Tresky glanced around the dark hovel where he lay. One wall stood open to a corridor where the stranger was sweeping. The hovel was smaller than the stall for birthing sheep, back home.
Effing Feline here again. All I need to know about the New Year is that, looking forward with 20/20 vision, the coming year will be better for me. I’m certain of it. It will, it will, it will.
Or else somebody is going to pay!
Be sure to visit the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.
And finally, Ed got a neat Christmas present from InD’tale magazine — a five star review of Love thy Galactic Enemy.
Ed Hoornaert (Mr. Valentine) 
Congratulations on the 5 star review!
And the new book sounds intriguing! Where is his new wife?
That’s what he wants to know, too — where did his wife get to!
Great opening of this story. 🙂
Effing, I now understand why you really don’t want to review the last year. lol Never saw how tough it is for cats.
Happy New Year, Ed–and Effing. 😉
Actually, this is chapter two. Chapter one was his wedding night.
Doesn’t sound like he made it to bed. I wonder what his new wife thinks of that.
Well, she’s run out on him.
So he doesn’t know where he is, much less where his wife is! Rough start, and knowing the author, it’s only going to get worse.
Sheesh. You make it sound like I’m a meanie or something.
An ominous way to wake up for sure…great snippet!
Yep. Talk about the morning after the night before.
What a crazy way to wake up and find out you don’t know where you are or where your wife is. I’m intrigued to find out more.
It’s not the best day he’s ever had . . . and yes, it’ll get worse.
I’m looking forward to the new year along with Effing. The snippet is an attention grabber, Ed. Congrats on the fabulous review. Happy New Year.
Thank so much, Mary, and Happy New Year to you.
Not the best beginning to a marriage if the next morning you don’t know where either you or your wife is. And yes, I expect it to go downhill from there. LOL Congrats, Ed, on the 5 star review!
How much worse can his marriage get, though?
What a way to wake up! Esp. after one’s wedding night.This sounds like the beginning of a fun book. Happy New Year, Ed.
Kind of makes you want to roll over and go back to sleep, doesn’t it?
So he doesn’t know where he is and his wife is gone. That’s some way to wake up.
It gives new meaning to the phrase “a rude awakening.”
Sounds like he has quite a hangover. Is the sweeping too loud? Can’t wait to read more!
“Is the sweeping too loud?” For a sci fi author, this challenged me to imagine a situation in which manual sweeping might be too loud.
Right now he’s probably wishing he drank less. I’m curious about the hovel, though. Also excellent review!
The hovel is in a place called The Happy Louse. That tells you most of what you need to know.
Not exactly the best situation to wake up in. Hopefully, things will start looking up pretty quickly.
Congrats on the 5-star review!
This is intended to be the reverse of a somewhat stereotypical situation where a woman, rather than a man, wakes up in guy’s bed and doesn’t remember anything.