"Family Values" in COSMOS 16

Issue 16 of Cosmos Magazine is out, with my story "Family Values" in it.

Here's the link to a nice reader comment in the Last Short Story project. I'm glad girliejones felt that way. She even called my writing "smooth".
Now, seriously, I'm glad she liked the goofiness of the story. It was fun to write, unlike some of my darker stories which take tons of frustration and rewrites. I want to write more of these.

Critical Ink

David de Beer reviews Helix #4 on his blog.

This is what he has to say about me:

Sara Genge wrote a clever little story for Mytholog, that I enjoyed enough to place on my MAM of the Flashies list.

Anitta is being followed by two distinctly different men.

A story told in three contrasting pov's, all in first person and rather cleverly working on the premise of thought-diaries, a, I suppose, theoretical advancement of online blogging to some extent.
Very clever, entertaining, and more than a little creepy at times. The dark, savage undercurrents are skillfully executed, and the story never loses its intrigue.
Two nits - 1, the Darwin references is a bit of a wrong perception of what Darwin and natural selection actually means, but can be forgiven since they belong to Claude, and his understanding of natural selection is the same misguided perception held by the public at large.
2, some inconsistency with Claude's pov, and a few stretches of credulity in the plot.
Overall, a thump of a good read, well worth the time and one really can't say too much about this for fear of spoiling the plot.

I'm glad he got the Darwin references. I tried to use the totally screwed up Darwinism as a way to show that the character is seriously sick.

Thanks for the review! Glad you liked the story.

Keep 'em coming.

You suck if...

As writers we sometimes have trouble detecting when our work sucks. The next couple of entries will be devoted to the clues that indicate that your book/story/novel/encyclopedia/whopper sucks.

Number 1: You suck if you have to write your own fake reviews on Amazon

[quote]
The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon[/quote]

This means two things.
a. Your work sucks (because nobody else will review it) and
b. You don't have any friends to do your dirty work for you. The true value of friendship is measured by how many people read your unfinished first drafts. If you can't get anyone to give you a serious review in Amazon, then writing is the least of your problems. Again, if your friends are good people and half as honest as mine, you might get a review in Amazon but it might go something like... "nice setting, didn't get what it was about, and what happened to the Reptilian Humanoids? They were in the draft that I read, and I liked them. How many times do I have to tell you not to kill my favorite characters in the rewrite, you idiot! By the way, party tomorrow, Tom's house. Be there."

This is what in Spanish is called "un amigo de la infancia de los cojones". They know who they are. I love you guys.