Have re-written “Oggie” and re-titled it as “Aug-E”. The beginning of the story has always worked well, but I was forever unhappy with the last version that can be found under the ‘Short Stories’ menu. So I chopped it in half and junked the Paul Calvin ambush story line, preferring to follow my stepdaughters comment about one of the characters, the transgender ‘Pete’. She told me she was disappointed with the original and told me I should have done more with ‘Pete’, so I switched story lines to make it more about the dynamic between the uber-male character Frank Yale and the less physical ‘Pete’.

At a shade under seven thousand words, it’s a much better read than the original and I liked the follow through from the gangland theme in the beginning. I know about gangs and how they work from my experiences in the late 70’s with some of the outlaw biker gangs in Birmingham, UK. Also, having worked with two pre-operative transgenders whilst in nursing college during the early 1980’s, I did some more research and threw in what I knew from personal experience. It seems to ring true. So I’m putting it into the ‘finished’ file.

The story emphasis in Aug-E is now more about transitions, both from the physical and psychological aspects. I’ve got an idea for some basic but interesting artwork and the ending is a lot better, but no spoilers at this point. It will form the key story from a collection of quirky science fiction short stories with the working title “Aug-E and clones”. I have the skeletons of another eleven tales that I shall be working on during January and February, hopefully with a total word count of fifty to sixty thousand words. White on black art for the cover and simple silhouette art for the inside of the hardback as before. It’s a lot simpler, far more striking, and fits in with Stobor Books general artistic ethos. Which it to keep things simple and striking.

Have finished the eBook text for the eBook version of “The Cat Tree and other stories” so should be getting an ISBN for that version in the next week of so, after which that will be released to follow up with the Hardback original which should be hitting Amazon any day now. Although if anyone wants a hard copy, I would prefer it if they bought it direct via this link. That way I get more of the royalties.