This is Exciting!
Amelia Counterrevolution flies off the shelves
Amelia: Counterrevolution
#1 New Release in British Short Stories
It is always fun when a new release gets a #1 flag, though for some reason, this one is not the usual orange.
Here is the blurb:
The UK gambled.
The UK lost.
The right people won.
That didn’t backfire at all.
In a critical moment for British society, the UK government created, not a video game, but a propaganda tool intended to prevent youth from being “radicalized.” In the most stunning of unintended consequences, that game introduced to the world Amelia, now a digital icon for the conservative ideas the creators feared as having too much influence.
Amelia: Counterrevolution is an anthology of Tales from the Lemurverse, celebrating irony, farce, and the embrace of Western civilization, culture and history that the Amelia meme has now triggered world-wide. In Amelia: Counterrevolution, readers will find a varied, entertaining approach to the latest internet phenomenon.
Here is the opening to my story, which appears in this anthology.
Rachel Griffin waited on a hard bench in the lobby of Old Scotland Yard in London, swinging her feet and flipping the pages of a book as she memorized it so she could read it later.
Clang!
She spun her head around and looked over her shoulder just as a young woman with lavender hair and a black choker kicked a metallic rubbish bin a second time.
“Zoë!” Rachel jumped up and ran towards the older young woman. Then she skidded to a halt, adding in her posh accent, “Hold on…you’re not Zoë Forrest.”
“No. I’m Amelia.”
The young woman stepped back from the bin. She had lavender hair and wore a choker, but in no other way did she look like Rachel’s hair-color-changing friend. She was English, not Maori, spoke RP without a New Zealand accent , andwore a purple cardigan, a pink dress. Zoë would never have been caught dead in such an outfit, but Rachel thought it looked quite smart on this young woman.
Amelia was not tall, but she towered over the petite Rachel. Despite her obvious disagreement with the aluminium bin, she gave the shorter girl an encouraging smile.
“I’m Rachel Griffin.” Rachel bobbed a curtsy. “Are you upset about something? I could not help but notice you kicked a rubbish bin.”
“The Agents of the Wisecraft refused to help me,” Amelia said.
“Why ever not?” asked Rachel, startled.
“Because my friend who needs help is Unwary.”
“What?” Rachel exclaimed, astonished. That did not sound like the Agents of the Wisecraft she knew. One of the main purposes of the Agents was supposed to be to protect the Unwary, those who were not part of the World of the Wise, from magic. “That’s not right. Come with me. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“You?” Amelia looked her up and down dubiously, taking in Rachel’s wide eyes like those of her Korean grandmother, her straight, shoulder-length black hair, and her red wool duffle coat, “A twelve-year-old?”
“First, I’m almost sixteen. And second—”
“Wait. Did you say Griffin? You’re Agent Griffin’s daughter!”
Rachel nodded.
“Daughter of the boss!” Amelia gave a cheerful whistle. “I wager that’ll make them listen.”
“What seems to be the trouble?” asked Rachel.
“Someone has ensorcelled my friend.”
“And you want him disenchanted?”
“No. I can disenchant him. I just want him back. Out of the reeducation center.”
“Oh! And the Agents don’t want to interfere with an Unwary matter. That makes more sense.” Rachel considered this. “I can help you.”
“You?” Amelia asked again.
“I attend Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts, where I am accounted a decent duelist, among other accomplishments.” Rachel spoke more haughtily than she had intended. She hated having to toot her own horn. She pulled her dueling wand out of her coat sleeve, twirled it, and slipped it away again. “I have quite a few freezing hexes stored in here.”
“Not a bad spell to use, should we find ourselves afoul of Unwary authorities,” acknowledged Amelia.
Rachel added, “And I happen to know the Agents are quite busy today, which is why I am stuck here in the lobby, waiting for my father, when we should have left over an hour ago. Just let me write him a note.”
Rachel wrote her father a note, promising to come for lunch another day. She added that she had become tired of waiting and was returning home. No point in letting him worry.
Returning to Amelia, she said, “Also, I have a new pair of magical glasses that let me see what kind of a spell a person’s under. Could be useful.”
Amelia glanced back toward the forbidding front desk of the Wisecraft. She shrugged. “Cannot hurt to try.”
Read the rest here!
(If you have read either The Awful Truth about Forgetting or “Test of the Prophet,” you will recognize a line or a bit of a scene But it’s a good line..and very appropriate for Easter!)
In other news, the Kickstarter has also been wildly successful. We have blown past about seven or eight Stretch Goals. You can still jump on board for $1 and get all the stretch goal goodies! FOUR DAYS TO GO!
Everything else on that page is horrible. I despair for the future now. Why would you post such a link?