I've had several medical professionals tell me this is the worst allergy season they've seen. The actually didn't have to tell me; I can feel it.

Also, for the first day or so after getting allergy shots (every two weeks) I feel very sluggish. I got my shots yesterday. Oog.

I'm looking for questions people in the Angel universe would ask Aaron/Malak. (I already have "What do you wear under those robes?" :-)

I can't guarantee to use any suggested questions, or even to give answers to the questions I use. Don't worry if the questions are inane or serious; I can use both.

Heh. I love puns. In the next "Angel of..." story Aaron/Malak encounters someone who can make cutting remarks.

I don't read a lot of fiction these days. Neither do I always think things through. The Masks series was originally written in response to the first Incredibles movie. They were intended for the entertainment of myself and other members of the Transformation Stories Archives. If I had realized it would become a commercial product I'd have called it something besides Masks, which is too generic.

Likewise, I didn't realize there was already a series titled "Angel" on BCTS or I would have lumped together my "Angel of..." stories under another title.

An excerpt from The Modern Age, an unfinished novel set in the Thirties of the Masks universe:

"Wow," whispered Dutch, looking over the edge of the roof at the street far below. He glanced back at the Night Master, who was preparing to throw a grapple wrapped in rags across the gap between the buildings. "You've done this before?"

"Many times," the Night Master replied, as he sent the padded hook whistling through the air. It caught on a vent pipe projecting from the roof of the penthouse of the lower, neighboring building.

I am still only about a third of the way through writing the next Masks story, so I am posting an unconnected short story. This is set in the same world as "The Master of Cuts" and "In the Hollow of the Devil's Hand."

Masks 23 has dropped on Amazon. Yay!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1KFVXQ

Another reason I like characters with bird wings is one of my favorite childhood books: The juvenile novel Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Wikipedia says it came out in 1967 and I must have first read it within a couple of years at most. I now have an ex-school library hardback book of the 1972 edition.

Ugh. Next "Freddy on the Loose" is coming along but very slowly.

I keep having ideas for what to put in the next Masks story.

Hope everybody has a Filling Secondary Turkey Day tomorrow. :-)

About forty minutes after I went to bed last night, the power went off again. This time just the once. I wasn't sound asleep, and the emergency light in the hall coming on woke me. I checked everything, then went back to bed. My calico was a bit upset, presumably due to the UPSes beeping, but was easily calmed. I managed to doze some, but didn't get soundly to sleep. About three hours later the power came back on. This time it was off long enough that the UPS keeping the video recorder alive ran down. I was wide awake, so I set the clock and reprogrammed it.

I upgraded my iMac to Sonora about two weeks ago. I immediately had several problems, some of which turned out to not be fixable. I had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the previous OS (Ventura) then restore my Apps and data from backup. First thing the iMac does after successfully booting is tell me I need to upgrade to Sonoma. Yeah, not gonna happen for a while.

I submitted Part 8 this morning, but it didn't post. I think it went through this time.

As of this morning (June 30) Amazon shows the following sales statistics:

#43 in Crime & Mystery Science Fiction
#72 in LGBTQ+ Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
#87 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)

My old cable modem died of a voltage spike which occurred during last week's wind storm. It has been replaced. I'm back online!