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    Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall
    Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall
    Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall
    Ebook64 pages50 minutes

    Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall

    By Rebecca M. Douglass

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    About this ebook

    Author Rebecca M. Douglass writes flash fiction in a wide range of genres, and has been sharing stories on her blog for eight years. Collected here are ten stories no longer available anywhere else, set in drinking establishments ranging the known universe and beyond. Fantasy, science fiction, Weird West, and more, these short stories prove you never know what may happen when people—loosely defined—need a drink. Sit back, enjoy the read, and keep your glass within arm’s reach.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRebecca M. Douglass
    Release dateJan 3, 2021
    ISBN9781005764364
    Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall
    Author

    Rebecca M. Douglass

    After a lifetime of reading and a decade of slinging books at the library and herding cats with the PTA, Rebecca began to turn her experiences into books of her own, publishing her first (The Ninja Librarian) in 2012. That failed to quiet the voices in her head, but seemed to entertain a number of readers, so she wrote some more, which generated still more voices. Despite the unlimited distractions provided by raising children and serving the local schools in various capacities, not to mention the mountains that keep calling (very hard to resist the urging of something the size of the Sierra Nevada), she has managed to produce many more books in the years since. For those who enjoy murder and mayhem with a sense of humor, Rebecca's Pismawallops PTA mysteries provide insights into what PTA moms and island life are really like. Her new Seffi Wardwell mystery series brings her light touch to life on the coast of Maine. If you prefer tall tales and even less of a grip on reality, visit Skunk Corners in The Ninja Librarian and its sequels. And for those who've always thought that fantasy was a bit too high-minded, a stumble through rescues and escapes with Halitor the Hero, possibly the most hapless hero to ever run in fear from any and all fair maidens, should set you straight. Through it all, she has continued to pen flash fiction, for a time sharing a new story on her blog nearly every week. Now those stories are getting new life in a series of novella-length ebooks, with an omnibus paperback coming soon. Why does Rebecca write so many different kinds of books and stories (there's even an alphabet picture book in the mix!)? It might be because she has a rich lifetime of experience that requires expression in many ways, but it's probably just that she's easily distracted. Rebecca has lived in states all over the western US, as well as in Maine and abroad, and currently resides in Seattle, Washington.

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      Book preview

      Strange Drinks - Rebecca M. Douglass

      Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall

      A Flash Fiction Collection

      by

      Rebecca M. Douglass

      This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, events and places portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

      Copyright © 2020 Rebecca M. Douglass

      All rights reserved.

      Smashwords Edition

      ISBN: 9781005764364

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Strange Drinks at the Petestown Saloon

      The Curious Incident at the Long Dogie Saloon

      Too Much Fur at the Long Dogie Saloon

      Night Ride

      Leviathans in the Fog

      In Urgent Need of a Plot

      Joe’s Bar

      The Brink of Disaster

      Someone’s Dragon is Double-Parked

      Don’t Disturb the Librarian

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      Also by Rebecca M. Douglass

      introduction

      Dwarfs and banshees, aliens, cowboys, and wizards. Even librarians. What they all have in common is thirst. And where you have thirsty creatures, you’ll find bars and taverns serving them. This collection highlights some of my favorite bar stories from over the years. Of course, there is also the Ninja Librarian series, which stories frequently feature Two-Timin’ Tess’s Tavern.

      It’s a bit curious that I enjoy setting stories in bars and taverns so much, since I seldom visit such places myself. But there is something about the tavern that lends itself to stories in nearly every genre. I developed my fondness for bar stories decades back, reading Larry Niven’s stories of Draco’s Tavern and visiting Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon with the help of Spider Robinson, not to mention watching westerns on our old black and white TV, where much of the good stuff happened in the saloon.

      Most of these stories started life as flash fiction, and were posted on my blog, The Ninja Librarian, though two are brand new for this collection. After my revisions most are longer than when they were first posted, but all still fall in the word-count range of flash fiction. They’re nuggets meant to be enjoyed at the reader’s leisure, in easily-digestible bites.

      Many of the tales in this collection were written to prompts, and many of those prompts came from Chuck Wendig, who for a number of years posted weekly challenges on his Terrible Minds blog. A lot of those prompts were sub-genre mash-ups, and the results are often bizarre. That’s what I like about them, and I hope you will like that, too. Others are less strange, but all center around a bar of one sort or another.

      Since I started blogging in 2012, I have shared well over 200 short stories, all too often to be read by only a few dedicated followers. Some of the works deserved no more, but I believe that many deserve a wider audience. The stories in this collection and its sister volumes are some of my favorites from over the years, reworked to be more polished than the ephemeral fiction shared on my blog. I enjoyed writing and revising them, and I hope you enjoy reading them!

      This book is part of a set of flash fiction collections, including Wizard Libraries and Dragon Archives; Clue, Cops, and Corpses: A Collection of Minute Mysteries; and Missing Snow: A Collection of Holiday Stories.

      The first four tales in this collection are more or less related tales of the Weird West. The first, Strange Drinks at the Petestown Saloon (Aug. 2013) was written to a prompt and was meant to be a mash-up of Weird West and spy thriller. It ended up being mostly the former and kicked off a series of tales in a very weird West indeed. The Long Dogie Saloon (the setting of the other three tales) isn’t directly connected,

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