Reluctant_Sir: Blog

I had a couple of questions posted and I could see where it might be confusing, so I thought I would address them here in case others had the same questions.

First was a question about how the feds got Everett Reilly's case. In the first chapter, that was addressed in a news broadcast:

"The murder victims, who had to be exhumed and then identified by DNA testing, were sexually abused, brutally tortured, dismembered, then buried in Reilly's extensive basement. The evidence was incontrovertible since Reilly recorded the inhuman acts for later viewing. The FBI was brought in when autopsies on the remains found in Reilly's basement were positively identified as children from here in Texas, but also in three surrounding states! The Justice Department moved the case into the Federal court system where the US Attorney General is said to have closely monitored the proceedings."

There was also a question about how the second slaver ship found Jack's boat... I addressed that, or sidestepped it, actually with a NEW paragraph inserted and set for upload.

"How did they know where we would be? How did they know to intercept us, Dean?" I asked, the thought striking as I turned to leave.

"Not a clue, Jack. There have been hundreds of small boats around us since cut between Eleuthera and Cat Island, a mix of local and tourist traffic. Any one of them, or a dozen, could have been tracking us and passing on information. Hell, you as much as told the locals that we were being chased, maybe it is just local gossip." Dean said thoughtfully. I must have looked guilty or something because he grinned and waved me off. "Don't take it so personally. You did the right thing for the right reason, but sometimes bad shit still happens."


Last, but not least, a reader was asking how a prisoner, who is in his cell 23 hours a day and only taken out in shackles, could stick an icepick in someone's ear.

Florence ADX is not a single prison. There is the ADX or supermax side and an even larger, lower security camp at the same location.

I rewrote the section, changing details since my previous correction hit a snag (Thanks XyberDruid) to hopefully close the holes.

"He's dead."

"Who, Dean?"

"Everett. Someone shoved an ice pick in his ear."

Huh. He was dead. Really, truly dead. No more appeals. No chance of clemency. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Poor Jake though. Sure, the lunatic was a monster, but he was still Jake's son.

I pulled out my cell but didn't dial. How do I even… Before I could chicken out or rationalize my way into not calling, I hit the button.

"Jack, how are you son, need something?" Jake answered, his voice even. Did he know?

"Jake, Dean has a clipping service. Says Dave set him up. They look for stories that involve or might concern us." I said, beating around the bush.

"I see. So, your Dean probably has the Austin and San Antonio papers covered then and you heard about Everett. Well, I am not surprised. Dave would pick an efficient man much like himself to be in your corner." There was a pause, then he continued, his voice a little lower this time, a little more hesitant. "Jack, how do you feel about this? Frankly, when I heard, I was a little relieved it was over but I was worried about you, son."

I almost laughed. I was worried about him and he was worried about me. Neither of us giving two shits about the corpse in the freezer of the Florence Supermax!

"Wait, if he was in a supermax prison, then how…"

Jake waved me off, interrupting. "There are two prisons in Florence and Everett was not considered a major risk so he was transferred to the lower security camp. I got notified about that more than a year ago. He was still in what they called isolation though, so it's a mystery how he was killed in a locked cell. Frankly, Jack, I am surprised he lasted this long. Child molesters and child murderers tend to have short, painful incarcerations."

"Jake, you are taking this better than I feared."

"Jack, he was my son, but he was dead to me, and I mourned him, a long time ago. Don't worry about that at all, I was more concerned with you. You are still coming up soon, right?"

I assured him that I was and that I was looking forward to it.

"One last thing, Jack. I already contacted that FBI agent of yours, Dowdy? I knew they would be asking questions, mostly about you. They will want to assure themselves that you didn't hire someone to kill him. Don't be surprised if he comes to see you or sends someone."

Burt never did call, but we found out later, again through the clipping service, that the brother of another of Everett's victims had been arrested for contracting out the murder of Everett Reilly. The actual murder had been carried out by a guard who had transferred in, then transferred right back out again. The FBI and the Federal Bureau of Prisons were investigating how that was possible and who else, inside the prison, was involved in the plot.



Hopefully that will help future readers! Thanks for the questions, stuff like this helps to tighten up a storyline.

Last, but certainly not least, the story got another glowing review so I wanted to send a shoutout to olddave1951 and say THANKS!

PS: Dark Days 2 is up to 55K

I could have sworn there was a notification of some kind with reviews on previous stories, but I guess I would have been wrong! Maybe there is a setting I missed or messed with.

First, a massive THANKS! goes out to EndlessReader for his review of Dark Days: Darkest Before the Dawn. I'd be grateful even if it wasn't all good news, but this one certainly was.

It was a pleasant surprise to find as I was searching for a new story to read.

Now that I know to look, others have been giving me reviews as well! Crap, I am a bad contributor, not even noticing when someone says nice things.

Let me give a tardy, but very real thanks to the following generous souls who took the time to review my other stories.
ECHO: Review by Safe_Bet
Incoming: Review by Jetcrash747
Max Scores!: Review by Knight6

A sincere thanks to all three of those folks for their kind words.

In other news, I just got done reading one of the reccommendations left in the FATBUTTS (R) survey, the Chaos trilogy by EzzyB. It is a shame that there were only three, they were too short and I really wanted to see where the characters went after the third. What makes it worse was that I enjoyed the stories but EzzyB either changed monikers or just quit after the third. No more stories at all.

One last tidbit.... even though we are not even half way through Dark Days: Darkest Before the Dawn, the second tale in this series, Dark Days 2: Dawn's Early Light is already 40K words strong.

HUZZAH!

Okay... Change of plans. I was informed by SOL Admins that my survey was not a story and so couldn't be posted as a story... so I had to figure out a way to do this in blog posts that don't support table structure! This is the best I could do and it looks... readable... in preview. Let's hope you think so too.

There are three sections here, Readers' Favorite Stories, Readers' Favorite Authors and Readers' Favorite Universe/Series

First, the favorite Stories!

STORY                      AUTHOR  VOTES
aftermath             Al Steiner  2
Doing It All Over        Al Steiner   2
Living Next Door to Heaven  Aroslav   2
Ghost                  Dual_Writer    2
Magestic           gwresearch 2
Unforgettable Weeks  Jay Cantrell 2
Hunter              Lazlo Zalezac 2
A Stitch in Time Marsh Alien  2
The Collar Around the Heart Old Softy 2
A Fresh Start                 RLFJ    2
The Grim Reaper              RLFJ     2
Arlene and Jeff        RoustWriter    2
Sparks                black coffee    1
Concordia            A.A. Nemo    1
A Perfect World         Al Steiner    1
Gateway - What Lies Beyond Blind Man  1
A New Past     Charlie Foxtrot    1
Mayhem                      colt45    1
An unknown attraction    Crumbly_Writer   1
Dance of a Lifetime  Don Lockwood 1
Rewind                Don Lockwood    1
Finding a place       Don Lockwood    1
Lost and found         Douglas Fox    1
Always a Marine      Ernst Bywater    1
Survivor     Ernst Bywater    1
Burr (Series)                Fable    1
Oil of Roses          Fillmore    1
Cost of Time   Gina Marie Wylie   1
K2                  gwresearch    1
The Preacher Man Hammingbyrd7 1
 I will visit her grave  Harrison0978 1
Remittance Man        Howard Faxon    1
A Toast in an Empty Bar  Jay Cantrell 1
Learning Curves       Jay Cantrell    1
Runaway Train         Jay Cantrell    1
Unending Night        Jay Cantrell    1
Twice Lucky       Jay Reynolds    1
POW Prisoner of the Widows   Joe_J    1
Millionaire Next DoorLazlo Zalezac    1
Service Society      Lazlo Zalezac    1
Earth's Core          Lonahora    1
Going Fishing       Lordshipmayhem    1
The Bad Bet           Lubrican    1
The Hermit of Scarecrow Valley Lubrican   1
What Feats He Did That Day  Marsh Alien   1
Daddy's day     Mendon Fishers    1
New Federation             Monbade    1
Second Chance            Number 7     1
Lick 'N Tiff             Rache    1
Tycoon                 Raven Soule    1
Human Man            Refusenik    1
Generations              RLFJ     1
Black Rabbit       Robberhands    1
Darkness and Light   Robberhands  1
Opus One           Ryan Sylander  1
Adventures of Me and Martha Jane Santos J. Romeo  1
Banner Year           shrink42    1
Hindsight 20/20      SmokingDriver    1
A Pearl in the Snow          Stultus  1
Three Sqaure Meals      Tefler    1
Missions            terriblethom  1
Abby                    Texrep    1
She's Pregnant!  Thinking Horndog 1
Picking up the pieces    Wes Boyd 1
The Trailer Park     Wizard   1
My Journey              Xalir     1

Some people wrote in saying, "I love this story, but you can't leave out the three/fifteen/lots other stories in this universe!" and I agree. Some of the story series are too much a group for you to single out a single piece so…

Next is the Readers' Favorite Universe

Universe                      AUTHOR  VOTES
Richard Jackson stories     Banadin   6
Florida Friends       Dual Writer     6
Smart Girls Universe  Oyster50    6
Stupid Boy           G_Younger    4
Lady in Red      Harddaysnight    3
Anthony Carter Universe      Argon    2
Bec Series              BarBar    3
The Defenseman           ColdCreek    2
John Carter/Druid series Lazlo Zalezac    2
Swarm Cycle Universe Thinking Horndog 2
Oridnary Sex Live series Bluedragon   2
Chaos Universe               EzzyB    1
Wagons Ho! Universe     LazLong   1
A Well-Lived Life    Michael Loucks   1
Summer Camp series   Nick Scipio  1
Lost Empire series      Pars001   1
Slave Girl           Uncle Jim    1
Magic Ink            Uncle Jim    1

Some couldn't narrow it down to one story, instead they sent me their favorite author. As you can see, while there are some that are favored more than others (Don't tell Jay, we don't want him getting a swelled head!) the choices were almost as varied as the story list.

Last, but certainly not least, the Readers' Favorite Authors!

Author         Votes
Jay Cantrell 12
Dual Writer  7
RLFJ         6
Banadin      5
Ernest Bywater   5
G_Younger    5
Al Steiner   5
Argon            4
Oyster50     4
Lazlo Zalezac    4
Black Randi  3
Don Lockwood 3
Michael Loucks   3
Aroslav          2
Aubie56      2
Blind Man    2
FantasyLover 2
gwresearch   2
Harddaysnight    2
Joe_J            2
Lubrican     2
Pars001      2
refusenik    2
Robberhands  2
RoustWriter  2
Tefler           2
Thinking Horndog 2
EzzyB            2
Hammingbyrd7 2
A.A. Nemo    1
AL-Canadian  1
Always Raining   1
Auguy86          1
autofocus    1
BarBar           1
black coffee 1
Charlie Foxtrot  1
cmsix            1
Coaster2     1
ColdCreek    1
colt45           1
Crumbly_Writer   1
Dead Writer  1
Douglas Fox  1
Fable            1
Feral Lady   1
Fillmore 1
Gina Marie Wylie 1
Harrison0978 1
Howard Faxon 1
Jay Reynolds 1
JRyter           1
Lonahora     1
Lordshipmayhem   1
Lumpy            1
Marsh Alien  1
MattHHelm    1
Micheal Thomas   1
Monbade          1
Nick Scipio  1
Number 7     1
Old Man with a Pen 1
Old Softy    1
Phil Brown   1
PuffDragon   1
qhml         1
Rache        1
Raven Soule  1
Ryan Sylander    1
Santos J. Romeo  1
Scotland the Brave 1
shrink42 1
SmokingDriver    1
Stultus          1
terriblethom 1
Texrep       1
Uncle Jim    1
Wes Boyd 1
Wizard       1
Woodmanone   1
Xalir        1
Zoras        1

And so ends the First Annual, Totally Biased, Unscheduled Tally of Talent Survey (FATBUTTS ®)!!

I hope you can find some new favorite stories among those submitted, maybe even a new unread author or even a new Universe to get lost in.

Thanks to everyone for participating, this was both fun AND educational!

*This started as a way for me to find new stories to read, but others expressed an interest in seeing the results.
**No, none of my choices of favorites were included unless submitted by someone else and my name was not under consideration in the author category.

First Annual, Totally Biased, Unscheduled Tally of Talent Survey
(FATBUTTS ®)!!

Recently I asked my readers (those who follow the blog, anyway) about what their favorite stories were. I wanted to know what story they would point to as the reason they stuck around SOL, and would recommend to others to get THEM to come to SOL!

I got a fantastic response and it was so varied, I decided on THREE lists of favorites.
• Favorite Stories
• Favorite Authors
• Favorite Universe/Series

I uploaded this as a story because the data is tabulated and in a table format that I am hoping the .html will preserve. I already knew I couldn't post it in here, too long.

Cross your finger that it worked ;)

First, for you other writers, have you ever come to the site and found one of your own stories in that top box labeled "Random story from the Archives"?

I just did for the first time I can remember and, believe it or not, I didn't recognize the story! I had to read it to refresh my memory. Of course I found a half-dozen little errors or places that needed tweak, but oh well. Good story too, if I am allowed to say that!

Anyway, that is not what this is about.

I do almost all of my reading these days in the kindle app. I like it because I can have the same app on each device including desktop. I have downloaded, as of this morning, 872 stories from SOL to read, and that doesn't count a few dozen I have just read online (serials and the like). What can I say, I like to read! I would rather re-read an old favorite for the fifteenth time than watch the television.

I have covered a fair spectrum of authors here, some I liked a lot and read everything, some I really didn't care for. One thing I am certain of, even after all those stories, is that I have not read all the good stuff!

So, what I would like from you, if you want to share, is your one go-to story if you had to recommend one. I mean, if you wanted to get someone hooked on SOL, which story would you have them read that would make them go... "Please sir, may I have some more?" in their best Oliver voice?

If you cannot think of any one story, which author?

Tell you what, to sweeten the pot:

If you would send your choice to me and give me a 1-10 score for that story or author, I will collate the answers I get and post an (anonymous) list of the stories and authors that get recommended and how many times each show up.

So how about it? Want to share?

Oh! Before I sign off, here is mine:

http://storiesonline.net/series/1080/stupid-boy

Not sure why these tickle me, but I have paid the fee to get the last few early and read them. Worth it to me! I give this whole series a cumulative 9 out of 10. Maybe the individual installments were not a 9, but for overall enjoyment that has lasted through six books, I think they deserve the score.