What's a Klodfon?

Suddenly Glen realized what he was seeing. These must be Clod-fawns. They were huge! Jenna had been conservative in her description of seven foot lizards. These lizards walked on two legs and used their tails for balance. Covered from head to toe with bright, neon green scales, they reminded him vaguely of a tyrannosaurus rex, only with well-muscled, usable arms attached on the sides of their shoulders.

The helmets they wore were shaped wrong for any dinosaur. Glen rather thought they would fit on his own head, though the squarish corners might be uncomfortable. Their faces were different, too; he could see them through the helmet’s clear front covering. They were definitely lizardish; red eyes with a slit for a mouth, and absolutely nothing where the nose should have been. Glen wondered absently what they would do if they needed to wear glasses, with no nose to hold them up.

They wore black bits of stuff strapped to various parts of their bodies, and Glen recalled Jenna saying something about blast armor. It certainly looked like armor. Not the kind knights used to wear; more like a Roman soldier’s. Breast plates and back plates, helmets, and guards on the forearms and shins.

Other than the helmets and armor, they wore no other clothing. Apparently the lizards had no problem with nudity, but then, Glen couldn’t recognize anything that modesty should prompt them to cover. (from Assignment to Earth by Scott Ashby) http://tinyurl.com/kr2uyh5

Special Equipment

Mike hurried to catch up to where Skylar was walking with Jenna. He opened his mouth, then glanced at Jenna and shut it. Skylar watched him and could see the tussle between curiosity and caution written on his face.

Curiosity won. With another sideways look at Skylar, Mike softly commented, “I see you got yourself a kitty. What’d you hit him with, a club?”

Equally quietly, Skylar said, “I shot him.” He looked at Mike’s shocked and disbelieving face and grinned.

Mike snorted. “With a wet pistol,” he said, “Right!”

Skylar’s smile widened. “Special equipment.”

Mike cut in, a bit of frustration showing. “Let me guess, it’s experimental and you’re not allowed to talk about it. Are you in the air force or something?”

Skylar choked back his laughter. “Or something,” he agreed.

 “Skylar, that cougar’s dead and there’s not a mark on him! What on earth did you use to kill him?”

Skylar placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder, facing him squarely, and with a serious tone which told Mike not to push too far, replied, “Let’s just call it space-age technology and leave it at that, all right?” (from Assignment to Earth by Scott Ashby) Read more here.

Chatting with Scott Ashby

The Electric Scroll will be interviewing authors on a regular basis. You don't have to be published by us to be interviewed. If you're an independent author and you'd like to be interviewed, please contact us at secretary@electric-scroll.com, and we'll be glad to get you set up.

Our first interview is with Scott Ashby, one of our authors.

ES: Tell me a little about yourself as a person.
SA: I’m Scott Ashby. I’m single. I don’t date much. I probably get along with computers better than people, partially because computers don’t go confusing me by changing their appearance. It’s called face blindness, which means I have a very difficult time identifying even good friends when they’ve changed their hair color or style. I’m ADHD. What else do you want to know?

ES: What genre do you write, and Why?
SA: I write SF/Fantasy because I’d rather make up a world to fit my book than try to make my stories fit into a particularly shaped hole in the real world.

ES: If you threw a cocktail party and invited all of the characters in your books, who would be the least likely to come, and why? Who would you really hope to see at the party, and why?
SA: Prince Liammial from Tanella’s Flight and The Siege of Kwennjurat is the least likely to come, because he wouldn’t see any advantages for him in coming. He already knows I don’t like him much. I would hope Lt. Jenna from Assignment to Earth comes, because I’d really like to get to know her better.

ES: If you had unlimited money, what’s the first thing you would spend it on?
SA: A trip to Europe to take awesome pictures of castles for my book covers.

ES: There are an estimated 535,389.7 unique ways to die. How do you hope to meet your maker?
SA: I don’t plan on dying.

ES: If you could have one super-power, what would it be?
SA: I’d like to be able to kwim. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s the ability to teleport anywhere, instantly. Also they should read Fredric Brown’s Martians Go Home.

ES: What’s your biggest fear?
SA: When I was very young, I was climbing a mountain with my parents. It started to rain while we were on the mountain, and as we were coming down, I slid down some of the stairs. Ever since then I’ve been terribly afraid of heights, and also of falling.

ES: What is your favorite color?
SA: Blue.

ES: Tell me about your current work in progress.
SA: Mind Touch is about a group of people called Teeps, with various telepathic and assorted other mind powers in a post-apocalyptic world who are being persecuted by the Normals, and who must work together to solve the most important puzzle ever posed to the people of their world.

ES: Tell me about your most recent published work, and why people should buy it.
SA: The Siege of Kwennjurat is the sequel to Tanella’s Flight; both books deal with the machinations of a man who’s been scheming for more than thirty years to take control of the kingdom and declare himself king. You’ll want to read both books, actually, to find out just how far Liammial’s willing to go in order to get what he wants…and whether he gets what he deserves.
At the moment, they’re still listed under my friend A M Jenner’s name, but soon they’ll be properly republished as mine. You can find out more about Tanella's Flight and The Siege of Kwennjurat at their pages on the Electric Scroll.