It’s available as a free serialized download in audio and pdf, as well as complete versions in print, ebook and audiobook for sale.

Check out the audio promo.

I am in the process of getting the unauthorized version removed from Amazon.

Thanks, all.

Feel free to pick up a copy if that price suits you and or write a review!

“Beautiful Red” (M. Darusha Wehm)

So, now I’ve now made a page for myself on Facebook as a writer. Feel free to become a fan, and I’ll keep it updated on what’s going on with my writing.

Also, feel free to follow me on twitter, though be prepared to get a lot of tweets about traveling, as that’s what I’m mostly doing these days.

Beautiful Red is in great company on feedbooks.com.

I came across BR as a featured book on their front page, next to Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables. Amazing.

The Parsec Awards celebrate excellence in speculative fiction podcasting, and will be held at the Dragon*Con convention in a few days.  I won’t be able to attend, given that I’m only a few weeks out from departing on a long world sailing trip, but my thoughts and well-wishes go out to all the nominees.

If you like SF and you like audio fiction, do yourself a favour and subscribe to SFFaudio. They’ve got the low down on all kinds of great audio, online and offline.

01001

I am (two)
living together
in the same mind
My body is my own
and not my own
    {
    sometimes
    it breathes
    without me;
    }

There are lights
that flash in my memory
    {
    when I sleep,
    they light my way;
    }
I do not control them =
    those lights in my mind
they control me =
    like a puppet
    like a host
they are my parasite == my saviour

I see it all the time now
the new world they created for me (and the compulsion it creates)
why would anyone choose to live
    {
    in a world of death
    when there is more
    so much more;
    }
hiding within

The cost is so small
    {
    this life for another life
    control for purpose;
    }
we would choose this freely
if we still had choice

just give us the lights
    {
    the guide, the statements,
    the direction;
    }
and we will follow forever
the leader == the follower
we are one now

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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>>It looks bad, Jack. There’s enough evidence to convict you of a couple of major crimes, and sweet fuck all to prove your allegation against the Red.

>But…

>>Just don’t, Jack. I tested my theory. I’m sending a log of some correspondence one of my aliases had with a couple of law enforcement branches. I’m going to have to abandon that identity now, since it has zero credibility left. I was laughed out of town, and you will be too. Only you’ll be laughed right into court. I mean it Jack, you have to drop this.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

“Do you know what we believe in,” Lars started off by asking her. “What the core us of in the Red believe, what started it all?”

“Well,” Jack began, “it seems pretty obvious that you want to bring back the natural human being, reduce our reliance on technology, and question our place in society. I’d say that’s a pretty good summary, don’t you think?” She didn’t want to get sucked into philosophical arguments, but knew he would have to tell her his story in his own way.

“As Rackham would say, two out of three ain’t bad for a noob.”

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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The system was different. At first Jack nearly panicked when she realized that her three D rendering engine couldn’t handle the configuration of the Red system and showed her nothing but an empty blue void. But, after backing out and viewing the system using her terminal emulator, Jack was able to navigate the system. She got a feel for the layout, finding her way through the hierarchical structure. Eventually, she banged up against the point where her dummy user’s permissions ended.

She breathed deeply, and turned away from her task for a moment. She had an assignment from the shift captain, and she guessed that if it didn’t get done they might come checking up on her. She pulled out her bag of tricks and quickly modified a script to do her job for her. She got it running under her own user id and set it to notify her when it was done so she could check the work. She switched back to the dummy id, and held her breath.

Download audio file (BeautifulRed-20.mp3)

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

Lots of people have been sending emails, which is awesome; keep it coming.

There was a problem with some of the files (this time, not my fault!). It’s fixed now, but if you encounter any trouble downloading or the files sound wonky, please let me know.

You should absolutely check out Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps. I’ve been subscribed since day -3 or so, and it really does rock.

If you’re so inclined, follow me on twitter. At the moment, I do the regular here’s what’s going on kind of posts, but I also do a haiku of the day and Quotation Wednesday.

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Download audio file (BeautifulRedLog-07.mp3)

Jack didn’t know what to do. It was BlackEye for sure, chatting with some dour looking guy just two tables over. It was the first she had seen of him, and although she had imagined before she arrived that he would be leading the group in some kind of bizarre incantation three times a day, once she had been here for awhile the community nature of the group made her doubt even the existence of a leader. Of course, leaders aren’t always of the “do it my way or get out” variety, and she noticed that everyone else in the bar deferred to BlackEye when they interacted with him.

“Do you know who that guy is?” she asked Susanna, who was already starting to get an unfocussed look about her.

“Which guy,” she asked after a brief pause to understand the question.

“The one-eyed man with the hair wings. Over there,” Jack jerked her head in the direction of the table. Susanna looked over, and studied the two men carefully for some time before answering.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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The thought of Estella Rowan reminded Jack of her purpose at the compound and renewed her resolve to find out who was behind the consciousness programs. She had her first work shift after lunch and was hopeful that whatever they would have her doing as a programmer would shed some light on the situation. She agreed to meet Susanna for dinner at the middle sitting, and headed off to her room to find out where she was supposed to go for her work shift.

The morning class had been interesting and compelling, but now as she walked all the way back to her room to find out a piece of information that would take just a second on the nets to retrieve, she was becoming less enamoured with the whole Red philosophy. It was nice to play historical and pretend not to have everywherenet or integrated systems, but there was a good reason everyone adopted those technologies in the first place.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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Jack stuck her key in the viewer’s slot and when the friendly voice said, “Hello, b0xenjester, how can I help you?” she replied, “Show me the meal schedule for today.” She saw that there was a late sitting that evening for dinner, and asked the viewer to remind her ten minutes before it was time to go. She then asked to see the schedule of classes for the next two days.

There was a huge selection of programs available, and at first Jack had trouble believing that it was possible for even a large and well organized group to deliver this many courses and workshops over two days. Then, on closer inspection, she realized that only a small portion of the offerings were live, in-person events. Most of the programs were downloadable tutorials or immersive simulations. For a group that had a strong anti-progress component this seemed odd, but Jack suspected that few of the people involved in the beginner’s events fell into this category anyway.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

Jack woke up with a start, and for a moment didn’t know where she was. The motion of the train was so even that it was as if the train were still. The seats were fairly wide and comfortable, so she wasn’t even being jostled by other passengers. Her confusion was fleeting, though, and she checked the time. SleepingJuice was amazing - at that point the train would be arriving in about fifteen or twenty minutes.

She stretched as best she could while staying seated, and cracked her neck. She quickly checked her system and found an acknowledgment from Gilles for her report. Good, she thought, at least if they turn me into one of those drooling monsters they’ll both know who to blame. Jack had given both Adrian and Gilles encoded links to contact each other in case of emergency. She allowed them to talk to each other anonymously; she had no interested in dragging them into this any more than was necessary.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

I’ve had some technical difficulties with the files at podiobooks.com (my fault, not theirs). Do let me know if you encounter any problems with the files here.

Beautiful Red now has its own facebook page. Come be friends!

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Download audio file (BeautifulRedLog-06.mp3)

The recent armed robbery of a Chicago-based co-location facility has customers hopping mad after learning it was at least the fourth forced intrusion in two years. They want to know how C I Host, an operator that vaunts the security of its data centers, could allow the same one to be penetrated so many times.

…the same location has been the target of at least four burglaries or robberies since August 2005, according to police reports and former customers, some of whom say they lost sensitive data and hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware.

via The Register

As William Gibson might argue, science fiction is more about the present than any imagined future.

After a beer and a contraband cigarette, Jack finally got over the frustration at her inability to do anything, then spent the rest of the night finishing her report for Gilles and Adrian. She would send it out to them before she left. With these new images from Bellis, as well as the information she had been gathering, she had a fairly complete report to send them.

They had both been harassing her for updates, but she was afraid that one or both of them would try to stop her from going if she told them what was going on. She knew her fears about her friends were really her own sense of personal security trying to stop her from doing something foolish, but if she could keep anyone else from voicing those thoughts she would be able to ignore the voices in her head.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

Jack spent the evening going over the Brugges theft, comparing it to the incident in the Bellis server room. There was more information about the European crime by now, on the regular news boards as well as the specialized ones Jack has been paging through before. It seemed that the theft had been conducted by a pair of locals who had now gone missing. There didn’t seem to be any link between the two prior to the incident; one was a service worker in a mid range upgrade salon and the other was an entertainment worker.

Rowan, Jack thought. She was an entertainment worker from Brugges. Of course, that made as much sense as anything; more, really. Most of the analysis of the event had pointed out that the logic was quite poor, but only if the thieves cared about getting caught. If you had no thoughts of you own, why would you care about the logs, getting caught or having to disappear?

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• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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The next day, Jack arrived a little early, hoping to catch a few minutes with Gilles. She rounded the corner to their shared cube, and smiled broadly when she saw his craggy face. “Morning, Gilles,” she said, throwing her jacket on the rack.

“Hey, yourself,” Gilles said. “How was your weekend?” She could have sworn that he winked at her.

“Pretty interesting,” Jack said, “I’ll be giving you a full written report later.” He laughed, and Jack smiled and lowered her voice. “No, really, I’m not kidding. There have been a lot of developments since our little adventure and I want to fill you in.”

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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Jack rode the ninety minute train home knowing she ought to use the time to get a quick nap, but was too wired to sleep. She really wasn’t sure what to think about the things she had seen and heard. She was convinced that the Red were behind the attack on Estella Rowan, but she was equally convinced that the people she met could not have been involved.

Not necessarily because they were inherently good people - Jack didn’t trust her judgment that much - but because it just wasn’t their style. It would offend their sense of esthetics.

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• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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Jack felt as if her mind was truly clear for the first time since this ordeal began, though she was not sure that sneaking off for a quickie was the best decision she had made in the past few days. However, what was done was done and she sat with Phoenix, talking about art and the difficulties that people who do not fit into the system of working for a firm have when trying to do their work. Jack discovered that Phoenix was gainfully employed as a writer for a prominent board devoted to performance art. One of the large firms funded the board as well as many exhibitions every year.

“I didn’t know that even existed,” Jack said.

“It’s very uncommon,” Phoenix said, “I was extremely lucky to get the position. Of course, I worked for them to begin with and was active in the community anyway. I knew who to go to and what I had to do to get it.” Phoenix smiled languidly, and Jack understood that there were probably not very many desires that Phoenix didn’t get fulfilled.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

• Evo Terra, Doug Kress, Tee Morris (podiobooks.com)
• Steve Eley (Escape Pod)
• Eric Rice
• Chuck Tomasi, Kreg Steppe, Douglas E. Welch, Victor Cajiao, Steve Holden (Friends in Tech)
• Seth Harwood (A Long Way From Disney and the Jack Palms books)

I also got comments from steve and charley hardman, who also sent me email, as did Susanna. And finally, last but certainly not least, RRobo left an awesome review on the US iTunes Music Store. Woot!

Download audio file (BeautifulRedLog-04.mp3)

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Jack found herself in a small vestibule before a locked metal grating at the bottom of a long, narrow, straight stairwell. A voice crackled from a speaker in the ceiling.

“There’s network here. Upload the map you were given so we can confirm the checksum.”

Jack drew a deep breath and turned her system on. She was, indeed, online, though the signal was weak. She found that an address had been sent to her, and she replied with a copy of the map. The upload seemed to take forever, but almost immediately as soon as it was done a buzzer sounded and the grating in front of her swung open. Jack walked up the stairs, jumping as the grate behind her clanged shut. She checked the monitor to discover the already weak signal getting weaker with each step she took. By the time she reached the top of the staircase, she was offline again.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

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It was a ninety minute train ride, and Jack was having trouble filling the time. Her nerves were jangling and every few minutes she would decide to catch a return train as soon as they stopped. But, deep down, she knew that she’d end up following through with her plan. She had gone too far to stop now. And when she thought about it, this was the most exhilarating experience she’d had since she decided to play on the right side of the rules.

Hell, she had never really been much of a cracker anyway; she was always more interested in how things worked than causing problems. Her break and enter career was entirely motivated by a need to see what was on the other side, and she was very good at making sure she wouldn’t be caught. This was probably the most exciting thing she had ever done in her entire life. There was no way she was going to wimp out now.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
  some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-984-2976.

• speaking of which, check out Terra Incognito from one of my fellow podiobooks authors, Gary Hicks
• exciting news from podiobooks.com - BR is number 1 on the charts for most popular subscriptions in the past 30 days

• in annoying news: the phone number has changed to 206.984.2976

Download audio file (BeautifulRedLog-03.mp3)

Jack woke on her own sometime near noon the next day. She felt like crap, and was sure she looked like it too. She fired up the coffee machine and dug out a breakfast bar. She stirred her coffee with the bar, trying to get some moisture and extra caffeine into the nutrient laden brick.

She cracked her neck and picked up her clothes from where she had dropped them the previous night. She put them on, even though there were clean clothes in the autoclave. She just couldn’t be bothered to open up the hatch and she didn’t think she would be leaving the apartment any time soon.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
• some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-339-8577.

Jack scanned a news report from the previous day. “Estella Rowan, a 63-year old adult entertainer, was reported missing yesterday by her employer after she failed to log in at work for her shift that evening.” Jack felt a slight chill as she realized that the evening in question was the night of the Brugges robbery. The reports were not connecting the events - surely Brugges had its share of crime and what would a prostitute have to do with a theft of electronic parts? Jack connected the events, though.

The theft had occurred only three quarters of an hour after Rowan’s system had been accessed. Jack had to try and find Rowan, who might be able to lead her to the people who had contacted the missing woman just before the heist.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
• some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-339-8577.

• charley hardman pointed out an issue with the iTunes feed
  • actually, the whole podcast feed was down, but it should all be okay now

• the launch at podiobooks has been awesome
  • Beautiful Red has been in the daily top ten subscriptions every day
  • it’s in the monthly top ten as of today as well

• Grumpymann wants to know how to promote Beautiful Red

  • tell your friends
  • feel free to share the mp3s blog about it (you can get banners here)
  • podcast about it (play the promo)
  • if you’re a member of podiobooks, leave a comment & rate the story
  • if you use iTunes, leave a review
• I’m going to the Podcast and New Media Expo
  • look for the hat, hair or BR cards
  • 

Download audio file (BeautifulRedLog-02.mp3)

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Jack started walking back to her apartment, planning her next move. If she could trace the path of the unknown login back from the Bellis system, she may be able to find out where it originated. If she could find where it came from, she might be able to figure out what they were doing. She was pretty confident that whoever it was, and wherever it came from, the Bellis system was not the final destination. There were no flags raised by the security system and, as far as anyone could tell, no damage done aside from the downtime the other day.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
• some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-339-8577.

“Well, that was fucking unnerving,” Jack said, sitting at her table in her apartment, nursing a growing headache and a slight case of nausea.

“What happened,” Gilles asked, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jack replied, having a sip of water, “I just felt what it was like to be, I don’t know, deleted, I guess. Weird. Did anything show up at your end?”

“Not really,” he said, “I caught a strange blip on the log but it didn’t get flagged or anything so you’re probably okay.”

“Cool,” Jack said, rolling her neck and working out the kinks of being essentially away from her body for a couple of hours.

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Music:

• low level format by Bjorn Fogelberg
• some sonics provided by The Freesound Project

If you have feedback, I want to hear it! Leave a comment on the website, send me an email or call me with your comments at 206-339-8577.