9 Great Links For You: “Okay Andy,” you say. “Where are they?”
9 Great Links For You – The First
Here you go, the very first link. I laughed and laughed as I watched this. I remembered some scenes from my childhood, fifty years ago. Others I’ve never seen. Have you seen these scenes before? Let me know what you think in the comments or contact me. I’ve got a free ebook for the best comment.
My dad had subscriptions to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and I always read those magazines through the 60s and 70s. I was tickled to find this article in PM. It was so interesting! Do you think so?
9 Great Links For You – The Third
Did you know I like tea, as well as funny zombies? Check out my new video next, where I talk about both.
9 Great Links For You – The Fourth
I’ve played basketball since I was 18 and I’ve followed basketball since I was 13. Now I’m following a great college talent, Zion Williamson. Here’s the best video of him so far.
5 Minutes of Zion Williamson Highlights
9 Great Links For You – The Fifth
I meet a lot of great authors. One of them, Zachry Wheeler interviewed me. If you’ve followed this blog long or not, check it out and see if you learn something new.
Zeedub Bezzies is an ongoing series where I showcase talented authors by goading them into random questioning. It’s good fun, a little weird, sometimes awkward, but always entertaining.
My my my, how to describe Andy Zach in simple and conventional terms. A nigh impossible task, but let’s try anyway for our own amusement. Peculiar? Yeah, but that’s par for the author course. Quirky? Most definitely, but that doesn’t paint the fullest of portraits. Delightfully bizarre in a preternatural Lemony Snicket kind of way? Mhmm, that’s about as close as we’re going to get. Andy found it most agreeable to participate in Zeedub Bezzies, so let’s find out more about him.
What were the inspirations for your stories?
Zombie Turkeys – frying a turkey and imagining it coming back to life.
The next video is six minutes long and boring. It just shows a light pulse moving from the Earth to Mars and back. The awesome thing is, since it’s moving at the speed of light, it gives you a feel for the vast distance between Mars and the Earth, even at our closest approach.
How slow light moves between the Earth and Mars
9 Great Links For You – The Seventh
How about a new audiobook? I’ve got one! The link includes a free sample. Or, you can win one by entering here for my two monthly drawings.
What could be more fun than the 3 Fun Links 3 Writing Tips you’ve already read? How about an excerpt from Chapter 5 of Paranormal Privateers?
Here it comes!
Paranormal Privateers Chapter 5 – London
“What’s your situation, Lulu?” I asked.
“I’m using a cutting board as a shield. When the Taser hits it, I cut the wires with my katana.”
“Are they going to rush you? Where are you?”
“I don’t think so. One tried sneaking past me, and I bowled him down by throwing a mixer at him. I’m guarding the exit to the dinnerware room. They can’t leave past me, but I can’t advance. I can’t leave Sharon anyway. How long until you get here?”
“We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“We’ll need about ten more minutes,” said General MacGregor, who was in charge of the backup forces.
“Good! Double backup! Lulu, hang on. We’re bringing in the heavies!” Diane said.
“What do you mean?” MacGregor asked.
“Let’s see if Tasers can stop zombie bulls!” Diane yelled.
“No! You can’t take bulls into Harrods!”
“You shouldn’t have Tasers or C-4 explosives in Crock-Pots in Harrods either!”
“It’s the appropriate response, General.” I tried to calm him.
“Like hell it is! You wait until our backup forces get there!” General MacGregor was losing it. I’d never heard him yell like that.
“There’s no way in hell I’ll leave my friends in danger, General!” Diane yelled back.
I’d never heard Diane swear like that.
“You hold off until we get there! That’s an order!”
Diane snatched off her headset as we pulled up to Harrods entrance on Basil Street. “Tell the general I lost my headset!” she shouted as she ran to open the lorry.
“Diane’s having a communicator problem right now,” I told the general.
“What kind of problem?” he barked.
“It seems to have fallen off her head.”
“Arrgh! Tell her I order her to not enter Harrods with her zombie bulls!”
Paranormal Privateers Chapter 5 – London – Part 2
“Will do, sir,” I said, knowing the orders would not affect her.
Diane, already astride her bull, Whip, led three others on Kevlar reins. “Here’s your bull, Durham, George. I also have Lulu’s bull, Toro, and Sharon’s, Wallstreet.”
“Can’t have too many, I suppose. General MacGregor orders you to not enter Harrods with the bulls, by the way.”
“Bull! He’s got to work through my superior officer, General Figeroa! I know my chain of command!”
“Why don’t you tell him that?” I held out her headset to her.
“I’d better not. He might get him to issue the order! It’s better to get forgiveness than ask permission! Let’s go!”
On Durham, I followed her and the other bulls through the sliding electric doors of the Basil Street Entrance.
“Uh-oh.” Diane perched on her one-ton bull, looking at the narrow, winding stairway to the next floor. “We’d better take the escalator.”
The store had been evacuated by this time. Each bull followed Diane up the escalator, brushing the handholds on each side with their huge chests.
Up one floor, two, then three. The moving stairs didn’t faze the bulls, who negotiated them as nimbly as gymnasts.
We left the escalator on the third floor and raced through the luggage department. The bulls’ horns snagged fine luxury calfskin bags. Festooned by fashion, we raced down a broad hall across the store toward the housewares department. We thundered through the Halcyon Gallery, the exhibit hall where Harrods displayed artworks. Expensive paintings rattled on walls as we rumbled past them, the bulls’ rush randomly depositing expensive leather goods everywhere.
We saw Lulu and Sharon crouching outside a doorway labeled Entertaining at Home. Lightning bolts flashed through the archway.
Whoa! I thought. That was no Taser. That was artificial lightning! It was entertaining, I supposed.
Paranormal Privateers Chapter 5 – London – Part 3
“I’ve brought your bulls! Jump on!” Diane yelled. She charged directly into the lightning.
Her sheer audacity saved her. The giant Taser’s first shot missed her, singeing the bull’s tail off. The pain drove the bull into an all-out sprint. The terrorists behind the Taser saw the two-thousand-pound bull ten feet from them and dove aside. The bull lowered his head and smashed the Taser with an explosion of sparks.
Diane put the bull into an emergency four-footed stop. He skidded, tearing up the carpeting with his hooves and knocking aside heavy, expensive Italian furniture, like Styrofoam blocks. Diane wrenched Whip’s head and body around to get back to the terrorists, but I picked up one by the nape of his neck and Lulu picked up the other.
“Where is your boss?” Diane asked.
He spoke something unintelligible in Arabic.
“That’s not really credible, that you worked as a clerk in Harrods and don’t speak English.” I shook him. I intended to shake until he changed to English.
Then Sharon said something in Arabic.
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Don’t turn me into a zombie!” he screamed, hanging from my hand.
“Our boss is defending his position in the Cook Shop, the next room over!” squealed the other one, held aloft by one of Lulu’s arms. Her other arm held her razor-sharp katana at his throat.
“We know where he is now. Follow me!” Diane reared her snorting bull and charged into the next room.
We followed while Lulu tied up the terrorists using zip ties.
Paranormal Privateers Chapter 5 – London – Part 4
The next room held beautiful displays of fine china in glass cases. There were also complete dining room settings of Wedgewood china and crystal. Unfortunately, the interior designers had not planned for four one-ton bulls charging through the store.
The bulls made the aisles of china accommodate their long horns by swinging their heads back and forth. The glass cases and their precious contents flew backward like KOed fighters. Glass and china alike dissolved into fragments, covering the floor in a random mosaic.
The heavy hardwood dining tables had no greater luck against the rampaging bulls’ torsos. Tables and chairs flipped over like cardboard. Oak and cherry splinters joined the glass puzzle pieces on the floor. Champagne flutes flew high into the air like little glass rockets. Sadly, they had no reentry vehicle. Vintage china plates soared like flying saucers and then landed and split into broken wedges like pie pieces.
People’s lives are more important than a few thousand dollars of dishes and furniture, I thought as Durham ran over the luxurious rubble.
Then a Crock-Pot zoomed at Diane and Whip from the far wall of the room. It exploded into fragments, shredding Diane and the bull. Covered in blood and stunned, Diane managed to shout at the assailant, “Now you’ve done it! Now, you’ve got me REALLY mad!”
Shaking their heads and spraying blood like two sprinklers, Diane and Whip charged down an aisle of Aga ovens toward their attacker. With a stupendous flash of light and heat, one of the large ovens exploded. The concussion knocked me off Durham, hurling us both back into the broken dining merchandise. I had a midair glimpse of seeing Sharon and Wallstreet flying through the air next to me in an oddly graceful ballet. Then everything went black.
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