Pink Shoes and Hot Chocolate: Poker Boy, #13

By Dean Wesley Smith

When you’re a superhero, you don’t often notice pink shoes. Poker Boy is usually far too busy saving the world from evil, saving dogs from sure death, or playing professional poker, his day job that pays the bills of being a superhero. But when Poker Boy sees the pink shoes at the entrance to the Silicon Suckers city, he knows Super Keno is in big trouble.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536583298

Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang. His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month. During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series. For more information about Dean’s books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com and sign up for his newsletter.

Book preview

When you’re a superhero, you don’t often notice pink shoes. Poker Boy is usually far too busy saving the world from evil, saving dogs from sure death, or playing professional poker, his day job that pays the bills of being a superhero. But when Poker Boy sees the pink shoes at the entrance to the Silicon Suckers city, he knows Super Keno is in big trouble.

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN YOU’RE A SUPERHERO, you don’t often notice pink women’s shoes. I’m usually far too busy saving the world from evil, saving dogs from sure death, or playing professional poker, my day job that pays the bills of being a superhero. Pink shoes rarely come into the picture. In fact, I have no memory of ever thinking about pink shoes before.

Yet there sat a pair of bright pink dress shoes with very long heels on the small pile of brown sand six miles outside of Las Vegas.

The wind was blowing through the sagebrush and rocks and I was having trouble keeping my black, Fedora-like poker hat on my head. The hat was part of my superhero costume, along with my black leather jacket. With the hat and jacket on and a casino nearby, I had more powers than I have had time to explore. Sometimes my