C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas, Issue 1

By C. C. Blake

Rick Cave is the captain of the HotTicket, a medium tonnage freighter spacecraft. To feed the fuel tank and kill time in the outlaw New Slav sectors of space, he takes shady jobs often with no questions asked. When an old war buddy shows up with a gorgeous companion, looking for a fast ride to the outer rim, he of course listens to their money. Rick soon learns he should have asked who they were running from. "The Positronic Pretty" promises danger, action, and a touch of romance in the classic spirit of the old pulps.

When the Nazis orchestrated an accident at one of the final races in the NAStar circuit, Finster earned himself a new name: Burn Job. Now, he's back and on the trail for revenge. First stop? A semi-legal street level race against a Sluglord with nothing to prove. The prize? A little, cash, access rights to the higher profile NAStar circuit, and Finster's woman, the gorgeous Sweetie Sally who was taken captive by the evil Fuhrer Brett. "Burn Job and the Artificial Honey" kicks off a series of adventures around the space lanes unlike any other!

In these two stories, C. C. Blake kicks off a brand new continuing series of pulpy space adventure! Each issue of C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas offers 10,000+ words of features telling tales about far futures from a ground level perspective. No space knights, no untarnished nobles, no interstellar orders battling resistances: These stories are about high tech low lives, the working class Joes and Janes who find themselves cast into sometimes grim and often grimy worlds overflowing with trouble and danger. Join the adventure!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Jun 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463932544

C. C. Blake

C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

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C. C. Blake's Sweaty Space Operas

Volume 1

By: C. C. Blake

Blake's Take

It seemed like a good idea at the time . . . A dangerous statement, that. According to Uncle Harlan (Harlan Ellison, that is) such a statement is the ultimate excuse for any bad (or idiotic) behavior. After all, how does one form an argument against that statement? That's my excuse for this collection you have purchased.

Welcome to the first issue of Sweaty Space Operas, an ongoing collection of my neo-pulp collection. What exactly does that even mean? Well, let me tell you the back story and then we'll see what we have here.

When I started writing words under the C. C. Blake penname, I managed to get into print with the first story I sent out and to the first market I sent it to. That market was not necessarily huge. Not an Asimov's Science Fiction or an Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Instead it was just a small market by the name Man's Story 2. It heralded itself to be a pulp magazine inspired by the likes of Man's Story and other pulp magazines that appeared out into the seventies. Those mags were pure storytelling driven machines, and they were a mix of exotic adventure, strong jawed tough guys swinging powerful fists, nubile babes in danger, and more. They have since become known as the sweats for good or ill, and if they aren't either the hallmark of literary excellence or cultural sensitivity they remain hella fun to read. And they are trashy as hell, make no mistake.

The Man's Story 2 guidelines were all about telling action packed thriller stories with a romantic element. A missing dame and a strong guy to go and save her. When I was pondering what to write for the magazine, I came up with a title: Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen. It was a title that demanded a story to go along with it. I wrote it in a flash of inspiration and then followed it up with several more. That story went on to win the magazine's Story of the Year award, and the editor so liked my works he sent me cover art to write stories to.

Well, when the time came for Man's Story 2 to branch out into science fiction, I of course wanted to get on board. I was having too much fun at the time. Thus came a little story called Rick Cave and the Positronic Pretty, and I figured the narrator-protagonist would be the descendant of Chuck Cave in a spiffy skiffy (aka sci-fi) universe. I had a ball writing that and follow up stories, and something funny happened. I got hooked into writing a second series for the Man's Story magazines. When they went into the urban fantasy route and wanted vampires, I actually got three series going. Some of the stories got