The Adventures of Alibi Jones: Six Short Stories

By Mike Luoma

Underwater aliens – Time travel – Coups – Con games – and Murder?

Welcome to the world of Alibi Jones!

Come along for the ride as Humankind expands out into the already populated stars. Alibi is a Mediator for The Solar Alliance in 2135, negotiating treaties and agreements between humankind and alien races, whose big heart and inquisitive mind usually get him into trouble along the way.
Includes the new short story "Alibi Jones: Christmas Present", written and released for Mike Luoma's 500th Episode of his Glow-in-the-Dark Radio science fiction podcast.

In "Father's Day" - Flash back 23 years to the fatal, fateful day Alibi met his father, Bernard Campion - the Vatican Assassin.

"Blind Eye" - Alibi's Aunt Anita asks him to attend a political social event on her behalf, where Alibi discovers there's more to a new colonial venture than meets the eye.

"Vacation" – Needing a vacation, Alibi and Katie visit Kit on the planet "Paradise." But instead of an idyllic Eden, Alibi and Katie find a coup erupting, and get caught in the crossfire of a power struggle for control of the young colony.

"Alibi Jones In Over His Head" - Alibi is trying to negotiate humankind's initial trade agreement with the aquatic race known as the Kee'Klick. It's not going well.

"The Wishing Stone" - When the enigmatic Finder sends Alibi off to find an old alien relic known as the "Wishing Stone", Alibi discovers 'being careful what you wish for' isn't just an old cliché.

And in "Christmas Present" – Alibi's Aunt asks Alibi to find a Christmas Tree, but an accidental trip finds Alibi instead in mortal danger, his life threatened by people he thought he knew.

Enjoy these shorter Adventures of Alibi Jones, adapted from his comic book exploits for prose readers, featuring new adaptations of "Blind Eye" and "Alibi Jones in Over His Head" written exclusively for this edition. With cover art by Federico Guillen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Luoma
• Release date: Jan 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463846254

Mike Luoma

Mike Luoma writes science fiction, among many other things, somewhere off in the wilds of Northern Vermont. The Star Seeds of Earth is his newest, the fourth novel and sixth book in The Adventures of Alibi Jones, which followed The Vatican Assassin Trilogy. Mike also creates comics with artists from around the world, including issues of The Adventures of Alibi Jones and a graphic novel adaptation of the novel Vatican Assassin.An Alibi Jones short story was recently included in Always Punch Nazis Volume 2 from Pilot Comics. Mike also wrote the acclaimed title Souverain with artist and creator Ben Ferrari for Earthbound Comics. Mike's other graphic novels include Good Samaritan: Unto Dust and "Introducing... RED HOT!" from Glow-in-the-Dark Radio Comics.Mike narrates his books week-by-week on his free, long-running Glow-in-the-Dark Radio podcast, and is also the narrator for each of his widely available audiobooks. You can find his books, narrated by Mike, wherever fine audiobooks are sold.

Book preview

ALIBI JONES

SIX SHORT STORIES

Mike Luoma

FIRST EDITION

Copyright 2010, 2011, 2018 by Michael Luoma. All rights reserved.

This book is available in print and as an eBook at most online retailers. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Illustration by Federico Guillen.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of Michael Luoma except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information email Mike Luoma at:

[e-mail]

ISBN: 9780463846254

Dedicated to the late, great

Podiobooks.com and its Many Wonders...

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the World of Alibi Jones!

Alibi Jones is a Mediator for the Solar Alliance in the 2130's, as humankind expands out into the stars and encounters an already thriving and diverse interstellar neighborhood. Alibi mediates treaties, trade deals, whatever needs negotiating, between the Solar Alliance and alien governments, between human and alien companies and traders, sometimes even between two alien interests.

Alibi Jones is the son of the Vatican Assassin, BC – Bernard Campion. He was raised by Anita Capituna – his Aunt Anita – who was formerly the Prime Representative for the Solar Alliance, the head of state. She's more recently been governor of the space station colony and trading hub, Ceres Central, located on the Solar System's largest asteroid. His status as her foster son can sometimes come in handy for Alibi, although it can occasionally be a liability, too.

Their relationship lies at the core of many of these stories. We find out how Anita came to have custody of Alibi in Father's Day. She sends him to the gala that triggers the events in Blind Eye. He calls her up in the middle of ...In Over His Head. And in the most recent story of these six, Anita's Christmas mission for Alibi frames (wraps?) his misadventures, in Christmas Present. In the other two stories, Alibi is on his own in ...Wishing Stone, and with Katie and Kit in Vacation.

Much like the shorts in my collection Alibi Jones and the Time War of The Devrizium, these six stories began as comic book scripts, and you can find fully illustrated comic book versions of the first five stories collected here in The Adventures of Alibi Jones issues one and two, from Glow-in-the-Dark Radio Comics. The sixth, Alibi Jones: Christmas Present will be presented in a forthcoming issue three, with art by Federico Guillen.

The first five stories began their steps from comic book scripts towards prose in their adaptation for audio presentation on my Glow-in-the-Dark Radio podcast. Wanted to present them on the podcast, somehow, but I couldn't just read the comic script out loud directly, that didn't work. Tried it. Wasn't worth listening to. Also tried adapting on the fly, reading off the comic book script but also making up additional descriptions and more dialogue as I went along, adding he says and she says after lines and such, stuff that needed to be there.

That kind of worked. But it took a lot of work after the recording not to suck! I did the original Blind Eye and Alibi Jones In Over His Head adaptations that way. But those roughed out audio versions of the stories, those adaptations on the fly still needed to be shaped and edited at some point. When that didn't happen on the page beforehand, it had to happen later, in the recording and audio editing. That bloated out the audio production time, which wasn't bad for the short Alibi Jones In Over His Head, but the longer Blind Eye audio took ages to edit.

After those two, for efficiency's – and sanity's – sake, I began reworking the comic book scripts into true short stories before recording them for podcast, to give me enough to work from. Above and beyond that, the sixth and most recent story collected here, Alibi Jones: Christmas Present, was written to be both a short story and a comic book script, as it was written specifically for the 500th Episode of my Glow-in-the-Dark Radio podcast, released in December 2018.

The first five of these stories are from 2009-11. Vacation was written earliest, rejected (with kindness) by Earthbound Comics, who asked for something more introductory. Vacation turned into an audio short story, released as part of Podioracket's Visionaries collection.

Vacation was later rewritten and rerecorded for the initial Podiobooks.com audio edition of The Adventures of Alibi Jones: Six Short Stories. That second version is collected here.

Blind Eye was written next – and was accepted by Earthbound, showing up in their Spacebound comic book anthology. This version of Blind Eye also appeared in The Adventures of Alibi Jones issue one, originally released by Earthbound.

The audio adaptation of Blind Eye was created to appear as a part of Podioracket's Glimpses audio collection. As my adaptation was done on the fly, as described above, there was no actual story to appear in the eBook edition of that anthology – the comic script judged too jarringly different to include.

I've newly adapted – rewritten – Blind Eye for this edition of The Adventures of Alibi Jones: Six Short Stories. It's not a different story, but inside, you will find a brand new prose version of the comic book tale, with a bit more meat on its literary bones. The audio book also features a brand-new recording of this new version.

Alibi Jones In Over His Head was written next and appeared in Earthbound Comics Presents #1, an amazing anthology I wish more people had seen. The story was later added to The Adventures of Alibi Jones issue one to create the expanded second edition released by my Glow-in-the-Dark Radio Comics, after Earthbound's demise.

As another originally done on the fly, I've written a brand-new prose adaptation of this one, too. It's a fresh version of Alibi Jones In Over His Head you'll find in this collection.

Father's Day was adapted from the final chapter of Vatican Abdicator to create a comic book short for The Adventures of Alibi Jones issue one. This adaptation was then itself adapted to create an audio version for my podcast, a prose adaptation that reads differently than the Vatican Assassin chapter it grew from. That original adaptation struck me as very bare-bones, so I've tinkered with this one as well, but it's more a re-edit than a rewrite.

Of the first five, Wishing Stone was written last, for The Adventures of Alibi Jones #2 – the issue which also finally saw Vacation appear as an illustrated comic book story.

They fall in slightly different order on Alibi's timeline. Father's Day is earliest, when Alibi is three years old, and matches up with the last chapter of Vatican