A Balrog's Christmas

A collection of Christmas stories for 2025: more than a coal- fired Christmas ANNOUNCEMENT.For my ten year anniversary here? New covers+ upgrades for everything!At a million words a week, I should be done by the end of feb.(Man! Had everything proofed before posting. Shoulda been after.)Oh, the AI rev? Bring it.Stealing market share, capturing a demographic, developing a fan-base?That's the game. Always has been.Unfortunately, so are goons, thieves and legislation. Luckers, people.Latest novels:The Finest Evil in the System Magic Traveling Book-store: The Falstaff Conjecture Jan 2025FANTASY Aaron+Henna: The Elfin Princess's Kiss may 2023SF: ESC: The Venice Tower (series) Aug 2024BOTH The Finest Evil in the System Magic Traveling Book-store: The Falstaff Conjecture Jan 2025Shorts : The Finest Evil in the System; Loons, goons + booms.Shorts 2025: Let Them Eat AIPosters: Covers, Posters, Art.Novels are usually 100,000 words: freebies vary.If you don't fall over laughing at least once while reading, the book is a failure.Other than that, SF is the lit/philosophy of western urbanization.Problem-solvingthe effect of techon peoplevia new mythology.Beware, you MAY learn something. Or think a bit here and there, even in the comics..Cartooning? Does-is-ought. Take a does, show what it is, (is is?) discuss the ought. (ie: table= work-server= that gossips)SF? what if, then what, so what?Fantasy? Any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic. (Characters in conflict over issues)***Readers are welcome to proof-read; if I think it's a good correction, it goes in. (just send an e-mail, book-name + quoted line) Thanks. (One long-suffering reader got a few books dedicated to him.)On a personal note; I've got nearly 2 million words published at smashwords.com now. SF + fantasy novels, cartoons + short-stories.Jeez, lemme see; This whole mess got started in grade school; shorts in HS; novels after. (first one done in pencil.)Dozen or so 80,000 word novelettes (mostly type-writer.); first computer stuff; novels+shorts.Years of zines, quarterlies, novels, cartoons; BBSing a shorts echo (rogue-bone), blogs and cartooning. I THINK I can add another million words there. Maybe. Most of them are lost unless some old CD backups turn up.2021: Dead tree? If you don't make the best-seller li... collections of short stories;sf, fantasy, blogs, horror, crime...tedwars, Aaron+Henna and more. v2, editied.