Arkansas Literary Festival

Pro Se got out the mighty word this weekend at the Arkansas Literary Festival, and we were excited to meet all of the visitors to our tables.

Next weekend Pro Se will be in Chicago at the Windy City Pulp and Paper Con, we look forward to seeing all who attend. 

The Pro Se Flyer

Feel free to print as many of these as you want and post them all over town.

Next Weekend!!!!

Can't make it this weekend to the Arkansas Lit Fest, then catch us next weekend at the 

Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention. 

This Weekend!!!

Come see us at the Arkansas Literary Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas.

THE OPTIMIST BOOK ONE: You Don’t Know Jack By Chuck Miller - Chapter Three

PULP MACHINE EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!

BOOK ONE:

You Don’t Know Jack

By Chuck Miller

CHAPTER THREE:

Little To Win, But Nothing To Lose

Whatever it was, it was in costume. Or the ghost of a costume. It looked like Captain Mercury, but it wasn’t solid. I could see through it in places. It was like a reflection on a window pane at night—some lighted object in the room behind you, superimposed over the darkness outside, incomplete but distinct.

The  mother of all “someone just walked over my grave” chills snapped my whole body like a bullwhip. I was waiting for myself to shatter completely, to succumb to a fatal panic attack.

But I didn’t. Oddly, The panic receded and I found that I was utterly calm.

“You,” I said. “Damn. You know who you look like, right? I mean, are you him?” 

“I am his spirit,” it said in Johnny’s voice. It certainly sounded like him, though it was kind of tinny.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s cute. His spirit.” I looked at him. He looked at me. Silence. I studied his face. It was both translucent and masked, neither of which was conducive to making a positive ID. The inside of my head was empty. Or maybe it was too full, I dunno. Finally, I came up with the following:

Let the YesterYear Countdown Begin!!!!

YesterYear is at the Press!!!!!

YesterYear by Tommy Hancock, Published by Pro Se Press. Cover Art by Jay Piscopo, Interior art by Peter Cooper, Format and Design by Sean Ali. 
 
A world where heroes and villains existed since the day the market crashed and the world almost collapsed. Common people granted great powers and awesome responsibility. A world where one of them knew all the secrets, good and bad, and put them down in a book. A world where that man and that manuscript disappeared. 
 
Until now. 
 
YESTERYEAR is the first book in an epic series chronicling the adventures of Heroes and Villains, both in the Heroic Age of the 1920s-1950s and in the modern day. Centered around a missing manuscript that might hold information that could literally change history and even mean the end of the world, YESTERYEAR alternates between a fast paced modern storyline about the man who ends up with the legendary book and excerpts from the mythic tome itself. Marvel to pulp like adventures of glory and adrenaline and become engrossed in the humanity and horror of being a Hero. 
 
YESTERYEAR by Tommy Hancock-Sometimes the Greatest Mystery of Tomorrow happened Yesterday!

The Sorceror's Ghost - by: Sean Ellis

"The Sorceror's Ghost"

by: Sean Ellis

as published in

PRO SE PRESENTS Peculiar Adventures #2 

BUY YOURS TODAY AT

http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Excerpt:

       I — A Bad Day

       The Wolfpack was having a bad day.

       It had started off all right. They had left the airfield at Issoudon just as dawn’s light was breaking in the East, and were eager to get back to their home base at Chaumont. The first part of the mission, providing escort for Brigadier General Sanders’ DH.4 had been thankfully uneventful. The aces were always eager to prove their mettle in combat, but drawing fire for the more cumbersome de Havilland two-seater and risking their boss’ hide in the process, was not their idea of a good time in the air. Today however, returning home without the General, they were fairly spoiling for a fight. Captain Colby Wyatt, the intrepid leader of the squadron, had suggested a route that took their gray SPAD XIII’s close to where the action usually was, and neither the older and wiser Lieutenant Jimmy Styles, nor the pugnacious Robert “Bull” Caine had demurred. They felt ready to take on the world.

       Then everything had gone to Hell.

       They had been lucky in that first engagement. Bull had spied the pair of Albatros D.III biplanes before the enemy saw them, and after a signal to Captain Wyatt, had drawn first blood. An expert marksman—possibly the best in the service—Bull had torn one of the Boche planes apart in mid air with a single burst from his Vickers guns. Wyatt had taken the second plane, raking its tail with a relentless torrent of .303 rounds, but somehow the canny Kraut had peeled off, and then to everyone’s surprise, turned into them. The three Spad pilots all whipped their heads around at almost exactly the same instant that the Albatros speared right through the center of their V-formation.

Crime of the Arts, Part One: Probing the City - by: Robert E. Kennedy

Crime of the Arts

Part One: Probing the City

by: Robert E. Kennedy

as published in

PRO SE PRESENTS Masked Gun Mystery #1 

BUY YOURS TODAY AT

http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Excerpt 2:

September 17, 1989

The following morning I wrapped up a few loose ends of other matters, then went down to Silly... er... City Hall.

Professor Simon Archer is emeritus at the local University. He writes articles and whole books on city planning. Outside his field he is woefully absentminded. Whenever I need to research something at the Hall, Professor Archer visits. I flitted from office to office collecting data.

Back at the apartment I went over plats, blue prints, deeds, street and utility plans. The Anson Foundation for the Fine Arts owned the whole block that contained the Renaissance Shelter for Troubled Women. The Anson family I knew. Old money, local roots reaching back to the beginning of the city. Did lots of good works, many without publicity. Their Foundation for the Fine Arts? New to me.

The shelter consisted of several connected storefronts and the living space above them. The Foundation seemed to be renting some of the other storefronts. One of the rented buildings had been a notorious Speakeasy during Prohibition. Red flag that. Speakeasies often came with extracurricular architectural features. Some of the buildings across the alley were marked empty or as storage for the Foundation. Time to take a look.

Crime of the Arts, Part One: Probing the City - by: Robert E. Kennedy

Crime of the Arts

Part One: Probing the City

by: Robert E. Kennedy

as published in

PRO SE PRESENTS Masked Gun Mystery #1 

BUY YOURS TODAY AT

http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Excerpt: 
   

August 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency of the United States of America. The first of a new generation of Independent Operators becomes active to deal with possible fall-out from the unprecedented situation. A few years later one of these Independent Operators breaks up an assassination plot against James Earl Carter. The public never hears of this, but the Secret Service, and others, take note.

Soon after this Independent Operator comes into my life. Back into my life, actually. For this deadly Agent of Justice saved my life not only here in my home town, but in Saigon as well. What does he look like? Nobody knows. Anybody who has knowingly met him calls him the Voice. His extremely rare public speech sounds like nothing else in the annals of history.

I don’t know much more than that. And I am what passes for his biographer. Plus, maybe a bit of a therapist, too. Most of his work involves gathering information on people who make life worse. Criminals, bad or incompetent politicians, and public servants, societal bullies, it doesn’t matter. He finds the dirt and turns it over to the police, prosecutors, or the media.

My name is Erwin K. Roberts. I worked in Saigon for Havens International Media. Stateside I became editor of the local paper in the Clarion newspaper chain. When the Voice popped up in my life in recent decades it was usually to relate a story. A case that hasn’t gone as expected. Or gotten too big. For when lives are on the line he becomes about the most deadly man in the world. I help him get it off his chest. He truly hates to kill. Letting me write up his exploits seems to help him.

The Voice stayed active from 1974 until at least December of 1999. I last heard from him after a very tragic case. He may have moved his operations elsewhere. He may have retired. And if he did retire, the woman he let into his life in this 1989 case probably helped make it happen.

-------------

THE OPTIMIST BOOK ONE: You Don’t Know Jack By Chuck Miller - Chapter Two

PULP MACHINE EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!

BOOK ONE:

You Don’t Know Jack

By Chuck Miller

CHAPTER TWO:

Dead Kings, Many Things I Can't Define

“All of which, I suppose, makes me a sort of optimist.”

Vionna smiled like a goofy little kid and said, “Then I am too. I’ll be what you are. I always did really admire you.”

“You have good instincts, Vionna.”

“Um. Well, it’s so nice to see you and talk to you. I’ve been… I’ve been really lonely for… There’s nobody to… Say, if I tell you something, will you promise you won’t laugh at me?”

“I can’t promise that if I don’t know what it is. I promise you I’ll try not to.”

“Okay. Well, when I was a kid, back in those days, I used to kind of daydream about you and imagine that you were my big brother. Don’t laugh! I never had any brothers or sisters, and you were always nice to me, and I just really wished that I was your little sister.”

Well. I certainly wasn’t laughing. I hadn't expected anything like that. It confused me. I felt as though an indecent liberty had been taken. Then it made me feel something odd. It had been so long since I was actually touched by something someone said to me, it took me a second to recognize what it was. When I did, it felt like a branding iron. It was unpleasant. I resented it.