A New Story In The Flex Universe! “Aliyah’s Sixteenth Birthday”! Where To Find It, How To Get It.

“So when will you be returning to write about Paul Tsabo, and Valentine, and Aliyah?” people ask. “I liked that series. Flex was good! You should write more of that.”

Alas, my muse is a fickle bitch, and has been drawn to other projects. But I did get a brief twitch to check in on Aliyah, so I’m writing a story about her sixteenth birthday party – a story that’s probably going to end up around 10,000 words, a tale of videogame mayhem and fatherly misunderstandings.

I tell you this because there will be only one way to get this story: If you preorder my upcoming book Automatic Reload, I’ll ship you the secret URL and password to read it when Automatic Reload ships.

Or, to put it another way:

Preorder my book Automatic Reload and get a free 10,000-word story about Aliyah Tsabo-Dawson.

There. That’s nicer, don’tcha think?

Anyway, if you liked Flex I’m pretty sure you’ll like Automatic Reload, because it’s got a snarky protagonist who’s also a hulking cyborg fighting for justice and against his PTSD. Basically, the whole book is about what happens when computerized targeting has become so accurate that firefights are beyond human comprehension – so you have to be a damn good programmer to set the parameters of your weapons, because if the other guy’s better than you at optimizing, you’ll be dead before you know it.

Oh, and it’s also about a cyborg falling in love with a genetically-engineered assassin in what Publishers’ Weekly (in a rare starred review) called an expert fusion of cyberpunk staples and romantic comedy elements.

So the bad news about this is that thanks to that coronavirus, Automatic Reload’s been bumped forward to the end of July. Which seems far off – and it is! But given how the publishing industry is collapsing with the rest of the economy, that means that every pre-order you make really helps authors in ways they never did before.

So. If you preorder Automatic Reload right now, you will get:

• An awesome firefight romance;
• 10,000 words of your favorite videogamemancers doing live-action Persona;
• A signed bookplate featuring Automatic Reload art!

How do you get this, you may ask? Simply email theferrett@theferrett.com with the subject “I HAVE PRE-ORDERED AUTOMATIC RELOAD” and the address you’ll be living at come July. (And make sure the subject of that email is “I HAVE PRE-ORDERED AUTOMATIC RELOAD” or my spam-filter might lose your request.) I’ll check in with you come the summer, and on the day of release I’ll give you access to the secret web page with the new story.

(It doesn’t matter where you preorder it – may I suggest your local book store? They could use the cash. But if you need direct links… At Amazon – At Barnes and Noble – At Independent Bookstores )

(And if you don’t know about Paul and Aliyah, I would note that each of the books in the ‘Mancer series – Flex, The Flux, and Fix – are all half off at Angry Robot if you use the code SHELFISOLATION at checkout. And if you haven’t read all three, well, you might wanna, because the events at the end of FIX really do change Aliyah in ways that are totally spoilerriffic.)

Anyway! To sum up again!

• New story featuring your favorite ‘mancers;
• Which you can read by preordering a new book featuring your favorite person who wrote this essay;
• Cool stuff!
• HELP YOUR WRITERS IF YOU CAN
• Message ends.