Genre: Adult Sci-Fi
Title: SimSim
Word Count: 75,000
SimSim Query:
Trader, pirate, crook - take your pick, they all describe Ali Baba Khan, and he doesn’t really care what you call him. There’s only one thing on his mind, and that’s making the Reformation pay. They took everything from him – his home, his livelihood, his beloved wife – and now he’s going to destroy them.
Twelve long years of careful planning have led him to this point. Twelve years of moving from plant to planet, planting seeds throughout the Fringes of space that will spark a revolution. Twelve years of struggling with the demons inside, haunted by dark secrets he can’t even share with his crew. And that’s because Ali Baba Khan’s cloned crew is one of the greatest secrets of all. They just don’t know it.
Twelve years, and it all went so smoothly. But when a man from his past steps back into his life, threatening to expose his true identity, Ali Baba Khan must make a choice: Abandon his plans on the cusp of completion, or kill and run, taking his ship and crew into hostile territory where everybody will be looking for him.
SimSim (75,000 words) is a completed work of adult science fiction that is loosely based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
SimSim First 250 Words
The house was in ruins - roof blown out, walls collapsed, fire and smoke everywhere. There wasn’t actually much left to identify it as his home, but he knew it was, despite his heart’s denial. Knew the square mile of wasteland around it was his neighborhood, even though the buildings were gone. He scanned his eyes across the wreckage, taking it all in, one thought repeating in his mind.
This was no accident.
It couldn’t be. The targeting was too precise. His home was the epicenter, the focus of the destruction. The rest was just collateral damage.
No emergency crews around. No fire brigade, no first responders looking for survivors. That told him the Government had done this. Only the Reformation could be so bold, so callous they could murder dozens of people and completely ignore it.
“God. Oh god.” His legs buckled, sending him crashing to his knees.
He was supposed to be in that house. Should have been killed with the others, buried in all that rubble.
“It’s all my fault,” he whispered, staring at a child’s doll lying half buried beneath a shattered toilet. “What I have done?” he asked it, leaning forward, reaching for the doll, only half aware of what he was doing.
It had button eyes, yellow yarn hair, red thread for lips. He fished it out, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The doll had been cut in half, legs torn away, stuffed innards dangling grotesquely. That’s how he felt. Gutted. Torn in two.