Earlier when I posted that The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower & Other Tales of the Weird is now free, I wrote a post that did not exactly resemble what you see there today. I won't go into details, but it definitely did not contain the words "thank you" and certainly contained the words "people are jerks."

Upon further reflection-- and input from my special lady and the man who made the cover for it-- I decided to change it to a more light hearted and gracious tone. But the idea was still the same: My short story collection is now free, go get it!

However, I didn't explain the scope of my plans for my humble collection. The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower & Other Tales of the Weird is free-- for now. I offered it as a small taste for the crooning masses, but nonetheless a temporary one. Once the world figures out what I've known all along-- that I'm the greatest writer to emerge from the Western Hemisphere and that my work should be consumed and enjoyed by all-- I'll charge a small fee for further distribution once the crooning masses come knocking. The old Bait and Switch? Perhaps, except that I actually did charge a fee at first, didn't I? So that means that technically I 'baited' you with a two dollar short story collection and then 'switched' it to an identical but free one. I already did do the bait and switch, but one that works in your benefit. So when I start charging for it again, I shall face no moral conundrums.

However, I've got more news for you. Releasing my story collection for free turned out to be a pretty good idea, and dozens of people flocked to the Smashwords page to snap it up. So the next conundrum I faced was: How can I get more people to do that?

The answer was simple: Give even more things away.

So now, I give you The Mad Scientist. You might remember it as a short story that I had published through Books To Go Now. It originally priced at $2 (like my collection), then given away for free for a short period (at which point more than a hundred people got it on the first day), then dropped to $0.99 (or maybe that's just what Amazon did, as they're the only online distributor who frequently disregards the wishes of publishers and writers). At the end of the day, it just plain didn't fly off the shelves like we thought it would, so Books To Go Now graciously gave me back the publishing rights. And now, I'm giving it away.

Forever.

See, unlike TDSHML, The Mad Scientist is free, and will remain free, as long as it exists. It is my gift to the world. Well, pretty much any time I commit words to a page it is a gift to the world, but this so far is the only truly free, no-strings-attached, everlasting service I have performed.

So click on the cover below and you can have this short story and its excellent cover by Jason Nelson, to have and to hold, for all time.

You're welcome.