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Aside from a few other errors you didn't mention Russ this short-story was very good. The only downside is that this is a tale I've been waiting for for years (Jack getting busted by the cops) and it's in the form of a short-story. I would love to have seen this drawn out into a novel... maybe something stand-alone from the Adversary Cycle. The reason I think this may have worked better as a novel is because we could really have experienced Jack's terror at being arrested but instead in this form it felt a little rushed.

But the ending wasn't what I expected which is good. Had this turned out as I had anticipated I would have been disappointed but instead Paul takes the story in a different direction. Original as usual!

Now, if Paul would write a LaNague short-story and sell it on Amazon like this short-story I'd be a very happy camper.

I posted this on January 7, 2005:

"I just finished two terrific RJ shorts found in anthologies: "The Wringer" in NIGHT SCREAMS, and "The Long Way Home" in DARK AT HEART. Very interesting stories, very interesting.

"The Wringer" is one of the grizzliest RJ "mundane" fix-its that I've seen, and dark!

I will repeat until I am dead that I do not consider anything that RJ does to be mundane. I know that compared to his work with the Otherness, his fix-its for mere mortals look mundane. But, boy oh boy, they surely are not.

And the second, "The Long Way Home," was fascinating, puts RJ in a place I never expected to find him.

That's all you're gonna get outta me. Great stuff!"

Aren't the Amazon Short Stories suppose to be exclusive? And here I thought this was a brand spanking new Jack story.

Just finished reading the story. A good one, where Jack faces one of his worst nightmares.

On a technical note, however, I wish whoever at Amazon formatted the PDF had looked it over before posting. A bunch of paragraphs are not indented, as they should be; 14 by my count And on a nitpicky note, there were four typos: p. 4, 5th paragraph, "to hand face down on the hood" should, I think, be "to land face down"... P. 5, p. 8, extra period. P. 26, last line extra character in the middle of "without" ["without talking to their man]. P. 28, top of page, "somebody's dead and you're balling" should be "bawling."

But the tech stuff aside, I think this is a neat idea, original stories online for a nominal fee. I definitely got my 49¢ worth from this story!

Russ Madden

Thanks Russ! It was the only RJ story that I haven't read yet. I realy didn't notice the errors, probably because I rarely see words when I read. Sounds strange, huh. Most times I don't even notice turning the pages.
IMO, Jack really showed what he was made of, he didn't have to do what he did. But he couldn't just walk away. I wouldn't even say he gambled on it because he new the repurcutions of his actions.

KRW

Aren't the Amazon Short Stories suppose to be exclusive? And here I thought this was a brand spanking new Jack story.

Well, I read it recently in Dark at Heart, thanks to Maggers' info. I got the signed limited edition at Abe and was very surprised to see that it included my other favorite author, David Morrell. I didn't know that when I ordered it. Dark at Heart is the favorite anthology in my collection now.
I thought "The Long Way Home" was great! I did wish it was longer too. I was sweating bullets when RJ got arrested. I was thinking about all the times he mentioned being arrested as the worst thing that could happen in the following novels. That had me very confused until I got the resolution to that problem. I'm very glad it was written. I love those old RJ short stories. My favorite is still "A Day in the Life".

Aren't the Amazon Short Stories suppose to be exclusive? And here I thought this was a brand spanking new Jack story.

If it's one you haven't read, isn't it new to you?


KRW

If it's one you haven't read, isn't it new to you?

It was new to me, and I'm glad Russ pointed it out. Now, when is Amazon going to post "The Wringer", which would also be new to me?

I also noted the typos, as well as the vacillation between underlined words and actual italic. But, the double-spacing was the thing that bothered me the most. You have to double-space a manuscript to leave room for markup, but there's no excuse for doing it in the published version. That just makes it less readable, as well as using up twice as much paper if you want to print it.

There were quite a few small, nitpicky errors. Note that some curly quotes show up mixed with the straight ones, for example. (Yes, I'm that anal. The first step is admitting you have a problem. And I'm not there yet.)

Good catch on the spacing. I have to admit that it never occurred to me to notice.

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I have to respectfully disagree on stretching the story into a novel, though. I thought it was made for the short story format. A novel would've given too much time, I think, for Jack's prints and other information to start traveling elsewhere in the station, get filed, etc., making resolution much more difficult, if not impossible.

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Blake

I thought "The Long Way Home" was perfect. Just enough to get you frantic and keep you thinking.