I love playing handball.

Not the kind you play indoors with four walls, though I’ve played that kind too. I’m talking about the kind you play against a concrete monolith, using a blue rubber ball the size of what we used to call a spaldeen on the streets of New York.

The opponent is almost always a teenager, almost always faster than I am, almost always stronger, and almost always in better shape. But I almost always win, because as physical as handball can get, there’s also strategy involved, and I’m good at the strategy part.

So my opponent walks on the court talking all kinds of trash and making remarks about the gray in what’s left of my hair, and walks off in an entirely different frame of mind. A decidedly beaten frame of mind. And I draw immense satisfaction from the encounter.

Yeah, it’s kind of evil. But then, I don’t have a whole lot of vices.

Handball is a city game, and some courts are in neighborhoods I probably shouldn’t be visiting. The kids I play are too often hanging gang colors. Some of them are sporting prison tats. On the court, it doesn’t matter. Everybody’s a gentleman, everybody’s a sportsman.

So one day I’m playing a crazy-looking kid, real tall and pale and skinny, and he’s beating the pants off me. And because I’m a writer, I starting thinking about who he might be and where he might have come from, and what the subtext of our game might be if neither one of us was what he seemed.

And that was the start of Fight The Gods.

It’s a work of the imagination–I feel safe in telling you that. Urban fantasy? Sure, why not. Action? Tons. Autobiographical elements? If you know me, you won’t have to look far for them. Romance? Well, yeah.

And it’s coming out next month, right here from Crazy 8 Press.

I first met Brian Thomsen when he was editing the Questar line of science fiction for Warner Books. Even though DC Comics was a division under the Book division’s purview at the time, the two never shared events. We worked a floor apart and it might as well have been a world away.

Brian, though, was a comics fan and delighted in breaking that barrier. In time, as happens everywhere, Brian chose to move on and became a freelance editor, writer, and book packager. (He would also continue to visit DC on Wednesdays, bringing Julie Schwartz sushi for lunch and they would chat, which resulted in Brian co-authoring Julie’s must read autobiography Man of Two Worlds.)

During all this time, Brian knew I was honing my craft, and finally getting some fiction assignments. One day, after lunch was over, Brian told me he had sold an anthology called Mob Magic and did I want to contribute. He’d already gotten a commitment from Denny O’Neil and I knew I’d be in good company. I wrote a story called “Solo” and it saw print, the book barely got noticed and life continued.

Sometime later, Brian informed me he had sold two books to DAW and was I interested in pitching to either of them. He had the broadest and vaguest of parameters, allowing the authors to be free in their thinking. I could not tell you today why I picked Oceans of Space instead of Oceans of Magic.

I set about to challenge myself in several ways, writing a story entirely through dialogue as well as a mutiny trial aboard a starship – things I had never written before. The result, “A Matter of Faith” was accepted, edited, and saw print. Unfortunately, as with so many anthologies, it sort of faded away.

With deep regret, I watched Brian go through health issues and shortly after I contributed some essays to a book of his, he unexpectedly passed away. He had been a terrific help to my writing career, a fun guy to talk with, and generally a fine human being. I still miss him.

These two stories are my only original works and I am thrilled to have a forum to make them available once more. Coming in a few days will be “A Matter of Faith” and I have to thank Aaron Rosenberg for the fine cover. “Solo” will follow eventually, but there I created something I want to explore further and need some time to fuss with so stay tuned.