Strange Little Band is a site I stumbled upon that posts a serialized sci-fi story “with a dollop of romance.”  The story is co-authored by Nancy Brauer and Vanessa Brooks.

The story itself is full of intrigue, mental acrobatics (literal and figurative) and quit a bit of steamy byplay. Oh my.  These ladies certainly know how to write.  And they pull no punches when they do.  There’s swearing and crude behavior, but as I’ve told them more than once in comments on their posts, those things make it real without going overboard.

Last week I left a comment on Chapter 8:  The Devil You Know – Part 5. I was just being my normal, abnormal self and making a lame joke.  Surprisingly, Nancy didn’t find it so lame. In fact, she loved it.  The comment was this:

I think Triptych needs a new company motto. “Looking to the future of innovation — in bed.”

Ever play the fortune cookie game? Just put in bed at the end of all your fortunes.

Nancy Twittered it shortly after that–the motto, that is, not the fortune cookie bit.  And much to my surprise came back a bit later and asked if she could use the motto on a T-shirt coupled with the logo for Triptych, the mega-corp from the story.  I happily agreed after I got over my surprise.

Once Nancy had the shirts up on Zazzle, she offered to buy me one as a thank you.  This is the part that truly got me thinking.  At first I balked.  How could I accept a gift for simply spouting nonsense in a comment?  They were just words weren’t they?  As soon as I had that thought, however, I knew that wasn’t true.  Words are powerful.  Any writer worth their salt knows that just the right words are hard to come by.  If I took that stance, I would be diminishing her gratitude and my own worth as a writer. As well as Nancy’sworth as a writer and reader.

And it’d be just plain rude. (See Mom, I totally learned stuff from you!)

So I made a compromise.  I accepted Nancy’s gift and bought the other shirt on display as well.

Strange Little Band is going on hiatus until November 9th, 2009, so now is a great time to start reading the story from the beginning to catch up to where they are right now.

Once Nancy and Vanessa are back from hiatus I’m sure we’ll see the same quality, enjoyable writing as we did before.

Thank you, ladies, for putting out such wonderful work and sharing with us all.

Tags: Review, Sci-fi, Writers