Rest Day Read Thursday February 17, 2011

Rest Day Read (SR-75)
Bugs in the Arroyo by Steven Gould
(chapter excerpt from his forthcoming novel, 7th SIGMA. Release July 2011) 
"Bugs care about three things, near as Kimball could figure. They loved metal. That’s what they’re after, what they’re made of, what they ate to turn into even more bugs.
You don’t want to have an artificial joint in the Territory. Ditto for metal fillings.
In preference over metal, though, they go after electro-magnetic radiation. This means they love radio and really, any of the humming frequencies caused by current flowing through conductors.
Forget computers, radios, cell phones, generators, and—remember fillings and crowns?—well, a pacemaker, an imbedded insulin pump, a vagal stimulator brings them quicker.
But there is one thing that brings them even faster than all of those, that makes them swarm.
A broken bug is to the territory what blood is to a shark pool. They come in numbers, they come fast, and they come with their coal-black nano snouts ready to eat through anything."

They say a good writing does not just tell about the action, good writing shows the reader the action. GREAT writing drops the reader into the action, not only telling the reader it is raining, but making the reader feel the drops hit the face.  In BUGS IN THE ARROYO, I felt I was walking around the desert scene looking over Kimballs shoulder the entire time.  GREAT STORY, folks.  Please, give it a try.
I stumbled across Steven Gould's BUGS IN THE ARROYO around the end of 2010 when I registered to win free ebooks of his novels in a Twitter contest.  I had known him as the author of JUMPER, but that was about the extent of my knowledge of Steven Gould.  After I registered, I went to his website, www.digitalnoir.com, roamed around and found a link to this story on TOR.com.  It is impressive to say the least and cranks up the anticipation for the July 2011 release of his novel, 7th SIGMA, from which this story is a chapter of.
Hope you enjoy!