D.N. Schmidt Books
Science fiction, space opera, mystery, and writing prompts
The Screaming Void
can a space junk salvage crew save the galaxy?
Jay Jordan and his crew travel the Domain, bending the law like a pretzel and sneaking their loot past wormhole security. A space gangster hires them to retrieve a mysterious ship lost in The Screaming Void. According to spacer legends, the Screaming Void was so vast and so empty that it drove travelers mad. It was the deadliest place in space, more perilous than the orbiting mine fields of Garbox 7, more insidious than the sentient black hole Stellar Oblivion, and more toxic than NearlyAir, the oxygen substitute for spacers on a budget. Traveling to the Void would mean certain doom, or at least highly probable misfortune.
As usual, the crew is flat broke. Jay is already renting out several of his internal organs, but it just isn’t enough to satisfy the crew’s ravenous creditors and their homicidal collections agents. The crew’s desperate need for cash outweighs their instinct for self-preservation. Reluctantly, they take the job.
Can the crew keep the ship from falling into the wrong hands? Can they keep their heads together long enough to get paid? Will they ever have a decent meal, or are they doomed to eat instant noodles forever?
Great for fans of Firefly, Cowboy Beebop, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and fun space opera adventures!
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The Stolen Planet
Can A Space Junk Salvage Crew Stop A War?
When the Dolos crew digs up an ancient weapon, they also uncover evidence of government corruption. Do they expose the Domain government’s true nature and risk igniting a rebellion, or sell the weapon and make some extra cash?
While the crew battles a government assassin, space pirates, and deadly vending machine junk food, Captain Jay Jordan struggles with reality itself. He finds himself haunted by visions of another life. Is he really a space adventurer, or is it all in his head?
The adventure continues in this hilarious space opera!
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They Ate The Waitress?
Can You really trust the owner of a restaurant for cannibals?
The government has collapsed. Not suddenly with a war or apocalypse, but slowly under the weight of its own incompetence. Law enforcement is now provided by private insurance companies, security guards, and manhunters. Manhunters are a mix of private detective and bounty hunter, experts at solving crimes, tracking down fugitives, and hand-to-gun combat. (It’s easier than hand-to-hand combat, especially if you’re the one with the gun.)
Manhunter Nick Wergild is a specialist in “weird” cases. One evening, while under the influence of powerful hallucinogens, he is hired to investigate a murder at a local restaurant called “Hand to Mouth”. It seems the customers ate one of the staff. And she didn’t even volunteer for the job.
Armed only with his wits and an atomic-powered electroshock gun, Nick has to find a way to solve the case without a body or a crime scene. Along the way, he also has to survive hit men, bomb-throwing security guards, bad puns, and a homicidal politician. Will he live long enough to solve the case? Can you really trust the owner of a restaurant for cannibals? And why does furniture keep falling from the sky?
Highly recommended for fans of Dirk Gently or the comic book series Transmetropolitan. If you love funny mysteries, you don’t want to miss this!
Available for Kindle, print, and audio book. (Nobody would publish the cookbook version…)
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The Doom Tapes
Ready to start the show?
Enjoy fifteen science fiction short stories filled with adventure, aliens, robots, and monsters! Take your flying car to the drive-in because the show’s about to start!
In “The Doom Tapes”, the earth is invaded by aliens. The only ones who can save the world are the clerks at Last Chance Video, the last movie rental store that still stocks VHS.
“Robot Eden” is the story of a trio of machines wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of the one place humans can never enter. Gangs of survivors fight them at every turn, seeking to scrap them for parts.
In “The Many Bodies of Harlan Thorne”, a spacefaring assassin has a collection of cloned bodies, each with a different super power. It’s a great life, until a clone refuses to go back into storage.
In “The Texas Creepers”, a man plays poker with parasites from another dimension.
“Mystery Meat Monster” features a truck stop in space, aliens, ray guns, and the galaxy’s most dangerous meatloaf.
The collection also includes the novella “The Asteroid Heist.” A thief and conman has a plan to pull off the biggest crime in history. But how do you steal three miles of space rock?
Available in print, Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and weird dream.
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Inspiration Overdose
get rid of writer’s block for good!
There are over two thousand story ideas for science fiction, horror, or fantasy stories, just waiting to inspire you. You’re sure to find something appealing for your next project.
Inspiration Overdose is packed with tools and techniques to transform story ideas into something entirely new. Try them all and pick your favorites, or choose one at random and write for an hour, then switch to another. Switching things up keeps the writing process interesting and your creative sparks flying. Just remember to wear eye protection!
Combining the tools with the story ideas can create over five septillion combinations! That’s a five with twenty-four zeroes after it, or more story ideas than there are stars in the universe.
Most likely, there are more story ideas in this book than you will ever need. Maybe even too many. You might become such a prolific writer that your house ends up filled with your work, with mountains of books stacked everywhere, until someone slams a door and they topple over and you end up buried alive under a literary avalanche. So to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t write more than a billion stories. Maybe two billion, if you use a small font.
Available in print, Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and message from a carrier pigeon.
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(Short Story) William and the Clockwork Devil
how do you defeat an invincible clockwork monster?
After the death of his mother, a young man named William finds himself transported to another world. This strange place seems like the Middle Ages, but the villagers are threatened by mechanical monsters and centaur highwaymen.
A masked doctor explains that poison has driven the kingdom mad, and William is the only remaining knight. Is the doctor trustworthy, or has he been struck with the madness, too? William must choose between pretending he’s brave enough to battle invincible dragon, or letting the masked doctor “cure” him with medieval brain surgery.
This creepy clockpunk portal fantasy mashup is available for Kindle now!
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(Short Story) The Proper Care and Feeding of Humans
is it still an alien invasion if the aliens just want to help?
When a highly advanced and seemingly benevolent alien species arrives on Earth, the world rejoices. At last, someone to solve all our problems while we watch TV!
Jack and Amy are among the few questioning the Shepherds’ intentions as the world eagerly embraces their gifts of technology, medicine, and freedom from grownup responsibilities. Even without death rays and flying saucers, alien invasions can still be destructive.
As the world grows dangerously dependent on its new guardians, what happens when we can no longer survive without them? Is a world without bills and laundry worth giving up our freedom?
This very unique alien invasion story is available for Kindle now!
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(Short Story) Silverfish
What would you do to be remembered?
Rosalyn is the night shift nurse at a nursing home, and a frustrated writer. She discovers a strange book in a resident’s room filled with woodcut illustrations of rituals, people in robes slaughtering lambs and draining the blood into goblets, bonfires with smoke taking on humanoid shapes, and otherworldly creatures. Not only that, a chapter is titled To Invoke The Muses. Desperate for a story idea that will make her feel like a real writer, she decides to take a chance on magic and borrow the book.
Is the being she summons actually a Muse, or something far more dangerous?
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