My poem “Mercury Rising” appears in the December 2011 issue of Aoife’s Kiss, edited by Tyree Campbell.

This issue also features work by Sarah M. Lewis, Shelly Bryant, K.S. Hardy, Lee Clark Zumpe, Marcie Tentchoff, Shaylen Maxwell, Justin R. Lawfer, Neil James Hudson, Chris Ward, Wayne Carey, James Fitzsimmons, Mary Brunini McArdle and many others.

I had just corrected a line in Dark Dreams, which was an acknowledgement to the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 18th Annual Edition for the poem The Art of Weaving, which earned an Honourable Mention in 2005. When I uploaded it in like 1 minute (!), Autovetter approved it, but it generated this error:

ERROR: dark-dreams (6).epub/toc.ncx(15): assertion failed: different playOrder values for navPoint/navTarget/pageTarget that refer to same target
ERROR: dark-dreams (6).epub/toc.ncx(15): assertion failed: different playOrder values for navPoint/navTarget/pageTarget that refer to same target

I verified it with Smashwords’ recommendation for a free ePub checker.

So I went through Mark Coker’s Styleguide again about NCX and tried a few things that didn’t work:

1. Check for TOC errors (but since it is a poetry ebook, there is no TOC so to speak but a list of poems).
2. Ensured there is no mention of “Chapter” in the document (because Meatgrinder apparently generates a TOC from there).
3. Finally, cleared all formatting and reformatted it (nuclear method).

When I check the epub in Adobe Digital Editions, the NCX seems to have added the words “Second Half” under the title under the left navigation. They are the only two lines. Looks rather odd really. When I click it, it stays on the first page, just as it does when I click “Dark Dreams”, the title.

Anyhow, I think, based on the fact that an earlier approved file is now found erroneous, it may have something to do with Meatgrinder’s NCX conversion process.

Thankfully I have one version sent to Apple already (minus the acknowledgement) so even if I fail to ever correct this, there will be a version of Dark Dreams for sale on the Apple store. Apple is the only vendor that requires this strict 100% compliance so I should really not fret too much about it since it is already available for sale there.

For now, loving the super conversion speed and thanking Mark Coker and his team for this amazing upgrade. Hoping the NCX errors will be fixed for the next upgrade as many eBooks don’t use a TOC.

Sold “Red Planet” and “Mercury Rising” to Aoife’s Kiss, “Exquisite” and “The Journey” to Shelter of Daylight, and “Zombie Apocalypse” to Cover of Darkness.

Here is the line-up:

Red Planet – September 2011 Aoife’s Kiss
Exquisite and Journey – Summer 2011 Shelter of Daylight
Zombie Apocalypse – September 2011 Cover of Darkness
Mercury Rising – December 2011 Aoife’s Kiss

Renewal was originally published in The Martian Wave in 2002 and it was released again on April 21st 2011 after Skynet failed to become sentient on April 20th. May it be a reminder to all ambitious droids that world domination is most likely unexciting after all the humans are gone.

The droids released a virus via satellite to shut down Earth’s critical systems. That crippled us. Then they began to systematically hunt us down to eradicate us. A lone man has fled to the mountains, leaving everything he had behind. You have to adapt if you want to survive.

Pearl in the sky,
Hanging from
The cosmic clothesline,
Sunning all your craters
They are quite dry.

Your neighbours,
A cloudy aquamarine
With swirls of activity
And a quiet red ruby,
Sitting placidly,

Like you,
Traversing the sky
Silent,
Save for
The occasional woosh

As young Hailey speeds by
With his tail on fire.
He cuts a path,
Bending the stuff
Your skies are made of.

The wake
Reverberates,
Bounces against
The other end of the wall
But you don’t feel it.

Maybe it doesn’t exist at all.

–
Copyright © 2002 Christina Sng
“Moon” originally appeared in Hadrosaur Tales #13 in April 2002, and was reprinted in Kisses for Kids in December 2002.

How to buy:

1. Visit my Smashwords page.

2. Add both eBooks to your Cart. Browse and see if you’d like anything else.

3. Checkout. You can pay with Paypal or any credit card.

4. Completed! Yay! For less than a cup of coffee you now own 2 eBooks!

5. The beauty of Smashwords is it is DRM-free. You can download it in any format to any device you own.

I love Stanza for the iPhone or iPad. Just open the app, login to Smashwords, search in Smashwords for Sng (least to type), download each eBook – it will say under the price that you have purchased this book.

Thanks for supporting speculative poetry!

The stars fly,
Huge behemoths
Whipping past.
Galaxies look like
Streaks of rainbow light,
Crayon scratchings across
The chalkboard universe.

Time rewinds,
An old videotape spinning,
Spiralling into an implosion
Back to where nothing belonged.

–
Copyright © 2002 Christina Sng
“Time Travel” originally appeared in Hadrosaur Tales #14 in June 2002, and was reprinted in Kisses for Kids in December 2002 and in the anthology Portals in June 2003.

Dark Dreams is now on sale at Smashwords!

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52235

I’d like to stay in my cocoon
For as long as I can, till
Hunger cripples me and
Expels me from my shell.
My insides have long been
Cut open and slurped up
By some ravenous god.
lt has left the head alone,
Hoping perhaps it will regenerate.

The chill is paralyzing -
You have known that-
Yet you left me drifting
In the sand dunes,
Parched and dried, my skin
Unfolding in the lacerating wind.
When the dusk finally falls,
I rustle softly as I pass you,
Standing proud ln the dust.

–
Copyright © 2001 Christina Sng
“Cocoon” originally appeared in The Edge, Tales of Suspense, 2001, and was subsequently reprinted in Poetry Life and Times, 2001 and Vacancy, 2003.