My new short story "Worse than a Gremlin" was published today on the Web site. I am really excited about this one, because it introduces some of my favorite supporting characters from Metrognomes, my forthcoming novel. Among them are Kazkal No'tall, the brave warrior, and his jealous apprentice An'sep No'tall. This story also shows a different side of the gnome culture than "Music of the Metrognomes" did. It shows the gritty good versus evil side of the gnome world. It's got action and bloodshed. I hope you'll enjoy it, and I hope you'll like Kazkal, because he's one of my favorite characters in the book. I wanted to do three short stories as preludes to the novel, but the third one never really came together for me. It was going to be about the villain and the Darkgnomes. Maybe it will still come together at some point. The book should be out by the end of this year, and as for short stories, gnome-related or not, I want to have a new one for you every quarter. There are several I've been tinkering with, and about five that are more like "scenes" than whole stories. Maybe I'll put up some of those. I'm not sure. Well, I should stop rambling now, I suppose. I hope you'll let me know what you think of the new story, and I hope everyone reading this will have a very happy 2005!