FIRST A BRIEF BUT NEEDED UPDATE FROM MANAGEMENT:
Well, I did tell you this fundraiser would be the “pardon our dust” year. What I never expected was for the difficulties to arise from that simplest of things: a shout out on my blog.
It’s not just that I’m nearly paralyzed with fear of outing someone who ends up fired because they sent me $10 — though that’s part of it. I remember being deep in the closet. I opened Instapundit one morning, and saw my name and my heart froze. Glenn and I were in various semi-secret groups together, and I thought he was quoting me, and the most lucrative contract I’d ever had (3 books at 17.5k each) would be cancelled.) Then I realized he was referencing my fiction. — it’s that the “shoutout” part wasn’t absolutely clear, and I didn’t have a designated email for “email me if you don’t want this.” Team Hoyt thought they had a list, but they’d forgotten to look through the bookpimping, the blog comments AND the letters with checks. So, that’s happening now. Next year there will be a “rewards” email, which we’re starting to send off the certificates this week, anyway.
Weirdly, the mass death and/or brief mention is not as hard. A lot of you are going to end up being AIs, ships or colonies in the Rhodes-verse. (Because some names aren’t suited to people names, without an excuse. Though some of you might be noms-de-communication and call signs. A couple of you might end up as cats in the uplifted cat world. Deal.) ALL the other stuff is proceeding apace if slowly — would you believe checks are still arriving at the mail box, at the rate of one a day or so? I guess expecting Huns to follow “time directions” was always a forlorn hope. It’s like herding cats. THANK YOU. Muh PEOPLEZ– though compiling and sending rewards to long term subscribers will take longer, particularly since I want to send you guys something special. (And probably insane, but… you met me, right? I want to make it worth your while.)
Anyway, it’s proceeding apace. Might be done this evening, though probably not because I was VERY bad yesterday, and instead of working decided to unpack my art/hobby room. Which, once it’s setup will be part of my taking a day off a week and doing non-word stuff. So Team Hoyt was left hanging in the dark with no direction.
ALSO D*MN your eyes, can’t you guys send me a note saying ‘use this or that name’ without a thank you note that makes me cry. My mom told me “iron women don’t have the luxury of crying’ and here you guys are going to make me rust or something! (Thank you. Even though I’m crying ugly, having been gathering all the notes, to make sure TeamHoyt gets the name list clean, and all of them made me cry again. I’m grateful for the donations but most of all I’m grateful for you guys.)
Other updates:
Yes, I should FINALLY send BOR to my editor this week. He might kill me, because it’s supposed to be out the 25th and we’re very late.
I’ve sent in the Barbarella script. And I’ve FINALLY sent in the short story for Lawdog’s Knights of Malta anthology. You see, normally I toss short stories out like I breathe, and doing a short story in a couple of hours is a thing. This one cost me 3 weeks, because it came out in disjointed paragraphs that made no sense. I assumed each of them was the beginning of the story, but actually the assemblage of five paragraphs that first came through were the last of the story. And none of it made sense. Which made me stop and to “The heck, actually?”
Until I finally — because a friend promised to read it before I sent it to lawdog, and tell me if it was written in Martian — sat down and typed it out in 3 hours (the last moving paragraphs/scenes around) and realized yeah, it’s a story. Probably THE weirdest I’ve ever written, but a story. So there’s that.
Darkship Thieves is ALMOST ready to go up, just working on things around the formating edges, in my copious spare time. (Now I’m going to put it on a week pre-order so I can tinker with the hard cover version, but I expect it might take longer to go live, since sometimes Amazon gets inky about re-pub rights, particularly for paper editions.)
ALSO I’m contracting for audio versions of both Other Rhodes and Deep Pink. (Yes, sequels will get written. I do know move and recovery and all have dragged on forever, seemingly, at least from this side of the screen. I have an idea it seems even slower from the other side, but believe it or not the ice is breaking, the floes loosening their grip and there is definite and consistent forward movement. Even if some days — like yesterday — I do play hooky.)
Book promo
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.
*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. – SAH*
FROM DOROTHY GRANT: Between Two Graves: Book 4 of Combined Operations
He swore he wouldn’t be back while his parents lived…
Now, almost thirty years later, AJ is going home.
Ordered to attend his mother’s funeral in the rugged northern border of the Empire, AJ is baring old wounds to his new wife, and burying familial feuds.
But the past won’t die that easily, and grave secrets will threaten all the survivors and the women they love. Because the Feds are after AJ’s unwanted inheritance…
And they’re willing to risk a war to get their hands on it.
FROM CLAYTON BARNETT: Goddess’ Crusade (American Imperium Trilogy Book 3)
With five legions at her disposal and her own enhanced, demi-human nervous system, Faustina Hartmann has nearly conquered all of what had been the Deep South. Work on the rail lines continues as well as the bridge over the Mississippi, to move badly needed uranium ore from Texas to Knoxville. There remain two holdouts: the former US Army base of Fort Benning and the city of Atlanta. Choosing to strike the military base first, Faustina is horrified to find it is controlled not only by another demi-human who can draw upon the power of a quantum supercomputer but that she is outnumbered in infantry and has no tanks to their brigade of armor. Pulling four of her five legions together, Faustina uses both her knowledge of history and her modified mind to devise a plan. Realizing she cannot do this alone, she reaches out to the Thinking Machines, knowing they will demand a severe price for their help. And, even if she wins, Atlanta lies to the north, where a house-to-house fight would break the back of her army. Marshaling her friends and allies, Faustina marches out, daring to put it all to the touch, to win or lose it all, in this concluding volume of the American Imperium trilogy.
FROM PAUL CLAYTON: Strange Worlds
HE’S DOING A FREE PROMO I THINK TOMORROW? (If I got it wrong, let me know. I’m wrestling octopi while doing this.)
In the future, the love of a young man’s life is dying. He would do almost anything to keep her alive…except that! In Dog Man, it turns out that Oscar the tomcat was just misunderstood — with deadly consequences… A love sick young man attempts to tap the power of an ancient religion to secure the affections of a girl on their class trip to Christland… The dead come briefly back to life every year when the astral dimensions align in Day, or Two, of The Dead. A cynical young ‘player’, adrift in the modern, amoral age meets God on a mountain top and his life is changed forever — but not in the way he’d ever imagined. Traditional sci-fi/fantasy and satire from the author of Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam. Clayton channels the spirits of Huxley, Orwell and Philip K. Dick in these and ten other intelligent, provocative and highly entertaining stories. WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING “Thank you for writing this. This is the sort of book I was hoping would begin to spring from the Indie world. No way would NYC Corporate Publishing ever allow something with this world view through.” “… I expected Strange Worlds to be about dystopias, supernatural monsters, zombies, and futuristic technologies, but now after reading this collection, I realize that the stories are about us.” “Clayton leads the modern reader through dark and dangerous territory, but the gems they will find there are worth the risk. Very few Indies would have had the courage to put their names to something like this.” “… while you are being taken away to a place and time which is… strange and… disturbing… the humanity of (most of) his characters will make you feel right at home; of course, you’ll want to leave a light on.”
BY WILIAM MORRISON WITH INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Gears of Time (Annotated): The Pulp Science Fiction Bio Adventure
He was caught between those who moved too swiftly and those who moved too slowly, but time stood still when he met Medlana.
She was old enough to be his grandmother’s grandmother — but he loved her!
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving genre and historical context to the novel.
FROM FRANK J. FLEMING, THE AUDIOBOOK FOR: Superego: Betrayal
Terrorists. A ruthless criminal syndicate. A warmongering dictatorship. And those are just Rico’s allies.
With the civilized universe conquered, it’s up to the uncivilized to fight back. Rico prefers working alone, but this time, he’s leading an army against his two greatest enemies, who both have one thing in common: Rico’s own DNA.
Fighting a personal battle on a galactic scale, Rico enlists thieves, murderers, and malcontents (plus one space princess) to help him save the universe from tyranny.
And considering Rico’s new associates, it’s not a question of whether he’ll be betrayed, but when, and by whom.
FROM TOM VEAL: Clicks & Colluders
Hillary Clinton has won the 2016 Presidential election. That was no surprise to anyone. What was surprising was the margin: an Electoral College majority of just two votes. The key to the victory was, in the opinion of many, the late revelation of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
Madi Hewlett, fledgling reporter for an Internet service specializing in political news and gossip, is the lucky recipient of the inside story of how the Trump scandal was uncovered. Her source is impeccable, a Russian dissident with contacts deep within the Putin regime. Her story disclosing the details is a sensation, launching her journalistic career.
Or so she thinks. The events that she sets in motion veer in unexpected directions, threatening to end the Clinton Presidency before it begins and making her and her friends and her friends’ friends targets of the FBI.
Featuring an array of characters from the worlds of spycraft, social media, politics and private foundations, Clicks & Colluders tells a story that might almost have come true.
FROM DAVID COLLINS: Darkness and Claws: Starship Medusa book 2 (Space Ship Medusa)
In the first book, On Mars, Jason stumbled across the escape pod to a 3,500 year old derelict spacecraft.
The AI for the ship then informed Jason that due to him having some traces of alien DNA, he was now the Captain of a massive alien Starship. That ‘should’ have been good news. But bad news was was that Jasons DNA had a second trait, one that shouldn’t be there… The last time that someone had one of the forbidden DNA aspects, that was what caused the last war that left the ship a derelict.
Now, in the second book, with the ship finally with a a full crew, and outfitted with the most creative weapons that Earth had managed to come up with. They take off to their first interstellar destination, a Mauron shipyard, that turns out to be run more like a penal colony.
While their ship is in the repair bay, they get attacked by a state of the art Felinog battle ship. The Felinog were not counting on the unusual Earth weapons that had been added, and some very creative tactics.
Who are the Darkness? Who are the Claws? Where does Jason and his ship fit into their conflict?
What new secrets hides beneath the fake ship, on a world that shouldn’t be where it is?
FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: 202208 Message in a Bottle
This is another collection of the last month worth of pamphlets I’ve published. Edited, polished, surrounded by news headlines I didn’t have any specific comment about but wanted to include. If we’re still around in another month or so, I’ll put the last few booklets together as a standard book as I’ve been publishing for years. If you’re one of my massive legions of fans, you know the drill. If you’re new, you can give me lots of money and find out. That’s a win-win, right?
But I’m still covering current events and analyzing whatever I can, I’ll continue doing that for as long as possible. I know I keep saying that we don’t have much time left but the world keeps getting worse and I only need to be right about this once time.
Either way, I’m still putting this out to anybody who can make good use of it. At this point, that’s about all we can do for each other. I hope you believe the same way, because there are far too many people who don’t, who ignore reality at all costs, who are destroying everything it took centuries to build just to prove they can.
We need inspiration, we need hope, we need a sign that there’s something more than what those creatures are foisting upon the world. Here’s my attempt.
FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: 202207 Fulcrum
Polished and collected, this is what I’ve been putting out for the last month. Current events, observations, thought on the world falling apart, just hoping I could get this done before it finally happens. We need to turn this around now or it’ll get much worse.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: STANDING
According To Hoyt 
I’m Standing Here Roaring Drak Bibliophile or Paul Howard is a good name for Sarah to use! 😀
“Probably THE weirdest I’ve ever written…”
And now everyone here will just HAVE to buy it to see for ourselves ‘Just ho weird is it?’
Johnny Carson(ish): “It was so weird that politicians with their hands in their own pockets seemed completely normal.”
“It was so weird LSD read it and said, ‘Man, what a trip!'”
“It was so weird….”
“It was so weird LSD read it and said, ‘Man, what a trip!’”
THIS ONE. Added to the fact my character seemed to have an ancient Greek cadence to his speech and– aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
My own entry:
“It was so weird John Crichton called it the strangest thing he’d ever seen!”
It was so weird…
Leonard Nimoy used it on an episode of “In Search Of”. Yes I’m old and yes I liked Nimoy/Spock
My kids like that show!
:adds to list of “weird stuff on youtube they can watch:
Mr Nimoy really was dredging for money when he did that in the 70’s after the Mission Impossible gig went south. Star Trek the Motion Sickness helped, but I think things didn’t really improve until Wrath of Khan.
And yet, screwy as it was, it was still better than at least 80% of everything else on TV.
Obviously, it involved Leonard Nimoy. Anything he did (short singing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, even I have limits) would have been better than most of 1970’s TV.
As long as the muse doesn’t take it for a challenge.
“How many do I have to fight?” he asked. It was just a matter of choosing how he wanted to die. He could probably kill more of them with his spear, with less pain, than fighting twenty or more men hand to hand.
“Kan, for one,” said the chieftain. “Who else wishes to challenge the stranger?”
Then, to the stranger’s utter surprise, only three others volunteered.
“You’ll… let me live?” he asked, skeptically.
“If you’re still standing after fighting four of my warriors,” said the chieftain.
Nice note from the Correia-verse – “Management”, indeed!
Hmm. Not to be nit-picky, but I don’t remember Management being a green dragon. Could be the lighting was off in the cavern though. Or maybe he just identifies as one?
The official Dungeons and Dragons rules of color label green dragons as the cunning and sneaky ones. So it could be that Management was simply concealing its nature until now.
Or it wants us to think that, and it’s actually a red dragon!
Wait. Reds don’t tend to be subtle. Maybe it’s a green dragon trying to trick us into thinking it’s a red dragon pretending to be a green dragon.
Unless that’s exactly what it wants us to think…
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
I’m caught. Do I answer “Wait ’till I get going!” or “One level higher than you.”?
Ah, just pick whichever reference you recognize.
Albino dragon that likes messing with people using colored lights!
Of course, the D&D manual on Dragons was written by Dragons to fool people about Dragons.
Even our Great And Honorable Adversaries, the Order Of Dragonslavers, laugh at the D&D manual on Dragons. [Big Dragon Grin]
Slaying a dragon is one thing. Slaving one is quite something else. I don’t know that I would dare try that (ethical considerations aside)
LOL 😆
You’re correct I meant Dragonslayers not Dragonslavers.
There was a group that attempted to enslave Dragons, but they didn’t last very long.
We joined forces with our Honorable Adversaries, the Dragon Slayers, to destroy them.
There are Honorable Reasons to Slay Dragons (and generally we agree with the Slayers) but no Honorable Reasons to enslave Dragons.
Makes sense.
(Darn it, now I want a book about Dragons and the Order of Dragon Slayers. I love the ‘Loyal Opposition/Frenemies’ dynamic.)
If you haven’t heard of it may I recommend “The Dragon and The George” by Gordon Dickson (https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-George-Knight-Book-ebook/dp/B00HCLQPYK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1660054802&sr=8-1), $6 via kindle, available as paperback from various used book dealers (amazon seems to have none) for ~$5.25. Quite the romp and there is a whole series although only the first 2-3 are any good.
Oxymoron: Domesticated Dragons
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern Dragons not withstanding.
Dreamworks How to Train Your Dragon was pretty awesome. Granted, it was more of a pet/symbiotic partnership situation with creatures that imitated dogs and cats – just with fire breathing capabilities.
Those are not Dragons they are just giant ass fire lizards 🙂 .
Much like the absolute WORST punishment for a centaur is NOT execution, but Riding School.
Apparently you’re dinner, since you’ve been handed a puzzle to keep you still.
For that matter, Management seems to be quite a bit larger than the portrait above; supplemental reading suggests many dragons are shape-shifters, and might be any size – or color – they might choose.
I walked out of the bar, and I realized that there was a fix in for me.
You didn’t get the sort of people that most police reports would call “the usual suspects” just standing around the station hallway, clearly not blocking any of the ways out…right at this moment.
I was too far away from the bar door to easily get back in, and the dozen men had blocked all of the other ways out and were clearly Lurking With Menace as they came over, hands clearly placed to pull out clubs and improvised knives.
Izanagi had already clearly marked them off, was running a combat gestalt analysis, and began cranking up my biologicals into full fight-or-flight mode. And, to be honest, I was waiting for this. After the last few days, I wanted a proper rumble and twelve-on-one was going to be a proper fight.
It didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to go back and find Paco and wind his guts around a pencil, but that could wait until later.
This guy makes me think of John Clark, from the Tom Clancy novels.
Which is a compliment, by the by. Nicely done!
He’s…acerbic and interesting. Doesn’t even have a name right now, but he’s someone that has a lot of issues…but also loyalty and the sort of stubbornness you need in a detective.
Standing on principle here,
I won’t buy a book — even science fiction — referencing Trump, Clinton, Biden, Obama, or Bush.
Those are not funny people — nor is what they did.
Sorry to Mr Veal; but that dog don’t hunt ’round these parts.
I’ll save my pennies to spend on other books.
I dunno, does it picture them crawling through molten lava, experiencing a particularly heinously painful death by STD, doomed flight partway across the ocean in a helicopter? Or are they, perhaps, torn apart by wild animals in a coliseum, trampled by wildebeests, eaten slowly by hippos?
I might be interested then.
Although we are talking fiction here, right? I would never want to see anything happen like that in real life.
I understand you. I just gently disagree. 🙂
You have, no doubt, taken the higher road.
Well, not necessarily. I took the road that, although my carnal mind thinks they deserve a 40′ pine enema, letting God provide it is better for my life. And reading about contemporary politics is too painful, even in fiction. I’m just getting able to look at Vietnam War stuff. Just a snowflake I guess.
If it had been titled, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton” then I might be interested. As I’ve said before, she’s so evil and toxic, I have a hard enough time not hating her as it is.
Use Killary Hinton to fool the censors.
Try ‘Lightning Fall’ by Bill Quick. Not even disguised enough to be a ‘roman a clef’.
I’m still waiting for the next book …
“Alright, Manny, what’s got your knickers in a twist, callin’ me down here during the day.”
The mook shivered under the lieutenant’s flinty gaze. That at least was normal. But the longer he looked, the more it appeared that Ford the Fink was a tad more scared than he ought to be.
“It’s that guy out there, Blaze. He’s been there since ten o’clock.”
“So? It’s only ten thirty. What’d he do that’s got to do with us?”
“Nothing-”
“What, nothing? Imma do a touch more’n ‘nothing’ to your face if you dragged me down here for-”
“He’s just standing there, lookin’ at the place, all menacing-like. Like he’s sizing us up. Like we’re nothing much, like he’s just deciding how he wants to do us!”
Normally Blaze would have pounded the little rat of a lookout in the face and went on with life. But just for a second he caught sight of the man out on the street.
He wasn’t an especially tall man, for all the broad shoulders and thick wrists he could see. Square, calloused hands. Fighter’s hands, that one. Scruffy five o’clock shadow showing just a few hints of gray. All of that he took note of in a fraction of a second, long habit of gauging marks to see which ones looked ripe for the plucking and which were more trouble than they were worth.
Then he saw the stranger’s eyes. Those eyes said ‘trouble,’ and not a little bit of it either.
Blaze had just enough time to brush the com node in his collar before all hell broke loose.
Ooooh. I like this one. Poor mooks. Saw Doom just soon enough to recognize it, but not long enough to do anything about it.
Beating on mooks is a time honored classic. Just the right amount of villainy and dastardly behavior to set the image in the reader’s mind- not too much! Don’t want to tell and not show. Then the satisfying smack of fist meeting face. Good old fashioned fisticuffs.
Of course, this one had no lead up to properly set the reader’s sympathies. Could have done that by alluding to some captured folks in a basement, maybe bit of torture, blackmail, racketeering. It’s important to lay in the groundwork to let the reader know who they bad guys are.
Or, anti-clockwise, could have one upped the mass media and made the mooks actual freedom fighters/resistance/anti-actual-fascists, meaning the hard eyed man was the real villain of the piece, and lieutenant Blaze merely an adherent of the old school of rank and discipline.
The main thing with these little practice pieces (beyond honing the craft) is, to me, to get the feel of the thing right. Just a bit of suspense and dread, before the inevitable boom conclusion. As authors we paint with all the colors of human emotion. The trick I’m trying to learn is how to weave in subtle emotions that are reinforced in the story over time.
The first thing is to entice the reader to care what happens to the characters. That means they have to be more than mere jacks, kings, and queens. The story begins from there, the plot being built chapter by chapter as they approach the goal, the big battle with the BBEG, or whatever crisis needs to be faced.
It’s all built bit by bit, and sometimes that’s best done with subtlety. I admire how Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher, David Weber, and all the other great writers do that with apparent ease. Turns out, it’s not so easy at all.
The reason I’m trying to learn that is that one of the big mysteries of the piece I’m working on now is getting close to being revealed. A mystery should never be too puerile, nor too obscure for the audience to appreciate. After that, there’s only a handful of major plot points left before the ginormous, bloated story finally reaches conclusion.
Then comes editing. Lots and lots of editing.
Thanks for the advice. I’ve got so many characters/plots drifting around in my head it isn’t even funny. Getting them onto pages though – that’s the tricky part.
I’m mostly working it out in my head when I post, too, so if it helps then that’s good. The only way to get better is to keep writing, that much I know for sure. Good luck to you, and may your readers find delight in the stories you write.
Obviously, I eagerly await BoR… and hope for a paper version Reason Soon so Ma (who is Traditional regarding books…) can read it. Or at least skim flagged bits. ♉
s/Reason/Real/
Dear Autocorrect, put the bong down!
Nomination time:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22278858-september-2022
“So have you seen the latest ..” “Yes, we’re now in the #1 spot for the city. We’ve got 13 confirmed, including four ‘endangered species protection agency’ and five ‘firearms confiscation team’ members. If we can keep it up, our local HeadsonPikes team will make it to the State finals!”
Yikes. I’m both amused and worried. My compliments to the team, though. Just hoping those were all to some degree defense of self and others, for moral reasons.
Almost the way I feel about the America we lost…
Dreams I’ll Never See
(Song by Molly Hatchet)
Yeah, yeah
Just one more mornin’
I had to wake up with the blues
Pulled myself outta bed, yeah
Put on my walkin’ shoes
Climb up on a hilltop, baby
To see what I could see, yeah
The whole world was fallin’ down, baby
Right down in front of me
‘Cause I’m hung up on dreams
I’m never gonna see, yeah
Lord help me, babe
Dreams get the best of me, yeah
Pull myself together
Gonna put on a new face, yeah
Climb down from the hilltop, baby
Lord, get back in the race
‘Cause I got dreams, I’ve got my dreams
To remember the love we had
I got dreams, I’ve got my dreams
To remember the love we had
‘Cause I’m hung up on dreams
I’m never gonna see yet, oh yeah
Lord help me, baby
Dreams get the best of me yet
Alright, yeah, yeah
Pull myself together
Put on a new face
Climb down from the hilltop, baby
Lord, get back in the race
‘Cause I got dreams, I’ve got my dreams
To remember the love we had
I’ve got dreams, I’ve got my dreams
To remember the love we had
And I’m hung up, Lord, on dreams
I’m never gonna see yet
Not bad, not bad
Lord help me, baby
Dreams get the best of me yet
I wanna
Almost. I have not yet lost hope. After all, we’re still breathing.
The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” is another “not quite right” take on it…
Franklin Roosevelt was dead. Anton Cermak looked in horror at the slain body of the president-elect. One minute he’d been standing there sharking hands with the man, and the next moment– The next moment hands had been forcefully pulling him away from what was now clearly a dead body. Then he realized he was literally splattered with blood and bits of the slain Roosevelt, and lost his lunch.
“Sharking hands” with FDR. That image will stick with the Reader for a while. Maybe Foxfier can illustrate it for us.
Lol. Funny typos are funny. Of course, the incident did occur in Miami, so not far from sharks. A landshark may also explain it. 🙂
Great White taking off both arms and half the front torso would lead to a lot of blood splatter.
“Generally?” Julian stood by the doorway, with Leon standing behind him.
“That depends, my dear brother,” said Isabella, “on whether you have made other plans for wasting this rainy day while we await the beginning of classes.”
“Perhaps you will recommend something so fascinating I will give up my plans.”
No idea if anyone else has linked htis already, but:
❤
Blood Bart, the notorious space scourge, to escape the interstellar police and the galactic authorities, exited through a small crack in the wormhole to 2022 America.
He fully expected to receive a warm welcome in the Washington D.C. of that era.
After all, he was a thief in good standing.
Thieves don’t like competition.
Granny put the final gnome into position. It was very important that the deer stand not look like a deer stand in any way shape or form. The gnomes around and the whimsical decor definitely hid the proximity detectors, night vision cameras and other highly illegal hunting paraphernalia. She sincerely hoped that the slide and monkey bars said Playground and not forbidden hunting grounds. Even though there were only five or six kids in the whole town, none born in the last decade, people still had playgrounds installed in every backyard or allotment as if the presence of a slide or swing might conjure up a child.
The sheriff was already overlooking the fact there were contraband vegetables in her flower garden, for which she did not have a permit, after she had brewed up a tonic for his daughter when she had pneumonia last winter and no one in his family had enough social credits to buy antibiotics. But the Game Warden cracked down hard on anyone who looked like they might be even thinking about doing any hunting what with the possession of meat products being forbidden and all. You could get permits for vegetables, but no one did these days because that just meant the authorities knew were to look. Granny suspected that too many people knew the sheriff was a sympathizer and he would most likely not be allowed to run for office again. The Warden, however, was the kind of official who literally died in in office. Heaven help her but she hoped it was sooner rather than later.
The mist swirled, half-beckoning, half concealing the standing stones. Aileen shivered despite her heavy wool coat and silver cross. The tourists half-believed in the power of old places. That was so much worse than believing. Believers stayed clear and took the proper precautions. Half-belief opened a door.
The mist shrank in on itself, twisting into a long, lithe form with horrible green eyes, eyes that glowed with malice and distilled evil.
A door Aileen Dubh had to close. She took a long breath, then began to sing.
That’s very interesting…
I adored this! Both for story-ness and the “half-belief” comment, which…resonates.
This is awesome! And creepy.
I really like the eerie fey/fantasy elements.
Yeah, I loved the “half-belief” comment, too. Believers know what to do. Half-believers open a door.
Very evocative and puts a lot in a small package… and “Aileen Dubh” is just a perfect name (or maybe by-name?) for this kind of setting. (For those not “in the know” here, “Dubh” means “dark-haired” or perhaps simply “dark” in Scottish…)
Had the weirdest dream last night. Some batshit crazy biologist had used genetic engineering to combine cats with rattlesnakes, and they escaped into the city. Looked sort of like small furry Chinese dragons, long and snaky with stubby legs and rattles on the ends of their tails. The heads were a creepy blend of cat and snake, with poison fangs.
Somehow I wound up having to deal with a couple that got into my yard. They were mean little bastards, one of them almost bit me, so I didn’t have any problem with putting on a pair of welding gauntlets and taking a hatchet to ‘em. Gross, though.
Anyway, such is my nocturnal entertainment channel. I’d like to have a word with the program manager, but…
Huh. That is weird. Interesting, though.
Honestly, if it was a choice, I would probably take that over the stereotypical ‘show up to work without clothes’ or ‘all your teeth fall out’ dreams. But there are definitely dreams I’d prefer to either. They usually involve mansions and secret passages.
In one of my old repeaters the secret passage led to an attic room with a trap door in the floor that was right over the water.
Your subconscious might possibly be a Bond villain… were there sharks in the water?
Interestingly enough, the secret passages in my favorite recurring dream tend to lead up into a series of bedrooms along a hall. Each room is centered around a color – there’s a room where everything is red, another where everything is white, another where everything is made of crystal – and somehow manages to look beautiful despite the potential for color monotony/clashing. I’m not sure what that says about me.
Yes, I was having these dreams before I read Poe’s ‘Masque of the Red Death.’ (My favorite of his stories.) Make of that what you will.
Mike Farstep was standing on an outcropping not quite sheer enough to be called a cliff, but too dangerous to be called a mere hillside. This, in itself, was hardly a rare occurrence. Mike was a Park Ranger. It was his job to walk around the well-kept wilderness that was most state parks. To pick up trash from along the trails, make sure no fallen trees were lying anywhere they would get in the way, and prevent forest fires.
He was reliably informed that ‘only he’ could preform the latter, so he shrugged and did his honest best.
Mike Farstep was lost. Or at least, was presently unaware of where exactly in the park he happened to be. This too, was not uncommon. Once you stepped off the well-beaten paths, one tree tended to look very much like another, and it was a very big park. Even the oldest rangers might lose their way once in a while. He carried a map, a compass, and various other supplies to keep himself alive until he found his way back to one of the winding trails. He wasn’t terribly concerned.
No, the strange thing was that on his way up the hill, it had been about noon. He was quite certain of that. His watch said 12:46, the midday sun beat down on him from directly overhead, and the shadows cast from the ancient trees had no discernible angle to them.
When he got to the outcropping and looked around, it was dusk. The faintest rays of the setting sun were detectable on the horizon, and seemed oddly targeted – he could see green meadows that seemed to glow against the dark forests surrounding them, and something in the distance that glinted strangely in the light. The sky overhead was tinted with violet and drifts of cotton-candy clouds. A few stars shone down with an astonishing brilliance.
As he scanned the forest below, trying to find familiar landmarks, his brow furrowed. “What in tarnation?”
The trees beneath him glittered with golden lights scattered through the branches. It looked like Christmas. In August. A cloud of… things… lifted from the woods below, gleaming softly as they rose into the sky, like a flock of luminescent birds. A strange wind whispered around him, and giggles rang in his ears like tinkling bells.
Whirling, he stared into the shadows, searching for whoever was laughing. It sounded like little girls. If there were children lost out here…
There was no one there.
“Lost, are we?”
He whirled back.
There was a child perched just on the rock’s edge, one misstep from falling. A boy who didn’t stand as high as Mike’s waist, dressed in tattered rags, with arms and legs only a little thicker than the walking sticks sold in the gift shop.
Dear God, don’t let me scare him, don’t let him fall… “Hey, bud. What’s your name?” He kept his voice gentle, forcing the fear and tension away.
The boy’s laughter was cold and clear as a mountain stream. Though he had no idea why, it sent shivers down Mike’s spine. “My name? We’ve only just met, and you want my name? A bold young mortal you are, my dear.”
His grin showed teeth. They were unsettlingly sharp. “Or a foolish one.”
Ugh, this isn’t working. Hold on…
standing by.
Oh, clever!
Any thoughts on the story? Now that it’s actually formatted correctly. (Note to self: Writing in word documents, then copy-pasting, doesn’t seem to work properly. It changes to block-quotes rather than actually showing up in a readable format.)
Just in case neither of my other attempts have worked:
Mike Farstep was standing on an outcropping not quite sheer enough to be called a cliff, but too dangerous to be called a mere hillside. This, in itself, was hardly a rare occurrence. Mike was a park ranger. It was his job to walk around the well-kept wilderness that was most state parks. To pick up the trash from along the trails, make sure no fallen trees were lying anywhere they would get in the way, and prevent forest fires.
He was reliably informed that only he could do the latter, so he shrugged and did his honest best.
Mike Farstep was lost. Or at least, presently unaware of where in the park he happened to be. This too was not uncommon. Once you stepped off the beaten path, one tree started to look very much like another, and it was a very big park. Even the oldest rangers might lose their way once in a while. He carried a map, a compass, and various other supplies to keep himself alive until he found his way back to one of the winding trails. He wasn’t terribly concerned.
No, the strange thing was that on his way up the hill, it had been about noon. He was quite certain of the fact. His watch read 12:46, the midday sun beat down on him from directly overhead, and the shadows cast by the ancient trees had no discernible angle to them.
When he got to the outcropping and looked around, however, it was dusk. The faintest rays of the setting sun were detectable on the horizon, and seemed oddly targeted – he could see green meadows that seemed to glow against the dark forest surrounding them, and something in the distance glinted strangely in the light. The sky overhead was navy blue tinted with violet, patched with cotton-candy clouds. A few stars shone down with astonishing brilliance.
Putting the issue of time aside for the moment and hoping he hadn’t had some kind of seizure, he scanned the surrounding area, searching for familiar landmarks. His brow furrowed. “What in blazes…”
Nothing – not one tree, rock, or glade – was recognizable. This wasn’t his park. He’d stake his best rifle on it.
Moreover, wherever this place was, it was weird. The trees beneath him glittered with golden orbs scattered throughout their branches, like Christmas lights.
Except they were bigger than Christmas lights.
And it was August.
A cloud of… things… rose into the sky from the trees. They gleamed in a thousand different colors, like a flock of glowing birds. A strange wind whispered around him, and giggles rang in his ears like tinkling bells.
Whirling, he stared into the shadowed woods behind him. The giggles had sounded young, female, if a bit odd. If there were children lost out here…
There was no one there.
“Lost, are we?”
He whirled back.
There was a child perched on the rock’s edge, one misstep from falling. A boy who didn’t stand even as high as Mike’s waist, dressed in tattered rags, with arms and legs only a little thicker than the walking sticks sold in the gift shop.
Dear God, don’t let me scare him, don’t let him fall… “Hey, bud. What’s your name?” He kept his voice gentle, forcing away the stress and the fear.
The boy’s laughter was cold and clear as a mountain spring. Though he had no idea why, the sound of it sent shivers up and down Mike’s spine. “My name? Only just acquainted, and you ask my name? A bold young mortal you are, my dear.”
The boy’s grin showed teeth. They were alarmingly sharp. “Or a foolish one.”
Hope he has his rifle with him (and it works) and I hope he has steel (ie iron) with him. 😉
Oh, this was much better. 😀
Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
In my head, Mike does have a gun of some sort – part of the keeping-self-alive supplies. Plus some bear spray, a hatchet, various knives, and a couple of other items made of steel/iron in his backpack. He won’t really register the metal itself as a weapon though, at least not yet. Read the wrong kind of books for that. But the Feywild tends to enforce a steep learning curve, so he’ll probably pick up a thing or two pretty quickly.
The good news is, the particular archfey that found him is in a friendly mood, and a curious one. It’s been a very long time since a mortal tripped into the Feywild, and this one doesn’t look like or act like the standard woodcutters/farmers/traveling princes he’s seen before. Mike is carrying a lot of things the Fey have never seen before, and their curiosity will definitely help him along when it comes to bargaining for an advisor and a guide home.
And all of a sudden, the Rules are Different. All of them. Think fast, Mike, your life may depend on it.
“You’re drafting me to work on the name list?”
“I’m afraid so, Fluffy – Robert is demanding a pay raise.”
“You pay him? Never mind, probably just as much as you pay me. I’ll do it. But just the names beginning with ‘Q,’ ‘Y,’ and ‘Z,’ mind you!”
“Deal! Just glancing at it, that takes care of more than half of them. Just stand right over there at that computer and get to work transcribing.”
“Foiled again! But I absolutely refuse to do this standing up. I demand a seat.”
“Ummm… Robert! Find that drawer set that isn’t made out of chipboard and get it in here, pronto! Oh, and the industrial keyboard we picked up by mistake.”
“No good?” said Phillip, helplessly laughing. “No good?”
“You are standing about maundering while the ladies await us in the garden. Ladies both fair and young.”
And unwed, Guillaume noted. He turned his back on Phillip and strode across the balcony. Even if they mastered their conversation by rote learning.
Here’s hoping there’s at least one Elizabeth Bennet-type figure for Guillaume to talk to. He strikes me as the type to be rather bored by the aforementioned ‘rote learning’ conversationalists.
Well, she’s shy. And stutters. But she didn’t memorize all the right things to say.
Of course she didn’t. If she had, she’d be just like all the other unwed fair young ladies, and of no interest at all.That’s one proven way to be eyecatching, although perhaps not one she much appreciates given her probable experience.
The magnificent public rooms of the Leland Stanford Mansion were alive with revelers, celebrating the news that Varda Thorne had won her second term as Governor of California. Yet the guest of honor could find no joy in the merriment all around her.
Her chief of staff, her old bailiff from her days as a family court judge, had picked up on her mood. “Governor? Are you well?”
“You haven’t been watching the news from New York, have you?”
He gave her a sheepish grin, completely unlike his usual demeanor. “‘Fraid I’ve been too busy watching your numbers rolling in. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Everything. Jaime, that’s what. Ike Liebowitz should be enjoying his own victory party right now. Instead, he’s getting ready to make his concession speech to that slimeball who’s taken two millennia of anti-Semitic libels and given them a new spin as anti-Sharp slurs. I have it from good sources that the fix is in, and Flannigan’s people are behind it.”
“Then what do we do? Sue?”
“You know as well as I do how the courts work. We don’t have standing in a case about a New York election, so the only thing we can do is make sure Flannigan’s goons don’t tamper with the elections two years from now.”
The hail came with the dawn, and Karl fought down a sigh. He managed, but he was still glad that Florangela took it.
“The hail’s from the North Ridge,” she called. “Near the Wildlings Forest.”
“Does he have standing?” said Katrina, primly.
“He’s the magistrate.”
That would do, noted Karl.
For the record, I am totally cool with being a ship, or a cat, or even a ship of cats.
Heck, my avatar is, literally, a WWII torpedo bomber aka the thing everyone shot holes in constantly.
The Grumman ones were nice because they took kind of a lot of holes to convince them to actually stop, but a ship can point quite a lot of hole pokers at one, when sufficiently motivated…
Mr. Gordon told Flora “I’ve filed a claim on that gold on your property. The court will back me up, and you can’t afford a lawyer who will take me on. And you” he pointed at Simon, “You’re a foreigner. You have no standing. Not even if you marry her, which I have no doubt is what you’re after.” He turned and walked out.
Simon turned to Flora. “Don’t worry. He won’t find enough to be worth his while.”
Flora, who was on the verge of tears, said “How can you know that? He can hire lots of men to go help prove his claim, and then what?”
“And then he will have wasted his money. I won’t say trust me, but you will see. And you can dismiss that nasty suspicion he planted right now. I don’t need your gold, and there are so many reasons I can’t marry you I can’t count them, even if I were so inclined, which I am not. No reflection on you, you’re a fine woman. For someone, someday, maybe. Right now, I need to go for a walk. If you will excuse me?”
“Of course. ” Flora turned away to her housework and Simon stepped outside. The faintest of smiles played on his lips. “Standing, is it?” He had more standing with greater powers than Mr. Gordon would ever dream of. Now, what was that spell? He hadn’t had much cause to use that one since Precolombian times, but this was an equally worthy cause. Now, what about her sons? Should they find the gold? No, it wouldn’t be good for them. Not unless…ah, yes. He’d used that one, too, back in medieval Europe. Not until they were more mature, and not if they were looking for it.
He reached the spot of Gordon’s claim, and sat down on the ground. This would take a while. He began the ritual, invoking the spirits of the earth, instructing them to hide the signs that prospectors would be looking for, unless and until certain conditions were met. Presently he stood. Yes, that would do.
Simon is interesting. Some kind of god/demigod? Or an immortal wizard of some description?
I like his style, whatever he might be.
Thank you. It’s the latter. I’d love to tell you more, but at the last LTUE, I happened to be talking about him and said just that in front of Jody Lyn Nye, who was a GoH (and if I’d known who she was when I sat down next to her, I wouldn’t have dared speak to her), and she said “Don’t talk about him. Write him”. Gulp. Yes. Ma’am. So maybe he has potential? I have a couple of other snippets featuring him and intend to do more with these prompts while I’m figuring out how to structure his story. They may or may not appear in revised or extended form in the final work.
And, of course, the aircar still didn’t move. Even after taking a chance on this oddball planet’s newfound human ability to do “magic” (whatever that really and ultimately was, when it was “up an’ dressed”), not only were all the contragravity drive’s main status displays still the ugly red of “nonfunctional, badly failed” but now the backup ground mode wouldn’t budge either. It was as if even the rubber-tired wheels of his typically quite reliable stock aircar were cemented to the tarmacadam pavement.
Evan Breckenridge, Master Trade Factor (or Sub-Sector Facilitator if you got down into the heavy honorifics) wasn’t so far above daily concerns that the cheeky little sign saying No Stopping or Standing, No Parking in Roadside Stalls, Four P.M. to Sunup amounted to… nothing. And of course, it was by now quarter to four.
Somewhat embarrassing, for such an ‘exalted’ official in the Free Trade Guild of the Federation to get something as mundane and anachronistic as a traffic ticket, if they still had those ancient absurdities here.
“Still not fixed, Charles,” he said, addressing the Magical Adept Second Class he’d engaged through the Embassy. “Won’t budge so much as a hair.”
“Of course not, sir, I do quality work, I even upped the intensity of the coupling to the spacetime background and the planetary mass so… wait a minute, sir, now suddenly I have to ask.” And there was a patient but a slightly long-suffering new tone in his voice. “Did you mean you wanted your flying carriage fix’d to the the local reference frame and the land, or did you mean something else and more… colloquial?” He was an earnest and workmanlike looking man, with a trim waistcoat and the bowler hat that now again here (after all this time since the age of Victoria and Albert and their contemporaries) marked him out as tradesman about his business.
Ah. “‘Fixed’ where I come from mostly means repaired, put right and back into good working order, rather than stuck firmly in place — though it does means the second, much of the time. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
“Well, then, let me release the spell. Obviously given the situation,” and he sketched a wave at the sign, “I made it an easily dismissable one.”
And he didn’t do much visible, but simply stood there and looked at the ‘car, and stared off rather fixedly into the middle distance, and then it was as if there was a… wave, of… something, that went out from him across the landscape. Quite invisibly and without raising dust or knocking off people’s hats, but still… perceptible somehow, even to the quite thoroughly offworlder and non-magical likes of Evan “Fixer” Breckenridge.
“And now it’s done, right? Released, and still just as broke as it was.” The sigh in his voice was wholly implied though almost audible.
“Yes, sir, returned to status quo ante. And before you ask, I’m not nearly so well versed in how these things work as I’d need to be to attempt some kind of repair. What I just did, though I can’t remotely claim to truly understand this, was in the framework of Einstein’s theory of gravity; and your machine must surely work according to the newer Penrose-Ramachandran-Aurifeuille theory, because of its contragravity. Which, even in the very informal and intuitive way that us magic-users understand things, is a bit beyond me at present. If by ‘a bit beyond’ is meant ‘as calculus is beyond a cow’ as they like to say.”
This was new. He’d never, in all the months he’d been here and over all the times he’d tried to inquire one way and another, been able to get anything at all like that before: a local explaining what the experience or the process of ‘magic’ was, to the operator or user of same. No matter how impressive or rich or well-connected one might be, as an offworlder, it was always as if you simply had no ‘standing’ (as they said oftentimes in the law, here and there) to even properly ask the question, much less to deserve or receive any real sort of comprehensible answer.
“But what I could do, sir, if you’ll forgive the impertinence of my own temerity in making such a suggestion, is use my own manner of working to encompass your air-carriage and levitate it through the air, back to the Embassy or your Trade Mission where I believe you’re wishing to go. Such things are greatly frowned upon in the normal course of things here, for one strong reason that it tends to discommode the horses; but since this vehicle of yours is intended and able (most of the time, if you please) to fly all on its own… I very much doubt my own Guild would object.”
“And what would be the charge for such an impressive and useful service?”
“Fifty percent above what you’ve already paid for that ‘fixing’ spell, at Guild scale, for after all that was not what you were looking to get. It isn’t as if there’s a Magickers’ Guild scale rate for something that is never to be properly done except in the worst of emergencies; and then profiteering by way of adversity would be a hazard and a concern for us.”
“Done. But you’re sure you can safely and easily do this, unusual thing?”
And Charles Adrianov smiled, richly. “Sure enough, since I’ll be needing to ride in your car with you, there’s no other way I can stay in sight and in range. Assuming that’s within the compass of your willingness, since you’re an offworlder and a person of consequence.” And smiled more. “It’s far from seldom I’ve done this, it’s a wonderfully good practice for the fixations; one simply never gets paid or even encouraged to do it here in the big city.” (Big… a bare fifth of a million. But here, on Farnham’s Freehold, it was that way.)
And as the aircar lifted off a few minutes later, softly as a dandelion seed touches down, Evan was looking at a dashboard clock saying 3:57 and scanning a summary of the sensor suite (not quite stock, that) at its business of documenting in massive detail what it was like to be on the inside of a magical levitation “bubble” — and thinking that while it was true that most trading fortunes were made and kept slowly, the really big ones were made “when preparation meets opportunity” — and how this, otherwise only an annoying bump on a smooth road from morning to evening, might just be the beginning of one of those legendary times.
My car slowly cruised west down old Route 66, past quaint old shops that dated back a century or more. A few more recent establishments, remnants of the heyday of the Mother Road, were intermingled among them
My eyes kept careful watch for my destination. I knew it was close, not far past the splendor of La Posada that I had past just a moment ago.
Then I saw it. It was ahead and to the right, at the next light. I could see more of it as the distance dropped down. There, standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, was the Standin’ On The Corner mural.
And, of course, the aircar still didn’t move. Even after taking a chance on this oddball planet’s newfound human ability to do “magic” (whatever that really and ultimately was, when it was “up an’ dressed”), not only were all the contragravity drive’s main status displays still the ugly red of “nonfunctional, badly failed” but now the backup ground mode wouldn’t budge either. It was as if even the rubber-tired wheels of his typically quite reliable stock aircar were cemented to the tarmacadam pavement.
Evan Breckenridge, Master Trade Factor (or Sub-Sector Facilitator if you got down into the heavy honorifics) wasn’t so far above daily concerns that the cheeky little sign saying No Stopping or Standing, No Parking in Roadside Stalls, Four P.M. to Sunup amounted to… nothing. And of course, it was by now quarter to four.
Somewhat embarrassing, for such an ‘exalted’ official in the Free Trade Guild of the Star Federation to get something as mundane and anachronistic as a traffic ticket, if they still had those ancient absurdities here.
“Still not fixed, Charles,” he said, addressing the Magical Adept Second Class he’d engaged through the Embassy. “Won’t budge so much as a hair.”
“Of course not, sir, I do quality work, I even upped the intensity of the coupling to the spacetime background and the planetary mass so… wait a minute, sir, now suddenly I have to ask.” And there was a patient but a slightly long-suffering new tone in his voice. “Did you mean you wanted your flying carriage fix’d to the the local reference frame and the land, or did you mean something else and more… colloquial?” He was an earnest and workmanlike looking man, with a trim waistcoat and the bowler hat that now again here (after all the time since the age of Victoria and Albert and their contemporaries) marked him out as tradesman about his business.
Ah. “‘Fixed’ where I come from mostly means repaired, put right and back into good working order, rather than stuck firmly in place — though it does means the second, much of the time too. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
“Well, then, let me release the spell. Obviously given the situation,” and he sketched a wave at the sign, “I made it an easily dismissable one.”
And he didn’t do much visible, but simply stood there and looked at the ‘car, and stared off rather fixedly into the middle distance, and then it was as if there was a… wave, of… something, that went out from him across the landscape. Quite invisibly and without raising dust or knocking off people’s hats, but still… perceptible somehow, even to the quite thoroughly offworlder and non-magical likes of Evan “Fixer” Breckenridge.
“And now it’s done, right? Released, and still just as broke as it was.” The sigh in his voice was wholly implied though almost audible.
“Yes, sir, returned to status quo ante. And before you ask, I’m not nearly so well versed in how these things work as I’d need to be to attempt some kind of repair. What I just did, though I can’t remotely claim to truly understand all this, was in the framework of Einstein’s theory of gravity; and your machine must surely work according to the newer Penrose-Ramachandran-Aurifeuille theory, because of its contragravity. Which, even in the very informal and intuitive way that us magic-users understand things, is a bit beyond me at present. If by ‘a bit beyond’ is meant ‘as calculus is beyond a cow’ as they say.”
This was new. He’d never, in all the months he’d been here and over all the times he’d tried to inquire one way and another, been able to get anything even close to that before: a local explaining what the experience or the process of ‘magic’ was, for the operator or user of same. No matter how impressive or rich or well-connected one might be, as an offworlder, it was always as if you simply had no ‘standing’ (as they said oftentimes in the law, here and there) to even properly ask the question, much less to deserve or receive any real sort of comprehensible answer.
“But what I could do, sir, if you’ll forgive the impertinence of my own temerity in making such a suggestion, is use my own manner of working to encompass your air-carriage and levitate it through the air, back to the Embassy or your Trade Mission where I believe you’re wishing to go. Such things are greatly frowned upon in the normal course of things here, for one strong reason that it tends to discommode the horses; but since this vehicle of yours is intended and able (most of the time, if you please) to fly all on its own… I very much doubt my own Guild would object.”
“And what would be the charge for such an impressive and useful service?”
“Fifty percent above what you’ve already paid for that ‘fixing’ spell, at Guild scale, for after all that was not what you were looking to get. It isn’t as if there’s a Magickers’ Guild scale rate for something that is never to be properly done except in the worst of emergencies; and then profiteering by way of adversity would be a hazard and a concern for us all.”
“Done. But you’re sure you can safely and easily do this, ah, unusual thing?”
And Charles Adrianov smiled, richly. “Sure enough, since I’ll be needing to ride in your car with you, there’s no other way I can stay in sight and in range. Assuming that’s within the compass of your willingness, since you’re an offworlder and a person of consequence.” And smiled more. “It’s far from seldom I’ve done this, it’s a wonderfully good practice for the fixations; one simply never gets paid or even encouraged to do it, here in the big city. And wild fun.” (Big… a bare fifth of a million. But here, on Farnham’s Freehold, it was that way.)
And as the aircar lifted off a few minutes later, softly as a dandelion seed touches down, Evan was looking at a dashboard clock saying 3:57 and scanning a summary of the sensor suite (not quite stock, that) at its business of documenting in massive deep detail what it was like to be on the inside of a magical levitation “bubble” — and thinking that while it was true that most trading fortunes were made and kept slowly, the really big ones were made “when preparation meets opportunity” — and how this, otherwise only an annoying bump on a smooth road from morning to evening, might just be the beginning of one of those legendary times.
(2nd try, it’s been a while since the 1st. Gotta love Random Moderation Purgatory.)
Good pacing
Thank you (tips hat), though it’s likely more the quasi-19th-century style of writing and speaking here than deliberate choice or contrivance.
Now that you mention it, Scottish Border Ballads do this “leaping and lingering” a lot (see “The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence” for a good, probably easy to find example of that); so once you’ve read enough of those, the variation in narrative rate vs. clock-and-calendar rate tends to sneak into the back of your head and work almost by itself… it just “sounds wrong” if it’s not there when it “ought” to be.
I sat back in the pew as the pianist started up the hymn. I know it’s the second hymn today. And we normally stand for the third as it’s just before the sermon and it gets all the nervous energy of the congregation out to stand for that one. But, seriously? How can we remain seated when we’re singing this hymn!
“Standing on the promises of Christ, my King…”
A question I have often asked… 😉
As well as Christ Our Hope in Life and Death when we sing the line “in which we stand”. And a few others…
A very good question, in my opinion. I don’t recall singing either of these particular hymns, but it would seem decidedly strange to sing such stanzas whilst seated. (Alliteration is awesome.)
My little brother, I think he was 4 or 5, sang “we’ll sing and we’ll SHOUT” at the top of his lungs. It may be something similar.
Tom had won the competition, beating everyone by moving 7 tons of earth in just 2 hours of shoveling. Tom’s was a Pyrrhic victory though. He wasn’t the last man standing, as with his final shovel full, his back went into spasms and laid him flat for the next week.
Ahem
I dub thee
Bat-maam
O dear! Snicker. But aren’t you a week or two late with that one?
Well played, 11B-Mailclerk. Well played.
(Personally, I’m looking at that bat with some suspicion. As I mentioned a while ago, it’s the perfect disguise for some devious Master Vampire! The cuteness would melt the heart of any adventurer! And those big, adorable eyes might as well be screaming Charm ability.)
You’re a BAD man.
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain,
Let all the boys know I died standing pat…
I had to hand it to my cousin. He knew what kind of funeral arrangements he wanted and had made sure to document them thoroughly: high Episcopalian, casket in the church (he’d picked out the one he wanted), lots of flowers, and “under no condition will you have ‘Amazing Grace’ at my funeral. I hate that song!”
He was buried in his favorite suit, and yes, there was a gold coin on his watch chain. He’d had it for years. The man had style.
“I’M STILL STANDING, MUDDAFUKKA! I’M STILL–”
BOOOM!
“Holy Mother of… what the hell is that thing?!”
“Marlin Guide Gun, Forty Five-Seventy Government.”
“Whaaa…. why?”
“Why? ‘Casue nothin’ says ‘siddown an’ shaddup, ya murderin’ psycho!’ like four hun’red thirty grains of hard-cast lead to the face at eighteen hun’red feet per second.”
So, BOOM today. 😀
Ok, weird question. I’ve been thinking about submitting a book (or several) but since most of them were put up only I could chortle over my own copy they’re paper only.
Should I submit only those that are also electronic?
Does anyone remember the old ‘I could have had a V8″ adds?
(thunks forehead with palm of hand) I could have been a uplifted cat! Ah well whats done is done, maybe when next years comes around I can get an uplifted cat in the sequel 🙂 .
YOU will be an uplifted cat!
Woo Hoo!!! Although now I need to be terrified of myself 🙂 .
You’ll be a tabby.
Best kind of cat. Mom’s name was Marion and claimed that all tabby cats were hers (and vice Versa) as they had her initial (M) on their forhead
Not wanting to deprive others of their chance to be an uplifted cat, I will not that I was not of that tier of giving so do not officially deserve it :-).
There are a lot of them.