Another 100 themes story. I don't exactly know where the influences for this come from, but at the beginning it was loosely based around Jack and the Beanstalk. We had to teach this a couple of years ago and it's always seemed like a really unfair story to me. I mean, Jack is a thief and a murderer. He breaks into the Giant's castle; he hears threats made about men, but doesn't have any evidence; he steals from him three times, and then when the Giant follows him to retrieve his stolen goods, Jack kills him. What about the Giant's wife, who hides Jack? What happens to her after her husband is dead?
Very unfair :(
Anyway, here's an almost entirely-unrelated story about giants.
Another 100 themes. This one has a nice point of view, quite different from anything I've written so far. I think on reflection that the amount of things I put in to make it seem 'alien', calling furniture and rooms by different names, makes it too hard to get a sense of place.
041 - Teamwork
“My friends,” screeched Barney, “we must work together to defeat our common enemy!” He turned, pointing to the walls of their prison. “Even now we are taunted, forced into unwanted physical contact completely at the whim of our captors, and for what? For the sludge they put out for us every day? For what we can steal from their kitchen while they sleep?”
Read MoreThis one's a bit silly, but I've put it up because it served as a writing exercise. This isn't a finished story, isn't something that I will edit, but it's an idea nonetheless.
Mum came in and snatched the remote.
“Hey!” I shouted, making a grab for it.
She kept it out of arm’s reach. “You shouldn’t watch so much, you know,” she fussed. “Rots the mind. There’s a world out there. You should get some fresh air.”
I turned and stared out of the window. It had been howling a gale all day and raindrops splattered onto the glass, giving everything a melted look. As I watched, one lonely passerby was battling to reach the bus shelter, clutching an inside-out umbrella.
Read MoreI've been playing with a few ideas for shorter stories after working with the fantastic Nana Li. It's a real challenge; I've realised that I tend to treat short stories as if they are part of a larger work, assuming knowledge on behalf of the reader that they perhaps don't have.
This is a longer story, twice the length it needs to be. I will, perhaps, cut it down at some point. For now I think I'd rather look at other stories and see if I can make full, concise stories below a thousand words. Something there for 100 themes challenges!
UPDATE! This is now a podcast episode. Enjoy!
Read MoreAnother Eve and Tic story. This one developed the idea that Eve lives in a post-human world, a place where we, as the Antecedents, left some of our technology and our iconography, and that's about it. I really like this idea; I've read a couple of things set in this kind of post-human world and they're always fascinating. I love new, fantasy-inspired, looks at current technology. It's also handy to clear another of the 100 themes off the list. This project's hanging around like nothing else.
Read MoreI've been listening to Stuff You Should Know Podcast through from the beginning, so I'm somewhat behind. There's a good one though, on the 10,000 year clock. It's a lovely idea, essentially that we might one day not be here as a civilisation but there will definitely be something left behind to prove that we were here.
It helped crystallise a thought I've been having recently with both the world of Poisonroot and the Eve and Tic stories, and my wonderful wife helpfully added another facet to it: what if the continent of Ehrian is something like a Pangaea continent, ten thousand years in the future? I appreciate that it wouldn't be time for the continents to actually move, but certainly time for a mass extinction event to have forever changed the face of the planet and for technology to have changed, evolved, moved on from its current wasteful ways. And then Sue suggested that I could use this as a way of including real scientific fact, or inventions, from now as seen through the eyes of Eve and Tic.
Another piece about Eve and Tic.
I had the wonderful thought today that it would work perfectly if Eve was an honest-to-god furry. And Katze vonDue could be this immense persian in a suit with a cigar and a gold-topped cane.
More thought required!
I'm working with a new character, introducing her over several very short stories. She's interesting; I can't quite decide yet what the target audience would be for stories featuring her, but I'm enjoying the young adult audience.
Here's the first piece. It's also a 100 themes piece.
039 – Dreams
An explosion rocked the city. A plume of flame and dusty mingled with black smoke roared out into the night, shaking the buildings to their foundations. Eve stopped running long enough to turn and look at the destruction as the smoke gushed out of the hole torn into the roof. The awe of the watching crowd of restaurant-goers turned to panic as pieces of terracotta tile, some needle-sharp and others bigger than Eve’s head, started to rain down onto the cobbles. They scattered, heading for inns or houses, sheds, anything to get away from the scene.
Read MoreWe went to Denmark over New Year and it was amazing! We were guests of two of Sue's work friends, Mads and Mette, and while it was incredibly inspirational in all sorts of ways, I didn't get any writing done.
Travelling back gave me plenty of thinking time, though, and Sue had been asking why I didn't write any sci-fi. We've been reading The Player of Games by Iain M Banks, one of my favourite books, and the world he wrote was so vivid and full; something that I aspire to.
Anyway, I wrote this, set about twenty years into the future, thinking about one logical conclusion for the Google Glass tech available today. I'm really interested that Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror has basically got this concept in it, but I saw that after I wrote this. Nice to know I'm thinking along similar lines!
Unedited, about 1 hour, while an episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 played (not the greatest writing environment but I'll take what I can!)
Trip tossed and turned. No matter which way he lay, the ground seemed bumpy underneath him. There was a stone poking up through the fabric of his bedroll and the cold nipped at his nose. He sighed. Victor’s snores seemed to penetrate the entire fabric of reality, never mind anything else.
The story he had told floated in his mind. One of the tricks they had taught him at the Library to take advantage of his memory was to treat each memory as an island, a piece of rock, floating in an infinite dark gulf. Bridges connected the memories, allowing him to see how one linked to another. With a thought, he could fly, run, walk, from one island to another, reviewing the objects and scenes there.
Read MoreFor the tenth story, I knew that I wanted to return to Trip and Victor. This was also a genre I haven't really tried; horror. I think it turned more into surrealism that actual suspenseful storytelling, but I'm sure I can practise. It's not really my forté but I'm sure I can work on that!
The hillside sloped lazily down towards the path and Trip ran down it, gleefully pinwheeling his arms around. The wind whipped his robes around him and teased at the stubbly hair growing through on his head. He reached the bottom, sandals crunching on the gravelly road, and looked back up the hill. Like some dark patch of treacle slowly sliding down a wall, Victor was making his surly way towards the path.
The man looked older, Trip thought. Visibly. Like the events of Fennica, just a few short weeks, had aged him. He was still made of boot leather and twice as tough, but there was a definite slouch that hadn’t been there.
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Merry Christmas! Here's part 3 of steampunk horror story 'Cog519', which is now available as a podcast!
The weeks that followed seemed to go in a blur. 519 learned everything that Nef put before him, quickly turning his hand to just about any skill that was needed and producing works that a contemporary master might have wept to see.
Without fail, every morning, 519 asked Nef if he had a name for him. Nef always replied with “Not today, 519; ask me tomorrow,” though more and more of late he had been wondering what impulse prevented him from giving 519 the name he desired.
Was it that Nef had long since given up self-correcting ‘him’ to ‘it’? Even Lot, on his twice-weekly tours of the research facilities, had occasionally slipped up. Choice of pronoun made 519 seem somehow human in a way that was still alien, and the two jarred. As if calling it ‘him’ was enough, and to give it a name would be too much, too close, too human.
Read MoreMerry Christmas! Here's part 2 of steampunk horror story 'Cog519', which is now available as a podcast!
Back in the lab, Nef walked slowly around the table on which was sat Cog 519. It was much shinier now; even as it had been walking back to the workshop with him, its joints had eased as it self-lubricated. About halfway there, it had quietly announced “Self-cleaning system initiated. Do not be alarmed.” Nef had almost stumbled in sudden panic, but then he had heard a strange amberic crackling from behind him and, when he turned to look, the fine layer of dust and grime on the armour was simply being burned away. Lightning crackled over it, apparently generated from the shard of amber at its heart, and then the blue light effect died away. While not completely clean, it had definitely come down from needing ‘full clean’ to merely a ‘light buff’.
It had followed every command perfectly, including the one to deactivate, and now it was slumped to one side. Nef fingered the amber shard still held firmly in the cog’s chest; should he remove it?
“Another long-range recon unit in the making,” a low voice said behind him. He turned to see Supervisor Lot entering the room, his long white coat stuffed with tools of every sort. He came up to Nef and clapped one meaty hand onto his shoulder. “I heard you’d found a good one, but this… this is exceptional.”
Read MoreMerry Christmas! Here's part 1 of steampunk horror story 'Cog519', which is now available as a podcast!
The amber light glinted off the exposed metal, the strange yellowish glow giving it a dull sheen. It was curved, definitely; Nef brushed a little more of the loose soil off of it and tried to assess his find.
Just an hour ago everything had been going full speed; the tunnels were needed for the incoming refugees, the Matron had said, and needed soon. Nef looked around at the earth-moving equipment, and the worried faces of his team. The site was going to have to be cordoned off, he realised. This was too dangerous to simply leave, or go around. The cog - what else could it be? - would have to be exhumed, examined, learned from and then probably recycled. And the workers… they’d have to be memory-modified. More time. More effort. More expense.
He turned around. “It’s a shield,” he said, “probably a few decades old, no more.” He smiled and shrugged. “I’ll bring it out; go have a cup of something hot and I’ll tell you when you can continue.”
Read MoreEvery few days I sit and say, mostly to myself, 'What shall I write about today?' Nine times out of ten, my wife would say 'Write about a kitten!'.
So here goes.
Gerald sat on the chair and watched the action with increasing interest. There was every chance that, in a moment or two, weapons would be drawn and, if he just sat here and stayed quiet, he was well out of it.
The big man with the missing finger whose beer had been spilt had turned and grasped the smaller man’s shoulder. The smaller man, who Gerald could see had at least three knives sheathed behind him, was nonetheless turning pale despite having the weapons advantage.
Read MoreOwen came in to the small bedroom, his face covered in ash and grime. Erin looked up from the book she was reading.
“Any luck?” she said.
He shook his head. “Almost all the paper burned. Only the items in metal boxes were saved.”
“I’m so sorry,” Erin said, her eyes burning with unspent tears. “If you hadn’t had to help me, you could have-“
“Now then,” Owen said sternly. “Let’s have none of that.” He sat on the end of the bed, which creaked alarmingly, and stroked her legs through the covers. “You’re always my top priority. Both of you. There’s nothing been done out there that can’t be undone with a little effort.”
Read MoreFour days went by, four long and difficult days. Erin found herself spending more time at the copying desk than she had at any of the other places they had visited, for more often than not she was able to employ someone local to help. As well as the many dozens of books in the town, each house was also home to a variety of pamphlets and scraps of paper. When asked about these, the townsfolk were noncommittal; travellers had left them and they had been saved in case they were useful. One house they had visited that very afternoon had belonged to a particularly old man. He had welcomed them in when Mead had explained why they were there. They discovered that the house contained a small metal box literally filled with small scraps of paper, none bigger than Erin’s hand, each covered in what appeared to be random scrawlings. To even get to the box, the man had dragged a piece of furniture away from a wall to reveal a hidden compartment, and the dust on the box had been years deep.
Read MoreErin looked at Owen and smiled. The setting sun’s final rays pierced through the low-lying cloud and perfectly lit his golden-brown hair into a glowing halo. He looked over at her and mirrored her smile, the creases wrinkling unevenly at his scarred cheek. He turned back to concentrate on the road and Erin absently stroked the curve of her pregnant belly, buried as it was under three layers of fur against the night’s chill.
It was hard to imagine that they had been on the road for almost nine months already without break. Then again, she mused, it wasn’t as if the Church encouraged breaks in reclamation missions for anything much. Pregnancy was a mere mis-step in the grand plan, one that would lead to the child being fostered by one of the many monasteries just like Erin and her husband had.
Read More“Once,” I began, “there was a boy. The boy’s name isn’t really important right now, but his parentage certainly was. He was the son of Ming Bao, the famous investigator.”
Hiri cocked his head to one side. “You had a son?”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
He looked a little surprised at being spoken to in such a way, but closed his flapping mouth.
“Now. This boy was quite happy in his early youth, astounded by his father’s wisdom and able to follow most of the deductive leaps he made. They worked well together, and the father loved his son very much.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, straining to ensure that my voice remained strong. “Everything was fine until the day that a quartet of junior officials in the empire of Koru decided that the Emperor himself represented the biggest losses for the banks and treasuries of the empire, and that he needed to be done away with. Simple, really.”
Read MoreI woke early on the final day of the journey, aware that I would need my wits about me not only to survive the day, but to ensure that those I was indebted to survived it as well. I dressed in my finest clothing, that which I reserved only for visits with heads of state; a long black jacket embroidered with silk, the embroidery mirroring the sort of style found in rich Koruans, over a white shirt, dark-blue waistcoat and matching trousers, all capped off with boots shines to the point that you could happily do your hair in them. I did, for want of a mirror in the small compartment, and folded the bed away before facing the day.
Breakfast was exquisite; apparently a large pig had gotten on to the tracks and become caught in the screw. Because of the unique design of the screw, not actually touching the rails, it meant that we were saved a nasty derailment that could potentially have killed us all and instead treated to fresh bacon and pork chops. The coffee was still below standard but my palate was, sadly, becoming used to such fare.
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