‘Fraid Not, Chief

The Most August Etty Biggs-Wharton, Chair of the Imperial Defense Commission, sat in her office and eyed the guardsman in front of her with disfavor. He stood at an unprofessional slouch. "Well?" she demanded of the guardsman. "Have you secured the inner doors?" It was true that the guards were greatly outnumbered by the crowd...

The Prometheans Demand Blood

“One more day of blood sacrifice,” Pierce chanted. One more day. Painted in congealed arterial spray and clotting fluids, with sweat streaking his jowls and plastering expensively styled hair to his skull, he shrieked the shibboleths and prayed that this be would the day. The day his god would reward his devotion by ending the...

A baptism of stains

Imagine something with me, if you will. Visualize a gigantic crowd -- a great big festival, let's say. A modern version of the World's Fairs that were held in more innocent times. A showcase of technology and cultural advancement. It's jam-packed with people of all nationalities, mixing and mingling. There's food and drink to be...

Menagerie (aka the Amazing Elephant Girl) – An origin story

After the second session of our superhero roleplaying campaign, my daughter decided to write something about her character's background. That old-school TSR-developed game system really helps fire up the imagination. Janey Nevitt turned into an animal for the first time when she was six years old. She had been walking hand-in-hand with her father in...

The Return of the Indestructible Girl – Or, this is why we play

Friends, THIS is why we play our geeky games. My son posted the following on his blog after our second Marvel Super Hero Roleplaying session. I'd link to it, but it's friends only, so he let me republish it here. Table-top RPGs are really fun. You get to make a character and interact with a...

The Traitor Ratul and the Swords of Lok

Read a free short story, "The Testimony of the Traitor Ratul," by Larry Correia, and an excellent article titled "The Swords of Lok," which looks at why swords are the way they are.

National Not-Novel Writing Month, day 21: Return of the Silent Kid

This is a followup to The Silent Kid, which is the first Not-NaNo story I posted three weeks ago. I wrote this on Nov. 21 at a NaNoWriMo write-in I went to with my daughter. She's doing the regular NaNo, while I'm doing something a little different. A ghostly smile flitted across Sunny Jim's face...

National Not-Novel Writing Month, day 8: The Kiss

I've been doing the flash-fiction every day NaNoWriMo replacement as prescribed. Most of them are rudimentary or fragmentary, but I thought this one came together rather nicely. So here you go. The Kiss It wasn't Scott McHaney's fault that his town collapsed. He was only the mayor, after all. How was he to know what was...

National Not-Novel Writing Month, day 1: The Silent Kid

Apparently if you're doing the short-story-per-day challenge instead of NaNoWriMo, you're supposed to also post it on your blog. I hesitate to do this because it'll be painfully obvious if I fail to keep up, and also because I'm not sure I want everyone to see my first-draft stuff. But oh, well, what the hell....