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elfsThree new stories: Mice and Malice, The Most Basic Human Need, and Vacuum Dancing. Enjoy!
But... Confession time. I haven't written anything fictional since last Thursday. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I decided to tackle Fragility again and that feels like a brick wall to me. I've never really been able to get into the head of a rich, spoiled, elderly woman (since I'm none of those things) and that's exactly what my protagonist happens to be. By making Fragility a side-line to Honesty, I was hoping that I could take some of the really good energy I generated and re-invigorate it. Maybe not. It's sad, too, because I had some interesting conflicts built up in later stories that require that I get the character of Isabelle Mannheim rolling.
Okay, here's what's up. I feel compelled to finish The Ritacha War, at least, because I've already posted more than half of it and it is, really, well, done. A little spit and polish and the last couple of episodes are ready. After that, The llerkin Revolution will come through. It's short-- only six episodes or so, none of this thirty-something episodes that were RWar.
After that, I wanted to expand out into other parts of the Pendorverse. (Ick. Did I just use that word? I guess I did.) It's not as neat as Ken's little view of it pretends to be. There are still places out there that deliberately have scarcity to appease the egos of individuals (yeah, writers go after Clinton or Bush, but nobody really wants to make a point of Robert Mugabe; we know he's evil. If that's true, why the fuck is he still in power and being feted by The Axis of Weasel?) There are other political factions that have their own agendas. There are evil folks out there; not merely the blindly xenophobic Sinox, but both those who honestly think they're doing the right thing for themselves and their people, and those who are simply vengeful on a universe that has taken away their capacity to be "great" as they see themselves. So I have The Taking of Gabrielle and The Kemper Assignment.
I wanted to write steampunk and mess with the llerkin past some more. So I have The Lost Crew Of the Palantir, which takes some non- heroes and crash-lands them on a distant world where they have to make deals with the locals to assemble enough of their crashed starship to make a gradio and call home.
The more I think about it, one of the subplots of A Century of Solitude is just going to have to go away. A pity: it means I'll have to toss one story written entirely in iambic pentameter rhyming couplets (aren't you grateful?) and my second ghost story.
But it does mean that I'll be able to post Dreamteam Calamities without a qualm. And there's much more to that series than there is to Century.
A lot of my stories are riffs. There's a riff on the old Space:1999 "robots who don't know evil" episode. In my case, it's not "don't," it's "can't," and the tragedy that comes with that particular problem.
Then the next two stories set in the Honesty series, then Fragility 1, then Honesty 4.
After that, the series jumps a thirty millenia into the future for a pair of series: Embrace, Empire, Extinguish and Petri Dish. The first is about half-done; it's about a character who, according to his (Pendor's) culture's beliefs, cannot be killed; for very specific reasons, he realizes that sometimes this belief is not sustaining. The second is a bit of a riff on, well, if you know who, you'll know who fast enough. Here's a hint:
But... Confession time. I haven't written anything fictional since last Thursday. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I decided to tackle Fragility again and that feels like a brick wall to me. I've never really been able to get into the head of a rich, spoiled, elderly woman (since I'm none of those things) and that's exactly what my protagonist happens to be. By making Fragility a side-line to Honesty, I was hoping that I could take some of the really good energy I generated and re-invigorate it. Maybe not. It's sad, too, because I had some interesting conflicts built up in later stories that require that I get the character of Isabelle Mannheim rolling.
Okay, here's what's up. I feel compelled to finish The Ritacha War, at least, because I've already posted more than half of it and it is, really, well, done. A little spit and polish and the last couple of episodes are ready. After that, The llerkin Revolution will come through. It's short-- only six episodes or so, none of this thirty-something episodes that were RWar.
After that, I wanted to expand out into other parts of the Pendorverse. (Ick. Did I just use that word? I guess I did.) It's not as neat as Ken's little view of it pretends to be. There are still places out there that deliberately have scarcity to appease the egos of individuals (yeah, writers go after Clinton or Bush, but nobody really wants to make a point of Robert Mugabe; we know he's evil. If that's true, why the fuck is he still in power and being feted by The Axis of Weasel?) There are other political factions that have their own agendas. There are evil folks out there; not merely the blindly xenophobic Sinox, but both those who honestly think they're doing the right thing for themselves and their people, and those who are simply vengeful on a universe that has taken away their capacity to be "great" as they see themselves. So I have The Taking of Gabrielle and The Kemper Assignment.
I wanted to write steampunk and mess with the llerkin past some more. So I have The Lost Crew Of the Palantir, which takes some non- heroes and crash-lands them on a distant world where they have to make deals with the locals to assemble enough of their crashed starship to make a gradio and call home.
The more I think about it, one of the subplots of A Century of Solitude is just going to have to go away. A pity: it means I'll have to toss one story written entirely in iambic pentameter rhyming couplets (aren't you grateful?) and my second ghost story.
But it does mean that I'll be able to post Dreamteam Calamities without a qualm. And there's much more to that series than there is to Century.
A lot of my stories are riffs. There's a riff on the old Space:1999 "robots who don't know evil" episode. In my case, it's not "don't," it's "can't," and the tragedy that comes with that particular problem.
Then the next two stories set in the Honesty series, then Fragility 1, then Honesty 4.
After that, the series jumps a thirty millenia into the future for a pair of series: Embrace, Empire, Extinguish and Petri Dish. The first is about half-done; it's about a character who, according to his (Pendor's) culture's beliefs, cannot be killed; for very specific reasons, he realizes that sometimes this belief is not sustaining. The second is a bit of a riff on, well, if you know who, you'll know who fast enough. Here's a hint:
"I know now. I understand why, in your language, the most common profanity you have is 'grief'. When you live like this, with everything material thing available to you, the only thing you have to fear, the only thing you can really suffer from, is a tragedy of the heart." I gave her a smile I didn't feel. "Grief is the only emotion worth hating."The problem is that I like to bounce around as I come up toward the end of a story. I like to look at different things, come back to it with a fresh feel. Eventually they do get done-- it's just a lot slower than I care to think.
no subject
"Murphy's Law of Cat Gravity"
Oh how true.
"[...] that sucked energy from our star and fed it out in ways that, no doubt, were less entropic than merely blasting it into interstellar space."
Now that's a cool way of defining life.
Now the part I really am not sure about. To make suggestions or not. Ah, why not with this magic cloak of anonymity and all.
Mice and Malice:
Maybe put a section divider between those? I missed the time/location gap on the first pass and got quite confused :).
This seems little redundant (showed/shone through)? Also the later part of this paragraph seems like unnecessary, distracting, and out-of-place exposition for the story.
Vacuum Dancing:
I hate to point out a "plot hole", but... How are Kennet and Tylia speaking to each other when there is vacuum between them? How do they hear the boiling/freezing dripage?
While I'm being so critical about these excellent additions to the masterpiece...
There's one thing that's annoyed me about the Journal Entries since shortly after I started reading them: certain words and phrases are repeated just a bit too much. My top three currently would be:
Just been meaning to get that off my chest for a long time, and now thanks to this anonymous forum my inner wimp is letting me do it :).
Oh, and I have to agree with the other anonymous coward: a Life Under Tension shirt would be quite cool. I tracked it down for anyone who was curious. It's from Travellogue, Day 5 (http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/journals/0916_187_000_Travellogue,_Day_5.html):
Or even better, continue the first diagram to work out the longitudinal tension on the ring structure. I remember seeing something along these lines on a Ringworld fan site a while back. After determining the tension they even went on to prove that a ring world is impossible with currently known materials, because at no thickness is it strong enough to withstand the sum of the centripetal force of typical surface material AND of the ring structure itself. Was a cool page, too bad I can't find it now.
By the way, Has anyone approached you to option Planetfall yet? With a little reworking to eliminate (most of) the sexual subplots and move the moment of maximum tension (which right now I'd say is when the planet connects to Kennet) to coincide with the denouement a bit more, it could make a good sci-fi flick.
Travellogue could also make a classic boy-meets-girl, boy-and-girl's-cultures-clash, boy-runs-away-with-girl romantic comedy, but would require greater deviation from the original material to make a decent mainstream movie.
My my, I've gotten a bit far afield and my film minor is showing. I think I'll shut up now :).
no subject
Date: 2003-02-28 08:11 pm (UTC)As for the "plot hole" in Vacuum Dancing, remember that right now Ken and Tylia are officially cyborgs. The AIs can communicate with them, and assist communication between them, in any number of ways. And the sounds of juices in a vacuum-- realize that when they hit vacuum they will produce kinetic energy in a number of ways, some of which will strike the force fields Ken and Tylia are wearing. That's what they were hearing.
The Pendorverse is full of AIs doing silly things to make the world seem "real" to the people living in it, according to their individual expectations.