Hey folks.
I was reading an article by Jo Walton on Tor.com the other day, and it really interested me, and I wanted to get all of your opinions on this. the article was about Religious science fiction, and here's the line that got me thinking:
"There’s the kind of SF where the writer is themselves a member of some religion and this imbues their writing—I think Connie Willis would be a good example of this. Look at the stories in Miracle, or her novel Passage. I don’t have a problem with this unless it spoils the story, but I don’t find it all that interesting either."
Now, my question is this: to what extent should an author's personal life (personal history, religion, culture, personal beliefs, etc.) be evident in his/her writing?
For example, lots of people have a problem with Orson Scott Card's work because they feel his Mormon heritage is too evident in the plot and characters.
Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this question. I don't have a problem with Card's work, but that's probably cause I'm a Mormon too so the Mormon-esque parts of his stories don't jump out at me unless I'm looking for them. C.S. Lewis was an Anglican and the Chronicles of Narnia are overtly Christian, but that never really bugged me . . . of course, I'm Christian, so maybe thats why. Is Lord of the Rings too preachy for anybody? What about Wheel of Time, or Brandon Sanderson's stuff?
I do think that in our society we try very hard not to be religously pushy . . . but if the author tries to drain his/her writing of everything that is him/her . . . well, we might as well pull a 1984 and just have machines mix and match formulaic plot devices into something new every few weeks. What's the difference?
Please, give me your opinions and what-not.
Later . . .
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Spawn of the Void 1/2
Ok, here is another world building piece that explains the nature and history of some of the various monsters/expendable soldiers in my fantasy story. As far as questions, I'd mostly just like to know what you thought of the whole piece (especially Danel) and what you thought of the creatures/monsters introduced so far. I'll post the rest next week. Enjoy:
The old man arrived in the tall hours of the night, on the wings of a storm.
He had to have been pounding on the dog-door for hours by the time Jarrod roused himself enough to realize what all the banging was about—poor old blighter’s right hand was raw and bleeding at the knuckles and his thread-bare cloak clung to him, soaked through by icy sleet that was howling in off the sea, wind screaming near fit to cover the lower noise of the thunder.
“Well don’t ye be standin’ out there, sir,” Jarrod hollered, raising the lantern higher and letting go of the latch long enough to beckon to the stranger. “There’s worse coming behind this rain, or I’m a five colors of a fool. Come in! The master won’t like it if you lay down and die against his wall.”
“That’d be me, sir,” Jarrod admitted, trying—and failing—to hide a frown. Blast the rain and the dark! He couldn’t see a thing behind the stranger, try as he might, and the lantern was less than a help. Where could the old blighter have come from? Folk didn’t just wander the wilds between manor houses. That was a good way to wind up dead.
Turning back to the old man, he tried again. “Will you not come in sir?”
Shaking his head, the stranger used his bloody hand to motion Jarrod closer. “I’ve seen you before, wandering between here and Daerondal Hold.” The man’s voice was deep and vibrant, so at odds with the fellow’s cadaverous appearance that it gave Jarrod a start. “Do you know the lay of the land to the west?”
Jarrod should have held his tongue—honest Faith fearing folk had nothing to do with the dark hills and darker ruins of tumbled stone that lay westward—but he was nodding almost before he knew it. “Aye, sir,” he half shouted over the rising storm. “I do at that. My da and I have wandered our fair share amongst the hills.”
“Your father?” the old man sounded surprised. “I’d never noticed him about.”
Part of him wanted to demand just how long the stranger had been spying about the manor; instead he found himself saying, “Da went missing two summers back. He’d gone to the hills hunting. We--we never found his body.” The pain welled up inside Jarrod, like old wounds breaking open, and he was suddenly grateful for the darkness—it wouldn’t do for a stranger to see the gate warden crying like a wee girl barely off her mother’s aprong.
“Forgive me for prying,” the stranger continued, taking a hesitant step closer. Jarrod knew he should have put a stop to that—no one approached the gate without permission from the Master, especially not at at this Faith-forsaken hour—but again, he did nothing. The old man extended his hand—again the one he’d worn bloody with knocking; his left hand he kept tucked beneath his cloak—and Jarrod shook it reluctantly, insides still churning.
“My name is Danel Terram, boy,” the old man said, and his eyes burning with an inner fire like blue starlight. “I’ve come to ask a favor of you, and give one in return.”
“A favor?” Jarrod repeated, unable to look away from those brilliant eyes. “What favor?”
“I’ve a burden to carry,” Danel said, gesturing to his hidden left and hefting something weighty beneath the folds of his cloak. “A rather heavy burden and no strength to carry it in this weather. Come with me, share my burden and some of your good light, and I’ll show you what happened to your father.”
Jarrod was two steps out the door before he came to his senses and pulled up short, heart pounding fit to match the thunder. His da? This old man knew what had happened to his da?
“How could you possibly know what happened to my da?”
A thin smile split Danel’s lips. “Come and see.”
West of the manor the land rose in long, tumbled steps towards the distant peaks. The pitted lane that Danel followed wound ever higher among scattered, wind-stunted elderoaks and huge bone-gray boulders that dotted the slopes like half-buried skulls pale in the darkness. The rain held steady and the tall curtain walls of the manor were soon buried in shadow, but the old man ordered the lantern shuttered until they had topped the first ridge and passed out of sight of any prying eyes.
“I’ll take the light now, my boy,” Danel said, pausing at the base of a particularly large outcrop of stone. “And you may take my burden, if you please.”
Passing the old man the light, Jarrod in return received a bulging water skin that Danel produced from the depths of the cloak. It was much heavier than it appeared—much heavier than it should have been—and it was only luck that kept Jarrod from dropping it on the ground.
Danel must have seen the fumble, for he hissed and gritted, “Careful, boy!” But Jarrod barely heard the man.
The waterskin glowed. Eyes wide, Jarrod stared at the light—pure, clean golden light of the kind you only saw in autumn and that if you were lucky—shone through the tight seems of the sack, and he couldn’t help but wonder if a miniature sun was trapped within the leather.
Danel’s weathered face was hard in the gentle light, but for a half second his sky-blue eyes gleamed hungrily, then the old man jerked his gaze away and grunted, “Cover it up! Quick lad!” Then he spun on his heels and marched into the night, the lantern opened just a crack to light the path before him.
Head spinning, Jarrod plunged the waterskin under his cloak and hurried after the strange old man.
The trail climbed higher and higher, and however old he seemed, Danel showed no sign of flagging. Soon, Jarrod was lagging behind, shifting the strange waterskin from arm to arm and regretting ever having left the manor.
Three hours passed without a word passed between the two, and then Danel paused in the middle of the trail and asked, “Why did your father take up hunting in these hills, boy? Your kin and neighbors avoid this place.”
Jarrod nodded, eyes on the trail. “Ten years back the crops failed and then kept failing, a famine or some-such—I was too young to remember much—but we had no rains for three seasons.”
“I heard tell of your troubles,” Danel muttered, tugging at his beard, “But I was far to the south at the time.”
“All of the freemen on the estates pulled out after the second year,” Jarrod continued, “And by the third year many of the serfs had too. The Master kept promising that the High King would send aid, but none has ever come. Food was so scarce . . . the-the lowlands had hunted nearly clean so my da started stalking the game up here . . . what little there was.”
“Your father was wise not to wait on the High King’s help,” Danel said, and then: “Arvad Telmar was murdered on his throne five years ago, his wives and children slaughtered not long after. Even now a traitor—the fifth since the High King’s death—sits on the Last Throne and all Ellandar’s High Families and generals are carving out kingdoms of their own. Help was never coming.”
“I-I can’t believe . . .” Jarrod had to clamp his mouth shut to stop blathering. The High King dead? Ellandar fallen? The sun might as well refuse to rise tomorrow.
“With the High King’s fall,” Danel continued, “The watch on the northern marches failed, and the Blood Lords”—Danel ignored Jarrod’s fearful hiss—”the Blood Lords have sent their spawn forth, down from their mountain holds. Dark things now range freely between the holdings of men, wandering the marshes and wild places. Wild places like these hills.”
Jarrod jerked around to stare at the old man. “Are you saying my da was killed by . . . by darkspawn?”
When Danel turned to face him, his eyes were haunted.
“Yes.”
Jarrod had seen the ruined tower from atop the manor walls, a shattered ring of stones and a tumbled tower that crowned a far hill on the edge of the horzion. But now, standing in the shadow of the broken arch of the wall’s ancient gate, he was struck by how large the ruins really were.
The storm had broken only minutes past, and the clouds were thinning overhead. The full moon was a bone-white eye framed in the only whole window of the old tower. Danel was already threading his way between fallen blocks of stone into the shadows beyond.
“I can feel their stink even now . . . it’s coating everything like oil on water.” Danel gestured to a far corner, “Some of the ilk camped there. Can you see the firepit?”
Stomach churning, Jarrod turned away from the corner and tried not to imagine what ‘spawn had been cooking. “What were they?”
“You mean what breed were the beasts that killed your father?” Danel turned ‘round long enough to frown at him. “What difference does it make, boy?”
“I just need to know.”
Heaving a sigh, Danel turned around and strode back to Jarrod. “And what do you know of darkspawn, boy? What could I tell you that you’d understand? Your father is dead, killed by darkspawn. Accept it and be done with it.”
“Just tell me. Please.”
The old man shook his head in exasperation, then walked over to the darkened corner where he’d seen the firepit. He paused and toed the ground, head cocked to one side as if he was listening to something. Then he began sniffing, edging back and forth, nose thrust out like a hound on the hunt.
“Rukai camped here, though I cannot say how long.”
Jarrod edged closer, apprehensive of what he would find, but unable to keep away. “What are rukai?”
“Soulless,” Danel said, and it came out a growl, “Life-reaved, some call them, the Dead Who Live. They are the remnants of men and women taken captive by the Blood Lords.”
“Remnants?”
“The Black Kings feed on mortal souls, yes. The life energy of mortals is the source of their power, though it was not always so. What is left after the . . . feeding, is an empty husk, neither living nor dead and bound to the will of the Blood Lord who consumed its essence.”
Sniffing again, Danel moved closer to the crumbling wall. “But there were others here.” The old man unlatched the shutter on the lantern, spilling light across the broken stone face.
Stumbling backwards, Jarrod bit of a hoarse curse. The wall was drapped with thick strands of dark, mold-covered webbing that stirred fitfully in the cold breeze. The jagged rim of the wall was crusted with rough spheres of mud, some crushed and broken, only a thick rind remaining, others were whole—two paces tall and half again as wide. Dark holes gaped at the bottoms of the spheres, almost like they were huge . . .
“Nests?” Jarrod said in a strangled croak. “Are those nests?”
“Gholem prefer high places . . . cliff faces, dead trees and the like.” Danel said, and he shuttered the lantern again, plunging the wall back into shadow. “Gholem usually follow Soulless packs, feasting on the dead, but they too serve the whim of the Blood Lords. They are spies and assassins, winged and cunning.”
Thursday, January 20, 2011
New Unnamed Story
Alright, gonna start out with this new story. I will get to commenting on other people's stuff. I'm only now winding down from the past week or so (grad applications, writing seminar, and lousy calculus class). I've already gotten feedback on this (this is actually the piece Brandon Sanderson looked over) so I know specifically what I'm looking for. I'm just grabbing more people's opinions.
Chapter 1
The prisoner had never known that many gnomes. The Shintaur Protectorate, surrounded as it was on two sides by different kingdoms was still notoriously isolated and very few of its people ventured out of their native borders. The only experience he had was over two decades past in one of the taverns of Verdesberg. There had been three of them, Fists, by the color of their simple red warrior-robes. Guards for a merchant caravan he had assumed.
They had all three been content to sit in the corner of the common room and drink their ale, while ignoring everyone else. A man who had drunk far past his fill had approached them. He could still hear the man’s raspy voice drawl out over the common room that Shintaur was so named because the shins were the highest part of a human’s body the gnomes could ever hope to reach. The gnomes gave no visible reaction, and the man, obviously disappointed that they wouldn’t react to him, stumbled around the bar until the bouncer finally tossed him out.
The man had been out the door for no less than ten seconds, than the Fists had hopped off their stairs and shuffled across the floor. They had passed right next to where the prisoner had been drinking, and he remembered noticing the tallest of them barely could look him level in the eye, even though the Fist was standing, and he was sitting. They said nothing to each other or to anyone else as they shuffled out into the blinding cold of the dark winter night. The prisoner never saw any of the Fists again.
The drunk on the other hand, he did see again the following morning. The Fists had jumped him as he had stumbled through the foggy back alleys of Verdesberg. Every bone in his legs and arms, every rib in his chest had been snapped cleanly. His head had been twisted so far around his neck that he was looking down his back with those sightless dead eyes and his face had been smashed into such a pulp that the prisoner only recognized him from the garment he wore.
That had been another lesson he put into his rulebook. Don’t give a gnome reason to believe you have besmirched their honor. They had no qualms about killing those who did. Even Gromli, sitting in front of him, was very particular about dealing with other people, and he hadn’t even been born in Shintaur.
The rest of the prisoners seemed nervous, as if an atmosphere of certain despair wafted over them like a fogbank coming down from the mountains. But it wasn’t from where they were. It was from what they were about to do. The prisoner looked to Gromli, his cellmate for the past twenty years.
Gromli made eye contact with him. That was all that was needed. Step one. The prisoner hurled himself at Gromli, flying across the table and grabbing the gnome’s neck in his hands. Dishes and utinselves were launched into the air by his frenzied assault and clatterd around him as he snarled at the gnome.
“You gnomish doorstop! What the hell did you call me!?” the prisoner said as he shook Gromli like a rag doll. Gromli arced his back, and landed a solid kick into the prisoner’s face. A blinding pain blasted into him and his vision faded to white. Not so hard, you idiot! The rest of the prisoners in the commissary had swarmed around them almost immediately as they cheered on the fighters. Some knew what was happened, most, the unreliable ones, didn’t.
His vision came back to him and Gromli punched him again in the kidneys. The pain was intense, perhaps even a little more than was necessary, but they had to play the part.
“Impotent barbarian! I’ll kill you!” Gromli snarled between clenched teeth.
Before the former merchant’s guard could throw another hit, the prisoner slammed his fist into the gnome. The prisoner was well into his fifties, but he had remained youthful and fit even in the wasting depths of the Tomb. Gromli twisted out of the way, but the blow still glanced against the gnomes arms, sending him cartwheeling into the crowd.
Whistles blared out over the din of the melee. The guards were coming. Step two. One of them, a big brute named Dolf, surged through the prisoners, before stopping to see just what was going on. Dolf was not a complex man, nor was he prone to long periods of quiet contemplation. The big oaf pulled out his guard club, and hammered it into the prisoner. He hit the ground, the wind knocked out of him. Now is the time, Gromli, he thought through murky vision. If the gnome decided to back out now, he could, and the prisoner would be in solitary for a very long time.
The guard planted a hefty boot into the prisoner’s side as he roared some obscenity at no one in particular. He reached to kick again, when suddenly Gromli was in the guard’s face. Dolf stumbled for a second unsure what to do, and the gnome slammed his fist straight into the man’s chin. The huge man fell as if pole-axed, hitting the ground with a massive whump.
The prisoner knew it was now his turn to rally the men. The prisoners had gone quiet. Those who knew what was coming looked weary but ready, while those who did not seemed shocked. Two guards who had followed in after Dolf stared with wide eyes at the guard’s corpse. The prisoner felt pain all over his body, both from Dolf’s blows, as well as Gromli’s. He raised the club Dolf had once carried over his head.
“Freedom! To the surface!” The rest of the almost two dozen prisoners roared in response and without any motivation turned on the still stunned guards, beating them down with their fists. The prisoner rubbed his bruised cheek.
“Was it really necessary to hit that hard?” he said to Gromli.
The gnome looked at him unapologetically. “You said make it real. I did. Where do we go from now?”
The prisoner said one word. “Up”.
Step four was now in full swing. After seizing the commissary, the mob had run rampant in the lower levels. The prisoner had personally commanded him, like it was back in the old days, before he had ended up here. This was an army, and he was their general.
“Step four is done?” Gromli asked, eagerly. The gnome had already shown a great supply of strength. The prisoner would have thought Gromli was a Fist by the way he fought, and he suspected the gnome had not been fully forthcoming about his past after seeing him break two guards twice his size within a heartbeat of the other.
“Step four is done,” the prisoner said. Advance to the surface was now their objective. He hadn’t seen the sun shine for twenty years. The smell of fresh air, the sounds of wildlife, anything beyond the echoing stillness of this former dwarf ruin was completely alien to his senses.
“You know where we’re going?” Gromli asked. The gnome ducked out of the way as a squad of snarling prisoners raced after a guard who had been playing dead and had broken for cover.
“Of course. I memorized this place on my way down. I don’t forget things like that,” the prisoner assured the gnome. He should have escaped a decade before now. Maybe even less than a year after getting in. That had been right after… Leeya… His vision faded from the present chaos of the prison in full riot to a pastoral scene.
The fields of grass stretched on as far as the eye could see. The Deolatia Mountains loomed out of the distance far to the northeast, while the Altaen Ocean twinkled in the opposite direction. Him and Leeya, just the two of them, out enjoying the countryside. He could still see her youthful features in the sunlight. Her smile and that sweet laugh warmed his heart and he wanted nothing else. He had no cares for the armies in the field that he commanded. The memories of the horror and the carnage of the Meatgrinder Fields far to the west had fled out of mind, leaving nothing but happiness.
Their horses seemed to share their jubilance and excitement as they raced across the grasslands. They came into a forested area, to take shelter from the bright sunlight flooding down around them. They were only maybe five miles away from his estate, when the cockatrice snuck up on them. It was a mangy animal whose domestic tendencies had flown away years ago. It looked the sort of the Lorhal cavalry rode, but Lorhal was at least a thousand miles to the east as the crow flew, and probably double that when one navigated around the Norden Sea.
The massive bipedal bird startled the horses away with its initial charge. The prisoner had stumbled for his sword, when Leeya strode forward, determined and courageous. He yelled for her to stay back. She stood firm against the animal, staring it down in the same manner a Lorhal cavalryman would to an unruly mount. What happened next was still nothing more but images that flashed through his mind like a chaotic collage of memories. The bird vanishing in a flash of bright light. Keeya screaming as her arms were wreathed in unearthly blue flames. The smell of smoke in the air, and the taste of metal in his mouth.
The prisoner suddenly realized that Gromli had slapped his face several times. His thoughts faded back into reality. Gromli gave him a wary look, taking a step back from him.
“Are you alright, boss?”
“I’m fine. Why are you standing around here? Let’s get moving,” he snapped.
Gromli gaze narrowed in annoyance, but he nodded a moment later and turned to head for the surface. The rest of the prisoners rallied around him. They were not the people he once would have associated with. Murderers, Western Legion sympathizers. Public enemies. The worst of the worst, that the Blackwell Dominion wanted buried away in the Tomb. But even then, the very worst, the cosmic touched would not be found here. There was only one solution for them that the druids had long since settled on.
He drove the thought out of his mind. That was the reason he had spent so much time wallowing in his
own filth in this dank Daiya forsaken pit. He had moped and scraped over what had happened. Turned into nothing but a hollow shell. But now? Now he had purpose.
He followed the tunnels, almost by instinct, heading higher and higher through the labyrinthine network that the dwarves had left behind as their only legacy. A bestial roar stopped him in his tracks. He grimaced as he turned down the long hallway they had just arrived at.
“Druids,” the prisoner spat.
“They’re coming quicker than I thought,” Gromli noted.
“No matter. I expected they’d probably try to force their way back down this soon,” the prisoner said.
The two druids burst into view a moment later. One had already shifted to a massive bear with gangly white hair that fell of it’s body to the ground. It’s eyes glowed a ghostly blue color and it’s long sharp claws dripped red with the blood of those that had gotten in the way. The other druid was still retaining his human form. He held his druidic scepter loosely with one hand, while he scanned the area. His eyes immediately caught the prisoner standing in the hallway.
“You. I knew you would be at the heart of this. I did wonder if you ever were going to develop a spine. But then again, I never would have expected such a pitiful cosmic consort to ever amount to anything!” the man spat.
The prisoner kept his anger in check. Once he would have blindly rushed forward to try to throttle the man to death with his own hands. But in the depths of the Tomb he had learned… patience. Lying on a bed for untold hours, never knowing when it was until the guards came by, declaring it was now night, had taught him patience. When one had nothing to do, one was never in a hurry for anything.
“Lorn Hyrkan,” the prisoner muttered the name of one of the Warden’s chief lieutenant. A sadistic barbarian of no class or culture. He glanced from the one druid already shifted into beast form. He didn’t recognize it, but he knew it was another of the Warden’s cronies.
“There are two druids in front of me, but I only see one feral animal,” the prisoner said, locking eyes with Lorn so that the man knew exactly what he meant.
Questions:
1. Does calling the main character "The Prisoner" seem odd or detrimental to anyone. It was a design choice because it is supposed to be ambiguous at the start. Likewise for what he looks like.
2. What about descriptions for the place?
3. I know the flashbacks stop and break the tension. The first one at the start I really like, but probably is placed oddly. The same for the flashbacks for his wife. My question is, is the break detrimental to the plot? I'm trying to figure out how to work this, since the first doesn't necessarily have to be there, but the second has to be in this chapter.
4. What about his wife? She's very ambiguous. she exists literally to die and give him motivation. One reader commented she didn't care for her.
5. How about descriptions for the setting? It's supposed to be a dwarf-hold converted to a prison.
Chapter 1
The prisoner had never known that many gnomes. The Shintaur Protectorate, surrounded as it was on two sides by different kingdoms was still notoriously isolated and very few of its people ventured out of their native borders. The only experience he had was over two decades past in one of the taverns of Verdesberg. There had been three of them, Fists, by the color of their simple red warrior-robes. Guards for a merchant caravan he had assumed.
They had all three been content to sit in the corner of the common room and drink their ale, while ignoring everyone else. A man who had drunk far past his fill had approached them. He could still hear the man’s raspy voice drawl out over the common room that Shintaur was so named because the shins were the highest part of a human’s body the gnomes could ever hope to reach. The gnomes gave no visible reaction, and the man, obviously disappointed that they wouldn’t react to him, stumbled around the bar until the bouncer finally tossed him out.
The man had been out the door for no less than ten seconds, than the Fists had hopped off their stairs and shuffled across the floor. They had passed right next to where the prisoner had been drinking, and he remembered noticing the tallest of them barely could look him level in the eye, even though the Fist was standing, and he was sitting. They said nothing to each other or to anyone else as they shuffled out into the blinding cold of the dark winter night. The prisoner never saw any of the Fists again.
The drunk on the other hand, he did see again the following morning. The Fists had jumped him as he had stumbled through the foggy back alleys of Verdesberg. Every bone in his legs and arms, every rib in his chest had been snapped cleanly. His head had been twisted so far around his neck that he was looking down his back with those sightless dead eyes and his face had been smashed into such a pulp that the prisoner only recognized him from the garment he wore.
That had been another lesson he put into his rulebook. Don’t give a gnome reason to believe you have besmirched their honor. They had no qualms about killing those who did. Even Gromli, sitting in front of him, was very particular about dealing with other people, and he hadn’t even been born in Shintaur.
The rest of the prisoners seemed nervous, as if an atmosphere of certain despair wafted over them like a fogbank coming down from the mountains. But it wasn’t from where they were. It was from what they were about to do. The prisoner looked to Gromli, his cellmate for the past twenty years.
Gromli made eye contact with him. That was all that was needed. Step one. The prisoner hurled himself at Gromli, flying across the table and grabbing the gnome’s neck in his hands. Dishes and utinselves were launched into the air by his frenzied assault and clatterd around him as he snarled at the gnome.
“You gnomish doorstop! What the hell did you call me!?” the prisoner said as he shook Gromli like a rag doll. Gromli arced his back, and landed a solid kick into the prisoner’s face. A blinding pain blasted into him and his vision faded to white. Not so hard, you idiot! The rest of the prisoners in the commissary had swarmed around them almost immediately as they cheered on the fighters. Some knew what was happened, most, the unreliable ones, didn’t.
His vision came back to him and Gromli punched him again in the kidneys. The pain was intense, perhaps even a little more than was necessary, but they had to play the part.
“Impotent barbarian! I’ll kill you!” Gromli snarled between clenched teeth.
Before the former merchant’s guard could throw another hit, the prisoner slammed his fist into the gnome. The prisoner was well into his fifties, but he had remained youthful and fit even in the wasting depths of the Tomb. Gromli twisted out of the way, but the blow still glanced against the gnomes arms, sending him cartwheeling into the crowd.
Whistles blared out over the din of the melee. The guards were coming. Step two. One of them, a big brute named Dolf, surged through the prisoners, before stopping to see just what was going on. Dolf was not a complex man, nor was he prone to long periods of quiet contemplation. The big oaf pulled out his guard club, and hammered it into the prisoner. He hit the ground, the wind knocked out of him. Now is the time, Gromli, he thought through murky vision. If the gnome decided to back out now, he could, and the prisoner would be in solitary for a very long time.
The guard planted a hefty boot into the prisoner’s side as he roared some obscenity at no one in particular. He reached to kick again, when suddenly Gromli was in the guard’s face. Dolf stumbled for a second unsure what to do, and the gnome slammed his fist straight into the man’s chin. The huge man fell as if pole-axed, hitting the ground with a massive whump.
The prisoner knew it was now his turn to rally the men. The prisoners had gone quiet. Those who knew what was coming looked weary but ready, while those who did not seemed shocked. Two guards who had followed in after Dolf stared with wide eyes at the guard’s corpse. The prisoner felt pain all over his body, both from Dolf’s blows, as well as Gromli’s. He raised the club Dolf had once carried over his head.
“Freedom! To the surface!” The rest of the almost two dozen prisoners roared in response and without any motivation turned on the still stunned guards, beating them down with their fists. The prisoner rubbed his bruised cheek.
“Was it really necessary to hit that hard?” he said to Gromli.
The gnome looked at him unapologetically. “You said make it real. I did. Where do we go from now?”
The prisoner said one word. “Up”.
Step four was now in full swing. After seizing the commissary, the mob had run rampant in the lower levels. The prisoner had personally commanded him, like it was back in the old days, before he had ended up here. This was an army, and he was their general.
“Step four is done?” Gromli asked, eagerly. The gnome had already shown a great supply of strength. The prisoner would have thought Gromli was a Fist by the way he fought, and he suspected the gnome had not been fully forthcoming about his past after seeing him break two guards twice his size within a heartbeat of the other.
“Step four is done,” the prisoner said. Advance to the surface was now their objective. He hadn’t seen the sun shine for twenty years. The smell of fresh air, the sounds of wildlife, anything beyond the echoing stillness of this former dwarf ruin was completely alien to his senses.
“You know where we’re going?” Gromli asked. The gnome ducked out of the way as a squad of snarling prisoners raced after a guard who had been playing dead and had broken for cover.
“Of course. I memorized this place on my way down. I don’t forget things like that,” the prisoner assured the gnome. He should have escaped a decade before now. Maybe even less than a year after getting in. That had been right after… Leeya… His vision faded from the present chaos of the prison in full riot to a pastoral scene.
The fields of grass stretched on as far as the eye could see. The Deolatia Mountains loomed out of the distance far to the northeast, while the Altaen Ocean twinkled in the opposite direction. Him and Leeya, just the two of them, out enjoying the countryside. He could still see her youthful features in the sunlight. Her smile and that sweet laugh warmed his heart and he wanted nothing else. He had no cares for the armies in the field that he commanded. The memories of the horror and the carnage of the Meatgrinder Fields far to the west had fled out of mind, leaving nothing but happiness.
Their horses seemed to share their jubilance and excitement as they raced across the grasslands. They came into a forested area, to take shelter from the bright sunlight flooding down around them. They were only maybe five miles away from his estate, when the cockatrice snuck up on them. It was a mangy animal whose domestic tendencies had flown away years ago. It looked the sort of the Lorhal cavalry rode, but Lorhal was at least a thousand miles to the east as the crow flew, and probably double that when one navigated around the Norden Sea.
The massive bipedal bird startled the horses away with its initial charge. The prisoner had stumbled for his sword, when Leeya strode forward, determined and courageous. He yelled for her to stay back. She stood firm against the animal, staring it down in the same manner a Lorhal cavalryman would to an unruly mount. What happened next was still nothing more but images that flashed through his mind like a chaotic collage of memories. The bird vanishing in a flash of bright light. Keeya screaming as her arms were wreathed in unearthly blue flames. The smell of smoke in the air, and the taste of metal in his mouth.
The prisoner suddenly realized that Gromli had slapped his face several times. His thoughts faded back into reality. Gromli gave him a wary look, taking a step back from him.
“Are you alright, boss?”
“I’m fine. Why are you standing around here? Let’s get moving,” he snapped.
Gromli gaze narrowed in annoyance, but he nodded a moment later and turned to head for the surface. The rest of the prisoners rallied around him. They were not the people he once would have associated with. Murderers, Western Legion sympathizers. Public enemies. The worst of the worst, that the Blackwell Dominion wanted buried away in the Tomb. But even then, the very worst, the cosmic touched would not be found here. There was only one solution for them that the druids had long since settled on.
He drove the thought out of his mind. That was the reason he had spent so much time wallowing in his
own filth in this dank Daiya forsaken pit. He had moped and scraped over what had happened. Turned into nothing but a hollow shell. But now? Now he had purpose.
He followed the tunnels, almost by instinct, heading higher and higher through the labyrinthine network that the dwarves had left behind as their only legacy. A bestial roar stopped him in his tracks. He grimaced as he turned down the long hallway they had just arrived at.
“Druids,” the prisoner spat.
“They’re coming quicker than I thought,” Gromli noted.
“No matter. I expected they’d probably try to force their way back down this soon,” the prisoner said.
The two druids burst into view a moment later. One had already shifted to a massive bear with gangly white hair that fell of it’s body to the ground. It’s eyes glowed a ghostly blue color and it’s long sharp claws dripped red with the blood of those that had gotten in the way. The other druid was still retaining his human form. He held his druidic scepter loosely with one hand, while he scanned the area. His eyes immediately caught the prisoner standing in the hallway.
“You. I knew you would be at the heart of this. I did wonder if you ever were going to develop a spine. But then again, I never would have expected such a pitiful cosmic consort to ever amount to anything!” the man spat.
The prisoner kept his anger in check. Once he would have blindly rushed forward to try to throttle the man to death with his own hands. But in the depths of the Tomb he had learned… patience. Lying on a bed for untold hours, never knowing when it was until the guards came by, declaring it was now night, had taught him patience. When one had nothing to do, one was never in a hurry for anything.
“Lorn Hyrkan,” the prisoner muttered the name of one of the Warden’s chief lieutenant. A sadistic barbarian of no class or culture. He glanced from the one druid already shifted into beast form. He didn’t recognize it, but he knew it was another of the Warden’s cronies.
“There are two druids in front of me, but I only see one feral animal,” the prisoner said, locking eyes with Lorn so that the man knew exactly what he meant.
Questions:
1. Does calling the main character "The Prisoner" seem odd or detrimental to anyone. It was a design choice because it is supposed to be ambiguous at the start. Likewise for what he looks like.
2. What about descriptions for the place?
3. I know the flashbacks stop and break the tension. The first one at the start I really like, but probably is placed oddly. The same for the flashbacks for his wife. My question is, is the break detrimental to the plot? I'm trying to figure out how to work this, since the first doesn't necessarily have to be there, but the second has to be in this chapter.
4. What about his wife? She's very ambiguous. she exists literally to die and give him motivation. One reader commented she didn't care for her.
5. How about descriptions for the setting? It's supposed to be a dwarf-hold converted to a prison.
Friday, January 14, 2011
I cannot tell a lie
I'm looking for any general proofreading issues (they way it's worded, spelling or grammar mistakes, etc.) but mostly in your reaction to the ideas. I wrote the piece more or less under the assumption that people would know the book I'm talking about, but I want to know if it's clear to someone who hasn't read the book what I'm talking about.
If the essay is clear enough, what motivates you to read in general and science fiction and fantasy in specific?
I figure a conversation about reading is good for us, since we all intend someone else to read what we've written and if we understand why people read, perhaps we can write to better motivate people to read our stuff. :)
To my American mindset, the counterculture is essentially supposed to consist of “make peace, not war,” and “drugs, sex, and rock and roll.” But for a long time I have been unsettlingly amused by the way that “the man” has domesticated these supposedly independent aspects of American culture and made a pretty dollar in its distribution. I know I have often felt a strong social pressure to accept counterculture values as my own and to conform to accepted forms of nonconformity in dress, speech, music, and philosophy. I fear that counterculture has been transformed from liberator to conquistador, leaving it devoid of positive social impact. As an accepted norm, countercultural values can deny individuality just as readily as the values against which they rebelled.
The primary value of counterculture is its willingness to question the accepted norms of society. As John Stuart Mill argues in On Liberty, this allows a culture to develop, whether or not a counterculture’s ideas are truer than the accepted norm: even largely fallacious arguments contain part of the truth, and even if they have nothing to offer, they prove the importance of the accepted argument. Counterculture is necessary if a society wants to avoid calcification and obsolescence. The conflict between establishment and dissent breathes life into a society and gives it direction as it works out the debate. But when the counterculture becomes the establishment, it is difficult to understand how to dissent against dissention and the function of questioning may be lost for a time.
Against the incessant pace of technology’s march and the restless pull of consumer culture, Coleman recommends that an important countercultural activity is simply reading. Surrounded by electronic stimulus that gives us no rest and seems inescapably accompanied by the insistent demand that we consume more and think less, reading is inherently in opposition to the accepted norms. “Reading is counter-cultural mainly because it requires quiet time, being slow and meditative, and it is active rather than passive” (26). Coleman goes on to say that of course not all books are constructive and not all electronic media are destructive, but that as a general rule reading, by its meditative nature, provides a greater opportunity for spirituality and creativity. I would say that it allows us to act more and be acted upon less, liberating us from a state of subjection to other things and allowing us to develop an independent perspective.
Coleman highlights another essential aspect of reading as counterculture: the dual application of the hermeneutics of suspicion and the hermeneutics of affirmation. Western culture has widely accepted the application of the hermeneutics of suspicion, creating an orthodoxy of skepticism. This has been, in my opinion, a powerful tool for social development as a means of dismantling unjust power structures and enfranchising the oppressed. When applied correctly, it should also to some extent free us from the grip of consumer culture as we approach advertising with skepticism. But I agree with Coleman that in absence of the hermeneutics of affirmation, the hermeneutics of suspicion can erode spiritual development by disallowing humility. “Spirituality assumes that I have something to learn and that I can learn it from the many things around me that draw me out of myself” (39) Coleman writes, but an all-pervasive suspicion undermines my ability to approach anything with the humility required to learn. In this way, reading – which requires humility and even vulnerability before the text in order to be done properly – gives an opportunity to pursue the hermeneutics of affirmation and develop a counterculturally positive perspective.
Works cited.
Coleman, Daniel. In Bed with the Word. Edmonton: Univ. Alberta Press, 2009. Print.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Wolf Of Heaven
This is from my dieselpunk bit. It's sitting at about 30k words right now, partly shelved.
The Wolf of Heaven
Chapter 1
Norman West clutched his coat tightly to him and he shuffled through the abandoned junkyard. His reanimated bodyguards surrounded him closely, but if something went wrong, he wasn’t terribly convinced they could keep him safe. For what good a dead body was, a living body was always better. Get in, get the stuff, get out, he reminded himself.
Several more steps brought him into a large open area of the junkyard. A flicker of movement in the darkness caught his eye, and the reanimated shifted warying, unknowing if they should be jumping into action or not. The movement continued and he saw a shape materialize out of the darkness walking towards him.
Excellent, this must be my contact, he thought and he felt his muscles relax. Only a little.
The figure soon turned out to be a humanoid figure, about nine feet tall. He was covered in a massive coat that fell to his feet. A fine pin-striped suit covered his form underneath the coat, and a grey fedora covered the being’s red head. Fine black tufted hair poked out beneath the hat, and yellow eyes gleamed out of the darkness down at Norman. He got the distinct impression that Marquis Zapporo was not impressed with what he saw. Think what he wants.
“What’s the word?” Zapporo asked.
“Daisy fields,” Norman responded without missing a beat. That was what his contact had told him to say. Zapporo was supposedly the biggest arms and black magic smuggler both in and out of the Infernal realms. Personally meeting the big guy himself was somewhat an honor.
“You got the stuff?” Norman said.
“Of course I do. It wouldn’t behoove me to not see to it personally. The Guild has been cracking down on shipments. Papa John himself has been nosing around business,” Zapporo said in his unearthly voice.
The Marquis reached into one of the pockets of his coat and pulled out a small bag. A flick of the wrist sent it flying towards Norman. He tried to catch it and failed utterly, instead knocking the bag into one of the guards. He scrambled to pick it up and was relieved to see that it had not spilled.
“Hamadryad dust. Fresh. Should be exactly what you’re looking for. You’re lucky. My last shipment got seized out of Dysporia,” Zapporo said.
“Is it pure? You’re asking a fair price,” Norman said as he gazed into the bag.
Zapporo snorted. “Of course it is. Dust a little of it on your rotting friend there and see if it isn’t. But don’t cheat me. You know what happens to cheats.”
Norman was already grabbing a tiny pinch of the dust. Supposedly Hamadryad dust had what his contact had said was “distilled essence of life.” Something that would make his reanimated more agile and able, and less chaotic and maddened. He had almost been killed several times by rogues. He tossed a handful of dust into the face of the closest bodyguard. Immediately the reanimated stood straighter, and looked dead ahead. Its muscles tensed and it gripped the club at its side more tightly. Norman willed it to move, and it did. No longer did it have the shambling gait he had so often seen. Had he not known otherwise, he would have thought it was alive. A wide smile stretched across his face.
“Satisfied?” Zapporo said.
“Immensely,” Norman responded. He began searching for his pouch to pay the devil with. Not ordinary money. The Hierarchy of Hell had no use for American currency. Souls had once been used, but now so many flowed in; inflation had turned them into valueless remnants for the Abyssals. Marquis Beelzebub, the devil in charge of the Abyssal Treasury had changed the currency of Hell to something more solid. Norman tossed the bag of gold drachmas towards Zapporo.
A heartbeat before the bag reached the devil, a burst of rock ruptured the ground below the gold bag and shrapnel knocked the parcel wide of Zapporo. The open bag hit the ground spilling golden coins all over the area that glinted off of the lights from some remote area of the junkyard. The reanimated tensed toward the new threat, and Norman spun, looking for their attackers.
Two solitary figures stepped out of the twilight and into view. One was a balding portly invididual with drooping moustaches that were finely waxed. The white garment that the man wore looked like a combination between a landed gentry outfit that was common with antebellum Southern Aristocrats, and a plain ministerial robe. The outfit was common enough, but generally on loyalist mages back during the War of American Succession over five decades ago. But the only person that wore that is…
“Augustus Broussard,” Norman snarled between clenched teeth.
“Son, you’d best be keeping your teeth together, lessen’ you want to be made an example of,” Augustus said.
“He’ll be made an example alright, sure as sure,” the other figure said.
His gait was that of young and cocky youth, probably no less than twenty years old. Prime meat for one of Norman’s reanimated save for the fact that he wasn’t dead. Yet. The youth shifted forward and the light caught his features. The haircut, the jaw, even the eyes gave it all away.
“To what do I owe the dismal pleasure of the aquatiance of meeting both the great Augustus Broussard, and Crown Prince of the American Empire, Quentin Roosevelt?” Marquis Zapporo interjected.
Quentin was said to be his father’s son in many aspects, and the way he held himself, the way he talked, everything about him, confirmed that to Norman. Two of the most powerful American mages stood in front of him, and all he had was a small cadre of Reanimated.
“Forge Mage and Tempest Mage. I had heard you were doing the Guild’s dirty work. I’d never figure the pair of you playing at inquisitors,” Norman said.
Augustus’s hands crackled, and what few hairs remained on his head stood erect as static electricity filled him. A single directed gesture sent a bolt of lightning into one of the reanimated. The massive discharge disrupted the once dead heart of the Reanimated and it fell to the ground in a convulsive mass.
“Boy, we’re not playin’. Less you got yourself a certificate stating that this… exchange is valid, then you’re in trouble today. ‘Sides, we got your number, Norman. Necromantic magics are banned by Guild Convention 7,” Augustus said.
“What I do is not magick,” Norman spat the last word out. “It is the future of medical science, and you’ll all be remembered as those who stood in the way of the future.”
“Enough. Do you have the certificate or not?” Quentin asked.
“Of course I do,” Norman said, reaching inside his coat. What came out was no piece of paper but a vast smoke bomb that he hurled between himself and the two mages. Within a flash and an eruption of smoke, he was gone.
Quentin gave a smug smirk as he looked toward the great Marquis standing before him.
“Don’t you worry. We’ll deal with dear old Herbert when we’re done here,” Quentin said.
“Norbert,” Augustus corrected from off to the side.
“Norman,” Marquis Zapporo growled. His eyes narrowed towards Quentin as the demon tried to figure his game.
“Herbert, Norman. Who gives a rip? It’s the same thing,” Quentin said.
“Hardly, but the matter is not relevant at the time being. For the moment I have pests in my face, and a mole I need to dismember,” Marquis Zapporo said.
“A mole? How did you know?” Quentin asked.
“I didn’t, but you just confirmed it. This meeting was discreet. Confidential. And yet I find two Guild Inquisitors standing before me.
“Well then I’d hate to have to hold you up, suh,” Augustus said, walking out into the open. The Marquis looked towards him, and his eyes narrowed further. The rotund man didn’t look like a threat, but Zapporo evidently knew enough about Augustus to be wary. The two of them alone stood little chance in stopping Zapporo’s escape.
“You forget, that when I do business, I never come unaramed,” Marquis Zapporo said, taking a step back.
The Marquis snapped his fingers and several large shapes loomed out of the darkness. Quentin immediately identified several types of demons, as well as the more elite devils. The devils were dressed after the same manner as Zapporo, in wide coats and pin-striped outfits. All clutched Tommy guns in their big beefy hands. A half dozen lumbering gargants stood behind them. Their ebony skin disappeared into the darkness leaving just the crackling fiery veins that criss-crossed their skin and odd angles. Trails of fire followed their eyes as they shifted on their feet.
All round them, small forms clad in the garments of the now common newsboys slithered out of the darkness. Quentin however immediately saw the deep red skin and malicious yellow eyes peeking out from beneath the brimmed cap each wore. The igniters skittered about more like feral dogs than anything human like. Quentin ignored them as nothing but a distraction.
Marquis Zapporo’s mouth curled into a menacing grin. “Now, that I have your attention, it might surprise you to know that I have no intention of killing either of you tonight. That would be a foolish effort on my part, and a great way to bring the Guild down on my head as well as jeopardize the Morningstar’s own operations. So here is what we’re going to do. I’ll leave first. When I am away, the fellas around me will leave as well. Then you will be allowed to go.
The Marquis paused and reached into one of the front pockets of his vest. Quentin tensed, but only relaxed slightly when he saw the fine cigar in the devil’s hand, and not the gun he had been expecting. Zapporo stuck the fine cigar in his mouth, an Arturo Fuente if Quentin was any judge, and the moment the cigar touched the devil’s mouth, the end lit up red and smoke whispered out from the tip. The Marquis took a long puff as he savored the flavor before he went on.
“Of course, if you want to fight now, who am I to stop you? Only understand there is only one inevitable conclusion,” Marquis Zapporo said.
Augustus snorted. “And what would that be, suh?”
Marquis Zapporo blew out a fine cloud of smoke as he looked from Augustus to Quentin. Finally he stuck the cigar back between his gleaming sharp teeth.
“Well, for starters, you could certainly take down a few of my boys, but you couldn’t stop them all. You’ve already spoiled the element of surprise.” Zapporo took several theatrically overdrawn steps from Quentin only about a pace away. Quentin cursed himself. Zapporo’s words had distracted him, and now he was so close to him, that he couldn’t hope of using any sort of spell on the big devil without it splashing onto himself or Augustus. And Zapporo had known all along. “Now were I to kill you, I doubt I could touch even a secondary Colony planet without a Guild Watcher finding out somehow, sending a strike team, and making life difficult for everyone.. And unfortunately in my line of work, one finds that they need to go places without being ah… interrupted. The end result is: I don’t want another job, and you don’t want to be dead,” Zappro said with the cigar still in his mouth
.
Zapporo took a step back, and the Devils clustered close, with their Tommy Guns still raised. The Demons blocked the view between Quentin and the Marquis. He’s not getting away that easy. Time to show my hand, he thought.
“Unfortunately, there is one thing you didn’t account for either,” Quentin spoke out loud.
“Only one thing?” Zapporo ‘s voice carried above his henchmen. “If it turns out I only did one thing wrong tonight, I’ll be greatly surprised. Good evening, sir.”
“Well, see the issue is, that us two aren’t the only ones here,” Quentin called back.
Zapporo must have stopped because the column of devils and demons fell still. That was the cue that Quentin was waiting for.
“Now!”
The Wolf of Heaven
Chapter 1
Norman West clutched his coat tightly to him and he shuffled through the abandoned junkyard. His reanimated bodyguards surrounded him closely, but if something went wrong, he wasn’t terribly convinced they could keep him safe. For what good a dead body was, a living body was always better. Get in, get the stuff, get out, he reminded himself.
Several more steps brought him into a large open area of the junkyard. A flicker of movement in the darkness caught his eye, and the reanimated shifted warying, unknowing if they should be jumping into action or not. The movement continued and he saw a shape materialize out of the darkness walking towards him.
Excellent, this must be my contact, he thought and he felt his muscles relax. Only a little.
The figure soon turned out to be a humanoid figure, about nine feet tall. He was covered in a massive coat that fell to his feet. A fine pin-striped suit covered his form underneath the coat, and a grey fedora covered the being’s red head. Fine black tufted hair poked out beneath the hat, and yellow eyes gleamed out of the darkness down at Norman. He got the distinct impression that Marquis Zapporo was not impressed with what he saw. Think what he wants.
“What’s the word?” Zapporo asked.
“Daisy fields,” Norman responded without missing a beat. That was what his contact had told him to say. Zapporo was supposedly the biggest arms and black magic smuggler both in and out of the Infernal realms. Personally meeting the big guy himself was somewhat an honor.
“You got the stuff?” Norman said.
“Of course I do. It wouldn’t behoove me to not see to it personally. The Guild has been cracking down on shipments. Papa John himself has been nosing around business,” Zapporo said in his unearthly voice.
The Marquis reached into one of the pockets of his coat and pulled out a small bag. A flick of the wrist sent it flying towards Norman. He tried to catch it and failed utterly, instead knocking the bag into one of the guards. He scrambled to pick it up and was relieved to see that it had not spilled.
“Hamadryad dust. Fresh. Should be exactly what you’re looking for. You’re lucky. My last shipment got seized out of Dysporia,” Zapporo said.
“Is it pure? You’re asking a fair price,” Norman said as he gazed into the bag.
Zapporo snorted. “Of course it is. Dust a little of it on your rotting friend there and see if it isn’t. But don’t cheat me. You know what happens to cheats.”
Norman was already grabbing a tiny pinch of the dust. Supposedly Hamadryad dust had what his contact had said was “distilled essence of life.” Something that would make his reanimated more agile and able, and less chaotic and maddened. He had almost been killed several times by rogues. He tossed a handful of dust into the face of the closest bodyguard. Immediately the reanimated stood straighter, and looked dead ahead. Its muscles tensed and it gripped the club at its side more tightly. Norman willed it to move, and it did. No longer did it have the shambling gait he had so often seen. Had he not known otherwise, he would have thought it was alive. A wide smile stretched across his face.
“Satisfied?” Zapporo said.
“Immensely,” Norman responded. He began searching for his pouch to pay the devil with. Not ordinary money. The Hierarchy of Hell had no use for American currency. Souls had once been used, but now so many flowed in; inflation had turned them into valueless remnants for the Abyssals. Marquis Beelzebub, the devil in charge of the Abyssal Treasury had changed the currency of Hell to something more solid. Norman tossed the bag of gold drachmas towards Zapporo.
A heartbeat before the bag reached the devil, a burst of rock ruptured the ground below the gold bag and shrapnel knocked the parcel wide of Zapporo. The open bag hit the ground spilling golden coins all over the area that glinted off of the lights from some remote area of the junkyard. The reanimated tensed toward the new threat, and Norman spun, looking for their attackers.
Two solitary figures stepped out of the twilight and into view. One was a balding portly invididual with drooping moustaches that were finely waxed. The white garment that the man wore looked like a combination between a landed gentry outfit that was common with antebellum Southern Aristocrats, and a plain ministerial robe. The outfit was common enough, but generally on loyalist mages back during the War of American Succession over five decades ago. But the only person that wore that is…
“Augustus Broussard,” Norman snarled between clenched teeth.
“Son, you’d best be keeping your teeth together, lessen’ you want to be made an example of,” Augustus said.
“He’ll be made an example alright, sure as sure,” the other figure said.
His gait was that of young and cocky youth, probably no less than twenty years old. Prime meat for one of Norman’s reanimated save for the fact that he wasn’t dead. Yet. The youth shifted forward and the light caught his features. The haircut, the jaw, even the eyes gave it all away.
“To what do I owe the dismal pleasure of the aquatiance of meeting both the great Augustus Broussard, and Crown Prince of the American Empire, Quentin Roosevelt?” Marquis Zapporo interjected.
Quentin was said to be his father’s son in many aspects, and the way he held himself, the way he talked, everything about him, confirmed that to Norman. Two of the most powerful American mages stood in front of him, and all he had was a small cadre of Reanimated.
“Forge Mage and Tempest Mage. I had heard you were doing the Guild’s dirty work. I’d never figure the pair of you playing at inquisitors,” Norman said.
Augustus’s hands crackled, and what few hairs remained on his head stood erect as static electricity filled him. A single directed gesture sent a bolt of lightning into one of the reanimated. The massive discharge disrupted the once dead heart of the Reanimated and it fell to the ground in a convulsive mass.
“Boy, we’re not playin’. Less you got yourself a certificate stating that this… exchange is valid, then you’re in trouble today. ‘Sides, we got your number, Norman. Necromantic magics are banned by Guild Convention 7,” Augustus said.
“What I do is not magick,” Norman spat the last word out. “It is the future of medical science, and you’ll all be remembered as those who stood in the way of the future.”
“Enough. Do you have the certificate or not?” Quentin asked.
“Of course I do,” Norman said, reaching inside his coat. What came out was no piece of paper but a vast smoke bomb that he hurled between himself and the two mages. Within a flash and an eruption of smoke, he was gone.
Quentin gave a smug smirk as he looked toward the great Marquis standing before him.
“Don’t you worry. We’ll deal with dear old Herbert when we’re done here,” Quentin said.
“Norbert,” Augustus corrected from off to the side.
“Norman,” Marquis Zapporo growled. His eyes narrowed towards Quentin as the demon tried to figure his game.
“Herbert, Norman. Who gives a rip? It’s the same thing,” Quentin said.
“Hardly, but the matter is not relevant at the time being. For the moment I have pests in my face, and a mole I need to dismember,” Marquis Zapporo said.
“A mole? How did you know?” Quentin asked.
“I didn’t, but you just confirmed it. This meeting was discreet. Confidential. And yet I find two Guild Inquisitors standing before me.
“Well then I’d hate to have to hold you up, suh,” Augustus said, walking out into the open. The Marquis looked towards him, and his eyes narrowed further. The rotund man didn’t look like a threat, but Zapporo evidently knew enough about Augustus to be wary. The two of them alone stood little chance in stopping Zapporo’s escape.
“You forget, that when I do business, I never come unaramed,” Marquis Zapporo said, taking a step back.
The Marquis snapped his fingers and several large shapes loomed out of the darkness. Quentin immediately identified several types of demons, as well as the more elite devils. The devils were dressed after the same manner as Zapporo, in wide coats and pin-striped outfits. All clutched Tommy guns in their big beefy hands. A half dozen lumbering gargants stood behind them. Their ebony skin disappeared into the darkness leaving just the crackling fiery veins that criss-crossed their skin and odd angles. Trails of fire followed their eyes as they shifted on their feet.
All round them, small forms clad in the garments of the now common newsboys slithered out of the darkness. Quentin however immediately saw the deep red skin and malicious yellow eyes peeking out from beneath the brimmed cap each wore. The igniters skittered about more like feral dogs than anything human like. Quentin ignored them as nothing but a distraction.
Marquis Zapporo’s mouth curled into a menacing grin. “Now, that I have your attention, it might surprise you to know that I have no intention of killing either of you tonight. That would be a foolish effort on my part, and a great way to bring the Guild down on my head as well as jeopardize the Morningstar’s own operations. So here is what we’re going to do. I’ll leave first. When I am away, the fellas around me will leave as well. Then you will be allowed to go.
The Marquis paused and reached into one of the front pockets of his vest. Quentin tensed, but only relaxed slightly when he saw the fine cigar in the devil’s hand, and not the gun he had been expecting. Zapporo stuck the fine cigar in his mouth, an Arturo Fuente if Quentin was any judge, and the moment the cigar touched the devil’s mouth, the end lit up red and smoke whispered out from the tip. The Marquis took a long puff as he savored the flavor before he went on.
“Of course, if you want to fight now, who am I to stop you? Only understand there is only one inevitable conclusion,” Marquis Zapporo said.
Augustus snorted. “And what would that be, suh?”
Marquis Zapporo blew out a fine cloud of smoke as he looked from Augustus to Quentin. Finally he stuck the cigar back between his gleaming sharp teeth.
“Well, for starters, you could certainly take down a few of my boys, but you couldn’t stop them all. You’ve already spoiled the element of surprise.” Zapporo took several theatrically overdrawn steps from Quentin only about a pace away. Quentin cursed himself. Zapporo’s words had distracted him, and now he was so close to him, that he couldn’t hope of using any sort of spell on the big devil without it splashing onto himself or Augustus. And Zapporo had known all along. “Now were I to kill you, I doubt I could touch even a secondary Colony planet without a Guild Watcher finding out somehow, sending a strike team, and making life difficult for everyone.. And unfortunately in my line of work, one finds that they need to go places without being ah… interrupted. The end result is: I don’t want another job, and you don’t want to be dead,” Zappro said with the cigar still in his mouth
.
Zapporo took a step back, and the Devils clustered close, with their Tommy Guns still raised. The Demons blocked the view between Quentin and the Marquis. He’s not getting away that easy. Time to show my hand, he thought.
“Unfortunately, there is one thing you didn’t account for either,” Quentin spoke out loud.
“Only one thing?” Zapporo ‘s voice carried above his henchmen. “If it turns out I only did one thing wrong tonight, I’ll be greatly surprised. Good evening, sir.”
“Well, see the issue is, that us two aren’t the only ones here,” Quentin called back.
Zapporo must have stopped because the column of devils and demons fell still. That was the cue that Quentin was waiting for.
“Now!”
Monday, January 10, 2011
A brief summary of the Imperial Geographic Survey
A brief summary of the Imperial Survey, as commissioned for High Review by His august Majesty, Emperor Artegues Cynsab Ryatein Telmar, High Seat of Family Telmar, Lord of All Ellandar, Defender of the Southern Gate and True Father of the Faithful, in the year 1032 I.R. (Imperial Reckoning).
The Faith smile upon you and your mighty Family, oh Dreadlord, and the protection of the Ward be upon your realm and all those both within and without its bounds who look to Your mighty hand for all Guidance, Judgement and Mercy. May the Ancient Blood in your veins grant long Life and deep Wisdom to your reign, which has already blessed our People with grace and plenty.
Of old mighty Ellandar, empire of legend and fabled might, was shattered by the treachery of her noble Families against the High Family Telmar and her allies. As is well known to your Grace, when the Last King of Ellandar was murdered upon his throne and the Queen Mother cruelly tortured in her own chambers, the surviving heir to the crown was smuggled out of Kar Ramen. The royal line of your illustrius family was subsequently lost to history for over a thousand years, until your ancestors rose up out of obscurity to found our beloved homeland, Aladea. With the death of the King, Ellandar was broken, her peoples left to fend for themselves. It is the belief of your humble researchers that the following millenia of blood shed and strife would have been avoided had your ancestors remained on that most noble and ancient Throne.
In our day, all traces of glorious Ellandar have been erased, save in three nations. First to rise from the ashes of Ellandar was the ill-named Taiberian Empire, which was founded, indeed is led still, by the Family that was chiefly to blame for the instigation of revolt in the Old Kingdom and for the murder of the Last King (as per the Imperial decree of your great-great-great-great-grandfather, said Family shall never be named until vengeance is exacted). Second of the three is Luthilen, which was founded by the traitorous leaders of Ellandar's mighty army, who had deserted their King in his very hour of need. Final and greatest of the third is your own mighty empire, Aladea, last bastion of the noble spirit and very blood of ancient Ellandar.
Aside from these three powers, many nations--too many to recount in full--have risen and fallen since Ellandar's end. The kingdoms Teldevor, Nellethan, and Niyan were founded by mighty peoples that had been conquered by the kings of Ellandar, and in our own day have grown strong enough to rival both Luthilen and Taiberon in power and might.
Of the smaller nations there is little recount. Six of these smaller lands--Durnhar, Fallen, Fildwall, Kimn Avar, Limeg and Nesintal-- have banded together into the so-called Indharan League, which has come to dominate the northern lands as a center of trade and commerce. The petty Bradier-River states--Aeshymdal, Calla Oman, Dashier and Rasha Khan--continue their bitter in-fighting, much as they and dozens have since the fall of Ellandar.
And in recent years, some few smaller states have broken away from the larger powers, including--inexplicably--from our own blessed realm. We are pleased to report to your Grace that after decades of rebellion, the Free City of Torfin has thrown off the tyrannical rule of the Taiberian Empire. Kamar and Dorak, known respectively for their shipyards and rich mines, have both broken free of Luthilenian power. Violent revolts during the reign of your Grace's grandfather ended in the independence of the Cralian peasants, who subsequently founded the destitute nation Adan Crale. And at the moment, revolts against your rule have spread again through the Dalian passes in the south, though we have no doubt that the rabble behind the insurrection will soon taste of your justice.
In closing, we present you with a list of the mentioned nations, along with a short description of their size and military strength:
Military: ~6,500
The Faith smile upon you and your mighty Family, oh Dreadlord, and the protection of the Ward be upon your realm and all those both within and without its bounds who look to Your mighty hand for all Guidance, Judgement and Mercy. May the Ancient Blood in your veins grant long Life and deep Wisdom to your reign, which has already blessed our People with grace and plenty.
Of old mighty Ellandar, empire of legend and fabled might, was shattered by the treachery of her noble Families against the High Family Telmar and her allies. As is well known to your Grace, when the Last King of Ellandar was murdered upon his throne and the Queen Mother cruelly tortured in her own chambers, the surviving heir to the crown was smuggled out of Kar Ramen. The royal line of your illustrius family was subsequently lost to history for over a thousand years, until your ancestors rose up out of obscurity to found our beloved homeland, Aladea. With the death of the King, Ellandar was broken, her peoples left to fend for themselves. It is the belief of your humble researchers that the following millenia of blood shed and strife would have been avoided had your ancestors remained on that most noble and ancient Throne.
In our day, all traces of glorious Ellandar have been erased, save in three nations. First to rise from the ashes of Ellandar was the ill-named Taiberian Empire, which was founded, indeed is led still, by the Family that was chiefly to blame for the instigation of revolt in the Old Kingdom and for the murder of the Last King (as per the Imperial decree of your great-great-great-great-grandfather, said Family shall never be named until vengeance is exacted). Second of the three is Luthilen, which was founded by the traitorous leaders of Ellandar's mighty army, who had deserted their King in his very hour of need. Final and greatest of the third is your own mighty empire, Aladea, last bastion of the noble spirit and very blood of ancient Ellandar.
Aside from these three powers, many nations--too many to recount in full--have risen and fallen since Ellandar's end. The kingdoms Teldevor, Nellethan, and Niyan were founded by mighty peoples that had been conquered by the kings of Ellandar, and in our own day have grown strong enough to rival both Luthilen and Taiberon in power and might.
Of the smaller nations there is little recount. Six of these smaller lands--Durnhar, Fallen, Fildwall, Kimn Avar, Limeg and Nesintal-- have banded together into the so-called Indharan League, which has come to dominate the northern lands as a center of trade and commerce. The petty Bradier-River states--Aeshymdal, Calla Oman, Dashier and Rasha Khan--continue their bitter in-fighting, much as they and dozens have since the fall of Ellandar.
And in recent years, some few smaller states have broken away from the larger powers, including--inexplicably--from our own blessed realm. We are pleased to report to your Grace that after decades of rebellion, the Free City of Torfin has thrown off the tyrannical rule of the Taiberian Empire. Kamar and Dorak, known respectively for their shipyards and rich mines, have both broken free of Luthilenian power. Violent revolts during the reign of your Grace's grandfather ended in the independence of the Cralian peasants, who subsequently founded the destitute nation Adan Crale. And at the moment, revolts against your rule have spread again through the Dalian passes in the south, though we have no doubt that the rabble behind the insurrection will soon taste of your justice.
In closing, we present you with a list of the mentioned nations, along with a short description of their size and military strength:
Taiberian Empire Overview:
Population: ~5,000,000
Military: ~25,000
Capitol: Far Ramen
Luthilen Overview:
Population: ~10,200,000
Military: ~ 51,000
Capitol: Luthilen
Other Major Cities: Manwar; Sho RamierAladean Empire Overview:
Population: ~ 12,468,000
Military: ~ 60,000
Capitol: Ter Nevron
Other Major Cities: Thar Falor; Kern
Teldevan Overview:
Population: ~3,000,000
Military: ~15,000
Capitol: Taylon
Other Major Cities: Kar Verana
Nellethan Overview:
Population: ~700,000
Military: ~3,500
Capitol: Nirov
Niyan Overview:
Population: ~ 8,470,000
Military: ~ 42,000
Capitol: Niyan
Indharan League Overview:
Total Population: ~6,600,000
Individual Nation Population:
Fallen: ~1,400,000
Fildwall: ~1,200,000
Nesintal: ~1,200,234
Kimn Avar: ~50,000
Durnhar: ~1,500,000
Limeg: ~1,100,000
Military: ~33,000
League Flag: Six gold stars arranged in a circle, on a violet field. Fringed in colors of League nation in which it is flown.
National Flags:
Fildwall: Three thorny crimson roses on black.
Nesintal: A black Raven on gold.
Kimn Avar: A silver Wheel on a quartered gray
Capitol: Indhara
National capitols:
Fallen: Indhara
Fildwall: Fildwall
Nesintal: Intas
Kimn Avar: Kimn Avar
Durnhar: Durnhar
Limeg: Limeg
Aeshymdal Overview:
Population: 860,000
Capitol: Mallas
Calla Oman Overview:
Population: ~1,090,000
Military: ~7,500Capitol: Mallas
Dashier Overview:
Population: ~680,000
Military" ~4,300Capitol: Khatal
Rasha Khan Overview:
Population: ~100,000
Military: ~1000Flag: Three Blue
Capitol: Rhashad
The Free City of Torfin Overview
Population: 400,000
Military: 2,000
Kamar Overview:
Population: ~140,000 in the city at any given time, 50,000 on the islands and enclaves
Military: Only called together during times of war
Dorak Overview:
Population: ~500,000
Military: ~2,500
Adan Crale overview:
Population: ~2,340,000
Military: ~11,700
Capitol: Torah
Other Major Cities: OldusDale Overview:
Population: ~850,000
Military: ~4,250
Flag: A Crimson Boar on a field of quartered brown and blue
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Last World-Building Article
Ok, this is the last series of articles that I'll post, I promise. The first one has to do with plausible army sizes for different population numbers--in other words, how many soldiers can a country of a given size support? The other two just detail the weights of various weapons and pieces of armor. Hope this is helpful to somebody.
Army Size
Weapon Weights 1
Weapon Weights 2
Later . . .
Army Size
Weapon Weights 1
Weapon Weights 2
Later . . .
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
One more World-Building article
Found this today as well. I pulled this off of some forum a few years ago, and I'm not sure how accurate it really is, but it seems reasonable. The page gives a list of speeds for various modes of travel: on foot, on horse, horse-drawn wagon, ox-drawn wagon, canal boat, medieval ships of various kinds, chariots, etc.
Traveling Speeds
Later.
Traveling Speeds
Later.
World-Building and Writing Helps
Hey all, I'm cleaning out my files in preparation for some major writing (hopefully) and I came across these two articles on writing and world-building. I haven't read them for a long time, but I recall them being very helpful. The first one deals specifically with role-playing, but I found the advice was helpful for writing as well.
World-Building Help 1
World-Building Help 2
Later . . .
World-Building Help 1
World-Building Help 2
Later . . .
Cause Landon asked for it
http://tinyurl.com/2fx3pyh
This is the full size map for my current fantasy novel that I'll be writing in Sanderson's class. Let me know if you want any info.
Some things have changed that I need to go back into Illustrator to change including the unnamed city in Blackwell (which is supposed to be Blackwell Dominion, not Mageocracy), as well as the Ripthorn fields were changed to Meatgrinder Fields.
This is the full size map for my current fantasy novel that I'll be writing in Sanderson's class. Let me know if you want any info.
Some things have changed that I need to go back into Illustrator to change including the unnamed city in Blackwell (which is supposed to be Blackwell Dominion, not Mageocracy), as well as the Ripthorn fields were changed to Meatgrinder Fields.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Book Review: The Wheel of Time Book XIII - Towers of Midnight
Oh, and warning . . . I've been reading Wheel of Time for so long now that I basically have no way of knowing whether or not I'm giving a spoiler or not. Reader beware.
So, Towers of Midnight.
The hard thing about commenting on Towers of Midnight is the sheer bulk of material that precedes it. Its nearly impossible to detach it from the rest of series and look at it as its own work . . . and you really wouldn't want to. Another problem is that not only are we comparing a new book to the 12 that precede it, but we're also comparing a new author to Robert Jordan. So, I'll try and give you a quick run through of my feelings about the book, and then go back through and look at a few things in more detail.
The first question I probably need to answer is how does Towers of Midnight rank against the rest of the series? I guess that would depend on which books you personally liked the best. For me, Towers of Midnight was probably on par with The Gathering Storm, The Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos, and nearly as good as the first four books of the series. It was definitely better than books seven through ten . . . and the jury is still out about how I feel about Knife of Dreams.
Second question: how did Brandon Sanderson do? And its a mixed answer . . . Sanderson is a great author, and I think that The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight alone would have secured him a place as one of the great fantasy authors of the . . . what century are we in now? But we can't look at the two books alone, we have to compare them to the eleven books that Robert Jordan left us. In Towers of Midnight, I think Sanderson writes both more and less like Robert Jordan than he did in the Gathering Storm. Allow me to explain: I came away from the Gathering Storm stunned by the story, but a little disappointed with some of the characters; especially (you guessed it) Mat. Towers of Midnight had the reverse effect on me. Sanderson nailed each of the characters (yes, including Mat) and even managed to make me like Perrin again. However, the arc of the story didn't feel like a Jordan book--it was definitely a Sanderson. There was a lot of jumping between POV's, even in the middle of a chapter, which was something Jordan largely avoided. It also felt like Sanderson embellished things that Jordan would have skipped over, and skipped over things Jordan would have embellished. Let me repeat: amazing writing, but different than Jordan. And what more could you expect, honestly?
The thing I liked the most about Towers of Midnight was that it pushed the plot forward, resolving dozens of questions and story arcs, and bringing in a whole new crop of questions. The thing I disliked the most about Towers of Midnight was that a lot of the question-resolutions felt rushed . . . very rushed. For example, I was expecting the whole Mat and the Tower of Ghenjei story arc to consume at least a third of the book. Instead, it took up barely an entire chapter . . . I wanted more. Instead of feeling like a traditional fantasy quest, it felt more like a quick midnight run to Wal Mart . . . only cooler, I guess. The whole Bell-founder and Dragons story arc felt very hurried as well. Mat has been trying to get these canons made ever since Winter's Heart . . . and we've basically known he was going to do it since, um . . . The Dragon Reborn. And yet, after several books of build up, he gets the whole project done in a little over two chapters. And Rand meeting Egwene felt rushed as well. Again, feel free to disagree with me, but thats how it seemed.
Now for some more nitty-gritty things. I thought that Sanderson handled the One Power very well in The Gathering Storm, keeping it true to Robert Jordan's description of the Power, and writing some very cool scenes with it (e.g. Egwene defending the White Tower from the Seanchan). In Towers of Midnight, he seems to have deviated a bit more from Jordan's use of the Power. For example, the scene where Graendal somehow puts herself into the mind of a dove seemed a bit out of place in a Wheel of Time book. I can't exactly put my thumb on why, except that we've never seen anything remotely like that in any of the other books. Compared to some of the other uses the Forsaken have put the One Power to over the course of the series, this seemed . . . simplistic? Contrived? I'm not sure, but it definitely seemed out of place.
Another moment that felt different was when Rand walks down from Dragonmount and magically heals the farmer's apple orchard. Now, I didn't mind this scene as much, because it was from a simple farmer's point of view, so I suppose the One Power really would seem all mystical and stuff . . . its just that during the rest of the series (except maybe the first few chapters of Eye of the World) we only see the One Power used either through the eyes of men and women who can control it, or through the eyes of people who are well aquainted with Aes Sedai and what-not. So having an entire orchard suddenly bloom to life with no description of what weaves were used, or which parts of the Power, or even just how freaking difficult it was to do seemed . . . different.
Now, lest you think I hated the book, let me tell you what I liked:
Perhaps what I liked best about Towers of Midnight was the fact that the war has finally begun. I mean really, if you think about it, we haven't seen a large scale human vs. Trolloc battle since the fourth book, The Shadow Rising. Yeah, they've appeared every once and a while (Fires of Heaven and, um . . . Knife of Dreams?) but not like they did in the first three books. I've missed them. For the bulk of the series, we've just only seen men fighting men, and that sparingly (Battle of Cairhien, Dumai's Wells, Rand vs. the Seanchan, anything else?). The whole scene in the prologue where the border towers are over run was incredibly compelling. The Battle of Maradon had me giggling with excitement. It was awesome . . . and it gave me great hope for what we'll find in A Memory of Light.
Sanderson saved Mat's character in Towers of Midnight. I think the whole problem with Mat in The Gathering Storm was his humor. I didn't mind that he was suddenly a writer, or that he was comfortable helping Aes Sedai like Verin. It was just his jokes that bugged me. It was like I wasn't reading Mat, but Kelsier from Mistborn, and it really interrupted the story for me each time he whipped out another quick pun. Well, Towers of Midnight solved all of that. Mat was back in true form, mouthing off to the Queen of Andor, joking around with his men and just generally griping about everything. Oh, and when they're in the Tower of Ghenjei, he's the definitely the old Mat we know and love, taunting the snakes and foxes just like he used to.
Luckily, Mat isn't the only great character. The Gathering Storm took Rand by the scruff of his neck and dragged him through the gutter . . . repeatedly. When we finally see Rand again inTowers of Midnight, he has metamorphosed into a new man, becoming at once the old Rand from the first four (maybe five) books and fully (finally) the Dragon Reborn, Lew Therin Telamon. He was awesome (and a little freaky) through the entire book, staring the Amyrlin Seat down and single handedly wiping out an entire army of Trollocs. Bring on the Last Battle.
Okay, I think I've said about everything that can be said for Towers of Midnight, except one last thing: Perrin. Perrin was beyond awesome, and was hands-down the best part of Towers of Midnight. Now, I should admit that for most of the series Perrin was my favorite character, so I'm a little biased. I loved his chapters in the first four books more than any others, but basically since the end of Lord of Chaos, he hasn't done much of anything. His story arc seemed to wander just as much as he did, dragging us through what, like three books of looking for his wife? The final battle between his army and the Shaido was cool, but it took FOREVER to get there. Through all of that, I (and many others) started to wonder just what the heck Perrin was there for. Rand was obviously the Dragon Reborn, and Mat had a clear purpose: be an awesome general and develop gun powder. We could at least see where those two were headed. But Perrin . . . Perrin just kind of meandered. But not anymore. I won't say how or what, but just take my word for it . . . he has once again been crowned Best Character Ever.
In summary, Towers of Midnight felt less like a Jordan than The Gathering Storm, and much more like a Sanderson. Despite this, I wouldn't hesitate in saying that its one of the best books of the series (top six, maybe?) and well worth the read
Bring on the Last Battle.
Please.
No really, we've waited long enough.
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