Thursday, December 12, 2013

The Immortals: Chapter One, Part Two

Running away from a psycho with a sword was not exactly what Kendra wanted to do for her Friday morning. Still, as she ducked around a corner in the bustling food court that sat a mere five blocks away from school and was easily reachable for anyone who didn’t want to scarf down school lunches, she had to admit: It was slightly more interesting than marching band!

                She giggled to herself, her hand going to her coat as she looked over her shoulder. No bad guy. No good girl. No swords. She bit her lip as she looked back in front of her, seeing all the shops that were just starting to wake up: There was a mom and pop burger joint called 1984 for reasons that she had never been able to nail down, a corporate pizza chain that tasted like utter ass, three different bread shops that all catered to a slightly different kind of breadish goodness – a donut shop, a Parisian styled cafĂ©, and a shop that specialized in sandwiches.

                And all of them were closed, the doors locked despite the people within moving about and setting up their seats and starting their cooking.

                So, Kendra sat down on one of the metal seats that ringed around the metal tables that peppered the space between all the food stores. She reached into her pocket and scowled.

                “Where the hell is my phone?!” She drew her hand out of her pocket and then groaned. It had fallen out of her pocket, she was sure. “Great, first my thermos, now my phone. What next, universe? What are you going to steal from me next? My Firefly ringchain? Oh! Oh! I know! Take my-“

                She trailed off, noticing that one of the people who was cleaning the corporate pizza joint’s windows had come outside and then stopped his squirting and rubbing of windex to gape at her.

                She glared at him.           

                “Don’t you need to be in school?” He asked.

                Kendra scowled at him, drumming her fingers on the tabletop.

                And then, with a squeal of metal on concrete, her head was jerked back to the table: The tall, dark skinned woman from before had arrived without so much as a noise to announce her save for the sound you get when you drag a metal chair along a cold, concrete floor. She plopped herself down, panting softly.

                “Crichton won’t bother you for a while now, don’t worry.” The woman smiled.

                “From Farscape?”

                “What?” She looked nonplussed.

                “Nevermind,” Kendra put her mitten covered hands over her face, breathing steam through them. “What is going on?”

                “Do…you want the long version or the short?” The black woman was smiling calmly – her teeth shockingly white against the dark oval of her face. The sun had started to peek around clouds and shone directly in Kendra’s face, turning the woman into a pure silhouette. Kendra winced.

                “Name, first, then short. Then, when I don’t believe you, you can explain the long version…”

                The woman nodded, then smiled: “I am Nefertari.”

                “Odd name.”

                “It is Egyptian.”

                “Ah.” Kendra nodded, her eyes still scrunched up.          

                “I am Immortal.” Nef – as Kendra started thinking of her almost immediately – said.

                “Ahh.” Kendra nodded again.

                “And so are you.”

                “OKAY!” Kendra put her hands on the table. “I’m just going to leave, uh, now!” She turned around. This was too weird. This was too weird and she was late for school and…and the sun was in her eyes and there were so many many MANY reasons to just turn around and leave and never ever come back.

                Nef sighed. “Kendra…first, I believe you should check your pockets.”

                Kendra stopped.

                She slid her hand into her pocket.

                And she pulled out her cellphone. Then, sliding her hand into her other pocket, she felt that it bulged – quite suddenly – with the thermos, straining against the pocket. She pulled it out with a bit of grunting, squirming and shifting her hips to get the thermos to slide free.

                She held both objects, then turned around to face Nef. From this angle, she could actually see the details of the other woman’s face without the sun blazing everything out.

                Nef smiled.

                “Neat trick…” Kendra gulped. “If I stay…will more psychos come after me with a sword and try to hack my head off?”

                Nef nodded.

                “And if…I leave…will more psychos come after me with a sword and try to hack my head off?”

                Nef nodded again.

                Kendra fogged the air before her face and sat down. The thermos sat before her – the unicorn horn gleamed in the sunlight, looking remarkably…swordlike. She looked at the thermos, then at the woman – at the ancient Egyptian.

                “I am Immortal,” She said. “And so are you. Immortals have existed since the dawn of human history, but we have always been drawn, one to the other, by the ripples we make in the world. That rippling effect, that…change that we can create, that is what brings us immortality and what keeps us at eachother’s throats. For if there is ever only one Immortal…he or she will be a god.”

                Kendra nodded, slowly.

                “Those of us who wish to be a god, The God, seek to slay every other immortal for this prize. Those of us who believe humanity deserves its own fate, they seek to foster peace among immortals. I will take you under my wing, and teach you the ways of our kind…but if you wish to pursue the prize, I will not stop you, though I cannot promise that I will always stay my hand.”

                Kendra thought, for a long moment, her brow furrowed.

                “So, my choices are…kill a bunch of people to become god, or not kill people and stay my old, boring self?”

                “No,” Nef smiled. “Either way, you will be extraordinary.”

                Kendra bit her lip.

                “And you will have to kill a lot of people.”

###

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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Immortals: Chapter One, Part One

So, I'm going to write 1,000 words a day, and post them here. They will be a novel, called The Immortals.

Without further hesitation.

The Immortals.

###



Chapter One: The Ripple

                What, exactly, Jeremiah Crichton – the third richest man in America – was doing on the corner of 9th and Fairbanks in the sleepy, none-too-interesting Californian suburb called Samville was not readily obvious. There were no major deals, no new corporations to check out (and purchase and gut) and Samville was not exactly famous for anything save for its overabundance of orange trees – trees that grew in small plots between the buildings in the main street and cluttered up half the back yards of the suburb.

                From Kendra Watts’ perspective, Jeremiah Crichton wasn’t the third richest man in America. He wasn’t famous. He wasn’t even all that noteworthy. For a girl who was more interested in the upcoming prom – three days till she could unleash her frilly pink and white striped dress on an unsuspecting and unprepared school – the only thing that was noteworthy about Mr. Crichton was that he was flipping a coin.

                Kendra was waiting at the traffic light at 9th, waiting to cross to get to the next part of her walk to school, her fingers drumming on the cool metal pole that held the crosswalk button. The button, stuffed with more modern electronics than her cellphone, continued to chant the monotone warning that most crosswalk buttons did in California these days: Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.”

                She rolled her eyes. “I know. I am waiting.”

                She took a moment to sip from her cup of early morning hot chocolate – which she had microwaved and dumped into her bright pink and purple unicorn thermos – the unicorn horn made a straw, and the head had a small ring hanging from the front, that she could hook her thumb into. But as she sipped the still-way-too-hot liquid, she noticed something.

                The suited weirdo behind her, the one who was flipping the coin, was flipping said coin…in time with the crosswalk button. Wait. Flip. Wait. Flip. Wait. Flip.

                She frowned slightly. He was…definitely giving her a major creeper vibe: Black suit, sunglasses, a black tie that showed up starkly against his white undershirt. He even had black gloves. He breathed in slow, steady, perfectly even breaths – visible in the crisp morning of late December. Kendra looked back at the crosswalk button and her thumb slipped down towards it.

                She pressed down and the button bleeped, then said: “Wait.”

                Creepers –as Kendra had called them ever since she was old enough to realize that certain behavior wasn’t entirely pleasant for her to experience from others – were a fact of life for a girl in high school. Most of the time, they were nothing more than boys being boys – and thus, being completely unable to talk to girls without sounding as if they were about to burst into flames. But sometimes…

                She glanced back over her shoulder.

                The coin-flipper started to walk towards her.

                “Walk.”

                The voice broke through her sudden spike of fear and Kendra walked. She hurried across the street with more speed than she would have – since she was at least five minutes away from school and had about ten to get there. But she wanted to leave this coin-flipper behind. And so, she walked faster and harder.

                And behind her, she heard very expensive shoes clicking on the ground.

                She got to the far side of the street, turned around, saw that the coin flipper was within an arm’s reach of her-

                Opened her mouth to speak-

                And then he spoke.

                “There can be only one.”

                Kendra’s eyes widened and she saw the man draw a sword from…nowhere. One instant, he had nothing. The next, he had a scabbard at his hip and a blade in his hand. It was a long, elegant blade, with a complex, curving handle that protected his knuckles. The handle glittered and flashed in the crisp sunlight of the morning.

                Kendra threw her hot chocolate in his face. The thermos’s horn jabbed into the man’s eye, and the top burst off with the impact. He staggered backwards, and into the cars that had started to pass now that the light had changed.

                One instant, Kendra saw that he was standing right in front of a large, bright red Prius. The next instant, the Prius was one lane over – the rightmost turning lane was blocked off by orange cones, and shocked looking workmen who were resurfacing and repainting the road.

                Workmen that hadn’t been there five seconds ago.

                Kendra could have asked questions. But she had just lost her favorite thermos, and a psychopath with a sword was trying to kill her. She decided to shelve the questions, turn around, and run as fast as she could. Her shoes clattered on the sidewalk and she heard the man – snarling in anger – chasing after her.

                There can be only one, what!? She thought to herself as she looked for some manner of escape, some possibility of help. There were no pedestrians in sight of her – it was too early, too cold, and too many people drove to school, the lazy-

                She heard a swish behind her and threw herself forward…

                Onto a mattress. A mattress that was set on the side of the walkway, with a small placard hung around it that said: FREE MATTRESS! The mattress hadn’t been there, but right now, Kendra was too busy being damn grateful as she rolled onto her back just as the tip of the man’s sword plunged in after her. She scrambled backwards, shouting: “HELP! SOMEONE HELP!”

                The man lashed out with a very fancy shoe, slamming it onto her chest, right between her breasts. He pressed down, forcing her onto her back. His sword aimed at her throat, then pressed against the soft flesh of her neck.

                His gloved hand wiped at his face and he scowled, then…

                Another blade flashed. It caught his sword, right in the middle, and there was a sudden flare of sparks and a flash of blue-white light as the blades were caught together, forced up and away from Kendra’s throat, which was nicked by the quick contact.

                “Run!” The figure who had interposed herself between Kendra and the man was tall, bald, and very very black. She had an angular, almost starved looking face, and wore a very thick white coat, with two large scabbards across her back – one sword was sheathed, the other – a curved Japanese style sword – was in her hand. “I’ll explain later!”

                Kendra didn’t need to be told twice.

###

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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Pacific Rim: It's a jolly good film...

...BUT it has a few logical flaws.

Pacific Rim, if you were wondering, is a totally fantastic film about a war between humanity and gigantic alien monsters from a parallel universe are attacking our cities at an exponential rate. And so, humanity has decided to fight them with GIANT ROBOTS!

Now, as any sane person with the ability to do a risk/reward analysis, you are probably thinking: "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard to fight giant alien monsters from beyond the veil of time and space."

And you'd be right!

But the movie has enough charm, fun, fast pace, good camera work (it's sad that I need to mention this, you'd think that keeping the camera steady and letting people actually see what is going on would be in Film 101) and sexy Asian chicks and hunky white guys and Idris Elba to make everyone happy.

So, I feel no guilt whatsoever in listing my TOP FIVE ALTERNATE PLANS TO BUILDING GIANT ROBOTS THAT WOULD ALSO BE CHEAPER AND LESS DANGEROUS.

1) Bombs!
Plan: Place conventional ordinance around the rift in enough amount to atomize the giant monsters.
Upsides: Conventional ordinance is really cheap to build - comparatively speaking - and can be set off at remote.
Downside: Ecological damage, no backup in case of failure, possible Tsunamis caused as explosive count goes up in response to Kaiju evolution. 

2) Iris!
Plan: Place a large, thick metal plate over the portal into the other dimension.
Upsides: The monsters will not be able to rematerialized - if the wormhole works in the same way that most theoretical wormholes do - and thus, would be smeared across the cover in a subatomic haze.
Downside: The aliens could just open a portal in a different place.

3) Grinder
Plan: As with Plan 2, but instead of a plate, make it a pair of grinders! GRINDERS!
Upsides: Mulch the monsters as they come out, providing entertainment for everyone involved. Furthermore, recovery of their organs, bones, and such can possibly be enacted.
Downsides: See Plan 2, in addition, salt water corrodes delicate equipment. Even a tough grinder would, eventually, need maintenance and repair, and if it were ever overwhelmed...

4) Guns on Things
Plan: In the film, several of the robots (called Jagers) have projectile weapons mounted on them. Every single time they are used, the guns are quite effective. Take said guns, mount them on smaller platforms, then mass produce said smaller platforms and take down the giant monsters with sheer numbers.
Upside: It is still cheaper than building robots (and, more importantly, building the buildings to house, service and launch the giant robots).
Downsides: Casualties, and as the fight must take place closer to the cities, possibilities of defeat and losing a city are still there.

5) On the other hand...
Plan: SCREW IT, GIANT ROBOTS WOOOOOOOOOO!
Upside: GIANT ROBOTS
Downsides: SCREW YOU, I HAVE GIANT ROBOTS!


Friday, July 5, 2013

Firesticks and Ffffffffffffffffff-

I love Exalted.

And what is not to love? Exalted is a roleplaying game wherein you play reincarnated heroes of an ancient era, fighting to bring back a golden age to a fallen world. It is a game of stark, black and white goods and bads. There actually is some moral grey area here and there, and sometimes, heroes become villains and villains become heroes, but at the end of the day, it is an EPIC in all caps and like fifteen or sixteen exclamation points.

It is a game of swords and ray guns, where you can parry 10,000 mile wide laser beam with a sword, or punch someone so hard that they turn into a sheep.

It is also a game where, for no reason I can determine, almost everyone in the South - one of the four main settings of the game - uses freaking FLAMETHROWERS. You know, the most agonizing, cruel weapon I can possibly imagine is all over the goddamn place. And it's not even used by just the bad guys. There's no evil empire of flame-throwing psychopaths, it's just kind of the style of the time.

And this bothers me. Maybe it is because of a few scenes in a few novels I've read involving people burned by flame-throwers, maybe it is because I have read up on how difficult it is to heal from burns...

But this really bothers me. A sword cut can maim, an arrow can cause horrible agony, and gunshots are not exactly pleasant, but any experienced roleplayer can usually handle them if the GM describes them in the right way.

Nothing can make being burned alive anything but the most torturous, horrific way to go...

And this bugs me enough to make an uninteresting blogpost about it!

Friday, June 28, 2013

David Colby: Freelance Slash Fic Author

So, for the past month or so, I've been working my butt off to write a 110,000 word long epic involving alien invasions, men in suits, and a paramilitary organization that secretly fights to free humanity from the clutches of an insidious, unknowable alien force.

Sadly, I have to admit I'm not writing the X-Com: Enemy Unknown novelization. But I am writing the next best thing: Invasion 2071 is an upcoming Traveller supplement released by some very nice German gents, who have been working with me to try and make this book the best representation of their world as can be.

I was a tad nervous when I started, as Rouven - my editor - sent me a 600 page backstory and history supplement that, unfortunately, was entirely written out in German. But thanks to some skilled translators - both biological and technological - I have gotten a good handle on this realistic, intricate world. And, thankfully, the initial notes have been more than good, leaving me nicely confident...

But, really, what am I doing...if not being paid to write fan-fiction?

That is EXACTLY what I'm doing.

And it is glorious.

There is something oddly liberating about writing fan-fiction, especially when writing about a setting rather than a character. Writing about a character strikes me as downright terrifying, like trying to write an autobiography of someone who is still alive and popular and beloved by millions. I have no idea how fanficers and slashers and other awesome writers (and make no mistake, despite the countless examples of terrible fan-fiction and terribler - that's a real word, by the way - slash fiction, there are plenty of highly talented authors out there in the fandom) manage it.

But writing about a setting frees the author from the most awesome part of their job. And I mean that "awesome" in the Biblical sense. Awesome as in watching Sodom get nuked by space aliens. Awesome as in watching Lot's wife desperately fight a huge walking pillar of salt, only to be crushed by it's weight.

...wait, this isn't a Bible...

NO MATTER!

Creating a setting is terrifying. Each tiny detail brings forth a billion questions. Even something as simple as, "They use forks" brings to mind queries like: Why? Is there a custom for forks? How did this develop? Are they modern forks or old timey forks? Is someone in the world developing this new fangled multi-pronged fork? How did they smelt the metal to make the fork? Was it molded, or bashed out? Mass produced, or made by solitary craftsmen? Is it a mark of status?

Suddenly, the issue of a fork explodes into details about people, history, economics, smiting, whether or not dragons steal said forks to get at the scale fungus without needing to use their claws...everything!

Meanwhile, writing fan-fiction is like someone handing you a piece of paper that says: The gnomes make forks, stupid.

And suddenly...all your awesome responsibility is lifted from your shoulders and you can begin writing the scene where a dude stabs another dude in the throat with a fork and says, "Fork got your tongue?"

(Editor: David, that's a terrible pun, re-write it and try again.)

And that is why I've been having such fun writing Invasion 2071's fanfiction, and Warhammer 40,000 fan-fiction, though the latter has to wait until the opening of the Black Library before I can try and turn it from 'fan-fiction' to 'published in Hammer and Bolter'

Still, the next time you hear about someone writing some awful crossover story where Captain Picard teams up with Treebeard the Ent and they fight crime in Gotham City...and you feel the urge to roll your eyes and go, "Well, that's stupid."

Stop. And take a moment to remember, that out there, there is an author who has found the freedom in being constrained.

...that...sounded way less kinky in my head.

DAVID'S FAN FICTIONS

Homeworld: A sprawling, 100,000 word long epic covering 60 years before the game to the end of Homeworld: Catacylism. Every time David got bored, he added a pointless, extraneous sex scene that he should really edit out.

The Various Adventures of Commander Vyn: A series of Warhammer 40,000 short stories including Tempis Fugit, Teef, The Dark Sector, Pax Imperialis, Vortex, the Bloodpits of Charnel, and Strike the Colors which are all about Commander Vyn, an iconoclastic death-worlder cum bodyguard and astrogator for a Rogue Trader cum Commander in the Imperial Navy, and her plucky starship the Pax Imperialis as they are run through a series of ripped off Star Trek plots.

Arcanum (of Steamworks and Magic Obscura): Based on the video game of the same name, it was awful. I mean, I wrote it when I was 14 and figuring out I could use the f-word without repercussion.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

The Ciaphas Cain Test

Current song: Some Nights by fun. because RAWRRRR


Everyone - or at least, everyone worth their salt - knows the Bechdel test. For those who don't, here's wikipedia's explination!

A work passes the test if it features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Commentators have noted that a great proportion of contemporary works fail to pass this threshold of representing women.
 That's good enough for my purposes. Now,  this test is a fairly good place to start when it comes to ensure that your novel or movie isn't sexist. But, well, I've been kicking around an idea for a new test. I call it...

The Ciaphas Cain Test!


This test came to me when I finished re-reading the entire Ciaphas Cain series. For those who haven't had the chance to read them, they're a military sci-fi slash comedy series set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This may sound odd...but it gets odder. See, Cain is the main character and he is a Commissar. In WH40K, Commissars are political officers whose main duty is to lead from the front and shoot anyone who looks like they might run away in fear.

Cain, though, is an abject coward

Hence, the comedy. Cain constantly tries to get away from the front lines, but every time he tries, he ends up being thrown into more and more dangerous situations. And, due to his luck, combat skill and idiosyncratic style of leadership (I.E, he doesn't keep shooting his officers for minor infractions) he becomes increasingly famous as a glorious HERO OF THE IMPERIUM

But the Cain Test isn't "Can your book crowbar in a sufficent number of whacky hyjinx around action scenes." 

Rather, it has to do with the side characters of the novels. For no man is an army, and thus, Cain has a bunch of other military types who he works with. In this case, the Valhallan 597th, thus named because they are A) From the ice planet Valhalla and B) because they're the combination of two decimated regiments, the 301st and the 296th. However, the shocking twist is...those two regiments? One is all male. One is all female. Thus, for the rest of the series (at least, for the parts that involve the 597th), half the side characters are women, half the side characters are men.

This...shouldn't be as rare it is, seeing as how women make up anywhere between 49 to 51% of the human race. But, for some reason (I.E, sexism), it is

The other interesting facet about the side characters in the Ciaphas Cain novels is that, of the 50/50 gender split, at least 2 of the side characters are gay. They're not "maybe" gay, they are definitely gay. The word gay isn't used, but it is still stated in no uncertain terms that Corporal Magot and Sargent Griffon are lovers. 

Now, that may not SOUND like much, but think of it this way.

The Warhammer 40,000 universe is a dystopic future of unrelenting horrors, ruled by a galaxy spanning theocracy that is like the worst parts of the medieval Catholic Church dialed up to 11 and let loose with flame throwers. It is NOT a nice place, it is NOT a tolerant place, and it sure as hell isn't a feminist, progressive place.

And yet...

It has a 50/50 gender split, and 2 queer characters.

That's more than Star Trek: The Next Generation had. Of the main cast, only 3 were women and of those three, 1 was killed off, 1 constantly wore a skintight outfit and 1 was in a traditional "caregiver" role

And I mean, it's not that hard to be "better" than Ciaphas Cain books. They're a load of fun, but no one would call them high art. They're the kind of delicious popcorn books that I love to read and love to write. But they still have a pretty solid - if not perfect - grounding in feminist ideas.

Now, what's your excuse for not meeting the CC test?  

Addendum: The only problem I can think of for this test is that...it's hard to explain pithily. It only really works if you know what the Cain books are about and their general style and background. Otherwise, bringing it up just gets you odd looks...