Excerpt

Archived Posts from this Category

October 26, 2011

From “The Earl’s Anarchy” by Frederic S. Gras

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

During Stephen’s Anarchy, the power of the Earl grew tremendously. It happened that the Second Earl, who had ruled under King Henry, died shortly after Stephen’s accession.

The Third Earl was the first who was “born to the purple,” as it were, as his great-grandfather the First Earl had been elevated by William the Conqueror and his grandfather the Second Earl had known early years of hardship in Normandy before the Conquest.

The Third Earl, though, had long been the favored and only scion of the line, and doted upon by relatives after the early and consumptive death of his father, who would have been the Third Earl had he lived. When he acceded in 1137, his personal popularity among his vassals and serfs was high.

That soon changes as the Third Earl revealed himself to be of a vainglorious temperament, obsessed with the idea of his divine right to rule and the absolute autocracy such right provided him over vassals. Ordinarily such a noble would have had their power swiftly checked by the Crown, but Stephen was a weak ruler and distracted by war and intrigue.

By 1153, the situation was such that the earldom had begun to resemble a personal cult in the Eastern mold, with everything that was “of the Earl” celebrated in word and song and anything deemed “not of the Earl” scorned and attacked.

 

October 25, 2011

From “Unrequited Eliason” by Jaenna-Stacie White

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“I’d recommend against it,” Harp said between mouthfuls of potato salad. “That’s Annette Eliason.”

“Who?” said Harry.

“Annette Eliason.” Harp looked across the table. “Not ringing a bell?”

“Not really, no.”

“Needy Annie? Annette Eliastalker? The Clingy Queen of Bowling Green?”

Harry remained stonefaced.

Harp set aside his plate. “For crap’s sake, Harry. Annette’s only a sophomore and she already has a reputation for being the creepiest, clingiest, co-dependingest girl in a very competitive weight class!”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

 

October 24, 2011

From “The Breaking of the Unity” by J. S. Malcom McCullough

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

In the Grand Old Days, when every creature spoke the same tongue and sin had not yet entered the world, the Creator approached every sort of creature with a simple treaty. In exchange for their love and their loyalty, the Creator would keep them from harm. Each group signed a treaty in turn.

Over time, the creatures began to drift apart and squabble over meaningless things. New sorts of creatures arose through intermingling, and many spurned the offer of treaties from the Creator or inclusion in an existing treaty, holding themselves to be wholly self-created. The new creatures eventually became focal points in the squabbles since, unbound by treaty, they could be enlisted to bring harm to those on the wrong side of disagreements.

At the first such action, a dog killing a sheep over who owned a grassy field, the assembled creatures split into two opposing groups–those who supported the dog and those who favored the sheep. Blinded to the petty nature of their squabble, the creatures prepared for war.

It was then that the Creator reappeared, brandishing the treaties. To harm another, the Creator cautioned, would be to break the treaty commitment of love and loyalty. The creatures, perhaps goaded by the “self-created” new ones, spurned the Creator’s offer and renounced the treaties. The Creator, saddened, withdrew from the field and allowed battle to be joined.

On that bloodstained field, the unity of the world was forever broken.

 

October 23, 2011

From “Between the Pleiades” by Philip H. Fleming

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , |
Leave a Comment 

The Maia Nebula station didn’t have any living inhabitants, of course. It was all automated, from fueling to repairs to upgrading and even illegal modifications. Drones entered one of hundreds of bays while their operators were connected to the station’s servers, allowing for much faster and higher-quality communication than the relays outside. Unmanned freighters constantly jumped in and out nearby, bringing fresh materials and consumables from Earth. No human could have survived the trip.

Remote-piloted drone operators had a saying: the suits own the stations, but they’re a trillion miles away. The RPD’s interfaced closely enough with the station systems that enterprising hackers had long ago compromised their systems. There were back channels for everything–people selling leads on claims, errands that needed running, and the occasional headhunting mission. The RPD’s hadn’t been designed with weapons, but a few lines of code here, a few repurposed thrusters and mining lasers there, and Cam was able to defend his drone from armed claimjumpers and griefers who had nothing better to do than maliciously destroy other peoples’ investments.

 

October 22, 2011

From “The Fededis Plan” by Valeria Z. Dorsey

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Federal Electric Distribution had no ties to the government; its founder C. Earl Chapterhouse simply felt the name bespoke a certain strength and reliability. It’s no coincidence that as public trust in government bottomed out during the 1960’s and 1970’s, the company was renamed Fededis after the acronym that appeared on its service trucks.

In time, it became a virtual monopoly in the eastern half of the state, gathering up the rural districts and smaller towns that Detroit Edison evinced little interest in. By the time of Fededis’ spectacular collapse and acquisition by DTE in 1981, it had electrified nearly two thirds of the state’s land area–or at least taken over management of the grids there. Its collapse, coming on the heels of summer brownouts and a general malaise on Wall Street, didn’t attract much notice.

It should have. Fededis has come within a whisker’s breadth of complete control over the national power infrastructure, a complete nationwide blackout, or–most chillingly–both.

 

October 21, 2011

From “Wahshi-san’s Negligee” by Koji Umebayashi

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

The courier, bruised, bloodied, and limping, knocked on Wahshi-san’s hotel room door. He bowed politely when the great old man opened the door–or at least an attempt at bowing was made.

“Your package, Wahshi-san,” the courier said. “I apologize for my tardiness.”

Wahshi-san glanced at his watch: 2:02pm. “Your apology is accepted,” he said, stonefaced. He took the package from the courier and unwrapped it, revealing a leopard-spotted negligee, size 44, custom-made.

Wahshi-san’s expression did not change. He pressed a cashier’s check into the courier’s hand and closed the door, leaving the poor roughed-up man looking at the featureless wood of the door in astonishment.

 

October 20, 2011

From “The February Periodical” by M. E. Bostonne

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , |
Leave a Comment 

Literary magazines come and go with alarming frequency, especially in this internet age where the requirements for establishing one have been greatly reduced. But rarely are the failures as spectacular as “Damascus Lounge.”

Its editor, Simon Wise, was well-connected in the city art scene, the scion of an important family, and a respected if not well-known author in his own right. The journal’s premise, soliciting only fine literature that contained, referenced, or promoted radical social change, struck a chord with the wealthy literary elite and guaranteed financial backing from numerous donors. Even before publication of the first issue, a combined physical and digital volume, there were enough stories from prominent or influential authors lined up to sustain the journal for months.

Yet it only produced two issues, one on February 1 and one dated March 1 that actually dropped on February 29. Simon Wise was accused of using the literary magazine as a Ponzi scheme, relying on volunteer labor to produce and edit the texts while pocketing donations and subscriptions.

 

October 19, 2011

From “City of Novelists” by B. Charles Westingham

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , |
Leave a Comment 

“People come to the city from all over hoping that it’ll inspire them,” said Blair. “Like a change of venue will have flip some magic switch and they’ll suddenly become the next Kerouac.”

“You’re saying it doesn’t?”

“I know it doesn’t,” Blair snapped, taking a fresh belt of Irish latte from a cafe mug. “I’ve lived here long enough and seen enough starry-eyed people come and go to know that if you can’t write your great novel in Podunk, Arkansas, you can’t write it here.”

“But you moved here to become a writer, didn’t you?”

“That’s different. Back home there were maybe one or two people having their creative dreams crushed by reality; here there are loads of them. Scads. I go to three or four cafes a day just to drink that atmosphere in. It’s research, observation–their pain plus my writing equals something people want to read.”

 

October 18, 2011

From “Scaring Klyde” by Jonnie G. Humpbert II

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , |
Leave a Comment 

People on Verner Street had been putting up with Klyde’s Halloween hijinks for years. Old-timers remembered him moving in back in the 60’s and even then putting together elaborate decorations, scares, and even a haunted garage that had brought noise complaints from three blocks away. Back then, though, his Devil’s Night reveries had to compete with a day job and a family. His retirement in 1985 and his wife’s death a year later removed those obstacles, allowing him to pursue Halloween virtually full-time.

There’s still talk of the mad scientist set-up from 1987, which had involved sixteen pounds of dry ice and three pig carcasses. More than one teen hardened by slasher movies nevertheless voided their bowels in 1989 when Klyde’s self-dismemberment schtick had splattered them with what turned out to be chicken giblets. The pranks became notably more mean-spirited in later years, but Klyde was crafty enough not to be caught red-handed, so to speak.

That’s how, in the fall of 1999, a group gathered with the sole and express purpose of giving old man Klyde a taste of his own medicine.

 

October 17, 2011

From “The Darkwood Covenant” by Lawerence Boyd McKee

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

The Vle-Ya were willing to palaver with humans, but found it difficult to do so. The slightest touch of sunshine or snow was unbearable for them, and the tongues of mankind were, to their ears, so slow and stilted that misunderstandings were common. For every human who listened to a Vle-Ya speak of what their long years had taught them–the lay of the land, how to grow and harvest, what the trees and animals wished to say had they the tongues for it–there was another who found them insulting, frightening.

They had been in decline for many years before mankind had arrived; tradition held that the number of Vle-Ya had been set at the dawning of the world, and they did not deign to reproduce–every encounter that ended in bloodshed and every accident in the dark and secret parts of the forest diminished them forever. In time, the leader of the Darkwood Vle-Ya, Ervolos, called for the mayor of Brightspear to parley at forest’s edge at midnight on midsummer.

The exact words between them were taken to Mayor Burrowe’s grave, but he reported that Ervolos had spoken of the dwindling of his people, and that there were no longer enough to discharge their traditional duties as keepers of the forest. He charged the humans with its stewardship and opened the lands to settlement. He and the remaining Vle-Ya departed the next day, never to be seen again. Some say they settled in a smaller forest near Harwickshire, others that they walked into the sea at Durnsmere.

But every family that settled in Darkwood kept their memory alive through the telling of tales, and many a farmer felling trees and clearing the land has worried what might happen should the Vle-Ya return.

 

« Previous Page — Next Page »