Excerpt

Archived Posts from this Category

March 28, 2011

From “Discovery at Hickory Branch Creek” by C. K. McDaniels

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

Clep Sperch wasn’t particularly notable for anything. Plenty of men his age lived on the outskirts of town, supporting themselves through disability payments, welfare, and whitetail deer hunting. No one in town looked twice at people in grimy hunting camouflage mixed with international orange balaclavas and gloves moving in and out of the main street bar and grocery store.

Yes, Clep was keenly aware of his lack of notoriety. On some days it rankled him and he pledged to do something to bring himself back into the limelight whose warm gaze he hadn’t known since a shattered ankle ended his run on the track and field team at Earnest C. Sturm High School.

Then, one day, Clem Sperch found something wrapped in a waterproof tarp down by the creek behind his trailer. Even before he saw what it was, he had a sense that what he was looking for had arrived on the wings of a kind angel.

 

March 27, 2011

From “The Cyclase CPT Violation” by Horner J. Vela

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

“It just doesn’t make any sense…the patient’s cyclase enzymes are somehow not functioning properly, but the tests don’t show anything unusual…well, except for the fact that the electron micrograph images keep coming back with technical errors. Flipped images. Damn machine must be on the fritz.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure. It has to be a technical error.”

“It’s funny you use that term…Clarke had an old sci-fi story by that name, about somebody who went through a CPT violation and had their body’s chirality–its ‘handedness’–reversed. They starved to death because their ‘left-handed’ body couldn’t accept ‘right-handed’ food proteins or enzymes.”

“Are you honestly suggesting that this person when though a COT violation, whatever science fiction onsense that is?”

“Of course not. But the chirality of their cyclase enzymes could be reversed somehow–it would explain everything except your bad attitude.”

 

March 26, 2011

From “The Curtl Metrics” by Alan T. T. Thomson

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

Coach Curtl brought his own peculiar Czechoslovakian style to the teams under his guidance, chief among them his overwhelming faith in statistics. Every athlete would be given a mimeographed sheet onto which their times (for track & field), yards (for football) batting average (for baseball) and any other relevant statistics could be entered.

Curtl and his assistant coaches would hover nearby, stopwatch or tape measure in hand, during every practice. Afterwards, he would laboriously calculate derived statistics and normalize them–this in an era of slide rules! Student athletes whose Curtlmetrics (as they called them) showed improvement or at least maintained a consistent level of (Curtl-defined) quality were fine.

Those who slipped got their pick of an escalating series of punishments: extra practices, demotion on the roster, or even cutting. All cuts received a detailed sheet from Curtl explaining their crimes in detail.

When Anderson got his, though, he had an inkling that the numbers weren’t quite right.

 

March 25, 2011

From “Séminaire Denty” by Gustav Adolph Mimieux

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

And so he founded the Séminaire Denty, on the Ile de Denty, where it grew and flourished for a hundred years.

But then came the fires of 1789 and the whirlwind of 18 Brumaire, and the Séminaire Denty found itself closed, looted, and all but forgotten. It was manned as a coastal fort during the wars that followed, only to gradually fall into ruin thereafter. Dark rumors circulated of priests or the illegitimate descendants of priests stalking the wooded ruins, but nothing substantial ever came of them, save the disappearance of a German patrol to the area in 1944 which was blamed on partisans of the Resistance.

So when Dr. Pierre Coutard arrived at the site, he found only two hundred years of decay. Nothing to indicate the site’s former importance.

And nothing to indicate its fate only six weeks hence.

 

March 24, 2011

From “Gionew 176” by Giuseppe Q. Rimbaldi

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

“Gionew 176. What the hell’s that mean?”

“I think it’s an address near Milan, 176 Nuovo Giovedi”

“How d’you get ‘Nuovo Giovedi’ out of ‘Gionew?'”

“There was a lot of swinging going on in Milan in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and a lot of Yankee and Limey expats all over the place. A lot of the clubs and bars and…other places were on Nuovo Giovedi street–New Thursday in English.”

“Why New Thursday?”

“They renamed it after Italy invaded France during the war, on a Thursday. Obviously not something that’s going over terribly well with the peacenik hippies overruning the place way back when, so it got called ‘Gionew’ in an appalling abuse of both English and Italian.”

“And our man has a flat there?”

“We’re about to find out.”

 

March 23, 2011

From “Nurse Archetti” by L. T. Ironne

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

“Who’s next on the list?”

“Nurse Rosa Archetti.” Binghamton shuffled the manuscript pages. “Looks like she’s the only lady on the list.”

“I see,” said Carruthers, stroking his chin. “And what’s she done to earn a place on the list with Luchini and Carducci and the other war criminals?”

“Says here she was in charge of the nursing staff at a POW camp in the north,” said Binghamton. “We have consistent reports from prisoners there that indict her.”

“Aw, what for? Stealing the chocolate our of their Red Cross packages?”

“Uh…no,” Binghamton said. “Seems she forcibly and systematically euthanized sick POW’s to reduce their strain on the medical corps and to leave more supplies for the war effort.”

“Shit,” Carruthers muttered. “Figures the one I poke a little fun of would be up for something like that. Let’s reel her in.”

 

March 22, 2011

From “Sids of Every Age” by Sydney D. Reynolds

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

Opinions and arguments buzzed around the table.

“Why are we even talking about it?” said Sid, age 18. “Let’s send someone back and change things.”

“Who put you in charge of deciding when we’re done talking?” said Sid, age 14. “It’s my life you’re screwing up if it doesn’t work, not just yours.”

“And it’s my life we’re saving,” countered Sid, age 18. “Put a sock in it!”

“Stop fighting,” whined Sid, age 12. “You’re worse than Mom and Dad.

“Oh, if you think that’s bad, just wait until they-”

Sid, age 18 was cut short by Sid, age 16 who cuffed him on the head. “Don’t spoil it for him!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, you wussy dateless nerd,” Sid, age 18 growled.

“Then don’t act like such a jackass, you drunk, doped-up jock!” countered Sid, age 16. “If that’s what I’ve got to look forward to, maybe it’s best we don’t do anything and put you out of your misery!”

In all the commotion, Sid, age 1, began bawling again. “Oh, for crap’s sake,” cried Sid, age 14. “Somebody change him!”

 

March 21, 2011

From “Nitypt Numbers” by Y. T. McClayne

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

Perfect numbers–that is, positive integers that are the sum of their proper positive divisors–had fascinated mathematicians since the days of the great Greek mathematician Nicomachus. Only four were known in those days, and relatively few have been uncovered since, none of them odd–something certain figures consider an impossibility.

In 1456, Abd al-Nitypt, an astronomer in the court of Mehmed II at Constantinople, discovered and proved the existence of a fifth perfect number, 33,550,336. He further set forth a complex formula for identifying further perfect numbers, a refinement of Euclid’s formula, and identified a list of values for n which he claimed would, when applied to his formula, reveal all odd perfect numbers between 0 and 10^1500.

This list, the Nitypt Numbers, was eventually lost in the quagmire of the Ottoman archives. They, alongside Fermat’s Last Theorem, were long regarded as some of the most tantalizing mysteries in mathematics.

And Harvery was staring at a copy in al-Nitypt’s own flowing calligraphy.

 

March 20, 2011

From “The Dread Scale” by Calvin Higgins Joachimthal

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

Of course, Schliemann had his own personal scale of box office success, which he wrote out longhand and taped up whenever he thought people needed perspective (usually shortly before they were fired and/or promoted):

“Blockbuster” – The rarest of the rare, a flick that made way more than was invested in it. Due to the ballooning budget requirements to make 3D action extravaganzas and brush out Australian actresses’ blemishes, the margins on even the biggest pictures tended to be too narrow to qualify as a blockbuster by Schliemann’s standards.

“Hit” – A movie that made back its cost plus a healthy profit. It was usually the first step toward promotion or more work for the people responsible. Crucially, Schliemann’s formula allowed for “Hollywood accounting” which put even the most successful feature as a loss to swindle authors and rightsholders out of their cut.

“Sleeper” – Movies that the studio didn’t have a lot of confidence in but also didn’t have a lot of cash tied up in, which slowly made money over a long theater run or broke even in theaters before making a profit on video.

“Watertreader” – A flick that made back its budget. A few people might get chewed out, but no one was losing their job. Often the overseas grosses would be the deciding factor, which Schliemann called “The Reverse Marshall Plan,” whatever that meant.

“Flop” – Movies that did decent business but didn’t make any money. Usually they came and went fairly quietly, often with freshman directors, writers, or stars. They’d have a hard time getting more work, but most were freelancers anyway. A major name could withstand half a dozen flops before Schliemann started calling them a “has been.”

“Bomb” – Movies that didn’t even come close to making their budget back despite a big marketing push were slapped with this label, not just by Schliemann but the press.

“Disaster” – It wasn’t enough for a disaster to lose money, even a lot of money. It also had to be critically reviled, with toxic publicity and media ridicule. Heaven’s Gate. Gigli. It was almost an honor to earn entry to this select club.

 

March 19, 2011

From “The X in Comix” by Alan Doyle Irvine

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

“Gabriel Flanagan. Know him?”

Iris shook her head. “Should I?”

“You should if you expect to be in the same panel with him. Don’t you actually read anything besides what you draw?”

“I told you, I’m an artist, not a comic book geek.”

“Gabe Flanagan’s one of the most respected artists to come out of the underground comix–with an ‘x’–movement since Robert Crumb. He wrote, illustrated, and colored three hundred issues of The Monsters of Merryville Street by himself and won a bushel of Eisners for it–not bad for a series that deals frankly with cannibalism, incest, necrophilia, self-mutilation, and includes unlicensed references to the classic Universal Monsters lineup.”

“Ah, I see,” said Iris. “You expected that the author and illustrator of a gentle watercolor comic with no violence and G-rated sensibilities would be familiar with something like that?”

“No, I just would have been impressed if you had. Most people here only know Gabe Flanagan from the 10-episode animated show he produced on MTV in the mid-90’s. Sods. Don’t mention that to him if you do meet; he lost creative control back then and is liable to start punching.”

 

« Previous Page — Next Page »