June 8, 2011

From “Kingbreaker” by Dustin Howe-Roberts

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

In the 15th year of King Andalus’ reign, the peace of the noble land of Aegard was shattered. The legions of the Dark King, which had long slumbered in the shadowy depths to which they had been banished in the Halcyon Age, burst forth with new strength, besieging Aegard and threatening to lay all they touched to base ash.

While the Aegardian army struggled to hold back the Duskward at the land’s edge, darkling ones of every shape and persuasion ever sought to infiltrate the kingdom, that they might wreak havoc in the homes and hearts of the people and take by guile what they could not by force.

It so happened that after many months of brutal raids, a force of darkling ones, gathered in the dark hollows beneath the earth, burst forth near Aegard Keep. Led by the Dark King’s lieutenant Malefor, the evil host was bent on razing the keep and seizing its regent lord, the Princess Dalia. With the seat of his power in ruins and his daughter prisoner, King Andalus, away at the front, would have no choice but to surrender his land to the Duskward.

Atop a hillock overlooking the smoldering remains of Aegard stood Knight-Lieutenant Ramoh, resplendent atop his armored steed. Clenched in one mailed fist were orders from the kingdom’s chancellor to raise the siege and slay Malefor at any cost.
Ramoth’s longtime friend, Knight-Protector Jaril, was beside him. “I count a dozen troops of darklings,” he muttered, “with more surely veiled by the smoke. Be you prepared, knight-lieutenant?”

In response, there was a flash of moonlight on steel as Ramoh grasped the hilt of his blade; Tilnam the Kingbreaker, won from a dragon’s horde many years past, once wielded by no less than King Ysgar himself. The legendary sword glowed with a glorious light as it was unsheathed.

“Let them drink deeply of the Kingbreaker this eve,” Ramoh growled. He stirred his mount forward, and battle was joined. The close quarters and darkling polearms quicky rendered the mounts superfluous; Ramoh dismounted in a dizzying somersault, hewing the foul creatures’ heads from their necks as he did so. Jaril was beside him, cutting a parallel path through the Duskward. Within moments, the path to the gates was clear. Shouts and the musical ring of steel on steel issued from within the keep; time was of the essence.

Jaril strode up and pulled his helmet off. “I’ll brb,” he said wiping the sweat from his brow. “Gotta eat dinner.”

Ramoh nodded gravely. “Ttyl.”

Raymond looked up from his screen and rubbed his eyes. “That dick,” he muttered.

Jeremy knew that Aegard Keep was a dangerous place to pause. Even if he used the darkmeld ability on his Dragonforged Breastplate, chances were that if he moved away from the Raiders of Terra screen for just a second that he would return to his character’s cooling corpse.

 

June 4, 2011

From “The Motive” by Sara C. H. F. Meyl

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

As she opened the door to her friend Logan’s apartment, Cora Edwards was in a great mood. She wasn’t usually a night person, but now, as the clock approached twelve, her emerald-green eyes shone with life.
Cora and Logan had been close friends since high school—just friends, nothing more. In the two years since she and Logan had come to Northeastern University, Cora had dropped by so often to study or just to hang out that Logan had finally given her a key.

She’d used that key just now, and as the door swung open, Cora smoothly removed it from the lock and placed it in her pocket. All the apartment’s lights were off; the only illumination was dim slivers of yellow filtering through the window blinds, probably from the parking lot below.

Logan wasn’t home; he and Cora had arranged to meet at the Midtown Café, as they often did, at 3:00 AM for a quick study session. Cora had been halfway to the café before she’d realized that her textbooks were still at Logan’s. A quick turn and ten minutes’ travel had brought her here.

Cora let the door slam shut behind her, catching a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror, with the one silver earring and light brown hair cut boyishly short, before the light streaming in from the outside hall was cut off. Not wanting to waste electricity, Cora felt her way towards the kitchen. The books should just be lying there on the table.

A shape, dark and indistinct, rose up against the blinds. Cora turned to face it, soft, dim light spilling across her head and shoulders. Cora opened her mouth, intending to say “Logan, is that you?”

Three short, staccato explosions that echoed through the apartment cut her off. Instantly, Cora felt a dreadful numbness spread throughout her body, stumbled, and collapsed. She didn’t feel any pain, just a warm, soft sense of well-being as her world went black forever.

 

April 30, 2011

From “Archivaria” by Thatherton Russell

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

Yes, I think the overwhelming impression students got of Witherton was a cackling old man, rubbing his hands together safe in his Archivist’s Spire as he planned on how best to alienate and fail his students.

I took a slightly softer view. The man wasn’t a teacher, wasn’t trained as a teacher, and was clearly more comfortable with ancient manuscripts than people. But the way the university worked required him to teach, but gave no rewards for good teaching or punishments for bad teaching. His research kept him at the head of his field and the tip of the tenure iceberg, but the students…well, it’s safe to say that even with the slack some of the more enlightened of us cut him given the circumstances, it wasn’t easy.

Nothing illustrated that better than what became known as the “Action of April 30.”

 

April 11, 2011

From “Nerf Headshot” by Cull McPherson Davies

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

“I just don’t see how a harmless little game of ‘Hunters vs Infected’ is such a big deal,” Mikey whined. “It’s bandannas and nerf darts. Nobody’s dying.”

“You’d do well to remember two situations, Mikey,” Dr. Jonsen said. “Osborn College and Southern Michigan University.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” said Mikey.

Jonsen sighed. “About eight years ago, a game of ‘Hunters vs. Infected’ went on at Osborn. Things got out of hand thanks to a big reward for the winner offered by the fraternity council. By the end, the survivors holed themselves up in an abandoned dormitory with canned food and snipers on the roof.”

Mikey laughed. “That’s what they get for having a reward. Our only prize is bragging rights.”

“Then you might pay more attention to what happened at SMU. Their game of ‘Hunters vs. Infected’ coincided with an outbreak of cordyceps meningoencephalitis. Ninety people died and the rest were sick for months.”

“Are you…are you saying that a real zombie outbreak happened during the game?” Mikey said, eyes wide as saucers.

“Perhaps,” Jonsen said. “The official report was rather vague.”

“You’re going to have to tell me more about that.”

 

April 4, 2011

From “Evolution at Work” by Eric Cummings Jr.

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

Of course, I know I’m no Adonis: flabby in some places, bony in others, and gangly or ungainly throughout like a scarecrow built around a potbelly stove. I’ve got the pasty, translucent complexion only millennia of evolution in the damp Irish climate could perfect, and still blessed with bountiful harvests of acne well into my third decade even as time has brought most of my pizzaface compatriots of yore a measure of relief. Add to that the hunched posture common to Quasimodo and heavy computer users, and you’ve gone a long way to understanding why I’ve never had to live in a duplex.

But I’ve seen enough repulsive specimens of manhood strolling around campus with their hands in the pockets of someone with a good three to five points on them by the traditional metric scale to think that there must be more to it than that. My friends say it’s confidence, bravado, something you can fake until you make. But I’ve learned the hard way that it’s one thing to pretend you know what you’re doing when staring at a crowd of impressionable students and another entirely when you’re eying someone through the haze of a bad college party.

 

March 3, 2011

From “Andrew Germand Hacks MIT And Gets Away With It” by A. G. Ifftyp

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

Now, elaborate pranks–or “hacks” as they’re called–have a rich history at MIT. It’s a predictable side effect of bringing together so many intelligent, technically-inclined people and placing them in an academic pressure cooker; hacks were nothing more than a release valve.

To execute a great hack was also to court a sort of immortality. Who could forget, after all, the Great Dome Police Hack of 1994? On the last day of classes, a group of hackers had moved a full-size facsimile of a campus police car to the top of MIT’s Great Dome, complete with flashing lights, a dummy in an authentic CP uniform, a valid campus parking ticket, and a box of fresh donuts. Any number of electrical engineering majors had gotten laid off of exaggerated or fabricated tales of their involvement in that one.

Andrew Germand’s hack, though, would eclipse them all. And unlike the cheerfully anonymous pranksters of 1994, everyone would know its mastermind–even as they were powerless to do anything about it.

 

March 1, 2011

From “The Last Email” by Eric Cummings Jr.

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

Her note continued:

“I never believed your routine about being a cynic. You believe in things. Not good things or worthy things, but things nonetheless. From my point of view, every position I’ve teased out of you is utterly repugnant, but in taking them you’ve set yourself apart from the others.

Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. It’s a cruel world we live in when somebody has to hide their idealism behind a cynic’s mask, to feign apathy about something they care deeply about rather than confronting it head on. I’ve worn that mask many times in my life, and only recently have I had the courage to remove it for good. I think, in time, you will too.

This isn’t like the end of the book you told me you wanted to write–the one where everyone manages to live happily if not ever after without reeking of sickly-sweet sentiment. I don’t know if even such a qualified happiness can exist in this world of ours without a platform of lies to stand upon, much as we all desperately need to believe it can and does. But it is an ending.

I’ll go my own way–don’t worry. But whatever happens, I want you to be strengthened by it. Go out there and believe repulsive things, but believe them sincerely, just as I sincerely believe that you’ll get your happy ending–whether in real life or in a world of your own making on a manuscript page.”

 

January 23, 2011

From “Nothing vs. Firewall” by Eric Cummings Jr.

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

My generation was immersed in lovey-dovey sentiments about “being ourselves” and “doing what makes us happy.” Our parents probably thought they were doing us a favor–the Woodstock and Summer of Love generation, they felt like they had to struggle with their parents to go off and do what they wanted. Hell, even today there are scads of movies and TV shows lionizing the 60’s radicals who bucked what their parents wanted in order to Live the Dream.

The problem was, much of my generation decided that being themselves and doing what makes them happy was being slackers and mooching. I think that a lot of what made our parents such go-getters was the fact that–at least as they saw it–people were always telling them they couldn’t or shouldn’t do things. Who wouldn’t want to go out and get busy confronted with that, especially if there were millions in the same boat? But if from the start you’re told that you’re special and mollycoddled, you get kids working at a 7-11 with a Masters degree, just content to scrape by. Say what you will about the unshaven pot-smoking hippies of yesteryear, but they got shit done.

I was determined to avoid what was, to me, the ultimate badge of shame: moving back in with Mom and Dad and gradually abandoning all pretense of an independent life. Which led me, straight-arrow, to my current predicament.

 

January 19, 2011

From “Playing the Stick” by Lucas Snørthing

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

“Ah, lacrosse,” said Greg “The favored sport of the common unadulterated douchebag.”

“Hey, man,” Mike said. “Just because they’re playing lacrosse doesn’t make them douchebags.”

“Look at the sunglasses on a cloudy day, the untucked shirts, the askance ballcaps barely concealing duck’s ass haircuts,” Greg said, observing the ball as it moved fluidly between stick-nets. “If those aren’t douchebags they do a good impression.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean that all lacrosse players are douches,” Mike countered through a mouthful of sandwich.

“Think about it: when have you even known a lacrosse player who wasn’t a douche? The motion’s enough like paddling that the skill transfers right over to the Phi Qoppa Jackass initiation,” said Greg. “I bet they use the sticks when the Initiation Paddle breaks.”

“I used to play lacrosse.”

“See? There’s your proof right there.”

 

January 12, 2011

From “A Nobel in Every Pocket and Six Figures on Every Pay Stub” by Kim Sharpe

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

Volved Sagenned was the writer in residence, and considered quite a coup at the time he’d been retained. A Nobel prize winner, his books had sold millions of copies in translation and he was considered to be at the forefront of the “new wave” of former Warsaw Pact writers reflecting on the losing side of the Cold War.

He was also an irritable, self-absorbed old man with an impenetrably thick accent and absolutely no idea how to teach a class.

“He isn’t even required to teach, you know,” Kelly hissed. “He just does it for the stipend. His contract gives him six figures for three credit hours.”

“But he’s already making seven figures just by lending us his name,” whispered Harry. “Can’t he accept a little less in return for not making our lives hell!”

“Enough!” Sagenned roared. “The talkings ends now. Yes, ziz van iz not zo deaf ahz to naht heer shew hizzing like nezt of serpent!”

The students quickly fell into line even if they didn’t quite understand what he was saying.

“Paparz on desk, at vunze!” the author barked. “Tventy pagaz on ze meaning ov Krishnakov’s charakter! Let uz be determine who haz properly grazped!”

 

« Previous Page — Next Page »