Category Archives: fiction

Trope or Choke: Episode 12

by in fiction, Sci-fi and tagged , , | Leave a comment

The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: An operating room

Genre: Amish romance + Medical mystery

Trope: Decoding ancient texts

Characters: Acrophobic five-year-old math genius + Martian

POV: 2nd/future

The result:

Oddity

You’ll record these moments in your mind. You’ll transcribe them. For her. For posterity.

The boy will sit with his ankles crossed and dangling, refusing to look your way. “We’re 72,000 feet from the surface,” he’ll say. “If I plummet through that window it will take me 8.7 minutes to crash. My body will splatter in a diameter of 1.28 miles.”

With all the current strife, this laboratory on the peak of Olympus Mons is the safest place on Mars. Sometimes you forget he’s only five: frail and pale with wild hair. “I see. You’re afraid of heights. How about you turn your back to the window?”

He’ll comply and as he begins to swing his legs you bring forth the rune. He runs his fingers over it. “It’s not a forgery,” he’ll say. “These carvings resemble those on the Xanthe cave tablets.”

“Yes, Abigail found those stones.”

“Tell me about her again.”

You’ll sigh and stare out the window. You can almost see all the way to Drava Valles from here. You and Abigail were children when you met, seventh generation Amish colonists. You knew instantly you were fated to be together. You courted and pledged yourselves to each other, and when you both turned seventeen, you married. That first kiss was an electric shock. You can still feel it reverberate. “She was the most brilliant person I’ve ever met. And the most beautiful.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” the boy says, suddenly sounding too wise for his years.

“Isn’t every romance story?” You’ll glance over at the operating table. Empty. How much blood has pooled on this floor? You can’t think about that now. “Her life’s work was solving the mystery of the Xanthe tablet. And now with this rune we’ve discovered…there has to be a connection.”

“And you think it’s me?” the boy will ask.

Innocently. Too innocently. The first child genius was born nine months after the tablet was unearthed. This boy is the seventh. “Ever since we’ve found this proof that we’re not alone, there’s been so much turmoil. We have to know what they say.”

He’ll squint at the tablet, then the rune. “These markings form a code.”

“Can you decipher it?”

“Close enough, yes. It says, After one thousand years the soil makes them ours.”

A shiver will crawl down your spine. “We’ve been on Mars for nearly a millennia.”

“There’s more,” he’ll say. “Two in the blood will become three.”

“What blood?” you’ll ask.

He’ll look at you so mournfully that you’ll forget about his unnatural intellect and see him just as a child. The skin of his arm is so white, and in his silence you’ll find the answer. You won’t ask his

permission to draw his blood. He won’t resist. Under the microscope you’ll magnify until you hit his DNA. And then you’ll see it: not two strands entwined but three.

You’ll stare at this impossible Martian child, all the time wishing Abigail was here to witness this glory.

Battlestar Galactica Rewatch Part 3: Major Themes

by in Battlestar Galactica, fiction, Sci-fi and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

(For Part 1, see here; for Part 2, see here.)

Some years ago I wrote a post asking if Battlestar Galactica was too religious. To this day it remains one of my most popular pieces. Controversial, too. Not because of the meat of the post itself but because some people just don’t like religion. At all.

But let’s put aside whether or not religion is good or bad or whatever. Let’s instead focus on religion in Battlestar Galactica. After rewatching the entire series I can say with 100% confidence that one of the major themes of the series was in fact religion. Not just religion, but God and our place in the universe.

In my opinion, Battlestar Galactica was one of the most overtly philosophical television shows of this century.

In the series we had two separate camps when it came to religion. First were the 12 colonies, each named after a zodiac sign (astrology—a quasi religion in my view). The colonists paid reverence to the gods. Not a single god but a collection, patterned off of the Roman gods. Devotions, sacrifices, all of that.

One of the most religious characters among this religion was President Laura Roslin. I can’t say for sure what her level of faith was before the events in the story, but when we meet her, she’s just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She turns to the gods and takes solace in the scrolls of Pythia, which foretell of a dying leader who will take her people to safety. She’s beset by dreams and visions (drug induced?) that she takes for messages from the gods. Her faith, whether or not conditional, is in the forefront of the storytelling.

And then we have the cylons. The Caprica who appears to Gaius Baltar talks of one true God, a God who had a plan for everyone. It’s obvious what the writers were doing here: contrasting a pagan faith of offerings and visions against the Judeo-Christian singular God who had an individual connection with each of his creations (children).

The show ping-pongs between these two world views. It also provides an interesting commentary. For both camps, the colonists and the cylons, their religions/faiths don’t necessarily make them better or more virtuous. If anything, they use their religions to justify their actions. It’s pretty convenient that at first, the cylons view killing billions of colonists as part of God’s plan.

That’s a pretty dark view of religion.

But Battlestar Galactica is suffused with religion, with belief, with gods or God, and that’s part of what makes the show so interesting, even 20 years on.

The second major theme of the series is one that’s become a sci-fi trope: what is the definition of personhood? Are the cylons persons? In the series this question arises with the twelve humanoid-looking models. And no character best represents this than Sharon.

There were two significant Sharons in Battlestar Galactica. The first was Boomer, an ace fighter pilot in the Galactica. What Boomer did not know was that she was a sleeper agent. She believed she was human. She’d had memories implanted. She was in love with Galen Tyron (who turned out to be a sleeper cylon himself, though not one of the baddies). Then she was activated and shot Adama, nearly killing him. The series portrays her struggles to retain her humanity even as she loses her world.

Then there’s Athena, the other Sharon. On the cylon-controlled Caprica, this one pretended to be Boomer in order to trick a stranded Karl Agathon. She always knew just what she was. But somewhere along the way she fell in love with Agathon. They return to the Galactica and she dedicates herself to fighting her fellow cylons, along with having a daughter, Hera, the first human/cylon hybrid.

The series made a strong case for the humanity of both these Sharons. And there were other models thrown in there too. When colonists brutalize one of the Sixes, for instance, who’s the monster? On the flip side, let’s go back to the miniseries, when Caprica snaps the neck of a baby. Monstrous. Inhuman. But…she changes and grows and eventually leads a faction of cylons to seek another path with the colonists.

There’s a third major theme of Battlestar Galactica, and in my view, it’s the weakest. Keep in mind when the series first aired: 2004-2009. America was coming off 1) a major terror attack, 2) paranoia about sleeper agents, 3) critiques of blowback from decades of botched foreign policy, and 4) not-successful invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

At the time I remember reading commentary stating outright that the series was a response to the GWOT, and if you look closely at the storylines you can definitely see it. We’ve got an angry foe seeing revenge, a clash of civilizations, rampant terrorism, sleepers (cylons), and then the cylon occupation of New Caprica (one of the weaker storylines). We’ve also got brutality and torture galore.

As a larger commentary on American society of the zeroes, this comparison leaves me kind of flat. Don’t get me wrong, within the confines of the show, this all worked. But maybe I’d just not rather relive those dark days.

Next up: the hits.

Trope or Choke: Episode 11

by in fiction, Sci-fi, writing and tagged , , | Leave a comment

The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines*:

Setting: Outer space

Genre: Solar punk + Reddit comment thread

Trope: Sweating like a whore in church

Characters: Morally bankrupt real estate agent + Used tire saleswoman

POV: 3rd/past

*Note: writer’s choice to ignore two elements.

The result:

Everyone Has Their Price

“Listen, I just need to get this bucket of bolts over to the Taurus nebula. I’ve got these new colonists fresh from Europa and there’s this asteroid field that I know they’ll pay top dollar for. Bunch of useless rocks, but between you and me, they don’t need to know that.” Saul Treppingham told the bulk of a woman in grease-stained overalls.

She sipped her energy drink in long, slow draws while eyeing his expensive-looking suit. Her name tag read Dervish. “Looks like your little baby here’s about to blow a couple of space tires. I don’t know how you even managed to land her on this runway in one piece without blowing her all to bits.”

“What? These tires?” Saul kicked one with a shiny wingtip. “I just got them replaced on my last turn around the old sun. Supposed to be good for five million miles.”

Dervish took a long slurp from her energy drink. “You ask me, my tires will take you even further than five million miles. Ten. At least.”

“It’s not the tires. I swear. The dome light came on. All blinking and flashing. Danger. You know.”

“Oh, yeah, I know,” Dervish said. “That means the tires are about shot. Like I said you’re lucky you even landed here. I have some of the finest used rubber. No better secondhand tires for nearly a light year. Honest.”

Saul sighed and took stock of the mostly deserted landing strip, some godforsaken bit of real estate on an out-of-the way asteroid. “You know what you need here? Some development. Surely there’s some ore to be mined in the belly of this baby. Say, who’s the owner?”

Dervish squeezed both fists around the bottom of her energy drink. She slurped the last of the dregs like a hungry camel. Then she ripped open the pouch, jammed grease-stained fingers inside and licked them clean.

“God, woman. You act like you were raised among space pirates. Tell you what, why don’t you relay a message to your overlords. I’ll offer them a cool million for exclusive development rights. Really, I’m being generous.”

She watched him rake a hand through slicked-back hair. “My people settled this little old asteroid generations ago. It’s been our claim ever since.”

“Come on,” he said. “Everyone has their price.”

“Tell you what, I’ll give you replacements, half price. Beam back an offer, and I’ll see that my overlords get it.”

Saul unbuttoned his blazer. “I don’t really think the tires are the issue.”

“You want me to relay your offer or not?”

He chuckled nervously, then boomed a laugh. “Alright, as long as you promise.”

She slapped his rear. “I swear, sweetcheeks.”

An hour later she watched Saul Treppingham’s spacecraft zip away. She laughed as loud as she wanted, because there was no one to hear.

Those used tires were too used to be of any good. Scrap rubber, actually. No way could he land without a catastrophic wreck. She could already smell their burning.

Trope or Choke: Episode 10

by in fiction, writing and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: Australia when it was a penal colony

Genre: True crime + middle grade

Trope: Up shit’s creek without a paddle

Characters: Conspiracy theorist + World’s most annoying superhero

POV: First/Future

The result:

One Last Cigarette

I’ll be on my way to the bodega for what I swear will be my last pack of cigarettes when I’ll hit a brick wall.

Literally.

All of a sudden in the middle of the sidewalk there’ll be this brick wall out of nowhere. What the actual fuck I’ll say to the guy next to me, this white-haired ponytailed dude with a potbelly and dandruff on his cardigan.

“This, my inquisitive friend, is evidence of the illuminati,” he’ll say as he runs his sausage fingers along the bricks.

“Aw, shucks,” a twerpy voice says. “Ain’t no illuminati. It was me.”

I’ll turn to see a kid, twelve max, in a silver cape.

“I am Turbo Boy. It was supposed to be a portal.”

“Listen, son,” the man will say. “I am Donovan Corduroy, foremost expert on conspiracies. “Perhaps you’ve read my wikipedia page.”

We’ll both shake our heads.

“No such things as superheroes. Only conspiracies not yet uncovered.”

“Listen mister, I’m a fourth-generation superhero,” the kid whines. “That’s what my mom said.”

“And where is this so-called mother?”

“Murdered. And I’m using my portal-making powers to catch her killer.”

“Shouldn’t you leave that to the police?”

“They’re useless.” He’ll lift up a blood-stained shirt. “This here’s the killer’s blood, and I intend on using it to create a portal to catch the son of a bitch.”

“Don’t swear,” Corduroy says.

“Piss poop fart butt dick ass!”

“How about you just unmanifest this wall? I need a Marlboro something bad.”

“Smoking’s bad for you mister.”

“I’ve never kidney-punched a superhero,” I’ll say.

Of course I wasn’t planning on punching a kid. But god I needed that nicotine. “Just pull a Gorbachev and tear down this wall.”

“No!” Corduroy will throw his body against it. “This is evidence. I must study it.”

Turbo boy smirks. “Step away from it, dork. I’ve got a murder to solve.”

The kid’ll shoot both arms out. The brick wall trembles like a mother rocking her baby, then like a drunk shaking a toddler.

And the wall will crumble like it’s Berlin 1989.

Then a blinding flash and a sound like an oncoming train. I’ll smell sulfur, which only makes me jones harder for a smoke.

Finally it’ll end.

And my feet’ll be soaked.

“What the heck.”

When I open my eyes it’s not night but light. Blue skies. Scrubby desert. And me ankle deep in a creek.

“What deception is this?” Corduroy will say. “Must be some kind of illuminati mind control. We’ve got to uncover their deception.”

Just then a man’ll ride up on a horse holding the longest rifle ever, aimed at me. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Are you the man who killed my mom?” Turbo Boy will say.

“No, but you,” he points to me, “fit the description of John Wesley Rotheram. The most wanted man in Australia. Escaped in the year of the lord 1804.”

“Time travel, you little bastard?” I’ll hiss. “And all I wanted was one last cigarette.”

Trope or Choke: Episode 9

by in fiction, horror, writing and tagged | Leave a comment

The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: Haunted House

Genre: Romance + Adventure

Trope: Love in rehab

Characters: A woman missing three fingers + a blind baseball player

POV: 3rd/past

The result:

Love Is Just Another Drug

Oliver dug his claws into Nina’s shoulder so hard she almost smacked him. God she hated that parrot.

“He’s gone, you know that.”

“He’s here,” Nina said. “I’ll find him.

“Careful. Your next door might be your last.”

She sighed because it was true. “One more door. I swear.”

“One more bump, you mean, right, girlie?”

Nina rested her hand on the knob. It burned. She let go, then grabbed it quick and twisted. Inside a swirl of mist coalesced into a woman with wild hair and a mouth pried open. “Devour!” she yelled.

The parrot squawked furiously. It released from Nina’s shoulder and bit off her pinkie finger. She tumbled back and shut the door behind her.

She lay on the floor and stared at her bleeding hand. “How could you?”

“I saved our lives.”

“Well don’t do that again.”

“If you simply exit,” Oliver said, “I won’t need to.”

“You know that’s not happening. Not until I find him.”

Oliver settled back on her shoulder. “Tragic. The baseball player who lost his sight and lost himself to heroin.”

“He kicked,” Nina said. “Like I did. And now we love each other.”

“Love? He doesn’t even know what you look like.”

“His words were true.”

Oliver squawked. “He’s a liar. Like that Helen Keller. You know she was a communist?”

“Jared’s no communist. He’s a good man. One more door.”

Nina shuffled deeper into darkness. She stopped before a black oak door and opened it. Inside a little girl sat at a desk drawing. Nina tiptoed closer to get a glimpse. The girl scribbled furiously, an exploding sun that devoured the earth. She looked up at Nina with black eyes. “You’re next.”

Oliver screeched. He flew up and around and before he settled back down he nipped off part of Nina’s ring finger. Nina screamed and ran out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

“Why did you do that?”

Oliver mimicked her words then cackled. “I warned you. Let’s leave.”

“No. Jared’s here somewhere. I feel him.”

“A love for the ages,” Oliver mocked. “The dark ages, that is.”

“I’m not leaving here without my happily ever after.”

“Don’t you know that love is just another drug?”

Nina ignored him. She climbed the staircase and rested her forehead on the first door. “This has to be it.”

She gave the knob one mighty twist. Inside, dusty furniture crowded the silent room. Two steps in and a hooded figure roared out from the shadows. “I’ve been waiting for you,” it moaned.

Before she could think she was on the other side of the shut door with one less finger. She screamed. “Stop torturing me.”

“Stop torturing yourself and give him up.”

She stalked back down and faced another door. This would be her last. She opened it and shielded her eyes from blinding sunlight and looked down. There he sat, all golden and mellow, a baseball clutched in his hand.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Jared said.

Trope or Choke: Episode 8

by in fiction, writing and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: A Saints game

Genre: Underwater exploration + English mystery

Trope: Overcoming a fear of flying

Characters: Brad Pitt’s stunt double + a character dying of cancer

POV: tense: 3rd/future

The result:

Hyperion

Buddy knows this: Gods still walk among men.

“Go deeper,” Brad will tell the captain. Truth is, Buddy hates spending time in this sub. Too tight and gray. Too thin, the steel against the cold sea. Could be worse. He could be flying. Even the thought knots his guts.

Five months earlier Brad got it in his head he could solve the mystery of the Hyperion, the gold-laden galleon the Spanish King sent Elizabeth as a peace offering, which vanished off the Cornwall coast.

“You’re the only one who gets me,” he’ll tell Buddy. Under the fluorescents Brad shines, otherworldly. Buddy doesn’t know what he does to “get” Brad, other than being there, being his body, the one whose taken his bruised and glistening blows ever since Fight Club. “They think I’m a fool,” he’ll say. “But not you.”

A month later Brad surrenders the Hyperion. The documentary won’t even make Sundance. He’ll stay in England. He says he likes the rain.

They’ll sit in a Manchester arena watching the Saints square off against the Bristol Wolves. Brad moves freely; no one imagines ever encountering Brad Pitt in public; their retinas never register him. Rather it’s Buddy who gets the “you know who you look like?” Sometimes Buddy hates his own false face. Brad will sip his lager. “I still think about her,” he’ll say. The galleon or some ex, Buddy asks. Brad doesn’t answer.

When the striker scores, the crowd will rise in a delirious fury. Brad remains languid. “Buddy’s a cool name,” he’ll say. “Bet you were one tough kid.”

“My name’s really Elliott.”

Brad’s eyebrows raise. “Elliott? Seriously?”

“You’re the one who started calling me Buddy.”

Brad will humpf. “Buddy’s better.”

Finally some brave mortal will break her own enchantment. “Are you him?” she’ll ask Brad. He’ll say no, of course not. She’ll deflate.

“Everyone wishes they were Brad Pitt,” Buddy will whisper.

“Me most of all.” Brad frowns. “Hey I was thinking of flying lessons. Like George.”

Clooney. Another aging god in the pantheon. “You know that’s my achilles.”

“You gotta get over that fear, man.”

Buddy will tell him, again, how his father died in a place crash when he was twelve. Twelve. What an awful year for children. “Oh yeah, right,” Brad says. “That’s a shame.” What exactly the shame is, Buddy will never know for sure.

“I always loved Kauai,” Brad will say. “George took me when he filmed the Descendants.”

The Saints will win. Afterwards, Brad snags a pack of smokes. “I never did this,” he’ll confess. “Not much, anyway. Didn’t seem to matter, though. Not in the end.”

Buddy will know. When you surrender your body to someone else, when you take their blows, you know. After the cancer finally claims Brad, Buddy will wonder what he ever truly got from this god. But he’ll take what he can. He’ll rise above his fear, climb into a helicopter and sprinkle what’s left of Brad onto the lush churning green of Kauai.

Anatomy of a Story, or the Only Way to Deal With an Impossible Crush

by in fiction, publishing and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

We’ve all had at least one. Or two. Or several. You meet someone and you get nearly instantly hooked, despite all logic or reasoning. Yet you know, for reasons beyond your control, that it can never ever be.

The impossible crush. Sometimes the only possible thing you can do is to get as far away from it, however possible.

That’s what I tried to portray in my story, The Only Possible Thing, recently published on James Gunn’s Ad Astra, a website dedicated to sci-fi-themed speculative fiction.

This universal quandary was just one inspiration for this story. The second was the amazing novella by Ted Chiang, The Story of Your Life. It’s about a linguist who struggles to communicate with aliens. In the process, her conception of time is disrupted. Rather than experiencing time as a linear construct, she experiences it as a simultaneous occurrence. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the novella was adapted into the movie The Arrival.

I’ve always had a hard…uh…time with time. Yes, I experience it in a linear fashion, but on an emotional level, things that happened in the past often seem more present than the present, to the point where I sometimes feel my life as existing on a broad plan that stretches out rather than a taut line. Chiang’s story spoke to me, and I wanted to blend his motif with my emotional concept of time and the futility of an impossible crush that sends you to the farthest reaches of the universe where you confront not just your horrific destiny, but that pivotal moment that sends you there, a moment that lingers forever.

You must know, first, that every moment is merely one of a constellation spread across the sky of my life. These moments, here with you, are the only ones that matter, the only ones I never want to leave.

The process with the folks at James Gunn’s Ad Astra was both intense and rewarding. Rather than a simple acceptance (or rejection), they sent back a thorough list of questions and recommended changes. It took me some time to work through these points, and to be honest, it was a struggle, but in the end it only made the story better.

After it was accepted for publication, they provided me with the artwork that would be associated with the story (see above). I was blown away. I have zero visual artistic talent, and this image was more than I could possible have imagined.

Trope or Choke: Episode 7

by in fiction, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Sci-fi and tagged , , | Leave a comment

The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: Scotland Yard

Genre: Dystopian + military sci-fi

Trope: New frontier

Characters: Captain Kirk + manic pixie dream girl

POV/tense: 2nd/present

The result:

A New Frontier Awaits You

His name: Ossetian. Lieutenant in the Global Atlantic Empire’s Forces. Red hair. Muscled. Suspicious eyes. Seeing those eyes in person convinces you he is indeed a counterrevolutionary. He sits across from you in the cafe with a gesticulating Asian man not in any dossier.

How’s the coffee?

The waitress pulls you from your observation. She’s fit, hint of makeup, severe brown bob, twinkling green eyes.

Fine, you say.

Just fine? She pouts. Never seen you here before.

You glance at Ossetian. His companion stalks out. Ossetian remains.

The waitress cocks her hip. You need something sweet in your life. How about a strawberry croissant?

You debate trailing the companion. The waitress lingers with a sly smile. On me, she says.

You’ve already got a snap of the companion to feed into the Mil-FBI database. Sure.

She returns with the croissant. I’m Minka. She waits for your answer. Don’t be rude now.

Kirk, you confess.

As you leave she slides beside you and whispers something in your ear you don’t quite catch. Before you step in the rain she says clearly, come back to me.

You go back, though not for her. Ossetian meets with a revolving retinue at the cafe. Still no proof he’s been corrupted by the group that calls themselves Scotland Yard. They’ve corrupted the wetware of millions. How, though? Your enhanced interrogations produced nothing. At this frustrating rate you’ll never advance beyond captain.

Minka grows brazen. She says her shift ended. She joins you for espresso and says you really need to loosen up, Kirk. Surely the empire would want you to unwind. Then she’s in your bed whispering words that melt into nothing. As the sunrises on yet another morning together, you think maybe she’s right. Maybe there is more to life than fortifying the principles of the empire.

Ossetian stops going to the cafe. After three days you realize you miss her. You try to dismiss these unsanctioned emotions; it feels as if something’s infected your wetware. If true, you’ll be ejected from Mil-FBI. Or worse.

Midnight. Intel suggests the factory is Scotland Yard’s HQ. You lead your squad inside. You stalk empty rooms. You climb stairs. No sign of anything remotely Scotland Yard. Third floor your squad grows restless. It’s a bust, your second says. Basement, you order. You descend. Dank rooms. Darkness. A light from behind a closed door. You crack it open.

The Asian man, Ossetian’s first companion at the cafe, sits beneath a dangling bulb.

Lovely to see you again, Captain.

I don’t know you.

But we know you.

Your squad rustles behind you. One more word he’ll ruin your career. You level your weapon at him.

What a prize, he mutters. He locks eyes and tells you clearly, A new frontier awaits you.

The words strike a memory: Minka’s whispers. They worm into your wetware. You feel the corruption in real time. A cracking. A shattering. Shackles break.

Clarity, for the first time. You turn and fire. Four bodies fall.

Image by vecstock on Freepik