Writing

0 comments on "Transhuman; Jupiter Ascending: post-dystopian consumerism"

“Transhuman or trans-human is the concept of an intermediary form between human and posthuman. In other words, a transhuman is a being that resembles a human in most respects but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. These abilities might include improved intelligence, awareness, strength, or durability. Transhumans sometimes appear in science-fiction as cyborgs or genetically-enhanced humans.” – Wikipedia.

I was looking up “Jupiter Ascending” to remind myself of a particular scene and was taken to the Wikipedia page. There I saw that the people out in the galaxy–the Exalted–were described as being transhuman. And it got me thinking. And writing.

NOTE: I realize that many have found fault with the movie “Jupiter Ascending”, but I don’t care. That was space opera crack at its most over-indulgent and I could happily do with another dose. Plus the fanfic it has produced … Mwah! Divine. How could I hate on source material that has inspired so many great stories to read?

*

I read that the rise of post-apocalyptic fiction is a sign of dissatisfaction in the general population. By choosing the books and media they do, the younger generation is expressing cynicism and fear of the future.

From a naively hopeful view of the future where humans are zooming amongst the stars and colonizing new planets, stories have taken on a grim view of intergalactic battles and the forced extinction of the human race. And back home on Earth, instead of the vaulted spires of a utopian society, everything has turned to disaster having overfallen the world and a struggling society attempting to rebuild something amongst the ruins of our modern cities.

No longer do protagonists and antagonists banter and bumble their way through the apocalypse. Now it is a foregone conclusion that our world will end.

There is nothing to stop. Nothing to struggle against. Disaster has already happened.

To the people of those future visions, we are nothing less than rumors. Everything that we’ve built has already faded away.

And even then, with the world ruined and humanity struggling to stay alive, there is always a group of people with all of the resources and technology, lording it over like gods above the rest.

These stories present no real answers. Because in the end, the message is that there’s nothing you can do to stop the terrible future to come.

You should huddle down and close your eyes. Go quiet and small and survive. Because there’s nothing you can do to make the world a better place. It’s going to be your grandchild’s responsibility to scream defiance at the ultra-modern nobility.

Presented with such a pessimestic outlook, is it no wonder that people are beginning to feel hopeless about the future? Children are growing up with the belief that no matter what they do, it means nothing. Because the end is nigh and their story isn’t the important one. They should set aside their personal goals and focus on the creation of some grand Ubermensch.

Meanwhile, right now is when people should show their defiance. Right now is when people need to stand up, point out the injustices, and ROAR “That’s not right!”

And instead, I hear people say “I should buy some guns”, as though that’s the answer to every problem.

Don’t write petitions. Don’t chastise government officials into doing a better job.

Buy guns. Stockpile food. Be ready to flee into the wilds.

Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that everything is destined to fall apart. And the problem with “destiny” is that it cannot be changed. It can only be endured.

Destiny is a surrender to helplessness. It is someone brushing their hands off and leaving the problem solving to somebody else.

And when you feel helpless, you close your eyes and ears to the plights of people around you. Because their problems are their own and you don’t want to get involved.

But that’s all we need to do to save the environment and the human species: get involved.

Learn how to roar when it’s needed, and talk when it’s not. Research sustainability and environmental protection. Learn the reasons why people are so unhappy and what they need to succeed.

Because if we help each other, we help ourselves.

0 comments on "EXCERPT: Mama’s Boy [sci-fi, time travel, drama]"

“She always kept herself ready for the end of the world.

“That’s what I remember of my mom.

“She was always prepared.

“Even as we lived the normal suburban lifestyle; quietly she taught me all of the skills I was using in the resistance. Such as camping and lying and getting the most out of people. She taught me how to survive.”

MEMORY: Sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen. Watching mother bake and chat with the visiting friends filling the living room. Not a one of them could guess that secretly she didn’t want them in her home.

She was a brilliant liar. She taught him so much. / :MEMORY

Mother could be quite vivacious. She brought energy and positivity to every situation. She had a cold pragmatism to her, but it was wrapped in a layer of silly laughter and a lighthearted intelligence. She charmed everyone that met her, personality shifting like a chameleon.

He loved that only family ever got to see the real her. It taught him to wear different faces in public and at home.

She taught him that family was the most important thing, but that there could also be extended family–*Family* as it were–people to count on and be counted by.

When the government collapsed, all he saw was his family. He kept the people he loved alive, and they fought just as hard to protect him.

And then there were more people and they were a Family.

And other Families appeared and they were Clans.

And there were scuffles and Wars and the Clans, the Companies, the *Nations*–all of them had found their places in the world.

And there was peace for fifty years.

And then the Others came, and even after they were defeated and humanity slipped the bonds of slavery, society still fell into despair and ruin.

There were more baseline humans than ever before and the nanotech factories had long gone silent. All of the technicians were dead.

And he continued to care for his Family, the people that he had gathered together during the rebellion and made his own. They looked to him for guidance, and he made vows to do his best for them.

Which made the discovery of the time machine an intriguing prospect, one that he was unable to turn away from.

Being able to somehow change things and shorten his peoples’ hardships, how could he say no?

He weighed what he knew of the cost and made the choice.

Z
Z
Z

ASIDE: She lived with a steady sense of urgency. There was something terrible coming in the future. She’d lived long enough to FEEL when the family luck was about to change.

She turned a bunch of toolboxes into survival kits and storage for extra things. Band-Aids at first, then small screw driver sets, rubber mallets [ILLUSTRATION: great for tanning hides and hammering in nails], and first aid kits.

The first survival boxes she made were simple things. Then she began adding changes of clothes and The Friendly Swedes’ magnesium emergency fire starters to the boxes and they evolved into something a bit more complete, with a few days rations, a simple survival pamphlet, and a pencil box of bare necessity supplies in every one.

She didn’t know what was coming, but she wanted to be prepared.

Because she only had to glance into Sean’s eyes to see that he would fight. Whatever the future brought, he would not be content with just surviving. And whatever trouble found him, he would bring it home to her.

A life on the run had no appeal, but she’d done it before. She could teach him all the ways to be small and quiet, unnoticed in crowds of people. She could teach him to blend into the background and wait for chance and opportunity.

But until he became desperate, she despaired of him ever learning subtlety. He was a strutting peacock and she worried for him.

And quietly she prepared. Prepping for her son’s future.

1 comment on "EXCERPT: Doggy Style, by Sol Crafter [mm, magical realism, body transformation]"

Title: Doggy Style
Author: Sol Crafter
Genre: urban fantasy, magical realim, mm

CHAPTER FOUR

Having his door pounded on at three in the morning would usually have Faraday screaming with rage. But tonight, with his best friend missing and sleep as far from him as the moon, he was up out of the blanket nest he’d made on the couch and running to the front door.

“Hold on, hold on, I’m coming,” he called out.

Relief was a cold rush across his face and down his body when he opened the door and found Zack on the other side. Sure, Zack’s hair was an uncombed mess, his glasses were missing, and the clothes he wore were too large and combined with the lack of shoes or socks to give him a waifish air, but he was alive.

“Oh shit.” Faraday grabbed Zack by the arms and pulled him in close for a desperate hug. “You’re alive.”

Part of him wanted to be mad at Zack for frightening him, but he could feel the way Zack trembled in his arms and it quieted his anger. Obviously something had happened to Zack.

He tugged Zack inside and toward the couch, kicking the door shut behind them. “Are you all right? Here, sit down. I’ll get you something to drink. Do you need to eat?”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Zack said. He gave Faraday a spooked look and didn’t hesitate to grab the afghan off the couch. He wrapped the brightly decorative piece of cloth around himself and made to draw his legs up under it before seeming to remember that his feet were filthy. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore. This seems like it should be somebody else’s life.”

Faraday hurried into the kitchen area to grab a bottle of cran-raspberry juice out of the fridge. He looked indecisively at the cupboards for a moment before going to the oven and taking out a cookie sheet to use as a tray for the juice. He added two glasses half filled with ice, a plastic bowl of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes, and a package of cheese and chive sandwich crackers.

Part of him wanted to make Zack a couple of turkey sandwiches and possibly a bowl of soup, but he didn’t want to leave him alone for too long. He was paranoid at the idea of Zack disappearing when his back was turned. It was just too bad that he didn’t have much in the way of instant food that wasn’t also junk food.

He carried the makeshift tea tray into the living room and set it on the coffee table. He sat down next to Zack and busied himself with pouring the juice and opening the sandwich crackers.

“Here, I got you a little something to eat. Drink this first.” He pressed one of the glasses into Zack’s hands and gestured for him to drink it. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do and I don’t want you to have a dry mouth.”

“Gee, thanks.” Zack sipped at the juice and accepted one of the crackers Faraday offered him. He ate it in two quick bites, then looked surprised, as though he hadn’t realized he was hungry.

Faraday let him swallow before asking, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind with worry.”

“You’re not going to believe me,” Zack said. “I don’t think that I even believe me.”

“Well?”

“I was a dog. A literal dog, with fur and a tail and four feet and everything.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Faraday flopped down on the couch. He rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Where were you?”

“I’m serious. Look into my eyes. I was a dog.” Zack shook his head. “I have no idea how it happened, but I experienced a full-body transformation. It was like something off TV.”

Faraday had heard all the stories, though magic was usually something that happened to other people. People that moved through darker circles than he or Zack ever had.

“Did you piss off a witch–or I guess it would have to be some kind of enchantress? What did you do to make someone so mad?” he asked.

The look Zack gave him could have melted steel. “I have not had any run-ins with witches, enchantresses, sorcerers, or even party magicians. I have been working and going home as usual. Turning into a dog has got to be the most unlikely things to ever happen to me. I don’t know why anyone would bother cursing me.”

“Hm.” Faraday thought of all the transformation cases he’d ever heard of. It wasn’t a popular spell anymore, since it was power intensive and was a quick way for a magic user to end up in prison. Still, there were stories. “Maybe it wasn’t intended for you. You were cataloging the new shipment. Maybe you triggered some kind of booby trap.”

“Who would leave something like that hanging around?” Zack looked thoughtful. “We did receive all that stuff from that estate sale. I didn’t see anythng in the paperwork about Mary Nye being a magic user, but it’s not something people usually advertise, is it?”

“This is very serious,” Faraday said. “We’re going to have to final reports with the police and get you Cleansed before it becomes a permanent curse.”

“Maybe we should be a bit careful with that. Can we just go to a Cleanser and not bother with the police?”

Faraday stared at Zack, noticing his deadpan expression and the forthright honesty of his stare.

“What did you do?” he asked. He was experiencing a sense of dread.

/EXERPT

This story is being serialized at Kimichee.com.

There's some great tee shirt deals happening at BustedTees. Like $10 and $8 for stuff like this Rick and Morty one.
There’s some great tee shirt deals happening at BustedTees. Like $10 and $8 for stuff like this Rick and Morty one.

3 comments on "EXCERPT: All That Remains [Heroes & Villains III] – Scene from Chapter Four"

NOTE: There’s a reason I’ve been obsessing over “Tuesday Night.” It’s because of these guys.

*

Being pinned down by a superpowered madman and his cohort of belligerent henchmen had to be on Seth’s Top Ten list of unwanted scenarios to face. The guy was practically a Bond villain with all of the elaborate traps and mechanical gizmos ready to go off at a single moment’s notice. There was even an evil villain lair paid for with drug money and built on the tears of enslaved orphans.

“Does anyone else think this guy might actually have a pool of sharks with lasers on their heads? Or maybe a murder table mounted with like a rotating sawblade or something?” Even knowing it was a better idea to keep quiet, talking relieved some of Seth’s nerves.

“Maybe there’s sawblades with sharks mounted on them,” Teen Steel joked.

“Heh. ‘Do you expect me to talk?’ ‘No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die,'” Jackblade quoted.

“If you boys are done thinking you’re funny,” Sonic Pulse said, “we need to get out of here.”

The moment of levity was gone and they got back to the business of being nervous and trapped. They were holed up in the east wing of the dramatically named Citadel of Terror.

They were one step ahead of El Muerto’s minions and it was only a matter of time before they were forced into a confrontation with the genocidal maniac.

With the ability to kill anything with the sound of his voice, El Muerto was a supervillain that had carved out a position as the executioner-for-hire of the ruthless dictator and drug kingpin Javier LaCroix.

Mostly working out of France and Central Europe, it had alarmed many when the Citadel of Terror, LaCroix’ flying fortress, had made the trip and subsequent landing in South America. There had already been rumors of the violent dictator expanding his operations to the Americas, but it wasn’t until he was on their doorstep that the Central Metahuman Policing Force decided to step in and handle him.

LaCroix and his operation got declared a problem to be handled and here the Demis here. The plan being that they get in fast enough that LaCroix didn’t have a chance to dig in and fortify his location.

They’d received deployment orders before there was even a working plan to handle LaCroix. Which meant they’d already been behind enemy lines before CMPF command realized quite how dangerous the situation was. El Muerto was not out of the country as intelligence had suggested. He was somewhere in the building.

The Demis had received word that backup was on the way and they needed to stay out of view until help arrived. Once there were enough of them, working together the two teams would take out LaCroix, El Muerto, and anyone else that got in their way.

Seth was looking forward to kicking some ass. One look at the basement prison cells had been enough to ignite a fierce hatred in his heart. He’d tallied the number of men, women, and children that were locked up waiting to be used for slave labor and he’d wanted to punch faces. He’d be happy to see LaCroix’ whole operation brought to a messy end.

He anticipated the arrival of backup, because once they showed up it would be time to take down all the bad guys and free the slaves. And hopefully they’d all make it home without someone being sung to death by El Muerto.

Jackblade’s watch made a soft bleep-ing sound. “Come on. Time to change position again.”

They’d been moving their way slowly but surely through the fortress, staying measured amounts of time in each location. If they’d stayed constantly on the move there was a good chance of being spotted, but if they parked themselves for too long in one location there was a better chance that someone would stumble across them. Seth really wasn’t looking to terrify or kill a maid, and if they got rid of too many people it was bound to be noticed. It was better that they not settle anywhere for too long.

Seth nudged Teen Steel’s shoulder. “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?”

Teen Steel grinned and opened his mouth to say something–probably involving the word “princess”–but Sonic Pulse grabbed his arm and pulled him away. “Stop fooling around.”

Seth rolled his eyes and let himself fall to the back of the group as they left the bland room they’d been hiding in and crept down the hall.

There was the sense that they would be caught at any moment. Some maid or toddling child would come around a corner at exactly the wrong moment and they’d all be plunged into a fight to the death battle with machine gun toting criminals. It made Seth nervous.

But nothing happened. They followed the winding corridors until they came to another unmarked door and another unremarkable room they could hole up in.

Seth didn’t question the vague sense of disappointment. He just pushed it away and focused on searching the room for anything useful (or incriminating).

The room was a blandly painted beige square with dark wood floors. Instead of a closet, there was a wooden wardrobe standing tall against one wall, and a narrow three-drawer dresser next to it. There was a twin bed with two pillows and a dark blue quilted comforter spread across the top. There was no window, no TV, and no adjoining bathroom. It was a depressingly personality-free cell of a room.

Seth opened the wardrobe and found men’s clothing hanging from the —-pole/rack/bar—- and a suitcase on the bottom.

“It looks like this room is occupied,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to want to stay here too long in case whoever comes back. Things might get a bit awkward.”

“That’s an understatement,” Jackblade said. He opened the top drawer of the dresser curiously before closing it. “Sock and underwear. I’m not worried.”

“So you say,” Seth said, “but things always look a bit different when you’re facing an enraged drug kingpin and his machine gun toting army. I’m not looking to get shot.”

“Considering you’re the only one here that’s impervious to bullets, I think you should suck it up,” Saint Kloud said.

Seth clutched his chest. “Wounded. Emotionally battered by my own teammates, my fears belittled as not being worthwhile. I can feel the waterworks wanting to start, but I will hold them back with all of my strength.”

He caught Sonic Pulse’s mutter, “God, could he be more annoying?” She’d found a thin paperback book and was puzzling through the French writing.

Seth fought back the childish urge to stick his tongue out at her. For some reason, they’d been rubbing each other the wrong way recently. It hadn’t quite reached the point where he would put in for a transfer, but he’d thought about it.

It was hard to trust his life and the success of the team’s missions to someone that was so obviously not dealing with her own problems. Maybe she’d married Teen Steel too young. Maybe it was the lack of kids after years of trying. Whatever it was, Seth didn’t appreciate the thinly veiled resentment with which Sonic Pulse treated him. It wasn’t like he was trying to steal Teen Steel away from her or anything.

He turned away from her and reached for the suitcase. If they were going to be here for the next little while, he figured it was time to do a bit of snooping.

The suitcase was a deep red color with brown accents. There was a combination lock, but the owner had left it open. It was practically an invitation for Seth to unzip the lid and flop it open.

“Oh shit,” he said. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

“What? Why?” Jackblade peered over his shoulder.

“Because we’re in the lair of the beast,” Seth said. “This is El Muerto’s room.”

/EXCERPT

Drama!!!