Monthly Archives: March 2014

Short Story: The price of war

Posted on by
Reply

I shouldn’t have to say it, but this is a work of satire. Although wouldn’t it be funny if the idiots on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox reported this as factual? It’s happened too many times to take any chances. This isn’t real!!!

You hear it everyday in the evening news: conflict. In the Middle East, America is the Great Satan. Propagandists are busy indoctrinating their country’s children to hate our country, and the freedom she represents.

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down, but terrorists are quick to fill in the void left in the wake of our leader’s retreat.

North Korea and the mentally unstable regime headed by the sociopath Kim Jong Un are wanting to destabilize the region, and eradicate the fragile illusion of peace.

Now Russia is trying to resurrect their past glory by reviving the old cohesiveness of the Soviet Union, eschewing the democracy that so many lived and died to set into place.

And what of China? India? Pakistan? What of the rest of the world? Who will be the leader building up a cult of personality, whose hubris will march the world closer to annihilation?

The world is indeed a scary place, and more so than it has been since the end of the cold war, and longer since the days of John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust. It’s been more than fifty years since the specter of nuclear war has hung so precariously over humanity.

What can we do?

Hello, my name is John C. Weiss, founder and C.E.O. of Weiss and Fleece National Defense Contractors Inc., with a proposition for our American viewers. The price of peace is at an all time high, and the price of war is sure to bankrupt our government, jeopardizing our sovereignty for the first time in centuries. This is where you can help, and why I’m here calling on you.

As a way to minimize costs for our national defense, I’m asking all patriotic Americans to donate to the Secure Our World Defense Fund. S.O.W. was created with one purpose in mind, to raise funds to build up our national stockpile of chemical and nuclear weapons, as a deterrent to the further escalation of hostilities that heretofore have remained simmering just under the surface, waiting to boil over.

Mutually Assured Destruction may have worked in the past, but it’s high time we build an arsenal that can not only take out our threats, but can also intercept any launch headed towards us, or to any of our remaining allies.  With our Predictive Launch Algorithms, we can now accurately launch a preemptive strike on missile bases in even the most remote of locations.

Further, we intend to build Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, with the names of all our sponsors etched into each individual hull, to let our enemies know once and far all, who paid to kill them, not that they’ll live to read it.

And in desert, we are building a monument, a final testament to the spirit of a race so determined to render itself extinct, that they fought to the death of not only themselves, but to the only known center of life in the universe.

If life does exist out in the cold reaches of space, and in the event they learn to traverse the distances and visit us, then they can witness the monumental stupidity of a race that killed itself, and read the names of the ones responsible. For a one-time donation of $100, you can have a brick engraved on the walk leading to the monument. For $1 Million, you may have an obelisk built in your honor. There are many more options to choose from in between!

Don’t be the only ones left out from this one time special offer to destroy all mankind. Space may be limited, but not as limited as the time of man on Planet Earth. Finance your own destruction. Call now, and the first 500 callers will receive this special t-shirt as a free gift, not that you will have too much time to boast of your murder.

Thank you, and please be generous.

My other short stories

Nowing hour

Posted on by
Reply

I woke up this morning to see a friend of mine make a reference to Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Naturally I reread the poem, and one thing led to another, whereupon I came across this website for archaic words. I started playing around, writing my own poem as a writing exercise. I’m not really a poet, and I’m not even sure this makes any sense, but if it doesn’t I’ll claim poetic license. Enjoy!

Embed from Getty Images

Nowing hour

I began one stagnant eve
upon the threshold between yore and nowing hour
where I stood a waffling man
shifting amongst wants with mask aglower.
Inly I began to sweven
whenas slumber I forsook
the nowing hour nigh upon me come
wist ruth, desire aflamed in my coeur.

Afore decisions be made
a rede I hight hither now
of yore I shan’t return
of morrow erelong I must embrace.
Verily, the path long sought
peradventure must be trod
afore the threshold between yore and nowing hour
breaks, erelong shackled I be made.

My other short stories

Maybe I’m to blame….

Posted on by
Reply
Embed from Getty Images

I find myself with plenty of free time to do some quality writing today. It’s sad that I don’t often have it, and when I do, I don’t always take advantage of it. I doubt I’m the only would-be novelist guilty of such a sin, but I can’t speak for the others. Today I confess my own failings as a writer.

Writing is such a chore, and because it is, I tend to put it off. You’ll rarely catch me writing in the morning, if ever. I do my best in the afternoon, or even later. When I get in my rhythm, it’s not unusual to be past midnight, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, holding exhaustion at bay.

My job does not give me a set schedule so that I can get into a routine. That’s what I need. We all love routines, though we may complain about it from time to time. Our bodies want to go to bed at a set time, get up at a set time, eat and conduct our lives at a set time. Granted, we don’t want to get into so set a routine that we fall into a rut. We demand routine and some flexibility to make life interesting.

So, I’m justifying my failure. It’s not my fault. The “Man” is keeping me from pursuing my dream. It’s better to blame my failure on someone else than to look in the mirror and realize it’s my own fault. Not going to happen. It’s the Man!

Excuses only absolve me so much, or maybe not at all. I’ve let myself get distracted by too many things. Success demands so much out of us, that most of us give up without realizing we have until it’s too late. Sometimes we never come to terms with the idea that we ceased pursuing our goals. “There’s always tomorrow, after all!”

Enough dawdling. I need to shut everything out for a while and let myself find my flow and let the words flow out of me. As Ernest Hemingway once said,

“There is nothing to writing.
All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed.”

With all due respect to Mr. Hemingway, I’m all out of typewriters, so I hope my laptop will suffice. Also, while I’m thinking about it, I may need to contact the blood bank, you know, just in case. I’m O-Positive for future reference. Something tells me that I won’t need them.

What are you reading?

Posted on by
3

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
~Dr. Seuss~*

I bought the Divergent box set recently off of Amazon, and it has sat of my desk for several weeks, begging me to be read. I found some time on Tuesday to crack open the first book, and instantly found myself drawn in by the story. I stayed up until three in the morning reading the book before putting it down to sleep. I finished it the next morning.

I’ve started the second book in the series, Insurgent, and I’m loving it. I plan to be done with it by this evening, and maybe start reading the last book, Allegiant. Then there’s the movies. Divergent is in theaters, which I’m planning on seeing tomorrow after I get off work.

It’s been a long time since a book has captured my attention in this way. Rowling managed to do so with her Harry Potter series, and once I discovered it, So did Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I read the Twilight novels, and I enjoyed them as well for what they were, and I fail to see why people reacted to viscerally against them, especially since most poking fun of the series probably have never read a book.

These are just a few of the books that have entered the popular consciousness to such a degree that they become inescapable. I’ve read plenty of other books by authors that have not cracked the Best Sellers lists. I’ve enjoyed many self-published titles, many I have reviewed for you here on my blog. On of my favorite author is Morris West, author of The Shoes of the Fisherman, and The Clowns of God.

I read to escape the tedium of life. I read to lose myself to the imagination. I read to transport myself into adventure. I read so that I may know, and in so knowing, to learn, to grow, and to better myself.

I’ve encountered strange ideas, thoughts that were at once foreign and alien to me, but once read, helped shape me into the person I am today. I soaked up ideas like a sponge, thirsty for knowledge, insatiable and unquenchable. I know I’m not alone.

I read mostly for pleasure, but what I read can provoke me to think about the bigger picture. What is the book about? What is the author trying to say?  How is what I’m reading relevant to me and to the world at large? Good books promote lively discussions.

My question today – as you can probably guess by my not-so-cryptic title – is what are you reading now? What ideas are you gleaming from the book or article? Are you willing to share with us? Leave a comment and share with us your thoughts. I would love to know!

“A home without books
is a body without a soul.”
~Marcus Tullius Cicero~*

* – Quotes on reading came from ThinkExist.

Book Review: The Trinity

Posted on by
3

Happy Monday everyone! Spring is around the corner, so I’m sending you all hopes of a warm and pleasant spring season. As promised, today I’m bringing you my review of The Trinity, by Daelynn Quinn. You can find her on her website, on Twitter, or on Facebook. Follow her and give her your support! Please note, if you haven’t read the rest of the Fall of Venus Trilogy, this review does contain spoilers. Read at your own risk!

“One’s greatest fear, when confronted,
Invokes one’s greatest strength.” ~Anonymous
-as read by Pollen McRae

the trinityPollen McRae is a young woman struggling to keep her world together. Her dead brother is alive, her niece Evie captured by the Crimson Enforcers, the militia of the Trinity, and she is pregnant with a child whose paternity is very much in doubt. All this while the world teeters on the edge of annihilation.

Most of the world population is dead, due to a virus released by the Trinity, and Pollen, her brother Drake, and Evie may hold the key to the survival of the human race. The best hope for survival is to escape and colonize a neighboring planet before the madness of the trio who seek to control the destiny of the populace destroys them all.

It’s a race against time. The planet is heating up, global warming is fast making the world uninhabitable during the summer months. All the while, the population is having to seek refuge in underground colonies called the web. Pollen is assured a seat on the first shuttle mission to colonize an alien world, but she refuses to go unless Evie is rescued first.

Can Pollen and the rest of the refugees at Ceborec save Evie and thwart the demented plans of the Trinity? At risk are the lives of everyone on the planet. Who will ultimately triumph, the power-mad self-appointed rulers of a dying world, or Pollen, a young woman striving to keep the remains of her family intact? Survival is at stake.

There is only life or death to be gained, and there are no second chances….

Daelynn created a wonderfully engaging story, filled with hope and wonder, and also pain and heartbreak. Even when I thought I knew where the writer was taking the story, she managed to throw a twist and surprise me. In the trilogy as a whole, Daelynn never allowed the reader to grow complacent with the plot, and guided us on a journey we could never expect.

At the end of the series, I was left amazed by the storytelling. Some may question why she chose to write this book, or why she chose to write it the way she did. Daelynn plays with the concepts of origin and evolution, of the Genesis stories of creation, and of theology itself to wonderful effect. It is at once controversial and entertaining, and well worth the read.

The story was highly imaginative and original. The narrative itself was well-written and exciting, The ending did leave me perplexed, but I recognized that I had allowed my own prejudices guide me to a conclusion that never materialized. Instead, my expectations allowed me to be shocked, and I appreciated it all the more.

I highly recommend not only this book, but the rest of the series as a whole. Please check all her books out. The links are at the bottom.

The Fall of Venus Trilogy
Fall of Venus
Crimson Return
The Trinity

List of Book Reviews
Next Review –  The Ship
Previous Review – Hat Dance