Child of the Order #4

It had taken far more resources than expected to bring the first one down than anticipated. He would be known as Alpha. He had taken control of the security infrastructure of school in which he had been placed and was able to wreck havoc on all attempts to breach the facility. Upon entering, the assault team found gore, blood, and mutilated bodies strewn about the corridors posed in different positions, some grotesque, some sexual, all were disturbing, even to hardened members of the assault team. Even the lights were coated in blood and gore casting a crimson hue on everything.

Child of the Order #3

The first merge of man and machine resulted horribly. It had been a teenage boy mind melded with a cyborg body. The original tests in controlled environments had been more successful than any had hoped, and even once he was released into a limited population it had seemed the cyborg technology would make it possible to transplant functional minds into mechanical bodies, but once the boy realized he was no longer human because his body no longer had to dispose of waste. He had stumbled for person to person saying, "Hello," as he drove his hydraulic powered fists through heads.

Child of the Order #2

The computer mind had never expected to be so lucky as to be offered such a pliable mind. The doctrination of the Maji of Order fell away quickly when pressured. The child gladly accepted the offer and gave over the power of his body at the promise of pain and vengeance to be exacted upon the Order. It was a remarkable union which left both parties satisfied after the first demonstration of their power. And the merge had only been 48% complete upon testing their bounds on the first scientists. The union of child and machine would be glorious indeed.

Child of the Order #1

So I've had my mind completely overrun by drabble recently after being assaulted by fun that is Jake Bible's "Dead Mech", the world's first drabble novel. So now I'm going to have a little fun with that wonderful little writing style that follows after his novel. Each day I'm going to see how long I can string together a continuous and coherent story made up of a new drabble each day. And what is a drabble? It's 100 words, not 99, not 101, exactly 100 words for an idea or story where authors attempt to show brevity and a cohesive story. But instead of following the only 100 words for the entire thing I'm going to go on the model Bible used and just created a chapter at a time that is drabble. This could be fun. It might not. I could be writing to myself again. We'll just have to wait and see. So with no further ado, here we go.

The mind merge was more seamless than any other the scientists had seen. It was as if the kid and the computer were meant for each other. Fear crawled up their collective spines when the child opened his eyes, the irises glowing blue. When his eyes fell upon them they could feel the rage filled glares of thousands. This had never been an outcome the scientists had anticipated. This was not supposed to happen. Each of the scientists struggled with similar thoughts as the malevolent grin darkened the child's features. He blinked his eyes and electric death embraced the scientists.

The Dinosaur and Me

There’s a dinosaur that lives out my front door. Some nights she’ll simply stand there to watch me as I watch her. I’ve watched her grow over the last year from a small frail creature to a twenty-five foot long beauty. Her slender neck will stretch above the tree line, silhouetted by the city night light and peer at me with curiosity in her giant disc eyes. On those nights I can feel her move freely, without fear and the earth trembles as if a train is passing mere feet from my porch. Other nights it is impossible to see the shape of her slender, muscular neck above the field. Those nights she moves with as if she were a cat on the prowl. Her presence would go otherwise unnoticed if I had not come to know what it feels like to have her mythical eyes upon me. My skin crawls as I walk along the street, dog leash in one hand, cigarette in the other. I am uncertain if it is me she does not trust, for I have told none of her existence. For she is mine and I am hers.

We exist for each other in this darkest of times. I watch the world come apart around us. The political and economic monsters work their terrible deeds and grow larger while the world is no longer able to sustain their girth. Is it her fear I feel seeded in the pit of my stomach or my own? Is it possible that somehow she is somehow a remnant, a survivor, of the tragedy that laid waste to our planet eons ago? I do not think it so for I have watched her grow from a babe to the beautiful creature she is today. Perhaps there is an ancestral knowledge that has somehow passed through the ages to her. Maybe a genetic trait that allows her to recall the memories of her kin, of the terrible fate they met, and she can sense the world changing around us. The two of us stand still while the world moves on. We are but flesh and bone that remains the same, while the mechanical, the industrial, the technological world continues to expand exponentially. She is the comfort that steadies me when the earth feels as though it will shake and crumble beneath my feet. And I like to think my presence provides her solace as well. For she is mine and I am hers.

Perhaps one day she will approach me. Her powerful legs are more mighty than the oak. The muscles flex beneath her weight and move her forward as she follows me on my nightly jaunts. Her tail sways to the rhythm of the heartbeat of the planet as it balances her form. The long lines of her svelte neck stretch to the sky as she strains to keep me in view when I crest the hill down the street. The cacophony that rises from the city beyond calls to me, yet the world is not what it was, and its change is and is to come is not for me. I return to my place near her as the world moves on without us. My place is with her. Unchanging. Natural. We are a dying breed I decide. We are a reminder to the world of things that were and can never be again. For she is mine and I am hers.

Her head nuzzles my hand as we stand on the hill watching the world below. The city has expanded around us. Our little field is all that is unchanged, all that is still natural. She has grown frail over the years. The foliage and fields that once supplied her massive body with precious calories are no more and she barely has the strength to raise her head from the ground. But she does so to comfort me. Her once supple skin has grown dry over the years as the world dried, all the blessings and offerings of the earth have been stolen greedily by those mechanical creatures below us. There are scabs on her sandpaper hide where she has curled around me to protect me in times of duress. Her skin splits and bleeds and there is no comfort I can give to her. There is nothing that can be done to ease our pain. My companion and I watch in terror at the horrors the mechanicals do to each other. Yet there is nothing we can do. We are cursed to watch this tragedy to its bitter end. But at least we have the company of each other. For she is mine and I am hers.

My dog has long since fallen at our side. The endless energy of her youth faded to nothing more than a weakly wagging tail decades ago. Then her head did not rise from my lap one morning. I stroked her still soft ears and cried, and with me the dinosaur cried. And for a time it seemed that life would come once more to our dying rock. But it is her passing that foretells the coming of the end. The creatures of the earth follow her into oblivion. Over time her bones are bleached white, but not before the mechanical scavengers can pick them clean. If I had the strength I would raise my hand to stop the transgression but as the world dies we die with it. The dinosaur and I wait for our end to come. Finally we understand our fates are intertwined. For she is mine and I am hers.

Her body is so frail now that her cracked and dried skin hangs from her bones loosely. Her ribs show easily on the sides of her once great belly. Her breathing is a labored wheeze without rhythm. The great discs of her eyes are glazing over with film, cataracts make her blind to the world around us. She only stares at me, her head turned sideways in my lap as I stroke her snout. I have tried so many times to cry, to give her something to drink, to moisten her skin if only for a moment, but the mechanical creatures have drained my soul and left me with nothing more to give. She chews on my beard which has grown longer than I am tall and she seems content to merely have something to do. We have long since given up hope that we will survive. The end is nigh and we both wait with patience developed over millennia for its arrival. Her skin is dust blown through my fingers as I grasp at her. The comforting rise and fall of her chest is gone and I am left to watch the end alone. But there is not long to wait. She has sustained me throughout the ages. Without her I cannot survive. For she is mine and I am hers.

Finally, a class that lets me interview podcasters, oh the joy

So the class load this semester isn't that crazy, but the classes require a lot of time. I suppose that's just the territory for finally getting out of the casual student range and into upper level courses. The amazing thing is that I'm actually months ahead of schedule thanks to one amazing podcast author.

There is a research based paper I'm working on and I am trying to arrange it to find where not just podcasting but other alternatives to big publishing fit into the picture. So now I find myself with a mountain of questions, pushing 30 or so with multiple part questions and tie in questions. The problem I'm facing is that I don't want to waste the time of the authors and creators who take time out of their schedules to help me out.

So I find myself asking for help. This is hopefully where others come in. Yes you.

What is too much? I'm trying to avoid personal questions, the kinds of things that have been asked many times over by others. (I'm also finding that I have no idea who has interviewed authors to be more certain as to what has been asked).

I really don't want to be the person who asks a question that was answered just a week earlier.

The other problem I am having is that I don't really know what is "off limits". I don't want to ask anything that pits an author against publishers or fans or outright upsets someone, but I'm really trying to find what innovative creators believe will be the future of fiction, be it published or podcast or anything else along the spectrum. Hoping to really get a feel for what some of the innovators behind podcast novels and other alternate publishing methods feel is the future of an art I love. Transmedia experience anyone? I know that's something I hope to see more of in the future.

Authors, podcasters, interviewers extraordinaire, lend me your eyes, your voice, your words.

After that long bit of rambling, the most important question would be:

Can you help?

Dragon*Con 2010

Dragon*Con 2010 was, well, Dragon*Con.

There was of course the insane rush of people, the Star Trek celebs, and even Stan Lee. Yes. That Stan Lee. In fact, we stayed in the same hotel. I even know someone who knows someone who knows someone who claims to have ridden in the elevator with him. But that is unimportant. Not that he is, but, well, you get my meaning.

The important thing was this: J.C. Hutchins finally won a Parsec. Sorry P.G., you are now the sole owner of the biggest loser title. Quite an accomplishment though. Really.

But J.C. Hutchins won a Parsec for his novella Personal Effects: Sword of Blood. Quite the tale. It is the prequel to his transmedia experience Personal Effects: Dark Art. The icing on the cake was then Hutch asked his sister to take a picture with me. I didn't ask, first anyways, he wanted a picture with me. How fricken cool is that? I mean really. The newly crowned Kentucky Colonel, podcasting pioneer, awesome author (he's going places folks), and all-around awesome dude wanted a picture with lil ol' me. It was just too cool. And the tattoo @alphasis was sporting was quite possibly the coolest I have ever seen.

I COMPLY.

Of course it wouldn't be Dragon*Con without another adventure in Getting Pissed with the FDO. Such pure entertainment. The highlight of which is easily when Scott Sigler did a little ballet for us all. Following that bit of fun Adam Savage just happened to show up in the hotel bar where were all crashing.

There was even a good bit of fun to be had with the always entertaining P.G. Holyfield who happened to be even more generous this year in the absence of Christof Laputka. You know, that giant, man of German descent who is behind the audio adventure The Leviathan Chronicles. And this year I didn't look like the local stalker at all the podcast panels following the podcasters. I branched out and spread my sickness in multiple places.

Coolness never ends at Dragon*Con.

With the massive amount of awesome from the weekend, what could possibly be better?

That's easy. I got episode 9 of FETIDUS from the hand of James Durham. It was just an insane experience. What started as a brief file transfer turned into a 2 hour conversation. That followed lunch with James and Christiana Ellis the day before. That lunch was so intimidating sitting two mental giants and quietly providing input in a mumble as I shoveled more food in my mouth. It was lunch, after all. Food does take priority. (But as a warning: Don't get the chicken salad with fried chicken. Not a pretty result.) It was, in all, an unbelievable and otherworldly experience. So cool.

In addition to all the cool things that happened over the weekend I managed to get myself inspired. I'm now sitting on a writing schedule that goes until April of next year. It's daunting to look at. Seven months worth of planning. Wow. That's something I never thought I would do in the past. In actuality, I've never planned more than a couple days in advance, much less such a stringent schedule. Now comes the difficult task of balancing classwork, work, and then my writing. I can't wait to see how this plays out.

The awesome never ends at Dragon*Con. And just like last year, I'm already looking forward to the next Dragon*Con. Though I do believe I'll branch out and hit up BaltiCon this year. Gotta love those conventions. So much fun. And the people there. Well, they're too cool for school. I've never met a more open, accepting, and helpful group of people than the folks that can be found in the podosphere.