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I’m published!

That’s right–my first published story just came out in issue 58 of The Leading Edge.  I am happy to say that after three years of formally pursuing my career as a writer, I am now a published author!

The story is titled Decision LZ1527, and it’s about a guy asking a girl out on a date–as told from the point of view of the little men inside his head piloting his body like a starship. I really like the tagline in the table of contents: “A man, a woman, and a whole crew of matchmakers.”

Full disclosure: I submitted this story after I joined the staff as a volunteer slushpile reader.  Most of the editors for this issue are pretty good friends of mine (including the Production Director, who’s one of my most trusted alpha readers).  I submitted it under a pseudonym, however, so most of the staff didn’t know it was mine until after they’d accepted it.

The Leading Edge is known for the excellent quality of its illustrations, and I’m happy to say that I lucked out with with the artist the editors picked for my story!  Josh McGill is a graphic designer and aspiring children’s book illustrator.  He’s done art for issues 53 and 55 of The Leading Edge. The picture on the right is the one he did for the front page of my story.  I must say, I’m impressed!

The Leading Edge is a semi-professional small press science fiction and fantasy magazine affiliated with BYU.  It’s been in publication since the early 80s, when Marion K. “Doc” Smith’s famous “class that wouldn’t die” got together and started it, along with Quark and LTUE.  If you would like to support the magazine (and read my story!) you can purchase a copy of issue 58 at the following link:

Issue 58: “Redemption Songs”

Lot’s of people dream about getting published, but it takes a lot of hard work and rejection to actually make it happen.  As writers, though, we tend to be harder on ourselves than we ought to be.  It took almost four years for Decision LZ1527 to find its way into print, but it did.  That’s enough to make the rest of the process worth it.

Let’s hope it’s the first of many!

“This is my culture; this is my community”

So back at World Fantasy in San Jose, I picked up a bookmark for a science  fiction club in the Washington DC area, WSFA.  I figured that since I was headed out there, I should check it out.  Last night, I went to my first meeting.

Getting there was quite an adventure.  The meeting was in Maryland, at a member’s house–I had to go to the end of the green line, then cross over the beltway and walk nearly three miles to get there.  The sidewalks were still covered in snow, so I had to keep to the street, which was a little unnerving on the overpass–but I made it.

I didn’t know anybody there and had no idea what to expect, but the people were friendly and I soon felt like I fit in.  It was a little bit like a cross between Quark and Bimbos of the Death Sun, which is a pretty awesome mix.  The meeting was called to order and people started discussing some pretty interesting projects, like publishing a special edition Jeff Vandermeer novella for Capclave in October and getting various things for the con squared away.

A couple of things about the club surprised me: one, the members were all middle aged and older; and two, how extremely liberal everyone was, politically.  I say I was surprised, but really, I could easily have seen this coming.  The east coast is very different from the inter-mountain west, so it stands to reason that there would be differences.  Not that I minded.

I’m not sure how many people in the club are writers, but like any good sf&f community, everyone seems to be an avid reader.  I was surprised that so few people had heard of World Fantasy, but when I told them I wanted to break into publishing, they all told me that I should come to Capclave, the DC area con that happens in October.  Will I be in the area for that?  Not sure yet.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to walk back to the metro; one of the regulars was heading to Arlington and gave me a ride.  We had an interesting conversation on the way back–he’s from Philly, drove a cab for a few years, and has quite a colorful vocabulary.

We were talking about fandom in general, though, and he made the comment “this is my culture; this is my community.” That’s exactly the sense that I got from the meeting–that these fans have built a community around science fiction and fantasy that transcends fandom and stretches into all other aspects of their life.  It’s similar in some ways to the sense of community that you feel in the LDS church–even when you move to a new place, you’re not a stranger.

Am I going to keep coming to WSFA meetings, or become a member?  I don’t know.  A lot of it depends on what I do in April.  I’ll probably come to a few more meetings, though–these are my people.

Quest for Lost Heroes by David Gemmell

It has been forever since I read this book.  Still, I really should review it.  Here goes.

At Bel-Azar, four friends held out against hopeless odds, only to be spared by the Nadir Khan.  Known by the Nadir as the “ghosts yet to be,” they enjoyed the fame of heroes for a time, but now live in obscurity in their own kingdom.

When a band of slavers raze a village and carry off the women, however, a young, reckless boy named Kiall calls upon the forgotten heroes to help him free his unrequited love.  And so the “ghosts yet to be” join together for one last quest, only to find that the stakes are much higher than any of them could have forseen…

David Gemmell writes awesome fantasy!  Some of the best I have ever read.  This one, while not quite as deep and meaningful as others like Legend, had its moments.  Let me just say, Gemmell knows how to kill off his characters.

The story started off very well, with some interesting introductions.  It felt a bit like a cowboy movie, where the heroes are all outcasts, unable to find their place in mainstream society.  I immediately took a liking to the main character, Chareos–Gemmell knows how to write heroic characters, even dark heroic characters.

The action began immediately, with blood and battle in every chapter.  As usual, Gemmell did an excellent job getting to the meaning (or lack thereof) of it all, but at times, it felt a little bit superficial.  Not very much, but sometimes, it seemed that he threw the action in just to keep the story interesting.  It didn’t pack quite the same punch as Legend, which was a much superior book.

It took me a few chapters to feel that the story was progressing–Gemmell isn’t always strong on plot–but once I did, it really took off.  I finished the last hundred or so pages at a sprint, and the ending, like all of Gemmell’s endings, did not disappoint.

Overall, I’d say this book is more fan action-adventure story than anything else–light reading, compared to Gemmell’s other work.  Still, it was definitely entertaining, and much deeper and well-written than your typical thriller.  If you like heroic adventure stories with lots of action, you’ll love this book.

FINISHED!

YES!  My last semester of classes at Brigham Young University is FINISHED!

And now I’ve got to grade a million tests and papers, mail my books home (the ones that I’m willing to pay to keep), clean out my car, sell it (I hope), pack all my junk in two >50 lb. bags and a carry-on…all before Monday.  Yikes!

It’s too late to be up.  I need to sleep.

But…school is finished!

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Urras and Annares, a world and its moon, separated by the gulf of space and two hundred years of mutual contempt.  On Urras, capitalist and socialist nations vie for dominance over the world’s rich and abundant resources.  On  Annares, the anarchist exiles scrounge for a meager living, but live in peace–and in hope.

Shevek has never known any other world than the anarchist utopia of Annares.  His life’s work is to develop a unified theory of simultaneity–a tremendous feat that will rework the paradigm of space travel and communication.  When the people of Annares reject his theory, however, he voyages to Urras in the hopes that by offering his theory as a gift to all nations, he can bridge the gap between the worlds.

Hopelessly inexperienced in the cutthroat ways of the propertarians, Shevek has no idea what he is getting himself into.  In his gilded prison, with nations vying for control of his person, can he find allies who share his idealistic, utopian vision?  Or is he alone in a world of greed, lies, and murder?

This is, quite possibly, one of the most impressive and beautiful works of literary science fiction that I have read.  It may be the best novel I’ve read all year.  Le Guin’s characters are so deep, her ideas so compelling, her worlds so rich, her writing so poetic and beautiful that I hardly know where to start.

One of the many things that made this book so good was the depth of Le Guin’s character development.  The story had a plot, and Le Guin dropped just enough pieces of it here and there for you to know that there was one, but more than anything this book is a portrait of an incredibly interesting man, Shevek.

The book actually contains two stories that merge into one in the end.  One taking place in the present, after Shevek arrives at Urras, and the other is a series of flashbacks showing how he arrived at that point.  Le Guin alternates brilliantly between past and present to reveal insights into Shevek’s character that would otherwise remain unexplored.  By the end of this novel, I felt that I knew this man–and loved him–better than anyone in real life, including myself.  It blew me away.

Le Guin’s worldbuilding, too is incredible.  Before reading this book, I didn’t consider myself an anarchist, but after spending so much time in the utopian society of Anarres, I almost want to become one.  Le Guin meticulously extrapolates her world from her highly perceptive understanding of human nature, paying such attention to detail that her anarchist world is not only surprisingly plausible, but enviable as well.  This is the kind of world that I would like to visit, explore, and perhaps even settle down in and live.

Her ideas, like her world, are meticulously well thought out and incredibly compelling.  In the Hainish cycle, Shevek is the inventor of the ansible drive, the technology that eventually enables peaceable diplomatic missions to other worlds, such as the one chronicled in The Left Hand of Darkness. Shevek’s struggle is to find a way to let this technology bring peace and break down walls, rather than empower tyrants to conquer and destroy.  Time and again, Shevek’s egalitarian, anarchist values come to the surface, clashing not only with those of capitalist Urras, but with our own.

All of this would be enough to make this a compelling, memorable story–but Le Guin’s stunning, beautiful prose puts this book into a league of its own.  The rhythm and beauty in her words made every page a joy to read, with descriptions that kept me entranced and dialogue that made her characters leap off of the page.  Above all, her prose conveys with powerful and compelling clarity the many life-changing ideas and themes of this story.  The book’s last words still haunt me.

The Dispossed is, without a doubt, is one of the best works of Science Fiction that I have read.  I would even go so far as to claim that it is a superior book to Le Guin’s better known work, The Left Hand of Darkness. If I could read a book this insightful every month, I would be a much better man, and have a much deeper and imaginative understanding of the world than I presently have.  This book is a true masterpiece.

FF6 Werewolf Tribute: fifth day

[NOTE: this is part twelve in a series of posts lifted from the quark message boards where I recently GM’d a game of Werewolf.  The theme was Final Fantasy 6, one of my favorite RPGs.  To see the other posts in the series, click here.

WARNING: there will be spoilers here, and lots of them, so if you haven’t played Final Fantasy 6, do yourself a favor and play the game before reading on!]

Shafts of light from deep within Kefka’s tower break through as the walls and floors begin to break apart. With Kefka dead, all magic passes from the world in a great and tremendous storm. The magicite shards of the Espers disintigrate into thin air. Kefka’s tower, held aloft only by magic, begins to collapse.

Cyan makes a mad dash for the Falcon, but when he gets there, he realizes that without Setzer to pilot it, he’s lost. The upper floor of the tower collapses into ruin, and Cyan falls with the Falcon to his death.

At least he dies knowing that he helped save the world from annihilation.

The “innocents” lynch Drakon, the last surviving innocent!

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the tower…

SHADOW (to INTERCEPTOR): Go on, Interceptor. Take care of yourself, boy…

SHADOW (to self): Relm, Strago…….it looks like I can finally stop running…

With everything collapsing all around him, Shadow leaps from the highest parapet of the collapsing tower, falling to the earth, to his death…

But as he falls, a familiar presence envelops him…the presence of a young girl, barely ten, and an older girl, not entirely human…

With the last of her ebbing magic, the ghost of Terra wraps her glowing arms around Shadow’s body and lowers him gently to the ground. The ghost of Relm, who has followed Shadow through the power of the Momento Ring which he wears, summoned the Esper girl’s spirit to his rescue. With the last of her strength, she saves him and gives him a chance at a new life.

With Kefka’s evil, draining presence gone from the world, the clouds begin to break up, allowing the sun to shine through once more. Life and color returns to the ruined world, and with it, hope…for life, love, hope, and the promise of rebirth.

Before Relm’s spirit departs to the Phantom train with the others, her presence lifts the darkness from Shadow’s troubled heart. He takes off his mask and resolves to return from his self-imposed exile from the world and leave his dark past behind…forever.

Victory for the Assassin!

PLAYER ROLES:

Avulsion: MAFIA
Baggins: NECROMANCER (Bannon)
Barigirl: INNOCENT (Edgar)
Caysyka: INNOCENT (Sabin)
CptSqweky: INNOCENT (Gau)
Drakon: INNOCENT (Cyan)
Drek: DETECTIVE (Terra)
Fredward: INNOCENT (Celes)
Jerle: MAFIA
Locke: INNOCENT (Locke)
Lunesar: MAFIA RECRUIT (Setzer)
Onlera: ASSASSIN (Shadow)
PharaohsQueen: INNOCENT (Relm) DL ASSASSIN
sunstarr12: MAFIA
ZeroMoon17: INNOCENT (Strago)

FF6 Werewolf Tribute: fifth night

[NOTE: this is part eleven in a series of posts lifted from the quark message boards where I recently GM’d a game of Werewolf.  The theme was Final Fantasy 6, one of my favorite RPGs of all time.  To see the other posts in the series, click here.

WARNING: there will be spoilers here, and lots of them, so if you haven’t played Final Fantasy 6, do yourself a favor and play the game before reading on!]

The battle continues…

The four friends come to the second tier of Kefka’s monument to nonexistence–a pillar of half-embodied beasts and humans, melded together in chaos. Cyan, Sabin, and Shadow prepare to fight the terrible monster, but a glossy-eyed look comes over Setzer, and he holds back…

SETZER: Phew… I don’t know if I have it in me anymore…

CYAN: What are you saying?!

SETZER: I’m just a gambler… I just want to be left alone… This
world is too chaotic for me. What’s worse, I’ve lost my wings…

SABIN: But before the world collapsed you fought with all your heart!
You were absolutely fearless…

SETZER: That was then… We can never have that world back!

Setzer’s eyes roll back in his head, and he reaches for his magical cards, but before he can turn on his friends, a shuriken strikes him square in the face, right between the eyes! Blood trickling across his pale skin, mingling with his silver hair, he falls end over end to the Earth below, dead.

Assassin kills Lunesar, a mafioso!

Working together, Sabin, Cyan, and Shadow defeat the monsters of the second tier of Kefka’s monument, and progress to the third. Shrouded in clouds, this one consists of a decapitated goddess’s head floating above a muscular, reclining man, surrounded by torches. The three survivors fight long and hard, but the monsters refuse to give way.

In desperation, Shadow throws one of his skeans at the decapitated head, and it shatters into a thousand pieces–but a magical implosion sends out a shockwave that knocks Sabin off of his feet and sends him careening to the ground, far, far below.

Assassin kills Caysyka, an innocent!

Alone, Cyan and Shadow rise above the destruction to face…FINAL KEFKA.

Angel wings sprout from his back, and his skin has turned a pale, sickly purple from unnatural levels of infused magic. His face is contorted into a permanent smile, and his eyes are pale and lidless. His muscles bulge with pure energy, and every movement seethes with hatred.

KEFKA: Life… Dreams… Hope… Where did they come from?
Where are they headed? These things… I am going to destroy!

At the sound of his voice, despair floods over the minds of the two surviving warriors, pulling them down, urging them to give up and die. But deep inside their hearts, hope shines through the darkness, hope for a new and better world, compelling them forward! They have long since given up every care for their own lives. Now, they fight on for the memory of those they love–and the love of those who still live!

Kefka readies his final attack, the consummation of his depraved monument, the explosion of pure magic that will annihilate all existence forever…

KEFKA: The end comes… beyond chaos.

At that moment, Cyan leaps into the air, and with a mighty, piercing scream, hurls the Atma Weapon at Kefka with all his strength!

Kefka screams and disintegrates into a thousand pieces!

PLAYERS:

All dead, except:

Drakon
Onlera

DAY

FF6 Werewolf Tribute: fourth day

[NOTE: this is part ten in a series of posts lifted from the quark message boards where I recently GM’d a game of Werewolf.  The theme was Final Fantasy 6, one of my favorite RPGs of all time.  To see the other posts in the series, click here.

WARNING: there will be spoilers here, and lots of them, so if you haven’t played Final Fantasy 6, do yourself a favor and play the game before reading on!]

Sabin, Setzer, and Cyan make their way to the Falcon, an airship that Setzer reconstructed many years ago for a friend. On their way, they meet up with Shadow, who offers his assistance. He, too, has decided that with nothing left to lose, the only course of action that makes sense in this ruined world is to take on the godlike Kefka.

Using the Falcon, the party makes an aerial drop on Kefka’s tower and fights their way through a series of impossible traps and monsters. Working together, they make their way through, until finally, at the heart of the hellish dungeon, they come face to face with…KEFKA.

KEFKA: Welcome, friends! I knew you’d make it here, so I’ve prepared
some suitable entertainment for you!

CYAN: How long are you going to let the destruction continue?

KEFKA: I’ve tapped into the ultimate power. Observe…!

Kefka levitates Setzer.

KEFKA: Such magnificent power! You are like insects to me!

Kefka lifts Shadow into the air with his magic and throws him against a wall.

KEFKA: I will exterminate everyone, and everything!

SABIN: People will keep rebuilding the things you take from them.

KEFKA: Then I’ll destroy those too. Why do people rebuild things they
know are going to be destroyed? Why do people cling to life when they
know they can’t live forever? Think how meaningless each of your
lives is!

CYAN: It’s not the net result of one’s life that is important. It’s
the day-to-day concerns, the personal victories, and the celebration
of life…and love! It’s enough if people are able to experience the
joy that each day can bring!

KEFKA: And have you found your “joy”, in this nearly dead world of
yours?

ALL: Yes!

CYAN: My family lives on inside of me.

SABIN: I have come to experience anew the love of my brother!

SETZER: My friend’s airship…and her love!

SHADOW: I know what friendship is…and family…

KEFKA: This is sickening… You sound like chapters from a self-help
booklet! Prepare yourselves!

KEFKA: Now, for my next trick, I will make you all…disappear!

SETZER: Kefka, you don’t know what you’re doing! Stop!

Kefka sends the Light of Judgement on the southern coast ot the
southern continent.

KEFKA: I command the greatest power in the universe! You are all
helpless before me!

Kefka rises on a tower, while other party members do the same.

KEFKA: I will destroy everything… I will create a monument to
non-existence!

CYAN: Life will go on! There will always be people, and dreams.

KEFKA: No! I will hunt them down. I will destroy it all! Destroy!
Destroy! Destroy!!

SABIN: We will not allow you to harm another living thing!

KEFKA: Hee, hee, hee!! But what fun is destruction if no “precious”
lives are lost!

Kefka sends another Light of Judgment on the northwest continent.

SHADOW: It’s over, Kefka!

With those words, the fight begins!

The ground on which Kefka stands suddenly lurches upward, and a host of monsters appear. Cyan, Sabin, Setzer, and Shadow fight their way through the first tier, a frighteningly monstrous beast with bulging muscles and a powerful physical attack. Working together, they defeat the monster and progress to the second tier!

Innocents lynch sunstarr12, a mafioso!

NIGHT