Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Prefaces from Failed Fantasy Novels
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
a) It was a troubled time for Gaul. The Dauphin, orphaned son of a murdered king, grew shackled to a gilded throne. While his powerful neighbours nipped at his heels, the sinister Magisters plotted against the boy, seeking to lure him into their sorcerous order. With one hand, the Regent guided the Dauphin’s rule, but the other was poised to snatch the crown from his head.
Little did anyone know how important tiny Outremer, a colony far across the sea, would play in the dark days to follow. This is an account of those days…
b) Between the time of the Old Masters and the Age of Reason, the Sons of Nesh rose up. Fought they did, and conquer and settle. The fires of war ceased, and what was once their prison became the spoils of war. By tusk and trunk, the Sons of Nesh ruled an Empire for time untold.
In a bloated and decadent Empire, Two Heirs arose, and all that came before was washed from memory, washed with blood and terror…
c) When I walked the earth as a man, I was a teller of tales, never short for words. It comes as some surprise to me that I find difficulty in recording this chronicle. I suppose it has been a long time though, over a lifetime since I was a cheerful young nomad, regaling the children of my Kaari tribe with clever and funny stories.
My name is Tok, and once I was a man. Once, but long ago.
For many decades, I have been more machine than man, little more than a brain and its supporting tissues, encased in a suit of steel. I am a cyborg, what my master calls “a robot with a dash of humanity”.
d) ‘Lord Valiant! I do not fear your Hawk-Sword!’ Sacre-Morte roared from his tower. ‘You were deceived by the Lady of Blades. Nothing can harm me!’
‘Come and face me then, coward,’ Valiant bellowed. ‘If thou art truly the Blade-Master that thine heralds and brigands declare that thou art, thou wilt not fear mine Hawk-Sword. Foul varlet, I spit on your Tower of Terror,’
The blonde-haired saviour of the realm turned his defiant chin to the Tower, and did just that. As the hero’s spittle ran down the foul magical creation, Sacre-Morte screamed in rage.
Unleashing Vulture-Blade, he jumped from the parapet to join in a clashing and epic battle…
Parenthetical Visitors
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
The women in long white dresses (who weren’t really there) said they were travelers. They’d traveled a long, long way.
They told Robert all this (without making any noise), and asked if he could turn over a moss-covered rock on the side of the road.
He was early. The Keeper of the Royal Signet probably wouldn’t reach the field for another hour–another insult, added to those that had finally pushed Robert past respectful silence, and had, ironically, made the Keeper the injured party. He kicked the rock over with his heel.
The women in long white dresses (who weren’t really there) were fascinated by what they found in the mud, pointing at bugs that scurried through their incorporeal fingers. Robert wanted to ask if there was anything else they wanted, but couldn’t bring himself to talk to what he were just figments of his exhaustion, bits of dreams he might have had if he’d been able to get any sleep since the day of Carolyn’s refusal, the day he walked out of the Keeper’s service, the day of the challenge.
The women either couldn’t read his thoughts or were too busy to bother, so he tipped his hat slightly enough anyone would think he was adjusting it and continued between dew-soaked fields, past trees as laden with thieving birds as fruit, and over the bridge. The Keeper was there, early and impatient.
Then twenty minutes of waiting while Robert’s second didn’t arrive, the Keeper staring at Robert with a hatred undercut by frequent yawns, Robert trying not to look back. Then ten seconds that might have been a year while Robert chose his weapon. Then a time that hadn’t seemed to happen at all: the burning in his chest crowded out any memory of turning or hearing the tenth pace called.
“I bet the Duke a dozen by midsummer,” he heard the Keeper say. “This makes seven.”
Robert saw that the women in long white dresses (who weren’t really there) were there again, bending down over something even more fascinating than the underside of a rock. He went over to join them, and looked down at his own body (he wasn’t really there anymore either).
The women in long white dresses said they’d traveled a long, long way. Would Robert like to join them? And perhaps he could show them some interesting things before they left this world?