Birthday cheer for everybody! I'm 67 today, but I'm giving instead of receiving and trying to make a real occasion of it. My own "Birthday Thoughts" may strike you as surprisingly cheery for a man my age, but there is good reason for them. Meanwhile, too late to affect the election in even the smallest way, I sound off on post-election challenges in "Apres Le Deluge, Who? And What?"
"Judgment Day" is the final chapter -- well, my final chapter -- of The Mission, the long-running serial that began as a vignette by myself in 2003 and morphed into a collaboration with Within This Realme's Rob a year later. It's been eight months since my last contribution (See March 5, 2008 update), and I might have just let the whole thing die except that the story involved James Kim'Vallara and his wife Bidu Braga, who have become important to me and are part of a larger continuity I have in mind. But I couldn't summon the energy to go the last mile on The Mission until recently, and it wasn't a terribly rewarding experience. It was even less rewarding for Velvet, who did the editing. Still, it gave me a chance to tie together some strands of the Kim'Vallara saga and hint at stories yet to come. For the rest, I stuck as close to Rob's outline as I could, but he had an HEA (Happily Ever After) for Oon'ah and Xanthra on Binkley's World rather than Sanctuary.
Encounter at Westfold is one of the tie-in stories, and another collaboration, but not the same kind. Shadar posted the beginning of an earlier version in 2005 at Aurora Universe: Other Worlds, and I was intrigued to learn there that Alisa Kim'Vallara a.k.a. Liddell had married Andre Kalik, whom she had first met during the expedition to Rostran in Shore Leave, and that they had three children -- including a Protector. But Shadar never took it much further; moreover, it annoyed me that he'd made Westfold pretty much like contemporary Earth despite the fact that it had been settled 200 years ago and been kept isolated from the rest of the universe ever since then. As Star Trek's Mr. Spock would say, that does not compute. So I've been tweaking the background, adding elements of steampunk fashion and a speeded-up technological revoluton while sticking to the original story. Today's posting covers the Prologue and the first two chapters; the rest will come later -- including some sort of continuation beyond what Shadar wrote three years ago.
Another tie-in story is The Popcorn War, which was planned out by Jordan Taylor and myself five years ago. I posted as much as we had written a little over a year ago, in hopes that we might both add to it soon. Alas, Jordan is simply too busy with Real Life right now to continue with it -- but I still have printouts of our e-mails from October and November 2003 (Good thing, that, because the electronic trail was lost during a change in computers!), and a general idea of where things were to go in the undercover mission of Velorian Legionnaires Romana and Cristina to find and root out the insurgency on Novo Recife. I'd always intended for James and Bidu to reappear at the end, and they will -- just not in Chapters VII-X being posted today. There are also a few continuity tweaks to the earlier chapters, so you should begin at the beginning.
Finally, a conclusion to "The Rescue." Originally inspired by a photo manip of Power Girl in a shower, the story has taken a number of strange turns since then, most of which I didn't imagine when I started it. The conclusion has taken me longer than I anticipated, owing to the distractions of real life and the complications of the story itself. The description of the Tyrrel Corp. building and Kira's offices comes from Tarot Barnes ("Grey November"). And it took Velvet to figure out where Jeff and Olga would be going at the end. But from a vignette of gratuitous sex, I think the story has grown into a worthwhile addition to the AU canon.
There's a link at my About the Aurora Universe page that must have gone dead long ago, or else never worked at all. It was supposed to be a link to an mp3 of a classical music piece that made me think of the Protectors. Since then, somebody at YouTube has put up a two-part recording of the piece I call a Velorian Overture, and you can find the links here.
Three new chapters added to "The Rescue," with three or four yet to come -- perhaps later this week. This story has taken an entirely different direction again, just as it did in the second and third chapters. There'll be more surprises in the finale, but I think it will all hang together in the end, even if it changes the significance of the title.
Has this ever happened to you? You pick up a new novel by an author you admire, an author who has a track record of commercial success and even literary esteem. And you end up shaking your head. I know it's happened to me -- I remember how I couldn't believe that Frederick Forsyth, author of classic thrillers like The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File could come out with a dud like The Devil's Alternative. But I never picked up another book by Forsyth, although he's written a number since. Well, it just happened to Velvet Belle Tree, with Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning. She loved Tan's The Joy Luck Club, and enjoyed other books by her -- but this latest, as she puts it, is just "Drowning in Words."
Nothing new today but a small rant about identity politics to my occasional (Very occasional; it's been three months now) blog. But it gives me an excuse to report on other things. I have figured out how "The Rescue" will end up; it's just a question of finding time to write it. I have in mind another story, as yet untitled, about the Madstop Conference and the creation of the Velorian Enlightenment, which has been the subject of recent discussion at the Aurora Universe Readers Group. I may pick up on Symbala, Shadar's first Tanzrobian character, for a story about the various stages of her life. There's still The Mission to finish, although I've left that alone for quite a while. Maybe another Velorian Legion story, although "The Popcorn War" should be finished first, even if I have to do it myself. And then there are long-dormant shared projects, notably Shore Leave with Shadar...
Today, two more chapters of "The Rescue." Unlike a lot of my stories, this one I've been making up as I go along. It was only the night before last (with help from Velvet) that I came up with what Alfred Hitchcock used to call the maguffin, and just yesterday that I figured out how the third chapter was going to end. Despite the furiously gratuitous sex of the first chapter, this is a sort of Hitchcockian scenario -- a guy getting caught up in intrigue he can't understand. I found out that even Shadar didn't know who the shower scene model was, so the Vel now known as Dawn (not necessarily her real name) was out of the stort. "Liz" isn't a Vel, but I know what she will turn out to be, anon...
Nothing could prepare you for the denouement of Tarot Barnes' Aurora's Tale. Certainly nothing prepared me when I read the original draft more than two years ago. It's a heartbreaker, a tragic ending that none but Tarot would dare write. But it is the climax of a tale of incredible courage and incredible loyalty, on the part of Aurora herself and the Porturegans who fight with her and for her. Scenes like the battle for the spaceport and the final duel between Aurora and the Tset'lar Tala will be etched in your memory. With some final edits by Tarot, I am proud to offer the finale of what I am certain will be a classic of our genre.
Herewith the second part of Aurora's Tale, Chapters 5-8 of Tarot's edit, with further edits by myself, almost entirely on matters of spelling, punctuation and style. The substance is Tarot's. Here the action moves to a new front, as the beleagured Porturegans pursue a strategy that doesn't seem to make any sense. Capture an Arion freighter? Only it does make sense; it's part of a plan that may be the only hope for Betah Stronberg. Yet Aurora, worshipped by many, is often kept in the dark by the military. It's a tense relationship, and an intense one. And for you, the readers, a suspenseful one: it's not just what will happen next, but what it will mean to the Protector and her protectorates?
Real life, and another writing project unrelated to the Aurora Universe, have kept me too busy to update The Bright Empire in more than a month, or to add any fiction in more than two months. To the rescue comes Tarot Barnes, whose Aurora's Tale, a novel running to nearly 80,000 words, was being serialized at his Alternate Histories site when a rancorous thread at the Aurora Universe Readers Group led him to quit the group and suspend his writing.
I can hardly find words for how terrible I feel about that turn of events, and I hope that Tarot will see his way clear to return to the Aurora Universe community. In the meantime, he has kindly authorized me to serialize the whole of his epic -- and it is an epic. I had seen the rough draft of Aurora's Tale more than two years ago, and was overwhelmed by it at the time. I sent him some edits, and he has since worked with JH on refining the story. I had been afraid that most of that refinement had been left undone, but it turns out that Tarot had finished all but the last chapter, and he has advised me on how to complete that.
The installment being posted here today includes Chapters One through Four, which is one less than the version now at Alternate Histories. But the fourth chapter ends at a more natural break point. Moreover, I have put the text through Spell/Grammar check and made a number of minor corrections (mostly in punctuation and spelling, including Americanizing terms like "armour"), and also corrected the chapter numbers (Tarot somehow posted two chapters labeled Chapter 2.). But these were minor glitches in a powerful story -- the story of Aurora Fairchild and her struggle to save the world of Betah Stronberg from Arion conquest while herself being threatened by the Tset'lar Tala. It is a story of triumph and tragedy, of hope and despair, of great loves and great hatreds. It's like nothing you've read before. If you read any Aurora Universe fiction, if you want to know what greatness it can achieve, you must read Aurora's Tale.
I don't usually post partial drafts of my own stories, but I am making an exception here with "The Rescue" for two reasons. First, I haven't had enough time to work on it. Second, I have to decide, not the overall course of the story, but whether Jeff should be handed off to someine else in the second chapter. The story was inspired in part by a pict Shadar posted at the AURG of a supergirl in the shower. I don't know who the model is, and if I don't find out she'll make her exit and leave it to others to explain to Jeff how he's gotten into this mess and how they'll get him out of it.
It's two days before Independence Day. But the Declaration of Independence was actually adopted on the Second of July in 1776. Anyway, chances are that people will have other things to do than check out this site on the Fourth. And, after all the depressing things, I wanted to post something uplifting. "The Spirit of America" is about how some of the most unlikely people found common cause during a flood 15 years ago. Would that it could happen everywhere.
Friday the 13th turned out to be an unlucky day for NBC newsman Tim Russert, whose funeral was today. But do all the people who have eulogized him really believe in the standards he set for American journalism? Or was he perhaps the last of his kind, leaving nobody willing or able to hold our country's leaders accountable. Is it even "The End of Journalism?"
And now the news! But only the "fashion" news. What with Shadar and Redwulf putting up a ton of Velorian fashion statements at the Aurora Universe Readers Group and View from Helm, I'm inspired to do the same. But "Hot Numbers on the Runway" was also inspired by a photo manip I commissioned from Random FX several months ago. It was supposed to be for a scene in a new Velorian Legion story, with the legionnaire basking in the inferno she had made of an Arion base. Trouble with the result was, the outfit made little sense, and the sunglasses even less. So I put it aside, wondering what I could possibly do with it, until this whole fashion thing came up. Now I have a chance to use it, along with a related fiery shot (involving a common stage trick) that I'd come across last year. The commentary is pure fluff, with a few bad jokes and "in" references.
D-Day, and a new story has finally landed at The Bright Empire. But "Unrelenting Breasts" isn't just a gag, as the title (taken from a novel announced but never produced by a French writer a century ago) seems to imply. While there is indeed a woman with relentless breasts in the story, it is really about a certain time and place: Belside, a world created by Lisa J. Binkley eight years ago, but set about ten years before her classic Questlings -- and centuries earlier than most Aurora Universe stories. The Enlightenment was young then, full of hope, and yet already there were dark clouds gathering, not all of Arion making -- as a Messenger dragooned into a sexual sting operation against a Prime discovers.
My fictional muse still eludes me, but my combative muse is another matter. So I hereby offer a rant on the controversial issue of gun control: "Going Off Half-Cocked?" It's sure to offend a lot of people on both sides of the issue, and liberals and conservatives alike will probably say I'm full of shit. Maybe I'll even get some hate mail. Well, that beats getting no mail at all, which is nearly always the case with my fiction, whether the downloads are a hundred or a thousand. Fire away!
I'd hoped to have more of The Mission, alias Not Safe for Work ready by now -- but real life and a new concept by Shadar have intervened. But I do have a new essay, "Remembering Stanley G. Weinbaum." Weinbaum (1902-35) was one of the pioneers of modern science fiction in terms of creating strange but believable aliens, heroic women characters and much else. His copyrights ran out at the end of 2005, so now there are new editions of his works, and free downloads of some of them at Project Gutenberg. Weinbaum's stories were great reads in the 1930's, when little sf aspired to literature, and they're still great reads today.
It's Not Safe for Work Week here at The Bright Empire. Shadar has taken to posting NSFW pictures at the Aurora Universe Readers Group, so why not NSFW stories? Moreover, at the AU-Otherworlds group, one fan complained that superheroine fiction was getting too literary, too respectable.
I'm not about to stop writing literary fiction, but I don't have have anything like that to mark the fifth anniversary of The Bright Empire. What I have, to begin with, is another episode of The Mission, that long-running serial which began five years ago with a vignette of my own, but has since been continued mainly by Rob, proprietor of Within This Realme. Only we had kind of a falling out some ten months ago when I jumped the gun on him with Chapter 7, after he'd twice done the same to me with Chapters 5 and 6. He never posted a Chapter 7 of his own, but did leave notes as to where he thought the story was going.
Rob's writing was always over-the-top, but he had some good ideas, so after nearly a year I'm coming out with a Chapter 8 of my own. Only, because he might have plans of his own, even at this late date, I'm posting it under the title "Not Safe for Work," with a brief synopis of what has gone before (Delays between installments that were so long readers lost track of the story were another complaint at AU-Otherworlds; I'm going to try to avoid that here and wrap this up ASAP in one or two more chapters.). I hope it's entertainingly over-the-top without being too bizarrely under the bottom. Lots of raunch involving a new Messenger (The pict of Mar'ek, who also figured in "Undercover Kitty," is the first of its kind for the AU as far as I know; hope the ladies like it. And thanks to Shadar for the pict originally created by the late S.T. Mac for a Lillith of Velor story never written.). Guaranteed to have no redeeming social value.
Then there's "It's U-Girl, and You Should Know It." It's the start of a non-AU superheroine novel that, whenever I get it done, might fly at Fictionwise. But it has nothing in common with While the Evil Days Come Not, my one and only e-published commercial novel, except the genre. It's raunchier, but the continuaton is going to be serious in a different vein: Rainey will be loved by many, and hated by many others, because she steps on too many toes crusading against social evils like child prostituton. There's no hint of that in the excerpt here; it's just in the back of my head. Incidentally, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il figures in the story -- and also in a recent entry of my Occasional Blog.
You want something safe for work, after all? There's "Varieties of Badalamenti," my personal appreciation of film and song composer Angelo Badalamenti. But maybe it's not safe for work, after all -- it's filled with video links (mostly from YouTube) to examples of his work. What if your boss wonders why you're looking at that sort of thing instead of naked women?
It was five years ago today that Throne of the Gods first appeared at the old Sharon Best Aurora Universe site -- a site that was put on hiatus just two weeks later, and taken down for good a month after that. Time flies!
Not too many noticed that "Brief Encounter," a vignette about Ashotour the Kintz as a high-class courtesan, appeared the same day. Martha Nochimson, in a review of the longer story, had hoped to see more of "Ashotour, the quirky kintz," but that probably wasn't what she had in mind. I seem to recall that she once told me privately that her favorite kitty might become a secret agent. That got me to thinking, and a recent pict by Shadar of Halle Berry as an Arion ambassador got me to thinking further. So here it is, Undercover Kitty. It's a riot. Literally.
I'm trying to update my Occasional Blog more often. Check it out occasionally.
Valentine's Day. How to celebrate it? Well, why not have Arish'ka, alias Marian Adams, doing some last-minute gift shopping for her true love George Gregory Grant? And running into trouble when chance places her in the path of a bullet intended for the proprietor of an art gallery? Big trouble, if the shooter or anybody else reports a woman being shot -- and not going down. But all's well that ends well, I can promise that. After all, "Hit Me with Your Worst Shot" is one of my Valentine's Day gifts to Velvet. It's got some philosophizing in it too -- just one of my things.
It's Velvet's birthday, and I can't let it go by without treating you to her latest Arish'ka story, "Inside Passage." It's one she began working on more than a year and a half ago, as part of an abortive attempt by several Aurora Universe writers to produce ten new stories -- enough to get us a Fictionwise account. Only none of the other stories got very far.
"Inside Passage" is a romance, of course, but with a difference: the Terran is the kind of man you might actually expect a Velorian to fall for. In too many stories, male writers will have their superheroines grant their favors to garden variety shlubs who couldn't possibly appeal to them. And the sex is nearly always male viewpoint. It's time for a change, and Velvet Belle Tree is bringing it.
Of course, there has to be some Important Mission to whet the interest of devoted AU readers. I ended up supplying that; it's not really Velvet's sort of thing. But I've added a new twist: the object of the Arion conspiracy isn't anything like what you'd usually expect, and it confronts the Velorians with an ethical dilemma that Arish'ka appreciates better than even Earth's Protector Kira Jahr-ling (her first appearance in an AU3a story). But Velvet herself ends the story on just the right note, with Arish'ka and her hunk-historian lover George Gregory Grant: whatever happens, they're in this together.
Because it was meant for a showcase, "Inside Passage" incorporates more backstory than previous episodes of the Arish'ka saga (most of which are referenced by link). This might provide a platform for more Earth-based AU3a stories -- but I don't want to make promises I can't keep. To further celebrate Velvet's birthday, however, I'm offering two new essays -- "Fairness in Life an Art" and "The Perils of 'Peril'." The first consists of musings inspired by (Hereby be warned!) the surprise ending of the movie Atonement. It wanders a bit, but I do think it has the right sense of direction. The second is a rant on so-called "peril" fiction (my immediate ire being inspired by a trend in Japanese videos) -- something I consider to be a plague on the superheroine genre, although others may think it is only my equivalent of Mr. Dick's obsession with King Charles' head in David Copperfield.
Thanks, Shadar, for the picts of Arish'ka, Kira and Dani!
Happy New Year!
We all have our resolutions, but your first resolution should be to read Xoronewithnature's Wannabe Heroes. That's because, after more than three years, our mysterious author (I know hardly anything more about him than I did in 2004.) has finally resolved the story (or at least the first story arc) of Jessie/Geisha and the super soldier terrorists who have been wreaking havoc in New York. It's all there now, in a seven-chapter package of 30,000-plus words -- if you remember the first four chapters, posted here over the past two years, you can pick up with Chapter 5. Or you can read or re-read the whole thing from the beginning.
Jessie's like no other superheroine you've ever met, and Xor writes like no one else here at The Bright Empire. He's full of surprises in terms of story structure, supporting characters, action and dialogue. He's got it all. Perhaps his only fault is his modesty. He's always worried about not doing well enough, always wanting to do better. Well, if he does, we'll all be thrilled!
It's always a pleasure to introduce a new writer to The Bright Empire, and it's a special pleasure to introduce "Island Mother," the first story by Betty Bontang. Betty isn't a stranger to those of you who have followed her posts at the Aurora Universe Readers' Group -- which are always intelligent and thought-provoking. I'd thought for some time that she had the makings of a good fiction writer, and I've been after her for some time to demonstrate it. Now she has, and with a story like nothing else that has ever appeared here or, to my knowledge, at any other site. It's a superheroine story, all right, but from a culture -- native Hawaiian -- unfamiliar to most of us, but familiar to Betty, who lives in Hawaii and is studying nursing there. Yes, she puts herself in her story, but don't we all? The point is to do it well, and she does that very well indeed!
This would be the birthday of Jane Dolinger (1932-1995), if she were still alive today. Most of you have probably never heard of her, but back in the fifties and sixties she was a fave with a lot of young men who followed her exploits in Modern Man. And they were indeed exploits. Unlike other models in skin magazines, she lived an adventurous life, traveling to the wilds of South America in search of material for her books on Indian tribes and lost treasures. Modern Man illustrated short versions of her adventures with revealing shots of her killer body -- and it was thrilling to imagine making love to such a daring, intelligent and gorgeous woman. While she wasn't thought of that way at the time, she was a role model for women, and for the male imagination of women. A university professor is working on a biography of her; for now, you can check out "Before Lara Croft..."
And while you're here, check out Velvet Belle Tree's "Back to the..." Fredric Brown was a smart sf writer known for satirical novels like Martians Go Home and gritty stories like "Arena" -- the former was made into a movie, the latter adapted as a Star Trek episode. He was also known for biting short-shorts. But even smart writers can get the stupids once in a while, and here Velvet demonstrates just how stupid he got in "The Waveries," his story of what happens to mankind when an alien infestation eliminates electricity. I should have provided a link here when it was first posted some weeks back, but I got the stupids myself. Sorry, Velvet!
Today I turn 66. For my birthday, I decided to do what my wife Velvet calls a "brain dump." Everything you were afraid to know about me and didn't want to ask. But "I Tell You This for the First Time Ever" isn't the usual sort of biography; you won't find anything about my family or my education save as it relates to my own appreciation of literature and the arts.
You might wonder what this has to do with the Aurora Universe. What it has to with the AU is to explain, in a very roundabout way, why I appreciate the genre that began with Shadar, and what I feel to be my own peculiar contribution to it. And as a working example, here is our collaboration, "Lifesaver." It started as a vignette by Shadar, posted to the Aurora Universe Readers Group. Although it was a simple piece without any real backstory, I could see right away that it was set in the early years of the Enlightenment -- a period that nobody had yet written about except Lisa Binkley, long ago, in "Questlings." So I made some tweaks to the text, and added a frame similar to those of one of my favorite sf writers, Cordwainer Smith (mentioned in my brain dump). Shadar in turn made some more tweaks, supplied new artwork and -- voilà, a new chapter in our ongoing imaginary history.
More than a year and a half ago, Velvet and I began writing what has finally become Part III of Homecoming. I think her "Ship's Life" chapter came first, and then my "Bleak Landing." But the writing came really hard for both of us. What were Ju'lette and Tassos supposed to do on the rest of their journey to Velor? And where were they to go afterwards? It was already in my mind that their mission would be a failure – I wrote the epilogue before any of the story, long before Shadar came up with the idea for First Protector, and before I came up with the idea of the Tanzrobian stories and linking them to Homecoming.
Bit by bit, we came up with ideas. Velvet's exploration of Scalantrans' cohorts and their sexual initiation customs was a brilliant stroke, and made for some of the best interchanges between humans and Scalantrans. And the Youthworld -- perfect. I wish I could say that my parts all started out as perfectly. For a while, I had the really cockamamie idea of a much larger party of Tanzrobians seeking some hidden world to settle; Velvet shot that down pretty quickly. While our contributions to the final text are about equal, moreover, I still consider her the lead writer: she has been a conscientious and exacting editor, catching me out time and again in matters of style, characterization and continuity. I've agreed with about 90% of her edits, I think, and dug in my heels over no more than a couple of scenes. Of course, I had some edits too -- I thought, for example, that the Wild River had to be a lot wilder than she originally described it to have a planet named after it.
But the bottom line is that Homecoming III, like marriage, is a matter of give and take – and all the better for it.
It was nearly four years ago that Jordan Taylor and I undertook to collaborate on a sequel to Terms of Enhancement. She wrote the prologue, which gave me an education in some things military -- a "hasty" is an improvised, spur-of-the-moment firing position -- and inadvertently also inspired the title for "The Popcorn War"
We were going to alternate from there on, based on a loose outline I'd worked out, but after a few weeks Jordan didn't feel comfortable with the project -- it wasn't her world. She later began a solo Velorian Legion story, "Walking Tall," with a plot based on that of the movie -- but alas, she wasn't able to continue with that, either. At least, she hasn't been able to yet.
With her permission, I filled in the rest of an unfinished chapter in the manuscript as we'd left it to submit to a Superwomenmania workshop for collaborations, which had been really hurting for entries -- they had to postpone the deadline several times. Well, here's a version that also includes a pict of Xuxa I'd been meaning to use from the start. And it was a great start. I think that it could still be a great story. Anyone out there want to help finish it?
KeldStarwind comes out of the blue, but he's a hot new talent. "Aftermath" is a refreshingly novel take on the relationship between a Messenger and a Protector and will -- hopefully! -- become the basis of a series about Gabriel and Lysette. The first draft showed up in my mailbox Friday, July 17, with a message that began:
I've been following the AU on and off for many years now, and I've recently decided to try my hand at writing some fic. After digesting a lot of the info from the history links on the Bright Empire, I decided to start small with a quick story.
It was that same day that he joined the AURG. Maybe he'd been lurking there under another name, or names, for those "many years." Whatever, he's picked up on the basics and gone on from there. He's managed to pack a lot of background into less than 2,000 words, and blend the explicitly sexual with the tenderly romantic. Those are hard things to do.
Let's all welcome KeldStarwind to the Aurora Universe.
It was three years ago today that I met Velvet Belle Tree. She'd contacted me ten days before that, through an online matching group to which I'd dropped my subscription because I'd been so disappointed with their matches. Only they not only kept me on their list, but shared my profile with another group she'd subscribed to. Such are the chances of life. Should I believe in fate? All I know is that I got lucky. To mark the occasion, here's her science fiction romance, "The Stars My Witness." She has a few things to say about it under Commentaries at her own page.
It was five years ago, give a take or day or so (And since I was away from home July 7, I had to take several days), that I made my Aurora Universe debut with The Defector. To mark that occasion, here is "Murk and Reprisal," a sequel to "Tanzrobian Nights" and a semi-prequel to Homecoming III (still in the works, and more a collaboration between Velvet and me than the first two parts).
I had earlier worked on a scene in which Zanele gave the Scalantrans an account of how she and the others made their escape. But that was tell, not show -- one of the literary sins that beginning writers are always warned to avoid. And with advice from Tarot and Shadar and most of all Velvet, I found myself reshaping the details of the narrative in ways that should, I hope, make Homecoming III more entertaining.
It was Velvet who steered me away from an implausible plot line that would have had a whole shipload of Tanzrobians seeking refuge on another world to practice genetic engineering on a millenial scale. It was she who created the name and personality of Pimponeous. And it was she who developed the romance between Mbali and Kobe, which will be continued in Homecoming III.
Also new is a Blog entry about the coming endgame in Iraq -- not something to gladden the hearts of either liberals or conservatives. And with the much-admired Daphne Orgone having not been seen for nearly a year, and not knowing whether her blog will even stay on the Web, I've added the rest of her entries to The Adventures of Super Daph.
Summer is officially here, and with it an unusual update. Not a new story, but a lost-and-found story originally posted by Shadar nearly five years ago at the Aurora Universe 3 site, back in his Sharon Best days. "Protector" was an unusual story for him in those days, I think -- short and kind of Hemingwayesque in its simplicity, rather than pouring on the fetish elements and hyped-up prose. Here the nameless Protector is inspirational rather than seductive, sort of a Velorian Joan of Arc.
I must have read this when it first came out, but had forgotten about it until coming across it in a Wayback Machine archive -- pict and all (Archives and caches don't usually save artwork -- that takes up a lot of bandwidth.). But when I reread it, I was immediately reminded of another story, Tarot Barnes' Aurora's Tale. Only the first chapter of that epic has been posted thus far at Alternate Histories, but I think you'll see the resemblance. Perhaps it's pure coincidence, or perhaps "Protector" was the acorn from which a mighty oak has grown.
I don't usually write rants about current issues -- there are plenty of people doing that already. But when it comes to Global Warming and Energy Independence, we nearly always hear from only the knee-jerk liberals and knee-jerk conservatives. Yet what really set me off to write "Hot Planet, or Hot Air?" was a story in The New York Times about a political boondoggle to end all political boondoggles -- a supposed "solution" to both problems that is so patently corrupt, so mindless, so totally vile in its motivaton (feed the coal companies that feed the politicians), so contrived to fail utterly in one of its claimed objectives, that... Well, even in a time of rampant corruption, I was shocked. And this disgusting exercise has won the support of liberals and conservatives alike. But I try to keep the rant itself, as opposed to this rant about the rant, clean and sober.
You must have heard about Bionic Woman coming back to TV this fall. Maybe it will be good, maybe it won't. But it's hard to imagine it could be as good as Jordan Taylor's Bionic Girl, the first part of which appears here today. This has been a labor of love on her part; she began a very different version two years ago, but wasn't satisfied with it. The present version, with its introduction of rival bionic women whose fates are intertwined, appeared at Superwomenmania a little while back, but I've corrected a few minor glitches -- and added picts. Jordan herself chose the models, and she really knows what turns men on. She also has a good idea where the story is going -- but I'm not going to breathe a word about that.
Well, this time I beat Rob to the Internet with Chapter 7 of The Mission. Things are finally coming to a head, politically. For all the sexcapades this series has been known for, my own and Rob's, our intention has always been to develop the story of Oon'ah and Xanthra as an opportunity for and a challenge to the Theel'dara Initiative of trying to win over the enemy.
There are already rumblings from conservatives back home, we learn early on. Colonel James Kim'Vallara thinks he can weather the storm, and use what he knows about the Vel-Arion couple to prove his case. But he's about to receive a shock from an unexpected quarter -- one that places Xanthra, the other Arions and his own career in extreme jeopardy. And Oon'ah's and Xanthra's outrageous behavior isn't helping any...
Shadar explains it all in "Invulnerable to Labels," originally a response to a thread at the Aurora Universe Readers Group about whether there could be a handy catchphrase to characterize Velorians. No way, he says -- and he ought to know!
Good Friday and good news: Part 4 has been added to Xoronewithnature's Wannabe Heroes. Xor (I have to call him something for short) is a true original, and so is his story. The heroine who calls herself Jessie (Other people call her Geisha.) and can teleport herself into and out of trouble, is like no one else in superheroine fiction, and the world in which she lives -- a world of strange villains and even stranger conspiracies -- is like nothing you'll see anywhere else. Depend on it. Some of you will pick up where you left off, others will start from the beginning; but all of you are in for a real treat.
Spring has sprung. Daylight Saving Time has returned. And so has The Mission, after more than a year. Cast your mind back to Jan. 22, 2006. That's the last time there was an update here. Also an upset, because Rob had posted a version of Chapter 5 at Within This Realme which annoyed the hell out of me. Well, I put up my own edit, which doubtless annoyed the hell out of him.
We had a few contacts after that -- the last being in July, when I sent him some material for a collaborative Chapter 6. Then nothing until March 10, when he did it again -- posted his solo version without notice. I was royally pissed at first, because I thought some of it was silly as well as going against canon -- no big deal to him, because he saw the story line as satirical; but a big deal to me because The Mission was part of a continuity I'd been developing.
But after I'd had time to calm down a bit, I could see that there was a powerful story there -- Oon'ah and Xanthra and their work with Shad'rah. Outrageous, over-the-top, but powerful just the same. And I saw how I could keep the best of that, put in a few interpolations of my own and.... It took more than a week, but I did it. So here's my version of Chapter 6, posted sight unseen by Rob. Turnabout is fair play. I hope he'll understand.
I hadn't originally planned on writing "Tanzrobian Nights," but the Arion conquest of a world seeded with African stock by the Galen themselves more than two millenia ago had become a climactic event in Homecoming II, and part of the runup for Homecoming III, a work still in progress. It is also part of the background of First Protector, a work in progress by Shadar. At some point, however, I realized that there was little or no background about Tanzrobi. To the best of my knowledge, no other stories have been set there, and the only significant example of the Azizi was Symbala in Shadar's "Return to Earth" a decade ago in his Sharon Best days. So I began sketching some characters and Googling shamelessly for given names, proper names and a veneer of "Tanzrobian" culture in Swahili, Zulu and other African language and culture sites. Zanele and her friend Mbali will appear in Homecoming III, anon, but here their experience with the Arion invasion can be a matter of show rather than tell.
I wasn't really expecting to offer readers any Christmas present this year. But soon after I began making tweaks to The High Cruel Years in light of comments by Tarot Barnes that the story should touch more on the Reigel 5 war in general, Velvet began making tweaks of her own to Homecoming -- adding new material about training on Erin'lah and adding more color to the scenes on Andros. I'd been thinking of uploading my updates for New Year's, but Velvet was raring to go, and had hers ready early Christmas Eve. I finished mine just a short time later. As was her original wish, both parts of Homecoming are now in PDF Format:
Parts One, Two and Three of the revised version of The High Cruel Years are at their old URLS. Parts One and Two have new chapters relating to the ground war, and changes to other chapters in all three parts reflect that. There is also a new pict in Part Three -- one I'd meant to include in the first place but somehow overlooked. I'm not going to be any threat to Joseph Kanon, but I hope the new version strengthens the sense of history.
An experiment suggested by Velvet. Today I offer a PDF version of her best Arish'ka story, "Rocky Mountain High." Her first AU story, Homecoming, was created in PDF format by Shadar when he did the initial setup for this incarnation of The Bright Empire, and is still by far the most popular work here. The sequel hasn't done as well, perhaps because it has always been in htm format. If the experiment succeeds, we may convert Homecoming 2 and other works.
Just a couple of things today. The sight of Santa Claus in the Macy's parade got me to thinking about Thomas Nast, which got me to thinking about -- well, my latest blog entry is typical of the way I think. Then there was this guy named Tim Lewis who went to the same university I did, only years later. He took over the house paper I once edited, and one of his features was a comic strip called Frog. Years after that, Ross Chmberlain, the production manager at one of the trade magazines I worked for, redrew one episode for an article that never materialized. It surfaced recently among my things, and I think it's still amusing. Kind of a variation on Snoopy.
Do you know what good comes out of?... Out of bad. That's what good comes out of. Because you can't make it out of anything else.
-- Willie Stark in All the King's Men (1949, from Robert Penn Warren's novel)
And now, Part Three of The High Cruel Years , with Shadar doing the showdown scenes with rogue Protector Zar'ya. But most of the story is mine, even though it began with an abortive story of his called "Lounge Singer."
It's been a long and complicated story, because I wanted it to be both personal and political. I wanted to play fair with the characters, a truly diverse lot: Harry Maclendon, and the Velorians Molly and Anya, who came out of Shadar's original concept. Returnees from Ordinary Velorians like Dr. Alex La'Reu and And'rea Cuppers, and more.
But I also wanted this to be a gritty political story. To do that, I had to introduce a number of new figures, including Siemsen Vozeh. They are faced with same dilemma of good and evil as Robert Penn Warren put in the mouth of his Huey Long-like leader. And yet I wanted a nearly hopeless situation to end on a note of hope, in a speech by Vozeh that paraphrases the famous address by Emperor Hirohito to his people at the end of World War II. And I wanted to create a resonance between the political and personal stories, as you'll see in the epilogue.
Besides that, I wanted to build on some of the ideas Shadar and others had thrown out. Shadar created the Jellutong; I gave them a backstory. I also added a bit more about the Christla, another invention of Shadar's that I had reverse-engineered in Companions. I wanted to give the Diaboli of Arcady -- strangers in a strange land -- a greater role in the story. And there were new concepts of my own, such as bringing in Dashiella as a Protector new to Reigel 5, but old enough to have known the Companions -- and even learned from them.
But most of all, I wanted to tell a good story.
***
It was a little over two years ago -- Nov. 9, 2004, to be exact -- that Lisa Binkley announced at the AURG that she had placed a book review with SFReader.com. But rather than a new novel by Stephen Baxter or Harry Turtledove, the subject turned out to be Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which came out way back in 1957.
Most people who have read Rand's novel, I think, came across it in college or even high school. Some readers of that sort have become acolytes of Objectivism, as Rand called her philosophy of rational individualism; to them, Rand is the greatest writer and greatest genius of all time. Others have found Rand hard to take, to say the least -- some of them think Atlas Shrugged is the worst novel of all time, and its author nothing but a crank.
Coming to it relatively late, Lisa was able to see the novel in the light of greater experience than those younger readers, and her review may be the best ever written. She got the point, without getting all gushy or mushy -- she even placed Rand's novel better in the context of sf than I had. For I was one of those younger readers, one of those who loathed the book at first. And yet it got under my skin. It challenged my thinking. I never became a convert, for I couldn't stomach some of the things she and her acolytes said or wrote -- which struck me as neither rational nor ethical. And yet I came to share her general principles.
I tell that story in "The Road to Salvation?" Lisa's review led to some interresting discussion when it was posted. Maybe this will too.
***
"Al Sharpton's Cop-out" in my occasional blog is a more topical item than I usually post. But a bit of breaking news got me to ranting. I've recently created a new Links page, adding banners for some of my favorite sites. And Egoboo is devoted to flattering comments about my work here. It replaces some review blurbs for Throne of the Gods that ran below the story index -- the story index is now so much larger that probably nobody was noticing them any more. But speaking of large, this is one of the largest updates I've ever done. Consider it a holiday present.
Another birthday, and for a while I was afraid I'd have nothing to show for it. But then I got it into my head to do a spinoff of that "She's a Marvel" episode on Guiding Light -- despite the fact that it had infuriated soap fans and attracted little or no interest from superheroine and comics fans. I had this idea that Harley Davidson Cooper/Guiding Light represented a whole new kind of fantasy (I touch on that in my blog, and elaborate in "Behind the Stories."), so I wanted to see if I could do justice to it. I had only two days to write it, but here is "Electricity."
Some weeks ago, I heard from Xoronewithnature, that enigmatic author of "Wannabe Heroes" and "Asylum." He wanted me to look at two new chapters of "Wannabe Heroes," but wasn't sure he wanted them posted anywhere. Well, there were some typos and other things that needed to be fixed, but the chapters themselves were dynamite, revealing whole new perspectives on Jessie, his oddly-named Japanese-American superheroine, and the strange world of mystery and conspiracy that she inhabits. I did some edits, but didn't hear back from him after that -- until I appealed to him for a birthday present for The Bright Empire. It's been nearly a year since Part 1, which had a brief exposure at Ubergirls two years ago, was posted here. So I've put all three parts together at the old URL. Now the update is my present to all of you. If you already know how good this guy is, you'll be champing at the bit. If you don't, you're in for a treat. You've got to read "Wannabe Heroes." There's just nothing else like it.
Maybe you've heard about the upcoming (Nov. 1) creation of a superheroine on the soap opera Guiding Light, in a daring but risky collaboration with Marvel Comics. I might have made this a subject for Rants & Ramblings, but anything I say now may soon be discredited. So I'm making it a belated entry in the blog instead. Maybe I'll look prescient, maybe I'll look silly. But it will be fascinating to see how this genre crossover works -- or doesn't.
Like many of you, I saw My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Unlike many of you, I didn't care for it much. Neither did Velvet. Sure, it had some great scenes in it, including superheroine sex and the B&B fetish. But I thought G-Girl's whininess and pettiness were turn-offs. Well, Superwomenmania announced another workshop, this time on sequels. So I thought... Usually, I don't do pure fan fiction (One exception was "The Amulet of Raja."). But I had some ideas, and Shadar had just done a photomanip that would fit if only he'd tint the hair redder, which he did, and Velvet gave me a jump start. And so, "His New Super Girlfriend." It's got action, it's got sex, and it's got my usual arcana and in-jokes.
Yes, it's been a long time. But I've had a load of troubles with the laptop I use to manage The Bright Empire. A mouse gone bad; worse, a hard drive gone bad. I had it in the shop for weeks while the repair guy offloaded the files, put in a new hard drive, and reloaded the files. Then it turned out the Airport card wasn't working right and I couldn't access Velvet's wifi net. That was fixed, but then my Dreamweaver program told me it wasn't registered and it took me a couple of days to figure out how to take care of that problem. During those same two days, I happened to finish reading Lois McMaster Bujold's Cordelia's Honor, an omnibus edition of two of her best sf novels, Shards of Honor and Barrayar. There was a passage in the latter that jumped out at me and inspired the rant "Only the Necessary." It reflects my own mind and heart on a divisive issue now confronting our nation.
Hadn't expected to add anything again until next month, but Daphne Orgone had a brainstorm the other day and came up with "Scent of a Superheroine." Except for the title, she posted in at the Aurora Universe Readers Group. It's a scream, so I decided to give it a more accessible home here. And that scent? Let's just say it isn't honey and wildflowers!
Velvet and I are working on some other projects right now, but in the meantime we have obtained the rights to mirror the original story line of Super Daph, the diary of a teenage supergirl named Daphne Orgone. The Super Daph blog was launched Oct. 26, 2005, but its author took a long break after Dec. 6, returning only June 19, 2006. Here's your channce to catch up on the 2005 entries, rearranged in chronological order for your convenience. I've rationalized a few datelines that didn't match the text, but left the story unchanged. I enjoy giving promotional support to young writers of merit like "Daphne." You can follow her blog to read more.
There's this porn novel called Ways of a Wanton Wench that I've had sitting around for about 35 years now. Porn novels aren't usually worth keeping; one is pretty much like any other, and the publishers as well as the books are generally here today, gone tomorrow. But the erotic tale of a woman warrior named Bradamante is different. I try to explain why in "Porn with a Pedigree." And in a much overdue addition to my blog, I take note of the failure of the latest attempt at a superheroine movie and the reasons for that failure.
Just a short update to celebrate the Summer Solstice: a new chapter by Spulo for "When We Dead Awaken." Spulo had already done great work on another interactive story at Superwomenmania, "Transformatrix 4000," so I knew he'd come through and continue my story in the right spirit.
What with the press of a demanding day job, a possible Aurora Universe showcase for disk or download, and other projects, I've neglected site updates of late. So I'm trying to catch up now, even though I don't have any fresh AU material - such as Part III of The High Cruel Years - in hand,
"As You Like It" started last year as a failed parody of the Xtreme Strength type of story, and as a possible entry in one of the SGI workshops at Superwomenmania. But I couldn't finish it in time, and as it stood the draft was too gross even for me in my sober moments. But there's still a readership out there for pure fetish fiction, and I still like to cater to that once in a while. So with some major writing and rewriting... Moreover, inspiration returned to me in the form of pictures of a gorgeous African- American model from 20 years ago. Don't worry, I'm not going PC on you, like the folks at DC Comics with their lesbian Batwoman and multi-ethnic heroes. But beautiful female flesh comes in all colors. Rest assured that there is no redeeming social value here -- if you want fetish fiction, that's exactly what you're going to get.
"When We Dead Awaken" started as an interactive story at Superwomen Mania, and it's still there -- my initial two chapters, and two more by Argonaut and CK. But there haven't been any further chapters posted there in ages, even though I uploaded a re-edit not long ago to try to revive interest. Maybe posting it here will get some action. Or not. The genesis of the story was two-fold: an attack on so-called "peril fiction," which I loathe; and a fascination with cross-time travel. Do any of you remember H. Beam Piper's Paratime stories, or Keith Laumer's Worlds of the Imperium series, in which outlaws and lawmen travel between alternate versions of the present with different histories? Some of the SWM people do, and one of them was also well-read enough to know that I'd stolen my title from Henrik Ibsen's last play.
Back when I was watching the soap opera Port Charles (See "A True Story of a Writer Come Lately" ), I wrote an essay on the blend of soap and science fiction in a time travel-time paradox story arc called "Time in a Bottle." I had vague notions of placing it with some soap fanzine or even a scholarly publication. But nothing came of that, and nobody would be interested now -- the show itself died nearly three years ago. But for those who want to see what my science fiction commentary is like -- and I've recently revived my efforts in that field -- "Time in a Bottle:" Vintage Soap Meets Vintage SF is a relatively short and painless introduction.
Nothing new for a while, but I've just updated Throne of the Gods, Ordinary Velorians and "Deer Meadow Shuffle" to reflect a consensus among members of the Aurora Universe Writers Group to remove the last vestiges of DC Comics references from the AU by changing the name of the Zor'El family to Jahr'ling and, in particular, Kara Zor'el to Kira Jahr'ling. A related change is from Rhea-El to Rhea'ling in The High Cruel Years.
Just in time for the third anniverasry of the Aurora Universe Readers Group is "The Adaptive Intimate," a non-AU story inspired by a seeming throwaway scene at the end of Larafan and Stoneyman's "Ultrafemme -- Gemini," recently added to the Story Bank at Superwomenmania. More about that in Behind the Stories; suffice it to say here that my chance encounter with that story (I'd never looked at it on the Xtreme Strength site when it was posted there in 2003) gave me a chance to write a really different ubergirl story.
This time, it's Velvet's update, with a non-Aurora Universe story she wrote for SGI Workshop 2.4 called "It Ain't Easy." Like my "Double Blind" and "Serious Radio," and Xoronewithnature's "Asylum," it had to tell its story within 1,000 words. It's a gem, like everything Velvet writes -- and her first short-short.
It's been three years now since The Bright Empire made its debut, and more than five months since a major fiction update. The High Cruel Years has been my own most popular story of late, and it's high time you saw more of it. So here's Part Two, in which the situation on Reigel 5 continues to deteriorate -- the civil war turning into a dirty war. Molly and Anya are caught in the middle; Cher'ee and James are in the dark -- and the Reigellian government is more hindrance than help. Shadar, who began the story as Lounge Singer, contributed to this part with the scenes of Molly and Anya battling the menschenjagers, and And'rea luring a Reigellian minister to more than le petit mort.
Watch for Part Three, anon.
In a somewhat lighter vein is "In the Penile Colony," which started as a joke but, as often happens with my fiction, grew in the telling (and in a hurry, too, to make the deadline for SGI Workshop 1.7). The title is a spoof of Franz Kafka's classic horror story "In the Penal Colony," but if he could read past the first line he'd be spinning in his grave. So would Aram Khachaturian -- you'll see why. You'll have a good time along with some good laughs. And some good sex which is, of necessity, missing thus far in The High Cruel Years.
When I posted his "Wannabe Heroes," I knew nothing about Xoronewithnature. I still know next to nothing. But I was crazy about his writing from the day I read his "Asylum" at Superwomenmania, it being an entry in SGI Workshop 2.3. Now you can see it here, with typos corrected and italics restored. It's one of the best short-short stories I've ever read, with unforgettable characters, an unforgettably moving relationship, and hints of an entire world in social breakdown behind the surface events. How'd he do it? Read and find out.
"Don't You Think He Knows That" is an essay I've been wanting to write for years, ever since I watched a TV show called 100 Centre Street and found the first episode lacking emotional honesty. But somehow I never got around to it, even though I'd had my arguments and citations running through my head from a day or two after I watched that episode. Well, I've finally done it. And it tells you something about my own approach to writing -- something I get very emotional about.
Serenedipity happens. Velvet Belle Tree doesn't have a new story this time, alas, but she does have an essay on the marriage of science fiction and romance in novels that have variously been categorized as Futuristic Romance, Science Fiction Romance and Romantic SF. For those who think sf has to be cerebral, or that romance has to be nothing but mush involving TSTL (Too Stupid to Live) heroes and heroines, "Science Fiction and Romance" should be an eye opener.
Every once in a while, Rob finishes another chapter of The Mission. I'd been waiting for the latest for several months. That was mainly because one of the scenes, James Kim'Vallara literally undressing Bidu Braga with his heat vision, was really inspired. I'd read it in partial draft all those months ago, and had a picture of Bidu to go with it -- supplied years ago by Ultragirl. Anyway, here's my edit of Chapter 5, not quite the same as Rob's version at his site. I have a proprietary interest in James and Bidu, you see, and wanted to tweak their part to suit myself. But speaking of seeing, check out the special link at the end of the chapter.
Maybe you've never heard of Xoronewithnature. When I saw his "Asylum" at the Superwomenmania Story Bank as an entry in the SGI Workshop 2.3, the name didn't ring a bell with me. But his story blew me away. When I googled his screen name -- which is still all I know about him -- I discovered that he had posted a story called "Wannabe Heroes" at Ubergirls back in 2004.
I don't recall seeing it at the time, but when I read it I thought: "Wow!" Not knowing even Xor's e-mail address (I still don't), I reached him through the message link at SWM for permission to post that story here (He plans a sequel, but Skietra knows when we'll see it.). What can I say? A brief summary of "Wannabe Heroes" would make it sound like a standard superheroine-comes-to-the-rescue story. Trust me, it isn't. This heroine isn't standard. Neither is the situation. Neither is the writing. Read it!
As another treat, a review by Velvet of a new book by a new author that you really should read. She got me to read Craig Johnson's The Cold Dish, and I hope she'll persuade you to do the same.
Big News Today! In a major reorganization of The Bright Empire, Velvet Belle Tree has been given her own page. What better way to celebrate her birthday? Velvet's Velorians & More under Other Voices will henceforth be the place to find all her stories and essays, present and future. Here's where you'll get to read the story of her literary life in her own words. Her new contemporary story, "Musings of a Rejected Woman," has been uploaded to further celebrate the occasion. It has a real bite to it as a new take on the scorned woman tale. My only contribution this time is "Serious Radio," a spoof about a Howard Stern-type making a fool of himself with ersatz supergirls and then a bigger fool of himself with a real one.
I've done it again! My Christmas Eve essay for Rants & Ramblings got such a response that I decided to try another, "On Becoming a Man." It's totally unrelated, except that it reflects my ethical perspective. It's something I've wanted to write for a long time, about a movie called The Last Prostitute which, despite its title, is really about decency and true manhood. But I wasn't entirely sure of my ground until I showed it to Velvet. She agreed with my argument. She said go for it.
This time, it's my first essay for Rants & Ramblings in a good long time. "Cultural Calvinism" addresses one of my pet peeves. Maybe it's one of your pet peeves too. Plus, I've updated my Blog with Christmas wishes.
Just a brief notice. While working on other projects, including Part Two of The High Cruel Years, I've begun a blog on the Rants and Ramblings page. It will be mostly thoughts and commentary on one thing or another as the spirit moves me -- nothing like a diary or fictional narrative. But I hope it will be entertaining and informative.
Pegasus Gate is not a superheroine novel. But neither is most of the fiction of Ed Howdershelt and Lisa Binkley. An e-book in progress Belle Tree, it tells the story of men and women from diverse backgrounds who have been chosen by lottery and by fitness to colonize a new wby myself and Velvetorld. They have good reason to leave Earth, for Earth some decades hence is not a pleasant place to live: there have been plagues, desultory wars, and general social and economic breakdown.
New Hope is indeed a world of new hope to the few chosen to settle there. And yet it is far from a paradise. Colonists must labor from dawn to dusk to wrest a living from the land, reclaiming it bit by bit from the native ecology - which can strike back at times in terrible ways. There is an odd mix of necessary primitive and necessary high technology, but luxuries are few and far between. Those of New Hope have no one to depend on but each other, as they strive to create a society that will - hopefully - avoid the mistakes that have plagued their old world.
We have each written chapters and revised each other's. "The Widower," in which an ordinary New Hope farmer faces personal tragedy, was begun by Velvet, and revised and expanded by both of us until it took its present form.
But to remain true to the primary purpose of The Bright Empire, and with Velvet's assistance, I have also updated Throne of the Gods, correcting previous unnoticed errors, tweaking details about the Scalantrans in light of her own contributions to the canon on that people, and adding a picture of Alisa-zar Kim Vallara
Well, here it is, another birthday and nothing to show for it from myself or the usual suspects. But serendipity has stepped in. Daphne Orgone, a new member of the Aurora Universe Readers Group, has been managing a role playing Yahoo group superheroine fiction site called Bronze Babe and Friends since the end of June. The central character, also named Daphne Orgone, is a college freshman with all the usual problems of college freshmen, plus some unusual ones -- being a young superwoman and all. I've culled several scenes from early posts and assembled them into a sampler about her first day at college with flashbacks to her high school years. Speaking of which latter, Daphne also has a blog devoted to her that has drawn favorable notice from AU fans. Daphne's a terrific writer, and she has able support from her fellow RPG writers. But a word of caution: her Yahoo group is invitation only, and its members are expected to contribute characters and scenes to the ongoing story. No lurkers!
Only one new story today, "Double Blind," already mentioned here when it was entered in SGI Workshop 2.2. But this version has been tweaked a bit to clarify some points that confused Shadar, and it includes the heroic nude that inspired the story (See more about that in Behind the Stories.). But I've done a few updates on other stories. Part One of Velvet's Homecoming is now available in htm as well as PDF format, with a link to Part Two that the PDF is missing. We hope that more people will read both parts now -- and Part Three whenever it comes. Also new are two mp3 music links: James and Bidu's love song in he final scene of Terms of Enhancement, and a snippet of Reddick Mallard's "angry music" in Chapter XXVI of The Defector. I may try more such embellishments in the future.
There's a famous story by Frank R. Stockton called "The Lady or the Tiger," in which an accused man is brought to an arena and asked to choose between two doors. Behind one, a beautiful woman. Behind the other, a man-eating tiger. But Lt. Ken Dahl has no such choice in Evelyn Y's "New Orders" -- it's the Lady and the Tiger in another chapter of her work-in-progress called Project SG, centering on the genetically enhanced Katie O'Grady. When Dahl's assigned to serve her needs, it may mean love or death or both. Meanwhile, I've got an entry in SGI Workshop 2.2 at Superwomenmania.com. "Double Blind" is a story about two people whose lives cross paths on a remote world, a man and a woman who work together but don't truly know each other until one fateful night....
The High Cruel Years is set on Reigel 5, not long after Ordinary Velorians. Begun by Shadar and continued by myself, it's a rather grim story and promises to become grimmer, because it's about the disintegration of a world in a cruel civil war fueled by fanatics. You'll recognize parallels with the fate of Yugoslavia, but the heart of the story is in the decent people -- Reigellian and Velorian alike -- who are trying to hold things together. For comic relief, there's "Shopping with Katie," a sample chapter of a work-in-progress by Evelyn Y, whose "Paul" has become legend and whose input to my Sleeping Beauty was crucial, but who hasn't been heard from for quite a while. What, a story about a shopping trip? Trust me, you'll love it! And Evelyn also shares her thoughts on the superheroine theme in a short essay.
Just one story this time, "Bird of Paradise." It's a sequel to Shadar's McCloud's Daughters and Scrumbles and a prequel to Andy's Finding Sanctuary, which made it really difficult to keep things straight and maintain some continuity in the lives of Ben Shaffer and the McClouds -- especially since even Shadar isn't entirely clear on some matters. But he has himself to blame for us writing it, because he announced the story at the end of McCloud's Daughters and then left it as yet another of his great unfinished projects.
Another double feature of Arish'ka to mark the anniversary of the first moon landing: Velvet Belle Tree's "Rocky Mountain High" and my own "Deer Meadow Shuffle." These being the first stories posted since our wedding July 3, they may satisfy some readers curious as to what the first Aurora Universe marriage will mean to Aurora Universe fiction. Both stories are raunchy, of course, but in a way we hope will appeal to both men and women. Aside from that, they stand apart even though they stand together -- Velvet's is tied in only with previous stories in this series, whereas mine is a much-belated sequel to "Mundane Secrets of the Yo-Yo Brotherhood" -- not about Charmin, whose destiny was revealed in "Sleeping Beauty," but the people she left behind in a small town in Washington. And there's a nod to the Diaboli of Andy Yakovsky....
It's finally here! What you've all been waiting for. Part II of Velvet Belle Tree's epic story Homecoming. Part I was the most popular story by far on the new TBE, with more than 1,450 reads since it was posted March 8. But the continuation is even better, as Ju'lette reunites with Tassos on Andros and shares councils and counsels with the elite of that world -- including Kalla, oldest of the Companions -- on matters vital to the future of Terrans, Supremis and Scalantrans alike.
Meanwhile, things are also heating up on Binkley's World, where in Chapter 4 of "The Mission," Protectors originally assigned to the liberation of that world from the Arions are starving for a Messenger. Col. James Kim'Vallara receives a surprise visit from his wife Bidu -- but he has a lot on his mind, including the secret of Oon'ah and Xanthra. Should he confide in her?
The Ides of June brings the first Aurora Universe story by Jordan Taylor, an exciting new talent first seen in "Obsolete." "Walking Tall" is the story of Patricia, a Velorian Legionnaire who has been serving on Novo Recife but longs to return home to Alguna Parte. But as we learn in Part One, her welcome home isn't all that pleasant.
Meanwhile... ever wonder what Shadar's stardates in Shore Leave actually refer to? Velvet Belle Tree has the answer -- a calendar that began with the Scalantrans, but was adopted and adapted by the Terran diaspora because it was the Scalantrans who first united the scattered human worlds, centuries before the Enlightenment and the Empire.
Chapter 3 of "The Mission," revised by Rob, is new today. I hope to have Chapter 4, which will be more of a collaboration and tie in more with the Ordinary Velorians cycle, ready before long -- if wedding plans and other distractions permit. Speaking of Ordinary Velorians, I am restoring pictures to the original serial that have been missing since The Bright Empire moved to its new home. And the About the Aurora Universe page has been updated with links to the new sites of Moxie and Uberepicure and the new URL of Julie and Friends. Further updates, including a link to Shadar's new version of Origins of the Supremis, are in the works.
The delay might have been longer if Velvet BelleTree hadn't created the delightful character of Arish'ka in "What's a Vel to Do?" But there were two other inspirations: Mandi Steele's photo set "Houseguest," in which a drop-in at some (lucky!) guy's house turns out to be Supergirl; and Sharon Best's "Evana" (recently rewritten by Shadar as "Evan'ya"), in which a Vel rewards an ordinary guy for showing bravery. In my own "Houseguest," I wanted to make the Mandi Steele fantasy come alive, do something fresh with the Sharon Best fantasy, and tell a story worthy of Arish'ka -- even though I don't use her name.
Which Velvet herself does in "More Than One Way to Skin an Arion," a sequel to "What's a Vel to Do?" This story is an entry in the latest Supergirls, Inc., contest. Since I'd put up Jordan Taylor's "Obsolete" when that was an entry in the previous contest, I can hardly deny Velvet a place at TBE before the voting. And it's a great story by one who writes AU fiction as if she had been doing it all her life -- a comic take on the ubergirl vs. ubergirl theme of the contest.
But there are other things new here as well.
Charon MacDonald has sent a revised and expanded version of "Death is the Middle (Not the End)." We just can't praise Charon highly enough, and we hope more of you will read his brilliant take on life after death -- and the more-than-life-and-death stakes there.
With Shadar adding to the saga of Alisa Liddell at Aurora Universe: Other Worlds with "Encounter at Westfold," I thought it was time to update the Ordinary Velorians timeline. The new version also includes references to Andy's (formerly Leafblade's) contributions. Besides that, I've added a Vendorian history, AU-3 version, adapted from an AU-L&F version posted by Tarot Barnes at the AU Readers Group.
Finally, having belatedly learned the Velorian words for "I love you" ("Kai tamoor'sk"), I've done a few tweaks to "Sleeping Beauty" to add them. Altogether, what we thought would be a minor update has turned into a major event.
Charon MacDonald returns with his second story for Other Voices -- a tale of the supernatural that puts such famed writers as Stephen King to shame. In "Death is the Middle (Not the End)," as the title suggests, there are worse things than death. Gwenolyn's about to find that out --she has just been killed, and finds herself called upon to defend her fellow dead as well as avenge herself on her killer.
Meanwhile, taking time out from her stories in progress, Velvet Belle Tree turns to Rants and Ramblings to tell us about The Last Valley, a movie set during the death and destruction of the Thirty Years War -- a truly great movie that none of us should miss.
It's April Fool's Day and time for some fun. And Velvet Belle Tree's just the one to give it to us with "What's a Vel to Do?" -- the story of a Vel agent under deep cover on Earth who's really lonely and really hungry. And that does not mean for food!
As everyone knows, today is Interstellar Superwomen's Day (by coincidence, its also International Women's Day here on Earth), and how better to celebrate that event than with Part One of Homecoming, the first story by a new heroine of AU fiction, Velvet Belle Tree? It's a sequel to "Companions", on which she helped -- but this time, it's her work an I'm just the helper.
