Greg Cum Ira – A Science Fiction Story By Kelly D. Tolman

Posted by admin on December 19, 2008

The great advantage of being a scientist is that you see the world for what it is, as it is, and you maintain no bias one way or the other about how it is. The great advantage of believing in something is that no matter what you see or hear or are told, you will find what you are looking for. Greg’s advantage laid in a unique combination of belief and science sometimes labeled insanity. A thin, elderly man with only a few strands of gray hair, thick glasses, and a penchant for polo shirts; Greg hardly presented an imposing figure.

Seventy-three years is not too long a time to spend conquering a planet. Nearly everything imaginable had been invented during his lifetime, and each new product both created a new niche in his plan and fueled the fire of his disappointment in humanity. A race of people willing to spend their lives in front of a little box of glass and plastic is not fit to govern the planet I live on, or so he believed. The television and personal computer, however, were wonderful devices for restraining humans and Greg had every intention of utilizing them to their fullest potential.

The major side effect of wanting to dominate a planet populated by six billion people is that you either have to delegate some of that power, or you have to limit the numbers of slaves. This particular point had bothered Greg for several decades; at times even affecting his ability to work. Killing people (or anything else), was not something he was good at; it wasn’t even something he had ever done. In then end, however, he had given way to human nature and decided on the easy way out; eliminate the excess. So, down to brass tacks, start by eliminating (without destroying the planet) approximately six billion people. Step two; convince those who remain that you are the rightful ruler of the planet. Step three, live happily ever after.

Step one, as Greg viewed it, was the most difficult, (after all who wouldn’t want to follow him after everyone else was dead). Naturally if he didn’t plan on keeping anyone alive it would be much easier. Of course it would have been even easier still if he had amassed a following of individuals to help him. Once more the problem of working alone on such projects with a limited budget remained unsolved. This time, however, it would definitely work.

Greg had great faith in human incompetence, having experienced it first hand on several occasions. There is no fool like the one who believes the system works, he had often taught his children. Despite his efforts, however, they still paid their taxes and held down regular job.

Once more Greg worked furiously at his basement computer, attempting to simultaneously monitor the working of the World Health Organization (WHO), and NASA. Launching your own satellite into Earth’s orbit can be difficult; doing so undetected and without cooperative outside help took nearly a decade. Doing it twice more was, as Greg put it, “beautiful.” Others may have dubbed it insane, but then their vote didn’t count much at this point anyway.

With a nudge hand here and there, he had managed to keep news of his biological attacks in South America and Africa sufficiently shrouded in confusion as to render the opposition incompetent. Developing the proper virus to do the job was almost as difficult as launching satellites. Information is plentiful and easy enough to gather, but acquiring the proper chemicals can get you arrested, and Greg was passionate about his criminal spotless criminal record; not so much as a parking ticket (not that he drove much these days).

Greg’s attention diverted from the WHO to the internal proceedings at the European Union, and the United Nations. Cracking the control of a single government was easy enough; he had, after all, helped to break and built several countries over the years, but simultaneously eradicating government heads around the globe was a true challenge. The first key is unrest, always unrest. Start with the people and then slowly let the level of discomfort rise until those at the top could feel it; then remove the top. Full-scale cyber-attacks on the European and Asian economy would begin tomorrow. He had tested his methods in the past, gradually fluctuating the worldwide economy; a lifetime of preparation for this moment.

He smiled to himself, scratched his scraggly beard and balding head, and pressed the enter key.

To continue to divert attention away from events in the third world, Greg unleashed a pair of new electronic viruses that would distribute themselves throughout developed countries, keeping businessmen and employees equally busy for a few days. He transmitted an email to a doctor in the Congo (who by now was certainly carrying the biological virus), recalling him to his home in northern Europe. A similar message found a doctor in Nicaragua, and the doctor returned to Australia. Greg reached for his coffee mug, empty. All right, get some coffee and then tackle North America.

Greg got up from his swivel chair, his thin frame leaving a shallow impression, and stretched his arms and back. Books lay stacked all around him, notepads, pencils, files containing all imaginable information; and over all of it sat the strong odor of coffee and meticulous malice. Greg whistled quietly to himself as he skipped up the stairs. Eighty-six and still more fit than any television raised punk. At the top of the stair he met his daughter. “Going on a coffee run, you want anything,” he asked.

“Dad, its midnight, I was just headed to bed. Don’t wake the kids when you come in, ok.”

“Sorry, Mandy, I’ll be quiet when I come in.” Grandkids were great, if only their parents weren’t so annoying.

Thirty years ago a doctor twenty years his junior told him to give up the coffee, alcohol and late nights (he never did smoke). Greg sent flowers to the doctor’s widow, but secretly he didn’t feel much remorse. Destiny decides how long you live, and you decide how much you enjoy it. Greg was destined for greatness, and immortality. The garage was full of the keys to immortality. Experiment upon experiment latched together in a careful chain, all to produce panacea. The rats, dogs, and neighborhood bums who were now cured (one way or the other) of their ill health were all greatly appreciated. A super immune system combined with genetic anti-aging created an agent that cured just about everything, including the common cold and cancer.

The Go-mart, or whatever they called the place these days had the best coffee available at midnight (or any other time), and Greg found the crust on the nacho cheese particularly appetizing. The hired help, as usual, reminded him of the reasons behind his never-tiring quest, but then so did pretty much everyone else he met. He used his credit card to pay for the order, after all the transaction would simply ‘disappear’ by morning anyway. Greg sipped his coffee smugly on the way home.

Back at the lab he checked his resources and progress. He didn’t have enough money to manage a full-scale release of the virus in North America, or Europe, and a partial release would only give the Americans time to find a cure, so an alternative must be found. Fortunately, a lifetime of planning allows one to consider these possibilities beforehand. Greg rummaged around in his desk until he found the correct set of cables, and connected a small device to his computer. He quickly loaded a new program, and giggled slightly as the green light on his gadget sprang to life. Radiation emissions on computer and television screens around the world, but most heavily concentrated in the United States, would now reach toxic levels. By the end of the week video game geeks would be dropping like flies.

Enough damage for the moment, he decided. Time for a drink and some light reading. He found a bottle of beer in the mini-refrigerator, and opened a thick file labeled space exploration. The improbability of humans discovering extra-terrestrial life always amused Greg. If only they really tried. Of course, if they really tried I could stand them. Greg continued to peruse his various files for over an hour, lost in the possibilities of what could be. The world was finally becoming a unit bound by more than just gravity. The potential for world cultures to merge, language and customs to join, and new leadership to be defined was being fulfilled. All too slowly. With the right people, living forever, all of the waste and laziness and destruction would be eliminated. Six billion to find a few thousand; at least he had good odds of finding decent help.

Time for more nachos. Compulsively, he swiveled the chair around to check the progress. His chair bumped against the transponder, and the device fell to the floor. “Damn!” he exclaimed. Greg picked up the box, noting that the case had cracked. He shook it a couple of times. The rattling told him soldering was in order, and Greg let out a soft sigh. “I’ll fix it when I get back.” He left the broken equipment on the desk and stopped at the bathroom on the way out the door. The convenience store was only a few blocks away, and the night was warm, Greg walked, as usual. For a change, there was another customer, obviously in a hurry. The engine of their beat-up Toyota was still humming, and the lights were on. Some punk kid, as it turned out, harassing the clerk. Why don’t people just let people do their jobs, he thought. Greg opened the door and headed to the coffee.

“Hey old man, where you goin’” the punk accosted him. Greg gave him a stern look, failed to see the gun, and proceeded to the coffee. The clerk screamed, the punk fired, and Greg’s panacea failed to stop the bullet.

In other news, a doctor in the Congo discovered a cure for a mysterious virus believed to have been transported through insects in third world countries, saving the lives of thousands. He had received a message recalling him earlier, but stayed to finish the job anyway. NASA discovered yet another mysterious satellite, believed to have been launched by a terrorist group, and destroyed it. The department of defense announced a new cyber-security system. The European Union managed to quell fears of instability, and the United Nations reported that political unrest was at an all-time low.

Prospects for the world in general looked good, although crime in some suburban areas appeared to be on the rise.

THE END

Copyright 2008 Kelly David Tolman

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How to Write a Fantasy Novel

Posted by admin on November 19, 2008

There are several ways to write a fantasy novel and most of them will work out just fine in the end.  The real trick of course is then turning around and selling your novel.  Assuming you have that little point covered, let’s discuss how to write a fantasy a novel.

The biggest ingredient is effort.  I say that now so that it doesn’t get forgotten.  Write every day.  Be consistent.  Put in the effort.

You’re ready to put in the effort – ok, here are a few other pointers.

1. Tell a story.  Don’t build a world.  This is not a Dungeons and Dragons game you are about to run.  Nobody is really that interested in the torrid details of your world.  Yes those details are important, but not as important as the story.  A story has a hero, an antagonist, a love interest – all those things that we enjoy reading about and watching in the movies.
2. Show your story, don’t tell it.  You have a love interest and a hero.  Don’t say “and he fell in love with the princess.”  That is kinda blah.  Rather show his/her actions and words as they interact.
3. Write your story.  All too often I talk with would be novelists who don’t actually write anything.  They tell me all about the world, the characters, the concepts, but on paper they have nothing more than a few notes.  Not one word of dialogue, action, nothing.
4. Keep writing your story.  Yep, keep at it.  Sure you may take a break now and again to go through your notes and revise your ideas, but KEEP WRITING THE STORY.  Otherwise you’ll just end up with a pile of notes.
5. Finish the story.  It may sound a bit strange but it can be hard to just call the story done.  Figure out where the climax is, tie up the loose ends that actually need tying up and finish it.  Call it good.  We don’t need to read about the hero’s sixteen grand children and their battles with the Dragons of Orgnark.  Save that for another novel.  Finish this one.
6. Go back a re-write your story.  You thought you were done didn’t you.  Go back and cut out half of everything you have written.  Hack it.  Slash it.  Get mean with that red pen.  Then re-work it again.  Go through the whole book, sentence by sentence and word by word.
7. Take a break.  Now is a good time to get away from it.  Let your girlfriend read it.  If you don’t have a girlfriend then now would be a good time to get one.  Let it sit.  Let it stew.  Let people whose opinion is worth anything take a look at it and then listen to them.
8. Revisit step 6.  Be sure you have taken at least a couple of weeks off.  Then go back and do step 6 all over again.
9. Repeat steps 6 through 8 a couple of more times.
10. Call it good.  No it isn’t perfect.  It isn’t the greatest thing you have ever done.  You are still unhappy with it.  You are still disappointed.  You still want more.  Too bad.  It is done.  You are finished with it.  Accept that and go on to write the next novel.

If you were expecting something more directly fantasy related – tough.  A story is a story is a story.  The setting is less important than the story.  If you haven’t figured out how to write a story then you should quit now.  Learning how to write a fantasy novel is no different than learning to write any other story.  Odds are that if you want to write a fantasy novel then you already understand how fantasy novels work and have a good idea of what to put into your world and charaters.  The rest is just writing a good story.

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The Night Charlie Passed – A Short Short By Kelly D. Tolman

Posted by admin on November 12, 2008

Waiting for Spring is a long time since chrome flew and landed in the blue on the other side of purple.  The light on the wump cousins differed from the needle-sticker lamps more than Los Angeles differs from Chicago.  Since the pills, though, the wumps do not come and the wump-leader does not laugh with Charlie.  Only sitting and rebuilding, within the needle-sticker softness, mean, and move time to time, or wear hats.  Perhaps Charlie can visit in the Spring and drink the pill free air while the wumps play in the sun.

The needle-stickers say Charlie passed away when the Rolls jumped.  The car fell sixteen stories, or about that from a building in Los Angeles.  After that the needle-stickers seem to have lost the license plate in the fog until even the building has blown away.  How the wumps will manage to get a car through the door before visiting in the Spring is rather confusing.

The wumps are pondering now, with their dark hats pulled low covering their glowing faces from the prying fingers of the moon.  Four of them pull, and scrape the paint from the Rolls Royce, chewing the silver siding while the last laughs and tinkles the starlight.  Charlie goes into the garage, wearing his driving gloves and hat, smiling and breathing the fumes of Sherry.  Some of the purple wears off on the silver.  The wumps get involved personally.

The purple bodies will press the silver clanger into the street, and eventually up the elevator.  They will be strong and fast, and well timed, so that although Charlie will believe he has finally tamed the silver beast he will really only be entering the mystified trance the needle-stickers will call passing away.  The wumps will guide the flashing metal to the high up place where sixteen different stories will be told by the wumps to pacify the needle-stickers into forgetting the pains caused by the pills.  The car will scream and fall; Spring will arrive, and the needle-stickers will go.

But Charlie was mad, wine-mad or red-mad before the passing-mad or awa-mad that holds him now.  The wumps were also mad; red-mad or fight-mad, and when he flew over the edge into the emptiness of the dead city an odd smile crossed his bent nose.  The Rolls shot in crystalline glory from the window where the wumps laughed, and Charlie’s teeth glittered in the night.  The wump cousins, dressed in blue and wrapped in red and yellow light found Charlie cased in silver.   Confused, they waited and the wump leader mixed purple and silver until the needle-stickers came and washed their white on Charlie.  A sheet or a blanket or paint washed them and the wumps went away until Spring.

Until now, the after now of the needle-stickers, the wump leader sits, wrapped in purple perfection, repeating the chant that leads the drive, waiting for Spring.  Her golden tresses have rubbed into purple, where remembering mixed with pills creates Chicago crossed with wumps in Los Angeles.  The silver streak in her hair is no the same silver in Charlie’s hair before the wumps took him.  It is the silver of chrome touched with dark purple.

The needle-stickers smile and frown, and are altogether unpredictable.  They enter and exit, and say that the wumps have also passed, and that Spring is and has been, and that wumps will is have never known them.  And the wumps do not visit.  The needle-stickers say this though they do not like the wumps.  They do not fly or eat silver, and they have not tasted the pills of the wump leader’s memory.

In a corner where the needle-stickers have not come, she has waited for the wumps.  In a voice which the needle-stickers have not wanted to hear she has called for Charlie and pulled at the silver in her hair.  With a nightmare which has not forgotten itself the car hurtles again and again, and the seering purple hat she once wore has become tatters in her hands.  A silence which burns soft and heavy has not stopped shouting as the needle-stickers and Charlie to stay and touch the green with her in the Spring.

Spring will pass, passes, has passed, merrily, until the hat has tattered the hands as well, and the silver is flecked with gold, dimly where the wumps came.

THE END

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