Tunnel Visions

dales-tunnels

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Hill always came to places like this when he couldn’t sleep. He needed the dreams but without sleep, there were only visions.

In his visions, he’s alone usually by choice. People made too much noise. When he couldn’t sleep, it was because his own brain made too much noise and because he couldn’t let go of the world’s noise.

This one was better lit than most. It was quiet, but a little cold. He heard his footsteps on crumbling concrete. It was like a science fiction dystopia.

At the end of the tunnel, could he rest in a better world?

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Book Review: “The Warship – Rise of the Jain, Book Two” (2019)

warship

© James Pyles

A few nights ago, I finished Neal Asher’s 2019 novel The Warship: Rise of the Jain, Book Two. I read and reviewed the first book in this trilogy a little over a year ago. That’s really too long a space between these volumes.

As with most of Asher’s novels (and there are plenty of them), the action takes place in the “Polity” universe (basically the Earth/human domain of space) and involves the primary protagonist the Prador, but they’re not the “big bads” in this story.

As with every one of Asher’s books I’ve read so far, one of the main challenges is keeping track of the numerous individual characters, their races and other things (the Spatterjay Virus for instance) that distinguishes one person/group from another.

This trilogy focuses on a species called the Jain or rather their technology and a number of mysteries that surround them.

Asher’s great at misdirection, so the Jain don’t necessarily occupy center stage through most of the scenes, even if the reader is led to believe they do.

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Baboons and the Aliens

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PHOTO PROMPT © Robbie Cheadle

The zoo was closed which was what Chen was counting on. Right before he was “let go” from the IT department, he installed a backdoor into their security system letting him bypass the gate locks and alarms.

Even knowing he was alone, he looked left and right as the snow fell on him and the pool of baboons. The time traveler from the future whispered into the brain implant he had given Chen and he passed along the news to his friends.

“An alien probe will destroy Earth three-hundred years from now unless we take you back to answer them.”

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A Boy and His Racoon

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PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

“Oops.” Twenty-year-old Calvin Weiss wiped a clump of dark hair out of his eyes with one hand while balancing his grandfather’s mystic tome in the other. “That isn’t what I wanted.”

“I keep telling you Cal, it’s long-A on the umlaut and short-A on the tilde. Geez, will you ever get it right? The pudgy racoon reached into Cal’s backpack sitting near the discolored tree trunk and pulled out another beer. Popping the tab, he took a swallow. “That’s better.”

“Not better for me, Tubby. I was supposed to summon the wood Fae out of this tree, not dye it.”

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With Two Cats and a Flood

NC flood

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“Our house, is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats and a flood…”

He stopped singing the old song and listened to the water coursing down the street.

“Sure, I’ve been stuck on the floor days, your food has run out, and no one can get here to help, but we have each other.”

Chloe and Spike had been sitting on the coffee table staring at him for hours. He’d fallen out of his wheelchair and his usual attendant couldn’t get to the house.

The cats looked hungry and as he said, the food had run out.

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2024: A Year in Review

2024

It’s close enough to the New Year for me to post my annual “year in review” comments. 2024 has been pretty good as far as he number of stories I’ve had published.

It started out with my short story “I Don’t Want To Be Human” appearing in the Cloaked Press anthology Spring Into SciFi 2024. This tale goes back to my roots in terms of sapient robots, AI, while flying in the face of the common trope that all humanoid robots want to be like people.

Next up, I’m particularly proud of the 16-part science fiction serial I wrote for Starry Eyed Press called Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure. It’s currently on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform, but Vella is going away (you still have time to read it). The folks at Starry Eyed say they’ll republish my work in book form, hopefully in the coming year. I’ll let you know.

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For I Was Hungry And You Fed Me

chairs in snow

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

Bundled up, Jake sat outside and watched a thin, pink sunrise of Christmas morning.

“Another Merry Christmas to the world,” he said raising a cup of coffee to his lips. “Wonder how many more I’ll get to see?”

At seventy-eight, his bones ached more than he wished, especially after having been up all night. “Guess I’d better get ready to visit the grandkids.”

He stood and smiled at the memory. It was his eleventh year of passing out blankets, food, and coffee to the growing number of homeless in his hometown. “God be willing, I’ll do it again next year.”

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Retro Review of “Thor: Love and Thunder” (2022)

love and thunder

© James Pyles

Strolling around the DVD section of my local public library yesterday, I decided to finally check out the 2022 movie Thor: Love and Thunder. It had the benefit of me not having to pay to see the film.

I have now joined the vast legion of people (online anyway) who’ve gone on record as hating, detesting, and loathing this movie. I almost shut off the DVD at the 12 minute mark and then again at 15. However, I forced myself to watch it just so I could render some sort of opinion.

The only Marvel movie I did stop watching at about a third of the way through was Eternals (2021). I even managed to make it all the way through The Marvels (2023) before totally panning it.

Honestly, if this is the best Director Taika Waititi can do, he can stop making films right now (alas, he hasn’t).

The story starts on a barren planet where a man Gorr (Christian Bale) and his young daughter (played by Chris Hemsworth’s daughter India Rose Hemsworth) are dying. Gorr prays to his god for deliverance which does not arrive. Instead, his daughter dies.

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Make It Burn

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PHOTO PROMPT ©Sandra Crook

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

“See? What did I tell you.” Brad waved his arm dramatically in the direction of the chandelier.

“You’re right.” Katie’s mouth hung open aghast. “It must rate a nine-point-five on the Richter scale of bad taste. And whoever thought that god-awful purple light added anything to the room?”

“Yeah,” added Brad. “That lampshade is strictly 1970s puke terrible.”

“You’re sure they’re not coming back tonight.” She looked at him, suddenly serious.

“Off on a Bahama cruise for the next week. No pets. No house sitters.”

Katie opened her gas can and started splashing the contents around. “Let’s torch this place.”

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My Space Opera “The Fallen Shall Rise” FREE This Week!

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Cover art for “The Fallen Shall Rise”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

My space opera novelette The Fallen Shall Rise, a 224-Verse tale published by Starry Eyed Press is available to download onto your Kindle device FREE!

From today (as I write this), December 17th through Saturday the 21st, just go to the book’s Amazon page and download it absolutely free.

The Amazon blurb for my book says:

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