A Letter to Sir Richard Amesbury, from Sir Anthony Grimston.

My dear friend,

It should come as no surprise to you that the kingdom in an intolerable state. In all my years as a professional scoundrel and despoiler of maidens, I have never seen anything to equal this. I simply cannot do business.

The dearth of maidens is appalling, Richard, utterly appalling. How can I abduct a woman and threaten her with a Fate Worse Than Death if such a fate as already befallen her - and worse, she enjoyed it!

Worse, no self-respecting Knight in Shining Armor will rescue a besmirched maiden. I do not even get the somewhat dubious pleasure of besmirching them myself. They come to me pre-besmirched, as it were. My dragon is starving and my estate is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Can you see any solution to this problem?

Your friend,

Anthony.

The collection of missives will be compiled here.

This is a reiteration of classic short story structure that harkens back to Marion Zimmer Bradley and beyond but was enunciated to me by Dave Freer of Baen Books fame. It has since become something of a recurring mantra as I wind my way down the dimly lit halls of the Slush Pile and, frankly, it’s beyond time I said it loudly enough in public for everyone to hear.

To wit: Your first 200 words must 1) Set the scene, 2) Establish an empathic relationship between the reader and the character(s), and 3) Establish plot tension so the reader will keep reading.

Now, there’s a 4) there, too, but I tend to be a little forgiving of trying to fit that in the first 200 words and leave it to be established in the rest of the story: 4) The rest of the story should capture the characters dealing with the source of the plot tension THROUGH THEIR OWN EFFORTS.

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The Last Arrow of Liang Xi

By Brian Dolton

The sound of the clay jug breaking disturbed the silence of the mountainside. The arrow had severed the red cord, and only the red one. The five others remained intact, their suspended jugs swinging in the wind that swirled up from the gorge. Jong Huan lowered his bow.

“A masterful shot,” Guo Gong said. “Now the others. In turn.”

“As you wish, Master Guo,” Huan said. He lifted the bow again, nocking the orange arrow, noticing the subtle differences in weight and length. Half a li away, across the gorge, the jugs continued to swing. They were just close enough to bump against one another, adding an extra touch of randomness to their movements.

Jong Huan drew the string back to his cheek and sighted along the thin arrowshaft. He released the breath he was holding, very slowly and evenly; and, just as the last of it escaped his lungs, he released the bowstring. The orange arrow flashed across the canyon. The arrowhead, gleaming and perfectly honed, sliced through the orange cord; the jug fell to the rocks below, shattering as its counterpart had done heartbeats before.

Master Guo tapped an arrow against his leg, in an erratic rhythm. It was clearly intended as a distraction. Jong Huan paid him no heed. Nothing mattered but the wind, and the jugs suspended from the arc of bamboo, and the arrows carefully lined up alongside him. He nocked the next, and drew, and released.

Six arrows. Six thin cords. Six old jugs.

He made every shot. When he looked back at Master Guo, he found it hard not to smile with pride. Master Guo had a smile of his own; that gentle, unreadable smile that every shang shui Huan had trained under seemed to cultivate.

“You are a very fine archer,” Guo Gong said. “Why is it, then, that you have come to The World Above The World Below? What more do you think we can teach you?”

Illustrated by John Dotegowski.

I have changed the settings for accepting comments so that you no longer need to be registered in order to add your $0.02 to a post.

I am, however, moderating the initial posts to make sure sure spammers don’t overwhelm the blogzine.

Okay, we all know that there are no new ideas in fiction, right? Especially when it comes to manga.  The Japanese are absolute masters of running over the same opossum to the point that they’ll vary the positions of the entry and exit of the tire treads by millimeters just to see what changes on the carcass.

I suspect you might know where I’m taking this, but suffer with me for a moment longer.

Enchanter is a “magical girlfriend” story.  That kind of says it all.  You end up with some powerful magic chick forcing her way into a hapless and altogether too wishy-washy main male character’s life and then milking the situation for all comedic situations that it’s worth.  It was old when 3X3 Eyes and Ah, My Goddess! took it up and, let me tell you, it’s still pretty darned cliche.

BUT THIS IS THE JAPANESE WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.

So, guess what, Enchanter isn’t Ah, My Goddess! or 3X3 Eyes and the reason that there’s so much magical girlfriend manga out there is because it’s fun genre for guys to read.  Usually because of the fan service and the general comical nature of the stories.

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Fatecraft

By Lindsey Duncan

Pazia Ke’Lieren awoke flailing and shouting, nightmare recollections of broken locks and the thugs who had grabbed her hot on her mind. With no clear target in the semi-dark, she felt her foot connect with something soft even as she fell forward and landed hard on the planking of an inordinately fussy carriage. The quiet washed over her, no pounding hooves, no hissing of weather.

Jolted into common sense, she squinted at the pair who reclined on the seats. The man had a flat face, smooth as a river-rock, his frame stone thick; the woman was spindly, long-limbed and gold-complected, accompanied by a touch of stale perfume. They were dressed in tapestried velvet with silk blackwork and discreet jet jewelry, but it was frayed, a little too old, a little - to the eyes of a mercer’s daughter - out of style. The rest of the carriage matched: the curtains had been repaired past their prime, several layers of paint almost disguised the aging of the wood, and …

A foot to her stomach interrupted her assessment. She tried to curse at the guard who loomed over her, but the sound came out as an airless squeak. Outside, the horizon slid past in a blur of grey, stretched thin and level. Pazia had never seen anything like it before, but she pulled together scattered facts and guessed they traveled at ghostglide, a magical means of transportation invisible to the eye - too imprecise for breaking and entering, but impossible to track. It explained why there was no bump or shudder from the horses, only endless motion.

“You have strong lungs, daserii.” The nobleman spoke, his voice as rough as his appearance was polished. “I didn’t realize crafting dice was such athletic work.”

“I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know about the art,” Pazia replied, ekeing the words out with her precious remaining air, “if you’ll let me up and pull the carriage over.” Her hand snuck down, clutched the pouch at her side; the point of a pyramidal die poked her in the palm. As if they needed to tell her that she was in trouble.

Dragontrap

by Stefan Ingstrand

The black dragon swooped down toward the mountaintop, enormous wings beating frantically. With a muffled grunt, it half landed, half crashed into the eternal snow outside the cave.

That’s a pretty good disguise, Hrungie thought, stretching her own wings as she watched from the heap of gold and jewels inside. The human-sized halberd that was strapped to the other dragon’s back sort of ruined it, though.

“My turn, isn’t it?”

“I think so, dear,” her mother’s sleepy voice answered from the far side of their hoard.

Hrungie climbed down from the heap and treaded up to the mouth of the cave, tentatively tensing the muscles that let fire into her breath. Her chest grew warmer. Wisps of smoke rose out of her nostrils and dispersed in the freezing wind.

Their visitor didn’t look up as she approached. Shivering from the cold, he struggled to remove a jeweled bracelet from his foreleg. When it slipped over his paw, a blinding flash and a resounding crack made Hrungie jerk back. By the time her vision returned, the other dragon was gone. Where he had stood, a male human nearly tripped over itself in its hurry to pick up the halberd. Yet another dragon slayer. Ancestors, how predictable. Pretty original way to arrive, though.

“Die, foul beast!” the dragon slayer cried, pointing the sharp end of the weapon at Hrungie.

“Die yourself, scaleless…person.” She had been doing this for over two centuries now, and still wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. The human grew paler as it looked up at her.

Due to an entirely too short weekend and the need to get some i’s dotted and t’s crossed, Monday fiction for this week will become Monday fiction for next week.

On the up side, the next story will be all-new, never before released.  So please look forward to it.

Here’s the official announcement:

The Evolutions slush pile is now open.  We currently have about three months of new fiction to publish.  That’s about as close-in as I want to get.  I’m looking to start filling slots out to about 5 or six months (that’s an opportunity for 8 to 12 stories).

In particular, I need one more “creepy speculative fiction” story to round out Omnibus 4.  Because this story will be purchased specifically for the omnibus, the pay will be at PoD rate of $0.0125 per word instead of our standard electronic rate of $25 per story.

I’d also like to see some QUALITY military SF.  This may require a separate post on what I consider “quality”.  We’ll see what hits the slush pile first, though.

Some post-apocalyptic stuff would be nice or, better yet, post-apocalyptic SLIPSTREAM!  Hoo, baby.  Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Fantasy stuff…you know, omnibus 3 is THICK with fantasy.  I’d like more of that to mix in.  However, I’m picky and eclectic when it comes to that genre. I tend to stomp on Mother-Gaia-pink-fluffy-bunny-crystal-sucker-tree-hugger-pagan-glorifying stories with hobnail boots and then butt-stroke them repeatedly with my Mauser before delivering the bayonet coupe-de-grace.  Be forewarned.

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Just in case you, like me, managed to miss it, the Maximum Ride series of YA (young adult) novels by James Patterson are best sellers.  Bona fide best sellers.  As in, the kind of success that every author dreams of best sellers, not just “good for YA” best sellers, i.e. movie-coming-out-soon-with-hordes-of-expectant-fans-already-looking-forward-to-seeing-it-because-they’ve-read-the-book best seller.

Still, not quite as creepy-successful as Rowling, but close enough.

Previously, I reviewed the first volume of the manga version of Maximum Ride and had expressed my intent to review the original book as well.  And thus, we now see that Darwin can keep a promise.

Maximum Ride is not just the book title, but also the name of the main character (although she normally goes by Max).  Fourteen year-old Max is the leader of a group that includes five other orphans: Fang, Gazzy, Angel, Iggy, and Nudge.  They live secretly together in an unidentified forest in the American west in a secluded house.  As the eldest, Max takes responsibility for the group, but everyone pitches in and has their own special gift to share, especially Angel since she can read minds.

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