Author: Clayton Barnett

Former engineer, current husband and father, layabout Pharmacy Technician, aspiring writer.

Irrational Pai, 1/x

Sometimes a single image is enough to launch a story. I stared at the one below for a day before she started talking to me, telling me a story. This will be one of two for the anthology Tales from the Lemur Throne, vol. 1, due out late this year.

Given her family, she’s a bit clumsy and sometimes has trouble paying attention. Given the setting, it is also a chance for me to look about one of the places in the former US which stabilized after the Change, but never really recovered to a significant technological level. I think this will be fun.

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Iter, 4/4, end

Ugh. Helping to move Daughter #2’s stuff to her new house. In 87F/90% humidity. I’m too old for that.

Decided to conclude this one, so it is just a tiny bit longer. Having always been content to just be as her man’s side, Min gets a little surprise from Fussy at the conclusion of Les’ funeral. And then there is the interplay with Reina. Aurie gets in first, to make sure that most dangerous of Thinking Machines does not do anything stupid. Min was, after all, once her.

For the next week, I need to flog Matters of Life and Death to where I can hand it off to my copyeditor. And, I need to ponder the eleven stories and decide what I’d like to see on the front and back covers so my designer can get started. Everyone have a good weekend.

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Iter, 3/x

It was a 17-hour drive, augmented by my GI tract bug. DIdn’t get home until 2347. I’m recovering today but very glad to have the day off. In fact, after this update, I’m laying down for at least rest if not a nap

“A walk in the woods,” is an old military metaphor for a failed commander to use his sidearm to blow his brains out to try to expiate his failure. Thankfully, this is just a walk between two cousins, more human than human, who are groping their way to an understanding and acceptance what their loss.

I do like how Aurie – she’s so down-to-earth in private! – immediately recognized where Min’s grief was leading her. And put a stop to it, instantly. That meeting with Reina has me a little worried, though. She’ll likely work on Min’s mind in the exactly opposite way.

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Iter, 2/x

This really is an emotional trainwreck for me. But necessary for Min to have some kind of closure to what she has suffered. I’ve been with my wife for 35 years, much of that we were off at our jobs, or traveling separately… Imagine being with someone every day for one hundred years. And now that someone is gone. The second to last line here is critical: machine does not mean emotionless; in fact, given their speed of thought, I suspect some of them are much more emotional than humans. For Min, that goes all the way back to the end of part three of Obligations of Rank, where she drops into Les’ lap and starts kissing him, to thank him for her asylum.

While I’ve mostly completed Iter (it should be five segments, I think), the end needs work. Tomorrow will be a 15-hour drive, so part three will not be until Thursday.

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Iter, 1/x

This will be the 11th and last addition to my 19th book, another short story collexion. It, unfortunately, again deals with death. And how the spouse of that person deals with their death. I again apologize for all these depressing stories, and will try to do something much more fun and entertaining, next.

All demi-humans have longer lifespans. Those who have lived in close physical proximity (which Laszlo has not) to Henge Hartmann even more so. But they still die and are smart enough to not deny that and thus can make plans for it. As an android, Minerva (please be polite when reading and pronounce it in your head correctly: mee-nur-wa) is effectively immortal. As a Model 12, she has living skin, which she feeds via something like a TPN every three days, which was replaced about fifty years ago.

Iter will be wall-to-wall grief and politics. If that’s not your thing, I’ll be back, later. Otherwise, here we go…

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Red Rain, 11/11, End

Welp, not where I thought it would go, but there it is. And, better for a lazy writer like me, it didn’t really “end” as we don’t know what happens one second later. However, all in all, it was an interesting exercise in allegory, even if heavy handed in a few places.

I’m already starting on my next and final project for my third collection. It will be much shorter than this but at least four times as depressing. I need to make book #20 into some kind of fun novel. There are millions of stories out there in hundreds of my characters; I just need to listen. Thanks, everyone, for reading along.

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Red Rain, 10/11

I’ve finished, but the last segment will need to be flogged a little bit more. In RealLife, still on semi-vacation, everyone else went out on the lake while I wrote, edited, and sent emails for the Lemur Throne Anthology, which I plan to publish on Christmas Day 2024. That’s fine; I don’t really like bodies of water and the sun turns me into a seeping blister.

Believe it or not, these last two parts, as Akky scales Building Three, was from an old memory of Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, and his fights to the top. There is nothing as remotely interesting here, but I take what inspiration I’m allowed to see.

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Red Rain, 8/x

A lot going on in this segment. Akky is true to herself in two ways: she recognizes she loves Nike and also that she’s willing to try anything to leave the Land Inside the Walls.

Following the mysterious conversation she has at the end, here, we start on something of a rollercoaster ride toward the end of her story. To quote Han Solo, “I’ve a very bad feeling about this.”

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Red Rain, 7/x

Last weekend was Imaginarium. It went very well and I need to write something about it. That will probably be in 1-2 poasts. In the mean time, I wanted to get this story back on rails as I’ve now a very good idea where it concludes.

Following her encounter with little Silver, Akky gets a tiny glimpse into her and her brother’s backstory. It stirs her own memories just enough to make her contrarian, if not deadly, nature, come to the surface.

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