A bit of clarification of the last segment. I don’t want Graf or the readers to think he has some kind of super powers, so Pai gives him a little background.
After their convo with Robert, things take a complicated turn. I have much to think about this weekend.
Continue reading “Civil Wars 2, 4”Speaking of medical matters, on my day off was up at 0630 to drop off a dog for teeth cleaning. The estimate was $700-900. TF? I told my wife “next time buy a damned toothbrush.”
A rare Tuesday update, I wanted to wrap up Graf’s foray into the park across from the hospital. I also wanted to re-point out what Pai calls his gift; something he nearly considers a curse. I’m too good a writer to get into “Mary Sue” territory, so things will happen shortly to keep him on a short leash.
For those who know my works, you’ll recognize the scraggly gal Graf sees in the background for just a moment.
Continue reading “Civil Wars 2, 3”A quiet, transitional moment. I work PRN in a hospital and know how important it is to get patients out of their damn beds. With the shock of the moon attack in the past and his new throat installed, Graf also is ready to get out of his room and out of the hospital. I understand completely.
The next few segments will ease a reader back into their odd three-way relationship, with, of course, Robert Hartmann on the way; that’s likely in the segment after next. I do think Pai feels guilt for letting her husband get shot, but she’s not only hiding that from him, she’s hiding it from me. I’ll see what I can find out.
Continue reading “Civil Wars 2, 2”Another small delay as I tried to die again. Was at hospital Emergency; apparently the overpriced bellhops who call themselves “MDs” never got round to mentioning that taking lisinopril, an ACE inhibitor, should be stopped after 5-8 years. When the ER doc found out I’d been on it for 11, I thought he would take a swing at me. Anyway, another angioedema attack and some IV meds followed by four days of prednisone. Slowly recovering. Again.
Recovering enough to get back to writing. As the Prologue started “in the middle,” as all good stories should, what will be the start of chapter one, below, backtracks to catch readers up on politics of the imperium and the Polar Alliance. There is an interesting backhanded mention of the main character.
Continue reading “Civil Wars 2, 1”While I have killed main characters before, this is not one of those times. Graf, unconscious and very shocky, and his team make it back to a medical facility just in time. I think the doc liked Pai’s unconventional idea: “You tied a tournequet around his neck?”
These seven parts will form the prologue of my second book of the Civil Wars. I expect it to be unpleasant and yes, there will be deaths of people some of y’all may have been reading about for years. A real civil war – think Whites and Reds; Serbs and Croats; for example – is a house to house, mind by mind affair. Nothing at all like the US War of Northern Aggression.
Thanks for reading. My next installment shall also be a short story, roughly contemporanious with this one, but set in Nazca, Peru.
Continue reading “Civil War, 7, end”The Violent, the last Circle of Upper Hell.
Continue reading “Civil War, 6”If you’re watching, yes, this is a replay of Upper Hell from Dante’s Inferno. Each level they descend represents another Circle, another kind of sin. In this shorter installment, we cover two: impetuous lust and hoarders/wasters.
And, for those new to all this, Graf and Pai, husband and wife, are first featured in Irrational Pai. Their relationship, human and Machine, is almost unique and constantly changing the world of those around them. A daughter of the ruthless Machine Reina of Russia, Pai is often at odds with her Upper Midwest farmboy husband and his sense of niceness and fair play.
Continue reading “Civil War, 5”I know it should be “wars,” but I wanted to finish up this sequence from back in April. Good Lord, has it really been that long?
Well, Graf and his team set down on the Moon but are immediately informed there is a problem and are underway again almost immediately.
Continue reading “Civil War, 4”Yes, it’s a Pink Floyd reference. As many know, I’ve been silent here for months, and that’s all on me. When I published my twentieth book, it was as if a switch was thrown in my mind: “you’re finished.” I wasn’t, of course. Irrational Pai is after all called the “first book of the Civil Wars,” implying several more. It’s just I didn’t care. And, there was a thousand last-minute things to do before selling a property in June; I’ve been sick on and off since last November – although I did give up hard alcohol at the start of July.
My reboot, as it were, came on Thursday evening at Imaginarium. I had commited myself and my fellow writers, the Lemurs, to five short stories based around the theme of “Underground.” Physically? Politically? Didn’t matter: stick to the theme, just as we did last year with our Cartaphilus theme. So, I hammered something out in just under three hours. It sucked, of course – we’re going for speed, not grace – but has since been flogged into something nigh-well respectable.
Further, it was enough to get past the reboot screen and keep going. I was asked to participate in another anthology, this one with the theme of “Captured!” In order to keep things close to me, I did what I did at Imaginarium: I wrote about something related to the coming Civil Wars (note the plural) in my future history. Selfish? Sure, but it works. And, it worked well enough I just finished the raw MS of another story.
It’s good to be back. My apologies for my absence. I shall begin posting segments later this afternoon. Deus vult.
machciv 