An excerpt and some thoughts.

  Little bit of Running out of Space, one of my works in progress, it comes in after the main character Caleb O'Hearn has been talking about the history of Psionics and language in the Magiverse to demonstrate his genetic memory from his Magi heritage, that bit is about six hundred words itself and it's a little bit lecturing but part of the rolling history into the story without it being just flung at you so I'm not going to post that. After the excerpt there are a few thoughts of mine on shared universes and collaboration between writers and shared timelines.

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'But it's funny to watch you drone on and not even realise it though, but also educational. Learned a little piece about my own heritage while bored shitless about yours.' Kerry-Anne told him and he flipped his middle finger at her. 'That wasn't Magi ancestor knowledge, all of your Magi ancestors were Hunters, Guardians and Soldiers. Where did that come from?'

'Sarah of Trenton, her sire's sire was a Professor of Germanic Languages at the University of New Amsterdam.' He replied with a grimace. 'When the hippie pothead wasn't on a commune.'

'Your warrior attitude would be an embarrassment to him as much as he's an embarrassment to you.' Kerry-Anne chuckled at him. 'Hell his granddaughter was an embarrassment for joining the FIB. He considered the whole notion of war and Big Government pointless.'

'War is fuckin pointless.' O'Hearn sighed and Kerry-Anne gave him a look of surprise. 'Show me a true warrior that wouldn't rather he never had to fight again, and I'll show you a damned liar or a homicidal maniac that should never be in uniform, like dear old dad. It is true, I am never more alive when I am chasing down prey or fighting hand-to-hand in a struggle to the death, but I've been stabbed, shot, sliced open, gouged, blown up, and had to heal from those wounds too many times in what has not been the longest life. I would really rather that I could spend the rest of my considerable life time with my feet up until I'm old enough that it's the end for me and one last battle for me to shuffle off the mortalish coil and sit in Bilskirnir until I am needed  once more.'

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 This plus everything else I'm working on, is running through my mind constantly, interlinking all the Magiverse stories can be a bit of work, especially when you are jumping two thousand years from the time of Gabriel to the time of Caleb,  and even when I jump just under a hundred years to my cyberpunk work, totally inspired by Continuum and Shadowrun, Corporate governments and Megacorporations.

Haven't seen series two of Continuum beyond the third episode been too busy with writing and painting soldiers. I can have TV shows in the background if I've seen them before but if it's new I have to actually sit and concentrate on it. But I'm getting off topic.

When I'm doing the Cyberpunk I have to remember what the map of Gabriel's Terra looks like even though it's all in my head (not the best idea, right now it's a bit fluid), trying to fit the Corporate Nations later in the timeline to nations from earlier in the timeline and then having to remember to use the right names in Caleb's time can hurt your head sometimes but I love reading shared universe fiction, and seeing how they evolve and how the stories evolved from where, granted you don't normally see three different periods on a timeline at the same time but that's me, glutton for the punishment I put upon myself.

I always wanted to be one of those authors that inspires collaboration with his fellow writers, I think that's what makes the Roleplaying, Comic book and TV & Movie shared universes so fun to immerse yourself in is the vibrant and many voiced reality, that no-one person is telling the story. Don't get me wrong they always need a strong hand to guide the ship and some of my favourite books series are written by one hand but I still believe it doesn't happen nearly enough in Sci-fi and Fantasy fiction that many hands help to form a better universe unless they tie in with a TV series or Movies or RPG's. 

Often enough authors will have others write for short story anthologies from their Universe which they edit,  but I think personally that D&D settings especially the Forgotten Realms Novels and even the Games Workshop forever dubbed the Evil Empire, fictional universes are made so much better, deeper and more real by the dozens of authors that write in the universe, though I'm sure most authors wouldn't like giving up money they would make writing their own work. 

People I'm sure will quote the expansions of the Cthulhu Mythos, the Man-Kzin Wars that added to Larry Niven's Known space, the expansion of Asimov's Foundation series and the adding to Lyman Frank Baum's (A prophet was he) Oz, the additions to Robert Howard's (Himself a Cthulhu Mythos expander) Conan, to me but I will also point out none of these except the Man-Kzin wars were ever done in the original author's lifetime.

But I won't deny that's always something nice to see, people trying to anticipate what would this author have written about next if he hadn't passed onto the halls of Valhalla, and I do applaud that, I would however like to see more authors collaborating to expand their own universes.

That's my end for today, off to the Falkirk District Wargames Club tonight, so dinner and work out an army, which I should have done last week when I was sitting on my arse at the club.

Saturday Night Blogging (part 2)

Part 1 closely followed by part 2. This is a story that has been edited a couple of times, various bits added and subtracted until I was happy with the end product because when I looked at it until that last time it just felt it wasn't right.

I felt after what I've been doing and talking about today that two examples of different ways I write, the first totally unplanned, unedited, uncut, this was submitted to a short story thread on a writing website after it had been edited a couple of times were appropriate for me to share.

Now a little of the back story of Gabriel and Susie's reality has changed since I finished this story, but I haven't edited that because it's fiction and fiction is fluid, when it get's published in a book then it'll get fixed, but now it's just this a case of this is something I've written, enjoy it and let me know what you think, this story is only about a thousand words.

Fury of the Ages

 

 

Gabriel of Alba’s fist met flesh and the Sorceror rocked back. The Gabriel grabbed his opponent by his collar and landed a headbutt upon the foul dark magic user’s nose. Blood and cartiledge exploded from and he ducked down. The War Master of the Magi’s free fist met the recidivist’s neck and smashed his spine.

His partner Susie Owens, Wizard of the Sydrian School, fought her opponenets Magic for Magic, shields being pummled with spell after spell. She faced three Priory members at once and was just about holding her own, when a lightning bolt shot from Gabriel’s hand and exploded two of the dark magic shields.

His own shield was being peppered with spells as he stalked towards the Mistress of the Priory, her people and the Daemon’s that they had conjured using the life force of a Magi child protecting her like a living shield.

He caught two of the Priory by their coat tails as they tried to flee from him, his own hand wreathed in flames and sparks igniting the cotton of the men’s coats. He knocked the men clean out so they were incinerated by the flames enveloping them.

Gabriel refused to allow the remaining children of his people to die at the hands of these soulless wretches share that first boy’s fate. Lightning bolts and fireballs flew from his hand as Priory member after Priory member fell to his fury.

The Mistress saw the fire in his eyes, white hot and filled with the fury of the light. She directed the half-ton eight foot, almost reptilian, Cordisangui daemons to either kill him or at least weaken the furious War Master.

A feral roar issued from his mouth, almost like the roar of a lion, as a double headed axe, wreathed in white flame appeared in his hand, for him to swing at the first Daemon that came into reach.

He bisected the daemon, groin to head, and then sliced the next in two, he beheaded a third and transected a fourth, each with a single stroke of the weapon.

“I am Gabriel, Son of Galdanis and Shiona, War Master and Warrior of the People. I am Death Incarnate.” He bellowed at the top of his lungs in the Warrior tongue of the Magi

His axe clove left and right, taking arms, legs and heads from human and Daemon alike. Susie had dispatched the last of the three Priory members in her path to the children, slamming him into a wall with a sickening thump. She unshackled them, but they all stared in awe of the de facto leader of their people.

The Magi War Master was like an engine who wouldn’t stop. Lightening bolts, fireballs and shards of ice flew from his free hand as the axe took apart yet more of the Priory.

He reached the Priory mistress and grabbed her by the throat, his eyes had changed into those of pure white light, and his accent was no longer that of a man born and bred in Glasgow, she had never heard the accent before.

“I am here to serve justice for the life you have taken and those that you would end.” He told the Priory Mistress who’s eyes were full of fear. “I name thee Omnino diabolus incarnatus inredux by the ancient laws of the Magical world, I cast your rotten soul back to your Dark Masters in hell.”

With a single twinge of his wrist he snapped her neck and threw her lifeless corpse to the ground, then launched the axe with eery accuracy so it decapitated the last of the remaining Cordisangui daemons.

His hands dropped, along with his head, then were lifted up to the sky and a bolt of lightning struck him. Using his body as a conduit it began forking into every living member of the Priory, electrocuting them on the spot.

Another roar issued from his open maw, the power surged through the body of the War Master and it would be awe inspiring if Susie wasn’t sure that he was no longer in control of it. She ducked and dived in order to avoid the forks as they continued to keep aloft the desiccated and charred remains of the Priory.

She reached him and tried to shake him to awareness.

“Gabriel, stop it you are going to die if you don’t stop it.” She said, almost crying at him, she realised she wasn’t getting through with his own name. “Michael, Stephen, Liam, Angus, Shaemus…”

She continued on using the names of his ancestors until she reached back almost a million years. His eyes returned to their normal colour.

“How long?” Gabriel asked her, sagging and almost falling to his knees, his voice back to normal. “How long Susie?”

“Almost before Pythia.” She replied with a concerned look on her face. “It’s getting worse Gabriel, I don’t know if I can pull you back if you push before Pythia.”

“Don’t worry,” he said with a tight smile. “You will, at least the children are safe.”

“You are far too important to let yourself lose control like that. You must not let it happen again, you are magic’s future.” She said with a wet growl, she was almost sobbing.

“No, my dearest friend Susie,” he replied with a smile, holding her tightly, and pointing to the children. “They are the future of magic, I am but a conduit for that future to spring forth and I always was.”

“They Prophecies…” He interupted her with a hand.

“The Prophecies are vague and inexact, in due time I will fulfil them and you will see just how vague.” He let her go and walked towards the children. “Come let’s return these lucky ones to their parents and break the news to the ones who are lost, may they rest in the embrace of the Great Father and Mother until it is their time to walk the world again.”

Saturday Night blogging (part 1)

 Okay dokey folks, bit of a double header tonight. First up a brand spanking new adventure of Gabriel of Alba and Susie Owens, written in around 60 minutes, it's around 1100 words, I had no plan for what I was writing I just wrote, if you think it's any good let me know, let me know if you don't. I've not read it back, I haven't edited it, it's just going up. This is one of the ways I keep my mind on what I'm writing in the novel without writing the novel and getting writers block, which I hate and try and avoid at all costs.

You can't ever win.

"What?" Gabriel of Alba asked Susie Owens as she growled at him.

"You know fine well what." She replied, covered in the goop from a Layoch daemon, her brown hair caked in it. "You slice it's stomach open, it's insides burst out and I got covered in it."

"So what?" He was confused by the look on her face.

"Gabriel, I'm wearing a nice outfit, that cost quite a bit of money, because I was meant to be going on a date." She shouted at him, pointing to her short and muscled body and the mess that the dress and the shoes were in. "Now the outfit is ruined, and I'll have to phone my date and tell him that I won't be able to make it because my idiot of a boss dragged me into something he could have dealt with himself."

"He's a mage, he knows me, he'll get it." Gabriel said with a shrug.

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT." She roared, slapping him on the back of the head. "I don't want him to have to understand that because my boss and partner is an insensitive, pig-headed, pain in the arse, I have to cancel my date. Gabriel, you could have come and did this yourself, it was a nest of Layoch Daemon's a Greenback on their first day could have handled this on their own."

"You are the one constantly quoting regulation 12.b to me, never take on any potential danger without your partner or some other form of back-up." Gabriel shot back with a smug grin.

"Your an ass." She growled at him. "More to the point, 12.b doesn't apply in this case, 12.b is for category five hazardous situations and above, 12.a applies, inform your partner of any potential hazardous situations category one to four. A nest of Layoch's is considered to be a Category three hazard."

"No, a single Layoch daemon is a Category three, a nest of Layoch's is a Category Five." Gabriel corrected her.

"There is also always regulation 12.c, Gabriel of Alba is exempt from the previous two sub-sections unless the Hazard is of Category 13 and higher as he is entirely capable of taking care of them on his own." Susie quoted and he couldn't think of a retort. "Ha, speared by the regulation sub-section you yourself had them add, bet you wish you hadn't now, you jackass."

In all the arguing the pair didn't notice the danger that was beginning to surround them. A pack of Werekin, evil and malevolent lycanthropes turned from human beings into what they were by Truewere's, the blood enemies of the Magi, Gabriel's magical race, and Hell's mortal soldiers, immune to most magic.Werekin despised the monsters they were turned by and in turn all magic users and tried to kill them when they came across them.

"It's not my fault you didn't change when I called you. I would have." Gabriel said to her.

"Gabriel you don't dress any differently whether you're on a date or not." Susie scoffed, waving her hand up and down at the Magi Warmaster who was dressed head-to-toe in black clothes, a hoodie, a greatcoat, a pair of combat trousers and boots which were not all black but mainly black. "I've seen you in something other than this all of once in the eight months I've known you. All you did was instead of a t-shirt, you wore a shirt, and you never wore the New Rocks, you wore plain black boots."

"I'm sure that's not right."

"Oh, no, it's right, believe me." She replied as a clawed hand reached out to grab her. Gabriel's reactions were however measured in nanoseconds as a ball of white flame slammed into the Werekin and threw it into three of it's fellows. "Behind you."

Gabriel turned and lashed out with a double-headed battleaxe of white light that appeared in his hand, taking the clawed hands off of two Werekin assailants.and ducked the sword of one of the few with human-like hands in it's turned form. Lashing out with his free hand he took it in the side, and his superhuman strength sent the beast flying.

 Susie was enveloped in a spherical force shield so none of the beast could touch her. Her chin sat on her chest as her lips moved, quietly mouthing incantations as her hands lashed out, sending bolts of lightening into Werekin, holding them on the spot and electrocuting them. A number of the beasts were hammering on her shield with claws and weapons but none were getting through. 

Gabriel was in about the monsters, laying about with his axe and flicking his wrists to send shock waves into unengaged beasts, snapping bones and holding them off of him. The largest of the beasts, almost as big as a True Werewolf, and most likely turned by one, broke through his defense and scratched it's claws down his chest, tearing fabric and flesh alike. The big warrior let out a feral roar of pain and anger. Letting the axe go, he grabbed the beast by it's hind legs and tipped it over onto it's front, when he had it in the position he wanted he roared, tipped himself back and snapped it's spine with such force the break could be heard a mile away.

With their leader dead, the remaining Werekin ran for the hills, but Gabriel would not let them go, he dropped his hands to his sides and began to shake vigorously, then when the energy he needed was gathered shot his hands out with a piecing howl, everyone of the Werekin exploded in a conflagration.

Gabriel dropped to one knee from the exertion the spell had wrote on him, and Susie helped him to stand, he shook his head to try and get rid of the dizzy feeling.

"You alright?" Susie asked him.

"I'll be fine." He replied with a sigh. "Just haven't used that spell in a long while."

"Yeah, well as long as you'll be alright." She sighed and slapped him behind the head again.

"What the hell was that for?" He asked incredulously.

"That's for almost getting me killed you moron." She replied as if it was obvious. "You bring me along for what you think is a Category five hazard for what was clearly a Category five hazard with the side hazard which was category nine, and I'm still covered in Layoch leftovers, but now it's covered in Werekin entrails and blood. This is never going to wash off."

"Alright, already, I'll buy replacements." Gabriel told her holding his head in his hands. "I can never win, why do I even try."

New stuff

 Little bit of new fiction for you all, short, sweet and new characters for my readers to enjoy. Don't have a title because I suck at titles, suggestions welcome.



Two warriors stood back-to-back surrounded by the foul minions of hell.

Dog faced, goat horned, red skinned, cloven hoofed beasts standing like men, with flaming, acid dripping blades in their hands.

Sarah Bardot creaked her neck and unsheathed her heirloom Guntō in her right hand, having transferred her sidearm into her left. Her riding jacket zipped covered her heavily tattooed torso and arms with it's Kevlar armour plates, her long silky hair held back by her Omaha Storm Chasers baseball cap.

Behind her stood Maximus Kane, tall, Scandinavian and scary as hell, a Viking sword in his right hand and a flintlock pistol in his left, his long leather duster covering the belt that held their sheaths, his homburg covering his hair.

"For the Brotherhood." He bellowed at the top of his voice and threw himself into battle, blasting a hole in one of the daemons, then whipping his sword through the neck of another, as Sarah pirouetted, bellying her ballet training during her childhood in Jerusalem, dodging the abyssal blades of two daemons, slicing the hand off of one and smashing her pistol into the maw of the second and fired blowing it's brains out.

"Well, I must say, life working with you is never dull." She said with a grin as he elbow struck another daemon, he slipped his pistol in it's holster, flipped his hand open and blew the mana dust that had come off his pistol, turning a breath into a conflagration of fire which incinerated the bodies of a dozen of the daemons. "As I said, never dull."

Kane grabbed one of the daemons and snapped it's neck before grabbing a second and running his blade across it's throat. Sarah blasted away with her pistol as she held of daemons at bay with her sword. While his blade had been in his family for twenty-five generations, she had inherited hers from her grandfather, fine for dealing with minor daemons like those they were fighting but not so good for fighting higher daemons, which was the point of the pistol loads.

"I think it's about time we made our way to the boss." Sarah said to him and he nodded, pulling his hands back behind his back, he threw them forward and the force bowled over the remaining Dog daemons in front of him, shattering all the bones in their bodies. "Well done." 

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Your the wizard, I'm the muscle." She shrugged and followed him past the ruined forms of the dog daemons. "I'm sure as a daemon hunter you know what they are called."

"Hundurhelvíti." He replied, wiping his blade clean of the blood with a cloth, checking it for pitting from the daemon blood. "Islandsk for Dog of hell, pretty much literally."

"First engaged in your neck of the woods then." She said and he looked at her with a scornful look. 

"I'm from Norge, which is part of the mainland, Island, is an island." He replied, using his native language names rather than the English ones, as they moved on up the stairs, further into the dwelling of the daemon lord. Further up the stairs a bat winged daemon launched itself and dropped to land on top of him, but he launched a fist sized ball of ice which exploded like a grenade the shards fragmenting and piercing the daemon's body, slicing it apart. 

Sarah blasted away at the other daemons of it's genus dropped from the lintels they had been perched upon, Kane pulled a six-shooter from another holster and he blew holes in the backs of the daemons heads.

"Gods damned Altimors, I hate winged daemons." Sarah swore, slicing an arm off of one of the daemons that had survived the onslaught from her pistol. 

"At least these are little ones." Kane said headbutting a daemon unconscious, and replacing his hat on his head before killing the prone daemon, as a roar came from above them, both of them looked up and he swore.

"Yeah, you spoke too soon." She shook her head, two feet with huge talons slammed into the floor, the beast had a tail longer than it's legs. It's wing span was twice the size of it's little cousins. The tail smacked Sarah and sent her flying slamming her into a wall and stunning her.

"Hey, óhroða sogskál, I'm going to tear you a new arsehole." Kane growled at the daemon lord.

"Puny little mortal man, I will rip your limbs from your torso, and make you watch as I take the woman so she will bear my mortal spawn." It returned, flapping it's wings to batter him with wind.

"Bitch please, I am no mortal and I am sure as shit not puny." Kane retorted, throwing a force ball at the daemon lord, rocking it backards.

"DAEMON HUNTER." It squealed, attacking him simultaneously with it's sword and it's tail, Kane dodged both and slammed his seax into it's tail, pinning it to the floor. Kane slammed a fireball into it's jaw rocking it backwards and tearing off a length of it's tail.

"You going to give up or are you going to make me kill your ass?" Kane asked it, it swung it's sword in reply. "Fair enough."

Kane's own sword stopped the Daemon lords and he pushed it up, he followed on, picking up the seax, using it and his sword to hamstring the beast, after ducking under the monster, it dropped to it's knees and he backhanded the wings off, before launching himself onto it's shoulders. He dropped his blades to the bottom of it's neck and dug his blades into it's flesh, tearing and shearing until it's head came off, the whole time the paralyzed daemon was screaming at the top of it's lungs. 
  
When he was finished, Kane flicked the blood from his blades and cleaned them off, not bothering with the blood and gore on his clothing. Sarah pushed herself from the floor feeling her head for splits, then walked over to him.

"Who was it?" She said looking down at the daemon lord.

"Azazel." He replied, spitting on the remains. "Fallen Angel, daemon lord."

"You might not want to look behind you." Sarah said to him and he looked to where she was looking. His hat was destroyed and he just dropped his head and shook it. "Told you life was never dull around you."