Monthly Archives: February 2008

A Taste of "The Prisoner: Denicalis Dragon Chronicles – Book Two"

Sci-Fi

The monkey surprised them when it suddenly moved back a few branches. As it settled into its new location, it once again held the ring out in its opened palm. As before, the rest of the creatures in the tree fell silent. They watched their leader as it held the ring, still mesmerized by the small piece of jewelry.

The monkey with the ring looked at the girls below with a gleam in its beady eyes.

“You want this ring back?” it asked teasingly.

“Yes!” Diam answered from where she stood once again next to Tonia. The coins she had retrieved were now safe in her pocket.

“Please give the ring back to us!” she said in a frustrated voice.

The monkey protectively closed its hand over the ring. After a few seconds, it brought the closed hand that held the ring up to its chest in a possessive gesture.

“What will you give me for it?” it asked them. The rest of the creatures in the tree remained silent yet fidgety, as though they could sense something in the air.

The girls looked at each other as they tried to think of any item in their possession they could use to barter with the monkey.

They had no food, except for some bruised, old chickleberries… the gold coins they had retrieved from the dirt beneath the tree were obviously worthless to the creature… and relinquishing their weapons was absolutely not an option.

“We have nothing to trade, except for this,” Diam said.

She pulled her bag off her back, set it on the ground and began going through it. In a few seconds she withdrew a pia bottle which was half filled with water. She held this out to the monkey.

“Bah!” the monkey shouted, obviously unimpressed with her offering. “I have no use for that!

“You should go and continue on your way now,” it said disgustedly.

With that, the monkey turned slightly to his right. His left side now faced the girls as he looked with pretend interest at an apple that was hanging near his right arm.

At the same time, the other monkeys in the tree began to screech and jump wildly on the branches. They carried on this way for several seconds before they finally settled down once again.

“What?” Tonia asked, not understanding. “We need the ring. Just give it back to us and we’ll be on our way.”

“Ahh, young stranger, but you have nothing which to trade for it,” the monkey gloated before continuing. “I will, however, make you an offer.”

The girls listened silently, unable to entertain the idea that they might not get the ring back.

“Because you have so generously given me this small item, I will reward you by allowing you to take some of the fruits of my home,” it continued. “You may take whatever apples have fallen to the ground. Once that is done, you may leave without any more trouble from me or my clan.”

“We’re not leaving without the ring!” Diam shouted up at the monkey.

She gestured towards the creature in a stabbing motion with her sword as she fervently wished one of the boys had given them a bow with some arrows. If they had, Diam knew without a doubt she could take this crazy creature out with one shot! As it was, however, they only had their swords, not to mention the fact that they were very outnumbered.

Beetle Creek – the Prologue (an Aussie yarn)

Comedy

PROLOGUE

 

Dad gave me a hearty slap on the back. “Well, Jack old lad,” he said with a wink, “you’re a working man now. What sort of job will you take on?”

It was March 12, 1955 – my fifteenth birthday – and I was finally allowed to leave school. Euphoria!

“I think I’ll try writin’ a book, Dad.”

“Pooh! You wouldn’t know a rat’s arse about book-writin’,” my brother Denny said. This astute literary critic was all of twelve years old.

Admittedly, my choice of career did break with the Bournley tradition of shearing and I can’t say Mum offered much encouragement, either.

“You needn’t think you’re gonna sponge on us, sleepin’ in till midday and tuckin’ yer knees under my table,” she said, her jowls wobbling with indignation. “You can earn your keep like everyone else. There’s plenty of work around for a young bloke – musterin’, clearin’, fencin’…”

“Leave the boy alone, Lorna. Writin’s a good thing.” Dad was always one to see a positive side. “It’s in his blood – it’s hermetic.”

Dad was the reader in the family, and had a penchant for big words. I don’t think Mum could read or write at all, so the whole family was doubly impressed with Dad’s literary bent – especially Dad.

“I read the Sunday papers from cover to cover every week, whether there’s anything in ’em or not,” Dad often boasted, “and I can get through a Zane Grey western in a week.” Dad had an extensive personal library, acquired in job lots at local farm auctions. He once bid sixpence for an Oxford Dictionary at Maguire’s clearance sale and brought it home proudly.

“You never know, Mother. It might come in handy some day. One of the boys might go on to th’ university.” He always hoped one of us might ‘gravitate from university.’ Indeed, he often said he might have gravitated himself, but for a lack of education.

“Well, what would you write about, Jack? How about somethin’ scientific … you know, like compost?” Dad was into compost. He had several bins on the go in the back yard, and was experimenting with various mixtures, some smellier than others.

“Compost, Fred! We haven’t sunk that low, surely.”

“I’ve got it!” Dad chortled. “Do one of them hexposays on that bloody Pat O’Brien.”

Dad hated Pat O’Brien with a passion. “O’Brien thinks he’s the flamin’ mayor of Beetle Creek, and he doesn’t even live ‘ere,” he would say. O’Brien owned a farm on the outskirts, and he relied on villagers like Dad for shearing and casual work.

“All us locals are perfeckly happy the way things are, and he wants to bring in the sewerage and get the damned ‘lectricity put on,” Dad used to rant. “Before you know it, we’ll all be payin’ rates like those poor beggars in Moree. And for why?” Dad, at this point, would survey his audience grandly. “Because he’s too flamin’ lazy to dig a pit toilet like the rest of us, or pump up a Tilley lamp at night.”

By hotly opposing every scheme that Pat O’Brien put up, Dad single-handedly set the Beetle Creek Progress Association back twenty years. Of course, had O’Brien not regularly accused Dad of stealing sheep, Dad might have been a little more cooperative.

Beetle Creek had its share of small-town politics, like all the villages scattered around the commercial hub of Moree – villages with personalities as inscrutable as their names: Bellata, Gurley, Garah, Pallamallawa, Gravesend.

I knew I didn’t have much time before Dad climbed onto his soapbox.

“No, no,” I said hastily. “I thought I’d write about us, Dad – the Bournleys of Beetle Creek.” It had a ring to it, I thought.

At fifteen, I wanted to write about the Bournleys because there were plenty of funny stories to tell. As well, Beetle Creek was my world – a handful of modest houses clustered around a grey wheat silo, a pub, a shop, a school, a creek for swimming and fishing. What more could a bush kid want?

I was a little slow to realise that what most Beetle Creek residents wanted was to escape the stultification of village life. Of course, some stood still too long, got zapped by the place, and never mustered the energy to prise open the jaws of the trap. To our credit, we Bournleys all found our various means of escape.

As a kid, I found life in Beetle Creek pretty exciting – and I wanted to write it all down. Now, as an old codger, with a wife and children of my own, I look back with a different perspective. I see darker deeds I can recount … well, there’s little point in having family secrets if you can’t tell someone.

What’s more, I now know the outcomes of Lucy’s prophecies. Lucy was my sister – the weird one – there’s no kinder way to put it. Her predictions about the family have haunted me from childhood, and have taken a lifetime to prove or disprove. I’ve ticked them all off over the years.

On that birthday morning, as I rambled on to Mum and Dad about the funny stories I wanted to tell, they began to see my ambition for what it was: a kid’s pipedream. They humoured me.

Mum put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, don’t you mention that Uncle Wally was in jail, ‘cos it was just a silly misunderstandin’. And make sure you give me good teeth in the story.” Poor Mum was always embarrassed about her chipped, discoloured front teeth.

“An’ make sure y’ tell ’em I never once come ‘ome drunk in forty years,” Dad added.

So there you have it. My Mum had sparkling white teeth and my Dad never came home drunk in forty years – and they are the only two lies I intend to tell. I will be completely truthful about Uncle Wally’s deviant behaviour, because he’s long dead. For that matter, so are Mum and Dad. Publication can’t hurt anyone now.

This book has been a long time coming – I’ll be sixty-one in March.

Sneak Peak – The Shell Game by Steve Alten

Free Writing

The Shell Game by Steve Alten (Intro and Chapter 1) | Read Review
Apologizes on the formatting below:

PROLOGUE
Washington, DC
November 23, 2007
The hotel suite is richly decorated in cream-colored fabrics and matching carpet, the turquoise drapes drawn, blocking out the view of downtown Washington. A series of aluminum steam table pans situated on warming trays cover a small side table, the aroma of scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns filling the room.
Ignoring the hunger pangs growling in his stomach, Colonel Graeme “the Bull” Turnbull, U.S. Army, directs his harsh, blue-eyed gaze at the two civilians seated directly across the small conference table. Ryan Gessaman, a rugged man in his forties, wearing a dark suit and matching bow tie, is a senior assistant to Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Perle, known around Washington power circles as the “Prince of Darkness,” is himself a close personal advisor to former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and a major investor in a number of defense companies. Perle is also co-founder of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a political think tank, established in 1997, that promotes American dominance in world affairs.
Turnbull does not recognize Gessaman’s companion, an as-yet unidentified woman with thick, shoulder-length, blonde, curly hair and penetrating hazel eyes, her navy business suit partially concealing what appears to be an athletic physique.
“Colonel, are you sure we can’t interest you in some breakfast?”
“No, thank you, sir.”
“Well, if you change your mind . . .” Gessaman opens a sealed file. “I understand you’re currently stationed at Camp Anaconda. How long have you been in Iraq?”

“Since the beginning. I started in Afghanistan with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, the ‘Rakkasans.’ We were the first boots on the ground. Same for Iraq. Ne desit virtus—”
“—let valor not fail,” the woman translates. “When did Military Intelligence recruit you?”
“The day Psy Ops found out I spoke fluent Arabic.”
“So you were with MI two years, then Counterintelligence. Looks like you were quite busy . . over one hundred interrogations.” The woman’s
eyes narrow. “Tell me, Colonel, what’s the most interesting thing you ever learned from these ‘sessions’?”
Turnbull frowns. “You don’t want to know.”
“Try me.”
“Back in 2005, I reported that Bin Laden had escaped to the Hadhramaut
of Yemen, that he was being protected by Sayyid tribesmen. The info went up the food chain, but nothing ever happened. Seems the Sayyids of the Hadhramaut are allied with members of the Saudi Royal Family . . to go after him would have insulted our Saudi friends. Better to just pretend the number-one bad guy’s hiding in a cave in Afghanistan than confront the real enemy, huh?”
The woman nods. “I share your frustration, Colonel. Off the record, CIA ran an assessment of the blowback of a Bin Laden capture. Sometimes bad guys are better left alive than dead.”
“Is that why we’re funding Sunni insurgents with ties to Al-Qaeda?” Turnbull watches their expressions drop. “Yeah, I know about that, most of the other grunts in MI do too. Fact is, 45 percent of these foreign fighters
are Saudis, and half of them are involved in suicide bombings. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out where these guys are getting their money and weapons.”
“It’s a complicated situation, Colonel,” Ryan Gessaman replies.
“Not when you’re getting shot at.”
“Shiite radicals must be contained.”
“Look, friend, let’s get something straight: I ain’t in politics and the old ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ policy doesn’t fly with me, unless your definition of history is any period of time less than five years old. We supported Bin Laden to keep the Soviets in check, we supported Saddam to keep the Iranians in check . . now we’re supporting Al-Qaeda to keep Iraq from turning into a Shi’ite nation? Ever wonder why we’re not exactly being embraced these days?”

Continue reading Sneak Peak – The Shell Game by Steve Alten →

Welcome Steve Alten, NY Times Best Seller

Free Writing

PublicLiterature.Org is proud to welcome Steve Alten, a New York Times Best Selling Author as our latest Featured Author. He is well known for his Meg series, a set of novels positing the survival of large Megalodon sharks. Alten holds a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University, a master’s in sports medicine from the University of Delaware, and a doctorate in sports administration from Temple University.

We look forward to his latest work, Shell Game, to be released January 22. Welcome Steve and good luck with your latest work!

Preface to Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Poetry

This is the preface to Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero, a novel length, narrative poem by Marc Ladewig, published by Infinity Publishing.com.

Take a cup of your sweet favorite O Be Soulful. Wet your lips and read this tale aloud to kith and kin or by yourself to break the glowing silence with a song. You know this myth by heart; the start, the run, the end. The hero here is modern down the ages though he lived one hundred lives ago in ancient Greece. His woes in wave and war could be your own at heart. And if this work could beg the blessing of a god, let Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, love my words, for he will guide my soul to final rest, the god of sons who rob their fathers.

A Taste of "Dragon's Blood: Denicalis Dragon Chronicles – Book One"

Sci-Fi

Nicho held up his hand to have the others stop behind him then cautiously walked over to the hole, carefully stepping on the rocks, wanting to get a better look down into it. When he got a step away from the edge, he stopped and leaned over slightly as he peered into the darkness below.

“Nicho, I don’t think…” Tonia started, but before she could finish, there was a tremendous rumbling as the floor beneath them suddenly began shaking violently.

Nicho realized too late that he was standing too close to the edge of the gaping hole and before he could step back, the loose rocks beneath his feet began to crumble.

Instantly a look of surprise and fear clouded his face. Before he could regain his footing, his feet began to slip over the edge of the hole as the torch he was holding fell from his hand into the depths of darkness. It hit the outer edge of the hole before disappearing, out of sight.

“Noooo!” Nicho yelled, looking helplessly at the others, fear filling in his eyes. They jumped forward and tried to grab his left arm as it flew up into the air.

Their reaction, however, was too slow and Nicho slid over the edge of the hole, falling into the darkness. Seconds later they heard an audible thump!

Immediately Micah, Diam and Tonia were lying on their stomachs, looking into the dark chasm. They could see and hear nothing.

“Nicho!” Tonia shrieked, lying on her stomach at the edge of the pit, trying to see her brother.

The tremors that caused Nicho to lose his balance ceased as suddenly as they had begun.

The tunnel was silent except for the whimpers from Tonia. She looked at Diam and Micah in disbelief, seeing the same look on their faces reflected back at her.

Down in the depths of the abyss, they could vaguely see the flickers from the torch as it struggled to stay lit in the surrounding dust. It appeared to have fallen into a spot that was under an overhang, or bounced partly into a tunnel. As the dust began to clear, she could vaguely see Nicho in the nearby shadows, lying motionless in the dust.

“Nicho!” she yelled frantically. “Nicho, answer me! Are you okay?”

They continued looking over the edge of the abyss down into the darkness, feeling completely helpless.

‘This can’t be happening’, Diam thought to herself.

Micah got back up on his knees and crawled back a few feet. He removed his bag from his back and
started hastily rummaging through it.

Diam looked back at him and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Did we pack any tarza vines?” he asked the girls. “I can’t remember.”

He was trying hard to maintain his control, but both of the girls could hear the uncertainty and fear in his voice.

“Nicho?” Tonia called, starting to cry. “Nicho, please answer me! Are you okay?”

Diam scooted back next to Micah and began doubtfully going through her own bag. She was almost sure that tarza vines, especially long ones like what they would need in this situation, were something that none of them had thought to pack.

Unable to find anything of use, she put her bag on the ground and crawled back to Tonia, who was now crying unashamedly.

“Tonia, come on. We’ve got to keep ourselves together if we’re going to be able to help Nicho. Come look through your bag. We’re looking for tarza vines, but I don’t think any of us packed any. It’s worth a try though. Come on,” she said, encouraging Tonia to scoot backwards towards where Micah was still sitting.

Tonia looked up at her friend with smudges on her face from the dirt and the tears. She reluctantly dragged herself away from the edge of the abyss after one more shocked glance down into the darkness.

She crawled over to where Micah was sitting, still riffling through his bag with no luck, then Diam helped her pull her bag off her back. After gently placing it on the dirty floor, Tonia used her shirtsleeve to wipe tears away from her eyes.

“What are we going to do, Micah?” she asked, looking up at her brother who was now in charge.

“I know we didn’t pack enough tarza vines to be able to reach that far down into the hole. We don’t know where we are so we can’t even go back the way we came to try to make it into the forest to find some vines that we can use!”

She could feel herself beginning to panic but felt helpless to stop it.

Diam put a steady hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“Tonia, take a deep breath! We’re not going to do Nicho any good if we fall apart! Get control of yourself and help us figure out what we are going to do!” she admonished her friend.

Tonia looked at Diam and nodded her head. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and said, “Okay”.

A moment later, they came to the expected conclusion that indeed they did not have what they needed to rescue Nicho. Even if they did, Micah thought, they didn’t know if Nicho would even be able to climb out on his own. If he was seriously hurt…

Tonia interrupted his thought when she began crawling back over to the hole. She got to the edge, looked over, and called out, “Nicho? Are you all right? Please, answer me!”

While they were looking through their bags, the torch that had fallen into the hole had gone out. Tonia’s question was answered by both silence and darkness.

Tonia sat up, about to cry again.

Suddenly, the rumbling in the tunnel surrounded them once again, like before, without warning. Afraid of falling down in the hole with her brother, Tonia immediately backed up and joined the others.

In addition to the tunnel shaking around them, they now heard another sound, indistinguishable at first. As the rumbling subsided, the other sound increased, and soon they all recognized it for what it was… an evil, guttural growl.

“Who has the nerve, the absolute gall, to wake me from my sleep!” an angry voice cried out from the darkness of the hole.

The explorers looked at each other in shock. Who or what was the owner of this angry voice?

“My slumber is NOT to be interrupted, under ANY circumstance!” the infuriated voice boomed.

This Is Not Love

Poetry

Sheltering…

Like a Fragile childIn the corner Of the roomSubdued

Great life looms!!

And this

So aptly aired!

Thus recognisedBy oneWhose causeIt was toSeize it.

Whom never…

Really… Cared?

And where to go?And whom to trustIndeed!If needs be met.

Not Upon your shoulderHave I

Ever wept.

Still crossedAnd cursedAnd vexedYou speak

Great ill’s of me!

And allThe evilsPartThey have Not

Honoured you.

Yet thus Have bore me Pain

As muchCould I Sustain!

Though not…

Defeated me.

Has this notTaught you much?

Your kissUpon myLipRemoved?

For lifeI ere

Undaunted.

And yet

And stillAnd by

Have you Not

Learnt?

No joy is metTo fondAnother’s cry.

And thoughI layAccuss-ed

Of what!I do not Know?

I will not faintReturn attack

Relay One word Of loatheUpon you!

For this

This is not love.

For love

You have not

Met.

© Deborah Gordon 2008