Review: Ender's Game

My conservative friends have always told me that any way movie is an anti-War movie, especially if the audience is paying attention.  War is never pretty, and sh-t happens. A lot.  And that's even if the war goes well.



I think I'm going to need to up my connection soon, especially since I'd want to load up the videos and graphics and pictures to go with the review. I may have to upgrade to a bt broadband package before I crash the website.



Welcome to Ender's Game.  Premise: the Earth was attacked by a bug-like species that nearly destroyed us.  We rebelled the invasion by the skin of our teeth, and a little luck.  However, in order to prepare for the next battle, the planet has decided to think differently.



And, in order to do that, we need children.



The concept of children as soldiers is not a new concept.  Just go and watch 300 if you don't believe me. In the world of Ender's Game, these children are trained for warfare via video games, and then glorified groups of lazer tag, and finally full warfare simulations.



And then, we meet Andrew Ender Wiggin, a third child in a world where offspring are regulated to control population growth (the book was writtin in the 1970s, when the world would be overrun by 1995).  He thinks in three dimensions and fights three steps ahead of everybody else.



If you've read the books, you know how the movie goes.  The film took the novel almost page by page, with some liberties taken for time compression and standard movie reversals -- and they've deleted a subplot involving Ender's brother, for which we can all be grateful.



At the end of the day, the movie was surprisingly well-acted, and not just by Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley. I've never seen a 10-year old who can roar back at Indiana Jones. 



And the special effects.  Oh Lord, that was well done.  The special effects, the three dimensional tactics, the execution of the material .... I was surprised.



It was a very well done piece of work from director Gavin Hood -- who made a cameo appearance just long enough to be killed -- and I can't recommend it enough. Ignore the artificial controversy about the author and his political views, they seriously have nothing to do with the film.  It's a great summer movie .... I'm just trying to figure out why they put it in November.

SFWA? More like STFU. WTF?

The wonderful world of writers, like every other organization, has fights. And back stabbing, back biting, and other backwards thoughts, ideas and concepts.



Then there's the SFWA, the Science Fiction Writers of America.  If you haven't been brought in on this round of inside baseball, the SFWA has started appealing to one small, particular demographic, namely the political left.



Now, before you start leaping down my throat, it's not Democrats I'm talking about, it's the really, really left. The hard left that would make Bill Clinton go "Um, no."  This is a very narrow translation of liberalism that most liberals would look at funny. EG:  One story that meets these standards includes a world where the universe is filled with subservient men, the women rule everything, and there is peace throughout the world ... a story that has every woman I've told it to laughing themselves sick.



Apparently, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for good fiction to meet SFWA standards.



This is a bit of business that has some old-school (and new) SF writers pissed. Names include Harlan Ellison and Mike Resnick, Sarah Hoyt, Cedar Sanderson and Harry Turtledove, and those are just the ones I know.  And the first two are no conservatives.  But then, they are old school liberals, the type where they may hate what you're saying, and they'll yell at you, but they also expect you to yell back (well, Harlan Ellison does, at least).  The current "liberals," for lack of a better term, seem to be interested in nothing but shutting people up.



Author and former SFWA member Sarah Hoyt has chronicled the entire downward spiral of the SFWA and their nutbars, and it caused me to wonder exactly how far down this rabbit hole goes.  I'm not brave enough to go spelunking into that particular asylum.



However, I noted something in Hoyt's column, that the SFWA got pissed off over a book with women in chainmail on the cover.  Well, one, if it's fantasy, what else are women going to wear? It's either chainmail, leather armor, or platemail (the latter heavy enough to tip someone over like a turtle on their back, so I don't recommend it for anyone).





Then, something occurred to me.  Could this hissy fit have been over Chicks in Chain Mail? For those of you who don't know this classic comedy series, it's laugh out loud funny stories in fantasy universes, like the Suburban fantasy anthology Witch Way to the Mall, Strip Mauled, and Fangs for the Mammaries.



The two series have something in common.  Two somethings, in fact.



1) They're all edited by Esther Friesner.



2) They're published by Baen books...Sound familiar?



Does anyone else have a bad feeling about this?



And if you don't want to go by the Sarah Hoyt version in gifs, the pure text version of what's been happening is even LESS reassuring.



Now, there are a few problems with everything the SFWA has been pulling.  Using feminism as authority structure creates pedantic drivel in favor of a false narrative of multiculturalism (ie: we're going to shove this down your throat, and you will like it, because. Just because). They want writers to effectively write stories about "womyn," gays, transgenders, african-Americans, native Americans, gays, Asian peoples they have no idea about "but hey taoism sounds cool and namaste,yo."

Okay, that last bit was a quote, but we'll get to him in a moment.

[More below the break]






You can view this a few ways.  The rabbit hole, making a "women only" race course, putting a Stalin-ish leash on their editors to make certain they're publishing the "right" things, or redefining "literature" as whatever supports the current tint.  No matter what you call it, it's not good for writing, storytelling, or the genre. If you wanted to say they're trying to destroy the genre, well, you wouldn't be the first.



Now, my friend Jason has another thought on the matter, namely that Baen is busy taking over the universe of science fiction, and we just can't have that.

She has a sword.

No chain mail.

Still sexist.

Baen, for those of you who might not know, is filled with interesting people.  Many of them are conservative, but also Libertarian, and at least one card-carrying Communist, Eric Flint (he pulled out his card at a DragonCon one year, before I started writing reports).  Unfair, but balanced might be a way to put it.  Each person will bring their own politics and philosophies to bear in their own novels, but usually not in a way that would piss me off. I've read Flint, and he's quite interesting. They also have John Ringo, David Weber, and Timothy Zahn, who are conservative-ish, if not outright conservatives.  And then there's Tom Kratman, who I don't know what to do with, but his books are fun.



And they are making TONS of money.  Metric tons. They are everywhere, and always publishing.



So, a libertarian press making money? And making money with something like Chicks in Chain Mail?



If Jason is right, then this SFWA brough-ha-ha is really a purge in response to Baen.  After all, with nimrods this ideologically pure, Baen is downright heretical.  So we have the "conservative" juggernaut of Baen versus an ever-more left-leaning SFWA... If Jason's idea is true, then the SFWA has a problem.  By catering to smaller and smaller elements of their own preconceptions, they're just throwing good money after bad. Like all of those horrid anti-war propaganda films from 2001 on, I'm sure it makes the producers and writers feel good, but who's going to see it? For every five films like Syriana, they still couldn't match the profit of 300, Iron Man, or Captain America.

Character design

by Julie Cochran.

Cedar Sanderson, another author, noted how there are kickstarters dedicated towards making these politically correct nightmares in print. "Women destroying science fiction," is the actual title of one such stupid project. This, of course, is a stupid idea for a book series, anthology, novel, what have you, if only because of actual SF written by women.  Let's look at JD Robb, aka Nora Roberts -- her In Death series is a fun science fiction murder mystery series set in the 2060s. How about Julie Cochran, coauthor to John Ringo? Or Jane Lindskold. Tamora Pierce, who's doing some good YA fiction, or Naomi Novik, who's got her own Horatio Hornblower with Dragons? I have yet to dodge JK Rowling because she's a woman. Laurell Hamilton was a good writer for about 8 books, then it became smut, but at least it wasn't feminista drivel.



As some of you may know, I escaped from a PhD program not too long ago. Academia is rife with the sort of PC crap the SFWA is doing, but I haven't noticed it in too many POPULAR books or movies. Sure, Hollywood cranks out this drek endlessly, but who watches all of it? 300 was a January release, and it made so much money, they started a sequel immediately (it only took forever to write and produce). So, certainly, people are teaching this stuff in the halls of academia, but when it comes to where the metal hits the road -- where people spend their money -- Batman, Superman, 300, any Marvel film, outperforms that sort of drek every single time. And if The Dark Knight Rises had a feminist message beyond "Anne Hathaway looks good in leather," I missed it (I actually thought the message was "Occupy Wall Street = Bad").

Burning at 451-degrees F

and they have the gall

To even talk of Bradbury.

Oh, and as I write this, the Huffington Puffington Post has written an article saying that JK Rowling is destroying writers -- because writing is a zero-sum game, don't you know?  Because if I buy everything Rowling prints, I will never buy Jim Butcher .... heh, no.

Isn't it nice to see that writers can be as petty as everyone else? Then again, I became a writer because I don't like dealing with people as a rule.



My takeaway from all this? Write good books, and no one will care what gender you are. Honest.



I, for one, won't even NOTICE what gender you are (You can't imagine how long it took me to sort authors by gender, you really can't).  If you write bad books, no one will read them, and the SFWA will just start burning its cash, and its credibility -- assuming that hasn't already gone out the window.

Cast this -- Codename: Winterborn

So, I've done multiple posts on how I would cast my novel, A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller if it were made into a film. If you want to take a look, there's a 2011, 2012 and 2013 edition.



However, there's been an oversight, and I have never looked at casting the novel Codename: Winterborn, which I co-wrote with Allan Yoskowitz.

Remember this one?

Yes, I know I don't talk about this one much, but, blast it, I've been busy.



From a casting perspective, this is actually going to be easier than the Pius universe. Why? Because I've got about nine major characters in the entire story -- both heroes and villains -- that would make it to the big screen and a few minor ones: let's face it, if you've read the book, you can see how some Hollywood people would cut out the first few chapters, so we'd lose .... some of the more colorful characters in the opening.



What would the casting look like? Well, let's look at it below the break.





Kevin Anderson.



If you don't know the story (and seriously, you really should read it), Kevin is the spy that has a little problem .... namely, his entire team has been wiped out, his wife has been murdered, and politicians in his own government would like to see him deader than Jacob Marley on ice. After his initial run in with the Islamic Republic of France (long, long story), Kevin is ... a little broken.  How broken is he? Let's say that he came close to mass murder in this book.  Think I'm exaggerating? Is ten million people enough "mass" in "mass murder"?



You also need someone who is considered "handsome"-ish, and can do a lot of hand-to-hand combat, has a dry, offbeat sense of humor, and can occasionally look at his own insane moments, and acknowledge that, yes, he really has lost his marbles, along with his friends, his family and almost anyone he ever knew.



Which leads to the flavor of the month ... no, I don't mean Benedict Cumberbach, though he does seem to be everywhere for the past year.  Cumberbach is a great actor, don't get me wrong, and he is able to kick ass and take names (just see Star Trek: Intro Darkness if you don't believe me), but I have no idea if he can drop the British accent from his "I'm a dark and sinister figure, even when I'm playing Sherlock Holmes" style of acting.

I actually mean Stephen Amell, the star of Arrow.  Think about it, he already has mentally disturbed down, and if you don't believe me, look at the first episode of Arrow once more, and get back to me.  The first ten to twenty minutes have several good moments of Amell acting. You can skip several episodes to see Amell in dry banter with fellow characters, but it's there.



As for the hand-to-hand combat ... just go and YouTube Arrow fight scenes. Go ahead, I'll wait, they're going to be quite awesome.  Heck, his dance (sorry, "combat") and exercise routines were half the commercials for the show.



Oh, and Kevin also has a entire thing with bows and arrows.  Yes, it's "a thing."  It's a very long story.



Yes, there are a lots of long stories involved in this novel.  Please, read the novel, so I can stop saying "it's a long story." :)



Speaking of long stories, times for our next character.

My friend Carleigh

The model for Mandy in the

Antagonize me "interview."

Mandy.



Okay, Mandy is my favorite character, she really is. She is cute, kinda sexy, she enjoys her job, and, damn it, she's just fun to write. She's a mercenary, and her job in this novel is to hunt down and kill everyone's favorite nutbar, Kevin Anderson. She's morally ambiguous, with a sense of morality that crops up at some strange times. Well, strange for her.



Mandy doesn't need a lot of choreography, since most of her fights are gun battles, but we at least need someone who's lithe, athletic, something like that.



Also, a slightly more important part of her character involved her size, she's not particularly tall: 5'6" would be good. She's a blue-eyed brunette who's half smart-ass, half kick-ass, and really would like to be amoral when she grows up. She puts her best effort into it, honest.



It's a ... everyone with me now ... a long story.

The only pic I could find of her that wasn't in either

1) In full dress or 2) In her underwear

Originally, when I designed Mandy, I loosely based her off of a 24 villain of the same name, played by Mia Kirshner.



However, Kirshner is getting a little old for this sort of thing -- she's already 39, I'd like Mandy to look more like she's in her 20s, and, well, I don't actually like Kirshner personally (every interview I see her in, she comes off as ignorant, but very, very certain of everything. And stiff. And shallow, and .... gah).



Most importantly, I don't think she's capable of acting her way out of a paper bag.  Seriously, in 24, she came off as a sociopath, and she doesn't exactly have much of a sense of humor or emotional range every other time I've seen her.



Why would I base a character off of someone like that? I wanted an unrelenting, unrepentant antagonist who would stop at almost nothing to hunt Kevin Anderson down like a dog, including gunning him down in a playground filled with children...



Obviously, when I started writing Mandy in the novel, she turned into something else on me.  So, who would we be getting?

How about Mila Kunis?  While I'm not 100% certain about this, we know she can do comedy, that's most of her freaking CV.  I don't need a lot of dramatic tension, I need someone who can deliver on a dry sense of humor, enough sarcasm to put a hole through somebody, and someone who at the very least appears to have gone through a daily exercise regiment.



With Kunis, we've got a pale-skinned brunette (though not as blinding white as Kirshner), who's 5'4" and can deliver some of the more comedic dialogue, like the following from the sequel, Codename Unsub:



Bad guy: “What do you want?”

“I'd say world peace, but that would be a lie. I'd be out of a job otherwise.” She gave him a little smile that creeped him out a bit. “How about the names of everyone you work with, now and forever? How about everyone up and down the supply chain? And a pony?”



Also, it would be nice if she could whole a gun without looking like a complete moron, like Mia Kirshner (seriously Ms. Kirshner? Why are you holding a gun with your arms locked out in front of you like you're at a firing range? Did no one talk to you about the Weaver stance in the half-dozen episodes you were on 24? Even Sean Astin looked mildly competent, and he was a Hobbit, fer God's sake) .



Anyway, on a physical level, I think she can pull off Mandy.  Can she on an acting level? No idea. But I'm hopeful.



Kyle Elsen



Since I'm tired of long stories, I'm just going to say that Kyle is an assassin.  He's a bit of a nerd.  He's a nerd who kills people.  You know, the sort of flake who can get lost in his own head while thinking about some new methodology to apply to his job ... only it involves murder?



Kyle doesn't have too much of a personality at first, but then again, when you have some of the strangeness that is Kevin Anderson, everyone seems a little bit like they're in shades of gray. And no, not fifty, damnit.  However, there is a back story to Kyle that shows he's a little broken.  As though I actually needed to tell you that. He's a flake who kills people. As a character, Kyle doesn't have issues so much as he has the leather bound collected volumes. There's a character arc that plays out, and gives Kyle depth beyond knowing a hundred ways to kill someone with a spoon.

Hmm....



How about Colin Donnell?



For those of you who don't watch Arrow, Donnell played "the best friend" of the main character.  Funny enough, that was also an entire character arc of going from a seemingly two-dimensional character to someone with depth and heart.  All he would have to do in this case is a start from a darker point A and a deeper point B.



Yes, Allan and I have a plan. Honest.



And, let's take a look at that face for a moment. Don't tell me he doesn't look like a serial killer in the making.



Major Antonio Rohaz



This is Mandy's boss, the CEO of the Mercenary's Guild. He's described as having a dancer's posture, stiff and militaristic, with a sharp nose, and green eyes.  No, he doesn't look specifically Hispanic, but I grew up with a friend named Martinez (which she pronounced Martin-ez, not Mar-teen-ez) and who is whiter than I am, with green eyes, and light brown hair.

Rathbone is the one in the middle.

This is the best picture I could find

of him in uniform from this film.

Stupid internet.

Believe it or not, I based the character design, very loosely, on Basil Rathbone in the original The Mark of Zorro. This included the clipped delivery of the words, the baring, and everything short of him actually pulling out a sword in the middle of the book.  You could say that he's a minor character, but he's going to make an appearance throughout the series, and leave major impacts along the way ... some of them in people's heads, but that's neither here nor there.



Yes, I know. After that sort of buildup, who could you possibly get who could top this.  It's Basil Rathbone. He's Sherlock Holmes. He's an Olympic-level fencing master.  He was the archetypal villain in anything involving a sword for nearly forty years of Hollywood history.  How do you top that?

You get a god.



Yes, I went there.



Look at the original character description, and tell me it doesn't sound familiar: pale skin, green eyes, sharp nose, black hair.  You know this person, don't you?



Yup, it's Tom "Loki" Hiddleston, one of the other flavors of the week for the past two years.  Seriously, if we modify that photo (taken at ComicCon, San Diego,) and make it a military uniform, he doesn't even need to break character all that much.  If he could play Loki, only not crazy, he could pull off an Antonio Rohaz.



And come on, Hiddleston is a Shakespearean actor who wore his Loki costume, in public, and kept a straight face. He can do whatever he likes.



Allan and his wife prefer Lou Diamond Philips, but they're not the ones writing this blog.  No, this is not a subtle hint that they should start their own -- I'm trying to bludgeon them with that hint.



MUAHAHAHAAH



Sorry. It's been a long day.



The next four characters are sort of interlinked.  They're all in the town of San Francisco, they're all computer nerds, though all very different people.  We've got the shy, the sarcastic, the joker, and the damn near sociopathic.



Lotus



This is an Allan character design.  Lotus is one of a set of hacker Triplets.  For Lotus, he wanted someone short, blonde, and utterly, breathtakingly beautiful as a computer genius, probably the best computer hacker and programmer in the entire city, and maybe the planet Earth.



Believe it or not, I go someone already picked out. It was easy.



Look to the right. This is Emily Bett Rickards. She's not bad looking, huh?



But, nah, she can't do computer jargon, right?  It's Hollywierd, the hot babes can't possibly also do smart at the same time. Maybe some ass-kicking, but brains? Don't kid me.

Oh, wait.



That's right, Madam Rickards is the brains behind the operation of Arrow, playing a computer programmer.



Funny enough, when I suggested Rickards to Allan, before I wrote this blog, I did start with the first photo, and I had an interesting reaction.  Said reaction being "Oh my God!"



And that was before I suggested Loki as Rohaz.



Mickie.



Mickie, Lotus' sister, could technically be played also by Emily Rickards, they are triplets after all. Yes, there is a fraternal twin involved here, but having identical twins and a fraternal are not impossible.



For the record, Mickie is sociable, sarcastic, and has no problem constantly smacking her brother (to be discussed below), who really deserves it (no, seriously, he deserves it). Her special features include drugging people for information, dealing with unruly costumers in their bar, and has utterly insane hair -- usually bright red hair.  She's also a computer hacker, though not as much of a genius as Lotus.



So, smart, probably good looking (to be related to Lotus, you'd sort of expect her to be), sarcastic, and looks good with red hair.



I guess we can have Rickards play both parts. Lord knows she does sarcastic well enough on Arrow, but if we want someone different, I'm seeing Emma Stone.  Yes, Emma Stone. Let's face it, she already is a redhead, she can handle smart in both Amazing Spider-Man and Easy A (didn't like the film, but liked her), and with facial expressions like that (look right) she can pull this off without a problem.



Mac



Yes, you might have caught a theme in these triplets, we have three hackers running a bar, a mixologist named Mickie, a hacker named Lotus and a primary bartender named Mac... Okay, there are some moments of this particular world that are about as subtle as a heart attack.



Then again, we're still more subtle than every other dystopia written for the last ten --  twenty -- thirty...



Okay, I can't really think of a dystopia that's subtle, but I'm sure one will come to me five minutes after I've posted this article.



Anyway, Mac, the last of our information brokers, who is average, blonde, and kind of annoying. "Oh, look at how many bad puns I can tell and pretend they're funny."  I may have been writing this blog post for too long already, but God, this character can get annoying. I'm glad he's not on screen that often.  I think I'm going to invest some character development for him in the next book. Either that, or invest some bullets into blowing his brains out. Either way, I'm good.



So Allan and I considered Josh Hutcherson, since he's already playing blonde on some sort of major film franchise at the moment Games of Starvation? Hungry Games? Hungry Hungry Hippos? Something like that. Though I'd take Iain De Caestecker from Agents of SHIELD, because I already know he can do annoying (is it too obvious that I really hate that show by now?)



Kaye Wellering



Kaye is an interesting character, mostly because of the things the reader doesn't know about her.  She heads the "Hacker's Union," which is based on Alcatraz, with a forward office in Chinatown. The Hackers run all the major utilities in the city, and can turn them on or off at will. Kaye herself even states that, even though the Hackers are centuries ahead of even the "real world," she still has ultimate power in the city that time forgot, and has no problem playing with the lives of day-to-day people as though everyone in the city were her own personal toys.  There's a reason that Kevin refers to her as the bitch-queen of San Francisco.



She also looks young. That's not because I'm on some sort of CW kick, where everyone has to be young and pretty, but because there's a backstory. Notice, I didn't say she is young, just looks it. It's an important part of who she is.  So, we need someone who at least appears younger than she is (say, early 20s) and play older. If she were male, I would say "Get David Tennant, since he can do 900 year old time lord," but we'll have to settle for someone else. And, while Sarah Michelle Gellar is looking pretty darn good a decade after Buffy went off the air, that may not hold up.



Another detail makes me think of an actress, actually. Kaye is a 5'2" redhead. While the height is incidental (Kaye has been described as wearing 4" heels), and redheads come in a bottle, about about Molly C. Quinn?  She's been playing 14 going on 400 on Castle since the show began five years ago..  There's no reason not to think that she can't do something similar in a Codename: Winterborn film.



Although it's going to be creepy with a "sexy" Molly Quinn. I now understand friends of mine who are disturbed by a sexy Michelle Trachtenberg, having first seen her as Harriet the Spy.



Angie Vaughn



This is another antagonist, one that's worse than anyone I could create. She is another mercenary, part of the same guild as Mandy and Rohaz, but another part of the organization. Like any other good business, they have some competing members of the firm.  In this case, this hostile takeover is really hostile.



Vaughn is a little more than just a power-mad creature who wants a promotion and a pay raise. She's a natural born predator. Let's just say that her previous dating history has led people to call her "the Mantis." And no, I was not brave enough to inquire exactly what she might have bit off of whom, nor was I interested in contemplating.



Vaughn is another redhead -- yes, it's a thing. I grew up with a crush on the lead female from Riverdance. Don't judge me -- which helped with the casting choice. I wanted someone taller than Mandy, one of those women who could be seductive without having to work at it, but also a leader of warriors into battle. She has to have presence, with an additional hint of malice.



I'm thinking Laura Prepon.  She's a solid actress, with an interesting CV behind her, and a good general acting range. I've seen her do serious, seductive, a little (low-key) crazy, and I'm certain that I could see her eating someone alive.  Hopefully, not literally.



Anyway, I think that's more than enough for right now. there are one or two more characters I'd want to focus on after that, but right now, I'm cross-eyed, lucky if I can spell my own name, and I'm hoping I didn't write this blog in a language more closely resembling Norwegian than English.

Scenes from Codename: Unsub.

This is the first time I've done something like this, assuming you don't count those short stories that became extras in A Pius Man.  This is actually from my current novel in progress, entitled Codename: Unsub.  It will probably come out after A Pius Stand, especially since A Pius Stand is damn near done.



If you don't know the plot of Codename: Winterborn, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.



However, that being said, please read the book already.



Anyway, the prologue to the next Finn and Yoskowitz novel, Codename: Unsub, is below the break. Let me know what you think. While I have no problem with you pointing out errors (crowdsource editing ... works for me), and if you decide to lynch me for a few errors, well, I'm writing three books at the same time, doing most of the copy editing, line editing, proofing, while also being the primary marketer, and maintaining a blog that posts once if not three times a week. When you do the same, let me know.



Editing help, good. Heckling? Bad.



More below the break.

Prologue: Nero’s Night Out

November 21st, 2093

Kevin Anderson never thought that he would save the planet earth one day, but that was par for the course. He also never expected his own government to betray him, killing his team, his wife, and driving him half insane. He never expected to be exiled to the city that the planet mostly forgot – San Francisco, isolated by the fallout of a nuclear war that ravaged a third of the country. He never expected to befriend the last of a league of assassins, or become a minor deity to a group of death cultists. And he never expected go toe to toe with a serial killer who had in his hands the ability to destroy the planet, if only the bastard knew about it.

When he had first arrived, Kevin felt like an anthropologist studying a
group of cannibals, studying the interactions between various groups.
Playing one group against another could be the key between observing
the cannibals one more day and being the next one on the menu. The
law of San Francisco was libertarian philosophy grown to total
absurdity. Instead of “do what you will, and do no harm,” you
can do whatever you will, as long as you don't inconvenience too many
people while doing it.

Then
there were the Burners.

***

Chinatown was an interesting place. It hadn’t changed
all that much since the first nuclear bombs had fallen on the
country. Except, of course, when night fell, then all bets were off.

Typically, the status quo was maintained by groups of
the Children of Thanatos. They had mistaken one of the residents of
Chinatown as a servant to Thanatos, the Angel of Death. As such,
they would patrol the perimeter of Chinatown, to protect all those
who were under the boon of their “Angel-Servant,” Kevin Anderson,
who served the angel Azrael. The duty of the Children, as far
Angel-Servants were concerned, was to make certain that the people
they lived among would be undisturbed. Japantown in San Francisco
also enjoyed the same protection, for the simple reason that, to the
Children, the people of both looked alike.

However, lately, Chinatown’s people had a slight
problem—they were being burned alive.

Nero knew, and Nero smiled.

A group of the Children had been besieged by five
Burners. Nero had led the charge. He was one of the “brighter
lights” of the gang, if one could pardon the pun. Nero was bright
enough to conclude that which everyone else in San Francisco already
knew—that the key to getting to Chinatown was through the Children
of Thanatos.

His reason for wanting into Chinatown wasn’t racist,
or bigoted. Nero wanted to get into Chinatown because none of the
Burners had burned anyone there. It would be different, and cool.

One of the Children, a young girl, nearly shrieked,
“Don’t you understand? We’re trying to help
you! We kill only to send you on to a better place.”

“And what if we don’t want to die, you stupid
bitch?” Nero had growled at her, his voice low and menacing. It
wasn’t an original thought, but a rant he once heard from Alek, his
leader. “What if we like the way we are, and where we are?”

The girl looked at him pitifully, as though hewas the one who was clueless. Nero hated
that look. “But we know what’s best for you.”

“So all we’re
doing is sending you
on your way to those
gates, right?”

She blinked. “What, no! We—”

Her last words were cut off when Nero splashed gasoline
in her face with a pre-measured cup, then deftly lit a match and
threw it after. She was set ablaze in no time; her chest, face and
hair were the first to go. She wasn’t much fun to burn though,
since after all she couldn’t even draw a breath to scream. Not
even once.

One of the other Children tried to save her, but Nero
laughed. “What’sa matter? Won’t you thank us? We're making
you go to your gates!”

Nero drew his spray bottle and fired three squirts at
the man’s lower abdomen, and then the guy caught fire from being
too close to his female colleague. His groin went ablaze, and he was
much more interesting—he screamed, and he even moved around while
he died. Nero realized he should tell Alek that they might be more
fun to burn one piece at a time, rather than all at once. That would
be really neat. They screamed more if only part of them were on
fire—well, obviously because they lived longer then. Wow, who
woulda thunk it?

As they set the other Children on fire, they
experimented. The last one they set on fire by putting gas in two
different orifices. That was, in Nero’s opinion, the best. She
shrieked, she clawed at the air, she writhed, and she bucked in pain.
Nero saw it and thought it analogous to sex—screams, clawing,
spasmodic jerks—but sex was without the fire. Fire sex would be
bad. It would be very bad. Maybe sex by the fire, though, would be
good. Yeah… he could see it—a few good rounds, and then throw
another Child on the fire so they could provide the needed background
screams.

The screams, Nero reflected, were what probably made
them so unpopular. Thieves didn’t like the Burners. Thieves in
this city just wanted money. But with the Burners in town, any
mugging was a fight to the death. But screwthe muggers. They
were the Burners, man!
People burned, and they died. Any stupid ass muggers tried anything
like that with them, would burn.

They would all
burn.

***

Kevin Anderson focused heavily on the target, painfully
aware of it and the surroundings. It was almost four roofs away, but
it would be worth it. He leveled his weapon, aimed, and fired.

A faint swoop
sound disrupted the evening’s calm for only a moment. The target
was hit precisely where he wanted it.

He lowered his bow, and saw that four arrowheads had
formed a nice little box within the bull’s-eye from about ninety
feet away. That was a level of control he hadn’t seen from some
sharpshooters. Maybe he was actually getting better at this—not
only shooting arrows, but making them. Oh, certainly, he had guns,
and he even had one on him right now, but who could afford the ammo?

Okay, he could, but he needed every cent he could lay
his hands on, and bullets were expensive. Besides, he had an
ever-growing collection of weapons and ammunition down in his
apartment. Some looked at him oddly when they heard the risks Kevin
took to protect total strangers, but it was a way to get weapons
cheap.

Then again, does it pay to live with the amount of
Batman jokes Mac makes? Well, granted, he rarely makes them, but
still…

Still, though, Mac was right, on occasion, curse him.
Kevin had specifically chosen an apartment on the edge of Chinatown,
so that he could leave the defended portion of the city behind him
and go out into the streets of San Francisco, pretending to be a
cowardly, easy mark—an impression few kept for long. Then again,
if anyone knew about him, they automatically thought “psycho.”
That may have had something to do with the three-week period he had
spent on alternating rooftops on the boarder of Chinatown. He didn’t
do anything, and he never stirred from his position all night. He
was all alone on the roof, with a music player, a good book, and a
sniper rifle.

That three-week period had so terrified the local
criminal population that there was rarely a criminal act that took
place within sight of Chinatown. That and the border patrol of
Children typically guaranteed a good one- to two-mile safety zone
around the neighborhood.

He smiled at the thought as he loaded another homemade
arrow into place. Who knew that a man trained
to fight terrorism and insurgencies would become a one-man terrorist
organization? Act spontaneously, seem a little crazy, they run like
rabbits.

He fired again, putting an arrow in the center of the
bulls-eye box. Then again, maybe I am crazy.
I may have conceived of the strangest project ever imagined—become
a knight errant, launch a crusade, to raise up the weak and those in
need…wait a minute, I’m quoting a play…

Kevin looked at the pile of arrows left and shook his
head. No, he’d shot enough arrows that evening. He had started
reciting lyrics from Man of La Mancha,
and that was about a
lunatic, which was the last thing he needed when pondering his own
sanity.

He hopped across the rooftops to retrieve his arrows.
They were surprisingly sturdy despite the treatment he’d given
them. Thankfully, he had sharpened them before firing, so they would
still have good penetration.

At that point, one firework rocket shot up into the air
and exploded. He grinned ruefully. The people of Chinatown made
their own gunpowder, mainly the for traditional purpose of setting
off fireworks at New Year, but it also served to summon aid, since
flares were rare.

It never fails, I’m ready to pack it in, the bat
signal goes up…damnit… I’ll have to kill Mac for making me
think like that.

He grabbed his equipment and raced off, thinking, No
longer will he be playing Kevin Anderson, but a dauntless knight
known as Don Quixote de la Mancha!

God, I need a life.

*

Nero pouted. He hated it when he pouted, but that damn
shiny sparkling thingy in the sky had distracted them, and their
latest victim had gotten away. So not only did he lose a new toy, he
wanted one of those things. It looked like it was made of little
balls of fire. That would be so cool.

But now he had to find someone else to burn. And he had
even had a line prepared —“Time for a little stir
fry.”

He looked over at Bernie—Burn-e, get it, heh—and
shrugged, standing with, on his shoulders the bag full of spray
bottles. Nero had intended for this to be a real night out, a
regular orgy of fire! Alek had even told him what an orgy was; he
said that with a name like Nero, he would need to know what it meant.

Bernie, however, was lagging behind, with three other
guys. The goof-offs, they wouldn’t ever learn.

Suddenly, Bernie jerked. He blinked, and looked down at
his bag. Nero looked too, and there was an arrow sticking out of the
bag. An arrow. What
kind of freak—

Then came another, only this one sparked against the
pavement, where a pool of gasoline had started to form. Apparently,
a gallon of gasoline was worth twenty sticks of something called
trinitrotoluene, or so Alek had said. It was also called TNT.

Bernie and the three guys with him disappeared into a
giant fireball, which was kinda cool. It also blasted everyone else
off their feet, which kinda wasn’t.

Nero staggered to his feet, and quickly found himself up
against the wall with a spear sticking out of his shoulder plexus.
The point of the spear was lodged into the mortar between the bricks
of the wall, nailing him there. It really hurt.

Kevin Anderson glided past him in a crouch, letting some
of the dust from the explosion cover him. He looked out over the
stunned figures and assessed their numbers. Four dead, one
neutralized, five remaining, still alive, by the look of them. No,
check that. They were all starting to rise.

“If any of you move, you will be killed.”

Kevin knew that the explosion might have deafened them
all, but there would be one thing that would certainly get their
attention. When one tried to stand, he kicked the kid in the chest
so hard that he heard a rib break. He stepped back, arrow locked and
loaded, so to speak.

“You freaks mind telling me what you’re out doing on
a fine night like this, or should I guess and save myself the
trouble?”

One of them tried to be cute and reached for a gun. He
shot that one in the throat, and, to drive his point home, he
kneecapped the other two.

Kevin was out of arrows, so he tossed the bow aside for
later recovery. “Now that I’ve made myself clear, do you people
want to tell me what’s going on? I haven’t had my cup of coffee,
I wanted to be asleep an hour ago, and I’m cranky.”

Kevin moved over to the one he had pinned to the wall.
He was big, he was ugly, and he was bald, with flames literally
tattooed on his scalp. “I hope you know how tacky that looks.”

Nero merely glared. Kevin shrugged, and then stomped a
heel on Nero’s kneecap. The dislocated kneecap, plus the tug it
placed on the spear pinning him up, hurt even more than he already
did. There was lots of screaming from Nero. Nero discovered that
hearing his own screams didn’t sound as lyrical as it had when he
made others scream.

There was a groan from Kevin’s right, and he looked
back at the two conscious and wounded thugs. One of them was
leveling a gun at him. Kevin dropped to one knee, and reached for
the small of his back. The thug saw him move and tried to roll,
expecting a gun.

Kevin threw himself to one side, drawing a throwing
knife, also homemade and wooden. A moment later, it was between the
thug's eyes. Kevin moved over to the last conscious one and quickly
patted him down, removing all weapons from him, down to his
matchbook. He similarly frisked the others, creating a pile on the
sidewalk of weapons and other minutia.

Gas, matches, and spray bottles. I think I’ve heard
about these yo-yos.

“So, what’s your name?” Kevin finally asked the
pin-up thug.

“Nero.”

He almost laughed. “Tell me you at least play the
fiddle.”

Nero sneered. “What? I don’t fiddle with anybody.
I’m not a faggot.”

'Faggot'… he must be from out of town.
“And thus the irony is lost. Typical.”

“Iron-knee? I don’t have an iron knee.”

“You will if you don’t answer my questions. How did
you get into Chinatown? I can’t imagine that the Children of
Thanatos would be all that happy with letting you losers through the
gates.”

Nero explained himself in full, remorseless detail.

He explained about Alek Souebel – an albino and
sociopath who led the group. There was also his friend, Frankie, who
Kevin deduced was someone “slow.” There were meetings in Golden
Gate Park. Most specifically, Nero elaborated on this evening’s
activities in full, colorful detail. If Nero had had a shred of
humanity in him, he would have noticed something was wrong, but he
just continued to speak in a happy tone.

At first, Kevin went pale, and looked like he was going
to be sick. However, as the tale became more detailed and more
involved, his features darkened. His eyes became deep black holes,
and he was glaring at Nero, especially as Nero almost orgasmed when
he described burning the last Child of Thanatos.

“Stop talking,” Kevin ordered him.

“But her scream—”

Kevin slammed his palm in to Nero’s throat, forcing
the Adam’s apple up into his mouth. Nero had trouble breathing
after that, but he would live. There were days when Kevin worried
about being too detached, too cold, and sometimes too vicious. He
was afraid of San Francisco turning him into something else than what
he was, something less than human.

This wasn’t one of those times. It was like looking in
a distorted mirror—this creature enjoyed inflicting pain and
suffering, just for kicks, the effect of what happened when San
Francisco really mutated someone. Kevin examined him and wondered if
he truly believed
himself ever capable of devolving into… this.
Kevin had more respect for the Children of Thanatos.

Kevin's eyes narrowed, and an evil smile came across his
face. He retrieved a squirt bottle filled with gas, and checked it
to make sure it was good and full. He waited for Nero’s eyes to be
on him, and then sprayed Nero’s bad leg with gasoline.

Nero’s
breathing sped up. A moment later, he stopped breathing as Kevin
pulled out a match. Kevin's eyes were empty as he spoke.

“You
like seeing people burn? Maybe I should bring you a mirror?”

The
whimpers from Nero were gratifying. His eyes widened in terror, and
the scent of urine barely overtook that of the gasoline. Kevin ran
the match alone the brick face, striking the head. The flame burned
in front of Nero’s eyes, the scent of sulfur stinging the air.

“Remember
that smell, Nero, because you’ll be inhaling it for years to come.
Since I’m Catholic, I have this feeling that you’ll get to smell
it, and see people burn forever, for all
eternity… granted, you’ll be one of them, but it’s an imperfect
universe, right? Ready, Nero? Here it comes…”

Nero
closed his eyes and whined loudly. Kevin laughed long and hard…
and then he blew out the match.

The
spy turned around and picked up his bow.

“Are you just going to leave me here, you pussy?”

Kevin
paused, then glanced back at Nero over his shoulder. “First,
you’re not going anywhere. Second, the locals are probably closing
in as we speak. And third…”

The
spy drifted off, his eye caught by the shadows in an alley coming to
life. Five of them leapt from the alley, taking the bodies of those
on the street. As they were grabbed, the kneecapped thugs awoke.
They looked up at what had taken hold of them, and began to scream in
anticipation as the living shadows dragged them off like damned
souls, wailing in torment.

Another
shadow stopped in front of Nero, staring at the spear, halted by the
predicament.

“You
heard him?” Kevin asked.

The
Child of Thanatos turned to Kevin and nodded, resembling something
like the Ghost of Christmas Future, cloaked in black and as silent as
the tomb.

“Sorry
about your people.” Kevin, on reflection, would have normally
choked at saying those words, but it was hard to be apathetic when
one’s allies had been slaughtered. “But I need you to bear this
one back to his master, Alek Souebel, somewhere around Golden Gate
Park. Maybe this Alek schmuck will learn something.”

The
look of terror came back into Nero’s eyes. “No, you can’t. My
knee’s messed up, my shoulder’s messed up, I won’t be any good
to them anymore. Alek…he’d burn me.”

Kevin
shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. He may need you to identify me.
Either way, it's not my problem.” He looked to the Child. It was
an odd gift to advise the legions of darkness like the Children, but
he took what fortune gave him. “All you need to do is slide him off
the spear. It should be fine. If he screams too loudly, just gag
him.”

He
turned and walked off into the San Francisco fog. As he strolled
off, he softly sang. “Hear me now, oh that bleak and unbearable
world, thou art base, and debauched as can be./ Now a knight, with
his banners all bravely unfurled, now hurls down his gauntlet to
thee…. I am I Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha, destroyer of evil
am I. / I will march to the sounds of the trumpets of glory, destined
to triumph or die….”

Kevin had a few more things to do that night. To start with, he had a whole bunch of priests to bring in…

Music Blog: Immortal

Just because I like the sound of this one. I tripped over it in my wanderings for new music. Enjoy.

Avengers Age of Ultron. The Trailer is here

Doesn't this ending really just call for the soundtrack for Terminator 2?



Seriously, the last image should have been accompanied by "dun dun dun DUNDUN"

Gone to DragonCon: will be back next week.

The title says it all.



I don't have a sign that says "Gone fishing."



Sadly, I don't have a sign called "Gone fission," because I may need that one.



Starting next week, we'll have videos and reports from DragonCon, including Peter David, David Weber, Jim Butcher, Gene Wolfe, and the ever-present John Ringo.



Also, with Ron Glass, Jeri Ryan, and Adam Baldwin.



It's been a LOOONNGGG weekend. See you all next week. Hope you had a good Labor day.a