Our friends had made a few discoveries... ----- "Good Lord, Richard, it's huge!" Dorothy Vaneman looked with awe up at the immense battleship-gray hull that curved up and away into the sky, seeming to lean out over them ready to fall over at any minute. "I thought this was supposed to be a test vehicle, a little thing!" "Well, Miss Vaneman, neither of us are particularly small, so the ship's got to fit our needs," DuQuesne said with a smile. "I suppose you have a point, Dr. [ Continue reading... ]
HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 5
April 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment
They'd had their accolades, now it was time to get to work... ----- v. "Blackie" DuQuesne squeezed himself, with difficulty, farther under the imaging tank – an N-th generation descendant of the original cloud-chambers used in early nuclear experiments, adapted for the specific task of reacting to the presence of liberated sub-etheric particles of the third order. He grunted as he found the loose connection – one of the grounding connectors had worked loose, probably due to resonant vibration; he had to pad these [ Continue reading... ]
HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 4
April 3, 2013 By 2 Comments
An unexpected meeting had turned into scientific discovery, and scientific discovery leads to... ----- iv. For the first time, and one of the only times, in his life, Marc C. DuQuesne felt small, almost intimidated and in awe, as he, Seaton, and Bryson walked across the stage to thunderous applause. Glancing to one side, he could see that Seaton's expression mirrored his own feelings – stunned disbelief, rising elation, and not a little stage fright. He found it comforting that there was something of the [ Continue reading... ]
HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 3
April 1, 2013 By 7 Comments
So the two young men had met over a common problem ... time to see what came of that.... ----- iii. At DuQuesne's knock, a somewhat tired tenor voice from within the office said "Come in." DuQuesne took a deep breath, trying to make sure he stayed calm and focused, and glanced at Richard Seaton, who nodded. DuQuesne grasped the knob and opened the door. Professor Bryson's brown eyes widened and eyebrows rose momentarily as he saw both DuQuesne and Seaton enter, then dropped [ Continue reading... ]
HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 2
March 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Well, we met up with DuQuesne, saw his childhood sucked, and heard unidentified voices discussing these events as though it were some kind of amusing experiment... ***** ii. "Mister DuQuesne," the older man said, pronouncing Marc's name deliberately as "Doo-kweznee", with a marked sneer, "If you believe you know so much more about this subject than I, praytell why am I the instructor?" "Damned if I know," Marc answered before he could stop himself. Professor Bryson's eyes narrowed [ Continue reading... ]
HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 1
March 27, 2013 By 1 Comment
This is a chapter from a partially-completed story which basically tells us how Marc DuQuesne (from Grand Central Arena) came to be the way he is -- how Hyperion MADE him that way. I think I previously posted these on my Livejournal a couple years ago, but they should really be up on my main site, here. I'll probably post what I have of this story; whether I'll FINISH it I don't know; it gets AWFULLY grim for my taste, even if the main character is going to survive. HYPERION ORIGIN By Ryk E. Spoor i. He pushed his way [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Naruto/Naruto Shippuden
March 25, 2013 By 2 Comments
It's almost unbearable, isn't it?… the pain of being all alone. I know that feeling, I've been there, in that dark and lonely place, but now there are others, other people who mean a lot to me. I care more about them than I do myself, and I won't let anyone hurt them. That's why I'll never give up, I will stop you, even if I have to kill you! They saved me from myself, they rescued me from my loneliness, they were the first to accept me as who I am. They're my friends. -- Uzumaki Naruto to Gaara of the Sand I [ Continue reading... ]
STORY: To Duel the Gorgon
March 22, 2013 By 11 Comments
This is a very short story (about 2400 words, or roughly the length of one of my average chapters in a book) which was originally written just as a spinoff of a Usenet discussion. The context was that we were trying to decide if there were any magical effects which could not be duplicated by technology -- i.e., whose presence immediately signaled we were dealing with magic, not science (even Sufficiently Advanced Science). One of the participants put forward the Gorgon/Basilisk/Medusa effect of "turn to stone when you look at [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Addams Family/Addams Family Values
March 20, 2013 By 4 Comments
Girl Scout: "Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" Wednesday: "Are they made with real Girl Scouts?" I never watched the original TV series,and had only seen a few of the Charles Addams comics, but I saw The Addams Family on the recommendation of a few friends, and found it to be a tremendously entertaining film – and one with some rather unusual elements. The same was true of its sequel, Addams Family Values; I've watched both films several times. (NOTE: The link above goes to a combo deal for both movies on DVD, [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Van Helsing (2004)
March 18, 2013 By 3 Comments
"To you, these are just monsters, waiting to be vanquished. I'm the one standing there when they die… and become the men they once were." --Gabriel Van Helsing As many readers have undoubtedly noted, I have sometimes unconventional tastes in my entertainment, and it will therefore perhaps be something less of a surprise to hear that I (and my wife) find 2004's Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman, to be one of our favorite films of the last ten years. This oft-mocked semi-steampunk horror movie from begins with a [ Continue reading... ]
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