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... ]
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... ]
PORTAL: Chapter 25
March 6, 2013 By 2 Comments
This is the last snippet of PORTAL that I'll be posting, since the eARC is now available for those who HAVE to read the rest NOW; this puts you just under halfway through the book. I may post a few more chapters just before the release of the hardcover. ----- Chapter 25. "My God this is beautiful!" It wasn’t the first time she'd expressed those sentiments in the last hour, but Helen couldn't restrain herself, and the others didn't seem bothered. The walls of the huge, [ Continue reading... ]
PORTAL: Chapter 24
March 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment
There was still some other work to do before they went on their jaunt... ----- "Careful!" Joe said reflexively as the huge assembly wobbled. "Sorry," Horst said from the other side. "It is not easy, moving this thing while keeping it steady. Not exactly the best-balanced object we've moved." He couldn't argue that. Nebula Storm's rocket nozzle, once meant as a replacement for Nobel's in case of damage, was a massive, bell-shaped assembly that looked deceptively simple from the [ Continue reading... ]
PORTAL: Chapter 23
March 1, 2013 By 1 Comment
They had repairs to do... ----- Madeline checked the integrity of the support structure member again. We don't want a repeat of the last time, that is for certain. The new gantry was being heavily reinforced. While they didn't expect to have this problem again, especially with a new set of modified automated brakes in place that Brett and Joe had designed and tested, no one saw any point in taking chances. Athena's new supports would hold even if the probe fell a good thirty meters instead [ Continue reading... ]
PORTAL: Chapter 22
February 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Well, SOMETHING bad had happened... ----- "Holy shit!" A.J. did not apologize for the curse. At nearly the same instant, Joe Buckley said, "God damn it!", followed by "Ow ow OW!" "I see yellow and red on your telltales, Joe!" Petra said, having obviously switched in her medical monitors. "Talk to me!" "Goddamn… stupid… universe…" they heard Joe mutter. "Got a hole punched through the suit." "Through the carbonan?" A.J. said incredulously, jamming [ Continue reading... ]
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