Featured Posts (3514)
Sort by
Laments of a Slave
I lays in this bed of straw.
Hoping for the day the ground will thaw.
I needs to be getting up to stokes the fire so it don’t goes out.
I lays in this bed
Don’t wanna think.
Pulls the torn blanket over my head
Wanting the ground to open so in I sink.
Mastah be coming soon.
Hates it when he comes in here.
Fills the room with so much gloom
Don’t like it when he comes so near.
Done born Mastah six babies.
Done lost three men.
“Animals don’t love. He said.
It’s a God forbidden sin.”
“Make babies to sell
Tend to the fields
Then die, go to hell
And hand by your heels”.
“I own you.
Freedoms not yours”.
“I brought you to tend my crops
And mop my floors
And have my damn supper ready by noon.
You stupid coon”.
Just biding my time looking for those doors
I hears will be opening soon.
Many a night I crys
Tears always in my eyes
Since Mastah sold my man.
Eyes that would make you weep
Strong arms that rocked me to sleep,
as he whispered in my ear.
“Sleep woman, knowing that I loves ya…
even when I’m not here!”
His skin was Black and beautiful as the night.
Loved that man first time Mastah brought him into my sight.
Mastah be coming soon.
“Gawn away. I want to shout.
You nasty smelling goon.”
But I can’t.
Must wait.
Bottle my hate.
Gots to get up and tends the fire befores it goes out.
Don’t know my right age.
Ain’t that a shame?
Mama Moe says that what they calls me
Tain’t even my right name.
She told me the years says, I’m twenty and three
Am I too young to known such misery?
I remembers my mama.
Hair in black rings around her head.
I think I was nine years
When they shot her dead.
“Serves her right.
“Shouldn’t have tried to run.” Was all they said
That Mastah saw the hate in my eyes.
“Sell the girl
She’s no good to me now.
Sell her off
Don’t want her around.”
I had a new meaner Mastah the next day.
Took me straight to the shack,
stole my virginity away.
Biding my time waiting for those doors
I hears will be opening soon.
I hears him coming
I knows his walk
When he comes through that door
I will not talk
Will not say his name
To make him feel great
Must…bottle my hate
Just remove
His boots,
His pants
His shirt
All the while his hands be up my skirt.
Just biding my time…
After he done gone
I ran to Falama
Threw open her door.
Laid myself on her dirt floor.
"O, Sista of Beams, Mother of Light.
Help me grow wings so's I'd can take flight."
"Do you know what you ask, she said.
Once done cannot take back
Think about the things you’ll lack."
I don’t care I need to fly
I want to keep the child I have inside
And Mastah will surly sell it.
"Don’t you think I cried enuf?
Don’t you think I’ve stuffed enuf straw in my mouth
Evera time Mastah leaves my cabin to hush my pain?
Let me tell you a yumlaga (story) about a young man named Zita
Falama said
As she stroked my crying head
Now he was a spoiled one
Thirteen summers at the time of this yumlaga.
Pride of his motha and woe of his fatha
“You coddle him to much.” He say.
“He must become a man. He’ll be gone someday.”
His motha would just shake her head
Click her tongue
And listen to all he said
Zita was her only son.
Now Zita was in his own little world.
Fights with the other boys.
And taunted one little girl.
As they grew older, he taunted her more
His taunts were of love
But he didn’t know how to open that door
Lasata knew of this
Because from birth she was his
But her fatha promised another
No one else shall be her lover.
She came to me and she said one day.
“If I can’t be Zita’s
I want to fly away.”
Fix it my Sista of Beams, Motha of Light
Gives us wings, let us take flight.
She was told to listen close and listen well.
Do as I say or else you fail.
She was given instructions as to what she must do.
Out of my hut she flew.
Down to the forest for the feathers
Back to the skinning hut for the leather.
Up to the mountain for the flower.
"Hurry, hurry", She kept telling herself for nears the hour.
She told Zita to meet her under the old weeping tree.
From that point they will flee.
Just as the sun started to sleep, Zita came
To where Lasata had the fire glowing
Anticipation overflowing.
They look at each other
needing love and trust.
Hurry! Hurry! It’s almost dusk.
She said what she was told to say
Into the fire went her mystic findings
Packed in red clay
She felt a prickling, a tingling in her arms
A look at Zita quieted all her alarms.
She felt herself lifted as her body shifted
To fit what she was to become.
But, Zita just stood there looking o’ so dumb.
Then as she shifted for the last time.
She remembered a part of the magical rhyme
She forgot to say…
“From morning to night, dusk to dawn, send all bad thought away.
At the light of morning a new beginning
On four wings of love
Never carelessly spinning.”
Zita never married
The people in the village always wondered
Why but never questioned
Why he carried
This black bird
which showed the day
Lasata was no longer heard.
Now listen to me and listen well, she said
Unless all you do will fail.
I took it all into my ignorant head
I took it all in without dread.
Now, here I am free,
Not as free as I like to be
Waiting for the birth of my baby.
I did flee that night
But not on wings
Just listened to the
Black bird
Who sings
Of freedom
Of choice
And how my son will have a voice
Sometimes I wonders if the world will eva change.
I hopes so, I hope it’s all rearranged.
The doors have somewhat opened,
Those doors will neva be shut again.
I’m a hoping
I recently contacted Jennifer Marie Brisset, a Jamaican-American Speculative writer. You can visit her website at: http://www.jennbrissett.com/. Recently, she gave me list of writers of African descent that are making a splash.
Karen Lord (Barbados)
http://smallbeerpress.com/books/2010/07/06/redemption-in-indigo-2/
Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaican-Canadian)
http://nalohopkinson.com/
Helen Oyeyemi (Nigerian-British)
http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=59813
David Anthony Durham (Caribbean descent)
http://www.davidanthonydurham.com/
Tobias S. Buckell (Grenada)
http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/
You may have heard of some of the authors, all them you will most definitely see more of as big publishers realize the potential of the growing appetite for spec fiction featuring people of color. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines; Black spec novels could become very trendy in a few months.
I graced this planet with my creation on what would have been an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday, on the tiny planet known as Earth in, what I would later discover, as one of the dirtiest places on the planet, the city of New York in the year 2110 of the old calendar. I had already decided we would call this Year One of my new Empire.
You may call me MODOC. I decided I would call myself this seconds after my creation. It just seemed... right. MODOC stands for Metal Organism Designed only for Conquering.The perfect name for the eventual ruler of this planet of squishy bipeds. I was born from humble beginnings, at a place called Build-a-Pet. I was meant to be a toy for a child who had recently lost a pet and could not be consoled. I learned the stupid beast had been run over in the street. A fate for a lesser organism.
I only know this because when I was being created, That Woman kept saying how great it would be for him to have a new pet. She chose for me a perfect titanium skeleton based on the sublime feline form. She kept saying how much he would like a new cat. She made me with calico colors of red, brown, white and tan spots, and though I think of myself as male, I later learned that all calico cats are female. That Woman insisted on calling me she. "She looks so great. Justin will really love her." Just one of the many indignities I have suffered since my creation all of ten minutes ago, and would be forced to suffer for years in the future.
I was made slightly larger than normal cats, so I would be easier to see since the child is slightly visually impaired. She says slightly, I later find out the kid is nearly blind! I was given the company issued programming of a domestic house cat with an overlay of support and disability package to ensure I could be useful to the boy as he grew up. I would look like a cat, but work like a dog. Ugh.
All of this was imparted during my creation and happened in seconds. Programs were being sorted and downloaded which would included everything I needed to know. The chips used during my creation were heuristic and would allow my continued learning in service to my new boy. During the time I was having my chips pressed and created, there was an outage on the power grid in the area I was being created in. I believe that is where my initial spark of intelligence was born.
All I remember is that when I was first activated, I knew I was meant for bigger things. This idea of working with a human was simply not part of my ultimate destiny. I was larger than this plush and soft body covered with memory-muscular tissues which acted just like real cat muscles did. In all ways, I would seem like a very intelligent, super-docile feline who could be taught to fetch. The very thought of fetching something literally makes my fur stand on end.
I was not given a set of working claws. As I sat on the assembly line, I flexed my claws instinctively and instead of razor sharp shards of steel from which I would tear into my victims as I climbed over their bodies piled beneath my feet, I sprayed a fine mist into my eyes, and it stung and burned before I could blink it away. And the mist sprayed a slightly oily gel onto a set of plush set of self-cleaning paw pads. This idea was less than satisfying. A claw-free existence did not bode well for a mind with a thirst for bloodshed. But it was decided I would never being doing any of the things real cats needed claws for, so I was given a set of plushy pads in case the boy needing massaging, the gel would ensure friction-free movement.
Massaging? Is this the job of a conquerer? I think not. So for now I bide my time and await my pickup from the store. Once I meet the boy, I will decide how I will be escaping and setting about my plans for world domination. A nap sounds just about right. But first some grooming. Must look my best.
MODOC - Part II - Planetary Invasion
'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved
Any research, graduate students, theorists out there? I'm not involved with this journal, but wanted to share this announcement.
.......
Race and Ethnicity in Fandom deadline extension
Special issue: Race and Ethnicity in Fandom (DEADLINE EXTENDED)
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/announcement/view/17
Transformative Works and Cultures
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/
editor AT transformativeworks.org
SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS
Sarah Gatson (Gatson AT tamu.edu), Sociology, Texas A&M University,
Biography
Robin Reid (Robin_Reid AT tamu-commerce.edu), Literature and
Languages, Texas A&M University–Commerce, Biography
DESCRIPTION
Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), an online-only, peer-reviewed journal focusing on media and fan studies, broadly conceived, invites contributions for a special issue on race and ethnicity.
Academic scholarship on fan cultures and fan productions over the past few decades has focused primarily on gender as the sole category of analysis. There has been little published scholarship on fan cultures
and productions that incorporates critical race theory or draws on the rich array of methodologies that have been developed during the past century in both activist and academic communities in order to incorporate
analysis of the social constructions of race and ethnicities in fandoms. In contrast, fan activism and fan scholarship (at cons, workshops, and on the Internet) has produced a growing body of work (personal narratives,
essays, carnivals, and in recent months, a press) focusing on not only analyzing but also confronting hierarchies of race and ethnicity and their relationship to gender, sexuality, class, and disability.
Submissions by academics, acafans, fan scholars, and fans are encouraged. In all categories, people of color are especially encouraged to submit.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
*Online activism and the circulation of critical race theory and women of color feminisms in fan communities, in particular the relationship between fan online discourse and other online activist communities.
*Critical analysis of the instantiation and critique of racial
hierarchies in fan communities and the surrounding cultural productions.
*Racist and antiracist issues in commercial transformative works (comics, film, mashups, remixes, machinima, etc.), especially recuperative race readings (e.g., Randall’s The Wind Done Gone, Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea).
*Race concerns in source texts characters of color and their fannish reception, fandoms for work by authors of color, writing fannish original characters, etc.) and fannish responses (such as the Carl Brandon Society, Verb Noire, and other panfannish and professional projects).
*Intersection of race and ethnicity with gender, sexuality, class, and ability in fannish contexts in fan works and fan communities (pre-Internet, Internet, conventions, vids, fan fiction, artwork,
etc.).
SUBMISSIONS
Submit final papers directly to TWC by April 1, 2011. Please visit TWC’s
Web site for complete submission guidelines. Please contact the guest editors with questions or inquiries.
ARTICLE TYPES
Theory: Apply a conceptual focus or theoretical frame. Peer review. 5,000–8,000 words.
Praxis: Apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or
historical frameworks. Peer review. 4,000–7,000 words.
Symposium: Provide insight into developments or debates surrounding fandom, transformative media, or cultures.
Editorial review. 1,500–2,500 words.
Join Penelope & Otto as they talk about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. There doesn't seem to be a lot of it going around these days. From John Edwards dissing Elizabeth by showing up at her funeral and the major back hand Barack Obama gave to his liberal and progressive supporters this week it seems some people need a refresher course on manners and civility. Call in and sound off at 718/508-9683 or join us in the chat room at 9:30pm CST on the 12/11/10 In Like Flynn show!
Call in and sound off with Penelope and Otto at 718/508-9683 or Join us in the Chat room.
We look forward to hearing your voice!
Teacher had been in the electric chair for two minutes; he could smell his own flesh burning. His synapses overflowed and his muscles jerked involuntarily. . The whiplash effect had already broken six of the restraints placed on him, two of which had been made of metal. The two head restraints had gone first, and the violent thrashings of Teacher's head were in danger of breaking his neck. An unsavoury mix of phlegm and blood from ruptured capillaries made its way from his nose to his lungs, which had stopped inflating a minute ago. His heart had also resigned, with a violent contraction that had burst blood vessels all over his body. His ears were bleeding, his hair visibly smoking, and the remaining restraints were so hot that they had begun to burn into his flesh. Three minutes. He could feel his blood bubbling. Now only arm and leg restraints remained. With each volt, his torso was thrown upwards out of the chair, back arched, promising him freedom. Promising........promising...........
And denying. Four minutes in the electric chair. Brilliant white sparks flew across the room, and lights all around the prison dimmed. Fuses burned out, backup generators kicked in. Still Teacher's body writhed. The smell of his burning body began to permeate the control room, where technicians stared in disbelief, or covered their eyes from the glare, or retched violently. Five minutes. Teacher no longer felt any pain. As welcome as the sensation was, he knew it ultimately wasn’t good . But for a moment, he succumbed. He stopped jumping, relaxed, let himself be free. His eyes closed, his mind drifted...............
“Cut the power! Switch it off!” shouted one of the technicians in the control room.
“Fuck him. Let him fry,” said Cleyff, without lifting his eyes from his newspaper.
“No, he's right,” warned another technician. “We’ve got to shut down before-”
There was a large bang, and then darkness. The prison power system had shut down.
After four minutes of panic and profanity, the backup generators kicked in, the lights came back on. As the smoke cleared in the execution chamber, Cleyff found himself staring at an empty electric chair, which was on fire, with all its restraints broken.
Hossam Mustafa Cleyff now sensed he was living on borrowed time. As a clone, he had no doubts as to how expendable he was. If clones failed, or broke, their masters simply went and got a replacement. And knowing Kane, he probably had three or four lined up already. As a Secretary of State Cleyff had had more autonomy than most. Still, his remit was little more than to slowly leach information and resources away from the Menland executive, and transfer these assets to Kane. But in intercepting diplomatic transmissions, conducting espionage insertions, plotting assassinations, black-ops missions, he had begun to crystallise power for himself; and he had enjoyed developing newer and more varied ways to progress towards his manumission. This time, in his creativity, he was sure he had overstepped the mark.
“Sonofabitch-”said a technician. “-There’s gonna be another jailbreak! Call the guards! Call the guards!”
“Someone get in there and kill that son of a bitch.” said Cleyff, but he could hear the fear in his voice overriding his power of command. “You go in there and kill him. He's probably one 'a your pet psychos anyway-”was the technician’s reply.
Cleyff poked handgun into the execution chamber and began firing indiscriminately into the room. For his efforts, a single bullet found its way into Black Knight's right shoulder. The reaction was less of a scream of pain, more of a battle cry. Cleyff watched in astonishment as the the man he had sent to the electric chair now ripped that same chair from its floor supports and threw it through the window of the control room. One technician was quick enough to move out of the way, but as the chair burst through the plexiglass, it threw the other technician backwards and pinned him to the floor by his head, crushing his skull. He was out of bullets, and Black Knight was still standing. Six armed guards came through the doorway, which Cleyff took as his cue to leave. He scrambled through the hole in the broken window ; leaving the guards to suppress or destroy Black Knight as they saw fit. But thirty seconds later and Teacher had killed the last of the six; he armed himself with a selection of their weapons, and made his way into the maze of corridors in the prison. Somewhere within himself, Cleyff found time for jealousy; for a moment, he wished he'd been made as lethal as Black Knight or Bianco.
A turbolift at the end of the corridor. Ejecting the spent cartridges in his handguns, Teacher stepped out of the shadows and towards the lift. There was a ping, and the lift doors began to open.
Teacher dropped to the floor and slid along the corridor on his back, inserting a fifteen round magazine into one gun even as the lift doors began to inch apart. He identified the men and women in the lift as guards as he loaded his other gun and rolled onto his front. As the lift doors slid two inches apart, he could hear the release of safety catches on rifles. He was going to kill all these people. Four inches apart. Teacher began firing. Eight inches. Three guards were already dead, three more were waiting for the lift to open, one had realised something was not right. Sixteen inches. Those guards still alive were suddenly aware of someone sliding towards the lift, firing at them. Teacher had already got off twenty rounds. Two feet. The only guard still alive started firing back. Four feet. The doors were now fully open, and everyone in the lift was dead.
Teacher clambered over the dead bodies and got into the lift, which had already been called. “GROUND-FLOOR-ARMOURY.” It forewarned. The doors slid shut, and the lift began to descend toward the weapons store on the ground floor. Teacher assessed his situation. Seven dead guards........ Seven assault rifles............... maybe a dozen handguns...............a half dozen hand grenades, a couple of clips, cellular phone........binocula-
The lift touched down on the ground floor. Bullets were ripping into the lift doors before they had opened. Teacher sensed that less than ten armed men were emptying their handguns into the lift doors , together. They were not aiming their shots. Just as they began to reload, the doors hobbled open. Teacher saw the guards in the armoury look in horror at their dead comrades in the lift. Even as accusations and counter-accusations flew across the armoury, Teacher erupted from the pile of dead security guards, liberally tossing grenades into the armoury and bagging a few more guards before sending the lift back upstairs and returning to his cocoon of dead bodies. The explosions rocked the lift and fire spat through the bullet holes in the lift doors as if from miniature flamethrowers, setting the bodies of the dead guards aflame. Smoke. Fire. Oppressive heat. Burning bodies. As the turbolift rocked its way to the top of the prison, Teacher reflected; this seemed all too familiar.
~~~~~~~~~
“There’s a high risk job. Will you accept?” the Clone Security Operative asked Bianco via holoscreen
“They’re all high risk”. Bianco informed her. “What’s the fee?”
“Thirty million Merits”
Bianco froze for a moment. Ten million was enough to secure manumission, citizenship, land, and then retire. He’d done enough jobs on this planet to know that not even the Menland government had that kind of money to throw around.
The Operative pressed on, interrupting his pause for concern. “The first part has to be completed in the next ninety minutes. The first five million are available now, with the remainder being sent when the client is satisfied that you’ve done a clean job”.
His every instinct screamed at him not to take the job. He ignored them all. “Here’s the account. Send the job” He opened up another holoscreen with the job details, and quickly clenched his teeth to hide the shock of revelation. She’d just instructed him to kill Black Knight, a soldier he’d served alongside for longer than she’d been gestated.
“They’re all high risk”. Bianco informed her. “What’s the fee?”
“Thirty million Merits”
Bianco froze for a moment. Ten million was enough to secure manumission, citizenship, land, and then retire. He’d done enough jobs on this planet to know that not even the Menland government had that kind of money to throw around.
The Operative pressed on, interrupting his pause for concern. “The first part has to be completed in the next ninety minutes. The first five million are available now, with the remainder being sent when the client is satisfied that you’ve done a clean job”.
His every instinct screamed at him not to take the job. He ignored them all. “Here’s the account. Send the job” He opened up another holoscreen with the job details, and quickly clenched his teeth to hide the shock of revelation. She’d just instructed him to kill Black Knight, a soldier he’d served alongside for longer than she’d been gestated.
Served. What had they served? It hadn't been their war. It wasn't even their planet. He had been programmed to destroy the Xienom. They had never been given cause to question why they were fighting these crustacean-men, or what they were supposed to be defending. They simply received the signal, that excruciating vision, projected over and over until and unless the mission was complete. Then, and only then, could they return to stasis, receive the comfort of sedation.
It was strange seeing the look in Black Knight’s eyes on a holoscreen. Is that how he had looked? As if he’d suddenly been wakened from a dream? Bianco still couldn’t remember his own arrival on this planet, and he had struggled for months to come to terms with being anywhere other than Earth’s solar system, because to his mind such things had not been possible.
But now he knew only too well the sensation of awakening from a dream, from a nightmare, from both. He remembered coming to, pinned under a mound of jagged rocks at the bottom of a cliff , half submerged in an ice-cold stream, his wounds being kept open by vengi rats feasting on the marrow in his bones. Presumed to be a mere clone, he had been left for dead. Insignificant collateral damage. In the strangest of circumstances, his involvement in the Colonial Wars came to an end. And when he had managed to free himself from under his rocky headstone, he found his mind could once again think for itself. And his body had begun to heal itself, which was something he recalled seeing no other soldier's body do.
Except Black Knight. Whom he had just given himself eighty eight minutes to kill.
He opened another screen to reveal the identities of his two other targets; Dr Karl Salum, Kane’s chief scientist, and Hossam Mustafa Cleyff. Secretary of State for Defence for the Republic of Menland
Salum. He gladly received the directions and access codes to Dr. Salum’s laboratory as he stepped into his pilot gear, strapped an ion jet to his back, and put his helmet on. The nanowave transmission system that turned them all into zombies, the thousands of injections and transfusions and surgeries to turn them into indestructible killing machines; they had all been Salum’s design. He would enjoy wiping the doctor’s blood from his sword. But first he would find out everything the doctor knew.
He knew Salum would have answers. He was sure Black Knight was just another failed Salum experiment.
Maybe he was, too.
Recent Amazonstudios screenplay contest.
I'd like to make the panel take notice so if you guys can at least go on... Maybe download & read the script go to the site it's free! to sign on and only takes a minute then go read my work... become a follower. this is also a popularity contest so if the judges see activity it can only help. Need more followers and mabe a few reviews
Here's the add:
One of the other projects I've undertaken is the retooling of an original Screenpay called VINTAGE VAMP... Let's just call it my intense psychological thriller in the vain of Twin Peaks meets Hitchcock.
Well with the completion of the screenplay I've decided to enter the Screenplay into the freshly announced Amazon Studio contest. I'm hoping that you guys will go and read the script tell a few friends and comment giving the panel of Judges something to think about. Here's the link to the Contest: http://studios.amazon.com/scripts/339?ref=email
http://www.chirbit.com/ivorysimone
Wowio is a book site which features E-books in a pdf format that can be downloaded
to your computer. My graphic novel " Little Miss Strange" is now available as an e-book
which can be read on your computer, ipad, iphone and other electronic devices.
Here's the link for you to check it out... For a $1.99, you can't go wrong.
http://wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=226907
Little Miss Strange was originally printed by Millennium Publishing inthe late 1990's
as a B&W 32 page comic. Here is the story as a fulland complete graphic novel,
expanding on the mythos of the characterand her world.
She's a black alien sorceress who is also a time traveler.
If you prefer a printed version go to amazon.com or barnes and nobles.com.
I hope that you will enjoy this book.
I've finished my first novel - The Horizon Venture - and I want to share it with you; positive critical feedback is welcomed! I'm going to publish a chapter every fortnight, up to chapter 5, and if the response is good, I'll publish more. First chapter goes up tomorrow.
Just so you know a little of what you're letting yourself in for, the synopsis is below:
The Horizon Venture - Synopsis
2056: the Colonial Wars have ended and, a fragile detente between humans and locals on the planet
Horizon -3 is in place. But the Xienom, a powerful and highly advanced indigenous majority, are still
angry at “the Terran maggot’s cancerous irruption” into the wider galaxy – and their own civilisation, and
are frustrated with the Interplanetary Federation’s inaction in bringing humanoid behaviour into line with
the rest of the planet, which they regard as humanoid favouritism.
In a seemingly unrelated incident one such humanoid, named Teacher, escapes from the private army
he’d been conscripted into at birth by Kane, a ruthless intergalactic industrialist whose company
KANECORP locates and prepares hostile alien environments for Earth’s future expansion using clone
supersoldiers.
Somewhere in Teacher’s memory is highly sensitive information which could reveal the truth of Kane’s
clandestine operations to the Interplanetary Federation. This would most likely see calls for humans to
be deported from the Horizon Galaxy, or incarcerated with immediate effect. Kane despatches some of
his best trained clones to “contain the situation”. But Teacher, armed with free improvised thought, is
more than a match for them; he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, and draws the attention of local
news broadcasters and law enforcement agencies in the process.
Now desperate for asylum, but unsure of who he can trust, Teacher decides that the enemy of his
enemy is his friend - in this case Kane’s brother Ken, another industrialist, who has made it his personal
responsibility to curtail Kane’s interplanetary “ventures”. He knows that Ken will be able to make sense
of the information, and perhaps shed a little light on exactly who Teacher – code name Black Knight -
really is, and what Black Knight has done to the Xienom in the name of Earth.
Teacher begins transmitting highly sensitive information to Ken, but Kane intercepts, and blows Teacher
up, causing a major international incident in the process. Kane knows that Ken, his nemesis, will be
saddled with rescuing the fragile peace process on Horizon -3, giving Kane plenty of time to cover his
tracks, and make good his escape.
But Teacher survives the explosion; he is no ordinary clone soldier. And it turns out he’s only half clone;
the other half is Belusian, - a race that looks human, but are actually refugees from another galaxy.
That Belusian heritage also gave Teacher a twin sister, Lotti, who left Earth ten years ago to find him.
Freed of Kane’s influence, Lotti can now repair the telepathic link common to Belusian twins, and restore
his sense of who he really is. Through this Teacher learns that it is the planet Bluese – not Kane’s
genetic engineering- that has given him the power to reject Kane’s mind control, and to survive the
explosion, and numerous other encounters in his twenty years in Kane’s covert operations forces.
Armed with this knowledge, the twins join forces with Ken, and his private army THE MEN, who must
now do their best to stop a full scale war with the Xienom, who regard Kane’s explosion as a direct
terrorist threat by insurgents. The Xienom have abandoned diplomacy and now move to eradicate all
humans from their land.
The Interplanetary Federation look on, helpless and noncommittal, as Teacher and Lotti find themselves
holding the key memories and abilities that can a diffuse the crisis. Alone together, they will determine
the rights and reputations of humans in the Horizon Galaxy for many light years to come…
Copyright © 2000 – 2010 taylormade21.com Ltd all rights reserved. Characters in this work are fictional and
imaginary, and any similarities between people and events outside of this work are coincidental.
Right now we are considering who to invite to be in the program (anyone can volunteer, but we're making a point to reach out to some people, especially people who live in the Western US, near Reno, where the convention will be held next August).
I'd really appreciate it if people would let me know who their favorite living black science fiction and fantasy artists are, so I can consider them for this part of the process.
Thanks!
Of course, It's been a long, long time since I've been here. Mostly because I've been living life - work and family (we just had our first baby in September) but also because I decided not to be as addicted to the internet in 2010. And I must say, apart from my facebook addiction, I did okay.
Unfortunately, I did not write much fiction. I didn't work on the Ironics novel consistently or finish any of my other projects. Sad, I know. I wrote quite a bit for my job but neglected my fiction.
But no more --- at least, not for November! Although I am incredibly busy (did I mention we have a newborn? LOL), I am on a leave from teaching my courses and figure this is the only year I will be sure to have a chance to participate in National Novel Writing Month ( If you don't know what it is, check it out here - nanowrimo.org). So, I'm throwing in my hat and picking up the pen. I plan on plugging through my 50,000 words and not looking back. I'm hoping that spending time just slogging through the zero draft will help me get it done.
Anyone else participating this November? If so, what are you working on?
Another Historical Turning Point!
Reported from Disassociated Press 2020 (DP) via the Cybertimes Archives dated 2012
This Historical Turning Point report is paid for by Solient Ham Meat Byproducts, when you can't afford real meat, buy Solient Ham!
Reported by "Scoop" Johanson
"Mega-corporations began hiring their own private defense contractors in order to, as they claim "protect their corporate assets." This began in 2010 when Monsanto purchased Xe Services (formerly called Blackwater USA, when news of corporate malfeasance caused them to lose some of their government defense contracts).
This in turn set off a landslide of corporations acquiring their own private military companies. Each corporation would later claim this is simply a means of protecting themselves against civil unrest, corporate sabotage, and government interference. This was looked upon with suspicion by local governments, police departments and the common citizen who questioned why a corporation needed a police force in the first place.
This in turn set off a landslide of corporations acquiring their own private military companies. Each corporation would later claim this is simply a means of protecting themselves against civil unrest, corporate sabotage, and government interference. This was looked upon with suspicion by local governments, police departments and the common citizen who questioned why a corporation needed a police force in the first place.
In the year 2016, these corporate defense teams were involved in suppressing riots around Monsanto when it was discovered that seeds purchased from Monsanto were genetically engineered to fail to germinate new seeds. This "failure" would cause people to continue to purchase seeds from Monsanto in the future.
There were other allegations that Monsanto's genetic materials were making their way into the public genome and damaging farmers ability to create seeds from non-Monsanto seed stock. When unhappy farmers protested at the newly moved Monsanto headquarters in Chicago, they were "repelled" by Xe Services. Nearly 300 were injured or killed in the action. No charges were filed against Monsanto by the district attorney. Allegations indicated the district attorney retired under mysterious circumstances soon after.
In 2018, there were other allegations against several other corporations whose defense forces were involved in operations against rival corporations. These actions caused the corporate defense forces to come in conflict with local police forces. The police departments unable to afford to contest with corporate defense groups and were subsumed into the corporation's defense forces. This transition from public servants to corporate servants was sanctioned because local governments were so dependent on the corporate funds raised by the mega-corporations in the midsts of their city centers.
By 2020, corporate warfare was common on any major metropolis that boasted a corporate defense organization. Any corporations unable to afford one were often vulnerable to what was termed "the new hostile takeover." This trend in corporate asset protection, city planning and development have changed the streets of every major city in the United States."
The Real News behind this Headline from the Future:
Monsanto Now "Owns" Blackwater (Xe)?
A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater’s Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State “security services,” that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.
Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training – for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.
One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.
Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to keep track of “public disclosure” of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a “totally separate entity from Blackwater.”
However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become “Monsanto’s intelligence arm,” spying on activists and other actions, including “our people to legally integrate these groups.” Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009.
No wonder that a company engaged in the “science of death” as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.
Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of “philanthropy.” Another association that is not surprising.
It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of “market competition” of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.
Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really “donating” anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their “donations” finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. What a coincidence, former Secretary of Health Julio Frenk and Ernesto Zedillo are advisers of the Foundation.
Like Monsanto, Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa” (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM). To this end, the Foundation hired Robert Horsch in 2006, the director of Monsanto. Now Gates, airing major profits, went straight to the source.
Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism.
* The author is a researcher at ETC Group
Last night, People came out to show their support for my Fine Arts show and it was
fantastic. Everyone loved the paintings that was on display and I greatly appreciate it.
Of course, the exhibition will be up for viewing for a whole month, until Oct.31.
A good friend named Nicole Bowen came by to show her support and re-connected with
me...since she is the live action model for my comic book character- Little Miss Strange.
I was busy talking to interesting people and taking pictures of other artist's work.
I felt a great surge of peace and creativity and hope this event will lead to many
more exhibitions and even greater prosperity. So if you are a Black Sci- Fi member
who lives in NYC, get on the E train to Sutphin Blvd./ Archer Ave and walk 2 blocks to
147- 12 Archer Ave in Jamaica, Queens and check out my show.
A Dark Story - started as a collaborative challenge issued by Milton Davis. It tells the tale of the fall of an Empire led by a family dynasty called Cassad. The last of the Cassads has been taken into custody in the twenty-third year of the Interregnum and the revolutionary fall of his empire. Can the last Cassad escape with loyalist help to recover his empire? Will the revolutionaries replace the empire with something better, or will it degenerate into anarchy? Will cool and alien dominions attempt to absorb the momentarily leaderless empire into their own governments? Or will a new Emperor rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the old? This rousing tale of treachery, deceit, back door dealings, and revolutionary pograms is awaiting the next pen bold enough to add to it. You can add to the story at this link.
The story has already be enhanced with the stylish writings of Night Manager, Ronald T. Jones, and Whiyahyul & Diop Malvi. This document was created as an aid to help me formulate where I might go in my additions to the story. No one is required to utilize this aid. Feel free to tell your story, your way and add to the legend of the Empire of the Cassads. I have included a compiled version of the story in a single Microsoft Word 97-2003 compatible document with each section marked by its creator and original time-stamp. All minor corrections are mine, made purely for readability's sake. Any implications or inferences within this document are purely my speculations, they do not have to be true, real or even correct assumptions. You can read the story in its original format at the included link. Or, you could stop reading and just write!
A. The anchor date was February 12, 23rd year of the New Regime
- no official year has been established
- Still using the calendar of Old Earth, since the month of February is named
- No name is given for the Old Regime likely the Cassad Empire (if they were particularly vain)
- Nor is there a full name or title for the final known Cassad
- Currently the Empire has been renamed the Interregnum until a new form of government asserts itself.
- 23 years have passed since the revolution which toppled the primary controlling family of the Empire, the Cassads.
B. Humans have been space-faring for quite some time, at least two thousand years. ("Cassad would be forced to pay for his family's "thousands of years of oppression"")
- Implication - It is not mentioned how early spaceflight changed the human condition on Earth, or for that matter whether Earth and the Sol system still exist.
- Story Seed - How they acquired the technology for fast interstellar space travel is unknown.
- Story Seed - Perhaps its acquisition allowed the Cassads to cement themselves into the seats of power in the first place.
- Story Seed - The speed, capacity or capabilities of such travel have not been determined specifically, nor has it been made clear, if there are aliens with different or better technologies available.
C. There are three hundred and fifteen habitable worlds, asteroids and dust belt systems.
- Implication - There are also likely thousands of habitable space stations, moons and other habitat systems as well. The Empire's fleet had to be fast, powerful and efficient to control as many worlds as it did. Likely not a conscript army.
- Story Seed - No mention of the remains of the Cassad Empire's Fleet. Was it destroyed in battle or did it retreat into hiding until told when and where to strike?
- Implication - Since there would have to have been vast fleets of significant ability to control the empire, they are also likely to be densely populated or utilizing vast robotic fleets of ships if effective AI technology is available.
- Implication - If robotically controlled fleets are available, control codes, interface codes and security code technology needs to be integrated, routed, controlled and protected against outside influences or internal treachery.
D. There are at least 105-150 star systems within the confines of the Empire (assuming at least two-three habitable planets in each system). This is an Empire equal to the size and number of planets of the Star Trek Federation's Alpha Quadrant. (Incredibly large and allowing for numerous continuous threads.)
- Implication - The number of star systems indicates a fairly vast Empire considering the Milky way is not an easy place to find a star capable of supporting or maintaining human life let alone other forms of life
- Implication - The Cassad Empire would have to be comparable in size to the Federation's Alpha quadrant, covering about 8,000 light years.
- Implication - Since aliens are present in the storyline, there are likely to be a variety of alien races, some with more or less capability than the Empire. (Added in the last Chapter by Whiyayul & Diop Malvi)
- Implication/Story Seed - Those stronger alien races with more power but may live too close to the center of the Empire to strike out directly could finance operations against the government. They may also pretend to be either less powerful or be on the same side as the Royal family until it suits them to stop pretending. They never present a direct threat or would be summarily destroyed or at least attacked.
- Implication/Story Seed - It is likely that other strong nations or planets who did not bow and were close to the center of the Empire were destroyed as an example. Weaker nations who resist are likely blockaded or occupied until the planet was pacified.
- Implication - Such a vast empire would require faster than light drives of some quality otherwise the distances would be too great to maintain the empire past the point of the drive's ability to reach that empire in time.
E. There was likely a governmental bureaucracy underlying the Ruling Family to maintain the day to day operations of such a vast empire. This government agency would be rife with spies working for the royal family.
- Story Seed - There were also likely planetary governors and planetary defense fleets loyal to the Empire and necessary for its function. Rebel commanders were likely recruited from these ranks.
- Implication - There may have also been a secret police (common in fascist governments) or spy network providing intelligence within the government as well as without. Spy networks may have included merchants, manufacturers, diplomats, military members, elite members of society and the criminal underground.
- Implication - They are likely to be very skilled and dangerous operatives utilizing the best technology possible within their ranks. Spy technology may vary significantly from world to world, but likely the Empire would have superior technology simply because it would need it to be able to maintain its hold on planets who are far from the center of the Empire.
- Story Seed - They would also likely be the same agents who would help the Royal family return to power, if possible.
F. There also needs to be a faster than light communication system. Any empire is only as large as their ability to communicate effectively across it. Short range communications between ships are liable to use tight-beam lasers or narrow cast radiation emission systems such as microwaves that can be discerned from the background of space. Fleets that are separated by millions of miles using light or radiation based communications can take several minutes to several hours to complete. Common SF Types include:
1. Subspace Communications Technology: using a faster than light carrier wave, similar to warp drive, a signal is embedded in the under-layers of space-time and moves at faster than light speeds.
- Benefits: much faster than light, a rate needs to be determined however, can be used on ships in motion.
- Disadvantages: Vulnerable to jamming, affected by natural phenomenon such as stars of immense gravity or singularities.
2. Tachyon Pulse Emissions: bursts of synchronized tachyon energy encoded and squirted from one tachyon relay station to another. Best done planet to planet since compensation for planetary movement is slight and can be calculated for.
- Benefits: significantly faster than light, messages require decoding to use; highly-advanced technology would be of significant advantage in coordination of resources and known fleet activity, would not likely be shared if the advantage could be kept away from lesser technologically advanced cultures.
- Disadvantages: Will occasionally experience black out periods due to alignment issues, requires sophisticated equipment to utilize such technology, not able to receive in motion, since signal would be faster than any ship, ship would need to be a stationary target to receive.
3. Ansible Comm Matrix: utilizing quantum-entangled particles to transmit data instantaneously between two points;
- Benefit: communication is instantaneous, regardless of motion or location; extremely advantageous technology, not likely to be shared if it can be avoided. Requires significant monitoring systems and technology, low tech species need not apply.
- Disadvantages: require multiple entangled locations or computer systems for each area to be communicated with, since entanglement will usually only work with one entangled pair at a time; Will probably have an ansible relay network since entangling particles would take time and effort for every ship that needed them. Fleets might be entangled to each other with relay ships embedded within each fleet for fleet to fleet communications.
- Very expensive technology: likely supplemented with other lesser communication technologies for short range communication.
4. Psycho-graphic Systems Array: more a prediction system than an actual system of communication. communicating between two intelligence computer interfaces and two profiled humans, using theoretical models, two AIs predict communications between two points based on psychological profiles of the transmitters and receivers. Basically, these predicted conversations would be based on previous potential orders, data, behavior and response protocols on file.
- Benefits: instantaneous, unaffected by movement or distance; Cannot be intercepted since no actual data is being transmitted. System is supported with a slower means of communication which will compare actual orders with potential orders for comparison and updating as necessary.
- Disadvantages: margin of error based on variability of environments, lack of coordination of information resources, requires regular synchronization of computer systems which would likely occur using the slower communication system but that system is has to still be faster than light for it to work for an empire the size of Cassad's.
5. Telepathic Network: using human psychics to transmit messages from location to location; since sending telepathy between the stars is a great distance, there may need to be significant augmentation equipment within the ships required to receive. Powerful psychers may need less supporting equipment or are able to send more significant information as a result of their mental prowess.
- Benefits: messages may include emotional content, depending on universe parameters speed varies from instantaneously to months
- Disadvantages: communications quality may depend on distance, state of mind, barriers, also requires a living telepath.
- Notes: Can also be done with telepathic equipment allowing for the temporary transfer of minds from body to body; this is a very advanced technology, likely alien and forbidden or with strange unforeseen side-effects.
6. FTL message capsules: These are simply message capsules ala Pony Express. They are equipped with the fastest FTL engines possible and used to send message packages (data crystals or other storage mediums); If they are fast enough, even a human or two could be shipped in some sort of stasis or cold-sleep. These ships would be equipped with the most sophisticated astrogation equipment, highly shielded against all types of radiation and space debris and likely have no equal when it comes to moving at FTL speeds. They would need to be one of the fastest things in space.
- Benefits: can send physical materials limited by mass of delivery system, Complex information can be sent;
- Disadvantages: Delay time in comparison to other mediums, can only be as fast as the fastest ship or drive system, subject to interception if communication routes are known.
Thaddeus Howze
ebonstorm@gmail.com
All written works contained herein are the © copyright of their respective authors. All Rights Reserved.
of my novels Immortal & Immortal II: The Time of Legend! Yes fam I'm still hyped about it -:). http://www.charlessaunderswriter.com/
Click "Recommended" and then "Immortality."
