Invaders from Beyond the Sky - Flash Fiction Challenge

I wrote this for a flash fiction challenge on Terrible Minds.  The idea is to combine two sub-genres in 1000 words.  I decided to combine three, Dieselpunk, Alien Invasion and BDSM erotica.... which means, NSFW.  Reviews welcome.

The dashboard had five dials in it. Five dials and 16 toggle switches. It seemed like more than enough, but what did I know about motorcycles? How to fix them, but not how they should look. 

Anyway, Ace Savage was impressed with himself and I wanted to be polite.

“She's a beaut,” I told him. “Looks just like a jewel or something.”

“Like a bullet,” he corrected me. I didn't argue, even though a bullet like that would never get out of the chamber.

Ace was a nice enough kid. He was a couple years older than me, blonde, handsome. Not my type. We'd known each other growing up and he always wanted to wear the pants. He'd boss me and I'd let him, but if I'd ever wanted to, I'd have had him grovelling in a heartbeat. I didn't like that. Inconsistent.

I batted my eyelashes at him. “Can I go in front?”

He shook his head. He wasn't about to let a girl drive his new toy.

My baby blues were losing their charm. I sighed. “OK. I guess I'll just get behind you and hold on real tight.”

Ace smiled and handed me a pair of goggles.

The road was empty, but the sky was full of zeppelins. I closed my eyes, smelled the cedar and squeezed Ace tighter. It was too quiet. The calm before the shit storm.

When we got to the base, my hair was mussed, so I pretended to worry over it while Ace went to talk to the guard. I didn't catch much, but I heard Ace refer to me as his girl twice. Their talk ended with him turning to me and saying, “You don't mind waiting with the bike, Millie? There's a good girl.”

I nodded and sat side-saddle on his bike. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

Ace went through the gate. I looked at the trees.

After about a half-hour, the guard got a call on the radio, put his gun over his shoulder and high-tailed it down the road.

I waited until he was out of sight, walked along the fence a little ways and slipped under it into the forest. I didn't always snoop around the base; I'd planned on waiting right where Ace told me to – but it was strange for the guard to abandon his post like that, and I was curious.

I walked parallel to the road, right up to the marble building and in through a side door. Usually this is where my heart would start pumping so hard I could hear it, where I'd have to duck into a doorway to avoid being caught – but the halls were empty, just like the road.

There was a faint buzzing sound, and I followed that. Everybody was gathered in one room, silent.

I crept in through the open door. The sound was coming from the projector. The screen was full of tiny discs, nothing too impressive, just blobs of dark grey on white. There was a big blob that was lighter than the rest. It took a second for me to see it was a zeppelin – which meant that all those black blobs were filling up the sky.

I covered my mouth to keep from gasping and backed through the door. I hit something, and before I could turn around, I felt a giant hand pinning my arms together at the wrist. I tried to turn my head, but another hand pushed my face forward. I felt lips against my ear and heard, “Don't bother, just walk,” and was pushed down the hallway.

I'd been around the base enough to know I was lost. I hadn't even known there were elevators until he shoved me into one.

I hit the wall hard, too fast to get my hands up. I turned around in time to see the doors close.

“Want to tell me what you're doing here? Who are you spying for?”

Tears stung my eyes. This was the problem; I'd get roughed up and I'd be such a mix of turned on and spitting mad that I wouldn't know what to say. “No one. I was just—” I thought about mentioning Ace's name. It would have been the fastest way out of the mess I was in. “I was just snooping. You know, in general.”

“Which General?” the man demanded.

I blinked at him, disappointed that a man like this should be so stupid. “Sorry, bad joke.” He cracked a smile. Gorgeous white teeth. I thought I might provoke him, see if I could get him to bite.

His uniform wasn't one I recognized. Some special division, maybe. Definitely not in Ace's unit.

“I'm Millie.”

“Vale.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Basement.”

“Why?”

He crossed the elevator in half a second, backing me into the corner he'd thrown me into. “Questioning.”

My heart thudded in my ears. I pressed myself into the railing to keep from pressing into Vale. The elevator bell dinged and the doors slid open.

At first Vale didn't say much, just asked me questions and tightened my restraints when he didn't like the answers. He finally worked out that I got off on it and gave up on interrogation. Every time he came down, he looked a little grayer, a little weaker, sometimes beat up pretty bad.

One day he came in, looking rough and told me, “This is the safest place for you,” chained my arms above my head and fucked me against the bars of my cell. That was the closest to a heart-to-heart we ever had.

The aliens have taken all the big cities. Not just here, worldwide. This base is one of the only ones left and I have to wonder who's holding it together.

I don't know what's happened to Ace. Vale still comes to see me sometimes, but we don't do much talking.

50 Shades of Wretch

So, today at the day job, I read an article (which seems to have since disappeared - will link when I find it) by the "author" of Jane Eye Laid Bare, Eve Sinclair*, defending the book and her choices in writing it.

A lot of the article had to do with eroticism and how 50 Shades of Grey is liberating for women, and people shouldn't be ashamed to read erotic books and eroticism is different from porn, etc, etc. - and for the first half of the article, I could kind of see what she was saying.  I have zero problem with people reading whatever they want  and even though the snippets of 50 Shades I've come across are enough to make me want to stick a fish fork up my nose and wiggle it rigorously to erase all traces of the prose from my brain, my attitude tends to be, just because I find something distasteful doesn't mean other people ought not to enjoy it. I agree with her about the porn**, I have no issue at all with porn, be it on paper or film.

In (roughly) the second half of the article, Sinclair defends her reasons for essentially hijacking a classic novel for her own gain.  Except, her reasons are ridiculous.  Firstly, that Jane Eyre is already a pretty erotic novel.  Well, yes.  So why the need to wave the this part is sexy banner?  Why would you want to take something subtle and replace it with something in-your-face?  That's something like taking a perfectly seasoned turkey and then coating it in a thick paste of ground thyme because, well, everyone likes thyme and anyway, it already had some thyme and that tasted really good.  This concept of sticking porn into classic novels has to be the best argument for leave well enough alone I've ever heard.

The other main reason she gives for her book is that no one had a problem with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - and I agree that anyone who was OK with that should be OK with this.  I had a huge problem with it.  Just to be clear, I didn't read it.  Possibly the zombie scenes were perfectly integrated and the changes and additions were as brilliantly written as the rest.  I kind of doubt it, but that's not the point.  Pride and Prejudice is my all-time favourite book.  I have read it either 12.5 or 13.5 times (it does get a bit difficult to keep track) and even though it sounds cliched, every time I read it, I find something new, some new meaning that has previously escaped me, some facet of one of the mains' characters that suddenly makes everything clearer.  To add to it is to destroy it.  Since I'm on a roll with the similes, let's throw in a metaphor. Say you have something perfect and wonderful, an extremely elegant, perfectly cut, expensive designer gown - and  let's say you also have something popular and kind of cool, some interesting buttons from an old woolly sweater... THERE IS NO REASON TO COMBINE THESE THINGS - but the horrendous hipster gown of doom effect is not really my problem with P&P&Z or with JELB.  My problem isn't even with the insane amount of hubris someone would need to read the originals and think Meh, I could do better.  My problem is that hubris combined with riding the coattails of an excellent author who is dead and can't defend themselves.  Seriously, try that shit with an author who's still alive, why don't you?  Or, better yet, make up your own universe, throw in some of your own characters, and see where that takes you.

*Is this supposed to sound like some sort of twisted nursery rhyme?
**Sinclair calls it eroticism.  I say naked people engaged in sex acts = porn, but that's just semantics.

Genre Crossovers

I like the idea of taking two kind of tired, slightly worn-out genres and blending them into something new. Terry Pratchett does this with satire/social commentary and epic fantasy. The writers of Pluto Nash attempted it with crime drama, comedy and science fiction and failed miserably.

Just wondering if anyone has any more examples of genre-mashing, whether brilliantly done or painfully unsuccessful. Also, are there any combinations you'd like to see but haven't, or any you'd like to write (/plan to write/are in the middle of writing)?

Pop into the comments and let us know.

I'm currently working on a post-apocalyptic(ish) fantasy road-trip thing. I like what I've written so far, but the going is slow. I think that has a lot to do with trying to keep the world and characters true to themselves but inclusive of each other.

Another Gem, Courtesy of Chuck Wendig

I was reading Terrible Minds and I found a link to this article by Edward Docx and Chuck Wendig's response. While the debate rages on on Terrible Minds, I thought I'd put my own opinions up here, since, well, I'm a DevCo writer first - and I've already posted two rather long comments on Mr. Wendig's blog.

*Warning: reading Docx's article may lead to fits of rage, swearing, smacking the desk and late night exclamations of "This is bullshit!"*

Usually, I feel that I shouldn't respond to these kinds of things, because any response legitimizes the arguments being put forth and all that. In this case, though, I feel like I have to stick up for myself and my fellow genre writers.

This debate is strange to me, in part because I'm not sure that anyone really has a clear definition of either genre fiction or literary fiction in their head. Wikipedia (ok, not the most reliable source, but the best I could find) says:

Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order
to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.

Huh. Maybe I don't write genre. Ok, yeah, I do.

Literary fiction is a term that has come into common usage since around
1960, principally to distinguish "serious fiction" (that is, work with claims to literary merit) from the many types of genre fiction and popular fiction (i.e., paraliterature).

Which makes me wonder what constitutes literary merit.

Literary merit is a quality of written work, generally applied to the genre of literary fiction. A work is said to have literary merit (to be a work of art) if it is a work of quality, that is if it has some aesthetic value. The concept of "literary merit" is impossible to define, and it is hard to see how such an idea can be used with any precision or consistency by policy makers, magistrates or judges. A common response to this criticism is that, while the process of establishing literary merit is difficult, fraught with dangers, and often subjective, it is the only method currently available to separate work that has significant cultural value from work that is ephemeral.

I actually love this definition a little. In the first line, it points out that literary merit is a concept that's caught in some cyclical reference to literary fiction and hence is essentially meaningless, and in the last, says, "Well, yeah, it is kind of meaningless, but we don't have anything better".

Which I think sums up this argument nicely, actually. I mean, I write genre fiction, which is definitionally only genre fiction because it doesn't qualify as literary fiction, and nobody knows what literary fiction actually is, because it's defined in its own terms... but really, let's all sit down and try to figure out which one is better.

I hate all of this highbrow/lowbrow stuff. How about, good fiction/bad fiction? or better yet, how about, fiction that I, personally, like/fiction I don't? Why do some writers, like Docx, feel it necessary to write long articles championing their kind of fiction (I wonder if other literary authors would consider his work to posses literary merit), degrading others and cramming more pomp into one web page than has any business floating around the Internet in general? Did no one ever tell him, if you don't have something nice to say...

But who knows? Maybe that kind of posturing is necessary, if you're afraid your work won't stand on its own.

Now, that wasn't fair. See? This kind of bile-driven, mindless putting down of other writers is contagious.

Gender Bias in Book Selection

Someone on Book Blogs started a discussion (and posted this link to her blog) about gender bias in book selection. Apparently, she has a colleague who will not read books written by women. As a female author, this bothers me. As a human being, it scares me a little. As a reader, I can kind of see his point.

I can't imagine deciding against picking up a book to read because its author is female, but if we didn't judge books based on things other than their content, all books could just be a flat light grey with their titles printed in an easy-to-read font. So I judge books (at least a little) by their covers, and part of that includes the author's name*. If an author's name is gender-ambiguous, I don't feel any great need to find out their sex. In some cases, the rest of the book cover gives that away (P.C. Cast, anyone?), but by and large gender doesn't really matter to me when choosing an author, as long as the book looks good.

The reason I said I could kind of see Buddy's point is that, when I thought about it, I realized that most of my favourite authors are male (Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Robert A. Heinlein, etc.). I don't think that's because of their use of “male” language (although, in the case of Gaiman and Pratchett, I would say it definitely has something to do with their British language), so much as the (often) male perspective on characters. Apart from a clever and engaging style, what I look for most in fiction is something character-driven. Fun and wonderful plots are all well and good, but if I don't care about the characters, I can hardly be expected to care about how they spend their time... and I think that men are more likely to write characters I care about. The reason for this? Flaws. Female authors (and I am way generalizing here; clearly I don't think this is true of all female authors) tend to have the unfortunate habit of forgetting to give their protagonists flaws of any kind – and many times, when they do have flaws, they're things like thinking that they're more flawed than they really are. I like my characters to be overcoming addiction, or give careless criticisms to people or be so heartsick that they can barely function. I don't want to read men who never ask for directions and frequently forget to pick up milk or women who insist on watching chick flicks and won't eat Chinese. There are flaws and there are quirks, and I think male authors are quicker to heap on the flaws when their characters are in their planning stages.

With all of that being said, I should mention that my favourite book EVER is Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen's style is very distinctly female and her characters are real, flawed people who I can relate to and enjoy reading about.

A few (though admittedly, a very few) people on Book Blogs didn't think there was much of a difference between male and female authors and Amanda Markham, the author of the blog that prompted this whole thing, points out that “... men can be every bit as fluffy and emotional as women”. This is true, but, as Ms. Markham goes on to point out, there is a discernible difference between the way women write and the way men write. She directs her readers (and I direct you) to the Gender Genie, which boasts something like 80% accuracy when determining if a passage was written by a male or female author. What's really interesting is that it shows you how it reached its conclusion, which is great, especially if you want to get really good at writing first person characters who aren't the same sex as you.

I'm still fairly ambivalent about this issue, because while there are traits that are often attributed to female authors (some of which I attribute to female authors in this post), I don't think that women should strive to be/write/act more like men. Actually, I think that if everyone strove to be and write more like themselves, we would have a lot more interesting and varied fiction available to us and a lot less weird men refusing to read woman authors.

*If an author has a name like Adrienne Loveheart, I'm likely to avoid anything she's written on principal.

Athena

Athena broken, bored, confused, creative, uninspired, jaded, unique, stunted, spontaneous, unbalanced, original, ambitious, insightful and more than a little bit crazy. I write.




Greetings.

I grew up in a small, boring city, the third of seven children. I'm blonde, I was home-schooled for elementary school and I'm a Libra.

I've been writing fiction since before I knew my alphabet and I've never loved anything more. There is no set genre that I stick to but a lot of my work has at least some supernatural elements in it. Many of my stories often include silly, improbable romances because, well, who doesn't love a silly, improbable romance?

My favourite authors include Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Jane Austen and Robert A. Heinlein, but if I had to guess who has most influenced my writing, I would have to say David Bowie. I suppose a lot of what I write is heavily influenced by fairytales, both the Disney versions I knew as a child and the scarier originals I studied in Children's lit.

I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of dress and freedom of anything else that doesn't infringe on other people's rights. Mainly, I believe that people should find their own path and do what makes them happy. In an ideal world, I'd be an anarchist.