My New Subreddit for Promoting your Original Fiction

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Hey all, this is just a quick post to tell you about a subreddit I’ve just created and am seeking to populate.  It’s called r/originalgenrefiction, and its purpose is to allow myself and others to post blurbs and links to our original works to try and snag more readers’ eyes.

It’s brand new and I’m still ironing out some kinks, so it’s barren at the moment, but if you’re interested or have something to submit I would encourage you to go check it out, post, and follow it to stay tuned.  The rules are pretty simple.  Your work has to be original, complete, free to read, and feature substantial genre elements (mostly just looking to avoid literary fiction and nonfiction).

I’d like it to be a haven of creativity, as I feel most fiction spaces online are oppressively dominated by works of fan fiction and erotica.  Ideally it will be a place where people can find fun and unorthodox stories without involving any kind of monetary transaction.  I’ll be posting there myself weekly, and I’d be delighted for some company.  Thanks for your time.

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 17 minutes)

November 7th

2008

Our Nemesis

The artist’s retreat was over, and most of the last weren’t worth saying goodbye to. Long Odd Silver only sought out one of them, not meaning any offense to the rest of her band of course; it was just that none of them other than their lead singer had spoken a word the entire time. Perhaps she was the only one who could.

How the artists left was never actually witnessed, with the passengers assuming they vanished when there was nobody to observe them, as often happened with things in probable space that were either unsure of themselves or too sure of one aspect of themselves. Roxy Clink was likely the latter. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part four)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 51 minutes)

October 13th

2008

Plunge

The window’s getting tight now. Not much year left in our year long voyage. It’s clear what Dry and Roman want: the 1to1. They’re still looking forward to the regularly scheduled programming. But what about Sonny? He’s still here even though his vengeance is complete and there’s nobody to wed.

He has plenty of artists to choose from still, but says they’re not his type. That means they’re not our type, that they won’t fill the captain’s shoes unless they trip into them. That’s not their purpose here, so it still belongs to a passenger. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 34 minutes)

September 22nd

2007

Tell the Ice Floes to Hold that Pose

The chill in the air had less to do with the time of year and more to do with the waters they had entered: Rivulet M14. At times across the year they had seen other ships passing, many of whom signaled them with flashing lights and flares, their crews and passengers practically hanging over the side as they waved. There were likely radio broadcasts as well, but the Viper True made sure no machine aboard received them.

Sometimes someone on another vessel saw it as their only chance to interact with the legendary ship, jumping overboard and attempting to swim the distance. They never made it, and thought the Viper True’s pace was too swift to tell, Silver doubted they all made it back to their original vessels either. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

November 7th

2007

Big Shoes to Fill

“And just what do you think you’re doing here!?” a woman in a scarlet coat asked. Her thin gloves were just as red, and so were her painted lips. Her heavy coat had a hood lined with what looked the fur of a snow leopard, each spot the number 2. If it actually came from an animal that meant its odds at the time of death had been 2to1, and people like her wouldn’t dare wear anything more likely than themselves, so she must have been that close to reality as well.

She had dark darting eyes like panicking tadpoles and a stance that suggested she would try to repel a mudslide with pure indignation rather than flee from it. Her glossy brown hair was done up in a frazzle like an electrical cable chewed on by a raccoon. Roman recognized her voice, and by the slight chill in her pallor he guessed she had been on that iceberg no more than 3 hours ago. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 5 Comments

In 2006 poor Pluto suffered a demotion, from planet to dwarf planet, unwittingly causing a version of it to appear in probable space: the realm of planets that were only ever theorized and people who have to track their own likelihood as much as their food and water intake.  Pluto arrived with a full population of adults, suddenly responsible for their own lives, and thus began the Planet in Theory series.

In Pluto Takes the Stage we covered its crashing the party, and from there journeyed to the theorized counter-Earth Antichthon and dealt with its many ghosts in Funeral March to Gothic Rock.  Now we follow the wild 8to1 scoundrel Long Odd Silver and the former prince of Pluto as they crash-land on Vulcan, likeliest of theorized worlds, and right to the deck of an autonomous ship crewed by a handful of the shiftiest figures who all share the same goal.  They say the ship is headed to the 1to1, back to the reality Pluto dropped out of…

(estimated reading time for part one: 1 hour)

(estimated reading time for entire novel: 6 hours, 12 minutes)

Planet in Theory

Riverboat without a Captain

by

Blaine Arcade

November 7th

2007

Not Much Spit Left

Over 3,000,000,000 lonely miles separated Earth from Pluto. The dwarf planet was too far from the sun to have much of a bright side, but it hoped for one nonetheless when it was demoted, knocked out of the solar 9 like a back row billiard ball, held responsible for impacts several spheres away.

No longer a planet, but perhaps in a friendlier neighborhood? Only in the sense that it was emptier, so there were fewer threats to come screaming out of the darkness and smash into it. The people that had the privilege of existing went on, after an all too brief bout of complaining over Pluto’s loss, talking about all the other planets, how they were feeling, whether they were in retrograde, never to collectively turn their minds back to the downgrade. Continue reading →

Heirs of Cain: Venus in Transit

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Severin Molochi is aboard a train… but to where?  And come to think of it, what year is it?  He has lost his place and time in the world.  Could it be the work of the bewitching predatory woman who enters his private car, wrapped in furs, with designs and desire in her eyes?  Heirs of Cain, a gothic horror fantasy erotic thriller novelette series, begins here.

(estimated reading time: 1 hour and 33 minutes)

Heirs of Cain

Venus in Transit

by

Blaine Arcade

The number one… followed some time later and after strenuous mental investigation by the number eight. What was the one? One of the seven? One of the six? One of the two? All of these number were suddenly in my head, throbbing as if of great importance, but they were a distraction.

What had I been searching for? It was difficult to recall as I had my forehead pressed against the cold glass of a locomotive window, eyes chilled as if dangling just outside by threads. What I saw was snow-cloaked firs by the thousands, with a stormy winter tailor still in the process of garbing them. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Series Update

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

My four volume high fantasy/low humor book series has just received another round of light edits, so I’m posting about it again in case anyone might be interested in giving them a read.  The Captain Rob series takes place in a richly nauseating fantasy world set entirely in… a gigantic public restroom.

It follows a crew of sink pirates on their many adventures from the harvesting of brown paper towel wood all the way to the holy grounds of the Glory Hole, and every gross squishy place in between.  There are monsters, gods, heists, groanworthy jokes galore, and plenty of swashbuckling swordplay.  Here are the links to the first chapters, and remember that all of my works are complete, and completely free to read.

Captain Rob Fights

Captain Rob Sinks

Captain Rob Robs

Captain Rob Deals

Cardiac Zack’s Healthy Human Shack (an animatronic horror tale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Holden Geats makes his scratch snapping pictures of abandoned places, and he’s heard of a new one: a kid-centric educational play place about the human body.  A quick bribe and he’s in, only the singing and dancing animatronics populating the place didn’t exactly get the ‘abandoned’ memo…

Cardiac Zack’s Healthy Human Shack

by

Blaine Arcade

Sometimes it was difficult to get all the animals out of the way. Bugs were the worst of course, too small to shoo and too fast in flight to keep their trails out of the shafts of light coming through any fissures in the ceiling. They weren’t the only ones though: birds, rats, cats, and occasionally frogs tried to ruin it too.

An indoor miniature golf course where the artificial turf now had mountain ranges of artfully-fallen ceiling plaster. A former public park where vines with sunhat leaves had eaten a listing seesaw. The outdoor section of a dilapidated lawn goods store, a flock of plastic herons standing vigilant even though their feathers and eyes had peeled white.

Every shot was devoid of live animals, but there was a big one just behind the lens, and his name was Holden Geats. Snapping pictures was his livelihood, and what renown he had came from his very narrow purview, as he only sold pictures of a world abandoned, of a speculative future Earth where mankind had vanished months or years prior achieved by finding the quiet little places that found themselves for a time unprofitable, suitable for investment only to Mother Nature herself. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘RPM Tire Swing’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

M-A-C (11): ‘RPM Tire Swing’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1983

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Arkansas

Collection Report: The Catalog followed up on an emergency room report. The notes of one of the attending nurses: ‘Kid says he was on tire swing when it started spinning like it was still on a car and someone gunned it. Looking at his broken collarbone, legs, and neck bruising I almost believe him.‘

The item, apparently having burned through its rope support with friction alone, seemed to depart the property on its own, traveling over 300 miles before it was picked up on the shoulder of Highway (REDACTED) after striking a hitchhiker and landing on its side. The item goes inactive when placed horizontally. It is completely bald, but its performance as a wheel does not seem to suffer, its top speed calculated at over ninety mph.

Current Collector: Garth Millman (they/them), senior rank

Notes from Collector: “It hung as a swing for a while, and we’ve had a few reports of other wheels we haven’t nailed down. My theory is that there’s an entire car broken down and split up, but still working. Some joker holds a wheel and turns it, all four of our swings turn. Somebody steps on a gas pedal buried in the muck and little (REDACTED) is thrown screaming across his yard.”

Current Status: active

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