adventure

Planet in Theory: Funeral March to Gothic Rock (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 25 minutes)

Catalogues of Women

“Thank you all for coming out this afternoon, I know it’s hotter than the devil’s bedpan out here. Leave it to a South Reap October to turn pumpkins into prunes; that’s what my father always used to say.” There was some light laughter, less than he expected, but he chalked it up to the fatiguing heat.

There was at least some shade thanks to the garden trees behind the town hall, where Mountainblood always held its press conferences. Journalists for local rags, both clean and oily, were clustered under the crab apples, fanning themselves with hats because their cards were busy recording the event. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Pluto Takes the Stage (finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 55 minutes)

An Excerpt from Masquerade Monthly, Issue #34

Available at Aleatory Books

As our regular readers will know by now, we’re committed to offering everyone on Pluto the most sound and fashionable advice when it comes to selecting and wearing emergency masks, whether likelihood is a concern or you’re just looking to spice up your Friday night look. Admittedly, we tend to get caught up in trends, what with the planet’s wealth of fine craftsmen at our disposal.

Today we reach into the back of the mask drawer, tackling queries sent by many a reader regarding nontraditional and improvised masks. Many of you have also expressed an interest in so called ‘minimal masks’, here meaning items worn upon the face that one would not expect to count as identity forming but have nonetheless been demonstrated to work as such. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Pluto Takes the Stage (part four)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 25 minutes)

One in a Simillion

“Popcorn’s here finally. I’m starving. Hey, over here moron!” Toddy Hot raised his hand and snapped his fingers several times to get the crazy8’s attention. The person who’d been set to the task of fetching the refreshments barely knew where they were, and certainly didn’t understand what kind of crowd surrounded them.

Since they were wearing a red striped shirt and a little paper hat they assumed they were an employee of this entertainment venue and it was their responsibility to serve anyone else there. At the moment they were on the carpeted stairs between rows of descending seats, and down at the center there was a boxing ring, though the 2 men inside it were conversing instead of throwing punches. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Pluto Takes the Stage (part three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 24 minutes)

The 9th Life of Long Odd Silver

“We are closed!” Minty shouted as she rushed toward the front door in her green silk pajamas. It was so early in the morning that there was only a shred of daylight outside, so she held an illuminated card up like a candle, footage of a yellow flame flickering. Her feet were bare and her glasses resting comfortably on her nightstand a few rooms away.

Whunk whunk whunk! The knock came again, though it was more like somebody swinging a sack of potatoes against the wood. Then there was another knock from a different angle, smaller, harder, more persistent. Then another. It was hammering, she realized. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Pluto Takes the Stage (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 10 minutes)

Request in the Public Interest

For all the talk of Pluto having opinions, of it styling its population’s civilization, against their will, after the early half of the 20th century, probably because that was when its own planethood was most aggressively speculated and it was nostalgic, the truth is that it was much more of a natural reaction.

If opinion came into it at all, it was likely influence from human possibilities. Everyone past the dawn of plastic pines for the good old days of wood, paper, metal, and glass. While they want the smell and look of those things, in the end they’ll happily give it all up for the conveniences of the 21st, computing prime among them. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Pluto Takes the Stage (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 13 Comments

Past the facts lies a realm where your guess has to be good enough: probable space!  Its places and peoples have their own odds, from 2to1 on down, getting less substantial all the way.  All the planets there are the ones merely theorized here, from tiny Vulcan, to Counter-Earth, to Phaeton, and now beyond to… Pluto?

The poor orbiting body’s downgrade from planet to dwarf shoved it into the realm of theory, so it popped up in probable space, complete with an adult population shocked to find themselves alive!  One such Plutonian is Minty Julip, who is nearly sure she is a librarian, and hopes to stay that way, but many are vying for power in their fresh world, and they think she belongs in the battle.

That battle will suck her into a chaotic maelstrom of criminal organizations, weaponized cardistry, literal storms of cats and dogs, and an unlikely companion calling themselves Long Odd Silver.  There may be no escape for her, but in probable space one can never be so sure.

(reading time: 1 hour, 9 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 7 hours, 3 minutes)

Planet in Theory

Pluto takes the Stage

by

Blaine Arcade

In Media Res

Cherry-picking is both hope and folly. The brightest and sweetest on the tree exist, sure, spectrums need starting gates and finish lines as much as anything else, but to pretend it represents the whole is to wind up with a pie that looks great but sourly disappoints.

And I know salt and cherries don’t really go together, but you should still take what I’m about to say with a grain of it. I admit that I’ve cherry-picked these, out of 7 seas of reactions, just to give you an idea of how intensely this development struck some people. Continue reading →

The Left Challenging Handful (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 56 minutes)

Burn the Handful

The parliament building, which housed the Shoulders of Government, was made out of an old trunk and kept in the highest residential area of the barn: the hayloft. It was fed with several elevators of varying construction as well as by trained birds and their riders. Many of the birds were reassigned as security that day, and so the lip of the loft was covered with the saddled feathery creatures, their beaks making the line look like a living fence of spikes. Continue reading →

The Left Challenging Handful (Part Three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 53 minutes)

Knead the Handful

Forty Myrmidons marched across the walls of Minimil after a hard day’s work. Marching sideways was possible for them, as long as they stayed on all fours, thanks to the clasping hooks on the wrists and ankles of their exoskeletons. Their progress would’ve been extremely slow if not for the divot network.

It was invisible from a distance, which in Minimil was anything greater than two meters. Up close it could be seen as nothing more than even rows of gouge marks in the old wood of the barn walls. Their purpose was to provide footholds to any and all arthropod citizens capable of wall-crawling, the most numerous of which were the Myrmidons. Continue reading →

Twenty-four Days of Ringworm and Religion: Christmas Eve Finale

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Welcome to what is likely your first advent calendar fantasy novel!  Each day is a chapter, and should be read as such, but who am I to stop you from catching up? (This way to Day One!)  What follows is the story of one Marzipan Ridner, a young trans girl aching for the fulfillment of the holiday season.  When a mysterious wooden Advent calendar shows up she opens the first door, and finds herself whisked away to a world-tree of contrasting deities and binding bureaucracy.  She has less than a month to find someone willing to be her spiritual patron, but the denizens of the tree don’t seem very hospitable…

(reading time: 18 minutes)

On the Twenty-fourth Day

Without scavenging for dead things in her backyard each day, Marzipan’s stockpile of sacrifices had run dry. She ended up picking some friend chicken bones out of the trash, the remains of Mom’s dinner the previous night. Continue reading →