western

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

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 6 Comments

(This is the second in a trilogy.  If you wish to go back to the beginning, here you go.)

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 beyond.

Long Odd Silver and Roman Koch are prisoners, stolen from the newest world in probable space and brought to the Counter-Earth called Antichthon.  Buried deep in a desert prison, going mad, they must find a way to join forces with one of the locals: a crazy fellow by the name of Linus ‘Likely’ Hood.  Linus is eager to break his brother out of that very same prison, and ride off together on the backs of stolen mechanical bulls!

Halloween is fast approaching, and the ghosts are getting restless.  All will come to a head when the hollowing holiday arrives and the impossible becomes dreaded inevitability.

(reading time: 1 hour, 15 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 6 hours, 5 minutes)

Planet in Theory

Funeral March to Gothic Rock

by

Blaine Arcade

Banjo Says Tariff

The song playing on the radio was quaint the first few times. After that it was the height of irritation, even in that gravity-free place where height was relative. The only instrument was the banjo, and it only had one thing to say: sit tight or loosen the purse strings. These weren’t lyrics, that would’ve added a human voice to the endless plink and plonk of the four strings, which to many of the crew sounded like a hand with a missing finger going about its life clumsily and blissfully unaware.

No, the tune was a reminder that they weren’t in charge, and that the people who were in charge weren’t budging, not even an inch in that place where inches couldn’t matter less, unless their demands were met. There was a tariff, and they had to pay up if they wanted to enter Antichthon’s atmosphere with their perishable cargo. Continue reading →

Chat-your-own-Adventure #10: A Sleep under the River

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience bidding tokens (earned while watching) to determine the path of the story.  The underlined phrases in the choice of three were the winning pathways.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d ever like to participate in our interactive fiction.

Missing Water                            Missing Timber                               Missing Silver

It was a small pious town on the edge of truly brutal territory. One mile further west and it wouldn’t have stood a chance. They had to stay right where they were; if they’d gone any further they never could’ve accessed the river and dug their own channels and wells. The biggest building by far was the church, though they didn’t make a show of it. There was no stained glass and there was no cross atop it. Though they worshiped Jesus there, all were welcome and all were blessed under their roof. Continue reading →

Manifest of the West (Part Two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(reading time: 50 minutes)

The Tangent of Sara’s Sewing Spiders

I told you about my mother’s dress shop.  I didn’t tell you it were driven out of business by the peculiarest of competitors.  My mother, bless her glorious soul in Heaven, were even kind enough to bring the woman who owned the venture a pie as a welcoming gift.  Sure it were blackberry pie, not her finest pie by miles, but you can’t expect saintly behavior from a shrewd businesswoman such as her. Continue reading →

Manifest of the West (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(blurb)

There’s a version of the wild west where the land in the westward direction just never stopped stretching, where magic seeped out of the canyons and rode the whirlwinds.  That’s where Lionel Worthett lives, and it’s where he would’ve died if the almighty Laudgod had just let him.

Instead he was given a task and a document called the Manifest of the West.  All he has to do is get the most powerful miscreants, villains, and varmints to sign their names so they can be turned into legends that won’t get any more astonishing, and then he can have his reward, one soul returned from the hereafter, back to the infinite west.

(reading time: 52 minutes) (reading time for entire novella: 3 hours, 25 minutes)

Manifest of the West

by

Blaine Arcade

The Hellmouth

There I were, standing before the open mouth of the grand devil’s kingdom… one of its mouths anyway.  A hot breath full of ashes descended on me.  It were the first one I’d ever set my own eyes on and it weren’t what I expected.  The mouth part of the name were supposed to be figurative.  It were a disgusting word representing a gate so people would think even less of it than they already did.  Except it weren’t so figurative. Continue reading →