Tag: Alien

Scifi

Fiction — “Elegy of Entrails”

Posted on by Desmond White

The gray ape scurried across circles, spins, and spirals, the feral geometry of a temple that once gave her the shakes, once reminded her of mournful teeth.

Now the architecture was as familiar as her mate, although there was no time to admire the fractals, to run her hands over the pillars. She was in a hurry.

She was expected.

Before the statue of Ezum, the ape kneeled, said a well-practiced prayer, and unsheathed fifteen arms, revealing parchment and bottles and green-yellow feathers from her sleeves. Every circle priest wore the robe. It was useful for implements and unflattering bodies.

Ezum would arrive. Somehow, someway, through its temple effigy, Ezum spoke, and the priests listened, and replied, and scratched the words into the Elegy of Entrails.

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Writing Process

Writing Dialogue for the Elder Gods

Posted on by Desmond White

lovecraft_god_dialogue

As a writer, how do you format the dialogue of an elder god?

This was the problem I faced while writing “The Elegy of Entrails,” a Lovecraft lovefest set on an extraterrestrial world.

Quotation marks felt too petty. You don’t say “What’s up?” to Cthulhu and expect “Not much” in return. Sure, the gods in Homer’s The Illiad speak like anyone else, but what about those things beyond existence? Creatures more dream than meat?

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Life, Scifi, Writing (Published)

Published — “Spheres”

Posted on by Desmond White

Theme of Absence just published my comedic take on extraterrestrial nihilism (the story’s called “Spheres“). The digital magazine is devoted to speculative flash fiction, and primarily posts original fiction on Fridays. These pieces are accompanied by a Q&A with the author, which I think is a really smart move on the editor’s part because then readers can come for writing and/or writing advice. And if that’s not enough for the literary enthusiast, the editor and owner of Theme of Absence also runs Write Good Books, a blog dedicated to producing useful writing resources and articles.

Scifi

Fiction — “Vacay in The Vart”

Posted on by Desmond White

Passengers puked. Passengers turned purple and took tranq pills. Passengers lined up for soma shakes (somalts the posters boasted) and stomach transplants. Nothing worked.

Many had just arrived by drop pod or iPort (if they had the digi juice) or materialization (if they preferred comfort over the continuity of consciousness and disturbing schools of philosophy). No matter the method, the silent slip of space had not acclimated them to the icy sea world called The Vart – an eternal snowcean where the hoarfrost could split open a cutter, where rolling waves whirred like bonesaws.

And so they emptied their temporary bits and even some more permanent ones and they stumbled about the cabins like cats chasing roombas. But no matter how fraught they became, the passengers did not forget their purpose. They were here to see the kraken – the first and soon to be last alien species in all six galaxies. They’d come to see its milky skein, its eight eyes like terran teeth always falling out and regrowing. To see the outline of its beak, not fully present in the visible dimensions. To survey its coat, said to reek of vinegar, and to touch its pastel flesh when the bluesuits weren’t looking.

The passengers had been brought by that vestige of humanity that still remained in their cyboreal demi-plastic casings (organic epidermises were so 2060). They were brought by that little part in all of us that wants to experience an experience so as to brag about it later – that part that sends a picture of a rabbit by the roadside to a friend, seeing the thing through lens and screens and photo editors.

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