In the waveform haze, our hands meet, linger, dance and touch. Hearts sing, thrill with the contact. In the instant, time becomes a phantom, freezes idea-like at the edge of reality. When it passes, we don’t notice, don’t feel it. It doesn’t matter. We exist beyond it, outside of it, each electric encounter drawing us deeper into the haze, deeper into the divine reality that hangs alive between living lips like elegant music, light spilling from happy heavens.
Smiling
In the waveform haze, our hands meet, linger, dance and touch. Hearts sing, thrill with the contact. In the instant, time becomes a phantom, freezes idea-like at the edge of reality. When it passes, we don’t notice, don’t feel it. It doesn’t matter. We exist beyond it, outside of it, each electric encounter drawing us deeper into the haze, deeper into the divine reality that hangs alive between living lips like elegant music, light spilling from happy heavens.
The Cygnus War
If you haven't yet had the chance to check out my long-running online series "The Cygnus War", you've been missing out on something special! With over a hundred episodes available to read for free online, its one of the largest quality sci-fi serials available on the web. Not a fan of reading online? The Cygnus War is also available in print as seven separate mini-novels which you can buy here or by going onto the site, selecting the story arc of your choice from the top menu, and clicking on "In Paperback." The complete series is also available in an omnibus edition almost 600 pages long which you can find here. Check it out today!
Synopsis of “The Cygnus War”:
It is the dawn of the twenty-third century.
Space has been good to the pioneering men and women of the Terran Commonwealth, but in spreading out among the stars and fledgling colonies, mankind has become a rich target for the enigmatic and predatory Cygnan Coralate, a swarm-like civilization that acts with all the cohesion and decisiveness of a single entity.
But humanity is not defenseless– filling the skies with swarms of its own ships, the Earthside Government has drawn a line in the intergalactic sand. At the forefront of the fighting is the Terran Warship Von der Tann IV, home to the legendary semi-atmospheric fighter wing, Minerva Squadron. Follow their struggle for survival as they battle the Cygnan Coralate across the interstellar killing field, blast enemy rigs out of alien skies and plunge headfirst into the unknown in this gripping saga of three women and their struggle to love, to live and to hang on to their humanity in a time when the only thing left for the human race is to fight or be forgotten. Who will live and who will die in the cold, cruel vacuum of space? Only time will tell.
Thrilling squadrons of fans from all over the globe since 2005, The Cygnus War is a story that looks at love, war, and what makes us human in the wake of an interstellar war with the Cygnan Coralate, a shadowy enemy bent on nothing less than the total and complete annihilation of humanity itself.
Quicksilver
Veins pulse quicksilver in the endless silence, fill life with quivering liquid chrome. It is in the night that I feel the music most strongly, feel the bass-beat crescendo rising through the nothingness like a cresting wave, forcing itself from radio to audio. Sometimes, in my dreams, the sound is so loud that I cry out, scream myself awake, and then I am there, here, alive, now. Sweat beads on shivering skin, stirs cold molten, metal and alive. What am I? I ask, but there is nothing, no one. Only silence. Only silence.
Artemis Ink
For those of you who missed it, check out the work of Brita over at Artemis Ink Tattooing! Amazing stuff!
Check out her site here!
Check out her site here!
sky
. . .what if the sky were just a painting,
the world upon which we move, mate and die just a stage,
a treadmill moving endlessly beneath us,
keeping us from
ever really moving forward,
ever really going back. . .
Flying
Flying over the water for the first time, I can’t help but smile.
Winds sing along the cables, flex through canvas wings. I see her raven-black hair spilling out into the wind, long and flickering. She smiles down at me. Her long, golden fingers release my wings, and then I am gliding, gliding.
On long, elegant black wings, she soars off into the endless heavens, laughs in a wind of pure joy. The cables are tight. The water flashes cool below, endless as the sky, and where they meet:
That’s us.
Control
When the last piece of technology built to censor the free speech of the masses was done away with, the masters who controlled the flow of ink and page turned to magic. One by one, men of power changed the messages within films and books, glossing new graphics into magazines and games. Greed and power worked steadily at the foundations of art, eroded the classics, replacing the strokes and words of artistic elegance with the images and touches that fed their own agendas. Eventually, even the words that moved from mouth to ear were changed as they hit the air, leaving all of entertainment an advertisement, all of speech a slogan. No one noticed as art deflated under the heel of progress, breathed a silent, wilting scream from the distant edge of a forgotten roadway.
Arrows
Like the wind and rain, we run.
Shouts drown, die in the slapping reeds, edged grass. The sing-song cries of arrows, an orchestra of bowstrings that we cannot see, cannot escape.
Death comes sudden, life brought to a point, pinned to the darkness. Last breaths are labored, a counterpoint to the soft trod of running feet. Hands reach out in the falling night, reach for stars,
hope for something more.
Shifts
The destruction of magic left mankind floundering, lost. We had become so dependent upon the workings of the aethers, on snapping our fingers to summon food or grow crops, to gods walking our very streets, bestowing favors, that the notion of a life without magic never occurred to most of us. We had become so used to these things, so dependent upon them that when they all suddenly left us, we were lost. Barbarism came quickly, almost reflexively, and soon we returned to a new dark age where only those men who could master the sacred arts of technology that had once been dismissed as blasphemy and the idle dreaming of idiot minds could rise again to godhood.
The Ringing
They found the thing floating in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Earth and the galactic core. It was the ringing that had tipped them off, the hollow, crawling tension that buzzed vague and expectant, hazy among the stellar noise. Only the historian recognized the thing as a relic from humanity’s forgotten past, but even he hadn’t known what to make of how far out it was or why, floating there, disconnected from everything, it was still ringing. Only when the captain finally agreed to bring it aboard did it stop, and even when the historian climbed inside the ancient booth, running fingers across the receiver, the thing stayed silent, dead. They say that sometimes at night, here, in the antiquities wing of the Smithsonian, though, the phone will ring, filling the silent halls with its haunting cry. Those who claim to have heard it swear that the moment they touch the receiver, the moment they try to answer, it goes silent again. No one has ever had the nerve to try to pick up the phone, to even whisper quietly into that dark receiver.“Hello. . .”
“Is someone there?”
Proud!
Spread the word! Romance Author Amanda Firefox's long awaited flash fiction collection is here!Maybe I'm biased because Amanda is one of my creative writing students and I'm proud beyond belief at how darn talented she has become, but I seriously enjoyed this book. It's sexy without being erotic, it's romantic without being sappy, it's sensual without being an overload and hey-- its flash fiction! Does it get any better than that? This book is a definite must read. Go Amanda!
From the back cover:
Take a journey into a world where romance and the surreal mix into vistas of unseen majesty, tantalizing touch, taste and sound with sensual wordplay and the skill that only a writer’s tongue can weave. Follow romance author Amanda Firefox into the steamy bedroom of flash fiction for a series of tales that will leave you panting and breathless, searching for the syllables to put your own experience into words. Peak, and the page will catch you, cradle you through the afterglow that only a book as short and sweet as Shadows of Light on Tomorrow’s Mirror can give you.
Amanda Firefox is a fiery little brunette who spends as much time at the beach as she can manage. She doesn't write much, but when she writes, it's almost always about her favorite subject: boys.
$8.95 in 6x9 Paperback
$2.95 as an Ebook
Don't miss this one! Pick up your copy here today!
The Complete Series
At long last, those who have been waiting for an omnibus edition of The Cygnus War that compiles all seven story arcs into a single paperback can stop waiting. It's here, it's awesome, and its cheaper than buying all seven books separately. This book is a must for any sci-fi fan. Check it out today!Not familiar with The Cygnus War? You can read most of the series online (for free) at http://www.cygnuswar.com !
From the back cover:
It is the dawn of the twenty-third century.
Space has been good to the pioneering men and women of the Terran Commonwealth, but in spreading out among the stars and fledgling colonies, mankind has become a rich target for the enigmatic and predatory Cygnan Coralate, a swarm-like civilization that acts with all the cohesion and decisiveness of a single entity.
But humanity is not defenseless– filling the skies with swarms of its own ships, the Earthside Government has drawn a line in the intergalactic sand. At the forefront of the fighting is the Terran Warship Von der Tann IV, home to the legendary semi-atmospheric fighter wing, Minerva Squadron. Follow their struggle for survival as they battle the Cygnan Coralate across the interstellar killing field, blast enemy rigs out of alien skies and plunge headfirst into the unknown in this gripping saga of three women and their struggle to love, to live and to hang on to their humanity in a time when the only thing left for the human race is to fight or be forgotten. Who will live and who will die in the cold, cruel vacuum of space? Only time will tell.
Thrilling squadrons of fans from all over the globe since 2005, The Cygnus War is a story that looks at love, war, and what makes us human in the wake of an interstellar war with the Cygnan Coralate, a shadowy enemy bent on nothing less than the total and complete annihilation of humanity itself.
Order your copy today! Click here.
LAST RUN
The first episode of Session Two might still be a few weeks away, but you can pick up the second half of the series (all as yet unaired episodes!) right here! New to Cygnus War? Check out the site by clicking here!From the back cover:
Haunted by the death of her lover and the events at Erebus, Major Tessa Eisenherz throws herself headfirst into the war. But as colonies fall and humanity is driven progressively further back toward Earth, it quickly becomes clear that the Commonwealth may be in its last days. Only a single hope remains, a plan to save the human race that rests on the shoulders of one woman and her Seindrive. . . A plan that might not even work. Follow the desperate rush of Major Eisenherz as she strains against destiny and fate in this mindbending conclusion to the entire Cygnus War saga: LAST RUN. The Cygnus War: Last Run is the second half of the second and final session of the chronicles of Tessa Eisenherz and includes episodes 23 through 52 of the series. You can keep up with The Cygnus War online (for free!) at http://www.cygnuswar.com
