GUESS WHAT BITCHES my full manuscript has been requested. This is stage 4 of 5 to getting published and is the furthest I've ever ever ever ever ever gotten. Wish me well, pray, whatever. Because you know as much as I hate some of you, I don't actually hate you at all and wish you well.
I remember the day that I first set eyes on Jennifer. The beautiful, curvy blonde hair, the perfect mouth, the perfect eyes. Overall, she was a model of the perfect woman. I had never seen curves like hers before, and when I did see them, my staring was inevitable. She hadn’t really noticed me until the day I walked up to her to finally say hello. I was a lawyer, she was a lawyer, but I was the one on the verge of becoming the District Attorney. In that time, I never could summon up the stomach to ask her for coffee or a bite to eat as friends. What really surprised was that she asked me. I swallowed down a gulp and said yes. We met later that night at a small café in town-square. I watched her talk and talk and talk, but I wasn’t listening. Finally, while she was in mid-sentence and I couldn’t take it anymore, I leaned in and my lips met hers. I thought she was going to pull away and slap me in the face, but she didn’t. She stayed right where she was and left her gorgeous red lips against mine. That was the beginning of it. Four months later, I asked her to marry me. She said yes almost immediately and threw her arms around me. I certainly felt like the luckiest guy in town.
The wedding was about a month away from the day we walked into a Macy’s to pick her out a set of earrings. My God, she was so radiant and happy that day.
That was before she walked up.
“Why, Jennifer, whenever did you get this fine looking gentleman?”
She was a complete mirror image of the beautiful woman who stood beside me. She had everything; the same curves, the same beautiful complexion, the same ocean of silky blonde hair, everything. Only, when she smiled, it wasn’t anything like when Jennifer smiled, no. This woman’s conceited smile told me right away that she was trouble. But still, I couldn’t help but stare the way I used to stare at Jennifer, as if the real one wasn’t still standing beside me.
“I… um… Jonathan, this is my sister, Anne… we… um…”
Jenny seemed a little nerve-wracked. Anne simply stood there with her pompous little smile and her tilted hips. I knew then and I have always known, this woman was going to be trouble for both my bride-to-be and I. Before me or the trouble-on-dagger-heels could say anything in reply, I could sense that Jennifer wanted to get the hell out there. I took the sign and we began walking away, a worried look plastered to Jenny’s face. I turned around briefly, and Anne still stood with a smile that had “I want him” all over it.
A couple of hours later, Jenny walked into the bedroom while I changed into my pajamas.
“I know that seemed strange, but let me explain. Anne is one of those kinds of people who are always… looking for trouble. I didn’t like the way she was looking at you.”
“I understand, Jennifer. I could sense something was up with her the very moment I saw her.”
“Thanks, John. I’m sorry about all of that.”
She didn’t need to apologize for anything. It should have been me who apologized to her. I had also thought of what I knew Anne was thinking of when we first saw each other. The thing is, I wasn’t going to pursue her. I loved Jenny. I didn’t want to do anything to compromise what seemed to be a very steady relationship, and our wedding was so damn close.
A few days later, I was working a little late at the office when a knock at the door. What happened that night was very much the greatest mistake I had ever made.
I opened the door and found whom I believed at the time was Jenny standing in a trench-coat.
“Hi, Johnny. Care to treat me to a late-night dinner?” I turned my back to her and began to walk towards my desk.
“Sure, honey, just let me finish up here, and—“
The door slammed behind me. I spun around and saw that she had shed her coat and was now standing there in her underwear and black heels. She was so damn gorgeous, yet I tried to hold back.
“Hello, there, Johnny.”
She walked up and leaned in close. I felt her body press up against mine. I was sweating and breathing heavily.
She put her hands behind my neck and behind my back. Her conceited smile was back again.
“Give us a kiss.”
She puckered and leaned forward. I am so damned ashamed of it, but no woman had ever kissed me like the way she had, yet at that moment, I pushed her away. I turned from her a wiped my lips. She sat up on my desk, put one stocking-clad leg over the other, and lit herself a cigarette.
“Get out,” I said in a very stern voice.
“Oh, come now, Johnny. I bet my sister, Miss Little-Goody-Two-Shoes never kissed you like that.” She blew a cloud of smoke through her scarlet-colored lips.
I turned to face her. I wanted to throw myself at her, the temptation was almost unbearable, but at that moment, I was still loyal to my Jenny.
“Get out,” I said again, this time with a hint of anger.
“I want you, Johnny.”
“GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE!” I shouted.
She stood up, crushed her cigarette in the ashtray, and again wandered up to me, shaking her hips while she strode. She grabbed hold of me and kissed me again.
I gave in. A man only has so much control, and I finally held her closer so our lips pressed harder against each other.
This soon escalated into a further affair. In the weeks leading up to my marriage, I was going behind Jenny’s back with her succubus sister. Jenny never suspected a thing. She had all her confidence and love placed in me, and in my selfishness I have betrayed everything she had given to me: her trust, her loyalty, her love. I knew there was only one thing I could do.
I had put about three pints of beer in me from a local bar twenty minutes before I walked up to Anne’s door and dropped the bomb. I had a cigar between my index finger and middle finger as I spoke.
“It’s over.”
She seemed dumbstruck. She had made herself all pretty for me and then she was hearing this.
“I can’t do this stuff anymore. I love Jenny, and I’m going to marry her. I want to father her children not yours.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“Understand this,” I said after taking a puff, “I don’t love you. I never did. What we had was never love, it was simply lust. And it’s over.”
She stood up and went to hug me.
“Don’t talk like that. You know you love me more than you ever loved her.” She looked up at me with those beautiful blue eyes. “Leave her. Marry me.”
I pushed her away.
“I don’t ever want to see you again. Stay away from me and Jenny.”
I turned and began to walk away.
“You dirty son of a bitch!” She was practically screaming. I didn’t turn to look at her. “You used me like a cheap whore! I thought you loved me, and now you’re doing this to me…” She began to cry.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Anne. But I just can’t do this anymore.”
“I’m going to tell her,” she said, her voice still with a trace of sadness. “I’m going to tell her everything.”
“Go ahead,” I said, “tell her. I’ll deny it.”
“You… dirty bastard…”
I walked away.
As I closed the door behind me, I could hear the weeping escalating into sobbing. The sound faded away as I slowly walked away into the night.
When I got home I sat down on my bed beside my beautiful Jenny with a flask of scotch in my hand. I took my hand and gently rubbed it against her sleeping face. I took a swig of the hard stuff, and silently began to weep.
I was at work the other day when my phone began to ring.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jonathan.”
Anne, I thought. Oh my God, please tell me she hasn’t done anything.
“I wanted to wish you and my sister the very best of luck in your marriage, and I hope you like my little gift that I left for you.”
She hung up. I was scared shitless at that moment. I bolted out the door, to my car and drove as fast as I could. I kept hoping, praying that it wasn’t too late, but I knew deep down that it was. I bounded up my front steps three at a time and kicked in the door.
I saw no one and heard nothing.
“Jenny?” I called out.
No answer. Tuesdays are her day off, so I hoped it was possible that she wasn’t even there. But when I got to my bedroom, I saw my Jenny, lying against our bed, a hole right through her head. The red stuff flowed through the clean little hole, taking away all of the color from her beautiful face.
She was dead, no doubt about it. If I had known those weeks before where my sins were going to take me, I would have drunk an ass-load of the strongest alcohol I could find then blown my head off. But there was no point in doing that now. At that point, all I could think of was my Jenny. So beautiful. So kind. So loving. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me, yet I knew at that point that if I had avoided her the way I avoided the rest of the world, this nightmare would have never happened.
I heard footsteps behind me. I saw Anne in the same underwear she was wearing the night she first tried to seduce me. She was holding a .38 revolver. It was pointed at me.
“ Hello Jonathan. I still love you, and I know you still love me, and now that that little bitch is gone, we can finally be together.”
I was bewildered. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry. But one thing was certain: this woman murdered her own sister just so she could get at me. She could have any man she wanted with a body like hers. Why did she have to choose me? Because she wanted everything that her sister had?
“You…” I said. “You… killed her… my Jenny, my…” I could manage to stammer as the thoughts swam through my head.
“I had to do it, you know. She didn’t love you. Not the way I love you.”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s okay, Jonathan. And now that we’re alone, why don’t we loosen up?” She cocked her revolver. “Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Now.” She put her hand on her hip and leveled the barrel at my head.
I did as she asked. She smiled. I hated the bitch.
“Come here.”
I slowly walked towards her. I felt the cold cobalt steel of the gun press against my chest. I was frowning. She still smiled.
“Kiss me.”
I stood firm.
“Kiss me, now.” She pressed the gun harder against my chest.
I leaned slightly forward as she thrust her lips against mine.
I couldn’t help but somewhat enjoy what was happening at that moment. I loved her beautiful, curvy blonde hair. Her perfect mouth. Her perfect eyes. They were just like…
She had lowered the gun. I grabbed it immediately from her. She must have thought that I was going to throw it away and simply embrace her. Instead, I placed it right against the side of her head, and ever so gently pulled the trigger.
The shot wasn’t incredibly loud, more like a cork popping out of a cheap bottle of champagne. She slumped in my arms, blood trickling from the corner of her beautiful lips. I dropped her to the floor and placed the revolver in her hand dead hand. I figure that I’ll have to tell the police some of the truth, but I’ll obviously have to omit my slaying the dragon. Everybody could probably work out that the bad side of a love affair caught up with them, and that the dismayed woman in the underwear shot her lover’s wife and then turned the gun on herself.
I won’t be staying in the city after this ordeal is cleared up. I’m going some pretty rotten nights afterwards, maybe the occasional suicide contemplations. But I have to get away from this town, where nothing good came out of even love.
Love is an embracement, a welcoming, a warm feeling. It came to me in the form of Jenny, and the devil woman who lies dead before me took it all away.
By the way, I wrote that in, like, twenty minutes, so I didn’t think it was that good. I mean, you probably notice some of the grammar errors in there. I was in a hurry to post it.
Yeah, there were a few typos. But sometimes when you have a good idea, you don't want to worry about silly little things like spelling mistakes, you just want to get it down ASAP.
Then the CSI walked in. "Funny, she shot herself in the left side of her head, yet the gun was in her right hand. I'd better tell the D.A. about this."
Been clearing up my room - under my bed, to be specific - and I found some old notebooks with the beginnings of stories I wrote years ago. They're basic, not even remotely finished and aren't particularly great, but if you guys wanna read them, I'll happily post them and let you laugh at how lame I am USED TO BE.
A man in Colorado is invited to his rich brother’s manor for the weekend. When he gets there, he discovers that not only has his brother disappeared, but the mansion has been frozen over with ice and snow. Now, he must confront the evil that hides in the shadowy halls of the estate and learn the horrifying truth behind his brother’s disappearance.
A man in Colorado is invited to his rich brother’s manor for the weekend. When he gets there, he discovers that not only has his brother disappeared, but the mansion has been frozen over with ice and snow. Now, he must confront the evil that hides in the shadowy halls of the estate and learn the horrifying truth behind his brother’s disappearance.
A five-part miniseries. A 20-something former gunslinger moves to Alaska in the 1890s to become a prospector. His reputation follows him their, and he is forced to face a greedy land baron, a gang of outlaws, and five deadly bounty hunters all out for his head. He also falls in love with a prostitute who works in a saloon to support her and her brother.
Even Spartans dream. John-117, the last of his kind, dreamed of horror. Masses of putrid, stinking nightmare forms leapt 50 feet through the air, half-rotted things that once were human or Covenant Elite, swarmed him from all sides, as the never-ending hordes of tentacled, spherical Infection Forms splattered against his shields. He fired and fired, reloading and retreating and still they came, groaning and splattering coagulated blood and chunks of grave-flesh with every shot. On and on and on, sick with the noise and recoil and ceaseless killing..
At last there were no more. Hip deep in the remains, he stood and shook with fatigue. Then one shape stood up.
It was a Marine, battered and disheveled but still human, and recognizable. Cpl. Jenkins!
The corporal raised his assault rifle in salute, and smiled.
The smile got wider, and wider, until it split his face wide open. His entire head opened like a meaty flower, and all of of John-117's fears spewed out into the light....
He didn't wake up screaming. Spartans were far too disciplined for that. But his sheets were soaked in sweat, and his heart pounded almost uncontrollably. He forced himself to remember where he was..safe, for the moment, aboard a UNSC Phantom-class scoutship. Normally there would be 4 other crewmembers, but for this mission he was accompanied only by Cortana, the spunky Artifical Intelligence that he had carried throughout the harrowing HALO missions.
"Master Chief! What's wrong?" Cortana's voice echoed from the wall speaker. "Your vital signs are far above normal sleep levels!"
The Chief sighed. "Nothing, Cortana. Just a dream. What's our situation?"
A second's pause, then, "We are still 2 hours out from System 31-E, and then another hour to orbital insertion around the target planet."
"I'll be up in a minute." The Chief signed off and squeezed his massive frame into the dinky shower unit, allowing himself the luxury of a two-minute shower. He then shrugged into a light coverall, and negotiated the cramped corridor leading to the closet-sized area glorified by the label "bridge".
When he arrived he found a tray loaded with rations..halfway decent ones, for a change. He grinned at the foot-high glowing hologram of Cortana, standing on the projection pedestal beside the main seat.
"I didn't know you cared," he said, eyeing the hologram's reactions.
"Don't get any ideas. I just want you to be in top form for the mission. After all, my head is on the line too." Cortana tossed him what he could have sworn was a flirtatious wink, digital patterns swirling around her colour-shifing form.
"Your head will be in orbit. But thanks anyway." He attacked the meal, while Cortana shrugged an "any time" gesture.
Whatever it was that had caused Command to order the Master Chief to undertake this mission, it had bought some time for the human race. After the fall of the main shipyards at Reach, it was a foregone conclusion that Earth would have weeks to live at best, before the alliance of alien races known as the Covenant massed their fleets to bring about humanity's exinction, in accordance with their Jihad proclamation.
The Fleet had gathered what it could, while research teams worked day and night with captured Covenant technology to find something, anything, that could save Earth.
Thirty-three other Spartan soldiers had been lost on Reach, leaving the Master Chief as the last of his small regiment, the last of an experiment that had kept the Spartans together since the age of six. All his brothers and sisters, bonded through brutal training, worse combat, and the uniqueness of their situation, were gone now. The Chief didn't have time to mourn, there were more important problems at hand. Revenge would come later.
Humanity had one advantage in that the Convenant were not inventors; all their technology, centuries beyond Earth's, had been scrounged from worlds once inhabited by the Forerunners. These mysterious aliens, extinct since before humans learned to use fire, were also the basis for the Covenant's religion. "Holy Relics" also known as new technology, were always being hunted by the alien alliance. Now that much of it had fallen into human hands, it was being reverse engineered and even improved upon.
One of the results of this crash program was the Phantom scoutship the Chief and Cortana were currently flying. Small and fast, equipped with cloaking devices and shields, it was perfect for infiltration into Covenant space.
It was merely one of the consolation prizes won after the devastation of Reach had led both Humanity and the Convenant to the massive construct dubbed HALO.
A desperate, random slipspace jump had taken the last remaining UNSC cruiser, the Pillar of Autumn, to Halo's system purely by accident. Less accidental was the fact that 3 full battlegrops of Covie cruisers had managed to not only follow them, but get there first!
The aliens had boarded the Pillar by means of its own lifepod hatches, and Captain Keyes gave the Chief custody of Cortana, the most advanced AI yet created. His orders: get off the ship, survive, and keep the AI out of enemy hands.
A long, arduous series of guerilla actions followed, running a race with Covenant forces to learn the secrets of the Halo, and hopefully gain control of it.
The ring world turned out to be a weapon, but not the kind anyone wanted to use; it was a doomsday weapon, intended to erase all living things within a 25,000 lightyear radius!
The reason: to starve to death a form of pseudolife called The Flood. Ravenous, hideous creatures that took the bodies of everything big enough to own a nervous system and assimilated them for their own use, the Flood had nearly escaped the Halo and come close to killing the Chief as well.
He had, with Cortana's help, initiated an overload in the Pillar's reactors. The resulting gigaton explosion had shattered the Halo, and with it the Flood, the Covenant fleet, and every human left on the surface.
The Chief had escaped in a Longsword fighter-bomber, and was picked up some days later by a UNSC patrol.
Now, with his MJOLNIR armour newly augmented by adapted Covenant technology, the Chief was back in action. And it was, as usual, "Critical to the survival of Humanity!!"
ONI..Naval Intelligence..had learned that the Convenant had found something that posed a greater threat to them than the human race. The alien's leaders, called Prophets, had postponed the attack on Earth to deal with the new menace.
It was puzzling; reports from the Covenant Battlenet suggested that one of their frigates had returned from a previously unexplored world, and immediately attacked everything in sight! They still had no idea why, since the frigate had been vapourized, but more ships were sent and they too had either failed to return or had gone renegade.
Fearing a Flood infestation, the Covenant went into Paranoid Mode...which was saying a lot, considering their normal state of mind.
They pulled surviving ships back from missions to the strange system, and had ordered them to self destruct. Clearly, their leadership was terrified of something, and anything that scared the Covies was potentially useful to humans.
Thus the Chief's presence on the small bridge of a tiny ship, bound into the dark unknown.
"So, what do we know about this system? My briefing was, uh, a bit short on details." the Chief asked Cortana, pushing his food tray into the recycler.
"You know as much as I do. It has an atmosphere, gravity of about .9 gee, and something that scared the piss out of the Convenant." She paused and smirked. "You aren't SCARED, are you?"
The Chief grinned. "Who, me? Never happen. It would be nice to know what I'm walking into for a change, though."
Cortana's eyes turned blue and her body strobed for a moment..."We did get one word from the translators, but I'm not sure if it is correctly interpreted."
"So? Spill it!"
"Xenomorph." she replied. "Whatever is out there, we won't know what it looks like until it comes up to shake our hands."
The Spartan sighed. "Why not? If it were easy, they'd send trainees."
The little ship exited slipspace on schedule and boosted toward the greyish planet on the viewscreen.
"Cloaking device is working" Cortana reported. "Although I don't see anyone or thing out there to hide from."
"They've got cloaks too, with our luck." the Chief answered. "Check the planet's surface."
"Scanning...uh HUH." The hologram squinted, miming human response to a signal difficult to detect.
"There are two Convenant ships on the surface, base-carrier dropships, and they aren't putting out much energy."
"Not dead then. Life readings?" That sort of scan would have been impossible a year ago but the knowledge brought back from Halo had improved things considerably.
"Uh..sort of." Cortana looked perplexed, and even a bit embarrassed. "The number of lifeforms appearing on the scanners don't match the equivalent biomass readings."
The AI could be exasperating when she wanted to be. "Fine, what does that mean??" the Chief grated.
"I don't know. You'll have to go down and take a closer look."
Good, he thought. I hate being on spacecraft!
Normally it took a team of technicians 15 minutes to fully suit up a Spartan, but the Chief had the help of waldoes controlled by Cortana,and it took ony 10 to dress and test the MJOLNIR armour. It felt good to be back, and with the upgrades the Chief was confident he could handle anything that the planet could throw his way.
He opened the weapons locker, and pondered which would be most useful. He reached for the 8-guage Magnum shotgun, which was the most useful against the Flood, but decided two short range weapons would leave him vulnerable. He was already taking the newest weapon in the arsenal, created from Covenant plasma technology. It was a cross between a plasma rifle and a flamethrower, and it spewed a white-hot cone of plasma out to a range of 30 feet. Another 30 feet of radiant-energy damage could be expected, but beyond that it was ineffective.
To fill the gap, he chose the 50 caliber SABOT-round sniper rifle. It was always nice to reach out and touch someone.
He also packed 4 each of plasma grenades and frag grenades, 100 rounds of sniper ammo, and a spare tank for the plasma streamer.
"Okay, take us down!" he told Cortana. "And hold on. This is gonna be a fun one."
She chuckled. "Aren't they always?"
The Phantom drifted gently to the ground, surrounded by mist and fog, about a mile from the nearest Covie dropship.
"Outside temperature is 18 degrees...not bad. Atmosphere is a bit thin but you can leave your suit's vents open." Cortana reported.
"Good." the Chief answered. "But lock the doors anyway. Hate to lose our ride home."
The small cargo bad held an ATV, a 4X4 electric motorcycle with a 7.62mm machine gun barrel nosing out from above the headlight. The Chief lowered the vehicle to the ground and dogged the hatch, and mounted up.
He gunned the engine, keeping a close watch on his motion tracker. The targeting reticule for the streamer was a large square, which would expand or contract depending on the size of the plasma stream he fired. It stayed grey..no targets in range.
The ground was squishy and a bit slippery, and visibility was limited to around 100 feet. Patches of fog came and went, and there seemed to be nothing much in the way of life. Just some stunted grasslike plants and a few dead-looking bushes.
A low ridge separated the Chief from the closest dropship, so he hopped off the ATV and crouched low, unslinging the sniper rifle. He racked the scope up to 10X, and clicked on the night vision to help cut the mist.
The squared-U shaped dropship leapt forward in his vision, its side-mounted doors hanging down. He scanned...There! One dead Elite and 5 dead Grunts, all arranged in a line. He squinted involunarily..they appeared to have been burned.
In fact, it looked like the Elite had killed and cremated his troops, then held a plasma grenade to his chest and suicided.
Not standard behavior for Covies! Satisfied that nothing remained alive, he cautiously moved down the slope and inched his way up to the remains. Where were the other 45 troops this ship had carried??
Those Grunts didn't look at ALL like any he'd encountered to date. It looked like someone had tried to grind them up, or do dissection, something violent and bizarre, before they'd been burned.
And that Elite...damned if that didn't look like a third arm had started growing from its side!
The Chief swallowed and clicked his radio. "Cortana, I have a very bad feeling about this. Check my helmetcam, see if you can find anything that might explain this."
"Already have, Chief," she sounded like she was at a loss for words. "I have no idea. No idea at all."
Well, better safe than sorry. The Chief hosed the dead with his plasma streamer, flashing them to vapour in a millisecond.
Returning to the ATV, he headed off toward the second dropship, a chill running up and down his spine.
The second ship was surrounded by a wall of cargo containers, clearly a hastily erected barrier. There were no bodies anywhere. Paranoia building, the Chief parked the ATV behind a boulder and crept toward the barrier, every sense alert for..anything at all.
There were definite signs of battle. Discarded weapons lay scattered, and scorch marks painted the cargo boxes..on the inside of the perimeter, not the outside! Was there some kind of general mutiny here? A mind-wrecking disease, maybe?
It was time to make some noise.
The Chief flicked the pin off a frag grenade with his thumb, and tossed it to the nearest exit hatch. The explosion boomed and reverberated for several seconds, but did no real damage to the door. He hadn't expected it to..but whatever was inside, if anything, would surely come to investigate.
Ah HAH! The door swung down and an Elite came striding arrogantly out, head swivelling. This one wore the golden armour of a Field Master, a fine catch by any standards. Quickly, the Chief armed his sniper rifle and zoomed the reticule in on the creature's head. Elites don't carry on conversations, but maybe an intact body could provide some clue as to what was happening here.
Gently, he squeezed the trigger, the rifle barked and the Elite's head exploded most satisfactorily. With a slightly triumphant grin, the Chief waited for the body to fall. It didn't cooperate. Rather, it swayed for a couple of seconds, and started..rearranging itself.
The Master Chief looked on in fearful fascination as the Elite's neck began sprouting shapes, and its armour fell away as its body altered its form repeatedly.
"Cortana...please tell me you're recording this" he said softly.
"I am..but I wish I weren't. What IS going on down there?" she whispered back, as if the thing could hear them.
He just shook his head.
Arms were absorbed and replaced by claws, or by tentacles..some thick and dripping gore, others slim and whipping about wildly. Mouths appeared in the Elite's chest..yawning cavities ringed with ragged teeth, elongated snouts, some almost human looking.
At last, the chest cavity ripped wide open and revealed heads. One of them was human, beyond doubt, and another was a dog. A Husky, if the Chief knew anything about animals at all.
The noise was hideous. A sick symphony of screams, howls, gurgles and groans, all to the backdrop of a high-speed butcher shop sound..ripping flesh and dripping ooze.
"Oh my God..Chief, I'm sure I saw human shapes in there!" Cortana said, voice quivering. "How can that be?"
"You're the AI, you tell me! Have these things ever been to Earth?"
"Impossible. We wouldn't be here if they had!"
He couldn't argue that. "I'm falling back. We need more information before we can begin to deal with this."
Cortana didn't argue that point, either.
With the new updates to his armour, the Chief was well camouflaged. The monster didn't see him retreat to the ATV, or if it did it didn't care.
"Chief, you promised you'd leave me in orbit!" Cortana whined as the Chief crouched beside the ATV. " I really don't need this!"
"You should talk. That thing can't hurt you." he retorted.
"No, but I could...wait. Wait..motion behind us, maybe 50 feet." her voice snapped back to matter-of-fact, military tone.
The Chief swung around and brought the plasma streamer up, ready to fire. "Any idea what it is?"
"Yes, for once. The readings indicate Covenant Grunt. Just one of them."
One Grunt? No threat there, if in fact it was what it appeared to be. He was starting to get disoriented; never fear an enemy, but what if you can't tell friend from foe? Not what he'd trained for, that much he knew.
Footsteps trudged toward his position, and a high, squeaky voice called out, "Don't shoot, I have no weapon, please!"
Huh? He'd heard Grunts talk before, usually things like, "Here, more enemy", "No, bad cyborg!!" or "Heads up!". They even used profanity from time to time. He didn't think they could form sentences, though.
"I am friends, don't shoot don't shoot!!" it called again.
"Why the hell not?" he yelled back, through the suit's external speakers.
"Because we have same enemy!" it replied.
"Maybe you should give him a chance." Cortana suggested. "You can always crisp him if he makes a wrong move, and we DO need information."
The Chief grunted. "All right. Come ahead, slowly, hands high in the air. Don't get me mad!" he warned.
"Coming, coming!" the little trooper sounded distinctly relieved.
Sure enough, here it came. About 3 feet tall, with gangly arms and legs, a gasmask-like breather and a high, cone-shaped life support unit on its back, it looked more comical than dangerous. At least until you had to face a thousand of them..
Its armour was red-trimmed, indicating the little alien was a veteran. Which might explain its knowledge of English, he thought to himself.
Its left arm was wounded, dripping pale blue blood. True to its word, it was not carrying any weapons.
"Stop right there!" the Chief ordered. "Turn around slowly." The alien complied, whimpering.
"Now, what have you got to say?"
"Nasty, killer thing, took my whole cohort, can't tell until too late, makes us explode," the creature trailed off into a series of squeaks and barks, clearly traumatized.
"Settle down!!" the Chief barked in his best drillsergeant voice. "I'll flame you if you do that again!!"
"Noo, nooo...." snivel, snivel...the trooper began to collect itself. "Been alone with them for so long"
"Talk slowly, tell me what happened. Who killed your troops?" the Spartan asked, more gently this time.
The Grunt fell into a crouch and peered into the Chief's faceplate. "They looked like Officers. Field Masters. Came from dropship, sounded normal." it said, steadily. It paused for a second, searching for words.
"They did like Flood, only worse. Whips, teeth, and the wounded did the same thing when they were hurt. Joined them, changed sides. I ran, got shot.." it indicated the wounded arm.."they didn't chase me. I ran and ran. Don't want to be turned into those, nasty!!"
Looking at the puddles of blood, the Chief asked harshly "How do I know you aren't one of them? You're wounded!"
"There is a way, if time, if time..there is a..." the Grunt paused again, lost for words.
" A test?" the Chief supplied hopefully.
"Yes, yes, a test! A test, but only if you catch them in time!" the Grunt replied, nodding enthusiastically.
"What sort of test?"
The alien pointed at its wounded arm. "Blood. Hotthings. Bad blood hates heat things. Good blood just goes SSSSSS".
Fine. We'll test you, he thought. The Covenant soldier had the same idea.
"Look, " it said, squeezing blood out of its wound, "you hotweapon that blood, see I am friendly."
Okay...he goosed the trigger of the streamer, a small tongue of plasma licked out at the blue blood on the ground. It hissed and flashed into vapour.
"So what would happen if you were one of them?" Cortana asked.
The Grunt cocked its head, then screeched and started dancing around madly. "Bl
"Quite impossible, as you see, to start without an introduction," laughed Ivan. "Well, then, I mean to place the event described in the poem in the sixteenth century, an age—as you must have been told at school—when it was the great fashion among poets to make the denizens and powers of higher worlds descend on earth and mix freely with mortals... In France all the notaries' clerks, and the monks in the cloisters as well, used to give grand performances, dramatic plays in which long scenes were enacted by the Madonna, the angels, the saints, Christ, and even by God Himself. In those days, everything was very artless and primitive. An instance of it may be found in Victor Hugo's drama, Notre Dame de Paris, where, at the Municipal Hall, a play called Le Bon Jugement de la Tres-sainte et Gracièuse Vierge Marie, is enacted in honour of Louis XI, in which the Virgin appears personally to pronounce her 'good judgment.' In Moscow, during the prepetrean period, performances of nearly the same character, chosen especially from the Old Testament, were also in great favour. Apart from such plays, the world was overflooded with mystical writings, 'verses'—the heroes of which were always selected from the ranks of angels, saints and other heavenly citizens answering to the devotional purposes of the age. The recluses of our monasteries, like the Roman Catholic monks, passed their time in translating, copying, and even producing original compositions upon such subjects, and that, remember, during the Tarter period!... In this connection, I am reminded of a poem compiled in a convent—a translation from the Greek, of course—called, 'The Travels of the Mother of God among the Damned,' with fitting illustrations and a boldness of conception inferior nowise to that of Dante. The 'Mother of God' visits hell, in company with the archangel Michael as her cicerone to guide her through the legions of the 'damned.' She sees them all, and is witness to their multifarious tortures. Among the many other exceedingly remarkably varieties of torments—every category of sinners having its own—there is one especially worthy of notice, namely a class of the 'damned' sentenced to gradually sink in a burning lake of brimstone and fire. Those whose sins cause them to sink so low that they no longer can rise to the surface are for ever forgotten by God, i.e., they fade out from the omniscient memory, says the poem—an expression, by the way, of an extraordinary profundity of thought, when closely analysed. The Virgin is terribly shocked, and falling down upon her knees in tears before the throne of God, begs that all she has seen in hell—all, all without exception, should have their sentences remitted to them. Her dialogue with God is colossally interesting. She supplicates, she will not leave Him. And when God, pointing to the pierced hands and feet of her Son, cries, 'How can I forgive His executioners?' She then commands that all the saints, martyrs, angels and archangels, should prostrate themselves with her before the Immutable and Changeless One and implore Him to change His wrath into mercy and—forgive them all. The poem closes upon her obtaining from God a compromise, a kind of yearly respite of tortures between Good Friday and Trinity, a chorus of the 'damned' singing loud praises to God from their 'bottomless pit,' thanking and telling Him:
Thou art right, O Lord, very right,
Thou hast condemned us justly.
"My poem is of the same character.
"In it, it is Christ who appears on the scene. True, He says nothing, but only appears and passes out of sight. Fifteen centuries have elapsed since He left the world with the distinct promise to return 'with power and great glory'; fifteen long centuries since His prophet cried, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord!' since He Himself had foretold, while yet on earth, 'Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven but my Father only.' But Christendom expects Him still. ...
"It waits for Him with the same old faith and the same emotion; aye, with a far greater faith, for fifteen centuries have rolled away since the last sign from heaven was sent to man,
And blind faith remained alone
To lull the trusting heart,
As heav'n would send a sign no more.
"True, again, we have all heard of miracles being wrought ever since the 'age of miracles' passed away to return no more. We had, and still have, our saints credited with performing the most miraculous cures; and, if we can believe their biographers, there have been those among them who have been personally visited by the Queen of Heaven. But Satan sleepeth not, and the first germs of doubt, and ever-increasing unbelief in such wonders, already had begun to sprout in Christendom as early as the sixteenth century. It was just at that time that a new and terrible heresy first made its appearance in the north of Germany.* [*Luther's reform] A great star 'shining as it were a lamp... fell upon the fountains waters'... and 'they were made bitter.' This 'heresy' blasphemously denied 'miracles.' But those who had remained faithful believed all the more ardently, the tears of mankind ascended to Him as heretofore, and the Christian world was expecting Him as confidently as ever; they loved Him and hoped in Him, thirsted and hungered to suffer and die for Him just as many of them had done before.... So many centuries had weak, trusting humanity implored Him, crying with ardent faith and fervour: 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not come!' So many long centuries hath it vainly appealed to Him, that at last, in His inexhaustible compassion, He consenteth to answer the prayer.... He decideth that once more, if it were but for one short hour, the people—His long-suffering, tortured, fatally sinful, his loving and child-like, trusting people—shall behold Him again. The scene of action is placed by me in Spain, at Seville, during that terrible period of the Inquisition, when, for the greater glory of God, stakes were flaming all over the country.
Did this for a competition before... well, you'll see.
Back in 66 a man had a vision,
A western in space on your television!
He gathered a team and they made it real
The result was The Cage, which didn't appeal
But then - shock and awe! They got a reprieve!
They had a second pilot, would you believe?
A rarity indeed, one they didn't ignore
The end result? Where No Man Has Gone Before.
A far better pitch and one that succeeded,
And thus Star Trek became the space show we needed.
This show had its lows, it had its highs
It had 80-odd adventures on the Enterprise
But like all good things it had to end
Being given the death slot and less money to spend
Three seasons and then the show departed
Or did it? No! It was just getting started!
In 73 an animated version emerged
Is it any good? Well it could have been worse
And in 79 The Motion Picture appeared
Give it a miss - it's boring and weird
But in 82, we felt The Wrath of Khan
A masterpiece - any who disagree are WRONG.
It was soon followed by two more good features
And then a fifth which... has a three-breasted creature?
After that, one more far better production
But by this point another show had come to fruition
The Next Generation was the first show but bigger
And it lasted 7 years, a prospect insane to consider
It was a damn fine show with a damn fine cast
And finally the franchise was built to last
From 87 to 94 the show thrilled its viewers
And proved the concept of a show planned for years
Which is probably why we got another one
Deep Space Nine, also with a seven year run
This one was more complex and less light-hearted
But was more about the people who starred in it
It was a very different type of show than before
Hell, the latter half focused on an all out war!
The show was fantastic, it broke new ground
But it requires a commitment that not all fans found
Some wanted a return to the adventures long gone
And they got it - of sorts - with Voyager's run.
But before that, let's talk about the movies again
Because now they made them with the cast of Next Gen
After killing off Kirk in a shockingly bad way
(crushed under a bridge - hardly fitting, shall we say?)
The next film - First Contact - was shockingly good.
With Picard going nuts over the Borg - well, YOU would.
After that came Insurrection which was boring as hell
And Nemesis, while problematic, wasn't terrible.
But we should get back to Voyager, and as you'll soon see
7 years doesn't promise a show of HIGH quality.
It was a very flawed show with problems abound
Some very bad scripts could often be found
An uneven cast didn't help matters either
Except Jeri Ryan, though I could take her or leave her
The premise was good but resulted in little
With the writers struggling to make good material
The franchise had stumbled, it was showing its age
And the next show would lock itself in a cage
Enterprise was a prequel, which was restrictive at best
Though it had the best intentions it was kind of a mess
A Vulcan before Spock? Quantum Leap at the helm?
A pop song as a theme? Well, THAT started well.
The show was alright, but it was nothing great.
And that was the problem - it had lost its way.
The once mighty franchise was losing viewers point blank.
So the answer? Push the (reboot) button, Frank!
2009 and STAR TREK hits theatres, BAM!
A film for all viewers, not just hardcore fans
It was fast, it was mad, it was a lot of fun,
And it had some great actors putting in star turns
This film was fantastic and a shot in the arm
It was what was needed to keep the name strong
We got a sequel, Into Darkness, this year
It's good, though with a few issues, I fear SPOILERS! It's a remake of Wrath of Khan
And really, you CAN'T top Ricardo Montalbán.
But overall the franchise is still going strong
Which is fantastic - I really don't want it gone!
Now if you'll excuse me, I must take my leave
Those DVD boxsets won't watch themselves, you see.
Wait, US residents only? Well, CRAP.
That's two hours of my life I'll never get back.
Oh well, that's my fault for not reading the rules.
Not much I can do, save call myself a fool.
I don't suppose you'd be willing to make an exception? I'd pay the postage if I surpassed expectations?
To be honest I'd dig a Command uniform
But I understand if that's too far a break from the norm.
Just spare me a thought with the next contest
And please - highlight if you must be from the US.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
11/22/63
Joyland
Full Dark, No Stars
Cell
The Dead Zone
The Mist
Different Seasons
Misery
The House Without A Key
The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
The Glass Key
World War Z
Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Sphinx
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone
Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead
Casino Royale
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
A Clockwork Orange
Unbroken
The Green Mile
Of Mice And Men
Air-Raid Pearl Harbor
Jurassic Park
Congo
The House of the Seven Gables
Frankenstein
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde
The Red Badge of Courage
True Grit
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Rising Sun
Black Lizard’s Big Book of Pulps
The Wild Bunch at Robbers Roost
White Fang
Star Wars: Death Troopers
Dutchman’s Flat
To Kill A Mockingbird
Sunburn
The Black Camel
The Hustler
Murder on the Links
Dumb Witness
Five Little Pigs
Ordeal By Innocence
Towards Zero
Endless Night
They Came To Baghdad
The Pale Horse
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
4:50 from Paddington
The Big Four
A Pocket Full of Rye
Death In The Clouds
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Cat Among The Pigeons
Hallowe’en Party
And Then There Were None
Death on the Nile
The Moving Finger
Murder at the Vicarage
The Clocks
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Black Coffee
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
After The Funeral
Three Act Tragedy
The Body In The Library
Sleeping Murder
The Abc Murders
Murder on the Orient Express
Hickory Dickory Dock
Witness For The Prosecution
Death Comes As The End
Elephants Can Remember
Murder With Mirrors
Evil Under The Sun
Murder In Mesopotamia
Passage To Frankfurt
The Sherlockian
Knights of the Round Table
Steel Driving Man
Star Wars: Red Harvest
Timeline
Pirate Latitudes
Prey
The Amityville Horror
Call of the Wild
The Godfather
Treasure Island
Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker
Mutiny On The Bounty
Robin Hood
Dances With Wolves
Patriot Games
Sum Of All Fears
The Hunt For Red October
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels And Stories
The Whitechapel Horrors
The Angel of the Opera
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
The Oriental Casebook Of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts Of Bly
The Improbable Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
Enemies And Allies
Batman: No Man’s Land
Can't be bothered to dig up all the books I own, but here's the ones currently on my bookshelf.
Doctor Who
Doctor Who - The Guide
The Television Companion
Who's Next
Quiz Book (free with Doctor Who Adventures magazine and is naturally rubbish)
Island of Death (3rd Doctor)
Spiral Scratch (6th, which has a logical reason for his regeneration and is therefore basically essential reading)
Parallel 59 (8th)
Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (7th)
Code of the Krillitanes (10th)
Revenge of the Judoon (10th)
I Am a Dalek (10th)
The Sontaran Games (10th)
Decide Your Destiny (all 12 of them)
Doctor Who and the Green Death (3rd)
Doctor Who and the SunMakers (4th)
Made of Steel (10th)
The Story of Martha, Beautiful Chaos, The Eyeless and The Sontaran Games (set, all 10th Doctor)
Forever Autumn, The Last Dodo, The Pirate Loop, The Price of Paradise, Sick Building, Sting of the Zygons, Wetworld, Wishing Well, Wooden Heart and The Art of Destruction (set, all 10th Doctor)
The Coming of the Terraphiles (11th Doctor)
Indiana Jones
The Lost Journal of India Jones
The Indiana Jones Handbook
Young Indiana Jones and the Plantation Treasure
Young Indiana Jones and the Circle of Death
Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi
Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants
... the Seven Veils
... the Genesis Deluge
... the Unicorn's Legacy
... the Interior World
... the Sky Pirates
... the White Witch
... the Philosopher's Stone (suck it Harry Potter, Indy got there first)
... the Dinosaur Eggs
... the Hollow Earth
... the Secret of the Sphinx
Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Stupid Name Crystal Skull (both child-friendly and 'mature reader')
James Bond Young Bond - Silverfin, Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold and By Royal Command Classic Bond - Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, From Russia With Love, Dr No, Goldfinger, For Your Eyes Only, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, The Man With The Golden Gun and Octopussy/The Living Daylights Odd Bonds - Devil May Care, Carte Blanche, Colonel Sun, James Bond: The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond & Moonraker (the latter two are novelizations of the films, since they were so different from the books) Gardner's Bond - License Renewed, For Special Services, Ice Breaker, Role of Honour, Nobody Lives Forever, No Deals Mr Bond, Scorpius, Win Lose or Die, License to Kill (novelization of the film), Brokenclaw, The Man from Barbarossa, Death is Forever, Never Send Flowers, SeaFire, Goldeneye (from the film) and Cold Benson's Bond - Zero Minus Ten, Tomorrow Never Dies (from the film), The Facts of Death, The World is Not Enough (from the film), High Time to kill, Doubleshot, Never Dream of Dying and Die Another Day (from the awful film) The Moneypenny Diaries - The Moneypenny Diaries, Secret Servant and Final Fling
...I've also got over 100 strategy guides but I REALLY can't be bothered to list all those.
EDIT: Forgot the bottom shelf!
Brawl in the Family: Volume I (which has the spine text the wrong way, grr grr)
The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia
The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
The History of Sonic the Hedgehog
Sam & Max: Surfin' the Highway
Game Design: Secrets of the Sages
PvP: The Dork Age and Volumes 1-4
Penny Arcade Collections 1-5
Nuklear Age
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Volume I
Captain Amazing
I can't be arsed to write out my entire library... so I'll just give you a general impression of how many goddamn books I own. Not all my books are shown here, I actually have several more piles on the floor. Also, the collection's grown substantially since I took these pictures. I now have another bookshelf and a computer paper box full of books.
Oh, also every shelf here is double stacked. So behind the layer of books you see... is another layer of books.
This is only the books I have on shelves in my room at my parents' house. I also have a bookcase full at my apartment and several boxes full on my floor. And a stack.
Also, to get an idea of scale... in the middle picture, that second shelf on the right bookcase? That's about forty-five Terry Pratchett books right there.
I fucking hate Kindle and Nook and eBooks. I loved going to my local Borders store once a week to pick up a paperback, but now that that’s gone, I had to switch to Barnes and Noble, which is ten fucking miles from my house. I tell you, a day will come when no one reads actual books anymore and people have dedicated themselves to staring at a screen. I love being able to hold a book, to read it, to turn a page. Fuck technology with its need to ruin everything! Fuck it!
One other thing: I literally write every day, but I STILL haven’t been able to finish Telltale Murder Mystery part 1!
I like some sorts of eBooks, generally rulebooks for tabletop RPGs, and textbooks, because I love having a search feature for reference.
But yeah, when it comes to reading for fun, I prefer to have something tangible. Because a book isn't just a collection of words, it's a collection of memories.
There really is something nice about having a physical object when reading. eBooks and such are convenient, but they also feel rather soulless. Books just... they just feel more real.
I haven't explained that very well, have I? Oh well, whatever.
On the flipside, I can get back into reading BECAUSE of eBooks and kindles and that.
(Books tend to be too bulky for me to lug around everywhere and I just don't have the space for them. eBooks however are handy. I'm currently reading a book on the history of Videogames. )
But I did recently purchase a physical book. A hardback of Clockwork Angels. Yeah they made a book inspired by Rush's latest album.
(I'm kind of too afraid to read it though. I don't want to damage the book. I may see if I can apply for the eBook copy it claims it comes with, just so I can keep this lovely souvenir in pristine condition)
I don't know how this turned from a writing thread into a reading thread, but here's my library, neatly divided into categories: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Haggis
Also, I love e-books. Took some getting used to, but it's just so convenient, and for most plain-text works of fiction it's really no different from reading a physical book, unless the author had a very specific typeface and design in mind.
Comments
The wedding was about a month away from the day we walked into a Macy’s to pick her out a set of earrings. My God, she was so radiant and happy that day.
That was before she walked up.
“Why, Jennifer, whenever did you get this fine looking gentleman?”
She was a complete mirror image of the beautiful woman who stood beside me. She had everything; the same curves, the same beautiful complexion, the same ocean of silky blonde hair, everything. Only, when she smiled, it wasn’t anything like when Jennifer smiled, no. This woman’s conceited smile told me right away that she was trouble. But still, I couldn’t help but stare the way I used to stare at Jennifer, as if the real one wasn’t still standing beside me.
“I… um… Jonathan, this is my sister, Anne… we… um…”
Jenny seemed a little nerve-wracked. Anne simply stood there with her pompous little smile and her tilted hips. I knew then and I have always known, this woman was going to be trouble for both my bride-to-be and I. Before me or the trouble-on-dagger-heels could say anything in reply, I could sense that Jennifer wanted to get the hell out there. I took the sign and we began walking away, a worried look plastered to Jenny’s face. I turned around briefly, and Anne still stood with a smile that had “I want him” all over it.
A couple of hours later, Jenny walked into the bedroom while I changed into my pajamas.
“I know that seemed strange, but let me explain. Anne is one of those kinds of people who are always… looking for trouble. I didn’t like the way she was looking at you.”
“I understand, Jennifer. I could sense something was up with her the very moment I saw her.”
“Thanks, John. I’m sorry about all of that.”
She didn’t need to apologize for anything. It should have been me who apologized to her. I had also thought of what I knew Anne was thinking of when we first saw each other. The thing is, I wasn’t going to pursue her. I loved Jenny. I didn’t want to do anything to compromise what seemed to be a very steady relationship, and our wedding was so damn close.
A few days later, I was working a little late at the office when a knock at the door. What happened that night was very much the greatest mistake I had ever made.
I opened the door and found whom I believed at the time was Jenny standing in a trench-coat.
“Hi, Johnny. Care to treat me to a late-night dinner?” I turned my back to her and began to walk towards my desk.
“Sure, honey, just let me finish up here, and—“
The door slammed behind me. I spun around and saw that she had shed her coat and was now standing there in her underwear and black heels. She was so damn gorgeous, yet I tried to hold back.
“Hello, there, Johnny.”
She walked up and leaned in close. I felt her body press up against mine. I was sweating and breathing heavily.
She put her hands behind my neck and behind my back. Her conceited smile was back again.
“Give us a kiss.”
She puckered and leaned forward. I am so damned ashamed of it, but no woman had ever kissed me like the way she had, yet at that moment, I pushed her away. I turned from her a wiped my lips. She sat up on my desk, put one stocking-clad leg over the other, and lit herself a cigarette.
“Get out,” I said in a very stern voice.
“Oh, come now, Johnny. I bet my sister, Miss Little-Goody-Two-Shoes never kissed you like that.” She blew a cloud of smoke through her scarlet-colored lips.
I turned to face her. I wanted to throw myself at her, the temptation was almost unbearable, but at that moment, I was still loyal to my Jenny.
“Get out,” I said again, this time with a hint of anger.
“I want you, Johnny.”
“GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE!” I shouted.
She stood up, crushed her cigarette in the ashtray, and again wandered up to me, shaking her hips while she strode. She grabbed hold of me and kissed me again.
I gave in. A man only has so much control, and I finally held her closer so our lips pressed harder against each other.
This soon escalated into a further affair. In the weeks leading up to my marriage, I was going behind Jenny’s back with her succubus sister. Jenny never suspected a thing. She had all her confidence and love placed in me, and in my selfishness I have betrayed everything she had given to me: her trust, her loyalty, her love. I knew there was only one thing I could do.
I had put about three pints of beer in me from a local bar twenty minutes before I walked up to Anne’s door and dropped the bomb. I had a cigar between my index finger and middle finger as I spoke.
“It’s over.”
She seemed dumbstruck. She had made herself all pretty for me and then she was hearing this.
“I can’t do this stuff anymore. I love Jenny, and I’m going to marry her. I want to father her children not yours.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“Understand this,” I said after taking a puff, “I don’t love you. I never did. What we had was never love, it was simply lust. And it’s over.”
She stood up and went to hug me.
“Don’t talk like that. You know you love me more than you ever loved her.” She looked up at me with those beautiful blue eyes. “Leave her. Marry me.”
I pushed her away.
“I don’t ever want to see you again. Stay away from me and Jenny.”
I turned and began to walk away.
“You dirty son of a bitch!” She was practically screaming. I didn’t turn to look at her. “You used me like a cheap whore! I thought you loved me, and now you’re doing this to me…” She began to cry.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Anne. But I just can’t do this anymore.”
“I’m going to tell her,” she said, her voice still with a trace of sadness. “I’m going to tell her everything.”
“Go ahead,” I said, “tell her. I’ll deny it.”
“You… dirty bastard…”
I walked away.
As I closed the door behind me, I could hear the weeping escalating into sobbing. The sound faded away as I slowly walked away into the night.
When I got home I sat down on my bed beside my beautiful Jenny with a flask of scotch in my hand. I took my hand and gently rubbed it against her sleeping face. I took a swig of the hard stuff, and silently began to weep.
I was at work the other day when my phone began to ring.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jonathan.”
Anne, I thought. Oh my God, please tell me she hasn’t done anything.
“I wanted to wish you and my sister the very best of luck in your marriage, and I hope you like my little gift that I left for you.”
She hung up. I was scared shitless at that moment. I bolted out the door, to my car and drove as fast as I could. I kept hoping, praying that it wasn’t too late, but I knew deep down that it was. I bounded up my front steps three at a time and kicked in the door.
I saw no one and heard nothing.
“Jenny?” I called out.
No answer. Tuesdays are her day off, so I hoped it was possible that she wasn’t even there. But when I got to my bedroom, I saw my Jenny, lying against our bed, a hole right through her head. The red stuff flowed through the clean little hole, taking away all of the color from her beautiful face.
She was dead, no doubt about it. If I had known those weeks before where my sins were going to take me, I would have drunk an ass-load of the strongest alcohol I could find then blown my head off. But there was no point in doing that now. At that point, all I could think of was my Jenny. So beautiful. So kind. So loving. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me, yet I knew at that point that if I had avoided her the way I avoided the rest of the world, this nightmare would have never happened.
I heard footsteps behind me. I saw Anne in the same underwear she was wearing the night she first tried to seduce me. She was holding a .38 revolver. It was pointed at me.
“ Hello Jonathan. I still love you, and I know you still love me, and now that that little bitch is gone, we can finally be together.”
I was bewildered. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry. But one thing was certain: this woman murdered her own sister just so she could get at me. She could have any man she wanted with a body like hers. Why did she have to choose me? Because she wanted everything that her sister had?
“You…” I said. “You… killed her… my Jenny, my…” I could manage to stammer as the thoughts swam through my head.
“I had to do it, you know. She didn’t love you. Not the way I love you.”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s okay, Jonathan. And now that we’re alone, why don’t we loosen up?” She cocked her revolver. “Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Now.” She put her hand on her hip and leveled the barrel at my head.
I did as she asked. She smiled. I hated the bitch.
“Come here.”
I slowly walked towards her. I felt the cold cobalt steel of the gun press against my chest. I was frowning. She still smiled.
“Kiss me.”
I stood firm.
“Kiss me, now.” She pressed the gun harder against my chest.
I leaned slightly forward as she thrust her lips against mine.
I couldn’t help but somewhat enjoy what was happening at that moment. I loved her beautiful, curvy blonde hair. Her perfect mouth. Her perfect eyes. They were just like…
She had lowered the gun. I grabbed it immediately from her. She must have thought that I was going to throw it away and simply embrace her. Instead, I placed it right against the side of her head, and ever so gently pulled the trigger.
The shot wasn’t incredibly loud, more like a cork popping out of a cheap bottle of champagne. She slumped in my arms, blood trickling from the corner of her beautiful lips. I dropped her to the floor and placed the revolver in her hand dead hand. I figure that I’ll have to tell the police some of the truth, but I’ll obviously have to omit my slaying the dragon. Everybody could probably work out that the bad side of a love affair caught up with them, and that the dismayed woman in the underwear shot her lover’s wife and then turned the gun on herself.
I won’t be staying in the city after this ordeal is cleared up. I’m going some pretty rotten nights afterwards, maybe the occasional suicide contemplations. But I have to get away from this town, where nothing good came out of even love.
Love is an embracement, a welcoming, a warm feeling. It came to me in the form of Jenny, and the devil woman who lies dead before me took it all away.
Love is a curse.
Good little story. Thanks for sharing.
That’s Irish for Thank you.
By the way, I wrote that in, like, twenty minutes, so I didn’t think it was that good. I mean, you probably notice some of the grammar errors in there. I was in a hurry to post it.
A man in Colorado is invited to his rich brother’s manor for the weekend. When he gets there, he discovers that not only has his brother disappeared, but the mansion has been frozen over with ice and snow. Now, he must confront the evil that hides in the shadowy halls of the estate and learn the horrifying truth behind his brother’s disappearance.
:mad:
Sorry, I've literally just beaten the second game, so it's at the forefront of my mind.
On a serious note, It sounds pretty decent, actually.
A five-part miniseries. A 20-something former gunslinger moves to Alaska in the 1890s to become a prospector. His reputation follows him their, and he is forced to face a greedy land baron, a gang of outlaws, and five deadly bounty hunters all out for his head. He also falls in love with a prostitute who works in a saloon to support her and her brother.
At last there were no more. Hip deep in the remains, he stood and shook with fatigue. Then one shape stood up.
It was a Marine, battered and disheveled but still human, and recognizable. Cpl. Jenkins!
The corporal raised his assault rifle in salute, and smiled.
The smile got wider, and wider, until it split his face wide open. His entire head opened like a meaty flower, and all of of John-117's fears spewed out into the light....
He didn't wake up screaming. Spartans were far too disciplined for that. But his sheets were soaked in sweat, and his heart pounded almost uncontrollably. He forced himself to remember where he was..safe, for the moment, aboard a UNSC Phantom-class scoutship. Normally there would be 4 other crewmembers, but for this mission he was accompanied only by Cortana, the spunky Artifical Intelligence that he had carried throughout the harrowing HALO missions.
"Master Chief! What's wrong?" Cortana's voice echoed from the wall speaker. "Your vital signs are far above normal sleep levels!"
The Chief sighed. "Nothing, Cortana. Just a dream. What's our situation?"
A second's pause, then, "We are still 2 hours out from System 31-E, and then another hour to orbital insertion around the target planet."
"I'll be up in a minute." The Chief signed off and squeezed his massive frame into the dinky shower unit, allowing himself the luxury of a two-minute shower. He then shrugged into a light coverall, and negotiated the cramped corridor leading to the closet-sized area glorified by the label "bridge".
When he arrived he found a tray loaded with rations..halfway decent ones, for a change. He grinned at the foot-high glowing hologram of Cortana, standing on the projection pedestal beside the main seat.
"I didn't know you cared," he said, eyeing the hologram's reactions.
"Don't get any ideas. I just want you to be in top form for the mission. After all, my head is on the line too." Cortana tossed him what he could have sworn was a flirtatious wink, digital patterns swirling around her colour-shifing form.
"Your head will be in orbit. But thanks anyway." He attacked the meal, while Cortana shrugged an "any time" gesture.
Whatever it was that had caused Command to order the Master Chief to undertake this mission, it had bought some time for the human race. After the fall of the main shipyards at Reach, it was a foregone conclusion that Earth would have weeks to live at best, before the alliance of alien races known as the Covenant massed their fleets to bring about humanity's exinction, in accordance with their Jihad proclamation.
The Fleet had gathered what it could, while research teams worked day and night with captured Covenant technology to find something, anything, that could save Earth.
Thirty-three other Spartan soldiers had been lost on Reach, leaving the Master Chief as the last of his small regiment, the last of an experiment that had kept the Spartans together since the age of six. All his brothers and sisters, bonded through brutal training, worse combat, and the uniqueness of their situation, were gone now. The Chief didn't have time to mourn, there were more important problems at hand. Revenge would come later.
Humanity had one advantage in that the Convenant were not inventors; all their technology, centuries beyond Earth's, had been scrounged from worlds once inhabited by the Forerunners. These mysterious aliens, extinct since before humans learned to use fire, were also the basis for the Covenant's religion. "Holy Relics" also known as new technology, were always being hunted by the alien alliance. Now that much of it had fallen into human hands, it was being reverse engineered and even improved upon.
One of the results of this crash program was the Phantom scoutship the Chief and Cortana were currently flying. Small and fast, equipped with cloaking devices and shields, it was perfect for infiltration into Covenant space.
It was merely one of the consolation prizes won after the devastation of Reach had led both Humanity and the Convenant to the massive construct dubbed HALO.
A desperate, random slipspace jump had taken the last remaining UNSC cruiser, the Pillar of Autumn, to Halo's system purely by accident. Less accidental was the fact that 3 full battlegrops of Covie cruisers had managed to not only follow them, but get there first!
The aliens had boarded the Pillar by means of its own lifepod hatches, and Captain Keyes gave the Chief custody of Cortana, the most advanced AI yet created. His orders: get off the ship, survive, and keep the AI out of enemy hands.
A long, arduous series of guerilla actions followed, running a race with Covenant forces to learn the secrets of the Halo, and hopefully gain control of it.
The ring world turned out to be a weapon, but not the kind anyone wanted to use; it was a doomsday weapon, intended to erase all living things within a 25,000 lightyear radius!
The reason: to starve to death a form of pseudolife called The Flood. Ravenous, hideous creatures that took the bodies of everything big enough to own a nervous system and assimilated them for their own use, the Flood had nearly escaped the Halo and come close to killing the Chief as well.
He had, with Cortana's help, initiated an overload in the Pillar's reactors. The resulting gigaton explosion had shattered the Halo, and with it the Flood, the Covenant fleet, and every human left on the surface.
The Chief had escaped in a Longsword fighter-bomber, and was picked up some days later by a UNSC patrol.
Now, with his MJOLNIR armour newly augmented by adapted Covenant technology, the Chief was back in action. And it was, as usual, "Critical to the survival of Humanity!!"
ONI..Naval Intelligence..had learned that the Convenant had found something that posed a greater threat to them than the human race. The alien's leaders, called Prophets, had postponed the attack on Earth to deal with the new menace.
It was puzzling; reports from the Covenant Battlenet suggested that one of their frigates had returned from a previously unexplored world, and immediately attacked everything in sight! They still had no idea why, since the frigate had been vapourized, but more ships were sent and they too had either failed to return or had gone renegade.
Fearing a Flood infestation, the Covenant went into Paranoid Mode...which was saying a lot, considering their normal state of mind.
They pulled surviving ships back from missions to the strange system, and had ordered them to self destruct. Clearly, their leadership was terrified of something, and anything that scared the Covies was potentially useful to humans.
Thus the Chief's presence on the small bridge of a tiny ship, bound into the dark unknown.
"So, what do we know about this system? My briefing was, uh, a bit short on details." the Chief asked Cortana, pushing his food tray into the recycler.
"You know as much as I do. It has an atmosphere, gravity of about .9 gee, and something that scared the piss out of the Convenant." She paused and smirked. "You aren't SCARED, are you?"
The Chief grinned. "Who, me? Never happen. It would be nice to know what I'm walking into for a change, though."
Cortana's eyes turned blue and her body strobed for a moment..."We did get one word from the translators, but I'm not sure if it is correctly interpreted."
"So? Spill it!"
"Xenomorph." she replied. "Whatever is out there, we won't know what it looks like until it comes up to shake our hands."
The Spartan sighed. "Why not? If it were easy, they'd send trainees."
The little ship exited slipspace on schedule and boosted toward the greyish planet on the viewscreen.
"Cloaking device is working" Cortana reported. "Although I don't see anyone or thing out there to hide from."
"They've got cloaks too, with our luck." the Chief answered. "Check the planet's surface."
"Scanning...uh HUH." The hologram squinted, miming human response to a signal difficult to detect.
"There are two Convenant ships on the surface, base-carrier dropships, and they aren't putting out much energy."
"Not dead then. Life readings?" That sort of scan would have been impossible a year ago but the knowledge brought back from Halo had improved things considerably.
"Uh..sort of." Cortana looked perplexed, and even a bit embarrassed. "The number of lifeforms appearing on the scanners don't match the equivalent biomass readings."
The AI could be exasperating when she wanted to be. "Fine, what does that mean??" the Chief grated.
"I don't know. You'll have to go down and take a closer look."
Good, he thought. I hate being on spacecraft!
Normally it took a team of technicians 15 minutes to fully suit up a Spartan, but the Chief had the help of waldoes controlled by Cortana,and it took ony 10 to dress and test the MJOLNIR armour. It felt good to be back, and with the upgrades the Chief was confident he could handle anything that the planet could throw his way.
He opened the weapons locker, and pondered which would be most useful. He reached for the 8-guage Magnum shotgun, which was the most useful against the Flood, but decided two short range weapons would leave him vulnerable. He was already taking the newest weapon in the arsenal, created from Covenant plasma technology. It was a cross between a plasma rifle and a flamethrower, and it spewed a white-hot cone of plasma out to a range of 30 feet. Another 30 feet of radiant-energy damage could be expected, but beyond that it was ineffective.
To fill the gap, he chose the 50 caliber SABOT-round sniper rifle. It was always nice to reach out and touch someone.
He also packed 4 each of plasma grenades and frag grenades, 100 rounds of sniper ammo, and a spare tank for the plasma streamer.
"Okay, take us down!" he told Cortana. "And hold on. This is gonna be a fun one."
She chuckled. "Aren't they always?"
The Phantom drifted gently to the ground, surrounded by mist and fog, about a mile from the nearest Covie dropship.
"Outside temperature is 18 degrees...not bad. Atmosphere is a bit thin but you can leave your suit's vents open." Cortana reported.
"Good." the Chief answered. "But lock the doors anyway. Hate to lose our ride home."
The small cargo bad held an ATV, a 4X4 electric motorcycle with a 7.62mm machine gun barrel nosing out from above the headlight. The Chief lowered the vehicle to the ground and dogged the hatch, and mounted up.
He gunned the engine, keeping a close watch on his motion tracker. The targeting reticule for the streamer was a large square, which would expand or contract depending on the size of the plasma stream he fired. It stayed grey..no targets in range.
The ground was squishy and a bit slippery, and visibility was limited to around 100 feet. Patches of fog came and went, and there seemed to be nothing much in the way of life. Just some stunted grasslike plants and a few dead-looking bushes.
A low ridge separated the Chief from the closest dropship, so he hopped off the ATV and crouched low, unslinging the sniper rifle. He racked the scope up to 10X, and clicked on the night vision to help cut the mist.
The squared-U shaped dropship leapt forward in his vision, its side-mounted doors hanging down. He scanned...There! One dead Elite and 5 dead Grunts, all arranged in a line. He squinted involunarily..they appeared to have been burned.
In fact, it looked like the Elite had killed and cremated his troops, then held a plasma grenade to his chest and suicided.
Not standard behavior for Covies! Satisfied that nothing remained alive, he cautiously moved down the slope and inched his way up to the remains. Where were the other 45 troops this ship had carried??
Those Grunts didn't look at ALL like any he'd encountered to date. It looked like someone had tried to grind them up, or do dissection, something violent and bizarre, before they'd been burned.
And that Elite...damned if that didn't look like a third arm had started growing from its side!
The Chief swallowed and clicked his radio. "Cortana, I have a very bad feeling about this. Check my helmetcam, see if you can find anything that might explain this."
"Already have, Chief," she sounded like she was at a loss for words. "I have no idea. No idea at all."
Well, better safe than sorry. The Chief hosed the dead with his plasma streamer, flashing them to vapour in a millisecond.
Returning to the ATV, he headed off toward the second dropship, a chill running up and down his spine.
The second ship was surrounded by a wall of cargo containers, clearly a hastily erected barrier. There were no bodies anywhere. Paranoia building, the Chief parked the ATV behind a boulder and crept toward the barrier, every sense alert for..anything at all.
There were definite signs of battle. Discarded weapons lay scattered, and scorch marks painted the cargo boxes..on the inside of the perimeter, not the outside! Was there some kind of general mutiny here? A mind-wrecking disease, maybe?
It was time to make some noise.
The Chief flicked the pin off a frag grenade with his thumb, and tossed it to the nearest exit hatch. The explosion boomed and reverberated for several seconds, but did no real damage to the door. He hadn't expected it to..but whatever was inside, if anything, would surely come to investigate.
Ah HAH! The door swung down and an Elite came striding arrogantly out, head swivelling. This one wore the golden armour of a Field Master, a fine catch by any standards. Quickly, the Chief armed his sniper rifle and zoomed the reticule in on the creature's head. Elites don't carry on conversations, but maybe an intact body could provide some clue as to what was happening here.
Gently, he squeezed the trigger, the rifle barked and the Elite's head exploded most satisfactorily. With a slightly triumphant grin, the Chief waited for the body to fall. It didn't cooperate. Rather, it swayed for a couple of seconds, and started..rearranging itself.
The Master Chief looked on in fearful fascination as the Elite's neck began sprouting shapes, and its armour fell away as its body altered its form repeatedly.
"Cortana...please tell me you're recording this" he said softly.
"I am..but I wish I weren't. What IS going on down there?" she whispered back, as if the thing could hear them.
He just shook his head.
Arms were absorbed and replaced by claws, or by tentacles..some thick and dripping gore, others slim and whipping about wildly. Mouths appeared in the Elite's chest..yawning cavities ringed with ragged teeth, elongated snouts, some almost human looking.
At last, the chest cavity ripped wide open and revealed heads. One of them was human, beyond doubt, and another was a dog. A Husky, if the Chief knew anything about animals at all.
The noise was hideous. A sick symphony of screams, howls, gurgles and groans, all to the backdrop of a high-speed butcher shop sound..ripping flesh and dripping ooze.
"Oh my God..Chief, I'm sure I saw human shapes in there!" Cortana said, voice quivering. "How can that be?"
"You're the AI, you tell me! Have these things ever been to Earth?"
"Impossible. We wouldn't be here if they had!"
He couldn't argue that. "I'm falling back. We need more information before we can begin to deal with this."
Cortana didn't argue that point, either.
With the new updates to his armour, the Chief was well camouflaged. The monster didn't see him retreat to the ATV, or if it did it didn't care.
"Chief, you promised you'd leave me in orbit!" Cortana whined as the Chief crouched beside the ATV. " I really don't need this!"
"You should talk. That thing can't hurt you." he retorted.
"No, but I could...wait. Wait..motion behind us, maybe 50 feet." her voice snapped back to matter-of-fact, military tone.
The Chief swung around and brought the plasma streamer up, ready to fire. "Any idea what it is?"
"Yes, for once. The readings indicate Covenant Grunt. Just one of them."
One Grunt? No threat there, if in fact it was what it appeared to be. He was starting to get disoriented; never fear an enemy, but what if you can't tell friend from foe? Not what he'd trained for, that much he knew.
Footsteps trudged toward his position, and a high, squeaky voice called out, "Don't shoot, I have no weapon, please!"
Huh? He'd heard Grunts talk before, usually things like, "Here, more enemy", "No, bad cyborg!!" or "Heads up!". They even used profanity from time to time. He didn't think they could form sentences, though.
"I am friends, don't shoot don't shoot!!" it called again.
"Why the hell not?" he yelled back, through the suit's external speakers.
"Because we have same enemy!" it replied.
"Maybe you should give him a chance." Cortana suggested. "You can always crisp him if he makes a wrong move, and we DO need information."
The Chief grunted. "All right. Come ahead, slowly, hands high in the air. Don't get me mad!" he warned.
"Coming, coming!" the little trooper sounded distinctly relieved.
Sure enough, here it came. About 3 feet tall, with gangly arms and legs, a gasmask-like breather and a high, cone-shaped life support unit on its back, it looked more comical than dangerous. At least until you had to face a thousand of them..
Its armour was red-trimmed, indicating the little alien was a veteran. Which might explain its knowledge of English, he thought to himself.
Its left arm was wounded, dripping pale blue blood. True to its word, it was not carrying any weapons.
"Stop right there!" the Chief ordered. "Turn around slowly." The alien complied, whimpering.
"Now, what have you got to say?"
"Nasty, killer thing, took my whole cohort, can't tell until too late, makes us explode," the creature trailed off into a series of squeaks and barks, clearly traumatized.
"Settle down!!" the Chief barked in his best drillsergeant voice. "I'll flame you if you do that again!!"
"Noo, nooo...." snivel, snivel...the trooper began to collect itself. "Been alone with them for so long"
"Talk slowly, tell me what happened. Who killed your troops?" the Spartan asked, more gently this time.
The Grunt fell into a crouch and peered into the Chief's faceplate. "They looked like Officers. Field Masters. Came from dropship, sounded normal." it said, steadily. It paused for a second, searching for words.
"They did like Flood, only worse. Whips, teeth, and the wounded did the same thing when they were hurt. Joined them, changed sides. I ran, got shot.." it indicated the wounded arm.."they didn't chase me. I ran and ran. Don't want to be turned into those, nasty!!"
Looking at the puddles of blood, the Chief asked harshly "How do I know you aren't one of them? You're wounded!"
"There is a way, if time, if time..there is a..." the Grunt paused again, lost for words.
" A test?" the Chief supplied hopefully.
"Yes, yes, a test! A test, but only if you catch them in time!" the Grunt replied, nodding enthusiastically.
"What sort of test?"
The alien pointed at its wounded arm. "Blood. Hotthings. Bad blood hates heat things. Good blood just goes SSSSSS".
Fine. We'll test you, he thought. The Covenant soldier had the same idea.
"Look, " it said, squeezing blood out of its wound, "you hotweapon that blood, see I am friendly."
Okay...he goosed the trigger of the streamer, a small tongue of plasma licked out at the blue blood on the ground. It hissed and flashed into vapour.
"So what would happen if you were one of them?" Cortana asked.
The Grunt cocked its head, then screeched and started dancing around madly. "Bl
Is this one Luigi's Mansion 3?
I can't argue with more The Thing.
Uhh...nothing, actually. I just like the Thing in any respect.
Back in 66 a man had a vision,
A western in space on your television!
He gathered a team and they made it real
The result was The Cage, which didn't appeal
But then - shock and awe! They got a reprieve!
They had a second pilot, would you believe?
A rarity indeed, one they didn't ignore
The end result? Where No Man Has Gone Before.
A far better pitch and one that succeeded,
And thus Star Trek became the space show we needed.
This show had its lows, it had its highs
It had 80-odd adventures on the Enterprise
But like all good things it had to end
Being given the death slot and less money to spend
Three seasons and then the show departed
Or did it? No! It was just getting started!
In 73 an animated version emerged
Is it any good? Well it could have been worse
And in 79 The Motion Picture appeared
Give it a miss - it's boring and weird
But in 82, we felt The Wrath of Khan
A masterpiece - any who disagree are WRONG.
It was soon followed by two more good features
And then a fifth which... has a three-breasted creature?
After that, one more far better production
But by this point another show had come to fruition
The Next Generation was the first show but bigger
And it lasted 7 years, a prospect insane to consider
It was a damn fine show with a damn fine cast
And finally the franchise was built to last
From 87 to 94 the show thrilled its viewers
And proved the concept of a show planned for years
Which is probably why we got another one
Deep Space Nine, also with a seven year run
This one was more complex and less light-hearted
But was more about the people who starred in it
It was a very different type of show than before
Hell, the latter half focused on an all out war!
The show was fantastic, it broke new ground
But it requires a commitment that not all fans found
Some wanted a return to the adventures long gone
And they got it - of sorts - with Voyager's run.
But before that, let's talk about the movies again
Because now they made them with the cast of Next Gen
After killing off Kirk in a shockingly bad way
(crushed under a bridge - hardly fitting, shall we say?)
The next film - First Contact - was shockingly good.
With Picard going nuts over the Borg - well, YOU would.
After that came Insurrection which was boring as hell
And Nemesis, while problematic, wasn't terrible.
But we should get back to Voyager, and as you'll soon see
7 years doesn't promise a show of HIGH quality.
It was a very flawed show with problems abound
Some very bad scripts could often be found
An uneven cast didn't help matters either
Except Jeri Ryan, though I could take her or leave her
The premise was good but resulted in little
With the writers struggling to make good material
The franchise had stumbled, it was showing its age
And the next show would lock itself in a cage
Enterprise was a prequel, which was restrictive at best
Though it had the best intentions it was kind of a mess
A Vulcan before Spock? Quantum Leap at the helm?
A pop song as a theme? Well, THAT started well.
The show was alright, but it was nothing great.
And that was the problem - it had lost its way.
The once mighty franchise was losing viewers point blank.
So the answer? Push the (reboot) button, Frank!
2009 and STAR TREK hits theatres, BAM!
A film for all viewers, not just hardcore fans
It was fast, it was mad, it was a lot of fun,
And it had some great actors putting in star turns
This film was fantastic and a shot in the arm
It was what was needed to keep the name strong
We got a sequel, Into Darkness, this year
It's good, though with a few issues, I fear
SPOILERS! It's a remake of Wrath of Khan
And really, you CAN'T top Ricardo Montalbán.
But overall the franchise is still going strong
Which is fantastic - I really don't want it gone!
Now if you'll excuse me, I must take my leave
Those DVD boxsets won't watch themselves, you see.
Wait, US residents only? Well, CRAP.
That's two hours of my life I'll never get back.
Oh well, that's my fault for not reading the rules.
Not much I can do, save call myself a fool.
I don't suppose you'd be willing to make an exception?
I'd pay the postage if I surpassed expectations?
To be honest I'd dig a Command uniform
But I understand if that's too far a break from the norm.
Just spare me a thought with the next contest
And please - highlight if you must be from the US.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
11/22/63
Joyland
Full Dark, No Stars
Cell
The Dead Zone
The Mist
Different Seasons
Misery
The House Without A Key
The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
The Glass Key
World War Z
Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Sphinx
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone
Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead
Casino Royale
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
A Clockwork Orange
Unbroken
The Green Mile
Of Mice And Men
Air-Raid Pearl Harbor
Jurassic Park
Congo
The House of the Seven Gables
Frankenstein
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde
The Red Badge of Courage
True Grit
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Rising Sun
Black Lizard’s Big Book of Pulps
The Wild Bunch at Robbers Roost
White Fang
Star Wars: Death Troopers
Dutchman’s Flat
To Kill A Mockingbird
Sunburn
The Black Camel
The Hustler
Murder on the Links
Dumb Witness
Five Little Pigs
Ordeal By Innocence
Towards Zero
Endless Night
They Came To Baghdad
The Pale Horse
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
4:50 from Paddington
The Big Four
A Pocket Full of Rye
Death In The Clouds
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Cat Among The Pigeons
Hallowe’en Party
And Then There Were None
Death on the Nile
The Moving Finger
Murder at the Vicarage
The Clocks
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Black Coffee
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
After The Funeral
Three Act Tragedy
The Body In The Library
Sleeping Murder
The Abc Murders
Murder on the Orient Express
Hickory Dickory Dock
Witness For The Prosecution
Death Comes As The End
Elephants Can Remember
Murder With Mirrors
Evil Under The Sun
Murder In Mesopotamia
Passage To Frankfurt
The Sherlockian
Knights of the Round Table
Steel Driving Man
Star Wars: Red Harvest
Timeline
Pirate Latitudes
Prey
The Amityville Horror
Call of the Wild
The Godfather
Treasure Island
Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker
Mutiny On The Bounty
Robin Hood
Dances With Wolves
Patriot Games
Sum Of All Fears
The Hunt For Red October
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels And Stories
The Whitechapel Horrors
The Angel of the Opera
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
The Oriental Casebook Of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts Of Bly
The Improbable Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
Enemies And Allies
Batman: No Man’s Land
Doctor Who
Doctor Who - The Guide
The Television Companion
Who's Next
Quiz Book (free with Doctor Who Adventures magazine and is naturally rubbish)
Island of Death (3rd Doctor)
Spiral Scratch (6th, which has a logical reason for his regeneration and is therefore basically essential reading)
Parallel 59 (8th)
Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (7th)
Code of the Krillitanes (10th)
Revenge of the Judoon (10th)
I Am a Dalek (10th)
The Sontaran Games (10th)
Decide Your Destiny (all 12 of them)
Doctor Who and the Green Death (3rd)
Doctor Who and the SunMakers (4th)
Made of Steel (10th)
The Story of Martha, Beautiful Chaos, The Eyeless and The Sontaran Games (set, all 10th Doctor)
Forever Autumn, The Last Dodo, The Pirate Loop, The Price of Paradise, Sick Building, Sting of the Zygons, Wetworld, Wishing Well, Wooden Heart and The Art of Destruction (set, all 10th Doctor)
The Coming of the Terraphiles (11th Doctor)
Indiana Jones
The Lost Journal of India Jones
The Indiana Jones Handbook
Young Indiana Jones and the Plantation Treasure
Young Indiana Jones and the Circle of Death
Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi
Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants
... the Seven Veils
... the Genesis Deluge
... the Unicorn's Legacy
... the Interior World
... the Sky Pirates
... the White Witch
... the Philosopher's Stone (suck it Harry Potter, Indy got there first)
... the Dinosaur Eggs
... the Hollow Earth
... the Secret of the Sphinx
Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Stupid Name Crystal Skull (both child-friendly and 'mature reader')
James Bond
Young Bond - Silverfin, Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold and By Royal Command
Classic Bond - Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, From Russia With Love, Dr No, Goldfinger, For Your Eyes Only, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, The Man With The Golden Gun and Octopussy/The Living Daylights
Odd Bonds - Devil May Care, Carte Blanche, Colonel Sun, James Bond: The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond & Moonraker (the latter two are novelizations of the films, since they were so different from the books)
Gardner's Bond - License Renewed, For Special Services, Ice Breaker, Role of Honour, Nobody Lives Forever, No Deals Mr Bond, Scorpius, Win Lose or Die, License to Kill (novelization of the film), Brokenclaw, The Man from Barbarossa, Death is Forever, Never Send Flowers, SeaFire, Goldeneye (from the film) and Cold
Benson's Bond - Zero Minus Ten, Tomorrow Never Dies (from the film), The Facts of Death, The World is Not Enough (from the film), High Time to kill, Doubleshot, Never Dream of Dying and Die Another Day (from the awful film)
The Moneypenny Diaries - The Moneypenny Diaries, Secret Servant and Final Fling
...I've also got over 100 strategy guides but I REALLY can't be bothered to list all those.
EDIT: Forgot the bottom shelf!
Brawl in the Family: Volume I (which has the spine text the wrong way, grr grr)
The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia
The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
The History of Sonic the Hedgehog
Sam & Max: Surfin' the Highway
Game Design: Secrets of the Sages
PvP: The Dork Age and Volumes 1-4
Penny Arcade Collections 1-5
Nuklear Age
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Volume I
Captain Amazing
Oh, also every shelf here is double stacked. So behind the layer of books you see... is another layer of books.
Oh, and mine are double-staked as well. Tucked behind all the other stuff is... Doctor Who DVDs/Audios.
Also, to get an idea of scale... in the middle picture, that second shelf on the right bookcase? That's about forty-five Terry Pratchett books right there.
One other thing: I literally write every day, but I STILL haven’t been able to finish Telltale Murder Mystery part 1!
But yeah, when it comes to reading for fun, I prefer to have something tangible. Because a book isn't just a collection of words, it's a collection of memories.
I haven't explained that very well, have I? Oh well, whatever.
(Books tend to be too bulky for me to lug around everywhere and I just don't have the space for them. eBooks however are handy. I'm currently reading a book on the history of Videogames. )
But I did recently purchase a physical book. A hardback of Clockwork Angels. Yeah they made a book inspired by Rush's latest album.
(I'm kind of too afraid to read it though. I don't want to damage the book. I may see if I can apply for the eBook copy it claims it comes with, just so I can keep this lovely souvenir in pristine condition)
Also, I love e-books. Took some getting used to, but it's just so convenient, and for most plain-text works of fiction it's really no different from reading a physical book, unless the author had a very specific typeface and design in mind.