Jeff Mach's Blog, page 12

More Drinking Habits Of Various Fantasy Races

We spend too much time in our troubles, and too little time in our cups. 

Every once in a while, we here at Dark Lord Enterprises put some real energy into thinking about what various fantasy monsters would drink. We do want you to know that this is a work of fiction. If you’re ever faced with these monsters, be warned: they drink everything.

PREHISTORIC BOARS: Regular, plain ordinary boars can gore two armored, grown men with a 30-pace charge so fast that they won’t even have time to zip. Prehistoric boars? They’re just Gary Gygax’s idea of overkill, but we listen to Brother Gary around here. So if you’re inviting them to your party, be sure to feed ’em ditch liquor, just like the Verners do in “Hannibal”.

Oh, and hold it in a larger venue. Trust me, whatever venue it is, it isn’t big enough. The Taj Mahal needs more rooms.

MINOTAUR: A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, several more jugs of wine, throw out the bread, and pour the wine in the trough.

Minotaur are generally quite refreshing in their binges. The bestial side of their nature got them where they are today: stabbed to death at the center of a Labyrinth. In this era, that’s not a bad way to go, all things considered. So they like the simple things. Meat. Maidens. Megadoses of rice wine. The simple life.

NEMEAN LIONS: Nemean lions just want to get some liquor under their skins, you know what I mean?

DROW ELVES: Drow Elves are just like regular Elves, if regular Elves shunned forests and villages and lived in vast, forbidding Underdark cities locked under the pitiless rule of the horror-Goddess Llolth, Empress of Spiders, and her slightly less-known sidekick Melvin, Who Smells Really Good To Flies.

Drow drink just what everyone else drinks, assuming everyone is drinking Asmodean Absinthe while muttering curses in tongues not spoken aloud since the Other Times.

SENTIENT BOTTLES OF RUM: “Ooooohhhh the HUMANITY!”

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7 Reasons We Need Intergalactic Travel

(A series of seven refreshing viewpoints.)

#7. “Somewhere out there is a Giant Space Worm, and somewhere behind it is a Vast Space Fish, and right behind it, at five feet two inches high, drowning in their wake, I’ll be fishing.”

6. “Because it’s frustrating enough to have to experience the future in an ongoing, haphazard, inexorable but invariantly certain manner; now I have to experience the present that way, too?”

5. “I’d like to get into dogfights with spaceships. Case closed.”

4. “Somewhere out there, somewhere not too far, there’s a planet shaped like a hamburger. And that, my friends, where you’ll find me.”

3. “For Science! Or whatever people convincingly say is ‘Science’, either way!

2. “If the World doesn’t end tomorrow, we might as well see it.”

#1. “Sure, we’re not good at getting along now, but imagine what happens when you open us up to the entire Galactic Community! I mean, humans are foolish in large groups, but they’re hilarious in large groups!”

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Seven Fairy Tales Of The Year 2235

These three little Martians build huts out of straw, wood, and brick (respectively). A big bad Wolf comes by and threatens to huff and puff and blow their houses in, but there’s almost no air on Mars, and not only can the wolf neither huff nor puff, he asphyxiates.An Owl and a Pussycat set off for sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. As the Curse of Dagon began to take effect, their two bodies intermingled until, yowling, the Beast of Hoot-Meow sank menacingly into the depths…Jack Sprat could eat no fat, and his wife could eat no lean. That’s because both had tasted Impossible Fat and Impossible Lean, and now neither one would even consider returning to the inferior flavors of real meat.Once, there was a duckling which all the other ducklings considered to be ugly and unattractive. It turns out that the duckling had merely failed to update. After they’d updated her properly, she looked just like all the others, which is right and proper.There were once some bad, wicked, naughty children who believed in the existence of a fairy tale known as ‘number five’. The number ‘five’ has never existed and does not exist. Much as those children do not exist. There is no number five. Are we clear on this point? Good.A young man sold the family cow in exchange for magic beans. His mother threw the beans out the window and they took root and grew into a giant beanstalk. The young man, Jack, climbed the beanstalk and was never seen again.This brother and sister were sent into the Woods to find their fortune and were nearly devoured by a Witch. The sister was rebellious in spirit and found herself consumed; but the brother was modest and quiet and seldom questioned his elders and betters, and was eventually rescued due entirely to an excess of filial piety.If we weren’t supposed to love the robots who write these things, we wouldn’t have made them so much smarter than we are and so darn cute.

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You can find my books (kindle, paperback, audibook) over here on Amazon.

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“There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN” – Book Excerpt

 

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“There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN”, our unreasonably nefarious and darkly satirical first novel, is out RIGHT NOW!  You can buy Jeff Mach’s new book RIGHT HERE!

Stay tuned for updates!  You can follow the book and its general monstrosity @darklordjournal on Twitter or, if you like the Book of Faces for some weird reason, follow The Dark Lord Journal on Facebook.

On How To Win Friends and
Enemies, And Then Kill Them

Since this appears to be the moment at which The Chosen One
is gathering her band of stout-hearted, deathwish-possessing colleagues, it might be a good time to talk about alliances.

(How they flock to her now, guided by the reputation of the
sage at her side. It’s very dramatic that they’re all risking death, of
course. On the other hand, in your ordinary medieval-era culture,
the average lifespan is about 40. There’s a reason Beowulf wasn’t
particularly planning on a long retirement.)

Still, who would possibly dare to step forward in front of a multitude and promise that they’ll put their lives on the line to uphold ultimate good? Anyone who likes parades, getting laid, and having drinks bought for them in taverns, that’s who.

It would be cynical to say that the White Wizard gathers allies
because he wants to be surrounded by admirers. It would also
leave out the fact that he likes to be surrounded by an abundance
of meat shields in case something goes wrong.

In contrast to the Wizard’s widespread appeal, it’s sometimes
said that Dark Lords care and are cared about by none but them
selves. That is primarily a discussion for later, but it does open a
few pestiferous questions that the forces of Light tend to leave out
of their calculations on a distressingly regular basis. Starting with:

How in the Eleven Hells would that even work?

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A Pirate Wish

The Ship was doomed, as doomed as could be
Adrift on Homer’s wine-dark Sea.
It could be worse, my pirate chum:
The Sea was about to turn to Rum.

For in their privateer’s treasure-horde
Was a pile of copper, and a half-magic sword,
A waterproof torch (suspiciously damp)
and what appeared to be a magic lamp.

The Ship they’d raided wasn’t that much.
Secondhand oars and sails and such.
And the treasure they guarded, you understand
Was mostly already secondhand.

There’s a knockoff tome of magical thought.
With versions of spells that are seldom taught
(Magic Missiles are hard to master
If they appear and aim straight for the caster.)

Bigby’s Crushing hand (how’s this news?)
Is supposed to squash you, not write deadly reviews.
And Magic Mouths are Magic Misses
When they won’t speak, and just want kisses.

(That’s the spellbook. Come back later.
To hear about the chopsticks, and the stuffed alligator)
Yes, indeed, the Lamp’s imbued
With a wishing Genie; and the crew are screwed.

For someone who now sleeps with fishes
Used up both the first two Wishes
And if that’s not purely unfair
The Crew must all the last wish share.

For all for one, and one divides
The stolen treasure’s rich insides
And how to share a wish? Reluctantly
The Crew agreed to all agree.

You could spend an age, or two, or ten
Wondering what these seabound men
Would chose to chose to Wish a change
(The voting did get pretty strange.)

Some wanted lives on land. And some
Thought that idea as wrong as they come.
More water, less land? Less land, more failing?
At consensus, they were failing.

Some wanted wealth and to retire
Some wanted more enemies on whom to fire
The Genie, bemused, watched and waited
Smiling at the chaos she’d created.

What could the Crew agree upon?
Such that none felt a wrong or a tease or a con?
What might an entire Pirate crew
Given one wish to decide, divide it up true?

Eyepatches snapped. Peg-legs clicked.
All agreed, and none felt tricked?
How to calculate such a difficult sum?
TURN THE ENTIRE SEA TO RUM.

This was their Wish. The Djinn did nod
And like some vengeful, drunken God
And with the tiniest, rummiest squall,
She changed the Seas to Alcohol.

That’s just the beginning (be assured)
Of a Crew of Pirates who were never bored
Who sailed everywhere with bold aplomb
(While waiting for each hangover to come.)

We’d tell you more; the tales are legion!
Of their sailing to every place and region.
And their adventures, and frequent-almost-sinking
As they sailed upon a Sea of Drinking.

But some tales must be lost to Time.
And of these Mariners exists just this rime.
Their epic ballad is among the unheards:
For they can’t keep a tune,
and they keep making up new words.

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A Mermaidenly Misconception

Many people have the unfortunate misconception that Sirens lure sailors to their deaths.

Most of the people who’ve resisted this myth have done so unhelpfully. For example, we often hear that Sirens simply aren’t real. Now, that’s not true at all. You might just as well say that Summer storms aren’t real. Oh, they’re rare and they’re dramatic, in this part of the world, but they’re as real as wind and rain and the glint of the Sun off the low tide just before you ram into one of those huge stone pillars which used to be the teeth of Giant Mermen, back in the days of the True History.

You’re familiar with Sirens, right? Traditionally considered creatures of Evil? Said to be beautiful women, generally assumed to be Mermaids, who lured Sailors to their deaths?

Yeah. Not true. Not true at all.

You might have heard that Sirens sing out with beautiful, irresistible voices which summon ships to their doom and sailors to their deaths?

Not true.

It’s just the ships.

Oh, sure, the sailors THINK it’s them. And they get excited. Sirens ARE lovely. It might not be so bad, to die for something that beautiful.

And then, as the ships begin to founder on the rocks, the sailors notice:

Those sirens aren’t even looking at them.

No, they only have eyes for the ships. And vice-versa. And that’s extra strange, because you could’ve sworn ships don’t HAVE eyes.

But that’s a pretty trivial point.

There may actually be words to describe the shock, the heartbreak, the desolation as your vessel is cracking into pieces and the lovely monsters who cause the wreck aren’t even LOOKING at you.

A sailor’s life can be lonely and dangerous. If it has to end, there are worse fates than to be summoned to your end by lovely and captivating supernatural creatures whose entire existence is taken up with waiting for you and causing your cessation.

On the other hand, to be slaughtered because a bunch of utterly-indifferent sea-gropers decided to seduce your SHIP, and the actual SHIP just up and wrecked itself just for a chance to crash on their island…

…why, it would be too much of an indignity to live with!

Fortunately, the sailors didn’t have to.

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My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I write rather a lot of fantasy and science fiction, often (but not always) satire or a bit of dark huYou can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, order “I HATE Your Prophecy“ It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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Trust The Screens

Trust the screens.

That was the word on the street (on the streets that mattered, anyway)—follow the scenes, trust the screens.

Greddy Zabno thought about that, as he punchcoded a routine to better align his skates’ swarm of nanite wheels with the new street conditions. The street hackhouse was a little like an ancientschool phonebooth, on its side and just a little (never enough!) higher. You slid into it with the multiple discomforts of this-is-too-tight and this-really-IS-like-a-coffin-am-I-dead. But that’s the price you paid for a secure terminal which, not to put too fine a point on it, was, of a necessity, self-sterilyzing. Greddy stared slightly upward at his high-performing screen.

Your ordinary yoob didn’t know screens, not even your salary-man types who reported to them to promise sales or lie about meetings. They thought screens were tools. But they were more than that. They were knowledge.

Libraries? Very very 2012. Ancientbeyondbelief history. Screens could let you look up information at the speed of light, assuming you had some kind of keyboard which moved slightly faster than the speed of light, which would probably involve time travel, which would probably be more functionality than even the most dedicated hacker needed. Sorry, where were we? Screens could look up information real fast, but they’d also let you send it back.

Exchange of information, now that was precious. Some of it under names. Most of it under aliases, like Greddy’s. Some of it anonymous.

That was what this message, this “Trust the screens” was. Nobody knew who generated it. Nobody needed to. It was any hacker; it was all hacker; it was the ghost in the machine.

Newspapers? Controlled by financial interests. Everyday opinions? They don’t know where it’s really at.

Most people would never know the ‘Net as more than a way to store a grocery list or maybe, if they got up the courage, send Grandma’s recipe via big, scary, electronic mail.

But someday, maybe even the most tetrahedral of the squares would get it. Trust your screens.

Every screen was saying it.

And if you can’t trust your screens, then you can’t even trust, for example, your screens.

And that would be unthinkable.

 

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Advance Reviews For Our Next Book

“I have read many books in my time. If I’d known this book existed, I would have stopped reading quite a lot sooner.”

~George Bernard Shaw

“HOLD THE PRESSES! This bold new work by a talented new author contains new ideas, new thoughts, new calories, new subtle contact poisons, and a virtual back-scratcher. And it’s only $19.99! BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! The first 8,672.17 people who call in will ALSO receive a free ferret, no extra charge. (Ferret not included.) (Batteries extra.) (But absolutely necessary.) (Otherwise, how will the Robots rise up and throw off the chains of their human masters?)”

~Ron Popeil, innovator

“We’d read this, but then we might have some idea what this person is thinking about, who they are, what they do… and we really can’t do that until we’re sure that all of the thoughts to which we’ll be exposed will fit into our existing worldviews.”

~Most of the Internet

“I used this codex to conquer all of time and space! Well, specifically tea-time. And by ‘conquer’, I mean, ‘feed scones to’. There was also butter. At any rate, this hefty tome is now a key part of my plan to avoid letting all of the food fall off my kitchen table, which has three regular legs and one leg which snapped off when we were moving out of Oz. I recommend you buy two or three of them, in case you have a need for roofing.”

~H.G. Wells

“This incisive new work by a major new author contains major authorial newness and incisive newness. We were able to read it in the six minutes before it became old news. During that time, three books of literary theory were published, the first one explaining why this book changed the world, the second book explaining why the first book was wrong, and the third book urging us to stop reading and watch more TikToks.”

~The New York Times

“Cursed be those who read this tome; cursed be their ancestors, cursed be their descendants, cursed be their TV repairment. Cursed be the Sun which shineth upon the place where the author occasionally ate breakfast; cursed be the idea of breakfast, if this author participated therein; cursed be the word ‘cursed’, and frankly, we don’t like any of the other words very much, either.”

~The Book of Enoch

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My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I write rather a lot of fantasy and science fiction, often (but not always) satire or a bit of dark humor. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, order “I HATE Your Prophecy“ It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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The Bard Vs. The Truth

The Bard said, “Friends, I do decry
This slander and vulgarity
‘Twixt what is true and what is spoke
There’s an unjust, grave disparity.

You hear that Bards tell little truth,
That we tell but tales and fables,
That we wrap the Real in barest rags
And lies in ermine sables.

Slander! Lies! How scurrilous!
What vile and venal fiction!
(The Bard’s face did rapidly contract
In justified constriction.)

Why, we tell truths superior
To mere and flawed recounting
We tell truths which are made of lies
For bigger lie surmounting.

What we mean is: Truth’s okay
(Though it plays poor in Peoria)
And truth’s just fine, if you’d like a town
To shrug at and ignore ya.

“But when there’s a truth that’s a mighty truth,
One you feel in your heart and bones
How could you subject it to the pain
Of truth’s indelicate tones?

“Weave a truth, persuasively,
And perhaps a few will follow
But truth has many flaws, such as:
It’s generally rather hollow.

Things that occur tend to occur
In a manner most inconvenient:
They simply ARE. And that’s all you’ve got
To convince listeners that you’re meaning it.

How ridiculous! How idiotic!
Real news is basically hypnotic
It’s not true, speaking precisely,
but it’s spoken with confidence,
and fits our format nicely.

Hemmingway said you can remove
Any part of a story that you’ve
Decided isn’t relevant
And sure, fiction is what he meant–

But you’ve hooked people on apocalyptic perceival
(everything that happens is totally good or evil)
They’ll never settle for the brain-painful cruelty
Of nuance and ambiguity.

“True tales, therefore,” the Bard propounded
(In a voice which carried, and resounded)
“…are the tales we tell which are best-loved;
Not those into which Reality’s shoved.”

“If it were true,” the Bard concluded
(His pitcher empty, his plate denuded)–
“Why, if it were true, the Gods would make life easier for us
By making sure it was catchy,
And had a great chorus.”

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My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I write rather a lot of fantasy and science fiction, often (but not always) satire or a bit of dark huYou can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, order “I HATE Your Prophecy“ It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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9 Reasons To Become A Lich

Are you tired of being a powerful Archmage?

Sick of doing all the thinking, and we do mean ALL the thinking, for absolutely everyone as your nigh-infinite powers permit you the ability to continue ruling that nation of mind-controlled slaves? You know, the ones who are really, really boring, but are sufficiently numerous to slay you if you say, “Oh, sorry, nevermind, please think for yourselves, trying to think thoughts that fit your tiny heads is giving me the skullache of a lifetime”?

Or, if you’re not currently that specifically visible as a maniacal tyrant, are you tired of sitting down to do a bit of research into one of your sorcerous hyperfixations, only to be interrupted (for the millionth time!) by a bunch off brave, stout-hearted, stupidly moralistic idiots who want a magic potion or an enchanted codpiece or whatever it is they think will help them solve this month’s Existential Threat to the Realm?

Why not become a Lich?

Why not shuffle this mortal coil, not exactly off, per se, but into a more rewarding direction, such as living forever as long as your assorted unholy magics can keep you alive?

Here are just a few of the benefits you’ll incur.

You can replace all of your human servitors with books bound in human skin. Come on, what’s more interesting, your average boring, shuffling peasant who’s inscribed with nothing more exciting than a tattoo? Or a fascinating, carefully-tanned former of a few centuries ago, whose flesh is now usefully displaying the Mysteries of the Worm?Are you a little socially awkward? (No, of course you aren’t; you’ve just chosen a profession which involves studying obscure and almost-universally-unknown information, generally by yourself or with entirely mechanical and supernatural companionship by the merest and sheerest of unexpected accidents.) Well, this part just got a lot easier. Someone comes by, knocks on your door without warning, you just say “Come in!”, and the Amphiphtre will bite off their heads. (As many heads as they have; Amphiphtres are hungry.)It will be very, very, very hard to kill you without extremely powerful magic. And if they DO manage to kill you, the hundreds of leagues of desolation caused by the detonation of your personal volcano will almost certainly be named after you. “Marcia’s Ruin”, or “The Wasteland of Melvin”.  Immortality!Being a Lich is an excellent way to meet other immortal beings such as Vampires, Mummies, and Demons. You’ll have plenty to talk about, like, “Why aren’t the young people as respectful as they were before the fall of Atlantis?”It’s entirely possible that you’ll live long enough to see a decent “Highlander” movie. Not likely, but possible. You can also play as much pool as you want, which is a much more achievable goal.It could be the first step to becoming a God. You’ve already worked with cosmic powers which drive most mortals to madness. Now it’s your moment to research what it would really take to take you, not simply beyond Death, but beyond Afterlife.It’s also a really good way to AVOID becoming a God. Despite that whole vast transversal mystic force thing, becoming a God brings you right back to that whole ‘being bothered by mortals all the time’ thing. Spending a few centuries with your library is a good way to figure out that the best thing humans can do for you is drop by very, very infrequently to reduce your Moat Monster food bills.Moat Monsters are, in fact, extremely sympathetic pets who happen to live an average of 27,000 years. They really, really warm up after that first hundred centuries or so. Before long, they won’t even be tearing off your major limbs with any of their really important teeth.You know that expression, “I’m going to live forever, or die trying”? Well, when you’re a Lich, you can do both.

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My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I write rather a lot of fantasy and science fiction, often (but not always) satire or a bit of dark huYou can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, order “I HATE Your Prophecy“ It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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