K.A. Ashcomb's Blog, page 43

Book Review: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Steam engines are coming to Discworld, and everyone wants to have a piece of them, some with a whack. Everyone being Vetinari, spellbound Drumknott (choo choo!), Harry King (the funder), Moist von Lipwig (monitor of the railway), Vimes in pursuit of wrongdoers, Adora Belle von Lipwig (Dearheart), dwarfs, and the rest of them. The central plot revolves around political turmoil with fundamentalist dwarfs who see the steam engine destructive to their rights and lives. They resort to terrorist attac...

Top 3 Books in September

Hi everyone! Another month has gone, and I am not sure we have evolved that much as a species, oh well. Hopefully, there has been some growing as individuals. I am not sure if I have. I have tried to be more caring towards people. There have been times I have failed, and my ego has gotten the better of me, but luckily, not all is bad.

I have been editing my third book. I got stuck in the middle for quite a long time, but now things are starting to roll again. This book has been a slower proce...

Short Story: The Death of Me

I am not sure any longer who I am. I have lost track of the countless bodies and the passage of time. All I know is that I am in a limbo, trying to survive. But I keep dying and coming back. No one gets it right. I have no time to think of any of this. I try to press against the floor and hold the white cat down and not to make any sudden movements. That is how it gets you. But the cat is not cooperating with me. I hear the sound of the boots of two of me coming out of the elevator. They will di...

Short Story: Woman and the Waterfall

The water droplets spattered against her shoes. The umbrella kept the worst at bay as she stood there on the rock, watching up along the soaring waterfall. All around her, the river surged, licking the stone she was stationed. She felt the moist wind whipped against her face and the hem of her dress. She smiled. 

Despite the roaring water, she was at peace. A couple of years ago, things had been different. She had only felt excruciating pain as the place only told a tale of loss. Now she coul...

Book Review: Snuff by Terry Pratchett

This book is about goblins and prejudice, going to the countryside, murder, and smuggling. Vimes is having a holiday and, of course, there will be a murder, how else he is supposed to function. But more so, this book is about prejudice, the worst kind—the kind which sees the other as a thing. When you consider someone as a thing and paint their lives with a big brush, it is an easy road to violence, abuse, and exploitation. Pratchett points this out several times in the book, making Snuff not as...

Short Story: Love-Apple in the Time of Crisis

She was the only one up in the entire building as everyone else slept. So it had to be. She peered out of the window, making sure she didn’t let light out. It would be bad, drawing them towards the place. The sky was turning already dark grey. Dawn was well on its way, and she only had to be up a couple of hours, and someone would release her to go to bed and have her shut-eye.

She watched all the empty buildings, all rundown by the lack of care. There was no time to fix anything. Keep moving...

Short Story: Then They Were Gone

They say children are the future, that without them towns, cities, nations, species, planets die. And if you want to defeat your enemy, make them watch as you slaughter their children and never give their bodies back to be mourned. That was the official doctrine. There was always retaliation, and it was his job to start it and kill it.

He sat there, guarding the convoy, taking the children into the headquarters. There, they would broadcast their death planet-wise, and other people like him wo...

Book Review: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Dark, dark, dark. Not the way that there are horrors, murder, and mayhem (okay, there are those too, but not in a macabre way), but with the way of showing the darkness from the reaches of the human mind. That is why I love the series. Right from the beginning, Terry Pratchett has demonstrated how our mind works, to show us the pitfalls, the glory, the way out, the horrors, the fears, the good, ugly, and bad. With I Shall Wear Midnight, he shows what prejudice, good intentions, stereotypes, and ...

My Top 3 books in August

Hello everyone! September is here, and fall is upon us. It has already gotten cold here, but I love it. I love the colder weather. Maybe partly, that is why I have gotten more editing done, and my third book starts to shape itself. The plot, the tone, the characters, and the joke are getting better. I hope you have had a great August despite all the sorrowful things going in the world: people getting killed because of the color of their skin, people being silenced, tortured, and robbed a free el...

Short Story: Fallen Tree

I wish I could say I enjoyed this journey of mine; that there was some price waiting for me at the end. But I can’t. I would fool no one. Not about the sorry state of affairs or about life in general. The second has easy solutions, life I mean, ignorance is the most popular one. Suicide feels like cheating. Why do you get to exit when the rest of us have to continue being miserable here and pretend it is all nice? The first, the sorry state of affairs, has no solution. I seem to be stuck, litera...