James Pyles's Blog, page 231
October 19, 2016
Final Justice
The armored figure walked into Mickey’s Bar, his eyes glowing a murderous red. The patrons, which included several high-ranking members from the criminal underworld,four on-the-take police officers, a Judge, a Deputy County Prosecutor, and the head of the Local 453rd, all stopped as if possessing one body and stared in disbelief. Mickey, who was tending […]
October 18, 2016
New Brain
Alec Reed was at the end of his rope. At age 62, he could no longer keep up with the younger software developers at Intellidrive and accusations of “ageism” or not, if his performance fell too much further, he’d be out of a job. Before the divorce, he’d have just put in for early retirement, […]
October 17, 2016
Halloween Horror Story Special
In going through the short stories I’ve written for this the “Powered by Robots” blog so far, and keeping in mind that Halloween is coming up fast (which is the favorite celebration of some folks who like things such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror), I compiled a list of five tales for my “Halloween […]
October 12, 2016
The Homecoming
Thanks to the revolutionary Roddenberry-Cochrane drive, Ellis Vanderberg was able to travel to Proxima Centauri A, the closest Earth-like planet to our own, perform a year-long survey of its one continent and the six largest islands, and then return home in a little over four decades. Of course, due to the time dilation effect, much […]
October 7, 2016
Chewed Up and Spit Out
“We wouldn’t have gotten a divorce if you were more responsible, Joe. I’ve told you a thousand times that you shouldn’t be so late in bringing Timmy home after your visits.” Joe hated these lectures, which was why he avoided his ex-wife most of the time. It was why he waited as long as he […]
October 5, 2016
They’re Finally Here
“I’m getting tired of all these clowns trying to lure our kids into the woods or back alleys and I’m going to stop them any way I can.” Brett stuffed the business end of his .45 into his waistband as he opened the back door. “No, please don’t.” His wife Sheila ran up to him […]
October 3, 2016
Tuning In
From the Flight Log of Freighter Pilot Camdon Rod Just completed the jump into the Brinelli system and my head’s ringing like the Cathedral bells at the Lovibian convent on New Mederine. This is the fifth jump where I’ve heard ringing and come away with a splitting headache, and it gets worse with each jump. […]
The Undying
In the old west, there was always some punk kid who thought he could outdraw the local gunslinger and who didn’t live to regret it. That’s because the gunslinger was really good at what he did and punk kids are idiots. I’m not a gunslinger anymore, but I’ve still got young punks lining up to […]
October 2, 2016
The Apprentice
The Sixth Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series This story resolves the cliffhanger begun in the previous tale The March of the Stuffed Animals. Read that story before continuing here. Eldritch magic surrounded Buddy the Ambrosial Dragon and Tarmreiboth the Dark Wizard of Setioval as they battled for the […]
September 30, 2016
Should We Be Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Are They Trying to Kill Us?
I just read an article called “SETI’s mega alien hunt shovels more data onto IBM’s cloud” at The Register, which is a UK-based tech site with a satirical twist. The article’s subtitle is “Citizen boffins: Help find the alien that ultimately kills us all.” SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, uses radio telescope arrays […]
