Ian Patterson's Blog, page 2

The Cog that Spins the Wheel - 4

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Chapter 4 - What a Mooner Can Do

On the stairs to the stage, a waiter stands with a silver platter lined with Blue Whale. The slender rectangular cans wrapped in flashy pop-art are arranged in a circle, a moon maybe. The man offers them to me, and I know it’s not an offer. He is the gatekeeper, I must pass his test to continue. This is a requirement. This is fealty, I must bow and receive my reward. Dirk smiles at my side, drunk with the idea of me sacrificing myself at this al...

There Will Come No Rains

Cover image The Prisoners from Käthe Kollwitz’s Peasants’ War Series (public domain).There Will Come No Rains

A swarm of drones moved with the algorithmic spontaneity of starlings, darkening the night sky in pockets that expanded and collapsed and expanded and collapsed in shapes that nature could have never predicted but seemed full of life, and meaning, and beauty. Each of them controlled remotely, separately, but somehow orchestrated together as if by the celestial hand of clockwork. They fill...

Transference wins Colorado Book Awards

Last night was the Colorado Book Awards, and it was an incredible experience. Despite losing their federal funding, the good people at Colorado Humanities were able to not only keep the lights on, but they also still managed to throw a kick-ass gala to celebrate local authors. I used it as an excuse to buy new clothes, seeing as I haven’t had anything nicer than a faded black t-shirt or flannel in a good five years.

My wife told me not to wear the sandals, the internet told me to wear the sandals...

The Cog that Spins the Wheel - 3

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Chapter 3 - A Raised Fist Has its Own Gravity

The Selene Ballroom is a bubble inside a bubble. A segregation of space, made by an impossibly thin, translucent barrier inside the moon’s most prestigious bio-habitat. The city of Luna One rises around it like the parted tide, straining upwards to the brim of its own enclosure, towers on towers of lights and glass and shimmering metal. The jewel of the moon. The clean city. Proof that it is possible to create a life worth living on ...

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Where I live in Colorado, at the foot of a towering fourteen-thousand foot peak, there’s a phenomenon that the locals all comment on. You’ll hear them whenever they visit friends further east in town—the mountains really do look best further away. It’s not that it isn’t scenic up close too, but you lose the grandness and prominence because you’re a part of the rising foothills.

This is what Samantha Harvey’s Orbital was for me. A stepping back, a reminder of the beauty of Earth that gets lost so ...

The Dust of the Moon

The Dust of the Moon

A fistful of squirming critters, held tight in your craggy, leather palm. Skin, roughened from work and sun, scraped against brittle legs and wings that yearned for the freedom of open air. You gave them the freedom of the void.

Your dirty porcelain chewing sounded like cracked molars, brass tacks, and bug juice. An open-mouthed wet crunching of carapaces and limbs that ended in the finality of a swallow and sucked teeth. A coughing fit that left you breathless. A glob of bloo...

The Cog that Spins the Wheel - 2

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Chapter 2 - POC Racing for the People

As I understand it, the Earth Republic started the races. Back when there was only the one unified government. Back when every planet wasn’t a divisive patchwork of factions, states, factory towns, capricious oligarchs, and partisans. I believe it too, because the acronym is horrid. ATPOC–All Terrain Planetary Orienteering Challenge. It sounds like a yawn. Their intent was to give the new planets something to do, something to focus on that wasn’t th...

P.T. Lyfantod & the Court of Frogs by Jeremy Harshman

P.T. Lyfantod & the Court of Frogs has been on my list for a minute (I finished P.T. Lyfantod & the Seven League Boots and knew I needed more), and after Jeremy so kindly put it all up for free on his substack, I’ve been chipping away at it in my spare time. It was easily digestible, fun, and left me wanting more!

Harshman has managed to blend the pulp of a detective story with the topsy-turvy whimsy of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, the ill-fated adventures of Don Quixote, and glued it togethe...

Mission Accomplished

You have your screamers.

Your bangers and boomers.

There’s the silent and bright ones.

These here are illegal in all 50 states.

I heard they were sanctioned by the UN.

Made into a warcrime to use.

But we sell them so everyone can know you’re a man that loves his freedom

When they briefly light the darkness of your empty suburban cul de sac

And scare the dogs

The PTSD losers

The immigrants

And the poor

Back into the shadows.

Got kids? We got sparklers and poppers.

Give 'em a bottle rocket to make 'em holler.

On...

That Feel When You Tell People What Your Art Costs

I was pushed to write this after a note from , which resonated with me (as a lot of his do). If you’re not reading his stories, you should be. They’re whimsical and hilarious.

So his note dealt with materialism, but it’s hard to disentangle materialism from the system that creates it. What follows are like, my opinions, man, so if they don’t check out with you, that’s fine. I might even say that what follows is less a response to Jeremy, and more me finally sitting down to think through these th...