Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
***OCTOBER 2021 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories Only)***
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THE MONSTER HUNTERThe dawn of Earth…
Immense machines shifted through the dimensions of time and space, impregnating the primordial seas of a newborn Earth with the seeds of human life…
#
New York City, present day…
Murdoch gasped, firing at the immense, insect-like monstrosity as it lifted Wilson into the night air, ripping the man in half as he screamed. Murdoch roared in rage and terror, firing again on a higher setting, the fiery burst from his weapon like an amber beam in the darkness. The rest of his team was firing too, from multiple angles. The monster shrieked a wail that sank to Murdoch’s marrow, as the damnable beast finally fell dead.
“Good work,” Blythe said, the grey-haired government scientist stepping over one of the several dead bodies strewn across the abandoned factory, smiling coldly as he lit his pipe.
Murdoch felt like strangling the smug bastard. “A lot of my men are dead, in case you haven’t noticed, you…” His hands clenched on the strange weapon he held. “What in hell are these things?” he demanded, glancing at the steaming carcass of the devil-thing…like a gigantic cross between a spider and a scorpion. “And, just what are these?” He held up the weapon. “No government lab could come up with something like this.”
“That’s strictly ‘need to know,’ Captain Murdoch,” the smug creep said, his back to him. “I have full government authorization, and you will obey me without question.”
#
Cortaan drew on his pipe, scowling bitterly as the hazmat team loaded the remains of the ‘monster’ into a transport. That mewling simpleton Jaaret was getting a trifle more creative in his designs for anti-Terran predators, he had to grudgingly admit. Those nannite-reanimated corpse things and human-lupine gene-spliced hybrids had been considerably less formidable. Now, those fire-breathing winged reptile things he’d come up with in the middle ages…now, those had presented a challenge.
He glanced at his reflection in the window of a humvee and snickered. Considerably less flattering than some of the bio-engineered bodies he’d worn on his previous visits to this world. Blythe. A simple enough name. He could barely remember how many others he’d used over the centuries. Hercules. Thor. Beowulf. St. George. Van Helsing. He smacked his lips. It had been so easy to manipulate the primitives back then, when they still believed in demons and ogres.
He still vividly remembered the clamor in the Hall of Ministers back in the home universe. Jaaret’s voice cracking as he’d tried to turn the ministers against Cortaan. “Esteemed Ministers…Cortaan’s experiment violates every rule in the Code of Science! This genetically tailored version of humanity he’s created in parallel universe 7A-9 lacks even the vaguest semblance of natural empathy or compassion! Look at the evidence!”
Cortaan smiled as he recalled the temporal images swirling through the council chamber…the wars, the genocides…Genghis Khan, Nero, Attila the Hun, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot…Cortaan had had to suppress his laughter as the images of his humanity swarming through their universe flooded the chamber, the bright explosions of their star destroyers annihilating countless inhabited systems flaring like novae.
“Ministers…” Cortaan had countered. “We must breed warriors to defend ourselves against alien threats from many universes. Humanity will not survive if we limit ourselves to a rulebook.”
How he had raged when those spineless, wavering dolts had allowed Jaaret to devise predators to keep that version of humanity in check. They’d allowed him to tamper with the timelines…his timelines, his creations…in the name of cosmic balance. Idiots!
But, he had always defeated Jaaret. He would again.
#
The last of the creatures died as Murdoch’s teams stormed the sub tunnels under New York, burning out the last of the hives. The queens shrieked as they died, their many larvae shriveling in the withering fire.
Murdoch nearly wept as he looked over the many torn bodies of his men laying dead around him.
Cortaan once more had to suppress his laughter. He’d beaten Jaaret again.
#
Cortaan moaned in pleasure as he stroked the fair face of the young prostitute laying upon him. He liked the women of this humanity he’d created. Such fire. Such passion. Such…
His eyes widened in shock as she swept the laser knife across his jugular and carotid. She smiled. He recognized that look in her lovely eyes. “Jaaret…you scum.”
He cursed as his vision darkened.
THE WEIGHTby Jack McDaniel
Elizabeth Stonehenge approached me one day in front of the cafe. “How is my husband, Albert? Has he told you what heaven is like?”
When the dead speak—their voices soft and hushed—birds go silent, the breeze quiets and the cogs of time pause, their grind upon the world suspended. The dead speak of their lives, their loves and losses and, too, their failures. Their stories are packed with an air of regret that tinges the edges of each narrative, sometimes it is even explicit. They are mundane personal chronicles, much as the dead would have told, when alive, over a beer at the pub. I’ve often wondered: Do the dead see reality clearly, or does the mind still bend the past according to its own whims?
I am the only one in this small town who hears the dead when they speak. Most of the townsfolk call it a gift, though having listened to the stories I cannot discern the prize of such an honor. It is more a weight for me. The living look upon me with a form of reverence laced with fear and anger. Quite the opposite of a gift, I think. And the dead are no different than I would have imagined them when alive. The man who was petty in life is the same from beyond the grave.
I do not communicate with them. The conversation is one-way. Often, this is misunderstood. Loved ones I meet on the streets ask me to send messages. They are at times angry when I explain I cannot.
I’ve learned much about the world by listening to the dead, but I suppose any of us could say that if we took the time to understand history. The dead are slaves to their past lives. None ever look at the larger world to provide perspective. Their chronicles are small and immediate and only concern themselves or loved ones.
Elizabeth’s question was common: What is the state of heaven? But in my years of listening to the dead I’ve come to understand that heaven and hell are concerns for the living. None of the dead have ever mentioned them, even the most pious and religious are quiet on this matter. Religion and God are non-entities when the dead speak.
John Simon listened to the dead before me. He was religious and deeply involved in the community. I didn’t know Simon personally—I learned of him later—and it was years after his death before I heard the voices. Before his suicide Simon sat on a bench in the park and told Mango Lilly, who owned the grocery store then, that he didn’t much like the dead, but he hated the living. According to Lilly, he said, When time stops it’s too much to take. Lilly had asked, What’s too much to take? The clarity of it, he told her, and knowing what it means.
Mango Lilly never offered anything more. Perhaps it remained a mystery to her.
I know what Simon meant. I’ve experienced it, the seeds of doubt that have germinated to full bloom. The living fixate on the past or the future. They ignore the obvious signs, that this glorious experiment is the thing worth celebrating. Nothing more. The beauty is in the simplicity. What we have is what we make.
Reality—for the living—is a fragile thing, and those bent toward belief fiercely protect their version of it. It feels wrong of me to intercede. It feels wrong to leave it in a kaleidoscope of shards by speaking the truth. People want to view death as they view life—within their own frameworks. If I were to convey to them something different, I would be attacked.
Albert expressed his views to me one afternoon, regarding Elizabeth and her quirks and habits. In their early years together, he’d cherished them. But when times were hard, they became annoying. Enough hard times soured Albert on Elizabeth’s quirks and he took it out on her. I yelled and acted disgusted by her, but really, I was ashamed, he said. They did annoy me, but I still regret the way I treated her. She deserved better.
This is why I understand Simon and the burden, the weight, of knowledge—and why I couldn’t face Elizabeth in that moment before the cafe. The weight of a partial truth was too much and somehow not enough. I punted and shrugged my shoulders.
“I haven’t heard from Albert.”
Mod
©2021 by Jot Russell
The celebration lasted all week, and at the end, Dryfus Regan waved goodbye and lay himself on the floating membrane. Slowly, his levitated body slid into the large, radial, electron topographer. The RET scanner fired up, and Dryfus could feel his remaining gray hairs stand on end as the machine poked deeply and completely through every nerve cell in his body. The first attempts had failed, causing a sudden psychological meltdown of the subject's digital reflection. Though it was believed the head contained the soul, it just wasn't enough to capture the brain to allow for one's successful rebirth into what was dubbed, Port Immortal. The chemical surges, the pressure of air on the skin, the energy that flows invisibly between us with signals that echo throughout our bodies and back to the brain have a stabilizing effect on the dramatic transformation from organic to synth.
Dryfus opened his eyes to the newly created world and felt himself draw a breath as if the physical air were still present. A terminal appeared and requested the confirmation of his successful transfer, and more importantly, to release the life from the only body he had truly known. He smiled and pressed the green PROCEED. By his slight surprise, a secondary CONFIRM or CANCEL screen appeared. After a couple moments of thought, he confirmed his selection. Back in the physical "world," the machine squelched all electrical energy from the body that was once Dryfus Regan, before it was fed forward into the protein recycler.
Dryfus's hologram formed on the stage before his audience, and they cheered. As customary within this new process, he stepped forward and gave his speech.
"Greetings from Port and happy to be here. I can somehow feel a return of the energy that my aging body had lost from its sixty years of life and can't wait for my first jog in a long time. I mean hey, you know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake, and I've burned a few."
His family and friends laughed.
"But seriously, it is remarkable what the engineers of our vessel have done, and I look forward to my continued contribution to this seed that we travel within. In another sixty years, you will likely all be with me, as our progeny makes port at Keploria..."
**
Dryfus sat next to this grandson at the virtual control panel. With an open channel, he spoke to the million aboard and the five million residing with them in Port Immortal.
"Greetings Seedlings, we are approaching Kepler-452. It is with elation that after a hundred years, or five hundred to those we left behind, that mankind's count down can now begin to place its seed upon a distant world. Ten seconds to solar insertion... five, four, three, two, one, engage."
The large cylinder slowed its rotation and triggered the repulsion drive against the mass of the star. But instead artificial gravity's transition from centrifuge to deceleration, it slowly washed away.
"Something’s wrong. Confirm the drive is operational."
"Confirmed, but something is blocking the energy beam."
"Blocking? How?"
"I don't know, but without it, we'll plunge into the star within a hundred days."
"Quick, open a channel toward the planet Keploria."
"Why, it's suppose to be void of intelligent life."
"Not anymore, it's not."
"Channel open."
"This is the Starship Seedling. We seek permission for solar insertion."
A reptilian creature appeared only a moment and responded with a single word in English. "Denied!"
"They broke the link!"
“Shit! Seedlings, we need ideas fast.”
The top suggestion appeared within a minute.
“Let’s hope they’re block is focused on the star. Alternate angle to face their Jupiter and reengage repulsion drive.”
The mass of the gas giant reacted well with the beam, pushing them sideways from the path of the star. Slowly, they set a path around and toward an alternate system.
“Their sending vessels to intercept.”
“Then let’s give them something else to worry about. Engage on that small, dwarf planet...”
“It’s working. The dwarf’s orbit is slowly decaying from our factional mass. Their much smaller vessels are redirecting their repulsion engines to try compensate it’s orbit.”
“Good, with the slingshot around their star, they’ll never catch up.”
**
Forty years later, Starship Seedling triggered solar insertion against Americade’s star and eventual orbit around its blue jewel. With the successful transplant of almost two million people and ten million synths, humanity marked the start of its era as a truly galactic species.
Nobel Acorn ©2021 Kalifer DeilPratney Wincer knocked on my office door with her fist. I'm T.R. Reston, Einstein Chair of Physics at UMAA. She's in my office quite often trying to impress me. She doesn't have to. She's an imposing lady of 6'3” built like a brick basketball player (she did play basketball in College) and fell in love with Physics. Her thesis professor, Dr. Wincer, probably had something to do with her passion for Physics since they married a week after she got her Ph.D.
I waved her in. “Hi PW, what's happening? She liked to be called by her initials.
“I created something you should see.” She began.
I could see something that looked like an ordinary acorn as she opened her hand. “Looks like an ordinary acorn without the cap.” I stared at the little brown object wondering why she would make a fuss over an acorn.
“This acorn is a DT pellet!” she announced.
My face lit up in a panic, “What are you doing? Deuterium is okay but Tritium is radioactive! I'd rather not have it this close to me!”
“Jesus! Just minor alpha radiation, but only if outside this specialized container. It will power a ship across the ocean or a spacecraft to Mars!”
“Okay, now I know you're full of it.” I was always blunt with Pratney and that didn't seem to faze her.
“What's inside is a hyper-dense crystal. If the tritium was normal liquid density, it would be the size of a basketball. It's been compressed with deuterium by a diamond anvil while at almost absolute zero temperature as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Compressed 10X more and it would be tiny neutron star!”
“Well, that's certainly impressive!” I was sincere, I knew she had made metallic hydrogen before using a similar process so it should work for deuterium and tritium as well. “So how are you going to get it to fuse and make energy?” I wasn't convinced that she had that figured out.
“The crystal is a honeycomb hexagonal matrix of lines of tritium atoms surrounded by lines of deuterium. A laser can address and push out a line at a time. A high-energy laser beam on the other end converts the Deuterium and tritium into Lithium. It's all very simple.”
I gave her a stern look, “And then we will all run like hell, out of the lab, before we all die from radiation poisoning.”
“No! I assure you that won't happen. It's contained. One line only makes 100,000 Joules of energy, like one-tenth of a stick of dynamite. Come down to the lab and I'll show you.”
“This I've got to see.” If this is real I've got the Noble prize in the bag since she's just adjoint research staff.
Entering the lab, I see a large metal box and a console that obviously was a test chamber and a computer system. She started talking, “Look at the large screen. That's from the camera in the box, and in the screen's upper right-hand corner is the energy produced.” She typed “1” and hit return.
“BANG!!!”
I jumped at the loud bang and saw the energy register 99,807 Joules. “Wow! Can you repeat that?”
“I have a ten-shot series programmed that I haven't tried. That's a shot every 100 milliseconds. The trick is, there must be a target string or the ignition laser beam will go into the acorn. This will be my Nobel Prize shot!”
'For me!' I thought. Then I glanced at the status “Sure, but I read every 100 microsec...”
WorldNews Flash! Saturday 3:45 PM Central Time 10/05/52
Twenty-three buildings were destroyed or badly damaged on the University of Michigan campus. Preliminary evidence indicates a nuclear device was involved. The National Guard is now on the scene.
Professor Preston Olem of the University of Bristol commented that he was working on a highly dangerous fusion reactor that he thought might win him a Nobel Prize and told Dr. Pratney Wincer of U.M. Ann Arbor about it at a physics conference in Berlin.
He stated, “She seemed very bright but oblivious to the dangers! I told her she was in the wrong place and the physicists there were second-rate. She may have decided to go it alone. Big Mistake!”
Researcher Pratney Wincer is reported among the missing as are countless other faculty members and students.
Stay informed With World News!
POSSIBILITIESThaddeus Howze
I have sat in this dungeon for decades with naught but rats for company. Until he summoned me.
My guard insisted I stop and bathe; he hoped to liberate me from fleas which had never known the fear of soap or water. The clothing was rough but serviceable. An attendant came and trimmed my hair and nails, completing my transformation.
They deposited me at the door of his laboratory and fled as quietly as possible. I pushed the door, noting the shackle burns still festering on my thin wrists. He sat staring at the blinding light of our creation filling the center of the room. Vast and terrible, it beat like a drum, churning the stuff of reality. Flickers of possibility cried out to be recognized but I refused to give them form.
"Are you satisfied?"
"You knew. You always knew," he responded. "How could you not tell me what this was?"
"Don't take that tone with me. I warned you, the Possibility Engine would be the most terrifying thing we would ever create. I told you to stop. I begged you."
"You were unclear." His eyes were opaque, white, blind with new vision." He stared off into space, his lab coat rumpled, his hair, wild and unkempt. "You lied to me."
"No, my brother. I did no such thing. The Heart of Possibility was always what I said it was. A device too dangerous to exist."
"They why make it, why envision it?"
I didn't make it. He did. I only described the workings of this infernal machine. I could hear strange sounds from outside the window. Sounds drawing closer. "You have already used it. I can feel the changes."
"Your prototype was too small. The possibilities it promised didn't last."
"I know. That prototype was all there should have ever been. You used it and you can't put it back, can you?"
"I tried. First I gave them heaven, food, water, shelter, everything a man could want."
The Heart flickered showing images of his efforts.
"But it wasn't enough, was it?"
He ran to me, grabbing my shirt, disappearing and reappearing until he reached me. "Are we damned? Is this the end?"
I could see the temporal war, flickering into and out of existence. Armies flanking each other backward and forward in time. "This is you, Erlon. Your greed, your desire to rule is being expressed through time. There is no future different than this, for you."
He screamed hysterically. "Do you know how many times I tried to fix it?"
Hundreds. Every time he shifted reality, I could sense it. I was as bound to the Heart as he was.
"I thought I could rule them."
"But once they gained the technology..."
"They became unruly." For a moment, my brother had returned. His eyes hardened, his resolve returned. "We need to be together, to fix this, don't we?"
Once, that would have been enough. We were too far down the path for correction. The heart pulsed within its metallic framework, a region of transforming light, images of armies, from different eras waging war. For my brother, there was no peace, no idea that did not come from a battle of wits, of intellect, of familial madness. It was the center of our genius.
He could see the future. He knew what must be done. It's why he sent for me. I remembered the first night after discovering the meteorite, I saw a Possibility. The power raw, unchecked; I imagined a brother, to ease the loneliness. I touched the shell of the giant beating Heart. It revealed to me my first, best and most terrible creation.
I unmade him.
Our centuries together, undone, his dark perversions of myself given flesh, my exaltations at his discoveries, unbounded by morality. My horror at what he would create. My penance as he went mad.
I would remember them all. I could not undo what we had done. I could only move us to where we could harm no one else. With the Heart of Possibility drained at the End of Time, their wars would slowly flicker out.
Silence spread. The castle emptied. With the war gone, no one had a reason to stay. I took the body of my brother, whom I could not bear to unmake, for I loved and hated him.
I buried him and the entropy-filled Heart, occasionally looking up to a pitch black sky, lifeless, devoid of any possibility, by my design.
The Flat Earthers Go Over The EdgeThe leader waited at the head of a large conference table. All the blathering idiots he had working for him kept trying to out-crazy each other in a sycophantic cacophony. He needed something more powerful, something more enduring.
A minion rushed into the meeting. His public title was publicist, but in reality, he was a scientist and was crazy as a loon, his kind of guy, just the kind of guy needed for a situation like this.
“First, we sow seeds of doubt. A hint of mystery, a whiff of conspiracy. The crazier the better.” He held up what appeared to be a gun where the barrel had been replaced with an oddly-shaped flashlight, “This will imprint whatever narrative we want on the target’s brain.”
“Once a good conspiracy theory gets lodged in there, that brain becomes closed to new information. Even the most obvious of contradictory facts will have trouble dislodging it. If they encounter these facts out in the world, they will often just double down and dig in deeper.”
“The moon landings didn’t happen. Vaccines cause disease and the disease they proport to prevent is a hoax, designed to line the pockets of scientists. Solar panels drain the energy from the Earth’s core and will accelerate Climate Change. No, wait, climate change is a hoax too. All true. To them anyway.”
“Even an hour with a real live astronaut couldn’t convince my test subject that it was NASA not Hollywood that put us on the moon.”
He laughed, just a little too maniacally.
“Once they doubt all objective truth, you become their source of truth. Everything else is fake news.”
--
The leader looked out at his audience. Ten thousand strong, by his count, crowded into the convention center and were chanting has name. Under the intense lights, his hair lost it’s hold. Instead of sticking straight out from the top of his head, like the bill of a baseball cap, it began to descend and cover his forehead.
He whispered to the man next to him, “tell my hairdresser he’s FIRED. He thought a moment. “Fire the entire lot of them. Their all FIRED!”
He worked the crowd into a frenzy and sent them off to create chaos in the city. Later, he’d blame it on the protestors outside and “their thuggish immigrant allies.”
--
Meanwhile, across town, his rival plotted his own course: “Do nothing,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean, do nothing? You hired me to be a job; you’re paying me a lot of money,” argued the man on the expensive suit.
“Rule #1,” his rival said, “When your enemy has set himself on fire, you don’t intervene with his self-destruction. Do nothing to counter his message. Do nothing to criticize his followers. Just keep getting our message out and ignore him.”
“OK. As you wish. Here’s the spots we’ll be running during the run-up to the election.”
--
In the months before the big event, polls had the incumbent firmly out front, but the week before the rankings shifted. By election night, it was clear he was doomed.
The hell with a concession speech, he thought. Men like him never conceded anything. Instead, he planned to disappear into his underground lair for the next four years.
He called one last meeting of his top-level minions. “What the hell happened?” he thundered.
“They believed you. They protested the mask mandates. They sued to stop the vaccinations. They dug their heels in, just like you wanted. The problem was nobody else did.”
“Why didn’t they vote?”
“Most of them did. At least the ones still alive and healthy enough to get out.”
“There was an outbreak after your last rally.” The minion seemed pensive for a moment. “They were loyal to the end, sir. Even as they died, they claimed it was all a hoax.”
Seeds of DissentDavid H. Atfield stood on the dilapidated porch of his farm, hands on hips, and surveyed the damage to his crops. As far as the eye could see and beyond, Red Blight covered the once green corn stalks. The static-filled video feed from the harvester displayed no better news.
“Damn it…” he muttered to himself, and spat his chewing tobacco onto an exposed patch of Martian soil. He’d almost forgotten it was even there. A tiny halo of red dust rose into the thin air and quickly dissipated. Inhaling deeply from his oxygen enhancer, he was about to turn and go inside when he noticed a thin figure walking slowly along the road and fence line that marked the westernmost edge of his homestead.
It was a Local.
Even though he could not yet see its green-hued skin, he knew exactly what it was by its loping gait, ovoid head and extra set of arms. Sometimes, in an effort to be less conspicuous, they kept their second set hidden within their loose clothing, but this one did not. No, it casually ran its two left hands along the fence, tempting Atfield to electrify it. To his surprise, it turned onto the broad path that led up to the farmhouse proper – and waved to him in a most human fashion.
Atfield wondered if he should grab his stunner, but then dismissed the thought. He simply stood up straighter, gave a slight wave back, and wondered what this encounter would bring.
***
The Locals were discovered shortly after humans had colonized Mars and begun terraforming it in earnest. Finally free to leave their domed cities and roam (with oxygen enhancers) across the Martian landscape, Humanity’s first contact did not go well. Already a declining species with a crumbling civilization, the Locals did not take kindly to being hurried down the road to extinction by their new neighbors. Ultimately, as Earth’s flora began recoloring the Martian landscape from red to green, there was no need to forcibly relocate the Locals to habitation zones. They moved away from the spreading alien plants on their own. Eventually, interactions between humans and Locals dwindled to uneventful rarities. Yet it was on this particular warm Martian evening that one of the most important encounters took place…
***
“Greetings Earther, I speak to you in peace,” said the Local – with surprisingly good English.
Atfield shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, unsure of what to say and how to say it. He had read the government issued guide on how to interact with Locals, but that was a long time ago and did not seem important at the time.
“And…you…may speak it,” he said hesitatingly, and gestured with his hand in an arching motion away from his mouth.
“Ah! You know our ways.” The Local’s small mouth made a small smile.
“Only a little.” Atfield admitted.
“I am known as M’Coy and I wish to help you. All farmers in this area suffer from Blight. I help with these.”
The Local opened two of his large, spindly hands to reveal glistening black seeds.
“What are those?” Atfield asked suspiciously.
“They seeds. Make plants to kill Blight. Fix soil. Make Earth plants grow again.”
“But don’t all you Locals hate green Earth plants?”
“M’Coy just want to help neighbors. I show? Need little water. Please?”
The Local seemed sincere, so Atfield relented and motioned to the small pumping station.
“Seeds help. You see. You see.”
M’Coy dropped a few seeds on the ground near the pump auxiliary access port and proceeded to release a few liters of water. Almost instantaneously, a small carpet of pulsing, thin green tendrils began writhing out of the ground. They grew up, around and into the withered corn. The Blight spores, sensing new greenery, jumped onto their new prey – and were dissolved in a screeching hiss.
Atfield’s eyes grew almost as big as the Local’s.
“Seeds kill Blight like M’Coy say. More?”
The Local held out a small pouch in his lower right hand.
“What do you want for it?” asked Atfield.
“Seeds cost M’Coy nothing. Seeds cost you nothing.”
“Well, uh, I guess I’ll take them then. Thank you M’Coy,” said Atfield, not believing his luck.
“M’Coy leave in peace then.”
“May peace go with you M’Coy.”
The Local ambled back down the path, turned to wave, then disappeared down the road.
Atfield turned to begin spreading the seeds, then noticed the formerly green tendrils were now massive, writhing, red vines.
(749 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2021
Reviews/critiques welcome
Mod
First round votes:
Tom Olbert => ****Jack
Jack McDaniel => Justin, Greg, Tom
Jot Russell => **Tom, Jack
Kalifer Deil => **Jot, Thaddeus
Thaddeus Howze => ****Jack
Greg Krumrey => **Jot; Jack
Justin Sewall => ****Jack, Greg
Kelly Graseck => **Tom, Jack
Paula Friedman => ****Jack, Thaddeus
First round finalists:
The Monster Hunter by Tom Olbert
The Weight by Jack McDaniel
Seedling by Jot Russell
Second round votes:
Tom Olbert => ****Jack
Jack McDaniel => Justin, Greg, ***Tom
Jot Russell => ***Tom, Jack
Kalifer Deil => **Jot, Thaddeus
Thaddeus Howze => ****Jack
Greg Krumrey => **Jot
Justin Sewall => ****Jack, Greg
Kelly Graseck => ***Tom, Jack
Paula Friedman => ****Jack, Thaddeus
Finalists:
The Monster Hunter by Tom Olbert
The Weight by Jack McDaniel
Third round votes:
Tom Olbert => #Jack
Jack McDaniel => Justin, Greg, ****Tom
Jot Russell => ****Tom, Jack
Kalifer Deil => Jot, Thaddeus; ****Tom
Thaddeus Howze => #Jack
Greg Krumrey => Jot; #Jack
Justin Sewall => #Jack, Greg
Kelly Graseck => ****Tom, Jack
Paula Friedman => #Jack, Thaddeus
Winner:
The Weight by Jack McDaniel
The rules are simple:
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8) For each month, there will be three discussion threads:
a) Stories - For the stories and the contest results only.
b) Comments - For discussions about the stories and contest. Constructive criticism is okay, but please avoid any spoilers about the stories or degrading comments directed towards any individuals. If you want to suggest a change to the contest, feel free to start a discussion about the idea before making a formal motion. If another member seconds a motion, a vote can be held. I will abstain from voting, but will require a strong two-thirds majority to override my veto.
c) Critiques - Each member can provide at most one critique per story, with a single rebuttal by the author to thank the critic and/or comment to offer the readers the mind set of the story to account for issues raised by the critique. Critiques should be of a professional and constructive manner. Feel free to describe elements that you do and don't like, as these help us gain a better perspective of our potential readers. Remarks deemed inflammatory or derogatory will be flagged and/or removed by the moderator.
9) The winner has THREE days after the start of the new month to make a copy of these rules and post a new contest thread using the theme/items of their choosing. Otherwise, I will post the new contest threads.
Jot Russell
Contest Creator/Director
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OCTOBER THEME: Seeds and Mystery - how you choose to interpret these two elements is up to you. It is October, so if you decide horror is your thing, you now have everything you need...
But in case you need a bit more challenge, here are a few elements you can add to spice things up.
OCTOBER ELEMENTS can include:
• Rule-breaking: Rules are for weaklings, break every rule you can up to and including social taboos like imprisoning the innocent, channeling spirits or even necromancy, but remember to be tasteful if you can't be tasty...
• Mad Science - the madder the better, remember our holiday inspiration, Mary Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein. Try and make him blush.
• A rival - no story of mad science is complete without a rival. Do you have to hate him or them? Maybe. But do you really mean it?
Remember, you don't have to use them all, unless you are into torture...
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This should be a wide enough array of parameters for a host of stories.
I know we usually specify "science fiction" but I would like to again open the gates to "speculative fiction." Meaning stories can range across the spectrum of the fantastical from humble magical realism to star-spanning space opera.
I am honored to bring this month's contest to you, again.
Good luck!