This is an Andromeda Fan Fiction. Reviews would be nice.

Descent

Chapter 1

Pain.

Pain was the first thing he felt. It flared along his skin, along  the muscle of his arms, along his stomach, along his legs. It panged deep within his bones. He took a quick breath in, then regretted it as pain blossomed in his chest. After a moment, the man twitched his fingers and toes, glad to feel their response. He moved his hands slightly, only to be greeted by a smooth, sticky liquid. Viscous, thicker than water. Blood.

He opened his eyes, but was greeted by absolute darkness. It was like his eyes were still closed, safe behind their sheltering lids. He slowly picked himself up off the floor and rested his back against the nearest wall. He stretched out his legs, but they could barely extend to their full length. He reached out with hands, groping blindly in the darkness. He only felt cool, smooth rock. Granite, he supposed. He felt no seams, no cracks, nothing. This room was perfectly smooth, without anything to single out as a landmark, as a guiding line. Where the hell am I?

He surveyed his body, feeling with his fingers. Through his tattered, all-but-destroyed uniform, he left burning skin. Burning, wet skin. Wet with blood. My blood? He felt under the uniform. Cuts, bruises, and he soon found out, broken bones. He had them all. He groaned inwardly. “What the hell happened to me?” he said aloud. He flexed his legs slightly, testing their strength. They twitched violently, signaling their defeat. He sighed. What trouble did you get yourself into, Mister?

Suddenly, there was a flood of light. The man feebly brought up his hand to protect his eyes. But before he could, two shadows swiftly walked over to him, and hoisted him up. The violent motion sent strings of pain throughout his body and made his head bang and swell like a High Guard Percussion Service.

The two shadows swiftly divested him of his tattered uniform, his shirt, everything. Mere moments later, he was stark naked. The two shadows pulled his arms above his head and he felt the claps of cool metal around his wrists. Soon after, he felt two clasps of metal around his ankles. At least I can feel that…

A third shadow appeared in the blinding white light, slowly walking towards him. His strides were purposeful, full of confidence.  Each step was punctuated by a click of his boot heels against the hard stone. His shadow become more defined as he walked towards his prisoner. The man had his hands clasped behind his back, his elbows bowed out. A cigar flared from his mouth, a glowing tip illuminating his lower face.

As the man got closer, the room, the cell, seemed to get wider. The two shadows stiffened as the third shadow got closer. They stepped closer to the expanding walls, seemingly trying to get away from the third man. The ceiling also raised, carrying him upward on his shackles. The ceiling slowly came to a halt, leaving the man suspended mid-air in his shackles.

The man stopped a few paces away and signaled the first two shadows to leave.”Captain Dylan Hunt. Born on Visharna-Tarn on Tarn-Vedra.” He smiled. “Born to a Pyridine… gardener and a high-gravity shuttle pilot. Enlisted to Commonwealth High Guard for two years, taught by the legendary Admiral Constanza Stark.” The man took a puff of his cigar, blowing the smoke at Dylan. How cliché.

The man, his lower half of his face still illuminated, smiled. “Part of Argosy Special Operations and commanded the Crimson Eclipse. Summarily promoted to Captain from Commander and took assumed control of the legendary Andromeda Ascendant,” the man said with an upturned inflection. “How good it is too meet you in person.”

Dylan’s jaw clenched.

After the two men left, the light faded behind the mysterious man. The cigar glowed softly in the darkness.  The smoke swirled around Dylan, clouding his already limited vision and flooding his senses with the smell and taste of ash.

A harsh white light bathed Dylan as a set of lights turned on above him. It only served to blind Dylan even more, not to mention illuminate his current condition.

Dylan squinted as much as he could, trying to see his captor. Who the hell is this guy? His eyes widened slightly. Is Andromeda okay? Is my crew okay?

The man shifted his stance and seemed to relax slightly. He fingered his cigar through his fingers, spinning it slowly. “Oh, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. You don’t know how hard it was to find you.” He chuckled softly. “But it was well worth it.”

He pulled a chair from the darkness and set it down close to Dylan’s right side.

“Oh,” he clucked his tongue. “Where are my manners?” He stepped into the light. “He chuckled to himself. “I am Captain Arthur Drake.” He put out his cigar and stepped into the light.

Chills ran down Dylan’s spine. He had a scarred face, pockmarked with age. His white hair was cut into a crew cut. He wore a clean black suit. There was a white pin on it. But it wasn’t his face that sent chills down Dylan’s spine. It was his eyes.

They were black. Black as hell. Black as the Abyss. No pupil. No iris. Just twin black depths. Deeper than any chasm. Blacker than space itself. His face was mirthful, but his eyes were cold. Calculating. Evil.

He was an Abyss agent.

He tented his fingers. “I have a simple request from you, Captain Hunt. Tell me what I need to do and you will be set free.” He sighed heavily. “In the unfortunate event that you don’t cooperate with me… well.” He leaned forward, “You wouldn’t like the consequences, Dylan.”

Drake relaxed and leaned back into his chair. “I’m an amicable man, Mr. Hunt. All I want are the control codes to the Andromeda Ascendant and your Captain codes. That’s all.”

Dylan stared at Drake, stone faced. “You won’t get anything from me. Might as well kill me now.”

Captain Arthur Drake bubbled with laughter. “Oh, Captain Hunt. I knew you would say that.” He smiled deviously. “It’ll be a pleasure breaking you, Captain Hunt.”

… a deep descent into the turbulent storms and dark silence of one’s utter loneliness, with only the dim light of divine Longing to guide us. It remains our conscious choice whether we flee from this invitation to continuous sacrifice, or whether we have the courage to surrender gradually to its inner treasures.

The 2010 Ford Raptor was build for the true off-road enthusiast.  Check out this video that shows the dynamic capabilities of the truck.  Jamal Hameedi, cheif engineer of the Ford SVT comments on the truck’s ability to jump (the truck was actually built to jump) and he also touches on the trucks Hill Descent Mode.

Runde Auto Group’s customer, Brian Hauber, took this footage of his new Raptor going down a hill in the Hill Descent Mode. I think it’s safe to say that he loves his new Raptor so far.

We still have a white 2010 Raptor for sale at our Ford store in Manchester, IA. Here is a short video walkaround of it.

If you’d like to check out this truck in person, please give our sales staff at our Ford store a call at 888-927-2630. If you’d like to check out our entire inventory, go to www.RundeAutoGroup.com — Or call us at 866-735-5200.

If your life was a movie what would you want to watch? If your life was a story what would you want to read? If you think of life this way…that with each second a camera is watching you…a pen is writing what you are doing, you may choose you actions differently. Life is not a dress rehearsal. There is no practice. You need to perform as though you are enacting the grand finale each and every day. Because in all actuality it could be. The crude fact of life is that you may die any second of any day. There is no certainty. Life is like water. Some days it may flow, others it may freeze, and still others it may dry up into nothing. There is no control over what happens to you–whether you become rain, hail, snow, or vapor–but you can choose that in the moments before outside forces enact on who and what you are, you lived your life to the fullest, and made the most of what you were in those moments you fell from the sky.

Life is simple. In the end, you blend into the trillion snowflakes that have fallen before you, the million balls of crystallized ice that have covered the ground, or the uncountable raindrops that have splashed across nameless faces on a warm summer’s night. When you touch your final destination, you become just like everyone else….but as you are falling from the sky, no matter what form or shape you take, you have control of how you fall. Slow…fast…gently… abruptly. You may not be able to change your size, texture or form, but you certainly can alter one thing…your descent.  It is up to you and only you on how you want to fall from the sky and what kind of imprint you want to leave on the ground below.

Das Genre der First-Person-Shooter gehört spätestens seit dem weitgreifenden Erfolg von “Doom” zu den erfolgreichsten und zugleich meistdiskutierten unter den Computerspielen.
Als ein früher Meilenstein wird “Wolfenstein 3D” von 1992 angesehen, das es erstmals als immersives Erlebnis inszenierte, bewaffnet durch Korridore voller Feinde zu streifen. Das Motiv des “einsamen Wolfes”, des Protagonisten, der ohne Verbündete in einer Welt von Gegnern bestehen muss, wurde als integraler Bestandteil des Genres etabliert.
“Doom” brachte 1993 das Genre in sehr viele Kinderzimmer überall auf der Welt, denn im Vergleich zum nur ein Jahr älteren “Wolfenstein 3D”, dass die Dreidimensionalität noch heischerisch im Namen tragen musste, hatte die Immersion stark zugenommen: Sound wurde plötzlich in stereo wiedergegeben und erlaubte eine Verortung der Gegner im Raum nach Gehör, zudem gab es nun nicht mehr nur flache Korridore immer genau gleicher Höhe, sondern auch Treppen, Stege, Brücken, Fenster, Lavatümpel und so fort. Die Technik war weit fortgeschritten, aber: Noch immer waren alle Gegner nur Bitmaps, also flache Pappkameraden. 3D-Modelle, die sich auch noch bewegen konnten, waren 1993 noch nicht denkbar.
Erst 1996 bot “Quake” ein Spielerlebnis, bei dem man in echten 3D-Landschaften Monster bekämpfte, die ihrerseits als komplett dreidimensionale Modelle herumliefen. Das führte zu dem populären Irrtum (zuletzt reproduziert bei Spreeblick), dass “Quake” der erste First-Person-Shooter in kompletter 3D-Umgebung gewesen wäre.¹

Ein Irrtum ist das deshalb, weil das von Konkurrent Interplay bereits ein Jahr vorher veröffentlichte “Descent” auch schon ein First-Person-Shooter war, dessen Gegner komplette 3D-Modelle sind. Descent ist in technischer Hinsicht noch um einiges bedeutsamer als “Quake”: Nicht nur konnte man in einem bräunlichen Schloss herumlaufen, sondern das Setting in außerirdischen Minenstationen (also in Schwerelosigkeit) erlaubte 1995 ein ungebundenes Bewegen in jede beliebige Richtung, woraus sich entsprechend auch ein viel tiefergreifendes Raumgefühl ergab. Die Gegner, die man bekämpfte, waren entsprechend auch keine am Boden rumlaufenden Monster, sondern ebenfalls schwerelos fliegende Roboter – dreidimensional.
Leider hat Descent das Pech, dieses Vorreitertum oft nicht zuerkannt zu bekommen, was Quake schon bei dessen Erscheinen (Marketing!) stark in die Hände spielte. Die Gründe: Man sieht keinen waffenhaltenden Arm im Bild. Man ist nicht ans Am-Boden-Rumlaufen gebunden. Und die Gegner sind nur Roboter.

Manchmal wird Descent daher behelfsweise ins Genre der Weltraumshooter gesteckt, wo ihm dann natürlich “X-Wing” zuvorgekommen wäre: Das hatte schon 1993 Raumschiffe und Asteroiden (also alles, womit man kämpfen oder kollidieren konnte) in echtem 3D.
Vergleicht man mal Screenshots aus beiden Spielen, fällt auf: Tatsächlich haben beide ein eingeblendetes Cockpit (das in “Descent” konnte man ausblenden). Jedoch ist man in X-Wing permanent von freiem Weltraum umgeben (-> “Weltraumshooter”), in “Descent” hingegen wird man keinen einzigen Moment im Gameplay erleben, in dem man irgendwo Sterne sieht – ebenso wie “Doom” und “Quake” spielt “Descent” innen.
Auch daher beschießt man in X-Wing (wie auch bei “Wing Commander” und allen anderen Weltraumshootern) seine Gegner aus größerer, teilweise enorm großer Distanz. In “Descent” ist ein Gegner im Kampf selten weiter als hundert Meter entfernt, meistens kommt man in Kämpfen auf wenige Meter an diese heran – ebenso wie in “Wolfenstein 3D” oder “Doom”.
Überdies ist das Gameplay in “X-Wing” rein missionsbasiert: Für das Vernichten von Gegnern bekommt man Punkte, hat man alle Aufgaben einer Mission erfüllt, ist diese gewonnen, das ist alles – wie im Genre üblich gibt es innerhalb der Missionen keine “Goodies”. “Descent” lebt wie “Doom”, “Duke Nukem 3D” und “Quake” nicht zuletzt davon, dass abgeschossene Gegner Upgrades hinterlassen und man in geheimen Kammern Boni finden kann, mit denen sich Waffen aufrüsten und die eigene Kampfstärke aufbessern lassen.
Außerdem steuert sich der X-Wing (wie die Raumschiffe in den meisten Weltraumshootern) etwa wie ein Flugzeug: Man legt eine gewisse Geschwindigkeit in der Vorwärtsbewegung fest, die dann von selbst gehalten wird, und lenkt dann den Flug durch Schwenkbewegungen. In “Descent” bleibt man, sobald man die Vorwärtstaste loslässt, stehen, kann sich aber alternativ auch rückwärts oder seitwärts bewegen – ebenso wie in “Doom”, “Duke Nukem 3D”, “Quake” und “Half-Life”.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
“Descent” ist kein Weltraumshooter – Schwerelosigkeit, fahrbarer Untersatz und sonstige Ästhetizismen hin oder her. “Descent” ist ein First-Person-Shooter. Und als solcher der erste in echtem 3D.

Oder?

(“History Line” war natürlich gar kein Shooter sondern ein Strategiespiel und hatte auch nicht das Geringste mit 3D am Hut. Ich fand das Wort nur sehr griffig für die Überschrift.)

1. Tatsächlich ist “Quake” für ganz andere Errungenschaften bemerkenswert. Die wichtigste davon wirkt bis in die meisten 3D-Spiele der Gegenwart nach: Die Einführung des WASD-Steuerkreuzes. [↩]

The year 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of
Darwin’s “Origin of Species”
The original title was: “On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life“

Read the new version here:
Charles Darwin – Origin of Species – 150th Anniversary Edition

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 7 Episode 16 – Descent?

Episode Synopsis:

Despite his father’s warning, Lex still finds himself in a power struggle from within over the secret to The Traveler…with some deadly results.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

For your posterity you are their future ancestor. What story of you will you leave them?

Sometimes, I think, our impulses come not from the past, but from the future. ~ Martha Stewart

I feel like writing something that is not fiction right now. I’m not even going to apologize for being a narcissistic bitch, because y’know, writers. That’s all that needs to be said. Writers and artists and ohyoupeoplearegonnabethedeathofme, myself included.

So it’s fall break and I’m working on Promises, my draft for nanowrimo. It’s going quite well. I’m just the tiniest bit ahead of schedule, and would have been much more ahead of schedule if real life had not interrupted. And what I have thus far is pretty good, even though a quick glance confirms that it’s very bare bones. Which is great! All I need is the bare bones right now, and the rest will take care of itself later.

My only problem is that I keep coming up with these others idea for Descent. It’s a little annoying, to be writing one story when you keep coming across ideas and images for another. Yesterday, I woke up at around 4am, and ended up grabbing the nearest sheet of paper and scribbling down ideas for Descent.

I don’t want to be presumptuous, because I’ve been working on this story for years, and everything about it has changed so who’s to say it won’t change on me again. But I really think that this time I got it. You know how some writers say they wrote a story in a particular way during early drafts, but then had to go back and change things because events didn’t sit well with the characters? As if the characters were saying, no, you’re wrong, you’re going about this all the wrong way? That’s the way I felt about Descent, every single time, in every single draft, including the draft I wrote over the summer.

I realized in September that the summer draft wasn’t working because it was trying to tell two stories that just didn’t go together. So I essentially separated Promises and Descent, and given my current draft of Promises, I think I did the right thing. I needed to let Promises stand on its own. Descent, though, was floundering. So then what? I put it aside and tried not to think about it.

And then came the images. Somehow by focusing on another project–wholeheartedly, not like my time spent on Blank Canvas–I managed to understand things I hadn’t understood before. I finally got it (or at least I think I do): the motivations of key members of my cast, the actual reality of what happened and why, and most importantly, the ending. In this latest incarnation of Descent, I went back into history and took an ending I had long since discarded. This ending works. My cast says so!

And here lies a problem. I have a renewed interest in Descent in the middle of fucking November. My compromise to myself?

Keep writing Promises. I’ve been averaging around 700 words in half an hour, so it really only take me a little more than an hour to get my daily wordcount. Some days I write more than others, because I have the time or because I’m inspired, or whatever. That’s a huge advantage here. I can work on Descent on days when I’m ahead of schedule, and once I’m on schedule again, I can work on Promises until I’m ahead, and on and on in a circle until November is over and I have a draft for Promises and a substantial amount of work done on Descent.

Possible? I’m basically trying to write two novels at once, which is double the insanity of nanowrimo. Great.

Actually, I genuinely think it’s kinda great.

Miles (2005), Lawrence (2004), and Saunt (2005) all deal with what it is that makes a person’s claim to indigeneity legitimate. Themes such as blood quantum, descent, cultural experience, common suffering, language, land, and blood memory are called upon to qualify Aboriginality. Briefly, I will explore some of these themes in context of the interviews for the DNA project. This is a first draft.

Bonita Lawrence (2004) employs the concept of ‘blood memory’ in her discussion of claims to indigineity. Several of her respondents used this concept to describe an inherent connection they had to their Native communities, especially when they were not raised in these communities (198-201). Critics who “simply dismiss such a concept [of blood memory] as ‘essentialist’” (200) she argues are disrespecting the traditional Indigenous ways of knowing that privilege the connective over the rational. She writes that “[i]n deep ways, our bodies do have a knowledge all their own, and the site of memory, of handed-down memory, and of ancient ties to place, cannot simply be dismissed as ‘socially-constructed’…the importance of historical events to heritage and identity are passed down through story from generation to generation, until such cultural coding exists finally beyond cultural remembering, so deeply engrained and psychologically embedded that one can describe it as being ‘in the blood’” (201).

She also discusses the concept of “wannabes,” meaning whites with relations to Indians (such as through marriage) who adopt aspects of Indian culture, or else “virtually white people [who] resurrect an extremely distant Native ancestor whose existence has no other tangible implications for an otherwise white family than to enable that individual to ‘boundary cross’ in the name of that ancestor and therefore have access to otherwise forbidden Native spaces, usually for some form of personal gratification- including claiming (with dominant cultural authority) the right to speak with a Native voice. At its most extreme, such individuals not only invade urban Native spaces, but colonize and profit from them- not only taking jobs but setting agendas” (13). Lawrence discusses throughout the book the importance to legitimate Native identity of living on reserve. An important difference with respondents is that most of them do not want to live on reserve. From Lawrence’s perspective, urban or non-reserve people claiming Native identity, the respondents are competing for Nativeness or conflating themselves with the urban mixed-bloods that Lawrence identifies as being unjustly excluded from Native identity by gender discrimination in the Indian Act or identity legislation in the US. The ostensibly white people, she would argue, will have their voice heard over urban mixed-bloods because the whites are part of the dominant culture and heritage.

Here Lawrence is drawing an invisible line using ancestry or blood quantum. She argues that the discrimination is largely gendered, and that descendants of male Indians with the same blood quantum as descendants of female Indians will be considered more Indian, and be entitled to living on reserve, in their Aboriginal communities of origin, and receive benefits from the government. Descendants of female Indians and non-Indian males are “bled off,” and excluded from the rights that accompany legislated Aboriginal identity. She does not extend this argument to people who are “virtually white,” such as many of the respondents for the DNA project. She does, however, extend her argument to people who have been adopted and have spent most of their lives not knowing of their Aboriginal heritage, or people who look white but have Aboriginal heritage. She problematizes blood quantum, cultural upbringing (including reserve life), and appearance as colonial tools used to divide and eliminate Idigineity. Her argument only extends to an unsaid point of heritage quantum, after which people really are “wannabes” if they attempt to connect with Aboriginality.

Lawrence might conceptualize ‘blood memory’ differently if she was told that some respondents for this study employed the concept, as she would clearly label many of them ‘wannabes.’ In this case, the respondents are using the concept of blood memory to corroborate and confirm biological evidence- both forms of proof that rely on some kind of biological or inherent essential difference for their legitimacy. Indeed, claims to rights, land, and state benefits do rest in a conception of biological difference, on a conception of different ‘peoples.’ Genetic testing, on the other hand, to people who would otherwise identify as non-Aboriginal, seems to mean that people’s differences are insignificant, and that all people carry some of these differences. As a result, these individuals might see no meaningful difference between ‘full-blooded’Aboriginal people and themselves. Perhaps this is the division that makes blood memory legitimate or illegitimate, vis-à-vis politically charged contests over identity: if one group is employing the concept to show how ‘we are different,’ they are assisting an Aboriginal struggle for rights. If, in contrast, another group is using it to mean that ‘we are all the same,’ they are detracting from Aboriginal struggles for sovereignty and recognition of rights.

Claudio Saunt takes on this debate about descent and Aboriginal citizenship by exploring contemporary identity politics relating to descendants of black slaves and Creek citizens. Some members of the Creek nation in the United States held African slaves throughout the 1700-1800s, and many of the Africans and Creeks had children together, whether by assault, concubinage, or romantic partnerships. The descendants of the black Creeks argue that they were part of the Creek nation more than they were part of non-Aboriginal American society, as the Creek communities are where they made their home after being displaced from Africa. Identity legislation such as the Dawes rolls and census rules decided who to count as an Indian and who to count as African, depending on the political climate, gender, property, place of residence, and other subjective and changing factors. Contemporarily, Creek people resist including black Creeks in their tribal rolls, because the more people included in the nation, the less resources available for each tribal citizen. This argument rests on logic of purity of descent. In contrast, many black Indians argue that their Aboriginality is legitimate due to their cultural heritage. As one woman, who has African, Indigenous, and European heritage states that she “[knows] a lot more about a stomp dance, hog fry, and wild onion dinner than anything about Africa” (65).

Tiya Miles deals with the issue of mixed-heritage people claiming indigenous identity in her discussion of black Cherokee people, who descended from African slaves to the Cherokee nation. As with Saunt’s work, the black Indians’ American lives, roots, geographical heritage, property, and culture are within their tribe. In various ways, especially through census-taking and tribal rolls, many black Indians have lost membership in their tribes, or lost their identification with Aboriginality. More recently, however, works like Miles’ and Saunt’s are exploring the intersection of black and Indian lives in colonial America.

In writing her book, Miles encountered resistance from Aboriginal communities. One Great Plains elder said to her, “[d]on’t write your book; it will destroy us” (XV). The elder’s argument was that “documenting the intermarriage of black and Indian people would give the U.S. government just one more reason to declare Native people inauthentic and soluble and then seize the remaining lands and any vestiges of political autonomy” (XV). Authenticity being measured by ancestral purity, in the case of the Aboriginal peoples’ argument, versus by experience and culture, in the case of the African Aboriginals, is deeply political and imbued with disputes over land, sovereignty, legitimacy, and benefits.

Miles, Tiya. Ties that bind: The story of an Afro-Cherokee family in slavery and freedom. Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2005.

Saunt, Claudio. Black, white, and Indian: Race and the unmaking of an American family. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005.

Lawrence, Bonita. ‘Real’ Indians and others: Mixed-blood urban Native people and indigenous nationhood. Vancouver: UBC Press. 2004.

Und wieder steht uns Christoph Lipsky vom Heidelberger Spieleverlag für ein langes Interview und eine ausführliche Spielevorstellung der Neuheiten zur Verfügung. Dabei konzentrieren wir uns auf den fantastischen Bereich und stellen Spiele wie Heidelbär, Rouge Trader, Battlelore-Helden-Erweiterung, Krysis, Space Alert, Vor den Toren von Loyang und das Warhammer-Invasion-Kartenspiel im ersten Teil.

Im zweiten Teil geht es dann nahtlos weiter mit Warhammer. Es geht um Chaos in der Alten Welt, die Erweiterung Brood War für das Starcraft Brettspiel, die Descent-Erweiterung Gruft aus Eis, das Dungeon-Keeper-artige Dungeon Lord und die dritte Edition vom Warhammer-Fantasy-Rollenspiel, das wir auch ausführlich auspacken.

Certainly my favorite of the movies I will write about this week, and a major contender for my favorite horror movie, period. The Descent.  I absolutely love this movie. It’s so well-made, so different from any other movie in the genre, and so creepy.

Furthermore, all the characters are buff, badass female cave-divers, (well.. not ALL the characters, but I don’t want to spoil things, haha) and the result is pleasantly surprising and not at all gimmicky. Anyway, more Spoilerz: this movie is gory. Well, only at certain parts. Overall it’s intensely suspenseful and great at building up dread.

It takes place almost entirely in a system of caves, and the lighting is almost all diegetic (light source actually seen onscreen) which makes for an extremely dark, claustrophobic feel. Super-effective. I don’t get scared by movies easily, but this is the only movie that has ever actually made me SCREAM (and jump off the couch, if you must know). Truly a gripping and unique viewing experience, not to be missed. (those faint of heart or claustrophobic can consider themselves exempt)

As some of you know through following me on Twitter (@SplinteredBoard) I subscribe to around 150 podcasts.  Many of them have been podcasted books.  Still, many are periodicals (woodworking podcasts, news feeds, etc.).

The podcasting authors have been having increasingly great success lately.  What tips the scales in their favor?  Energy, and a good story.

After listening to about 25 or 30 podcast books, a few names come to mind that keep delivering on both the ‘Energy’ and ‘A Good Story’ themes.  Scott Sigler, Seth Harwood, Phil Rossi, Mur Lafferty and Tee Morris all come to mind immediately.

But one that has kept my ears busy with a great trilogy, fan content, prequel stories, and more is JC Hutchins.  JC’s 7th Son trilogy is an epic tale of mystery, deception, adventure, and technology.

7th Son: Descent, the first novel in the trilogy, has been available in podcast form for a few years now.  JC is presently re-casting it with new content from the actual hard-copy book.  The new re-cast is only 3 episodes in, and I’ve got to tell ya, this new content is already getting good!

7th Son: Descent goes on sale TODAY at Amazon.  Please take a listen to JC’s work, and support his book.

You can get a free 10 chapter preview of 7th Son: Descent here. That’s 128 pages FREE!!!

JC Hutchins also has an excellent trans-media book, Personal Effects: Dark Art, available on Amazon.  It’s a horror experience taken to a another level.  There’s not another book out there like it!

PS. We’re going to have JC on the show next week, so be on the lookout for a non-woodworking related podcast. Should be a real treat!

“He wants to marry you,” Father told her. Alia did not look up from her writing. Finishing the end of a sentence with a flourish of penmanship, she frowned at her parchment.

“I won’t marry him,” she said. Beside her, her father turned a page of his book. His advisers were clustered at the door, pale, nervous-looking, and muttering to each other. Their presence, though not unexpected, irritated her. She let herself pretend that they were not there, imagining for her sake that this was a casual conversation between father and daughter as they worked in her study.

“He would be a good match for you, Alia. I urge you to consider it,” Father said. His tone of voice did not betray any real concern. He might as well have been encouraging to try a new pastry for dessert.

She looked over her shoulder to find five wide-eyed advisers nodding at her. Please marry him, they might as well have said. But she didn’t need them standing about to remind her that they wanted her gone from this palace as some prince’s newest possession.

Maybe it’s because she challenged their authority in al-Andalus. As the daughter of the sultan, royalty ran through her veins, giving her a certain amount of power without an official title. She did not make policy decisions. She only sometimes gave her father her opinion. And yet, her father’s advisers watched her warily at all times. Alia guessed that she was smart enough to make them nervous.

But Alia did not consider herself a political figure. This is important. As teenagers, most of us come up with a list of words to describe ourselves and through that, to come up with our own distinct identity. Daughter, sister, girlfriend. Student, saleswoman, parishioner. We are defined by what we do, where we are, what we believe, who we love and who we hate. And if there was one thing Alia was not, it was a political figure

However, she was a heretic. Or at least, some people would say she was heretic. She believed in Allah, like her father and mother and their parents before them. Her people had come to these lands from over the sea long ago. They had conquered and multiplied. This sultanate was a fraction of a large empire, led by a man who came from a line of prophets, whose power was directly ordained by Allah. So one could say she was the daughter of the servant of the servant of that heavenly power.

Like most girls of her time and age, she considered herself religious not because it was some special characteristic of hers but because her faith was as much a part of her as her relationship with her father. She prayed every day, followed customs and laws she deemed reasonable, tried to be an good woman, no matter that she was well-read and looked men in the eye.

So she was naturally surprised when she received a suitor from a kingdom where they did not celebrate her holidays or visit her mosques.

“I want to marry you,” Eduardo had told her just days before. Standing before her, in his strange clothes with his strange accent, he was clean-shaven and young, bright-eyed with the confidence of a boy that never hears the word ‘no’ for an answer. He took her hand in his as if it belonged there. They were alone in the gardens at midday.

“I don’t think so,” she said, pulling away. Didn’t he realize what he was asking of her? Didn’t he care that their lands were dead set against each other, that their union may be a glorious opportunity for peace but only if they could put up with each other, which in actuality, was a pretty big if? She would never convert. He had to understand that.

The next time he came to see her, she shut the door in his face and went back to her books. By the time she abandoned her studies for dinner, he was gone.

Alia wrote furiously in her notebook, trying to focus on the philosophy of war, justice and the practice of fair and decent warfare between nations. Her handwriting was messy, like her father’s, large and looping and unreadable when she was most emotional. The advisers were still whispering behind her, standing at the door entrance like vultures flying over their prey.

“He left a good impression on me, Alia,” her father said, interrupting the whispers. Everyone turned to her again, as Alia dipped her quill in ink and waited for her father to continue. “He left suddenly, at your request, true, but not without speaking with me first. I think I shall invite him back.”

“Oh, Father, please don’t put me in this position,” she said. “We’re far too different. He’s not the man I want to marry.”

But it was done. Her father was a very stubborn man.