Tag: story

Fiction (Short)

Dilyku

Faith Hakimian

Emia stood at the edge of the field and pretended she wasn’t shaking. It only worked because no one was there to see her. It was obscene. All of this. The fear. The anger. The dread. It had been an accident, a mistake. The sort of thing that could always happen when you tried to train a creature like Dilyku, no matter how careful you were and how many precautions you took.

A twinge of pain shot down her arm. Phantom pain, it had to be. The healer had promised that her wounds were all fully knitted back together. But the healer was only trained in treating the body, and Emia suspected her injuries ran deeper.

The easiest thing to do would be to turn around and walk away. The safest thing would be to pack her few belongings and begin the long trek back to her village, her family, her friends. She wouldn’t be the first. She wouldn’t be the last. It took almost as much luck as it did skill to complete the training, and no one expected her to stay. Better to accept failure and live than to try and try until she died in the attempt.

But.

What if one more try was all it took? They had been so close, she’d felt it. She’d met Dilyku’s golden hawklike gaze and held it, held him, connected with him, and he had let her. He had bent his neck, and she had run her hands down the soft, long feathers, had traced the curve of his beak with her fingers. And then—

Then, disaster. Or so they told her; her own mind still refused to release those memories to the rest of her, though they bled through in her dreams. Too much noise, too much panic. A flurry of wings, claws, feathers. A gryphon’s fear takes on a deadly shape. Though, why Dilyku was afraid they couldn’t say.

Yet she had survived. And she had healed. And there was nothing in the world to stop her from trying again, save perhaps a nascent sense of self preservation. Because there was no reason to believe she would be so lucky if it happened again. And neither was there any certainty that it wouldn’t happen again.

And so she stood at the edge of the field, the one that stretched between her and Dilyku’s cave, and she trembled. A minute passed. Or ten. Or twenty.

Why?

The question rattled in the back of her mind.

Why are you doing this?

Her own thoughts stood in accusation. There were so many she’d left behind to come here, so many who were waiting for her to return. So many who would tell her she had tried hard enough, more than hard enough. So many who would welcome her back with open arms.

So many to whom she owed so much.

That was almost what decided her. Her life was not her own– not just her own. If the only thing driving her back across that field was her own pride, her own stubborn will, then that was not enough. It would never be enough. It never could be.

Yet even then she couldn’t just turn and walk away, because that would have been terrible, too. Maybe it was Dilyku’s claws and beak that had come so close to ripping her away from this would and flinging her into the next. That was just one, terrible thing, and there were other moments. So many other moments. Enough that she could never just leave, not without trying one last time.

She lifted her fingers to her lips and whistled, three long, clear notes. It was a request, she realized. A petition for Dilyku to grant her passage into his realm. He had only ever granted it with some amount of grudging impatience, a clacked beak, a thrash of his lion’s tail, as if he had better things to do with his time but couldn’t be bothered to drive her off.

And so when his call, shrill and fierce as any bird of prey’s, warm and friendly as the response of an old companion echoed back across the field, it was the last thing she expected. And when Dilyku himself leaped from the mouth of his cave and into the warm sunlight to look for her, she hardly expected that either. And she knew. For at least a little while longer, she had to stay. Because she had already left this other friend alone too long.

Fiction (Short)

Correspond (I)

Faith Hakimian

For a moment she was a ghost: cold, half-numb, and detached. Then the fog broke, the ice cracked, and she remembered who she was. Where she was.Her chest tightened. A voice, artificial tones familiar yet not quite comforting, gave an announcements, instructions, warnings. Things she needed to know. Things that couldn’t be that urgent, because the lights of Coldbay 1 were a low and steady blue and and nothing was flashing red, and only one or two were amber. Things that could wait until she extricated herself from the coldpod and replaced this pink and paper-thin gown with something more substantial. Things that the Twins, one bay over, were just as capable of taking care of too.

She grunted as her bare feet hit the panel floor and an aching panic jolted through her legs, her hips, her back as the muscles remembered how to work. Or maybe it was just the effect of cold metal on unprotected skin.

In the background, the artificial voice garbled on.

“… can be found in the shelving…

… you or any member of your team are…

… Earth mean date and time is calculated at…”

There were other noises, too. She hadn’t noticed them at first but they were there, and they were comforting. Low hums. Rhythmic thrumming. All the sounds a ship should make, an electric, mechanical heartbeat against a backdrop of complete and perfect silence.

And the silence beyond was perfect. Or at least it was complete.

Clarity returned in fits and starts, bringing more of memory with it. Her chest tightened again. It wasn’t that she had forgotten: not any of it. Not the ship. Not the mission. Not how irrevocably vast the distance was that they had traveled. It was just that her brain, fogged with coldsleep and a thousand clamoring physical needs, had neglected to remember. It remembered now.

Strange how remembering brought both relief and renewed dread. Relief that the nanites had worked, that she was here, alive, awake. She’d never gone under cold before, and the primal fear that raged in the back of the brain could only be quieted so much by the knowledge of all the thousands who had done it an lived.

Dread of… everything else.

It would probably be better if she didn’t give herself the time to think. Not until the Twins were up and around and chattering on the comms.

A tension she wished she could ignore screwed her shoulders to her ears. A chill not entirely the fault of the cold air and her bare skin whispered down her spine. The ship’s systems should have triggered the wakeup for the Twins the same time it sent hers; the fact that she couldn’t already hear them laughing through the bulkheads—

—might not mean a thing. The Twins could be just as awake as she was, and their uncharacteristic quiet could be a symptom of the post-freeze lag.

That was the logical response. But there was logic, and there was her gut. And when the two came back with different answers, it only ever meant that logic was working with old information.

She swore, softly and to herself, and forced her tingling legs to carry her across the room to the big medscanner. If something had gone wrong, panic wouldn’t fix it. She would. Carefully and in the correct order. That meant taking care of herself first. And the first step for that was making sure coldsleep hadn’t left her any ticking time-bombs. Complications were rare, the docs had assured her, and easily fixed if caught early. The scanner would do both.

It was too bad that knowledge didn’t make the crawling minutes pass any faster. Or make the white and sterile bed feel any less exposed beneath the scanner’s probing lights.

And when the great, impersonal thing finally finished its work and spat its results onto the nearby screen with a quiet ping, it couldn’t offer her any comfort as she read them.

<Scan complete>

<Circulatory function… GOOD>

<Respiratory function… GOOD>

<Neurological function… GOOD>

<Nanite interface… ABNORMAL… SEE REPORT FOR FURTHER DETAILS>

The words didn’t even display frantic red. Just amber. Nagging amber. Stubborn amber. The color of mild concern, but she was the only one there to feel it.

Despite herself, her best intentions, her years of careful discipline, she lost control. Her blood drummed at her ears. Her pores leaked sweat, and the chilly room grew chillier still. And then she breathed. In, out. One deep breath. And another. And then a third, coaxing focus back. Bribing her pulse down from its fluttering heights.

Because panic wouldn’t fix it.

She retrieved her uniform and pulled it on before she opened the report. Perhaps it was a concession to her frail humanity, but that was alright. It was alright to take what comfort she could find, even if that comfort was just the weight of the fabric on her shoulders and the familiar contours of the well-worn, well-loved boots on her feet. If it helped, who was she to argue?

Then, because there was nothing else to do, because the only way past was through, she tapped the amber words with the tip of a finger and opened herself to the worst. And found it anticlimactic. There was no cascading failure. There was no spreading corruption. There was only an error message, all but useless in its lack of specific information.

>>> Nanite interface ABNORMAL…

Communication failure… attempting reboot in 30 minutes…

Coldsleep NOT advised

She should have felt relieved, or at least warily hopeful. It could have been so much worse. The nanites coursing through her veins, a new type—or they were when they had injected them ten years ago—could have met with every kind of failure. Instead, they were just… glitching a little. Probably. Maybe.

She should have felt relieved, she told herself, but all she really felt was the weight of silence. Because the coldpod would have registered that error before it brought her out, and the only reason it had done so anyway was because they had removed that particular failsafe.

Because she had told them to. Because she’d said she was willing to take the risk. Because the mission was more important. Because she’d thought a few days, weeks, months of terrible isolation was a price she was willing to pay if it meant their colony had a lifeline back to Earth.

The mission psychs had disagreed. Some more vehemently than others. It had taken months of argument to secure their agreement, and then only with caveats. Three of them had to be woken, and she and the Twins had volunteered. And they had to be able to go back into coldsleep after a few days. Hence the new tech.

The new tech that, despite extensive testing and spotless results, was now malfunctioning.

The thrumming of the ship seemed small and pitiful now, standing against a fathomless void and loneliness. It was all in her head, she told herself. That was where all the worst monsters lived, she replied.

For a split second something teetered at the edge of her mind, goaded by a thousand ifs. If the Twins’ nanites had malfunctioned. If the reset didn’t work. If she couldn’t fall back into coldsleep.

If.

If.

If.

She might have screamed. She might have stood, paralyzed and silent. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She wasn’t sure it mattered.

She wasn’t even sure what finally got her moving once again. Habit, maybe. Or her old friends, duty and discipline, reasserting themselves. All she knew was that she found herself, minutes later, standing in Coldbay 2 and finding that her fears were confirmed. The computer had attempted to wake the Twins. And it had failed.

And she was alone here after all, floating in this void between the stars. The certainty should have clawed away her remaining sanity. It would eventually, she was sure. But for now, it was a strange relief. Hope, whatever shreds of it remained, was far enough away that she could ignore it. And while she could move, she had work to do.

She would prowl this silent ship alone.

Musings

[Blog] A Satisfying Mystery

Faith Hakimian

Or, for an alternate title, Why ‘The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ Annoyed Me.

First off, apologies to anyone who particularly enjoyed the aforementioned book. I don’t at all mean to offend, I’m glad you found it wonderful, and more power to you. I also don’t mean to argue that it’s a bad book, just that I didn’t like it as much as some others and ended up spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out why that was. (And for those of you who have not read it, be warned that there are spoilers to follow.)

Part of it is that I just didn’t like the narrator. Especially not at the beginning. For myself, there are a lot of mild annoyances and frustrations in a story that are easy to overlook if I enjoy the characters and the narrator. The flip side of that, though, is that I will struggle to enjoy a solid and interesting story if the characters annoy me or if I can’t relate to them. Having the narrator not know who he was definitely added to that as well; it is extraordinarily difficult to write a compelling character when they don’t know who they are. More so when who they are keeps changing.

And that, I think, leads into what annoyed me the most: there was nothing that I, as the reader, could latch onto as an accepted fact. The rules would change. I couldn’t trust what the characters saw or said, because the next go ’round would have me believe that the exact opposite was true. I realize this makes me sound petulant. Part of the whole appeal of a mystery story is the fact that everything isn’t what it seems, but this is where I keep getting stuck. Not only was nothing as it seemed, but I also didn’t have the information I needed to make educated guesses about what was going on. All while the Plague Doctor is lurking about here and there making ominous statements and being generally unhelpful.

It’s similar to the difference between the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries and Sherlock Holmes stories. Both are mysteries, certainly, but with Wimsey the clues are all carefully laid out one by one and while there are absolutely false leads and dead ends, the information you as the reader receive is enough to bring you to an educated guess. With Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales, the clues are all there, but they are often such that no one but Holmes himself could suss them out. And it’s probably why, as a whole, I prefer Dorothy Sayers’ gentleman sleuth to the legendary Mr. Holmes.

But back to Evelyn Hardcastle.

By the time I got to the end of the book, I found a story that felt like I should have enjoyed more than I did. The twists were interesting. And the characters’ final choices were the sort of thing that seemed like they should have landed with more of an emotional punch. And here I think the fact that there wasn’t a clear path leading to what was actually going on did the book a disservice. It felt less like the clues had been there but so cleverly disguised that I couldn’t see them except in retrospect, and more like they had been hidden altogether while I was deliberately led in the wrong direction.

So, maybe I’m just mad about getting tricked. I told you I was feeling a little petulant.

But the more I think about it, that’s it: I have no problem getting to the end of a book and admitting that I in no way saw the ending coming. Heck, that’s half the fun. The other half is looking back and seeing all the things that now seem like bright red flags marking what was actually going on and getting to see everything with the benefit of hindsight because it opens up an entirely new dimension that you couldn’t have seen before.

It’s just that that’s not how I felt when I got to the end of Evelyn Hardcastle. It wasn’t that there had been clues all along the way that I just hadn’t noticed, hadn’t picked up on, it was that there was no way I could have come to the correct conclusion with the facts I was given. Or even gotten to the general vicinity of the correct conclusion.

But maybe that’s just me. What about you? If you’ve read it, did you enjoy it? Were there really a whole bunch of hints and clues that I missed because I was too busy being annoyed? Let me know in the comments!

Musings

[Blog] The Science in Sci-fi

Faith Hakimian

For those of you who have been following this blog/reading the stories that show up here every now and again, you’ve probably noticed that, despite the fact that I’m more than happy to use the shorthand of “science fiction” for the genre of number of them, even though it would usually be far more accurate to go with “space opera” instead.

And that’s okay! A perfectly valid choice. I love space opera, and despite the distinction I made above, I have no problem throwing it under the broad umbrella of sci-fi, if only because the popular understanding of the term often boils down to “adventure in space”. Overly simplistic? Definitely. Helpful enough? Yes.

All this to say that I’m lately finding a ton of enjoyment in actually reading up on various topics pertinent to the worlds I enjoy creation. Like, for example, The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin, a book that presents the argument that we could actually put human beings on Mars within ten years using technology that already exists or could be developed in that time period. Aside from being a fascinating read all on its own, the number of ideas the book is giving me for the Tanner and Miranda stories is nothing to sniff at. From a general history of how humans made it out to colonize other planets to the infrastructure that they would have set up on all their colonies, including Verdant, it’s giving me the tools to help fill out the universe of the stories.

AND IT’S SO MUCH FUN.

Does this mean I want to turn the Tanner and Miranda stories into hard science fiction? Heck no. I’d be the first person to tell you my favorite part of writing about their shenanigans is exactly that: the shenanigans. But if drawing from the real world science (ish) that relates to the setting I’ve created helps me create a more immersive fictional world, gives me more ideas and, forces me to come up with interesting and different answers to the questions raised by the plot, then I am all for it.

Musings

[Blog] Reading!

Faith Hakimian

As of yesterday, I have officially read as many books this year as I did in the entirety of last year. Or in other words, having finished reading thirty five books by the end of May, I am well on my way (and ahead of pace!) for my overly ambitious goal of seventy five by the end of the year. Assuming I don’t get completely derailed when I go through a big move in a month or two. Heh.

On a definitely related note… I’m currently in awe of Connie Willis’s ability to plot out stories. And by “in awe” I mean “feeling marginally inadequate because wow she’s good”. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that her WWII time travel story Blackout/All Clear is flawless, it’s easily one of the best things I’ve read this year and a display of formidable skill. A very slow burn story, but once it gets going, boy does it. And the way she weaves a thousand different plot threads, themes, and references into a sudden and cohesive whole that appears out of nowhere and goes straight for your emotions…

…let’s just say I’m still recovering.

And trying to figure out how I can get that good. Or. You know. Anywhere close to it.

The answer, as much as there is one, is to keep writing and to keep reading. So I guess I should get on that. This next Tanner and Miranda scene that’s causing me so much trouble isn’t going to write itself, after all!

In the meantime, what about you guys? Read any good books lately?

Musings

[Blog] Writing Practice

Faith Hakimian

In the never-ending quest to keep the writing-wheels rolling, I have found another tool. Or maybe I just remembered one of my old ones existed. Namely, journaling. Not the kind where you keep a diary of your thoughts and impressions of the day, though I understand that can help as well. Rather, the kind you put in a writing journal.

In high school, I had an amazing teacher who agreed to advise/supervise me while I spent two semesters writing fiction. (Best. Teacher. Ever. I even got school credit for doing NaNoWriMo that year and I’m still using the advice she gave me.) Required work was relatively limited from week to week– there was some reading and a final project each semester– but the one thing I had to turn in every week was a document with my journal entries from the week: five in total, whatever I happened to write over a ten or fifteen minute period, usually with nothing more than a single word as inspiration.

And she would read them all and give me feedback. Every week. Like I said. Best teacher.

So I’ve started journaling again. Sort of. At least, I’ve been putting the writing sprints I’ve been doing lately with my sister into a single document, labeled with the date, how long I wrote, and what the prompt was. If nothing else, it’s proving to be helpful in getting my (occasionally stagnant) creativity flowing. And now that I’m documenting it all in a single place instead of scattered across several different documents and strewn about my harddrive, I’m interested to see what sort of trends show up as I continue to do it more often. And what ideas coalesce out of the ether. And what strengths and weaknesses become easier to pick out.

And, most of all, I’m looking forward to seeing if an extra infusion of discipline to my writing habit makes it that much easier to avoid getting stuck.

And what about you, fellow writers? What are your tricks for convincing your brain and your fingers to do their writing on days when neither want to cooperate?

Musings

[Blog] Well-built Worlds

Faith Hakimian

Several of the books I’ve read most recently have reminded me of something that I already knew– namely that I really enjoy stories with an interesting, creative setting. You know. In case my preoccupation with science fiction and fantasy hadn’t already given it away. I also can’t remember if I’ve written about this in the blog already or not, so please bear with me if it starts sounding like I’m just rewriting an earlier post.

Anyway! Consider this another entry in my continuing quest to figure out why certain stories grab me and refuse to let go. Because I’m pretty sure this is part of it.

To some extent, I suspect this is why most fans of sci-fi and fantasy enjoy it the way we do. There’s a reason those of us who grew up with it spent so many hours daydreaming of ways to get ourselves to Narnia. And also why we have discussions about which Hogwarts House we would belong to, and why those “who would you be in X fictional world” quizzes are so popular.

I imagine it also helps that when something is well-known, the fact that we can talk about them (giddily) with other like-minded fans only feeds our enjoyment. But then there’s the stories that are not as widely known, or with a less rabid fanbase, that– for me– result in the same level of borderline-obsessive focus.

Like, for instance, David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. The books are definitely fun, particularly the earlier ones, and though I know he’s written more in the same setting beyond the ones that focus around the titular character, I haven’t gotten to them yet. Unlike some of the other stories I’ll mention in this post, Weber does enjoy a pretty decent following. Probably because there’s a lot of us who think that “female Horatio Hornblower in space” is a whole lot of fun. That being said, the books, fun as they are, also aren’t the masterpieces that, say, The Lord of the Rings or Red Rising are. The stories and the characters are fun, but there’s a reason this little gem makes so many of Mr. Weber’s fans laughing.

Then you’ve got stories like Andrea K. Höst‘s brilliant Touchstone series, which I just reread and got a forcible reminder of why I should really look up more of her work. The writing is lovely, and while I know some people don’t particularly like the journal format that the books use, I think it works very well for the nerdy, comforting story she’s telling.

And for all these two series are very different, I found that they have something in common. They captured my imagination. Completely. It’s stuck. Not going anywhere. In Weber’s case, it means that I will happily read for hours on end about the technological advances of the Royal Manticoran Navy’s missiles, and how it changes the way their massive space battles play out. In Touchstone, it means I will read everything about Cassandra Devlin and the Setari and the spaces that I can get my hands on.

And in both cases, that is in large part thanks to the worldbuilding. These authors succeeded in creating worlds so compelling that I am happy to visit them again and again and that I think about them randomly even when I’m not reading their stories. J.S. Morin does a bit of the same, especially with the way magic works in his various Black Ocean series. Fringe does it in the way it creates a world so similar to our own, just with weird science causing all manner of mayhem.

Perhaps all of this is just outing me as an escapist, though even that’s hardly as damning a truth as some people make it out to be. But whatever way you want to slice it, the fact remains that some authors do a remarkably good job at creating strange, new worlds, and it’s a particular pleasure of mine to go exploring them for a while.

Musings

[Blog] Plot holes

Faith Hakimian

It is easy– so easy– for us writers to get bogged down in plot holes. Those funny, niggling realizations that something about our carefully crafted stories doesn’t quite make perfect sense. That our characters could have found a better way of doing things that would have greatly simplified everything and kept them out of a great deal of trouble. And to some extent, all that is good. If we find the holes we can plug them and make our stories tighter and more streamlined. Better. And that’s what most of us are trying to do, right?

And yet. What happens when filling those plot holes ends up burying our plot itself? Some plot holes absolutely need to be filled in, of course, and I don’t mean to argue against that. But sometimes when you do it, the choice is between making it all make sense logically and letting it keep that weird spark of magic that attracted you to your idea in the first place. And I think when it comes down to it, it’s better to keep the magic.

Or maybe I just need to get better at filling in my ok holes.

Musings

[Blog] Tanner and Miranda update

Faith Hakimian

Just a quick check-in this week! After a stretch of time with the writing just coming slow and difficult, things are starting to move along a little more easily again, which is so nice.

Part of it, I think, was just the fact that I was changing gears to start the next story/chapter. I’m enjoying the very episodic nature of this particular project, but it definitely comes with some of its own special difficulties. Like finding a good way to work the pacing.

I also think it was working a lot better than I thought it was, because when I opened up a new document and essentially retyped the 1400 words or so I already had just to get back into the flow, it wasn’t half as bogged down as I thought it was. So yay!

Musings

[Blog] Music and Story

Faith Hakimian

Speaking as someone who rarely (if ever) writes without a soundtrack, there’s an undeniable connection between story and music. And I know I’m not alone– my sister and I regularly exchange writing music recommendations, and various other fellow writers and I have frequently discussed the best tracks to use for inspiration for a given scene.

Of course, it’s not just writing. Any form of storytelling seems able to reap some benefit from a good soundtrack. Exhibit A: movies. When done particularly well, the scene will stand on its own, but add in the perfect music to your thriller and what was only mildly nerve-wracking becomes wildly unsettling. And that’s not even mentioning what effect you can have by removing music at the right time, too.

Or how about video games? Sure, most of our favorite video game soundtracks are written specifically to be more or less ignored as you try to make your character look like they know what they’re doing, but the good ones are adding to the experience while they do just that. And how are you supposed to stay perfectly unaffected when the first epic chords of a boss battle track start playing?

Writing and music both aim to interact with our feelings. Our thoughts, too, of course, particularly in the case of writing. And while it’s a relatively recent thing that most anyone reading this post has easy access to both music on demand and writing materials, there’s a reason not so far removed from all this for why we still have ballads kicking around from hundreds of years ago.