Links – Page 10 – Matthew Keville

Frankly, I think the title is a bit of an exaggeration, but I suppose every horror-related thing almost has to claim to be the most nerve-shattering thing ever.

Of the movies, I like The Birch for its interesting monster, and Mother is what all kids like to imagine our mothers would do if actually confronted with the monster in the closet. The Little Mermaid reminds us once again that trying to keep supernatural creatures as slaves is a bad mistake.

But it’s the last one, Derailed, that really hits me where I live. As a city dweller, I fear the darkness beyond the end of the train platform, and find the outlands that are the train yards at the edge of the city to be uncanny. In this movie, they really are…

Hope you enjoyed all of those. Don’t forget, Prize Bucks and In the Make-Out Room are still available for free download at Amazon, and will be through Thursday. And keep watching, there’s always more to come.

Another Fine Portrait of An Awesome Character

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines has posted a new portrait of Queen Viarraluca, the protagonist of Dubious’s upcoming fantasy novel, First Empress. Once again, the portrait is the work of the talented MJ Barros.

Queen Vi is looking particularly imposing in this portrait. As Dubious explains on Tumblr:

The scene here is where she confronts a nobleman who conspired to pay an assassin to take her out. The confrontation doesn’t go well for him.

It doesn’t go well for the assassin, either. Somehow, we’ve developed this cultural idea of assassins as the ultimate death machines, but we forget: assassins don’t have opponents, they have victims. If an assassin is fighting anyone, they’ve already screwed up. And if they’re dealing with a warrior, a warrior who sees them coming…well. In that case, it tends to be the warrior who has a victim instead of an opponent.

PS – I recommend you check out “Portrait Four”. It’s just as NSFW as Dubious warns, but it’s also beautiful.

It Was Taking Too Long

Hey, all.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been rolling out my old short stories one at a time, each complete with their own product page and a promotional post on the blog. But like the title says, I decided that was taking too long. Those stories were published before. There was no point in drawing things out.

So now, all previously published stories are once again available at Amazon. All are also enrolled in KDP Select, so if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, they are available there for your reading pleasure.

Product pages coming soon, as well as new stories. And keep your eye out for promotions!

The Guardian Cats of New York City: Watcher On The Shore is now available for sale!

Watcher on the Shore Title

Hey, all!

Like the title says, The Guardian Cats of New York City: The Watcher On The Shore is once again available for sale and for checkout on Kindle Unlimited. For the story that gives us our first look at what happens when there’s something too big for the Guardian Cats to handle – and how they manage to help any – check out the Short Stories page, The Watcher On The Shore‘s own page, or just go straight to Amazon.

To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

Nar-Tali didn’t often envy the senses of the two-legs, nose-numb and half-deaf as they were. But tonight he would have accepted their night-blindness if it had brought with it the distance and clarity of their vision. The Thing that was coming, it was coming from the water. He could sense that now, feel it in his whiskers and fur and bones like the coming of the storm. But as much as he strained his senses toward the Great Salty Water, he could detect nothing. The roaring of the rain filled his hearing; the water and the wind washed away all smells.

Then the skyfire flashed again, and he caught a glimpse of…something. It was distant and unclear and it was only there for a moment, but it was…it was like a hill had suddenly risen up out of the water, then slid smoothly back in.

The sky rumbled in response to the skyfire, drowning out all sound. But as the last of the echoes of the sky-roar faded, Nar-Tali thought he heard the last echoes of another – a distant reptilian bellow.

There it was again. Much closer this time. And much, much louder.

Nar-Tali noticed that the ragged two-legs was standing beside him now, staring out at the Great Salty Water. For all the good it would do him. Even if the hill in the water surfaced again, all he would see was black on black. Not that he, Nar-Tali, was doing much better. With all this blinding rain coming down, he might as well be a two-legs himself.

Wait – there it was. The hill in the water. It was beside the long wooden sidewalk that went out onto the water now, and it was approaching shore.

On some instinct, Nar-Tali nudged the ragged two-legs, then pointed toward the shore.

The two-legs nodded. He saw it, too.

The hill was rising out of the water. Only it was longer now. More of a ridge.

The ridge kept rising. And rising. And then it broke the surface, and…

Oh. Great. Sekhmet.

It was huge.

Bast have mercy, it was a great serpent. As long as the sidewalk-over-the-water…no, longer, as long as one of the great metal serpents that carried two-legs in their bellies as they screamed along the rails. And at least as thick.

Its head was broad and flat and angular, with horns and razored spines sticking out in all directions. Its mouth, with its three rows of fangs, was easily capable of taking the ragged two-legs whole. Its scales gleamed black in the light of the boardwalk lamps, and its eyes glowed a poisonous green.

It thrashed and coiled its way out of the surf, and then it was on shore, rushing forward on thousands of limbs of all description. Crab legs and lizard feet supported it as tentacles and jellyfish stingers waved in the air.

It was so big. So impossibly big. As big as old Apophis, but he was no Bast. He was just Nar-Tali. He couldn’t fight that. But he’d felt the calling in his bones tonight, the call to duty. Why had he been called if he could do nothing? There must be –

And then the ragged two-legs was striding forward, a stick in one hand, the other under his coat. “Whoa there!” He shouted. “Hey, whoa there!”

The Guardian Cats of New York City: Shin-Nephura’s Neighborhood Now Available for Sale!

Cover with title

Hey, all!

As I mentioned last week, I’m starting to put short stories back up for sale again, and I’m starting by republishing the ones that were published before. As you can tell from the illustration, the first story to get this treatment is Shin-Nephura’s Neighborhood. My apologies to the fans of the kittehs, but yes, this does mean that the free version of this story has been taken down from this site.

Take a look at the updated Books page, the brand-new Short Stories page, or Shin-Nephura’s own page. Or if you’re impatient, just head straight to Amazon or Smashwords to pick yourself up a copy.

To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

It was deep into the night. Even the most cat-spirited of two-legs had finished with eating their burned meats, drinking their mind-fogging poisoned waters, and inhaling their strange-flavored smokes. They had all returned to their dens to mate and to sleep. Only those with no den of their own remained out in the open airs, or those performing some strange human task or other. The great metal serpents still roared in their caves, but their bellies were nearly empty.

It was the time of the Cat.

The cat known to other cats as Shin-Nephura the Gentle, to herself by the secret name no other knew, and to the two-legs as Dodger, was out walking the streets of her domain.

She was known as “the Gentle” because she was affectionate and gracious to the two-legs of her domain, visiting them often and allowing them the liberty of scratching her head and stroking her back once she was sure they belonged. This familiarity had the benefit of teaching her much about the two-legs. For example, she knew that the name they’d given her came from one of those marvelous two-legs stories, and that it was the name of a clever thief. This pleased Shin-Nephura greatly; clever thieves are highly esteemed among cats. Also, many cats who were less in-tune with their two-legs were confused by such habits as putting on obvious mating displays and heat pheromones, but not mating. Shin-Nephura understood that the mating ritual of the two-legs was simply much longer and more complex than that of cats.

Perhaps most importantly, she had learned the names with which the two-legs marked her territory. Two streets marked the boundaries of her territory, and she lived where they came together. Their names were “Seaman Avenue” and “Dyckman Street”. For some reason, the two-legs seemed to find this funny.

She had a family of two-legs that she stayed with, who fed her and tended her hurts and stood as her companions. But unlike many cats that shared nearby dens with the two-legs, Shin-Nephura did not content herself with enjoying their companionship, playing and taking the food they gave her. She kept to the old Compact: “You will shelter us, feed us, and care for us in our illness and injury. You will honor us and give us good company. In exchange, we will protect you from the rodents that eat and foul your food, the insects that trouble you and bring disease, and the darker things that come out of the night.”

During the day, Shin-Nephura guarded the food place that her two-legs ran (in her clever listening, she had learned the words “corner bodega”).

By night, she walked a patrol.

She’d finished checking the courtyard and was just returning to the Corner Bodega when she stopped, ears pricked.

“Aaaaaalllleeeee”

Something was coming. Something that raised the fur along her spine and made her claws twitch involuntarily in their sheaths.

“AllEEEEE!”

Closer and louder now. Close and loud enough so that even a two-legs could have heard it. If any two-legs did hear, they would have been disturbed, even frightened, but they wouldn’t know why. Shin-Nephura knew. Whatever was coming was…wrong. It had come from the river – it squished and dripped and splashed with every step, and Shin-Nephura could smell the tidal muds – but it was no right part of the world of cats, birds, mice and two-legs.

It drew closer, and Shin-Nephura finally caught a whiff of something other than the muds.

Rotten meat.

Not like the food the two-legs so wastefully threw away, the meat just moldy or spoiled enough to be flavorful, but the smell of something long dead and decayed.

“aaAAallEEEeee!”

As the dead thing came around the corner and into view, Shin-Nephura’s hackles went all the way up and her claws scraped on the sidewalk.

A two-legs. The dead, lurching, half-rotten thing was a two-legs.

No wise cat wishes to face a two-legs in a straight fight. Slow, clumsy, half-deaf, night-blind, nose-numb, so often strange and silly in their behavior…it was easy to underestimate them. But yet, they were giants. Their strength was immense and their clever forepaws could create horrors. Once a cat was in a solid grip, there was little hope of wriggling free. The best one could hope for was to make the price too high.

“AAAaalleeee”

Still. She had a duty. The ancient compact.

The dead thing was shambling toward the iron gates that led into the courtyard. They were locked, but Shin-Nephura doubted that would be any obstacle. Locks and gates were little use against something like this.

“AAAA—”

“You are not welcome in my territory, dead thing.”

Spotlighted Link: Slacktivist

I’ve been following Fred Clark’s blog, Slacktivist, for a very long time. Back to the Typepad Days, as other long-running Slacktivites might say. Nearly fourteen years now, almost since the very beginning of Fred’s famous deconstruction of the Left Behind books.

I chose Fred Clark to be my first Spotlighted Link, and the first link on my Links page, for three reasons:

Fred’s Left Behind posts may be the best “What Not To Do” primer for writers on the Internet. The Left Behind series is, as Fred himself says, “Instructively Bad”, and seeing their many flaws dissected (complete with suggestions as to how it could have been done better and even fix-fic in the comments) has aided the development of my own writing a great deal.
Fred grew up in the White Christian Evangelical subculture, and remains a member to this day, though he is known in that subculture as “controversial” (which, if you were a reader of Fred’s work, you would know means “heretical”). Reading Fred gives you an intimate view into this subculture, with all its traditions and shibboleths. If you’re an American, you may think you know them. You don’t.
Last but not least, Fred has been a tremendous inspiration to me personally. His compassion and hunger for justice, and his writings on those topics, have given me both desire and directions to be a better person. His post LB: The Rise of the Anti-Huck (a post from his Left Behind critique) is probably the best example I can offer, as he analyzes the greatest moment of Salvation and triumph of love over The Rules in American fiction…and contrasts it with the “heroes” of Left Behind.

Check it out! Before you go, check out my brand new Links page.

By the way, as we say in pretty much every thread on Slacktivist, Fred has a Patreon. Support the artist.

And while you’re at it, consider picking up some of Fred’s books, which collect his blog posts.

There’s

…which discusses his opinions on Creationism (spoiler: not only bad science, but bad religion).

And of course, there’s what you really came for: the two-volume The Anti-Christ Handbook, which collects his columns on the first book of the Left Behind series.

Another Good Step For A Friend

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines (who I will be adding to my link page as soon as I create it) has commissioned another character study of characters from his upcoming novel First Empress. This time, it’s Pella and Zahnia, two young girls who escape from the setting’s equivalent of mad scientists to join Queen Viarraluca in shaping history.

(I should warn you: as much as I’ve enjoyed the excerpts of First Empress that I’ve been privileged to read, it approaches A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of brutality. Unlike ASOIAF, the most “moral” character is also the most competent, but even she comes right up to the edge of “Villain Protagonist” territory sometimes.)

(Also, I must say that I’m considering following Dubiousbyhabit’s advice and contacting MJ for some artwork myself.)

A Good Step For A Friend

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines (which I will be linking here soon, for all that it’s currently on hiatus) is writing a novel called First Empress, a fantasy set in an iron age world. I’ve been reading and reviewing parts of it, and I highly recommend getting yourself a copy when it comes out. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

In the meantime, Dubious has commissioned a picture of two of the main characters: Queen Viarraluca and her handmaiden and lover, Elissa.

Head on over to Sartorially Smart Heroines and check it out…and while you’re there, keep in mind that Queen Viarra is actually more awesome than she looks in that picture.

About the Upcoming Stories

The next three stories are also set in New York, and will almost certainly be included in the Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels compilation. I’m not quite as certain if they’ll be included in my broader New York City mythos, along with the Washington Heights Witches and other NYC supernaturals that I intend to introduce over the course of coming stories.

You see, the Guardian Cats of New York City series was originally inspired by this cartoon from the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Guardian Cat Source

What if, I wondered, there really was some kind of ancient pact between cats and humanity? What if they defended us from Dangers Of The Night that might otherwise slip beneath our radar? Human magic-users and monster hunters might be good at staking vampires and banishing demons, but we won’t notice the rat king in the sewers until the entire town is consumed with pestilence. We’re good a blocking the punch to the face, but we’d never even notice the bite from the plague-bearing flea until it was far too late. Thus, the Old Compact with the cats.

I got three good stories out of the idea, but then started to run out of gas. Cats secretly defending humans from occult threats is an inherently cute idea; I wanted to treat it seriously, but it was resisting. As for incorporating the Guardian Cats into my NYC mythos with the Rivera family and other characters I have planned, there’s no technical reason why not, I suppose, but it raises difficult questions: are all of the cats in my setting Guardian Cats, or does it take a special breed of cat, like a witch’s familiar or Sailor Moon’s companions? What about rats (cats’ eternal enemies) or dogs (their reluctantly-accepted comrades in the defense of the two-legs)? How sapient are they? Does all of this fit into a world of gritty street-level magic?

Those are questions I need to work on as I compile Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels. Any suggestions are welcome.

In the meantime, tomorrow’s story is the first story in the Guardian Cats series, and the one that establishes the rules. Come back tomorrow and enjoy Shin-Nephura’s Neighborhood.