I've been trying to write this for a long time but what with one thing and another I end up just thinking about it and not doing anything. Hopefully I might be able to turn this into something half decent now I've started.
It's a good start. Very interesting, the way you portray the character. He seems almost . . . locked in the past. Unable to forget.
I've an idea that came to me after I started that should tie all that together nicely-ish. Maybe one day I'll actually plan one of these things first and I'll actually know what the hell I'm doing.
I know the feeling. You get a cool idea, run with it, and then you can't finish it. But keep going. You'll work it out.
I've read "Duty Never Ends", and now this.
I must say, Kallidor, you have a talent for portraying non-normal, imaginative characters and for opening a story thus that the reader is immediately drawn into an array of mysteries.
Intriguing...
Quote from: Swarbie on January 25, 2010, 08:08:03 AM
I know the feeling. You get a cool idea, run with it, and then you can't finish it. But keep going. You'll work it out.
Exactly. I've had a lot more ideas for stories than I've ever started on the Conclave but knowing they probably won't get past the first post (or more likely I see a scene in my mind which would logically appear in the middle of a story) I just never bother to type them out at all. This is somthing I've been wanting to do though and previous attempts have stalled to a halt.
Quote from: Baraltax on January 25, 2010, 09:00:27 PM
I've read "Duty Never Ends", and now this.
I must say, Kallidor, you have a talent for portraying non-normal, imaginative characters and for opening a story thus that the reader is immediately drawn into an array of mysteries.
Intriguing...
Thank you ;D
The temptation to write a big 40K gore-fest is quite strong but I feel that writing such a story would be hollow. Unfortunately I think my imagination far outstrips my skill to craft fully rounded characters that mesh into a cohesive plot. I think I tend to over explain things in stories so with this I've decided to keep it minimal and to show the world through one character's eyes and hopefully avoid that pitfall. At least that's the theory.
So how is the no name thing going down? I probably won't mention any at all until near the very end but does it have any adverse effects on the story?
"I" and "He" suffice for naming as long as there's but two. If there'd be three, it would normally get confusing, unless the third is a "she", of course.
So, I think it's just fine as it is, didn't bother me, anyway.
I see you're taking the track of Chaos. Interesting. For all the divinising of individual freedom, there're certain lures to living in a "prison", even though we might want to deny it. Liked that.
Quote from: Kallidor on January 26, 2010, 10:11:57 PMExactly. I've had a lot more ideas for stories than I've ever started on the Conclave but knowing they probably won't get past the first post (or more likely I see a scene in my mind which would logically appear in the middle of a story) I just never bother to type them out at all.
You could put them in the Short Fiction Collections or some topic along that line.
"Scenes plucked from the daily grind of the 41st Millenium"
I don't think there will be any other characters, at least none that will accompany the main two so hopefully it won't become a problem.
Well the very first thing you read about 40K is that it is the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable and whilst I do think that there is room for a lot of personal freedom and liberty, it wouldn't exactly evoke the ethos to only show happy people with happy lives. In a way there is no freedom to be had, we are all constrained in one way or another and I certainly think that for the Imperium it relies on its citizens being institutionalised.
I suppose ideas for stories could simply be that, a short story that shows a scene that takes place somewhere in the 40K galaxy. I might just do that.
Thanks for the comments.
A few more posts maybe and I think this one might finally be done.
Really interesting piece of writing you've got here. Good courage to leave so much unsaid, it not only gives the writing fluidity and movement but also echoes the isolation and uncertainty which must be the hallmarks of survival on a fallen world. I always think the mark of good writing is if the reader can see echoes of other writers in it, whether the writer has read them or not: i get Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' (same sense of total dependence, and heading somewhere for an unknown reason), bits of Philip Reeve's 'Mortal Engines' series (particularly 'A Darkling Plain'), perhaps because the references to bionic parts evokes Shrike, and for the same reason bits of the Terminator films (again that dependence for survival).
Keep it coming!
Thank you for the compliments, most encouraging. I only know The Road from the film version although I have used a passage rom Blood Meridian once before although only as I know that passage which I stumbled upon somewhere on the web. I haven't read any of Philip Reeve's books though (first time I've heard of him to tell the truth). The name of the story comes from the song/piece of music The Dead Flag Blues which is similar to The Road I would say.
There are things I would like to explore with a Choas held world which I don't think I will get to in this. I had a very specific reason for writing this story and I only hope that the conclusion won't spoil it; it may well be that the ending has the result of 'oh, that's what all this was about, tut'. Although I've had some inspiration and ideas recently which will modify what I was going to do which should make the ending a bit more interesting. Anyway, we'll see I suppose.
Hah, [EXCOMMUNICATE] my (http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h81/Sonnilion/word.jpg) butt.
So how does the latest post sit with you readers, or should that just be reader? It's a long post but I think it moves along pretty quickly.
Definitely liked it.
And whatever the ending may turn out to be (though I'm curious, so go and write!), it can't undo a the good piece of writing written so far. Keep it up.
I find that very pleasing to hear and I'm glad you've been reading along. Thanks for the comments.
um any chance of a new installment? been waiting patiently...
Done. About time too I suppose. I was going to add more to that post but that seemed like a good place to stop.
Been meaning to read this for a while, and unable to sleep tonight and seeing you update the story with an ending I decided to read it all the way through.
Fantastic, a great depth of detail and depth without feeling cluttered or awkwardly predictable. Every emotion and sensation is illustrated in an acutely imaginable way that made me shiver at some points it felt so gritty and sad.
Anyway, sterling stuff and certainly makes insomnia more bearable :)
Rob
Nice ending, thanks for the effort. I really enjoyed this one. Someone else wrote that it reminded them of The Road, I agree.
Couple of questions though... was he possessed or changing somehow? Also was he actually carrying his lover around with him?
I know the writing style was intended to be vague and ethereal, which was pulled off very well, but it's been niggling at me. Another thought I had was maybe it was the Obliterator virus? Although I don't know anything about it, it's just the black veins part that made me think of Kaled's infected gunslinger.
-Tim
I feel my last OOC post has confused the issue somewhat, but this isn't the final ever post. There's a bit more to come yet.
Thank you both for reading along and commenting, I'm pleased you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.
Not the end you say? Excellent :) look forward to the next instalment then.
Rob
Ah this is good news! I guess my questions will be answered in due course.
Since I probably wont cover it explicitly in the IC, I'll explain it here. As we now know (and yes, it's as much a revelation to me as any of you since all of this just sorta comes to me as I type) the poor chap whose been dragged along on this, mission shall we say, murdered his wife/girlfriend/woman but until now couldn't or wouldn't remember. Instead he carried a photograph with him and it was to that, to her, that he has directed this narrative when he hasn't just been living it of course, I don't suppose he kept up a running commentary about every little thing, it's just what he saw as he saw it.
Hopefully you'll read OOC first but if not, do so now or this may be a little bit of a spoiler. He has been possessed but not by a daemon, by another soul, which was sorta grafted on to his so that it could be pretected from the ravages of the warp.
Anyone who read my other aborted solo ICs may be seeing where this is going but I won't say any more. The next IC post will probably be the last one and tie up all these loose ends. Thanks for reading and commenting, it's greatly appreciated.
Only just got round to reading the latest installment, and not having read any of your previous works I have no idea where this is going but dying to find out! Very good stuff, and definitely the size of installments is just right that it gets me interested and then tails of with me wanting more and needing to know what happened next.
The imagery as well in that last post with the blood was particularly well done I might add.
Rob
Thanks for that. I don't know why I said there'd only be one more post, I forgot about a whole load of things yet to do but I suppose the next post will be the last one for this half of the story so it's an end of sorts.
I'm on a roll today two IC posts in quick succession!
That should make things more clear however since most if not all of the good people reading this and commenting will have a clue who the character is or what he did then I can answer any questions OOC if there are any.
Oh, and there's more IC posts to come. at least two if not not several.
I feel utterly enthralled and also a little lost, but in a way that is good as it feels like I am grasping for the final pieces of the puzzle.
Once again, a great short bite, leaving me wanting more.
Caralinus was my screen name on the old 'Clave, and my first and main IC character. He was involved in a jumble of solo stories which all came neatly into line over the years; I was building up background for my DIY Chapter, Prophets of Hatred, and their homeworld mainly. He was also heavily involved in the glorious Silvorian Heresy RPs and he and his companion Kallidor both died by the end.
It was quite a detailed plot line I suppose that I created for Caralinus and the Chapter. To cut it all very short, the traitor I mention IC was the first company captain who sacrificed the entirety of the Chapter's scouts in order to gain acces to a Choas relic that would make him a daemon prince instantly; that relic was in fact the daemon blade Khorughurtsch, one of the first humans to leave earth during the early period of human space exploration and colonisation. But Caralinus ended up bound to the sword and his mentor was killed during the combat; I used the old cliche of a death bed promotion to make Caralinus a full Inquisitor but I guess it hadn't been so overly used back then. Of course Caralinus was marked as a radical even though he wasn't and by the end of the Silver Heresy RPs it was clear that he would most likely have been executed following a fiar trial of course by by the puritan Inquisitors who also took part in those RPs.
Since my good computer has blue screen of death I don't have access to my saved versions of those RPs but it must be three years nearly since Caralinus died. It's always cool to have a main character who dies stay dead but I couldn't resist and hopefully the circumstances of his resurrection are a good enough excuse.
Thats help fills the holes nicely thanks Kallidor. And as far as a means of resurrection goes, I can't imagine a more convincing one to return a long dead a character to life than the one you've written.
Also the fact that it, as a story in its own right, is deeply engrossing is pretty damn good!
If you ever manage to get to the saved old version I would love to read them :)
That was very cool, very brave with the Carrion Lord twist and unexpected.
I particularly liked this line;
QuoteAll very true. The Gods create daemons and are themselves the product of daemons, just as an ocean can beget a drop of water so can billions of drops of water beget an ocean
Been checking for it for a while and was very glad to see a new installment.
QuoteIf you ever manage to get to the saved old version I would love to read them.
I think Koval has got the first and second Silver Heresy so you could ask him for those but I don't know about the first RP as a big chunk of that was lost during the big server crash. I had a lot of fun doing those RPs although who knows what they would be like to read but it's a shame that it's all just gone.
QuoteI particularly liked this line;
Thanks for that, it was the only way I could think to explain the relationships. Depending on the source you can have daemons created from thoughts and feelings or as simply mini versions of a Chaos God which the God can create at whim. I like the idea of the Gods being some other than just very powerful daemons, going back to the old idea of them as massive warp storms of raging emotion but I like the idea of them being more inchoate than that.
I also like the idea of there being more independant daemons. For instance if a violent thought gives rise to a warp entity, if it is weak it simply is drawn into Khorne, if it is more powerful it can survive as an entity in its own right which may or may not align itself to Khorne. But what about thoughts and emotions not so easily tied to one of the Chaos Gods? I imagine that those daemons are independant entities.
I suppose that was how I came up with some of my own ideas for the Carrion Lord during a Warseer discussion about whether or not the Emperor gained power from faith like the Chaos Gods. My conclusion is that He doesn't, as He isn't a warp entity but all of those collective thoughts have to go somewhere don't they. There's a lot you can do with Chaos and the warp beyond the usual Kill! Maim! Burn! attitude I think.
Some more musings and the next step in the story.
I like the return to 'his love', the depth of the previous posts had all but wiped her from my mind, and it is nice that she as a key element of the narrative has not been forgotten.
Quote from: Kallidor on September 11, 2010, 04:18:02 AM
For instance the physiology of a psyker produces a soul with a greatly inflated soul compared to the soul of a non-psychic being.
This sounds a little off to me, too many souls? Very pedantic but I pick only as you are usually flawless in your editing :P
On the other end of the spectrum. I particularly like this line, just a brilliant description of demon formation
Quote from: Kallidor on September 11, 2010, 04:18:02 AM
Daemons as I have said are emotions or thoughts or feelings given life in the warp, they are the renegade soul fragments of mortals
Great stuff once again.
Rob
Yuck, you're right I hadn't noticed that and repetition is something I really don't like so I'll get that sorted out.
The last few posts have sparked a few ideas I'd never thought of before. I've said it before, and long after it had occured to me I read a similar train of thought that an author working for Games Workshop had had, back when they were only just experimenting with novels, that great unconscious forces seem to be at work going over all these ideas and then when I start typing they just appear on the screen, totally without any input or effort from 'me'. I may well have typed them up but I can hardly claim credit.
Well fixed with that sentence.
With regards to not taking credit, you would be surprised at the complexity and importance that the human subconscious holds with regards to even the most complex human conscious actions (I am a neuroscientist, woo double geek!); the depth of processing that occurs subconsciously even with regards to abstract concepts is truly staggering and even more so when you factor in simple mundane processes like walking.
Anyway you do yourself a discredit sir!
Tallyho
The worst thing for me is that those processess continue to work often long after I have forgotten what it was I was trying to work out or remember and then at the most inappropriate moments I have an 'ah, yeah, that's what it was! moment followed by a 'what the hell did I want to know that for?' Sometimes those processes even turn me off for a while, afterall, trying to live your life isn't half as important as recalling some obscure piece of background :P I'm just waiting for someone to make some working bionic augmentations for the brain. Enough of my silliness anyway.
I love the description of Caralinus consuming the traitor souls, beautiful and disturbing in equal measure.
Thanks. The whole passage was a little rushed because I just wanted to do something and move the story on a little.
If you haven't read it (Emperor's Mercy) then this will be somewhat of a spolier but there is a scene where the Inquisitor is astral projecting, or some such thing, and he flies over the Chaos army and sees the ghosts of the people murdered by the Iron Clad following and trailing behind them. I wasn't thinking of that speciffically as I typed but I imagine that Caralinus is a little like one of those spirits with the exception that he can be seen where normally a ghost cannot. Really he's floating in the Warp, just very near to the barrier to the material world.
I had some thoughts the other day about the Warp and emotions and what not but I won't drone on here, save that for a later post.
Haven't been here for some time, but I had to check Dead Eagle Blues. Turns out there's a whole range of new developments and the bit I read before was just a pleasant introduction. Very nice work, although reading OOC has helped me to put the IC in the right perspectives.
What I like is the unusual topic and the very different point of view you take of it, narrative-wise. There's little to no larger framework or setting to hitch the story on, limiting the tale to the I person, and apparantly linking it with previous characters and stories. Not sure if I miss that, or if it makes the story what it is: dark, threatening, sinister with a phylosofic inteligence to it.
Good read!
Thank you :)
I suppose in some ways it's a little restricted, only having the story explained by one person, what the other characters think or feel or what motivates them can only be understood if he happens to observe it and then it's only hs opinion. I quite like it though, it makes me think about the story in a different way. With sounding overblown I suppose you get to see the story rather than just be told the story.
I'm just glad you've enjoyed it/been entertained by it.
Not being able to use the other characters in the normal way does mean that the background isn't really there for them so it does seem as if they've just been thrown in very chaotically; maybe that's a good thing considering. Then again, with the single person perspective this is how it would be, if you found yourself in a situation you wouldn't have an omnipotent view of events, you wouldn't know the minutiae of other people's lives and history, you would only know what you saw and heard.
Again I really enjoyed the last post, the manner of writing it seemed to echo the bizarre yet mundane nature comment made late on, with the detail of their position to the fire feeling somehow like a vital detail building flesh of the scene. You are very good at using adjectives without saturating the narrative with them I feel.
Having said that I personally don't like 'Lets do this' end line,,, just a bit to hollywood-esque, but that really is over the top nit picking on my half.
As always, eagerly await the next instalment.
I'll be honest, I accidentily ended up hitting the back button (when you're using a rather snazzy keyboard that you found and therefore do not know what all the wierd butons do, don't randomly press them while typing out a post) and losing everything I had written, roughly half of the final post, and I got bored and that's why I gave him the corny line, so I could just finish. I make no apologies :P ;)