Amuse-gueule

I wrote this for a story challenge on a sci-fi blog called The World in a Satin Bag. The story challenge is as follows: write "A steampunk culinary cat mystery involving manga in 300 words or less."

I'm quite happy with the results, I think. (I hope.)


Amuse-gueule


The woman walked out of the steam billowing over the dirigible platform. Cradling an exotic shorthair cat in her muscular arms, she looked down after shyly meeting my gaze. The edges of her angularly-cut hair slid over her face in perfumed curtains.

Twin swords were laced into her striped corset. Her skirts looked more like petticoats than proper wear for a young lady. By God, she was half-naked, her legs and feet bare. I couldn’t stop looking.

She was perfect, my own personal manga heroine come to life.

I cleared my throat. "You know why you are here?" I asked.

She raised her eyebrow and the cat yawned. "It’s no mystery to me," she said.

"You’ll do it? Kill my wife?" I said, smoothing my cravat nervously, unable to quell my hands. "You do realize how evil she is?"

The assassin pulled out a lacquered keypad. Tiny puffs of steam huffed out of the device as she tapped the ivory keys. She held out the keypad and a stylus. "Please sign the screen," she said, biting her lip, for all the world as if anticipating some pleasure she wasn’t sure that she would receive.

I signed with a flourish. She grabbed my arm in a fierce pinch, dragging me up into the dirigible’s stateroom. "I say, my dear girl—" My words jammed in my soft palate.

I was facing my wife. She was, incongruously, carrying a spoon.

"I’m not sure I need to watch—" I said. The swords came down upon my skull, slicing my scalp, leaving my brain intact, if exposed.

"He consented?" my wife hissed.

"He signed the contract."

"Excellent. A willing victim increases the salutary effects for zombies such as ourselves."

My wife’s spoon dipped into my brains. She fed the assassin’s cat first.

Weeping for the Villain—The Season Finale of Legend of the Seeker

Well in the end the writers of Legend of the Seeker wrapped up the season ender in a way that captured the book in spirit, if not in the plot points.

WARNING! Here be spoilers! Arrrr! (For some reason that sounds better in a pirate voice.) Although I'm the only person I know watching this show, so probably no one but me cares.

For a plot that involved time travel and pregnancy, both of which I usually think of as jump-the-shark scenarios, it was pretty good.

Everything was fully resolved. You can tell that the writers didn't think this show would go to second season. Now that it has been picked up again, I guess they are going to mine the second book for plots.

I want to say it was resolved in a satisfying way, and it was, except that my favourite character is the villain Darken Rahl. I loved that the last few episodes had a lot of Rahl action but now he's very dead.

I'm curious to see what they are going to do with Cara, the Mord-Sith so I am looking forward to next season for that. And, well, at least we have the Seeker's chest to look at, which has enough screen presence that it is almost like a character in its own right.

J.J. Abrams's Big Red Plot Device, Or 99 Luftballoons

Star Trek had more plot holes than black holes, but it didn't matter. I still went to see it twice this weekend, because of the extreme hotness of Spock. I haven't seen a movie twice in the theatres in probably over ten years, so that's saying something.

But so far I seem to be the only person I know who noticed that J.J. Abrams used a giant red sphere as plot device AGAIN. Abrams resolved season 4 of Alias with a giant red golf ball that floated over Russia and turned an entire town's populace into zombies. In Star Trek it's 99 luftballoons for a second time, with an orb of "red matter" that creates black holes. It didn't work the first time for Alias, and it doesn't work in Star Trek (2009).

All balls aside, I loved this movie. Not because it was good, but because it rawked. The action was great, the sets were pretty, the banter made me laugh, there were tons of Trek references and Zachary Quinto did an amazing job as Spock. He carries this movie. Really, all the actors caught their characters well. Plotting is not J.J. Abrams' strong point, but he's really good at creating compelling characters.

With Enterprise and this current movie and the death of Rodenberry, I feel that the Trek universe is becoming much more politically conservative and jingoistic. I loved the Vulcan/human relationships in Enterprise and in Star Trek (2009), but the way the characters solve problems through violence was something I had to actively look past to enjoy the show and this new movie.

The whole point of the original Trek universe was to imagine an essentially positive future where humans had got over the worst of their nature and were trying to live in the world ethically and peacefully. Not many sci-fi worlds are positive about humanity's fate so I really valued Trek's vision of a noble humanity. Sadly, but without giving away any plot points, Star Trek (2009) has lost this hope and lacks the some of the depth of the original. The new movie is shiny and fun, but, as one of my friends said, "It's like cotton candy."

Luckily, this cotton candy is pretty damn good.