For iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=292779523
For all:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/512Words
11 October 2008
Podcast Link
We're live and on the air! (It's just like radio, except without the listeners.)
For iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=292779523
For all:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/512Words
For iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=292779523
For all:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/512Words
Audio: "Firepower"
NOW I HAVE A MICROPHONE HO HO HO
Thanks to Larry Hosken for hooking me up with a shiny new GTalk headset. Future audio posts should be on time and of higher quality than the--let's just call it a pilot, shall we?
10 October 2008
Incomplete Data
The inspiration for "Firepower" was the first line. I had no idea where it was going to go from there, but after a few weeks of mulling, I managed to find an angle that resonated with me. Physicists, please feel free to correct my hand-wavy science.
As I said before, not all of these "stories" will be fully fleshed out. I've found that I'm better at writing scenes than planning out deeper structures, which is something I need to work on elsewhere. The point of 512 Words is for me to start developing some of the ideas I've been accumulating, to get feedback on them, and to keep writing.
P.S. Sorry about the delay on posting audio. I'm hoping to have a better microphone by this weekend. If that works out, starting next week I'll publish the audio at the same as the text of each story.
As I said before, not all of these "stories" will be fully fleshed out. I've found that I'm better at writing scenes than planning out deeper structures, which is something I need to work on elsewhere. The point of 512 Words is for me to start developing some of the ideas I've been accumulating, to get feedback on them, and to keep writing.
P.S. Sorry about the delay on posting audio. I'm hoping to have a better microphone by this weekend. If that works out, starting next week I'll publish the audio at the same as the text of each story.
"Firepower"
FIREPOWER
By Curtis C. Chen
The guns stopped working on Thursday.
Reggie couldn't understand it at first. He punched the firing switch three times with increasing anxiety before he remembered to check the power relays.
The plasma indicators were dark. No ammunition. Reggie followed procedure and closed the blast shield before flagging and locking his station. It wasn't until he was halfway down the corridor that he realized all the guns had gone quiet.
He reported to Weapons Control, where a platoon's worth of gunners crowded the small space. Reggie squeezed toward the back and found his friend Jasmine sneaking a smoke next to the vent.
"One stick not to tell," Reggie said, holding out his hand.
Jasmine gave him a cigarette. "Those things'll kill you."
"Speaking of, why hasn't Charlie toasted us yet? Looks like every gunner on the ship is here."
"I hear their artillery isn't working either."
"Serious?"
In a loud voice, the chief of the watch told all gunners to report to their respective sergeants for new watch assignments. Reggie and Jasmine drifted out into the corridor and past a viewport facing the enemy fleet. The ships looked like they were standing still.
"Are we still moving?" Reggie asked.
"Surely matching course and speed," Jasmine said. "Mission hasn't changed."
On Friday, the engines stopped working.
Reggie hadn't realized how comforting he found that constant rumble in the background. The silence felt subtle but oppressive, like being trapped in a spacesuit. It gave him a headache.
The noise of the mess hall helped distract him. At lunchtime, he sat with Jasmine and some of her friends from Engineering.
"Ionization isn't happening," one of the engineers said, leaning forward. "We're energizing the chamber, but electrons aren't coming free."
"Then why did the guns shut down first?" asked the gunner next to Reggie. "It's all plasma, isn't it?"
"You need more energy for the guns," the engineer said. "They fire short, concentrated bursts. The engines use a continuous stream."
"So something's wrong with our igniters?" said another engineer.
The first engineer shook his head. "At first we thought Charlie was testing a new weapon, some kind of energy dampening field, but they wouldn't use something that also killed their own power."
"Days I wish we still had missiles," Jasmine muttered.
"So what's your theory?" asked the second engineer.
"Maybe it's this region of space," said the first engineer. "We know gravity curves space and time. Maybe there's a similar force here, affecting the strength of electron bonds."
"You can't change the laws of physics!"
"No, but you can bend them."
"So you're saying we should retreat? That's treason," said another gunner.
"I'm saying we should fly around the strange patch. Our reaction control thrusters are still good. If this phenomenon gets worse, it's going to affect more systems. Electricity might stop working. Maybe even our brains."
"I think your brain's already gone funny." The second engineer stood up. "I'm going back to work. To fixing things."
Across from Reggie, a woman tried to light her cigarette. Reggie couldn't remember her name.
By Curtis C. Chen
The guns stopped working on Thursday.
Reggie couldn't understand it at first. He punched the firing switch three times with increasing anxiety before he remembered to check the power relays.
The plasma indicators were dark. No ammunition. Reggie followed procedure and closed the blast shield before flagging and locking his station. It wasn't until he was halfway down the corridor that he realized all the guns had gone quiet.
He reported to Weapons Control, where a platoon's worth of gunners crowded the small space. Reggie squeezed toward the back and found his friend Jasmine sneaking a smoke next to the vent.
"One stick not to tell," Reggie said, holding out his hand.
Jasmine gave him a cigarette. "Those things'll kill you."
"Speaking of, why hasn't Charlie toasted us yet? Looks like every gunner on the ship is here."
"I hear their artillery isn't working either."
"Serious?"
In a loud voice, the chief of the watch told all gunners to report to their respective sergeants for new watch assignments. Reggie and Jasmine drifted out into the corridor and past a viewport facing the enemy fleet. The ships looked like they were standing still.
"Are we still moving?" Reggie asked.
"Surely matching course and speed," Jasmine said. "Mission hasn't changed."
On Friday, the engines stopped working.
Reggie hadn't realized how comforting he found that constant rumble in the background. The silence felt subtle but oppressive, like being trapped in a spacesuit. It gave him a headache.
The noise of the mess hall helped distract him. At lunchtime, he sat with Jasmine and some of her friends from Engineering.
"Ionization isn't happening," one of the engineers said, leaning forward. "We're energizing the chamber, but electrons aren't coming free."
"Then why did the guns shut down first?" asked the gunner next to Reggie. "It's all plasma, isn't it?"
"You need more energy for the guns," the engineer said. "They fire short, concentrated bursts. The engines use a continuous stream."
"So something's wrong with our igniters?" said another engineer.
The first engineer shook his head. "At first we thought Charlie was testing a new weapon, some kind of energy dampening field, but they wouldn't use something that also killed their own power."
"Days I wish we still had missiles," Jasmine muttered.
"So what's your theory?" asked the second engineer.
"Maybe it's this region of space," said the first engineer. "We know gravity curves space and time. Maybe there's a similar force here, affecting the strength of electron bonds."
"You can't change the laws of physics!"
"No, but you can bend them."
"So you're saying we should retreat? That's treason," said another gunner.
"I'm saying we should fly around the strange patch. Our reaction control thrusters are still good. If this phenomenon gets worse, it's going to affect more systems. Electricity might stop working. Maybe even our brains."
"I think your brain's already gone funny." The second engineer stood up. "I'm going back to work. To fixing things."
Across from Reggie, a woman tried to light her cigarette. Reggie couldn't remember her name.
05 October 2008
Audio: "Ghosts of Earth"
Yes, I'm still working on getting a better microphone. And background music.
Here's how I think these audio posts will work:
- The title of the post will be a direct download link to the mp3 file.
- There will be a Flash audio player embedded in the post, as shown above.
- And the podcast, which should appear in the iTunes directory any day now, should only contain the audio posts.
03 October 2008
After the Apocalypse
"Ghosts of Earth" was my third story published on 365 tomorrows, in early December of 2006. I sent the link to my high school English teacher, who asked if it was counter-programming for the holiday season; in fact, I'd written it around Halloween that year, and it had taken a month for the editorial process to run its course.
That editorial delay is one of the reasons I wanted to start this 512 Words project. I dream of someday being able to get published as quickly as Scalzi, but until then, this is a way to force myself to produce on a schedule and allow myself to experiment with ideas in short form. I'm already contemplating longer works based on some of the stuff you see here.
In fact, I fleshed out "Ghosts of Earth" for my Clarion 2008 application--not entirely successfully, since it didn't get me into the workshop--and also started "Waiting for the Dot," another story in the same universe. Both of those are longer than 512 words, so you won't be seeing them here.
That editorial delay is one of the reasons I wanted to start this 512 Words project. I dream of someday being able to get published as quickly as Scalzi, but until then, this is a way to force myself to produce on a schedule and allow myself to experiment with ideas in short form. I'm already contemplating longer works based on some of the stuff you see here.
In fact, I fleshed out "Ghosts of Earth" for my Clarion 2008 application--not entirely successfully, since it didn't get me into the workshop--and also started "Waiting for the Dot," another story in the same universe. Both of those are longer than 512 words, so you won't be seeing them here.
"Ghosts of Earth"
GHOSTS OF EARTH
By Curtis C. Chen
The first crystal fell on Los Angeles in the middle of rush hour, killing thirty-two people. Caltrans spent an hour trying to move the enormous mass before it drilled itself into the ground and disappeared.
Two hours later, another crystal splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The Navy sent a submarine to track it, but they couldn't go deep enough. Three hours after that, another one hit the Pacific. Then a fourth crystal struck the ocean south of Japan, flooding the coast.
Someone noticed that all four impacts had occurred on the same line of latitude, proceeding west. Governments evacuated cities while the bombardment continued, every three hours, like clockwork: China, Iraq, Algeria, the Atlantic Ocean, South Carolina. Then the tenth crystal impacted off the coast of Mexico. They were moving south.
NASA triangulated the origin of the crystals to a point outside the Moon's orbit. Observatories all over the planet turned their lenses that way, but saw nothing. The ship was too small to be visible at that range.
We had no vessels that could travel that far. All we could do was evacuate the cities in the line of fire and attempt to study the crystals, which we were unable to halt or slow as they burrowed deep underground.
Five days later, the last crystal fell into the Pacific, west of central Peru. There were now one hundred and eight alien objects embedded deep in the Earth, arranged in a precise grid circling the equatorial region of our planet. The invaders had parked their ship in space and let Earth itself rotate each target into position for them.
Eight different research teams had crawled down the crystal tunnels. Two teams were broadcasting live video when the crystals started burning. Again, we could only watch, helpless.
The world burned for nearly a year. Most of the plant and animal life died within the first day. The crystals weren't just raising the temperature and fouling the air–-they were also causing chemical changes, using our planet as raw material to terraform itself.
The aliens waited a full decade before landing, to let their new vegetation and prey animals grow. The few humans who had managed to survive, in Antarctica and other frozen places, were slowly suffocated by the toxic atmosphere. We mourned them, but only briefly. We still have work to do.
The crystal fire had killed our bodies, but freed our minds–-some say souls, or spirits. We don't entirely understand it, but we know that we're still here. We can see everything. And we can do things.
We watched the aliens land, and sent scouts to verify that they couldn't sense us. Creating six billion angry ghosts had not been part of their invasion plan.
They use electronics, just as we did, and we've found that our incorporeal forms can directly affect electrical systems. A million scientists, no longer restrained by language barriers, are devising a plan to sabotage whatever the aliens do next.
We're betting that they won't want to live on a haunted planet.
By Curtis C. Chen
The first crystal fell on Los Angeles in the middle of rush hour, killing thirty-two people. Caltrans spent an hour trying to move the enormous mass before it drilled itself into the ground and disappeared.
Two hours later, another crystal splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The Navy sent a submarine to track it, but they couldn't go deep enough. Three hours after that, another one hit the Pacific. Then a fourth crystal struck the ocean south of Japan, flooding the coast.
Someone noticed that all four impacts had occurred on the same line of latitude, proceeding west. Governments evacuated cities while the bombardment continued, every three hours, like clockwork: China, Iraq, Algeria, the Atlantic Ocean, South Carolina. Then the tenth crystal impacted off the coast of Mexico. They were moving south.
NASA triangulated the origin of the crystals to a point outside the Moon's orbit. Observatories all over the planet turned their lenses that way, but saw nothing. The ship was too small to be visible at that range.
We had no vessels that could travel that far. All we could do was evacuate the cities in the line of fire and attempt to study the crystals, which we were unable to halt or slow as they burrowed deep underground.
Five days later, the last crystal fell into the Pacific, west of central Peru. There were now one hundred and eight alien objects embedded deep in the Earth, arranged in a precise grid circling the equatorial region of our planet. The invaders had parked their ship in space and let Earth itself rotate each target into position for them.
Eight different research teams had crawled down the crystal tunnels. Two teams were broadcasting live video when the crystals started burning. Again, we could only watch, helpless.
The world burned for nearly a year. Most of the plant and animal life died within the first day. The crystals weren't just raising the temperature and fouling the air–-they were also causing chemical changes, using our planet as raw material to terraform itself.
The aliens waited a full decade before landing, to let their new vegetation and prey animals grow. The few humans who had managed to survive, in Antarctica and other frozen places, were slowly suffocated by the toxic atmosphere. We mourned them, but only briefly. We still have work to do.
The crystal fire had killed our bodies, but freed our minds–-some say souls, or spirits. We don't entirely understand it, but we know that we're still here. We can see everything. And we can do things.
We watched the aliens land, and sent scouts to verify that they couldn't sense us. Creating six billion angry ghosts had not been part of their invasion plan.
They use electronics, just as we did, and we've found that our incorporeal forms can directly affect electrical systems. A million scientists, no longer restrained by language barriers, are devising a plan to sabotage whatever the aliens do next.
We're betting that they won't want to live on a haunted planet.
01 October 2008
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