Garrisonjames

Gravy-like sludge slipped from under her boots, moss gave way when she grabbed it. She slid down a curved embankment, struck a rock, hit a rotting log that flipped her onto her back. A massive cluster of two-toned ferns and fungi stopped her on the edge of a limpid pool of scummed-over water. She started to pull herself up from the rich scarlet silt. Then it began to rain. A soft, drenching, warm rain. She stopped struggling when she saw that the rain was washing away her tracks and instead pulled ooze, moss and wet debris over her armor and hoped she could avoid detection. Continued running was pointless, what the Jarpha wanted her to do; she intended to turn things around instead, to become the hunter, not the prey. Previous                                                                                          Next An Introduction     An Index     Datadex/Appendix The  Weekend Writing Warriors site  sponsors a round of 8-sentence excerpts every weekend.  Zeelia (1)  was

Ferns the size of elephants, fronds big enough to use as tents; she ran from stalk to stem to trunk and on through the increasingly dim reddish twilight that lingered beneath the lowest canopy. Her boots were gummed with resinous gunk, her hair was sticky with red stuff in the air--maybe pollen, possibly spores, she wasn't sure and didn't have time to give it much attention. Whatever it was, it mingled with her sweat and the humidity in the air until it ran like blood down her face and shoulders. She wiped the stuff out of her eyes and kept moving. Silence dogged her every step. Dead silence. Anything that couldn't get away was hunkering down, hiding, hoping to get overlooked. What was coming after her had made a powerful impression on the local wildlife; only the swarms of hungry black beetles ignored her plight, disinterested in her flight, as they continued to collect resin and go about their tasks. Previous                                                          

Zeelia is an ongoing science fiction adventure serial written in eight-sentence episodes. A new episode is posted every week, usually on Saturday morning, as part of the  Weekend Writing Warriors  weekly blog-hop. We begin right in the middle of some action; Zeelia is fleeing, in stolen armor, from the scalehounds of the Jarpha. She's hurt, harried and hunted when we first meet her and in order to escape her pursuers, she takes a wild leap into the unknown. We discover bits and pieces about this strange red landscape, and Zeelia herself, as we go along, eight sentences at a time. Since this serial is being presented in eight-sentence snippets each week, there sometimes isn't a lot of room to get into some of the details like what a scalehound is, or who the Jarpha are, so I'm going to be putting together a few bonus-posts that will give readers a little more insight into the background. Much like how Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, and others who established the trad

Light erupted thunderously behind her head. Again. Hammer-blow winds ripped at her back, tugged at her hands, threatened to dislodge her in mid-step. But she kept moving. Didn't fall. Didn't stop. She wasn't there to feel the third blast. She ran through red foliage for all she was worth. Previous                                                                                          Next An Introduction     An Index     Datadex/Appendix The  Weekend Writing Warriors site  sponsors a round of 8-sentence excerpts every weekend.  Zeelia (1)  was my first 8-sentence except and has become a regular weekly feature here at my blog. There is a new Linky-list at  Weekend Writing Warriors  for everyone participating in the blog-hop each weekend. Be sure to check out some of the other writers!

On Saturday, January 11, 2014, Zeelia debuted here on my blog. I had just discovered the Weekend Writing Warriors , a group of authors who post 8-sentence excerpts of their work online every week. It sounded like a cool idea and I thought that I would give it a shot . I wrote-out my first eight sentences. The second set quickly followed. A third. Before I knew it, I had written eight installments one after the other in one fell swoop, so I started posting them as an ongoing weekly eight-sentence serial. Here are links to all the Episodes, so far... Series One: Episodes 1 to 20 One     Two     Three     Four     Five     Six     Seven     Eight     Nine     Ten     Eleven     Twelve    Thirteen    Fourteen   Fifteen   Sixteen   Seventeen   Eighteen   Nineteen Twenty Series Two: Coming Soon! 21    22    23  ... Or try a  Label Search to read all the posts in order back to the beginning Zeelia's Data-Node An Introduction     An Index The  Week

Three tall, thin beings stalked towards the edge of the water right below her perch. Softly glowing jellyfish-sacs of buoyant fluid floated around them providing an incredibly adjustable form of illumination. They carried spears and were covered head to toe in some sort of bark or chitin. It was impossible to tell if it was armor or their own natural hide. One of them spotted the place where she had come ashore and made gestures to its companions, which was all she needed to see to know it was time to get moving again . There was a sort of ledge formed by a twisted tangle of roots that led off around the main mass. She didn't get very far before the three hunters were picked out by the strobe lamps of a Jarpha pursuit aerostat. She didn't stop to watch how things would go; she knew all too well that the Jarpha had earned their reputation for ruthlessness. Previous                                                                                          Next An Introduc

Bacon and eggs. One of the best ways to wake up. Even down here. Too bad we're out of coffee. Those bulbous yellow roots make something passable anyway. Even if'n I have to boil them three times after they've roasted in the cook-fire coals overnight. Coffee isn't supposed to be yellow, but with enough honey, they don't complain too much, so long as they don't know where the honey comes from. At least not within my hearing. I'm starting to kind of like the aroma of the stuff. Reminds me of turmeric and ginseng. But not quite either. We're just about out of eggs. I never expected us to go through two crates-full on this trip. I also never counted on re-filling the egg-crates twice now with those things that the boss calls eggs. I don't care who you think you are, things cut out of the belly of some worm aren't really eggs. Ova, yes. Eggs, no. Hell no. But there's no arguing with the boss. She's a real slave-driver that one. Mea