Action Adventure Fiction

[If you have never read Oasis before, you’ll probably be better off starting at the beginning.]

The Punch Heard ‘Round The Hotel

People tend to make bad decisions when they’re angry.

Or stressed.

Or tired.

Davis must have been all three, because his decision was terrible. I’m not sure exactly what he was hoping to accomplish by rushing Samson like that. All I know is that he did not get the outcome he wanted.

Davis hadn’t even placed his second foot on the platform when it happened. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been sick this week, and when I get sick, I like to curl up with a Doc Savage book. For those of you who are unaware of Doc Savage, I have prepared a graphic to introduce you.

Anyway, the book I read this time was “The Mental Wizard.” The back of the book has the following description: “The massive creature-a mile from head to toe!-sleeps in the steaming jungle. Is the behemoth real, or has the golden enchantress ‘Z’ conquered the magnificent MAN OF BRONZE with the hypnotic power of her superhuman mind? Doc Savage meets his mental match when he uncovers the strange lost kingdom of the deadly Amazon.”

I would just like to start by saying two things.

1. That description is totally misleading. It makes it sound like Doc will be facing off against a giant jungle beast. The fact that the description is misleading doesn’t mean the book is not enjoyable, though. The book is great.
2. If you ever find a stockpile of Doc Savage’s stuff, and you see several cans marked “coffee,” don’t be fooled- they’re really filled with explosives.

If you’ve read the last review of a Doc Savage book I did, you already know that if you cut Doc Savage, he bleeds awesome.

But here are some things you may not know about Doc.

• He does not own any shirts that are not ripped to shreds. Just look at any Doc Savage book or magazine cover.
• He is good at faking his own death/unconsciousness. He does it twice in this book.
• Like Frodo, he has a mithril vest. Or at least a tightly woven yet light chain mail vest. It’s tight and strong enough to stop a poison dart needle.
• Doc is calm in any situation. Seriously. Bombs are exploding left and right, strange men wearing strange leather smocks show up (and immediately die), a Amazonian princess descended from the pharaoh Klantic and has hair that appears to be gold plated (and telepathic control powers) shows up and causes trouble, it doesn’t matter. He keeps it together.
• During part of his spare time, he designs military airplanes for large-scale production. The Columbian army even has (at least) one, which they loan to him. The afore-mentioned woman crashes it.
• Doc is prepared for anything. He has a pocket metal detector (remember, this was written in the 1930’s) thats alert him to the grenade in the fruit basket the bad guys try to deliver.
• Doc is possibly the best chemist ever. He uses a small chemistry set to make tear gas and a chemical that dissolves stone. He uses the stone dissolving one to become the new pharaoh Klantic. There’s no way for me to explain that one without having you just read the book.
• Doc may very well have invented RFID tags. He’s left a tracer on each of the automatic pistols that he gives to his five aides. As a matter of fact, he hooks a RFID-style detector to the detonator that makes the before-mentioned coffee cans explode. He leaves the guns for the bad guys to find, and they rush him (after he’s warned them, of course) and that sets of the coffee-bombs…

Despite the fact that everything I’ve said here sounds like it comes from different books, it all really makes sense as you read it. And it’s a lot of fun.

OK, so it’s not your fault, but I just discovered that my latest changes to the theme make my site look like a steaming pile of buffalo pucky in IE. *sigh* Wish me luck figuring it out…

*EDIT*

Well, At least I got the sidebar to go up in the right place…

[If you have never read Oasis before, you’ll probably be better off starting at the beginning.]

A Tangled Web

“I don’t really know what I can say that will convince you otherwise, but here’s what happened. Last night, Lily came into my room and attempted to seduce me. I got out of there. In the hall, Richard and friends were just coming out of the stairwell. I did try to hurry them along, but it was no use.”

I took a deep breath before continuing. “Lily stole my other shirt, came out into the hall, and put on a show for the lawyer herd. She left and I went back to my room. Those five weasels came in to my room and beat me up. I tried to defend myself, but with one on five in a small room, I suppose the result was inevitable. And there you have it.”

Many in the crowd shook their heads, presumably in disgust.

But what else was there to do? Richard had created a lie and provided evidence.

Richard scowled at me. “Is there nothing else you’d like to tell us? Like maybe the truth?”

I couldn’t Read the rest of this entry »

Rather than continue using feedburner, I decided to finally set up a real newsletter. The signup is in the upper right, where the old signup for feedburner was. When you join the newsletter, you will still be notified when I’ve posted new fiction, or something equally exciting happens. I’ve just got a lot more control over what goes out with the new system.

Plus, I can send out super-secret-newsletter-subscribers-only messages.

Of course, if you don’t sign up, we can still be friends.

[Sorry about the extreme lateness. Weekends always get busy around my place. If you’ve never read Oasis before, you should start with chapter one. I’m pretty sure we’ll be back on track for another new chapter this Friday. Thanks for your patience.]

Trial

“Right now?”

“If it were up to them, they’d have already tossed you out.”

“Fine, let me clean up a little.”

“No. Don’t. That’ll make it harder.”

“Harder to what? Get pity?”

“Just trust me. Come on. Let’s go.”

I stood and my legs wobbled under me. My ribs hurt and my arms ached. The left side of my face was throbbing.

I still have to Read the rest of this entry »

Something came up last night, namely my sewer lines backed up into my basement. Anyway, I didn’t get the oasis chapter done. I think I should be able to get it up sometime tomorrow.

On the plus side, water seems to be flowing all the way to the main line now.

I checked out the book How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein from the library a week or so ago. As I flipped through it, I came across the chapter on dialogue. He says some things that opened (reopened?) my eyes, as well as some things that made me laugh.

For example:

Dialogue has to make us interested, curious, tense, or laugh. At its best, it has a liveliness that makes the words seem to jump from the page straight into our bloodstream, like adrenaline. Readers enjoy dialogue. I’ve never heard anyone say that they enjoyed a transcript of recorded speech. If you wander around a crowded mall these days, much of what you might overhear is idiot talk. People won’t buy a novel to hear idiot talk. They get that free from relatives, friends, and strangers.

He goes on to explain better how to make dialogue better, and not sound like idiot talk.

One of the things he stresses most is how is should virtually always express conflict, whether open or veiled.

Anyway, its given me a lot to think about in my writing, and one more thing to work on.

[note: If this is your first time reading Oasis, you really should start at the beginning. ]

Judge, Jury, and Executioners

Lily twirled around and strutted down the hall.

I considered my options. I could run, but that’d only make me look more guilty. I could follow her, but that’d look just as bad. If I could make it back to my room before they stopped watching Lily, they might leave me alone. Or at least I’d have a baseball bat and a locked door.

I figured that was my best shot.

Sure enough, they parted and watched Lily’s swaggering backside as she went by them and down the hall.

I made a b-line for my room.

The door was well on its way to slamming closed when it bounced back in.

Richard had gotten his foot in the way just in time.

The door swung wide again.

I was just past its path.

I controlled my breathing and looked at him. “Can I help you?” Read the rest of this entry »

If you live in a super Tuesday state like me, I’d highly suggest you getting off your butt and voting in the primaries today. And please vote for whoever you think will do the best job. Choosing the lesser of two evils just because they have a better chance of winning is weak and irresponsible.

There, I said it.