Thrill Kings: Not so Bad by Rik Ty is a short, Interdimensional Sci-Fi.

Outdoors in the sunny springtime! Nonstop not only has to get used to a new bike, he has to get used to new rules with the girl he likes, and he has to somehow stop a wave of leaping, octopus-giants from stampeding through a small shoreline town. The creatures are too big to send home with a glancing shot of tap-beam, and too fast to catch in a sustained one. How much time for trial and error is there? Fast-paced action and intriguing interaction make this a quick, breezy read! 

As she looked for Nonstop, she lost sight of the landscape, and the next time she viewed it, she got a surprise.
“Nonstop! I see something! a few streets up, there’s a dust cloud coming.”
Nonstop looked at 8-ball’s display, like Rattletrap’s, on the visible side of the arms’ engine pod.
“I see the haze cluster coming. But not the dust. Oh wait…”
“Oh-MY- G – Nonstop, it’s like a giant octopus!”
“What?”
“I just saw it for a second. It jumped up, and then slipped below the tree line again.”
“Well, now its heading west. Did it see you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. You think it’s running?”
“Yeah.”
And with that, the giant pink octo-monster breached the treeline again with a leap, and this time, Grace saw the back of its head. Big. Massive. With a surface that seemed to waver and flutter slightly from its own movement. For the instant she saw it, the creature’s head looked like a giant, partially-inflated-parade-balloon. Either that, or a giant, pink tonsil.
And then it was gone again.
“Yeah, he’s running.”
“Okay, we’re going to stay on his left and try to get in front of him,” Nonstop said. He gave the bike some juice and tripled its speed.
“When I catch up to it, I’m going to hit it with tap and try to send it home. You’re ready with your camera things, right?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about the cameras. Just do your thing like I’m not here.”
Grace sped up as she answered, but fell behind. She sent two cameras ahead of her, but they couldn’t keep up with Nonstop either. Ten seconds behind him turned to two minutes behind him, and finally five before her cameras found him again. She could see some mayhem on her screens, and she could see some mayhem with her own eyes, just by looking up.
Far off, she saw the octo-monster leap onto a peaked roof, gallop over it with ropy, folded legs, straighten its legs to their full length and leap off the roof, gaining massive amounts of distance. Nonstop shot up the same roof, launched it like a ramp, arced over to a tree, swung the bike from a branch, over to another tree, swung from another branch, landed on a long flat roof, drove it at high speed, and had the motorcycle cartwheel over the edge and down to the street below, where Grace lost sight of him again. Rather than chase after Nonstop, Grace opted for height. She kept a general idea of where Nonstop was, but up high, she saw dust clouds all over town, most with leaping pink centers, The town looked like a giant griddle filled with weird fried eggs. What would it take to get one single creature isolated and what would they miss in the meantime?

A Bite of... Rik Ty

Q1: How much of you is in your hero/villain?

None and all – each of my characters has a little bit of me in it, but I don’t think that would surprise anyone. It’s easier to say that Nonstop is the opposite of me – I’m not young, I’m not a free ranging nomad, and I don’t know the first thing about driving motorcycles – here’s an interesting thing: there was a writing challenge I encountered in a facebook group last year. They suggested we write a few paragraphs of our characters doing our real world job. My job at the time was a frantic tangle where nothing was ever actually “finished”, and comically, I couldn’t put Nonstop in that position for even a second. He wouldn’t sit still for it. He escaped. I could actually envision myself looking up through the window and watching him drive away. That floored me – suddenly there seemed to be more wish-fulfillment therapy in Nonstop than I realized.

Q2: Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

There are ZERO obligatories. You decide what your story needs. If it includes all shades of belief and sexual orientation, fantastic. If it includes none, fantastic. Obviously, a close cousin to this question is “is it important that all shades of belief and sexual orientation appear in literature?” and the answer to that is OF COURSE, and for all sorts of reasons – validation, inclusion, recognition, empathy, sympathy – you spend a little time with a character in a book who is different from the people you know in real-life, and it can’t help but promote understanding.  Everyone who invests in learning language should find themselves included somewhere in the world’s literature. It would be heartbreaking if that weren’t true.

Q3: Why do you write? Money is an acceptable answer.

I have a peculiar answer, but one that might make me an interesting oddity. The ONLY thing I write in prose is Thrill Kings – Novels, novellas, short stories, 100 word drabbles, and whatever else I can think of. I spent the earliest part of my career producing graphic novels and shopping them around. My works rarely got published, but often, the person across the desk would suggest that I help them with their project, or help a friend with the friend’s project. This was fun and exciting, but my own projects languished. The same thing happened when I shopped toy ideas around. I’ve had two demanding careers over the last 30+ years – creative freelancer (writer/illustrator/designer) and design manager. I did well at both, constantly solving creative problems for other people. Very nice, and very wonderful, but I wanted to get SOMETHING of my own out in the world before I died. I chose Thrill Kings because it seems a little like Sherlock Holmes, or Conan to me, a project that could keep growing the more that was put into it, and perhaps something that I could leave my kids. 
(I did produce one Thrill King comic. It took me a year to complete. I switched to prose – much harder – but at least for me, faster.)

Rik Ty in his own words

I was a cartoonist/toy designer/writer/illustrator in the 80s and 90s (Marvel, Matchbox, Scooby Doo, Cracked etc). Almost all my clients were in Manhattan. Around 2000, there were shake-ups at several, and 9-11 was the last straw. Most of my clients became understandably cautious, and as a result, I suffered a drastic slowdown. I was helping Toys R Us with their ET line at the time. They were expanding their product development department and I asked to be considered. 7 months later, I got the job of Senior Design Manager, and I held it for 15 years until the company closed in 2018. Now I am reinventing my freelance career and hoping to gain a toe-hold with Thrill Kings. I have been happily married since 1984, and my daughter is getting married this very weekend (!!!).

You can find out more on the Thrill Kings website.

One last fight. 

Fred’s opponent stomped into the cage, and the floor shook. Fred looked into a pair of flat, killer’s eyes and knew a frisson of genuine apprehension.The Juggernaut’s secret weapon. Terror. 

But Fred was made of stern stuff, and the purse for this fight would set him and Rosa up for life.

He fought.

In the end superior speed and better physical condition won out, although it was a close run thing. 

Fred stood outside the cage with his chest heaving, and Rosa threw herself into his arms.

“Never again,” she said fiercely.

“I promise…”

©jj 2019

One greets the assembled disciples.

Should it be that you are a lost soul, who has recently slipped into the back of the class in the hope of improving your limited literary endeavours, allow me to introduce myself. I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, fondly referred to as IVy by my chums. The acclaimed author of that prodigiously enchanting science fantasy work ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ which has been removed from the shelves on a temporary basis so it can return and be lauded as it truly deserves.

The end of summer is upon us and as harvests are gathered in I am once more returned to my writing room to reap the rich harvest of a summer gleaning inspiration from the very lap of the Muses in their homeland. Thus I was less than delighted to be disturbed whilst revisiting the profound passages of my previous literary highlights and admiring the lavish style, the graceful similes, the elegant turns of phrase and the superlative use of descriptive ornamentation.

It was, of course, my maternal parent who was well into her second admixture of Benedictine and Calvados. I knew that because the sickly smell of honeyed apples hung on her breath as she stuck her face into mine, muttering: “Why did I do it? What was I doing? How did I ever do something to deserve this?” Then, fuelled by alcohol and the disappointment she feels in her own sad little existence, she trailed off into a long-winded monologue in which I was unflatteringly compared to a chocolate teapot, a leadless pencil and other random objects.

Once I was again mercifully alone, the door bolted to avoid any further distractions, I realised Mumsie had unwittingly pointed out an area of English grammar that I have been remiss in bringing to the attention of my pupils. The ‘doing’ words.

How to Write Right  –  The Write Verb

Right class! Today we shall explore one of the backbones of any sentence. Indeed, that without which it is not a sentence at all.

Verbs are words which inform us of action. You all knew that of course, so I shall skip over asking for a show of hands and cut to the chase: how to choose the right verb for your sentence.

The important message I need you to take from today’s lesson is that any sentence can be instantly improved if you consider varying the verb. Truly. It can. Allow me to demonstrate briefly:

The stars shone.

Nothing wrong with that at all. It tells the reader the simple fact and they will absorb it and move on. But oh what a wasted opportunity! Instead of having the reader merely register the idea of the stars being there, doing what we all know stars do, you could have informed their imaginations with your creative genius (however small that might be) and awed them by your command of the depth of beauty in the language. Thus, thusly:

The stars blazed.
The stars lustred.
The stars scintillated.
The stars effervesced.
The stars coruscated.
You, by now, begin to assimilate the idea.

Thusly, my innocents, do not ‘walk’ but ‘promenade’. Never merely ‘jump’ when you can ‘frolic’. And remember, dear disciple mine, any noun can be enverbed to add to your treasure trove of possibilities:

The handsome young man entabled his firm buttocks, peachifying my day by his very beauty. (Voila mes crudités, deux pour le prix d’un)

And thus have we indeed ‘done’ the doing words.

Now go and try some out.

Until we next…

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

White flowers sprinkled the grass in the clearing, looking Clea thought like spilled milk. In another time, or another place, she might have shared that thought but she didn’t think the grim-faced woman who had hold of the leash around her neck would appreciate whimsy so she just looked at her feet and kept plodding.

Her captor made a queer grunting noise and as Clea turned to look, she  collapsed with the vanes of a crossbow bolt protruding from between her shoulder blades.

Relief made Clea light-headed.

But the swathe of white flowers was now stained with blood.

©jj 2019

How fares the one I chose to love now that the years have passed?
The face that I once looked upon each day will be much changed.
I wonder how I once believed your love for me would last
When even then I saw your heart from me was oft estranged.

But folly is as folly does and youth’s not folly’s foil,
Full hearts will empty wit and blind the eye from truth so plain.
When in the field of love just one doth plough and plant and toil
The harvest reaped at season’s end is only tears and pain.

I never gave my heart again into another’s keep
And lived my life in many ways that seldom brought me peace.
Yet still, in dreams, we walk the hills, steal kisses as I sleep
And know again the trust and strength I’d thought could never cease.

Tis forty winters, come and gone, since I did see you last
How fares the one I chose to love now that the years have passed?

E.M. Swift-Hook

Zarai had been Lord Ho’s favourite concubine for five seasons. Then Lady Ho died.

The lord spoke. “Do you look to be exalted?”

“No, to be sold.”

His sigh sounded almost genuine. 

“Sadly. I make political alliance with the horse tribes. But their headman demands your person to complete the deal.”

“As my master commands.”

Three suns later Lord Ho wedded a wild daughter of the tundra, and a slave left the palace.

The horse lord was young and kind. He gave her a pony and wove wildflowers into her hair. 

Some forms of servitude are less onerous than others…

©jj 2019

We tried to catch the wind today
My fickle friend and me
But as the zephyr flew this way
My friend deserted me
We tried to catch a friend today
The winter wind and I
But as my friend came out to play
The breeze did wave goodbye
Oh you may have the wind he sighed
Should that be as you choose
Or you may have me at your side
You win one, one you lose
We tried to catch the wind today
A wind to sail us home
But fickle fate gangs aft agley
And now I cry alone

© jane jago 2017

One remembers a rather exciting games master at the old alma mater reading us random chunks of this, among other books, when it was too inclement for rugger practice.
For this reason, it will always be associated in one’s mind with the smell of lineament and teenage sweat and the burns on the back of one’s legs caused by sitting on the clanking, clunking radiators in the second form changing room.
Happening upon a dogeared paperback copy propping up the door of the summerhouse* one determined to visit the whole oeuvre. Quel disappointment.

Review

A girl child called Scout lives somewhere. I think it is colonial. Possibly America. Persons seem truly uneducated and not one’s type at all.
Nothing much happens for a very large part of the book. Then a man is accused of a crime he seems not to have committed. But he is found guilty anyway.
And nothing much happens again. There is a rabid dog, and a nasty man who has evil designs on the heroine and her brother. There is a struggle. The bad man gets killed somehow, I’m not clear how.
End of story.
One star – for longevity.

*It’s a shed, you pompous little prat! ed. Jacintha Farquhar

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

When one has waded through blood to achieve ambition, the best way to keep one’s enemies off-balance is to observe all the exigencies of proper dress. Ieyasu allowed himself a small closed-mouth smile as they dressed him for his first formal appearance.

When they were finished an underling brought a mirror.

“Great lord.”

“Yoi”, Ieyasu inclined his head. “It is well.”

His beautiful consort covered her mouth with one small hand to camouflage unseemly merriment. 

He smiled too, remembering how they had fought back to back and how she had saved his life.

Besides which, he loved her.

©jj 2019

First he made her his secretary, then he made her his plaything, then he sent her to an exclusive clinic in Switzerland where they would make her his fantasy.

Today he was going to see that fantasy for the first time. He brushed past his bodyguards and put his palm to the plate on the playroom door. The door hissed open and he entered alone. At first he could see nobody, just the barren gameplay landscape where he lived out the early twentieth century sci-fi films that fuelled his imagination.

He heard a noise to his left, and turned his head to see her dressed from neck to ankle in skintight black leather and armed to the teeth. He could barely speak for excitement.
“Oh baby, you are even more than I imagined.”
She smiled.
“Now it’s time to make you into my fantasy man.”
He frowned. This wasn’t in the game play he had designed so carefully. But he was sure she had nothing but delight in store for him, so he made his voice excited.
“What’s your fantasy?”
She laughed a short, unamused bark.
“My fantasy? A helpless cripple.”

Then she shot him in the kneecaps.

© jane jago