Chthonic Monsters — Theseus Becomes King
This is the final part of Chthonic Monsters. Part one, Theseus Goes to Crete, is here, and part two, Theseus Meets the Minotaur, is here. This is from a novel-in-progress,…
Mark A. Rayner
Chthonic Monsters — Theseus Goes to Crete
This is from a novel-in-progress, in which the characters tell one another many different stories, but I thought I would share one of those stories here the blog. Alas, it…
Dr. Tundra admits he has a problem
Once again, Dr. Tundra woke with a splitting headache, the feeling that he’d fallen asleep with a mouthful of half-masticated rat, and a pain in his lower back that could…
They say talent skips a generation
Vlastic Tesla was the illegitimate son of Nikola Tesla, inventor of the alternating current system, the induction motor, lightning rods, electro-mechanical oscillators, the Tesla coil, the Bifilar coil, robotics and…
Pirate Therapy – download for free!
My new(ish) collection of short stories, flash fictions and odd bitlets of absurdism is available for free on Kindle from June 21 to June 23. Seriously, it’s free – just…
A Life of Adventure
He was born Jars Peeblefrench, son of Bjorn and Nellie Peeblefrench, of the Stavenger Peeblefrenches — a family of well-established merchants in the toenail clipping district. Jars was tired of…
The Disney Gang
They called themselves the Disney Gang, despite the fact that two-fifths of their members were clearly aficionados of the Popeye milieu. In fact, Chester “Popeye” Doyle was their leader; he…
Time Travel Sucks
If you asked him, Bertie could never really tell you what he disliked most about time travel. Obviously, having to arrive in each new era stark naked was not the…
Introducing the Venkman Brothers
Herbetron and Merculia Venkman came from a proud line of Norwegian clowns, and were determined to climb to dizzying heights in America. They gazed at the ocean, their white chins…
The erotic possibilities of zombie domination
“Now listen carefully Judy, as this lesson will someday save your life. “You see this quadrant of the parietal lobe? This is the sweet spot when it comes to zombie…
Ask General Kang: I heard the Pentagon experimented with a ‘gay bomb’ — do you have a favorite non-lethal weapon?
Seriously, a ‘gay bomb’? My guess is they got to the testing stage and discovered that making soldiers sexually irresistible to one another actually made them more efficient, vicious killers.…
Byron’s Epic Swims: The Alps
To this day, no one has been able to recreate the feat of naiant heroics that Byron managed in the dark fall of 1816. Having finished buggering Percy Bysshe Shelley…
Improving Old Movies: Roman Holiday
I think Roman Holiday would have been better if stormtroopers were chasing Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck the whole time. And just to be fair, Peck should have some kind…
Short conversations: Merlot
Scene: A fancy restaurant. Miles sits with his old friend, Jack, as they wait for their dates to arrive. Waiters bustle around the room efficiently, dressed in black tie and…
Clown Apocalypse: The European Atrocity
It became clear after the initial chaos, that some people had a natural immunity to the Bozo Virus. The vast majority of humans were affected, but some seemed unaffected by…
The captain was a worry
They had been looking forward to their honeymoon, but after meeting the captain, the newlyweds wondered if they shouldn’t just have gone to Brighton. Alltop went to Niagara Falls. The…
The Trustworthiness of Beards
Finally, a new advance in the Beard Sciences! Here at the Institute of the Hirsute, we applaud this initiative. This exhaustive study of trustworthiness, vis-a-vis a gentlemen’s hair foliage, will…
An unwavering band of light
One of my favourite quotes from Breakfast of Champions: His situation, insofar as he was a machine, was complex, tragic and laughable. But the sacred part of him, his awareness,…
Would you rather be punched in the face than join Klout?
I completely sympathize with this perspective, but I would ask you NOT to punch me in the face. Despite my better judgement I joined. Look at Klout this way: it’s…