‘Reasonable Realignment of Resources’ illustrates the great question of draconic-human interactions in medieval societies: why does the king particularly care if the burden of having a local dragon is merely that she eats a cow every week or so? He has plenty of cows. Of course, if the dragon is a wild beast otherwise, it’s still a problem. But if she can demonstrate language and self-restraint, well… there are opportunities, there.
Yes, ‘Don’t Fiddle With It’ is slightly banal. It’s supposed to be. The banal is ultimately the point.
I think that video games really have things to teach the fantasy genre, as “Several Options To Choose From” demonstrates. People shouldn’t allow themselves to get too hung up about the standard quest reward paradigm; it can lead to curious blind spots. Although I suppose one might find such an attitude oddly disarming…
‘Gotta Be Done’ is about… things that gotta be done. Just how it goes, sometimes. Nobody likes it, but what can you do?
I had folks… disagree with me about ‘Verdict of History (2020).’ Which was honestly the idea. Sometimes you need to challenge your readers, you know?
There’s a really unpleasant world behind ‘For Science.’ I mean, a REALLY unpleasant world. The kind where ‘peace and safety of a new dark age’ is perfectly correct. I dunno if I’ll ever do a full write-up of it.
I’m fond of cosmic horror. The Cthulhu Mythos is a great favorite of mine. But ‘Just a Thing’ represents my sneaking suspicion that horror writers just might have a tendency to overestimate just how long a sanity-destroying anagnorisis can go on before the person experiencing it starts to get… maybe a little bored, sorry? Our brains are really, really good at throwing filters up, is all I’m saying.
The conceit to ‘Sufficiently Advanced’ is a bit strained, maybe? I mean, it’s a funny one-liner but I dunno if you can really develop it. It’d be fun to sketch out, though.
You think there’d be a market for the microfiction? If I, say, coupled some of them with commissioned black and white art and sold the whole thing as a book? I’d probably have to crowdfund it, because I don’t have the three grand I estimate that the project would cost to get a hundred sketches for a hundred pieces of microfiction. At that, I don’t know if I could raise that kind of money for that kind of project.
Thoughts?
Moe Lane
PS: It’s just something I’m kicking around in my head. I mean, I already got paid for the microfiction, right? No rush on it.
Free will is so useful, wouldn’t you say? And humans can pretty much get used to anything, or anybody. Well, anybody who isn’t actually trying to eat their brains.
