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THURSDAY JULY 28 2011 9:05 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 18

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the final installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Since it’s Marco’s last stand, we’re not going to give you a recap as we have in weeks past. If you’ve missed any chapters, you’ll find links to them all after the jump. If you’ve not been reading, you really should. It’s an action-packed sci-fi adventure that’ll blow your mind, and leave you pondering the ramifications of corporate and/or government controlled media, entertainment, and art long after you’ve hit the last line. For those who’ve kept up, we hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. Keep fighting for freedom of expression, and trust that ultimately the pen (and the programmer) will always prevail against the sword.

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 18

The Alcoholics Guild was pretty efficient, for an underground group run by drunks. The bartender, Defects, was among the people who fetched him, sobbing, from the arena. He'd marked over his tattoo with make-up and wore his messy brown hair back in a tight ponytail. Marco was to have gone straight for a physician’s checkup and then to the Li-Jun for an official pardon, but in the chaos, the British man had managed to disguise Marco as a Most Dangerous Game groupie and they slipped away.

"They're going to want to know about that little picture you drew," Defects said as they hit the Ride Base tunnels. What Marco thought would be claustrophobic turned out to be comforting and close.

"Did it come out all right?" Marco asked.

Defects stopped in the tunnel in front of a door and pulled out some keys. "It was beautiful. Conveyed everything you needed, I think. I'll be interested to watch what happens to their exports." He opened the door into a small, windowless apartment filled with grow lights and plants. "Home sweet home, for now. You can take the couch."

Marco went and collapsed, unsure his legs could hold him anymore. Defects flicked on the vidscreen and caught the color commentary. Every station was covering the game, including the mystery new champion, his disappearance, The Red Granny's death, and the drawing in the moon dust.

Marco saw it from the sky, and became impressed with his own work despite the raw exhaustion that overwhelmed him. A human-headed sheep was wrapped in the tentacle of a Li-Jun, which tried to force it into clothing. The sheep was bleating "free will" while the Li-Jun shouted, "conform for peace."

"Do you think they got it?" Marco asked. "If they didn't get it, she'll have died for nothing. They both will have."

"I think so," Defects said, fetching a first aid kit. "You're a former patron of Li-Jun, everyone knows you'll have inside knowledge."

"Even with my pardon, do you think they'll come after me?"

Defects began bandaging his cut hand. "I don't know. This is unprecedented. The Li-Jun don't fight like we do, you've figured that much out. They may come at you through your agent, or try to control you by getting clothing, or food, or even books, into your hands. You may have saved Earth from their control, but Ride Base is going to be even more dangerous now."

Marco rubbed his face and sighed. "I'm sorry about Knowledge. I tried to stop her."

Defects shrugged slightly. "We knew it was going to happen. They were caught soon after you. I got away and had to keep the plan going. Once the Li-Jun got them into those rage suits, they were lost. The Red Granny came to me with the instructions on what to do after you won the battle."

Defects put away the first aid supplies and opened a bottle of red wine.

"Why didn't she just do all this herself? She's the most famous woman on the Moon. Or she was." Marco swallowed the wine, trying to forget the feeling of sinking the knife into his friend.

"That's just it. She was too public. She was with Li-Jun nearly all the time. She also wasn't an artist. She needed someone to make a visual statement when the whole world was watching. Also, Marco, she was old. She couldn't fight much longer. She needed an heir of sorts."

“And why didn’t she just tell me?”

“You have to come about your understanding of the Li-Jun yourself. Even people who know about the artist mapping, for example, think that when they experience it, it’ll be different. You can explain away anything. We needed you to fully understand, to be angry enough to fight with your only ally.”

"How long had you been working with her?"

"Only a couple of months. She approached us after the aliens got their embargo lifted, but we usually only talked via notes, no electronic or human contact."

"I didn't give her enough credit. She was amazingly strong." Marco shook his head. "God I need sleep."

"Take it. You should be safe here for a few days, anyway. The Guild will do what we can to protect you."

"Thank you, Defects."

"Thank you, Marco. You've dealt the first blow in the strangest war Earth has ever fought. There's more to do. I’ve got the final message from the Red Granny to publish. The Guild needs a new leader now that Knowledge and Spiritual Awakenings are dead. We can look into smuggling you off the moon in a week or two, but we could use you in the battle in the coming months. What do you think? Want to throw in with terrorists?"

Marco knew his answer, but he was too tired to say it. He closed his eyes and thought of Heather, the Red Granny, who had fought in her early life for freedom, and then again in her later life. Braver than he had ever been.

It would be difficult to avoid the Li-Jun; attempts at spiking his food with compliance or wrapping a scarf of dedication around his neck were sure to come soon. It would also be difficult to get the positive effects of the Li-Jun items, as they had proven ironically necessary in his arena battle. His agent would be frantic to find him, her little cash cow, especially as his books and art would now likely sell back home, both the Li-Jun-enchanted work and his earlier work. While that provided him a rueful smile, he thought about the more important consideration: liberating Ride Lunar Base and making sure Heather and Knowledge hadn't died for a self-absorbed artist.

I am a peacekeeper; I will do what needs to be done to make the world a better place.

As the world discussed the mark he had left on the moon, even as Li-Jun groundskeepers erased it like the tide, Marco allowed himself to drift off to sleep. Tomorrow he’d have a lot of work to do.

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 14
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 15
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 16
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 17

commentary
FRIDAY JULY 15 2011 1:41 AM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 16

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the sixteenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a 'special' necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage...However, that was before he got kidnapped twice in one day. The first time by Penelope/Knowledge and Defect of The Alcoholic's Guild, who made him realize the Li-Jun had brainwashed him into compliance, and the second time by the Li-Jun, who were rather upset about the fact he'd just been fraternizing with said Alcoholic's Guild – albeit initially unwillingly. Marco’s punishment for this infraction? He was to be a contestant in The Most Dangerous Game. Having selected his weapon of choice, with a little help from Heather, we join Marco as he prepares for his first bout in the arena - armed with nothing more than a bad case of nerves/abject terror and a seemingly unassuming knife.

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 16

Marco had nothing but the wall clock to look at. He thought about slashing the chairs up with his knife, but figured that was pretty childish. A part of his brain suggested he kill himself before he died in front of billions, but he resisted. Some small survival instinct insisted that he had a tiny chance to make it through this.

He looked at the knife again, taking it from its sheath. It wasn't even pretty; it had no ornate designs or curlicues. It was just a knife. Heather could have been lying, about its extra abilities, of course. He would like to know what the Li-Jun modification was. He thumbed the blade experimentally, testing the edge. It was very sharp, and the skin on his thumb split, just the first few layers of epidermis.

The rough, raw, hormone-fueled anger he'd felt in high school when Peter Garrison had pushed him down, the shame he'd felt as others had laughed, the horror that Joanne Smith had seen it all, and the vow to get even. His left hand tightened around the knife, and every person that slipped into his mind were nothing but slow manikins of vulnerable points to hit.

He gasped and dropped the knife. Heather had been right, it was rage, but why did she give him that? Was he meant to shorten his own life expectancy?

The realization hit him, and he stared, slack jawed, at the wall, as the memories returned.

We are not that dissimilar. We're just going about our paths in a different way.

Was she on his side? Was she working against the Li-Jun in her own covert way? Why hadn't she told him?

He had to believe the Li-Jun had constant surveillance on them, especially since he proved himself not to be trusted. She had to be subtle and only hope he could stop being self-absorbed for a moment to get her meaning.

"Holy shit." He looked at the knife and wondered what he was supposed to do with it. Cut himself? How deep? When?

There was a knock at the door and a House Orange Li-Jun entered, carrying a tray with a teapot on it. "Each of the contestants get a final beverage," he said cheerily. "The Red Granny herself sent this with her compliments."

Marco accepted the tray mutely and the Li-Jun wished him luck and left the room. He put the tray on the floor and looked for a note. There was nothing. He poured himself a cup of tea and inhaled the fragrance. Jasmine, an excellent blend, and one that had always inspired him. He took a sip and became immediately intoxicated with a creative rush. The desire to paint, to draw, to write, had never been stronger.

Why had she done this? Was she trying to confuse him? Marco shook his head, confused. The door opened, another Li-Jun was there, saying it was time.

If she were screwing with him, he'd die for sure out there. If she weren’t, he'd still probably die for sure out there. He needed to hold onto whatever hope he could at this point. He gulped the tea and dropped the mug to shatter on the floor. Then he took the knife and ran it quickly along his palm, too fast to worry about the consequences. He sheathed the knife and slid the bloody hand into his bulky gloves. He took his staff and approached the alien, it taking every ounce of willpower not to bash in its head. Blood roared in his ears. It was time.

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 14
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 15

commentary
THURSDAY JULY 7 2011 9:05 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 15

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the fifteenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a 'special' necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage...However, that was before he got kidnapped twice in one day. The first time by Penelope/Knowledge and Defect of The Alcoholic's Guild, who made him realize the Li-Jun had brainwashed him into compliance, and the second time by the Li-Jun, who were rather upset about the fact he'd just been fraternizing with said Alcoholic's Guild - albeit initially unwillingly. Marco’s punishment for this infraction was laid out by his 'friend' Heather; He was to be a contestant in The Most Dangerous Game...

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 15

Marco had never been a strong debater. Standing up to Heather had perhaps been the bravest thing he'd ever done. The problem was, he was out of courage, and now met with the knowledge that he could die in two hours.

Oh sure, he had a chance, he could win this thing, but who was he fooling? He hadn't been in a fight since sixth grade when he bumped into Peter Garrison in gym and the bully had decked him, and he'd gone down in a pile of confused, sobbing, elbows and knees. He had no idea how to strategize, or how to fight with a weapon, or how to fight with a weapon in one-sixth of Earth’s gravity.

He wondered about the possibility of getting Heather back to apologize and tell her that he was wrong, to say anything to get out of this.

A cold voice inside him reminded that even if he did get out of it, would that force him underground to join the Guild? Or would it make him a faithful Li-Jun lapdog, determined not to piss them off again? Did he want to work for a group that tossed you in the pit when you made them angry? The xenophobes on Earth were right -- the aliens were about to take over, and there was nothing they could do about it.

He wondered where Knowledge and Spiritual Awakening and the others were. Had they gone back underground? Had they been caught? Did they know he had been caught? He realized he didn't know how much time had passed since Seven had abducted him.

He swallowed. He was quite alone, and about to die. There was no getting around it. He walked numbly to the suits on the wall, each in a different state of environmental protection. One looked like an Earth-type suit that was essentially a suit of armor and a big bubble helmet, the others were lighter versions of the Li-Jun-created suits that were tighter fitting with more subtle features. Marco shied away from the alien-clothes, though, since he didn't know what emotions or stories they'd been imbued with.

That left him with the bulky Earth-suit. He didn't want that either; it didn't allow for a wide range of movement, but he had to choose the lesser of all evils. Not like the suit would make much of a difference out there.

After struggling into the suit and figuring out the different controls, Marco looked around for a weapon. There was none. Great, make the weak artist-boy learn low gravity kung fu during a fight to the death. That ought to cause a good amount of laughter back home.

He sighed in frustration as the door opened, and Heather entered the room again. She carried two things - a long staff and a short knife. What interested him more was that she was in the same suit he'd seen when he watched her fight in weeks ago.

"Staff. Knife. These are your weapons."

"So this is how it's really going to go, huh?" Marco said, his throat dry. "Did the Li-Jun make that knife?"

She focused on him, quickly, her face inscrutable. "When you hold an Li-Jun weapon, it's your opponent who must worry, not you."

Marco took the knife and peered at it. It was a plain, straight knife in a sheath designed to strap around his massively padded thigh. "What does it do?"

"I don't know. That's your handicap. It could cause the opponent to become despondent, or aroused, or lose the will to live. Or it could enrage them and turn them into a killing machine."

"Oh, that's great," Marco said. "And the stick?"

She frowned. "It's a staff, Marco, and one of my personal collection. It's rattan, bendable, and very durable. Like a big pencil."

He collapsed into a chair. "I don't know why you're telling me this, you know I'm going to die out there. Horribly. And like you said, there's nothing I can do about it."

"And does that make you change your mind?"

Marco smiled ruefully. "If you'd asked me that an hour ago, I might have said yes. But life can't be much better than death in this case. Where would I go from here? Best that it ends right now."

She looked at him for a moment, a small smile creasing her face. "It's just as you say, Marco. Good luck out there. I’ve always admired you, you know. I’ve been a gladiator among artists. I never was any good at drawing."

"Heather?" She paused at the door. "Am I going to have to fight you?"

She laughed. "Oh no, Marco. I'm someone else's handicap entirely."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 14

commentary
THURSDAY JUNE 30 2011 9:04 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 14

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

commentary
THURSDAY JUNE 23 2011 9:03 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 13

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Art, Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a special necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage.

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13

The next week, Marco was kidnapped twice, both in the same day.

He'd spent the time writing and illustrating, mostly in his room, but he remembered he liked his office, too. Heather had shown him more of the Li-Jun imbuing process, fascinating stuff. What had really interested him was when the Li-Jun would imbue emotions within weaponry.

"Once we realized we could imbue emotions into sculpture, we wondered what happened if we put despair into a knife blade," Thirteen had said.

Something had clicked within Marco's head. "The Most Dangerous Game. That's how Heather got that last guy! She didn't kill him, she just made him not want to live, and so he was easy to finish off!"

"Exactly. This can make wars a thing of the past, the ultimate disarm."

Again Marco felt that niggling feeling that something was wrong about this, but he couldn't place it.

The next day went to his office, where Knowledge was waiting for him.

He'd nearly forgotten about her. No, he had forgotten about her. How was that possible? He opened his mouth to greet her, but a bag was thrown over his head and he felt himself lifted. He struggled and flailed, but strong arms threw him into a chair and bound him with rope.

"So it's true then," Knowledge’s voice said. "We suspected but we weren't sure."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Let me go, Penelope."

"It’s Knowledge now, Marco. And we've suspected for months that they were developing mind control. You proved it."

"What? Mind control? Are you insane?" He struggled in his chair again, and then went limp. "What do you want from me?"

The bag was lifted and he recognized the bartender, Defects, from the other evening. The other man was the one with the 12 on his neck; Spiritual Awakenings, the Guild leader.

Marco took a deep breath, letting the calm take over. "Listen, I don’t know what you're talking about. They're not controlling my mind, I'm in full control."

Knowledge crossed her arms. "Oh yeah? Why did you never come back to the bar?"

"I- " Marco stopped. He had promised to return, why hadn't he? He just hadn't thought about it. There'd been no urgency to do so.

He felt fingers at his neck, and he looked up at Spiritual Awakenings, who traced the leather ties of his necklace. "Ah, the necklace. Deceptive; it's not as fancy as their usual stuff."

"Hey, Heather gave that to me," he protested as Spiritual Awakenings took out a knife. Marco winced as the cold knife slid down his neck, but the man sliced through his necklace and removed it, dropping it to the floor as if it were a tapeworm.

Adrenaline flooded Marco and he reeled from the shock of it. "Holy shit, what's going on?"

"Check him for other things," Spiritual Awakening said, handing the knife to Defects. Spiritual Awakenings stepped around to where he faced Marco.

"The Li-Jun started mixing the arts when they encountered humans, and it was amazing,” the small man said. “But at some point they discovered we had nostalgia attached to these senses, and more importantly, they could tap into them as easily as they manipulate our senses. Whereas before they could weave a story into a dress or a song into a cake, now they can put the emotions and memories tied to those senses into things. They can make a song that gives you murderous rage, or a bottle of wine that makes you fall in love. For their own pet humans, they can create a necklace to make you calm and docile like a sheep, never thinking to turn against them."

"But why are they doing this? It's everyone’s dream to get a patronage, why would they need us docile?"

Knowledge grinned without humor. "Marco, honey, you know that the patronage isn't what you hoped it would be. It starts with the artist mapping, and continues with them marking your every movement, denying you alcohol, and other controlling things. You're making a ton of money, but are you doing anything with it?"

Marco frowned. "You didn't answer my question."

"This is why we are worried about the mind control," Spiritual Awakenings said. "They have some plan for the Earth, as the embargo against imported Li-Jun clothing and food was just lifted. Who knows what they're shipping home?"

Marco stared at him. He felt an almost audible click. "They're a peaceful race with no army. This is how they take over."

Spiritual Awakenings nodded. "It's how they enslave."

"So what do we do about it?" Marco asked.

"That's what the Guild is for," Spiritual Awakenings said. "The Li-Jun hate alcohol because it dampens the effects of their influence. If you had a couple of shots, and then put that collar back on, you wouldn't feel its effects."

Marco looked down at the necklace with distaste. Then he looked at Knowledge in a panic. "What do I do now? I won't put it back on, but I can't go back without it."

"We'll make one for you. They may not be able to tell the difference, since they can't feel our nostalgia the same way we do," Spiritual Awakening answered. "Just stay here and work, we'll be back in an hour or so."

"Yeah? And then what?" Marco said, panic flooding him again. He couldn't go back, not now. Did Heather know? Was she in compliance with all this?

"We'll come back with a plan to help you keep your cover. We need you on the inside. Will you work with the Guild?"

Marco nodded. "Looks like I don't have a choice. Although I would likely trust you more if you untied me."
***

The second kidnapping came soon after the Guild had left, with Marco still ruminating on what he had learned, and the kiss on the cheek Knowledge had left him. Marco sat at his desk, peering out over the bright city and didn't hear his office door open. He did feel the strong tentacles planted over his face, holding a rag to his mouth. He struggled, but he knew immediately he'd be no match for Seven of House Blue.

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12

commentary
THURSDAY JUNE 16 2011 9:05 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Art, Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract.

Having accepted the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, Marco settles into his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow. Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it.

Marco stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. However it’s only after downing one too many drinks that Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 12

Marco stood outside of House Blue, swaying slightly, realizing he faced a problem he hadn't encountered in fifteen years: how to sneak in while hiding the fact that he'd been out drinking. The gum Defects had given him was in his mouth, but he doubted he could hide the fact that he could barely focus, spoke with a slur, and would likely punch that cocky Seven if he came across him.

He was a man now, not a scared fifteen-year old, and he should be allowed to go where he pleased. He took a deep breath and put his hand on the door handle.

It swung inward as he touched it. Seven was there, his eyestalks dipping to look at him. "Marco, so good to see you. Been sampling the human half of Ride Base?" If he’d been human, he would have sounded sarcastic. Marco giggled.

Marco opened his mouth to compliment Seven’s usage of human sarcasm, but instead he bent over and vomited on his own shoes.

Seven had him by the arms and carried him down the hall. "I c'n walk," he said, but his feet wouldn't obey him.

"I'm sure you can, Marco," Thirteen said from behind him, "But this is more efficient. We must do another artist mapping."

Realization trickled down his spine like iced molasses. "What? No, my agent said I wouldn’t have to-"

"A sub-clause in your contract says you will submit to another mapping if you exhibited behavior unlike yourself. Something we perhaps missed in the mapping."

That didn’t make sense, but Marco couldn't remember all the details, and he seemed to be without his phone. And then without his clothes. Seven put him into the coffin-like pod with efficiency, electrodes slapped only to his head this time. Still, he struggled when the fluid filled the pod, banging his fists against the door and yelling. He tried to rip the electrodes off, but the glue was too strong.

The taste of gin filled his mouth again, this time not from vomit but from the memories, now pairing the taste with shame, disorientation, and sick, desperate longing. He'd been lying, of course, to Knowledge, and although he thought he hid it from her well enough, he wasn't able to hide that emotion in a box away from whatever the aliens did to him, and he wailed into the breathing tube.

It didn't take as long as before. When the feelings attached to his current state were depleted, the fluid drained, and the Li-Jun had left the room. Marco was alone, kneeling inside the pod. The doors slowly swung open and the electrodes fell off his head.

The Alcoholics Guild said Li-Jun didn't like humans drinking. "Understatement of the year," he muttered, wiping the goo out of his eyes.

The hot water in the shower lasted five minutes this time. Swearing, Marco left the shower, feeling more sober now, and wrapped the robe around him. He felt immediately calmer, but still confused about the evening. He checked his watch: midnight, GMT. Heather might be asleep, but considering how often she showed up in his room, he didn't feel terribly bad about disturbing her.

She was in her own robe, brewing tea, when she called for him to come in. "Marco, what can I do for you?"

"What's up with the Li-Jun and drinking?"

"They don't do it, if that's what you mean," she said, stirring honey into her tea. "Darjeeling?"

He shook his head, refusing to be distracted. "I know that, but are we completely forbidden to drink? Are they that much against it?"

"Of course they are. You mean no one told you?" she asked.

"No! I never heard this. When I met you, I had a hangover, and you didn't say anything about it!"

"Why? You didn't go out drinking, did you?" Her eyes were wide.

"Well, yeah, I had a hard day of writing and I needed a drink."

She rubbed her forehead. "This is very bad, Marco. Did they catch you?"

Marco indicated his wet hair. "Yeah. I just got out of the hell pod thing. Again. It was unpleasant. Again."

She tapped her fingertip against her mug. "They're not going to be happy with you for a while. If you don't want to lose your patronage, you're going to have to listen to me."

Marco frowned. "Okay..."

She looked him up and down; looking suddenly like a department store shop woman trying to decide what he'd look best in. Then she went to a dresser and pulled out a drawer. "How are you feeling now?" she asked, not turning around as she rummaged.

Marco shrugged. "I don't know. Tired. Annoyed."

"Angry? Irritated? Feel like you might run through a wall and strangle someone?"

"No, none of those, I don't think. I'm pretty calm, I guess."

"Good." She came back with a leather cord in her hand. It was three cords braided together, a white cord, a blue one, and an indigo. "Wear this, at all times, even in the shower," she instructed. "It's a symbol that will show your dedication to House Blue, to everyone."

Marco eyed it. "Are you sure-"

Heather held up her hand. "If you don't want to lose your patronage, do what I say. Take this back to your room, put it on, and go to bed. Tomorrow I'll talk to Thirteen for you. Maybe I’ll get a chance to take you around to the labs."

Marco took the rope from her and felt calm and gratitude relax him. He yawned. "Thanks a lot, Heather. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here to help me find my way."

She smiled, her eyes a little sad. "You'll be fine. Just keep that on. Tomorrow morning I’ll meet you for breakfast."

***

Marco slept deeper and more peacefully than he had in weeks. The necklace bothered him at first-he'd never been much for jewelry-but he quickly got used to it. He woke early, dressed, and walked to the kitchen where one of the Li-Jun was cooking breakfast. He got a plate of pancakes and sat down.

Heather came to join him. "Good morning, I am surprised you're up."

He blinked and yawned. "I just felt like getting up."

She nodded. "I spoke to Thirteen and assured her that no more binges are in your future. Was I right in telling her that?"

Marco swallowed his pancakes. "Oh definitely. I won't be going there anymore. I'm feeling better about my patronage now than ever."

She beamed at him. "That's wonderful. Now finish your breakfast and I'll take you to the artist labs."

He nodded and drank his coffee. When he was done, he followed Heather to an area of the house he'd not seen before, behind a door marked with the Li-Jun's language that consisted mainly of concentric circles.

"Here is where they take what you write and infuse it with other pieces of art," She said. They walked down a hall that opened to a huge room with one wall nothing but windows out to the Lunar landscape. She smiled at him. "They like the inspiration, they say. Now come over here and meet Fifteen and Sixteen."

Two Li-Jun worked at one of several tables. Tendrils of wires snaked out of a red computer case, and they had connected these wires to the seams of a pinstripe suit. Marco and Heather watched as one alien held the garment while the other peered into the computer monitor on the table and typed some adjustments in their keyboard, which had only five circles on it.

"So what are they doing?" he whispered to Heather.

"That short story you wrote, the one about the man who made mechanical plants to occupy his time in prison? Anyone who wears this suit will hear that story," she told him.

He frowned. "How did you know about that?"

"Oh Marco. Your computer is on the network. When you're done with a story or poem or comic, they take it and make something out of it. The cake entitled Penelope was particularly bittersweet; they had done an amazing job matching the love and regret with the sweetness of strawberries and the sour of rhubarb. I wished you could have joined us, but you weren't ready, they said."

Marco normally would have felt embarrassed and violated. No one had ever read that poem about Penelope. Not even Penelope. But now he felt only annoyed. He took Heather's arm and dragged her away from the Li-Jun, who still hadn't acknowledged their presence. "I wrote that two years ago, not while here on the moon. How did they get that?"

Heather leaned in to him; he could smell the Juicy Froot Loops gum on her breath. "They have the rights to all your work, Marco. Didn't you know that?"

He didn't. "But how did they get it?"

"They have an eye on all media. That's how they choose whom to give patronage to. The applications are worthless, Marco, they want to know what a person can really create."

"So they're spying on humans?" Marco said, surprised, but finding that he didn't really care, now that he thought about it. He got his patronage, what did he care how he got it?

“'Spying' is such an ugly word, Marco. That implies it doesn't do us any good. And it's quite beneficial to us, don't you think? Rumor is that you got one of the best patronage deals ever. Even better than mine."

He smiled, irritation evaporating. "So how do they do all this?"

They walked back over to the aliens, who were hanging the suit on a hanger and bringing out a gold necklace with a pendant of a little clockwork bird.

"No one knows, and they either can't, or won't, teach us," she said. She squinted her eyes and said, "Oh, this should be interesting."

Marco looked to where she was focused and saw only concentric circles on the monitor screen. "Can you read their writing?"

"A little," she said. "You get used to it. All I can tell you is instead of a piece of art, they're going to be putting an emotion into this necklace. They are just now experimenting with the stronger senses of nostalgia and emotional memory connected with it. As I said, they have nothing similar to that, so this is experimental."

"What emotion?" he asked?

"I'm not sure," she said.

“Why are they going ahead with research, if they can’t export what they have now on Earth, why make more?”

Heather leaned in again, “You didn’t hear this from me, but the embargo lifts next month. We’re going to be shipping clothing, jewelry, art, even food down the home planet. It finally got enough votes in England, China, the US, and Texlaska. After those biggies, the rest of the world will follow.”

"But doesn't that mean you can do, I don't know, love potions or something? I mean, this is like real beer goggles. Almost like mind-"

Heather slapped a hand over his mouth. “Shh, we’ll disturb them. We need to be quiet.”

Marco stared at her and rubbed his lip, which was swelling slightly from the force of her blow.

"Why are you showing me this?" Marco whispered.

"Because you are part of House Blue," Heather replied. "And House Blue is at the forefront of exporting goods to Earth. They need us for art creation, and for modeling, and for reassuring the people back home that this stuff is perfectly safe."

"Perfectly safe," echoed Marco softly as they watched the aliens work. He rubbed the necklace Heather had given him. It calmed him.

"The goal is to get everyone on Earth accepting Li-Jun art," Heather said.

"Wearing, eating, everything. And when that happens, they can experience the peace we know here on Ride Base."

Marco nodded as the aliens brought a fancy cake to the table and one of them spoke into a microphone, reading from the computer screen. The other end of the microphone wire wasn't plugged into anything, but looked like a small hose that exuded golden light. As the alien whispered, Marco could hear the words come out of the other end and alight on the cake, as delicate as a meringue.

The freckle under your eye, I love the most
I think God put it there after He made you
Your perfection was so complete he couldn't bear to part with you
So he gave you one
Tiny
Flaw.

The words sounded familiar to Marco, and pulled up a small ache in his chest, although he didn't know why. Heather watched him carefully, and he smiled slightly at her.

"What's up?" he asked.

She smiled back. "Nothing."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11

commentary
THURSDAY JUNE 9 2011 9:04 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 11

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract.

Having accepted the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, Marco settles into his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow. Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco is suffering from a severe case of writers block. Looking for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s had something actually worth drinking in it, he heads to the seedier end of the Moon and stumbles across an illicit establishment which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild.

Taking a sip of gin, Marco looks up and sees a couple enter the bar. The man catches the attention of most of the establishment’s other patrons, but it’s the woman beside him that Marco can't stop staring at.

"Penelope?"

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11

“…And it’s ‘Knowledge Of His Will’ Abrams Now,” Penelope said.

Marco was on his fourth drink and finding it hard to focus. “Can I call you ‘Will’ for short?”

She didn’t laugh. “No, people usually call me ‘Knowledge.’”

“What’s with that, anyway? Where do these weird cult names come from?” The bartender, introduced to Marco as Remove All These Defects O’Brien, put another gin in front of him

“Joining the guild isn’t a small matter, Marco,” Penelope-no, wait, Knowledge-said. “The new name we take illustrates our faith in our commitment.”

“Commitment in leaving AA.”

“Exactly. And we mark the point where we left AA for another option with the mark of the step we were on.” She rubbed the 11 on her neck.

Marco shook his head. "But I still don’t get it; I thought no one left their patronage?"

Knowledge poured another glass of wine. "That's what they tell you, Marco. The truth is, there are two ways to get out of the patronage mode. Joining the Guild is the easier way. The Li-Jun hate drunks."

"But didn't they know you drank before they got you up here? Didn't they check that about me?"

"You'd think they would," Knowledge said. "Maybe they thought they could keep us from it. Didn't work with me."

"So what happened with you?" Marco said.

"I came to Ride Base. Signed on with House Magenta. They support most of the chefs. I was so excited, but the artist mapping took a lot out of me."

Marco looked down. "Tell me about it."

"I baked for them for a year or so, but the mapping left a bad taste in my mouth that only wine could kill. I started coming here. When they found out-"

"What?" Marco said, alarmed. "What did they do? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"They said I could go to AA or go to The Most Dangerous Game."

"Shit."

"Yeah. So I went through. Got my chips, got my sponsor, and got to step 11.” She closed her eyes and recited, “’Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.’ Then my sponsor, Spiritual Awakenings McCloud, defected to the Guild, and I went with him."

"So... why did you stop after eleven steps? Isn't that near the end?"

She took a deliberate sip. "It is."

Marco sighed. "So? Why?"

"The twelve step program is an eye-opener. It is designed to expose the truth. Alcohol, in most cases, shrouds the truth. Which is odd, because one finds oneself more honest than ever while under the influence, right?"

She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. Marco kept his eyes down. "I guess."

"But too much alcohol could mask the troubles in your life. Most of the time. But in this case-in my case-it made things perfectly clear. And it was clear that I had to leave."

Fighting a wave of bile, Marco pointed to the small man Knowledge had entered the bar with, who stood at the end of the bar with a glass of whisky. "And is that Spiritual Awakenings?"

"It is." Her voice took on a dreamy quality. "He has gone through all twelve steps. Went through the hell and out the other side. And remained the same. He's the highest rank in the guild."

"You have ranks based on your AA steps?"

"Sure. If you have had the strength to go through the entire program and come out the other side changed, but the same, you are truly a master of the Alcoholic’s Guild," she said. "I made it to eleven."

"I see," Marco said.

She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. "To be part of the AG, you have to hit rock bottom, like lying in a puddle of you own vomit in an alley rock bottom. Then you join AA and learn all about the church, and God, and all that. It offers a way out of the alley. Perhaps, at some point, the Guild can show you the back door out. It's not back to the alley and your vomit, but it's not in a church of sobriety, either. It's its own thing."

"But you have a disease," Marco said uncertainly. "You needed help. Now you're drinking again and you've lost your patronage. How can that be good?"

Knowledge poured another glass of wine and sipped it thoughtfully. "You know, Marco, this isn't glamorous. Being a stinking drunk isn't what I wanted to be when I was a little girl. I know what I'm doing to my liver. I know what I'm doing to my brain. You get detailed medical lessons in AA as well as when you join the Guild. But look at it this way: an animal that has its paw stuck in a trap can either sit there and wait for the hunter to come back, or it can gnaw its paw off to get free. So you wonder, what's worse, being in a trap, or forever changed for the worse, but free?"

Marco's eyelids drooped. "Listen, Knowledge, I-"

Knowledge held up her hand, surveying the empty glasses on the table. "I know what you're about to say, Marco. I miss you too, and you have reached the 'I love you, man' stage. Don't say anything you'll regret. We're different people now."

Marco blinked and tried to focus on her. "No, I was going to say I don't know what to do. House Blue doesn't make art. I don't know what they want me for, why they did that rape-your-mind-artist mapping thing to me."

Knowledge sighed, and Marco had that feeling that he'd missed something, had made her angry but she wouldn't tell her how or why. She signaled to Remove All These Defects (“Defects” for short) and said, "It's time for you to go back. All I can tell you is, pay attention, but don't ask too many questions. And come back here for a drink soon. Just don’t let them follow you."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10

commentary
THURSDAY MAY 26 2011 9:04 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 9

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the ninth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage.

Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink.

Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so at the 2Two2, a bar specifically created for humans, Marco has to console himself with a fisheye – a drink that tastes of oranges and spice, and contains the story A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As soon as he finishes it, a second drink appears in front of him. When he asks who bought it, the barkeep points to a woman across the room who looks suspiciously like Penelope. Deciding to call it a night, Marco is escorted home to House Blue.

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged up in a claustrophobic sensory deprivation tank so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco is in need of a shower. However, having been thoroughly probed by the aliens, he knows no amount of water will wash his mind clean of the experience.

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9

There was no timer on the shower this time, and Marco stayed in it for twenty minutes, hot water turning his skin red, his head leaning against the frosted glass of the shower. The silk robe had been replaced by a soft, puffy cotton robe, and he dried off and wrapped it around himself, recognizing the smell of cookies as he wrapped himself in the robe, resenting it but still accepting the calm it gave him.

His brain tried to register surprise that Heather sat in his room when he came out of the bathroom, but he was just too tired.

"So doors don't lock around here, do they?" he asked.

Her thin fingers wrapped around a steaming blue mug. She reached to the table and passed him an identical mug, this one full of coffee. He accepted it.

"Our patrons don't have anything to hide, and they don't think we should either. You can probably guess they don’t have a lot of understanding of shame or nudity."

He thought of the situation he'd just been through and his stomach twisted. He sipped at the coffee to keep from shaking. "I don't have anything to hide, not anymore."

"It is rough," she agreed.

"Did you go through that? Does everyone?" he asked, sitting on his bed and pulling the covers over his legs. His sheets had been changed to soft linen that brought to mind the scent of lavender. He drank deeply of the strong coffee.

She regarded him over her mug. "Of course they do. I told you, the Li-Jun do not feel passion. This is how they merge sensory output, how they put taste in a locket or a song into a dress."

"So do they want me for my writing and illustration skill or my memories and emotions?"

Her brown eyes didn't waver. "I honestly don't know."

He put down the empty mug, which had suddenly become too heavy. "Do I have to go through that again?" he asked in a small voice.

The Red Granny, whom he had recently witnessed kill two people in arena blood sports, rose from her chair and came over to him. She sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh no, honey, you won't have to go through that again, ever. They've got all your sensory-emotional connections, they don't need any more."

He leaned into her, accepting the maternal care, and closed his eyes. The scent of cookies and lavender seeped away, and he smelled her, warm, baby powder, and sweet coffee.

He didn’t have any tears left so he just let her hold him.

Through this comfort, a cold voice in the back of his mind reminded him that her words were less than comforting.

***

He found it odd that everything that had happened to him that day had happened before ten o'clock. After his phone chimed with a text saying his agent wanted to see him, Heather left his room and he dressed and went to meet Kathryn for brunch.

Despite the dark circles under his eyes, Marco felt calmer and grounded, ready to discuss with his agent the terms of his patronage. He was still unsure, but felt better after the shower and the quiet encouragement from Heather.

Kathryn entered the restaurant like the force of nature she was. "Marco! There you are!" she called in her raspy voice, causing many patrons to stare first at her, and then at him. He gave a little wave and fought the desire to hide.

Kathryn stood nearly two meters tall, with curly blonde hair down the middle of her back and a huge smile. Marco had thought she looked like a natural beauty that had been somehow enhanced using paint software, complete with missing pixels and distortions. She carried two large purses that Marco knew from experience were not her luggage, but simply what she needed for everyday work.

She dropped her bags beside her chair and put her hands on her hips. "Well, aren't you glad to see me? Where's my hug?"

Fighting the urge to remind her that she had dumped him two days prior, Marco stood up and embraced her gently, which didn't stop her from crushing him to her formidable chest.

"I'm so glad to see you, Marco. This is going to be exciting! Let's order mimosas to celebrate, then we can go over the contract."

She plopped down into her chair and picked up a menu.

"They don't have mimosas at this restaurant, Kathryn," Marco said. "The coffee's quite excellent."

"No mimosas? Then I'll have a Bloody Mary."

Marco wondered if he should just let her be disappointed. A Li-Jun waiter approached them, wearing a sheath over his body that identified him as House Orange. "No, the Li-Jun don't drink and don't like it when humans do. It's hard to get a drink up here."

"Gahd, that's harsh, I had no idea. But I thought Mollywood was where the Alcoholics Guild was based?" she asked.

He shrugged. "You can get a drink, just not from a Li-Jun establishment. They haven't outlawed it, they just don't serve it, and they run most of the businesses here."

She slapped the menu shut. "All right then. We'll skip the celebratory drink and save it for later. Now let's talk contract."

Marco held up his hand. "Kathryn, let me stop you. I’m not so sure I’m taking the patronage."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she said, louder than Marco preferred.

"Of course you're taking it! No one ever turns down a patronage!"

Marco felt his calm slip. "That doesn't mean it won't happen. I don't fit in here. I don't like it."

"You've been here a day! What could have happened in the day?" Kathryn waved her arms and nearly whacked their Li-Jun waiter.

"Good morning, what can I get for you?" he said smoothly as if Kathryn hadn't nearly punched him.

"You can get me an explanation!" Kathryn said. "You can tell me why this boy won't accept Li-Jun patronage after being in Mollywood only one day!"

"I’m sure I do not know," the alien said. "Would Madame like a coffee? Decaf, perhaps?"

Kathryn waved her hand. "Sure. Bring two."

The waiter glided away and Marco wondered if he'd ever be able to make a decision for himself again.

"Have you heard the contract terms? Is that what you're mad about?" she asked.

"No," Marco said.

"What have you done since you've been here?"

"I met House Blue. Moved in. Went to The Most Dangerous Game last night. Went out for drinks - Li-Jun drinks,” he added, seeing her raised eyebrow. “And then-" he stopped. He couldn't bring himself to begin to explain what he had been through that morning. He'd never call something "rape" that didn't involve an actual sexual assault, but he felt shamed, exposed, bruised, and completely unwilling to discuss his experience.

"Then?"

"I had a meeting with them this morning that showed me I didn't really want to get involved with them." He didn't meet her eyes.

"Oh, was this the artist mapping?"

He looked up. "The what?"

"The artist mapping. It's how they combine all the art concepts. They map the emotions of the artists and store them for later use in art."

His cheeks flushed. "Is that what they call it."

"Yeah, you're not technically supposed to do it until we sign the contract," she said, digging through her massive purse. She pulled out a tablet and punched some commands on the screen. "If they made you do it before signing, then we can likely leverage more money out of them. But don't worry about it, I hear it can be intense, but everyone goes through it. No biggie."

Marco felt an irrational desire to strangle her. Or perhaps it was rational. He wasn't sure. He just wanted to make her understand that what he went through was not, "no biggie."

She looked up from her tablet when he didn't say anything. "Are you all right?"

Marco opened his mouth, and still found that the shame was powerful enough to keep him quiet. "Intense. Yeah, it was."

She waved her hand. "Still, it's over now, and I hear that's the worst part about patronage. Now you rake in the dough and create all day. Isn't that what you always wanted?"

I didn't know the price before, he thought. Out loud he said, "Why didn't you tell me this was going to happen?"

"Well, if you'd studied patronage instead of pouted for the last four years, you would have known about it. There are books written on this shit, Marco. Besides, as I said, you weren't supposed to go through it until you signed the contract. Which," she scooted her chair around the table, oblivious of getting in the way of the wait staff, "I have right here."

She put the table in front of him. It was mostly a lot of legal text that made his eyes glaze over, but she pointed to a number. "There, does that change your mind?"

It was impressive, twice what he made on Earth. "That's my yearly salary?" Kathryn grinned widely. "No, Marco. That's your monthly salary."

He felt the spit in his mouth dry up. Her long purple fingernail traced other clauses of the contract as she listed them. “You get the money and become part of House Blue, which includes housing, meals, wardrobe, use of vehicles, and seating at all entertainment House Blue attends." She cocked an eyebrow at Marco. "Which you apparently got last night. Now what you give them is exclusivity of course; no working for another house. You will submit to artist mapping. You will deliver one graphic novel and six original pieces of art a year. They will take your work and enhance it with sensory art as they see fit, and sell it for what price they want. Your salary is the same whether you're a bestseller or a flop. At the end of the year, you both have a chance to renegotiate. They can dump you if you're a flop, or you can ask for more if you're a hit."

She lit up a lumin. "Look, Marco. The worst part is over. If you're upset about the early mapping, we can demand more. Is there something else you want? Anything in the contract you want to change?"

Marco sat feeling like an empty husk. Tears pricked at his eyes and he brushed at them impatiently. "I feel like I've been handed everything I ever wanted, but it's hollow.”

Kathryn blew smoke out the side of her mouth and leaned forward, lumin smoke making her voice even rougher than usual. "If it was that bad, Marco, we can make them pay. And what did you have on Earth? Seriously? This is your chance to turn everything around. You're in a different place, with money, with new opportunities. Shit, take the patronage for a year, bank the money, then move back to Earth and live on your riches. And like I said, you won't be mapped again. This is your dream, Marco, but it's not empty. I promise."

The waiter brought their coffee. Suddenly hungry, Marco ordered a huge breakfast. They ate in near silence. When they were done, he wiped his mouth and sat up a little straighter. "This morning was the worst experience of my life, Kathryn. If they want to keep me, I want double what they’re offering."

She choked on her coffee and started to stammer, but he kept his gaze steady. She guzzled her water to stop choking and then sat back, panting. "If that's what you want."

Marco grinned slightly. "You're the best in the business, right?"

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

commentary
THURSDAY MAY 19 2011 9:05 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 8

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi, SGmember:mightymur

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the eighth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage.

Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink.

Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so at the 2Two2, a bar specifically created for humans, Marco has to console himself with a fisheye – a drink that tastes of oranges and spice, and contains the story A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As soon as he finishes it, a second drink appears in front of him. When he asks who bought it, the barkeep points to a woman across the room who looks suspiciously like Penelope. Deciding to call it a night, Marco is escorted home to House Blue. Later that night, The Red Granny, who's much recovered thanks to the miraculous work of the Li-Jun paramedics, sneaks into his room with an illicit cocktail created by the Alcoholics Guild. Before leaving him to his already disturbed slumber, The Red Granny warns Marco that in the morning he's destined to learn first hand about the probing process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages.

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8

Six had laid out a silk robe for him and he slipped it on. The silk was chilly against his bare skin and he felt quite underdressed as the diminutive alien came to get him. "Can't I put on shoes or something?" he asked, but she shook her head, her tentacles waving in little waves he found oddly soothing.

"You will be comfortable enough," she said. "Just come with me."

Again, it wasn't an invitation or request. Marco swallowed and tightened his robe, hearing a quiet lullaby as he did so. He followed Six down the hall. It was 7:00am GMT, and the house was beginning to bustle with activity. Bright lights gave a pleasant glow to the hallways and rooms branching off, imitating sunlight during the long lunar evening. Li-Jun glided from room to room, some on clear domestic duties, some with more pressing business. Six stepped aside from each Li-Jun, submissively, and Marco figured she had to be the last on the totem pole. He felt a little sorry for her.

His pity melted like ice on a hot stove when she led him through a door on the second floor and into a windowless room. She grasped the robe with her tentacles and pulled it off him, her strength much greater than his own.

"Whoa, hey!" he yelled, grabbing for the robe as she pulled it away from him. "What the hell?"

"Please, Marco, relax," the soft voice of Thirteen floated over to him, and he relaxed immediately. He understood it was part of their skill to mix emotions with other senses, and resented it. He covered himself as best he could with his hands and glared at her.

The room was dark, but he could make out at least two Li-Jun milling in a corner, and Thirteen was at the far end of the room, adjusting the controls on a box that stood against the wall. It was probably twice as big as a coffin would be, wider and deeper.

Marco jumped as Six began putting sticky white electrodes on him, her tentacles quick and precise. Some went on his neck, some on his forehead, some behind his ear. Others went on his chest, back, thighs, and she darted in with one tentacle to place one exactly between his balls and his ass.

Blood surged to his face and he moved to pull it off, but she caught his hand. "Please don't remove the electrodes," she said.

He snarled and batted her tentacles away, and she retreated. He didn't know if he had won at his little rebellion, or if she was merely done.

"I know it seems new, Marco, and possibly somewhat startling, but it's all necessary. Once we go through this last test, we can discuss the terms of the patronage."

I'm not sure this whole patronage thing is a good idea, he thought, but kept his mouth shut.

-Only to have it pried open by Six, stuffing a breathing apparatus into his mouth. He expected it to taste like rubber, but it was an amazingly neutral taste, nothing good or bad or noticeable. She fitted the mask behind his ears. Two inserted smaller tubes with putty-like washers into his nose, forming a seal.

"We are going to place you in a sensory deprivation chamber, Marco," Thirteen said. "You will feel nothing, taste nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, and smell nothing. We will be stimulating parts of your body, encouraging hormones, synapses, other things, in order to read you better. This is our first step in creating our art; it's really your art, because all of your work will be flavored by your own passion."

There's that word again, he thought.

Marco wanted to refuse, to see what would happen. He wanted to stand up, to say he didn't want the patronage and- and what? Go back to earth and live in his miserable dark apartment? And write? No agent would touch him if he refused Li-Jun patronage. The only career ahead of him was to make coffee, or maybe open his own coffee house someday.

With what money and business sense? he wondered. Did all artists really go through this? Was this a dirty secret of patronage?

"This will last approximately fifteen minutes. If you encounter any distress, just press the red button, that's the emergency release," Thirteen said as Marco tried to avoid the tentacles pressing against his bare back, guiding him into the chamber.

That's not so bad, he thought. At least this messed up dance has a safe word.

He went into the chamber and spotted the red button on the ceiling. The door closed and Marco was sheathed in darkness. It was a frightening darkness, the kind that made him open his eyes wide, desperate to drink in any light at all.

He jumped slightly as pumps engaged and viscous fluid began to gush out of faucets at the back. It was quite warm, nearly the temperature of his own body. It filled the chamber quickly, and he breathed a little quicker, the claustrophobia pressing in. He thought about the little button on the ceiling.

Once the fluid closed over his ears, he could hear nothing, not even his own frightened breathing or his heart pounding. He tried to hum, make any sound, but whatever the liquid was completely shut down his eardrums.

The fluid had now covered him, filling the chamber completely. The warmth matched his body heat perfectly, and his skin didn't even register the small currents caused by his own movements. He would have to endure fifteen minutes of maddening emptiness?

He breathed deeply and tried to relax. It was peaceful, floating here, but with no stimulus at all, his brain began to race.

Had it been fifteen minutes yet? Certainly five had passed by now. One-third of the way there. What were they tracking? He had no idea. The electrodes were soft and barely noticeable on his skin, even the one between his legs.

He shifted in the water, trying to force a current. He tried to touch his face, or clasp his hands, but although he could tell his hand met with an obstacle, his brain did not register that he had touched anything.

Vertigo gripped him and he flailed in panic, his limbs reaching out to touch the walls but finding nothing. She’d said to press a red button, but when he could see and feel nothing, how was he supposed to find a red button? He tried to scream into the mask but his ears couldn't catch the sound vibrations in his own head.

Sensory deprivation nitwit, he thought. Calm down.

Panting, he slowed his movements and concentrated on breathing deeply. He wasn't in pain, he could breathe, and he was fine. And this was only for fifteen minutes, right?

And it wasn't total sensory deprivation, either. He could smell something coming through the tubes, a distant smell of baking. It wasn't steady; it more had the sense of walking past a kitchen as someone pushed a door open, letting some of the aroma escape. What was it? Cookies?

Marco's father used to bake cookies. It was their Thursday night ritual: bake cookies, watch a movie or a football game, and he'd get to stay up a little later than usual. They started it soon after Marco's mother had died, and it always brought the sense of safety, of love, of slight bittersweet memory.

After he had moved out, he continued baking on Thursday nights, just for himself, and he'd send his father email every Thursday night to talk about the latest movie or football game. When he finally got his father set up with a vidphone, they'd had phone calls.

He had tried to share his Thursday night ritual with only one other person. Penelope had had to work late that night. She had apologized, but she never really got how important Thursday nights were to Marco, and he didn't bake for her again. She was a pastry chef; she always did the baking anyway.

His father had never worked late on a Thursday.

As her memory surfaced, he felt the bitter disappointment he'd felt that night, the painful betrayal.

A taste touched his tongue then, coming through the mask. Cinnamon and sweet, turning hot after a moment. Like the cinnamon candies. Those candies had been on a coffee table the night before his friend Reggie’s thirteenth birthday party. He'd been twelve, waiting with Joanne, a childhood friend, for Reggie’s mother to stop futzing with his tie back in a bedroom. Marco had eaten a cinnamon candy and started in surprise when the heat had grown uncomfortable.

"Damn, that's hot," he'd told Joanne.

She had grinned at him. "Aww, want me to kiss it and make it better?"

"Yeah," Marco replied, joking.

And then her lips had been on his, touching, slightly clumsy, fleeting. Then Reggie had been ready and they'd bustled to the party, Marco's head reeling. Nothing more ever happened with Joanne, but Marco had always associated the fire of cinnamon with the breathless rush of that first kiss.

His heartbeat quickened and his cheeks warmed with the memory.

More memories came, the coarse feel of his first dog's fur and the thrill of exploring the woods with him. The cheap beer that had been on his tongue when he'd asked out the hottest woman in the bar and the accompanying shame when she had laughed. Grief as distant as an old toothache triggered by the sounds of bug zappers, placed all over the mausoleum where his mother had been interred. As his senses were stimulated by different sounds, tastes, odors, and feelings, memories surged, leaving him angry, thrilled, shamed, and grief-stricken. Memories of Penelope kept surfacing: her perfume, the feel of her straight black hair, the sounds she made when they made love, and the ratty Notre Dame sweatshirt she'd been wearing the day she'd received the letter of patronage and had dumped him after his envious, childish tantrum.

Shame and grief. It overwhelmed him, his chest tightened, and his tears floated off into the viscous liquid. Please, let me think about something else. Stop reminding me about Penelope, he thought.

He'd burned dinner the night his letter rejecting patronage came through, and drank beer instead. The taste of the hot, thick, bile of the subsequent hangover flooded his mouth, and the same impotent rage bloomed in his chest.

And they continued to come. At this point, Marco began to sob, overwhelmed, no matter whether the emotion the Li-Jun triggered, he sobbed more, despair and confusion taking over. He felt wind on his face, reminding him of the roller coaster he'd been on as a child, but he sobbed still. No more, please.

Fifteen minutes has to have passed. It has to end soon, he thought, feeling the tingling rush of sexual excitement as he heard the deep thumping of the drum and bass music Penelope liked to make love to. Even after she left, the sound of that music never failed to stimulate him, and he hated it and the memory it brought with it.

The shame of his arousal, of knowing they were watching, monitoring him, caused him to flail about again, screaming through his sobs into the mask, even as the sensations increased, causing him undeniable pleasure despite his attempts to ignore it, despite his embarrassment, and he wept as he shuddered in release, the music pounding in his head, the scent of Penelope in his nostrils, and pure hatred for the bastards who did this to him.

All sensation ceased. He panted and bit hard on the mask, trying to calm himself. He could suddenly feel his hair, wet and matted, cool in the air. He realized the fluid was draining, his skin finally able to feel again. Once the fluid went below his eyes, he blinked and could see through the glass at the impassive aliens watching him, Thirteen watching the computer bank connected to his tank.

As the fluid drained, a speaker popped to life above him. "That was excellent, Marco, thank you," said Thirteen's voice. "We're going to recommend you go back to your quarters now. You likely will want a shower and rest."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

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THURSDAY APRIL 28 2011 9:04 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 5

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: All Things SG, Blog, Books, Entertainment, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the fifth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

We join Marco shortly after he lands on the Moon, as he settles into his new accommodations at House Blue. After a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen, Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment. A sense of unease sets in as he prepares for the evening’s designated entertainment – a trip to see The Most Dangerous Game…

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5

"Marco, so good to see you!” his agent cried as she opened her chat program. She looked coiffed and ready to travel. "I’m heading to the moon earlier than I thought, I forgot travel slowed down a lot during your night. I'm catching the last shuttle for a week in fifteen minutes. What's up? You settled?"

Marco shrugged. "It'll take some getting used to. But I wanted to ask you - they've already sort of assumed I'm working for them. I have no idea what's behind this patronage, what I'm doing for them, what they're paying, or anything, really."

Kathryn laughed. "No one has ever turned down a Li-Jun patronage before, Marco. You're set for life. Does it matter what you'll be doing for them? Comics, graphic novels, maybe?"

"Yeah, that sounds good, but I get the sense that Blue isn’t a house that usually supports the arts," Marco said. "They support the blood sports like Most Dangerous Game! They're the patron house of The Red Granny!"

Kathryn’s eyes went wide. "Really? I love her!"

Marco waved his hands in front of his tablet to get her attention. "That’s not the point. What if they expect me to participate in the games? What if some lines got crossed somewhere and suddenly I’m a gladiator? Can you get me out of it?"

Kathryn sighed. "Marco, they told me they wanted a writer and illustrator, someone who could do two kinds of art at once. They named you as the someone they wanted. They said your work is powerful and just what they're looking for. They said they're paying 25% over the standard patron and I would get mailed the full terms of the agreement today. I will call you when I get in and we can meet tomorrow to discuss it."

"Okay," Marco said doubtfully. "But I don't even know what the standard patron contract is."

"Listen, we'll talk about it tomorrow. I have to go catch my shuttle. Cheer up, Marco. You look like you've been given a bowl of ice cream but you're whining that it's butter pecan instead of chocolate."

Her face disappeared as she severed the connection, and Marco stared at his tablet. "But what if I'm allergic to nuts?" he muttered.

He sighed and placed the tablet on his human-sized desk. The room was clearly built for their pet humans; it resembled a high-end hotel room with an oak desk, queen-sized bed with silk bedspread and down comforter for the long moon nights, full bathroom (a luxury in Mollywood, where water was much more expensive than on Earth), television and gaming system, and treadmill and weight rack – very important for the low gravity, he understood.

He looked out the window. He didn't know if he was gratified or annoyed about the fact that his window showed the clear dome and the moon wastes beyond. The sun was on the other side of the dome, and since it was setting to end a three hundred forty eight-hour moon day, only the light from the dome illuminated the gray landscape.

Just his luck to get there at the start of the two Earth week-long moon night. Talk about seasonal depression.

He could see just at the edge of his vision a red fence about twenty feet high. That must be where The Most Dangerous Game was played. He checked his watch and realized he hadn't set it to lunar time. He'd need a new watch tomorrow. Mollywood ran on GMT, as the humans preferred a twenty four hour "day" but everyone needed a Lunar watch if only to know when the sun would return.

The large bathroom may have been a luxury, but the shower was carefully timed, something Marco didn't realize. The hot water ran out when his hair was soapy, and he ended up having to rinse it in cold water from the sink, swearing and sputtering. He was only half dressed when a knock came at the door.

He figured it was human, as the Li-Jun had no knuckles to knock with. He opened the door in his jeans, still drying his hair, trying to rub some circulation back into his scalp.

It was Heather. She no longer had the innocent-lady-on-the-plane act going on; she’d washed her face of the makeup and now was dressed in the outfit Marco had seen her wearing in the promotional picture. She wore a silver shirt that had been Li-Jun-made, silk interwoven with metal, under which she wore a Kevlar vest. The silk had tubing running through it, attached to a small battery cell at her lower back, which Marco guessed was a heat source. Some entrants in The Most Dangerous Game wore Earth-made space suits; they didn't last long.

Her pants were made of the same material, but shiny red. Down her right leg were the circular Li-Jun characters that Marco had seen on the doors and on some of the stationery on the desk that he assumed meant House Blue was her patron.

"I had a moment before I have to leave for the match, I thought I'd see how you were settling in," she said. She had a different air about her now, a quiet, no-nonsense manner. She'd left the friendly, scatterbrained granny behind her on the shuttle; she was all business now.

"Uh, sure, come in," Marco said. "I was just getting dressed." He walked over to his duffle bag. "So, what does one wear to the games when one is a guest of a House?"

Heather smiled thinly and went to the closet. "I suppose you didn't look in here?"

Marco peeked in to see clothing hanging: suits, jeans, shirts, coats, each one a different color, but a shift in angle brought out shimmery blue silk woven into each piece of clothing, branding it House Blue. He pulled out a simple white button down shirt. As his hands ran over the fabric, he smelled something like an apple orchard in fall. Not fake candle-like smells, but a shocking sense that he was actually among the ripening trees. "Is that-?" Marco said.

"All yours. You're House Blue now, Marco. When you go to the games, you wear this. Not the clothes you brought.

The mention of the games brought Marco back to reality. He slipped the shirt over his undershirt and buttoned it, not looking at Heather. "So do you get nervous? Before the games, I mean."

Heather laughed, her too-straight teeth shining. "Of course I do. People out there want to kill me. But you do this enough and you get used to it. You develop a way of doing things." She went to his desk chair and watched him get dressed. "I don't mean to say that it's not difficult. I'm a target now, more than ever before. But it keeps you on your toes, doesn't it?"

Marco took his new slacks into the bathroom with him for privacy. "Couldn't you have taken up, I don't know, knitting?" he called out the door.

"I could have, yes, but it doesn't pay as well as the games do, hon. And it’s certainly not as exciting."

"Point taken." The jeans fit him perfectly, and the shirt hung just right to hide most of the gut he'd developed as an inactive writer. How did they know? He exited the bathroom, rubbing his hand over his dark crew cut to coax the rest of the water out of it.

"Very nice," Heather said when he came out. "If I were thirty years younger, I'd be after you. As it is, I need to save my strength for the arena."

Marco laughed, his voice sounding a tad hysterical. He whirled nervously when his bedroom door opened with no announcing knock, and Six, the subservient Li-Jun, stood there. "It's time," he said, and beckoned to them.

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

commentary
THURSDAY APRIL 7 2011 9:03 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 2

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the second installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. When someone asks a starlet, "Who are you wearing?" she could as easily say "J.K. Rowling" as she could "Gucci."

In the first installment, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Having expected little from his day when it started out, Marco now finds himself nursing a hangover on the next shuttle to the moon...

Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2

Most of the Patron Li-Jun Houses had their information uploaded to the human Web, and while Marco could find out a lot about House Magenta, House Orange, and House Yellow, he found almost nothing about Blue. He was admittedly unschooled on the more detailed information involving Li-Jun patronage and House structures, but he did know that for all their love of the creative arts, their own personal information was closely guarded. No human ever heard a Li-Jun's name; they only knew them by their numeric title within their houses, which were named for colors.

The aliens took on numeric titles as they reached maturity. The prime numbers were the ones with the power. Odds were dominant, evens were submissive. The genders made no difference to the ruling parts of a house.

The primes Three, Five, Seven, Eleven, and Thirteen were supposed to be the highest ranks in the house. One and Two were usually a main breeding couple. Three was usually the leader, and Thirteen had creative control over the House’s output. Eleven was in charge of security, and Five and Seven had roles that Marco didn’t quite understand.

Thirteens had creative control, but they seemed to be like executive producers in movie studios, very important, but rarely got their hands dirty. Thirteens would not vet patronage applications. They likely wouldn't even meet the artists unless they managed to create a hit. Maybe not even then.

Marco closed the book, Li-Jun Hacks, the bestseller that illustrated Li-Jun's quick dominance of human creative culture, and laid his head back. The shuttle's engines roared and he closed his eyes and willed his stomach to stay still.

"Have you been to Ride Base before? I love going there," the woman beside him chattered, picking homemade snack mix out of a baggie. She ate all the pretzels first, and Marco decided to hate her for that fact alone, because if she made it herself then why not make it exactly as she wanted it? It was also easier to hate her than think about his trip and how a hung-over failure of a writer and illustrator was going to present himself to an alien race he'd long ago written off as an unattainable goal.

"I just love Mollywood. Ever since Christopher died I got what you might call an addiction to the Most Dangerous Game.”

Reality shows. Great. Marco had avoided a lot of Li-Jun creations, but the reality shows were the worst. How could a race that created such fine art also get into reality blood sports? He ignored the woman.

“But you don’t want to hear about an old woman’s adventures in reality TV, do you?”

In reality TV? Marco's eyes flew open. He looked at the woman closer. Her blonde-gray hair was braided and wrapped around her head, her frame heavyset, and her eye sparkling with just a hint of malice behind the merriment.

"You're- " Marco managed to squeak over the roar of the engines.

The woman grinned at him. "Oh did I not introduce myself, dear? I'm Heather, but my fans call me The Red Granny."
Fear and wonder washed over him as the shuttle took off, the G forces pressing him into his seat. A pretzel snaked out of her baggie and hit him in the ear.

This day was too weird.

The Red Granny was a legend in the reality show world. One of the stipulations of the Li-Juns' rule of Mollywood meant their laws ran the moon, not any Earth country's. They viewed "suffering for the art" in a very different way. If an artist's pain or death added to a piece of art then it was actively encouraged. And the Li-Juns didn't make just fine art either, they valued passion in all forms, going beyond art and getting into sports, reality shows, and the study of humans’ willingness to destroy themselves.

The runaway hit was The Most Dangerous Game. You could sign away the rights to your life and get flown to Luna, fitted with a space suit and some weapons, and turned out into the Lunar environment to battle for your life.

Most people who applied for The Most Dangerous Game were ex-cons who couldn't get a job, or people who had reached the end of their ropes. Everyone was shocked when a little old lady, recently widowed, volunteered for a position. The Li-Jun were delighted; the audience laid billions of dollars on her early death. And when she calmly, almost pleasantly, killed all of her competitors, she became the darling of Mollywood and Earth. A three-time champion, she had been assigned a Li-Jun bodyguard for her time on Mollywood, but traveled incognito on Earth.

Marco guessed that was why she was flying coach.

Once they'd escaped the atmosphere, he turned to Heather, who still munched on pretzels as if the G-forces bothered her not at all, and asked, "So are you going up for another game?"

She nodded. "Yes, I’ll be meeting my patron and preparing for the new season."

"You- you have a patron?" Marco asked, forgetting entirely to marvel at the view of vast space out his window.

She laughed. "Of course I do, silly. Once you win The Most Dangerous Game, you get a patron for protection and funding.” Her hand lingered at the pendant that rested on her sweater. As her fingers toyed with it, Marco got a distinct taste of strawberries, and he blinked. He hadn't seen many Li-Jun-created items in his life, and had always wondered how they worked.

The pendant was gold, and looked quite heavy. It was an egg about the size of a gold ball, with cracks in the upper half coming out from a tiny golden beak just about to break out.

He peered at it, careful not to touch it. "What... is it? I mean, what is it combined with?"

She looked down at the pendant and smiled slightly at it, as if she hadn't realized she was playing with it. "It was a gift from my patron. It is a pendant imbued with the skills of master pastry chef Penelope Abrams. If you touch it, you can taste her chocolate strawberry fool's tart."

Marco’s face flushed and the headache throbbed even harder. He hadn’t expected to hear Penelope’s name, although she had been on his mind since he’d gotten the call this morning. He hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of years, not since she got her patronage and left for Ride Base.

"I haven't seen an Li-Jun work before, not this close up," he managed to say. "It's beautiful."

The crackling voice of the captain came on and warned everyone to prepare for the jump, and the seat belt over Marco's shoulder tightened automatically at this warning.

"Thank you, dear. Now I'm going to advise you to get ready for the jump. If this is your first trip it can be... disorienting." She slipped another pretzel into her mouth.

Marco closed his eyes, trying to calm his whirring mind, not wanting to ask about Penelope, if Heather knew her, but still wanting to know more about the woman. "So who's your patron? What House?"

Before she could answer, everything stopped. Marco’s eyes flew open to see Heather’s face elongate slowly. Pain filled his body, as it seemed, for an instant, that half of his molecules decided to jump one inch forward and leave the rest of him behind. A screech filled Marco's ears, then Heather’s face snapped back into place.

"Ah, we're nearly there," she said.

"What the fuck just happened?" Marco said, holding his own head to see if it had returned to its proper shape. He was breathing hard, and he heard the sounds of vomiting around him.

"It's just the jump, dear," she said.

"But it felt like I was being torn apart," he said, surprised for a moment that he wasn't vomiting like the others.

"You were, for a moment, but then the rest of you came along. It's disorienting, but perfectly safe. You look remarkably fit, actually. Were you drunk when you got on board?"

He blinked. "How did you know?"

"Alcohol cushions your system. They don't tell you that, of course, don't want to excite the Alcoholics Guild; Zeus knows they don't need encouraging. I had a couple of glasses of wine before getting on board."

"But I feel fine now, no hangover at all!" he said.

"Sure. The jump takes it out of your system. Purifies you. If only it could scour you clean of illness, it would be a perfect system of travel."

Marco took a deep breath, reveling in the sudden removal of the full body hangover pain, and looked outside.

Ride Lunar Base lay before him, Mollywood's dome reflecting the Earth behind him. It was a pearl among the dusty gray of the moon, about three miles in diameter, three ports lay at different parts of the city. Marco had done some reading; he knew that Mollywood proper had its own port on the northern edge of the dome, which was where his ship was headed. The other two ports had to do with Earth shuttles, imports, and equipment for the continued health of the colony.

As they neared the dome, Heather pulled a small mirror and a makeup glove from her purse. She slipped the glove onto her right hand and removed the plastic tips from each finger. Gazing into the mirror, she applied lipstick from the finger and blue eye shadow from the middle. Her pinky dabbed rouge onto her cheeks. Marco winced at the garish color on her lips, but tried to remain neutral. The Red Granny didn't miss a thing, apparently. She smirked at him. "Honey, I know it's loud, but I have a reputation to maintain. No one pays attention to me on Earth but, well, let's just say that here I'm recognized."

"I guess you would be," Marco said as she stowed her items in her purse.

"By the way, honey, I never caught your name.” She extended her hand. He shook it. "I’m Marco. It's really an honor to meet you. Thank you for answering all my questions."

She waved her hand. "It's no trouble. Your first visit to Ride Base can be overwhelming, especially when you're meeting a patron. Good luck with that. If we meet again, I'll buy you a coffee."

Marco nodded and thanked her as the shuttle pulled into port. They waited another ten minutes for other shuttles to land, and then the massive port doors shut and jets came on to push breathable air into the garage. Once equilibrium was maintained, the passengers were free to exit the shuttle. Marco slung his backpack on and waved good-bye to Heather.

When he set foot on Ride Base, it took a moment to get used to the gravity. He swayed a bit, his backpack feeling uncomfortably light. He'd brought very little; the patron had indicated all of his needs would be taken care of. So he'd packed a couple of books, his notebooks, his favorite fountain pen, and an emergency change of clothes. He looked around and caught sight of Heather again and suddenly realized he’d never told her he was going to Mollywood for a patron.

He was about to approach her and ask her how she knew when he saw his first alien. Heather stood talking to a tall, wispy Li-Jun. This one was male with twelve tentacles wrapped neatly around his trunk-like body, two eye stalks dipping low to pay attention to Heather while the third fixated on him.

Marco swallowed nervously.

Heather saw him watching them and started toward him, motioning the Li-Jun to follow her. He glided through means Marco couldn’t tell, and wondered if he had a foot like a snail. The alien looked at Marco curiously.

"Marco, this is my bodyguard, Seven Blue," she said.
The Li-Jun bowed his head. "Marco Guerrero. Our newest artist. It is an honor."

"Pleased to meet you," Marco stammered. He'd been expecting the sensory overload; for it was said even the Li-Jun who held back could communicate using several senses at once. He was still surprised by the taste of a thick cream sauce and the feeling of being wrapped in a large fur blanket.

He looked at Heather, "You didn't tell me that House Blue was your patron!"

"Oh honey, you don't want to hear about me, it's so uninteresting," she said. "Seven here has offered you escort as well, since we're all going the same direction."

"Oh! Well, that's very kind of him. You, I mean," Marco said, not sure if he should address Heather or Seven.

"Humans usually want to spend time exploring Luna when they arrive here, but I know Thirteen is eager to meet you," The Li-Jun said in a sleek voice, companied by the taste of hot chocolate tinged with chili pepper and an image of a sleeping panther.

"G-great," Marco said. "Lead on, then."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

commentary
THURSDAY MARCH 31 2011 9:03 PM

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny Part 1 – “Who Are You Wearing?”

Submitted by SG_Blog

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Internuts, fiction, Marco and the Red Granny, Mighty Mur, Mur Lafferty, sci-fi

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the first installment of our brand new Fiction Friday series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. When someone asks a starlet, "Who are you wearing?" she could as easily say "J.K. Rowling" as she could "Gucci."

Marco and the Red Granny Part 1 -"Who Are You Wearing?"

The scream to the posing starlet draped in deep red silk, even on the tinny cellvid, cut through Marco's hangover like an angry rhino slipping on oil. "Sycophants," he muttered, fumbling for the mute button on the phone. He rubbed his forehead with his palm, trying to will away the clumsy, dull pain.

"Goodness gracious, is that Janet Omaha? Who's she wearing?" the old woman next to him on the shuttle leaned over, breaking all sorts of personal space rules by putting her hand on his shoulder and breathing Juicy Froot Loops gum in his face. He winced.

"No idea," he said.

"I'd heard they were coming out with a Ernest Hemingway/Gertrude Stein line of clothing, two contrasting lines, but I think those in House Magenta will be wearing Cory Doctorow now. They're getting into the early 2000s authors," she said. "Will you turn it up?"

Marco sighed gratefully as the attendant chose that moment to turn on the disruptor that forced all electronic devices to reboot. Several people around Marco groaned as their calls or games were interrupted, but Marco stowed his phone with relief. The old woman next to him humphed and started fumbling under her considerable purse to find her seat belt.

Marco's literary agent had cautioned him against space travel while hung-over, but what was he going to do? When Mollywood called, said his agent, you hopped the next shuttle to Ride Lunar Base. He sucked down his vitamin water before the attendant could do her efficient swipe of the aisles and willed his rebellious stomach to take it like the bitch it was.

The trip to the moon was considerably cheaper now that the gate was up and running. Before the three day trip would have taken a half year's worth of Marco's day job pay, but now it was cheaper to go to the moon than to fly around the earth. The airlines had lobbied Earth's governments to not allow gate technology within Earth boundaries, and had succeeded in making them available only for off-planet travel. Earth governments had been adamant: no aliens on the home planet, no alien technology taking away human jobs, and no import of alien goods.

Marco hadn't planned on heading to the moon that day. He hadn't planned on anything except for sleeping late and possibly playing video games. Yesterday his agent had dumped him, saying that his latest graphic novels weren't getting the notice his previous work had. The only writers selling work these days were the patrons of the aliens who ran the moon colony, the Li-Jun.

When fanatic xenophobes had succeeded in keeping the new alien allies off the home soil, the humans had made the moon neutral territory if the Li-Jun would help them set up a base. Since the aliens had already colonized Europa, they accepted the invitation. Ride Lunar Base, a massive domed city capable of sustaining three million inhabitants, had gone up in ten short years.

What no one expected was the effect the Li-Jun would have on the creative culture of Earth. The aliens had seven senses and communicated with five of them. Their initial contact with humans had nearly caused neural shutdown as the humans attempted to process the information assaulting their eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. Once the Li-Jun had discovered human art, they studied painting, movies, novels, dance, fashion, gourmet cooking, sculpture, and more. Any way the senses could be massaged, the Li-Jun wanted to know about it.

The concept of patronage returned with a vengeance, the aliens commissioning the best and brightest Earth had to offer for their creations. Ride Lunar Base soon earned the nickname "Mollywood" as it was where the greatest art, films, and novels hailed from.

The Li-Jun had a way of looking at art that was beyond human comprehension. While humans could combine art and writing, movies and music, they had never combined movies and food, painting and ballet, fashion and writing. Humans couldn't make you taste a short story, but the Li-Jun could take a writer and a chef and somehow give a cake an adventurous beginning, middle, and end, or give a romance story a spicy taste. Earth went crazy for the creations, and the Li-Jun took the best and brightest, flew them to the moon, and paid very, very well.

Marco had watched his contemporaries either get patronage or quit outright. At first, Marco hadn't even applied for a patronage, thinking secretly that if the best writers went to work in Mollywood, that would leave more room in Earth publishing companies for people like him, who wrote and illustrated good, not great, stories. He didn't expect most of art creation to move to the moon, the resulting works more elegant than humans had ever considered creating. Wrapping a novel into a dress was something humans perhaps didn't understand, but they did know that it was the most beautiful dress they had ever seen, that the ballet contained within jewelry was uniquely moving.

Even when the Earth governments had banned the import of Li-Jun goods in order to protect the Earth economy, travel to the moon was cheaper than travel between continents, and it wasn't illegal to buy personal goods there to bring home. Digital files were also allowed, so Li-Jun books, music, and movies were well within the Earth's creative consciousness. Food, clothing, jewelry, sculpture, and any other art that took tangible form were legal on a personal import case only.

Marco's sales had trickled to a stop as a result. Six months ago, his agent, Kathryn, had informed him that the previous quarter had brought more returns than purchases. He had to face it - working with the Li-Jun was the only way to go if he wanted to keep going.

He'd applied for a patronage. But by then anyone who fancied themselves writers, not just the bestsellers, were applying, and the application centers were said to be ten times worse than any Earth agent's slush pile. He had little hope.

Yesterday Kathryn had dropped him. She was moving to the moon to have direct contact with Li-Jun creators and wanted to revitalize her career herself, and Marco was not part of that. He had tossed his books into his fireplace and watched them burn while quietly making a bottle of rum his personal best friend.

He had woken up this morning from the phone, a ring tone he now realized he'd paid far too much money for, if it was going to wake him up in times like this.

"Marco! Thank god you're still taking my calls!" Kathryn shouted. He winced; his agent reminded him of his grandfather. Years of smoking the Li-Jun herb lumin had given her an attractive, odd glow at night, but had also ravaged her voice. But it least it didn't cause cancer, she'd crow triumphantly.

"I didn't see it was you, honestly," he whispered past his thick tongue. His body was holding an emergency meeting to decide how to punish him for his abrupt waking and exiting of his prone position. The head wanted to explode, the stomach wanted to back up.

"Hah! Honest to the last. I love that about you." Her voice had an agitation to it he couldn't remember hearing since he'd signed with her ten years prior.

"What is it, Kathryn? Need to tell me more stuff about my impending failure?" He closed his eyes; the head was winning the argument.

"No, Marco, of course not. I wanted to let you know about the email I just got. You've been called to Mollywood!"

Marco rubbed his forehead. "Why are you still planning my future? You said I didn't have one."

The phone crackled as she scraped her long nails over it to get his attention. He winced and moved the phone away from his cheek until it stopped.

"Helloooo? Marco? You need to pay attention. A Li-Jun patron wants to meet you. You've gotten THE CALL, buddy! I've got your shuttle ticket, the address where you need to go, and everything.

"You're shitting me."

"Marco, I have my flaws, but cruelty isn't one of them. Would I call and tell you that Mollywood wants you just for shits and giggles?"

He tried to think through the fluff in his head. "Sorry, Kathryn you caught me at a bad time. I fell into the rum bottle last night."

"Oh, that's not good. Travel to Ride Base when hung-over is going to suck."
That news brought the crushing reality down on him. "Wait, what? They want me today? I can't travel today!"

He could hear her lighting another lumin. "Ticket's already bought, sport. I'm forwarding it to you now, along with the list of stuff you should pack, that I send to all my clients who go to Mollywood."

Marco let this information process. "So that means I'm your client again?"

She barked out a laugh. "Did you find other representation in the past twelve hours?"

Marco hated being so easily discarded and then picked back up, but she held all the cards, including his shuttle ticket.

"No." He paused and swallowed bile. "And thanks, Kathryn."

"My pleasure. And save lunch for me next week, I'm heading up there to look for a place myself. Keep me posted on your Li-Jun situation, 'kay?"

"Yeah, sure," he said. "No, wait. Hang on. Who's the Li-Jun I'm meeting with?"

"I don't know much about her, just her name. Thirteen of House Blue. Later, tater, have a good trip!" The line went dead as she clicked off her phone.

"Thirteen?"

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

commentary
MONDAY MAY 4 2009 6:00 AM

Geek Heresy: I Haz It

Submitted by mightymur

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Dollhouse, Hugh Jackman, Wolverine, Sci-Fi

One thing that makes us geeks is the hive mind that we share. Hardcore opinions run through our consciousness like the stripe on a skunk. Star Wars is awesome. Star Wars prequels sucked. The cancellation of Firefly was a travesty. Neil Gaiman is a wordsmith sent from the heavens. They Might Be Giants are the bards we all secretly wish would follow us around, chronicling and singing our lives.

But I gotta admit, there are times I split from the pack. And I find astonishment. Derision. More astonishment. And I'm here to defend myself and my opinions.

1) I do not find Hugh Jackman fuckable.

Now, this isn't specifically geeky per se, but the new Wolverine movie just came out, which has all the geeky women frothing at the mouth to go see Hugh snarl and kick some ass and say, "Bub." I'm not saying Jackman is a dog, I'm saying that the geeky women of the world seem to do a collective sigh when he's mentioned, and I just don't get it. Maybe I don't have a thing for Wolverine, so I think of him with the huge sideburns. I dunno, but when I see him I think, "Handsome guy, sure, but I don't need a sudden change of underwear."

I will bet cash money that there wasn't a dry seat in the house on opening night of Wolverine.

2) Dollhouse is an OK show, and if it gets canceled, that's OK too.

Yeah, I know, all the Whedonites are up in arms already. But I maintain my stance: Dollhouse is just OK. It started weak because it gave us no heroine to root for: Echo is rewritten with a different personality for each show. The strange and casual treatment of rape makes me uncomfortable. What's funny is when they find a rapist in-house, they're all protective, but they still rent these women and men out as whores with new personalities. I suppose you could argue the new personalities consent to the sex, but the whole thing is still shady and uncomfortable.

Many people say that the show began to "get good" when episode 6 hit. Twists! Turns! Revelations into Echo's real personality! But really, why were you watching for five unsatisfactory episodes?

Yeah. I admit, I gave it a chance for four episodes and then lost interest. Then when everyone freaked out so much about #6, I started watching again. And yeah, it got interesting, but it still feels like a show that's "just OK."

We all know every artist, even our favorites, does not shit gold every time they go to the bathroom. Dollhouse has yet to build the incredible ensemble cast that Buffy, Angel and Firefly had. And if it dies, then Joss Whedon will have the time to work on something else.

3) I don't get a lot of classic sci-fi.

This is the most shameful of all. There are several books I've never read that seem to be on the required SF reading list. So I have tried to remedy that. And I don't know if it's the fact that now that I'm an adult, the technology, political, and sexual references are so dated I can't get past them, but many books have failed to hook me. I've tried to read them several times, and each time I drop them either due to flat-out-boredom, confusion, or being utterly offended.

"Wait, the protag is a rapist, and I am supposed to keep rooting for him? Are you fucking kidding me?"

(Incidentally, the only book I can remember really liking even though the protagonists were less than heroic was the bizarre book Geek Love by Katherine Dunn about a carnival family whose parents experimented with drugs and isotopes to create a family of carnival freaks. Bizarre and fun and disturbing.)

And reading, honestly, is where the people begin to give me the looks. "You've never read Dune?" they ask, and I squirm with shame.

"I've tried! Several times! Really!" I say. I cast about for geek cred to make myself cool. "I read Neil Gaiman before Sandman! I have been a Hayao Miyazaki fan since Nausicaa was butchered in editing and retitled "Warriors of the Wind" for HBO viewers when I was a kid! My shelf is full of short story anthologies from the 40s and 50s!"

"Yeah. But you've never read Dune."

While some of my geek heresy shames me, I do realize that conforming to the geek hive mind when I don't want to is worse than standing out like a sore, poorly educated in geeky things, thumb. I refuse to be a sheep, and so you can have your Jackman, your Dollhouse, and your spice. I'm comfortable with my existing geek cred.

(Mostly.)

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.

commentary
MONDAY MARCH 2 2009 6:00 PM

Harsh Light of Day: Trust's A Tough Thing to Come By These Days

Submitted by MisterSatan

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: thing, john carpenter, kurt russell, rob bottin, sci-fi, horror, movie

You know, I've been accused of having weird taste in films. I'm okay with that, and do you know why? Because sometimes I just want to watch a guy's arms get violently bitten off by some other guy's chest-mouth.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

This time around, we're holding up one of the great sci-fi horror classics to the harsh light of day –– John Carpenter's The Thing (yes, that's the official title).

If you've been living in a fucking cave since 1982, let me give you a quick rundown on the plot. A team of research scientists in Antarctica stumble across a shapeshifting alien, and spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out who's real and who's secretly hiding more tentacles than a Japanese rape hentai. The end result? A delicious blend of some of the best special effects ever captured on film and a nasty little story about paranoia, infection, and, ultimately, death.

The reason why The Thing stands up after all these years comes down to two things. The first is the effects work done by a young Rob Bottin, who worked (and slept on the set) for thirteen months straight. After filming was completed, Carpenter had him admitted to a hospital for exhaustion. It paid off, though. The sequences involving the Thing's transformations, in all their KY-covered, foam rubber, animatronic glory still look great –– in fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a movie made in the last five years or so with such mindbending effects sequences.

The other reason why this movie is great? The damn acting, that's why. A solid ensemble cast with Kurt Russell as MacReady, the main character, do one hell of a good job selling us on sheer terror –– a particularly nice job done by Wilford Brimley (yes, the "diabeetus" guy) as Blair, the biologist who goes absolutely batshit crazy.

Really, this movie isn't about the effects, or the acting –– it's about fear. Most of Carpenter's movies have some heavy-thinking stuff going on behind the gore. In this case, it's paranoia so palpable you can feel it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to assimilate an entire meatloaf. I predict the results will be as messy as in the film.

MisterSatan writes these things whenever he sees a movie he deems worthy, so if you've got recommendations, make sure they're not absolute shit.

feature
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21 2009 1:30 PM

Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures: Schwarzenegger Edition

Submitted by WilWheaton

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: movies, 80s, sci-fi, Schwarzenegger, guilty pleasures

Long before he was the most dangerously incompetent governor California has ever had, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the biggest action superstar on the planet, and everything he touched turned to box office gold.

Most of my generation first saw him in the title role of 1984s The Terminator, a movie that was perfectly suited to his, um, acting ability, and (unfortunately for science fiction fans) cemented him in the minds of studio executives as the guy for science fiction movies.

As I observed in Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s:

After exhaustive research (read: a week spent watching a big pile of movies so I can convince my wife that Im working), Ive realized that most films of the eighties which claim to be science fiction are equal parts awesomely awful and awesomely awesome, and none of them are purely sci-fi; theyre all some sort of hybrid.

Sci-Fi/Action is the most common Schwarzenegger hybrid, and he can be found chewing up cigars and scenery in some of the biggest blockbusters of the 80s and 90s.

In true action star fashion, Schwarzenegger totally overwhelms the roles he plays to the point of self-parody in each one. In the 80s, as a science fiction fan, I hated this, but with the benefit of time and the ability to not take these movies so seriously, I can enjoy them for the guilty pleasures that they are.

For this months Geek in Review, I reached into the vault, and pulled out a few of the future Governators more memorable sci-fi vehicles. To get perspective from the damn kids today, I convinced my 17 year-old son, Nolan, to watch them with me and give me a comment on each one.

The films are presented in chronological order, and are ranked on the McBain scale, which hopefully needs no further explanation.

The Running Man (1987)
In the future, society has collapsed and turned into a police state. The only thing more popular than rioting for food is watching the hit game show The Running Man, where convicted criminals try to escape from a hilarious group of stalkers who use the power of ice hockey, chainsaws, and LEDs to catch them. Arnold Schwarzenegger sits at the center of this Venn diagram, and with the help of his friends and a lot of spandex jumpsuits, manages to get the highest ratings ever, and bring down the government. Also, Mick Fleetwood is there.

Awesomely Awesome Because: To the films credit, it stops pretending to be something its not by the second reel. When Schwarzenegger tells Running Man host Richard Dawsons Killian, Ill be back, we know exactly what to expect from the rest of the film, and were not disappointed. Listening to Schwarzenegger and Maria Conchita Alonso speak heavily-accented dialog, and watching the excess of the late 80s on full, unapologetic display is unintentionally hilarious. Jesse The Body Ventura and Richard Dawson essentially play themselves in unselfconscious, uncomplicated performances that provide the perfect balance to Schwarzeneggers ludicrous, over the top collection of McBainesque one-liners.

Awesomely Awful Because: The whole thing collapses under the weight of Schwarzeneggers ludicrous, over the top collection of McBainesque one-liners. Its like there are two movies struggling to get made here: one is a dark science fiction tale about a police state that abuses the publics insatiable appetite for violence to maintain its grip on power, and the other is a series of convoluted scenes that exist simply to let Schwarzenegger feed it.

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Cigar-chomping? Check. Convoluted display of Worlds Strongest Man-like feat of strength: Check. Quoting of The Line from Terminator? Check. Sappy, forced, I learned something today moment? Check. Uncomfortable romantic moment with a woman whos too young for him? Check.

Nolan Says: This movie needs 33% more skin-tight jumpsuits.

McBain Ranking: 11 out of 10. (In fact, this may be the film that created McBain.)

Predator (1987)
Hey, did you hear the one about the guy who was dropped into the jungle with a bunch of red shirts and Apollo Creed? You know, the one with the alien and the cool thermal camera vision? Okay, its the one where Jesse Ventura has that ridiculous chain gun, and hes all, I aint got time to bleed! Yes! That one!

Awesomely Awesome Because: Like The Running Man, once it drops the pretense of being something its not, and spends the rest of the film letting Arnold kick ass and struggle to pronounce names, its a whole lot of fun. And unlike the other films on this list, Schwarzenegger cant really overwhelm the role, because hes pretty much playing his character from Commando. The supporting cast is fine, and the climactic fight with the Predator is awesome.

Awesomely Awful Because: All the dialog in the non-Predator portion of the film is just painful to listen to. The entire MacGuffin about dropping an elite unit of commandos into the jungle who do the CIAs dirty work but are surprised and pissed when they find out theyre doing the CIAs dirty work feels like it was just lifted from another film. And for an elite secret fighting force that gets in and gets out before anyone knows they were there, they sure do make a lot of noise, fire thousands of rounds of ammunition, and never hit anyone. Still: GET TO DA CHOPPA!

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Cigar-chomping? Check. Convoluted display of Worlds Strongest Man-like feat of strength: Check. Sappy, forced, I learned something today moment? Check.

Nolan Says: Its so sad that they gave that big guy such a tiny little gun.

McBain Ranking: 6 out of 10.

Total Recall (1990)
Douglas Quaid is a construction worker with the hottest wife on the planet, who wants to fuck him every time he breathes. Because he is some kind of asshole, this dream life isnt perfect enough for him, and he constantly fantasizes about living on Mars. His entire household budget goes toward keeping his wifes hair huge, though, so they cant afford to take an actual trip. Luckily for him, a company called Rekall can implant vacation memories that anyone can afford, so he visits Mars that way. But just visiting Mars isnt awesome enough, so he tells Rekall to make him a secret agent, throw in some alien artifacts, and a nefarious plot to destroy the planet. He also wants to nail a girl while hes there who isnt nearly as sexy as his wife, and is actually kind of skanky. Seriously. Asshole!

Something goes wrong (or does it?) at Rekall, and Quaid finds out that ... hes a secret agent on a mission to Mars, where there are lots of alien artifacts and hes nailing a girl who isnt nearly as sexy as his wife. Before were done, people try to kill him, he uncovers a nefarious plot, saves the world, and gets the girl who isnt as sexy as his wife. Were not sure if hes dreamed the whole thing, but one thing is crystal clear: this guy is an asshole.

Awesomely Awesome Because: Throughout the whole film, were left to wonder if the whole thing is a dream or not, and there are an equal number of clues to support both conclusions. Anchored by reliable science fiction villains Ronny Cox (Robocop) and Michael Ironside (Scanners) its a great 70s-style science fiction thriller, right up until the third act, when the whole thing falls apart and becomes an intelligence-insulting action movie with science so bad, it couldnt even fool George W. Bush. If youre hoping for a faithful adaptation of Phillip K. Dicks classic We Can Remember it for You Wholesale as I was in 1990 youre going to be profoundly disappointed. But if youre willing to suspend all of your disbelief, youll be glad you got your ass to Mars.

Awesomely Awful Because: It won an academy award for its visual effects, but the miniatures, blue screens, and foam rubber puppets do not age (or convert to DVD) well. However, theyre not nearly as bad or distracting as the terrible atmospheric pseudoscience at the end of the film, or the 35 minutes of mind-numbing gun battles and action movie idiocy that precede it.

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Convoluted display of Worlds Strongest Man-like feat of strength: Check. Uncomfortable romantic moment with a woman whos too young for him? You know thats going to be a nice big check.

Nolan says: That blond girl was kind of hot, but Im really disappointed he didnt have a single cigar.

McBain Ranking: 2 out of 10.

The 6th Day (2000)
Adam Gibson, a mild-mannered helicopter pilot and dedicated family man who has recently gotten a face lift, has been cloned without his knowledge. As if watching his clone smoke his cigars and bang his wife isnt bad enough, a whole bunch of other clones are trying to kill him. Also, there are clones.

Awesomely Awesome Because: The science fiction is great, the art direction is ultra cool, and who doesnt want to live in this future of virtual girlfriends, remote controlled helicopters, cloned pets, and an XFL that lasted more than one season? The supporting performances from Robert Duvall, Michael Rapapport, and especially Tony Goldwin are just outstanding.

Awesomely Awful Because: While there arent as many product placements as Demolition Man, the few we see are as obvious and distracting as those in Ghost Dad, but thats not the worst of it. The 6th Day had the potential to be a science fiction classic; it deals with some very serious ethical questions about how far well go to cure diseases, the rights of cloned humans, and what it even means to be human. But even with its great supporting cast, and solid, smart writing, it cant achieve escape velocity from Schwarzeneggers limited acting abilities and obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms. In fact, of all the roles he overwhelms in sci-fi movies, this is probably the most egregious example. Adam Gibson is supposed to be a talented but mild mannered helicopter pilot who loves his family, and still holds on to the good old days when clones only existed in bad movies. But by the end of the first act, Schwarzenegger has turned him into a gun-toting psychopath who doesnt think twice about killing anyone who gets in his way, and actually seems to enjoy it. And its simply unforgivable that we had an opportunity to finally watch him fight himself, but the whole thing ended after just one punch.

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Cigar-chomping? Check. Quoting of The Line from Terminator? Check. Sappy, forced, I learned something today moment? Check. Uncomfortable romantic moment with a woman whos too young for him? Check and mate.

Nolan Says: Ive actually seen this before. It does not improve upon a second viewing.

McBain Ranking: 4.5 out of 10.

Some of you may be wondering why Terminator 2 isn't on this list. Well, the truth is, I love Terminator 2, and I don't feel guilty about it at all.

Wil Wheaton will be back.

news
MONDAY DECEMBER 8 2008 10:00 AM

Sci Fi World Loses Three of its Greats

Submitted by Brad_Warner

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: forrest ackerman, beverly garland, koichi takano, science fiction, sci fi

This week the world of science fiction lost three of its greats.

On December 4th Forrest J. Ackerman, founder and first publisher of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland passed away in his home in Horrorwood, Karloffornia. He was 92. Ackerman, who coined the term sci fi was an inspiration to nearly everyone who ever made a science fiction or horror film, wrote a sci-fi or horror novel or who was just a fan of the fearsome and fanged. Uncle Forry, as he was known to his fans, discovered such science fiction luminaries as authors Ray Bradbury and A.E. van Vogt, and acted as their literary agent. He was a renowned collector of science fiction and horror film memorabilia and generously opened his home, the Ackermansion, to fans who wanted to see his collection.

The following day, December 5th, the world lost Beverly Garland. A versatile actress, Garland had roles in numerous films and TV shows from her debut in 1950 up until 1998. Many will recall her recurring roles in the TV shows My Three Sons and Gunsmoke, although, to me, she will always be the one person who stood up to the horrifying Venusian walking cucumber in Roger Corman's cult classic It Conquered the World. Garland died in her Hollywood Hills home aged 82.

On November 30th, Koichi Takano passed away in his home in Tokyo, Japan. Although Takano's name isn't nearly as well-known as either Ackerman's or Garland's, to me his loss is much more personal. He used to be my boss. Takano was a special effects director who was initially hired in the 1950's by Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects director of the classic Godzilla films. After Takano had worked in the background on a number of Godzilla pictures, Tsuburaya hand-picked him to direct the effects for his groundbreaking television series Ultraman. Takano continued to direct special effects for hundreds of science fiction and superhero television shows and theatrical films until complications from emphysema forced him to retire five years ago. Although no longer active as a special effects director, Takano continued to appear in numerous documentaries and making-of TV shows and specials to talk about his legendary contributions to the field. Some in this country have derided his work as cheesy — his preferred method for depicting a city-smashing monster was to put a stuntman into a rubber dinosaur costume and have him thrash through a miniature replica of Tokyo. But I challenge anyone to find examples of special effects work done in the US on a similar budget and time frame that is anywhere near as meticulous, detailed and fun to watch as what Takano accomplished.

All three of these legends will be missed.

commentary
MONDAY JUNE 4 2007 2:00 AM

Suicide Bookshelf: Summer Reading Was Always Our Song

Submitted by _DictionaryGirl_

Edited by erin_broadley

Tags: books, literature, Hunter S. Thompson, Chuck Klosterman, Ray Bradbury, Jaime Hernandez, Bryan Lee O'Malley, summer, sci-fi, hot weather, comics, sunscreen

People are always saying "I don't read books." Too often, the problem is reading too many of the wrong books, thus turning a potentially great experience into something they'd rather avoid. This is where _DictionaryGirl_ and PointBlank come in and let you borrow something awesome. Let's go to town and make some recommendations, shall we?

Yes, Memorial Day weekend has once again come and gone, and the time is now officially upon us for the beach and snappy white sneakers and summer reading. The best time of the year ever, if you ask me. Last week, Professor PointBlank assigned you all his summer reading list; this week, I shall hand out mine.

Now it's more or less summer and all where it counts, but even in Southern California (where everyone likes to pretend it's summer year-round) we're not quite out of the metaphorical woods of overcast coastal gloom. Still, it's nice to pretend until the climate catches up, and one of the best ways is with a book taking place as far away from Thomas Hardy's dismal gray puddles and shires as possible. One of my personal favorites for this purpose is Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary. (I'm kind of a big fan of his; not sure if you could tell.) The protagonist here is familiar: Jack Kemp is a skulking alcoholic journalist for a paper on the brink of disaster, into his early thirties and a wrinkled suit, putting up with strange people in some stranger-still warm weather place for the sake of adventure. The book itself, however, is Thompson's first, the better part of a decade before he really grew into his character. This one is fiction, you see, taking place in the far-off heat and political turmoil of 1950s Puerto Rico. Still, somehowperhaps because he was younger when he wrote itthe characters are real, much less caricature at this point. Even then, however, it's unmistakably Thompson from start to finish, and that's never, ever a bad thing.

[The driver] stopped as we came abreast of the building and I saw that it was a gang of about twenty Puerto Ricans, attacking a tall American in a tan suit. He was standing on the steps, swinging a big wooden sign like a baseball bat.

You rotten little punks! he yelled. There was a flurry of movement and I heard the sound of thumping and shouting. One of the attackers fell down in the street with blood on his face. The large fellow backed toward the door, waving the sign in front of him. Two men tried to grab it and he whacked one of them in the chest, knocking him down the steps. The other stood away, yelling and shaking their fists. He snarled back at them: Here it is, punkscome get it!

Nobody moved. He waited a moment, then lifted the sign over his shoulder and threw it into their midst. It hit one man in the stomach, driving him back on the others. I heard a burst of laughter, then he disappeared into the building.

Okay, I said, turning back to the driver. Thats itlets go. He shook his head and pointed at the building, then at me.

Sí, está News. He nodded, then pointed again at the building. Sí, he said gravely.

It dawned on me that we were sitting in front of the Daily Newsmy new home.

~ The Rum Diary, by Hunter S. Thompson

One other thing unique to a Thompson novel here is that the fiction angle allows him to really work up a story arc, less stream-of-consciousness and more build-up; it's a side of Thompson rarely seen, and for a first novel it's remarkably well done. The book was rejected everywhere on his first attempt at publication (written in 1959, it didn't see printing for forty years), and it boggles my mind to this day. It's got knock-out fights and political tension, a comical dead-end job with idiot coworkers, gorgeously run-down tropical landscapes, an endless supply of iced rum and cheeseburgers, and (for the ladies) some romance in the form of a desperately sad love triangle and a smash-it-up holiday weekend yacht party that has little hope of ending well. It's also fairly short and a quick read, so you'll have time for some rum and cheeseburgers yourself.

Speaking of something being fairly short, I'm also a pretty big fan of short stories over the summer. This is mostly because I like to bring books to the beach, and the last time I got caught up in a regular novel, I forgot to move for a good couple hours and ended up with a back not altogether unlike a boiled lobster. You don't necessarily want something heavy, howeverI leafed through a Raymond Carver collection the other day and almost got depressed on contactso, in my opinion, you can either go the irreverent pop-culture route or the fun campy retro route.

If you take the first route, you'll probably want to take Chuck Klosterman IV along with you. It's his latest, and it combines a pretty great cross-section of what the man can do. The first section, "Things That Are True," should appeal to you celebrity worship types, with uncut versions of profiles and trend stories he's done for magazines like Esquire, Spin, and The New York Times. From Britney Spears to Billy Joel, no one is safe from his criticizing bespectacled hipster eye. The second section, called "Things That Might Be True," poses rhetorical questions and answers them by editorializing the low-culture staples of Klosterman's daily diet. Here, alone with his own thoughts, he's at times subject to wild tangents that on occasion never make it home, but when he's on, he's really on, dryly hilarious as he explores everything from pirates and robots and 24-hour VH1 to X-Men in real life and a list of the top ten most-accurately-rated artists in rock history:

7. Tone-Lôc: Hardly anyone takes Tone-Lôc seriously, except for frivolous pop historians who like to credit him for making suburban white kids listen to rap music that was made by black people (as opposed to the Beastie Boys, who made white suburban kids listen to rap music that was made by nonsuburban white kids). This lukewarm historical significance strikes me as sensible. Neither of Mr. Lôc's hits are timeless, although "Wild Thing" samples Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'" (which I like to imagine is about M*A*S*H's star Jamie Farr, had Corporal Klinger pursued sexual-reassignment surgery in an attempt to get a Section 8) and "Funky Cold Medina" samples "Christine Sixteen" (at a time when KISS was making records like Hot in the Shade and nobody in America thought they were cool except for me and Rivers Cuomo). Those two songs were actually cowritten with Young MC, whose single "Bust a Move" is confusing for the following reason: The last verse of "Bust a Move" states, "Your best friend Harry / Has a brother Larry / In five days from now he's gonna marry / He's hopin' you can make it there if you can / Cuz in the ceremony you'll be the best man." Now, why would anybody possibly be the best man in a wedding where the groom is your best friend's brother? Why isn't your best friend the best man in this ceremony? And who asks someone to be their best man a scant five days before they get married? And while I realize the incongruities of "Bust a Move" have absolutely nothing to do with Tone-Lôc, it somehow seems more central to Tone-Lôc's iconography than his role in the movie Posse, which was arguably the best movie about black cowboys I saw during the grunge era.

~ "Certain Rock Bands You Probably Like," Chuck Klosterman

The third section of the book is called "Something That Isn't True At All," and it's a work of fiction (which seems to be going around with journalists lately in this article). I'll admit: I haven't read that section yet. But it's on my list for the summer, that's for sure. The only real problem with Chuck IV is that it's still only out in hardcover, which can be kind of a bummer for lugging to the beach and such; if you still want to check out Klosterman but don't want the added weight, get Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuffs: A Low-Culture Manifesto. It's pretty much an entire book full of "Things That Might Be True," put together in mix-tape form, and I have a hard time deciding which book I like better.

Now, if you want to bypass the irreverent pop-culture and go straight to Route Two, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to go all traditional 9th grade reading list on you and assign the interconnected short stories of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, a classic allegory about the sadness of colonization and war in the context of super awesome and adventurous space travel. Of course, by "afraid" I mean "totally thrilled," because it's one of the best books I was ever assigned, and, if certain college courses were any indication, people are probably going to yell at me now that Ray Bradbury isn't real science fiction because there are no dragons and sexy cyborgs or something, but then I would just have to argue that if Bradbury's doing it wrong, then I don't want to be right. It's a fun book to read again now that we're a good deal past the grand future of 1999 and beyond, just because it's interesting to see what he got wrong and what he got right. Bradbury also intersects futuristic science with homey summer scenes complete with hot dog stands and lemonade, enough to almost forgive even the themes of impending apocalypse (a possible downer and source of heaviness in the midst of summer fun).

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in furs along the icy streets.

And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. the heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.

Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.

Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.

The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land...

~ "Rocket Summer," Ray Bradbury

Wait, almost forgive? What am I talking about? The language alone forgives all. If somehow you weren't assigned this book for school ages ago, this needs to be first on your list. Get on it.

From science fiction, it's really only a short jump to comic books, one of the best summer mediums ever. They read through like lightning, the pictures give your imagination some rest, and they are almost always tons of fun. The most immediate one I have to get behind right now is Jaime Hernandez's Maggie the Mechanic, the first of three Locas-centric Love and Rockets compilations due out over the present to near future. It starts at the very, very beginning of the series, which is lucky for you, because at what better point to jump in than at the beginning? Especially with a storyline like Love and Rockets, which gets complicated pretty fast. The characters are endless, and thankfully there's a legend in the back.

Nowadays the comic is slightly more straightforward slice-of-life, but back in the day it got pretty crazy, mixing goofy-gorgeous Mexican punk-rock girls up with space rocket mechanics, aliens, dinosaurs, and lucha libre. That's the Love and Rockets you get in this compilation: for our not-always-so-fearless heroine Maggie Chascarillo, flying a hover-scooter to fix a spaceship, fighting a dinosaur, contracting a voodoo jungle illness, getting kidnapped by a mysterious secret agent lover man, and dancing drunk on a table, are all in a day's work. What a woman!

No but seriously, it's all a mash-up of short unbelievable stories that veer into wild fun fantasy (and just a little bit of cheesecake, for the... ladies?) while still centering around some of the coolest and most real kids you'll ever meet in a book, comic or otherwise. Enid Coleslaw only wishes she could hang with Maggie and Hopey.

Love and Rockets does cater to a certain kind of pop culture, but if the Klosterman type was more your speed, then the fun summer comic for you is Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series. The basic story can be summed up thusly: what if life was like an old Nintendo game? This is what Scott Pilgrim, our intrepid Canadian slacker bass-player hero, is faced with when he falls for the love of his dreams, feisty American Ramona Flowers. At first it's all awkward romance and vegan cooking, but the action doesn't stop once the first of Ramona's Seven Evil Ex-Boyfriend Bosses descends upon Scott with his zombie army for an all-out battle. Meanwhile, there's Scott's crazy underaged Chinese ex-girlfriend Knives to deal with, and will his band Sex Bob-Omb ever be more successful than The Clash at Demonhead, the Blood Brothers-esque art trio of the girl who stomped all over his heart like a Koopa Troopa? The odds are stacked against them all, but with a little faith and some extra power-ups, they just might make it.

Suffice it to say, it's a really dorky story, but the sheer amount of scenester parody and video game culture packed into each page keep it pretty hilarious and fun, and the illustrations are adorable. There are three pocket-manga-sized books out so far, and I believe three more on the way. I can't wait.

Wow. Between the two of us, you all are going to be kept busy well into September. Anything sound good? Or, better yet, anything already on your list sound better? I've already read all these ones, after all, and am scrambling for a reading list of my own! At any rate, happy incoming summer, and happy reading! And don't forget to wear sunscreen! Nobody likes a boiled lobster.

news
SATURDAY JUNE 2 2007 8:00 PM

Psychedelic Sex in Space: Barbarella's Coming Back!

Submitted by Aaron_Lariviere

Edited by Aaron_Lariviere

Tags: Barbarella, Robert Rodriguez, space, sci-fi

Hot on the heels of the commercial failure slash visual assault that was Grindhouse, Mexican-American director Robert Rodriguez is setting his cinematic sights on the bawdy psychedelic delights of Barbarella. The film will be a remake of the pseudo-erotic 1968 cult classic, which in turn was based on a 1962 French comic book created by illustrious illustrator Jean-Claude Forest. As described by Film Asylum:

Barbarella tells the story of a female mercenary who roams across the universe in a distant future, undertaking missions that require her physical fearlessness, ingenuity, and sensuality. In travels that span galaxies known and unknown, Barbarella will challenge tradition, startle the senses and take audiences on an epic adventure of discovery and wonder.

Ooh la la. Several key elements are in place, but here's to hoping Rodriguez does nothing to soil the memory of what some might call the greatest opening sequence ever filmed (in a crappy movie):

news
WEDNESDAY APRIL 25 2007 5:00 PM

Sci-fi Fans Everywhere Rejoice, Despair

Submitted by st_even

Edited by erin_broadley

Tags: Space, planets, sci-fi, aliens

Scientists have discovered, for the first time, a planet outside our own solar system that is "potentially habitable," with Earth-like temperatures. The planet is a similar size to Earth, may have liquid water, and, at a mere 120 million miles away, is practically down the block.

Oh shit! Just the other day, while perusing the pages of Analog, I read a very similar story wherein the inhabitants of a similar planet forced humanity into slavery. Great.

It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

Yeah, right. Possible life.

The findings have been published in the scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Unlike Earth, the planet circles a Red Dwarf star, which is much smaller and much cooler than our Sun, meaning (of course) that the inhabitants will have tremendous tolerance to extreme temperatures. Fucking fantastic.

The new planet, in NASA's boundless creative force, has been named 581 c. No word on whether the 581 c-ians have massed up their arsenals, but I'm still wearing tinfoil on my head, just in case.

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