The Authors Corner Volume 1 Issue 4 (Includes New story!!!!)

[Harakiri]

 

Volume 1

 

Issue 4

 

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NEWS:

 

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One month. Actually three weeks if you feel like being a smart arse...

 

So after one month, I've only accomplished one thing, keeping you entertained for a bit. No one seems to be sending anything in and eventually I'm gonna need something because people will get bored of reading my stuff...

 

Anywho, this issue deals with Douglas Adams, and some other stuff I feel like talking about.

 

Thanks to the people who actually read this too, its nice to know I'm not just writing this for the hell of it...(though I guess I am).

 

 

 

WINNER:

 

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Last week I asked you if the reviews on books help you purchase a book.

 

Nom Anor won. At the end of this issue, read this weeks question, and let me give you the basic gist of the argument:

 

 

 

Do the reviews for a book help in your purchase of it?

 

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Reviews can be good and bad. Basically what it boils down to is knowing what reviewers to listen to. Crap like Twilight and Eragon get good reviews as part of a marketing strategy, not because they have any actual merit. I'm sitting here with a copy of Brisingr from my brother's school library and snorting at the review snippets on the back cover. I wouldn't be surprised if the reviewers are being paid to lie through their teeth.

 

 

 

I find that customer reviews are often more helpful than professional ones, if you can get a ton of them from a site like Amazon and see how the good/bad ratio works out. But in the end it's always a risk to buy a new book. If I'm unsure, I head to the library.

 

 

 

AUTHOR FOCUS:

 

DOUGLAS ADAMS

 

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42.

 

That is my favorite number. Why? Because it is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

 

Douglas Adams is the author of the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy trilogy (there are two more, but I never thought them any good).

 

In these books, Arthur Dent ends up best friends with an alien named Ford Prefect, who saves him when the Earth is destroyed.

 

Why are these books so great? The premise sounds simple...

 

They are great because Douglas Adams was a comic genius. When talking about the simplist thing, he could make the most humorous description you have ever heard.

 

He also created a cast of crazy characters. Marvin the Paranoid Android. Some people say R2-D2 and C-3PO are the greatest robots in fiction. No, they do not compare to Marvin.

 

Anyone who loves sci fi should definately pick this up. It is hilarious! The movie from 2005 is also pretty good, though added in some pointless plot devices.

 

 

 

GENRES: SCI FI

 

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I enjoyed sci fi for quite a while as a kid, but now as a teen I get bored by most of it.

 

Sci fi seems to be big with kids, and also some adults love the genre.

 

So, lets talk about Sci Fi.

 

First of all, my favorite Sci Fi book is Dune by Frank Herbert, and amazing piece of literature that anyone into sci fi should read.

 

Now, onto the problem at hand. Sci Fi books as of late have really been lacking in originality. As I read books by various authors, I seem the same hovercars and space ships and wierd aliens. While this formula has been proven to be the way to go, it just gets boring after a while.

 

Fantasy is a genre that has the same basic ideas usually, but authors can change it and create great original stories. Why can't sci fi?

 

I've noticed as of late that a lot of sci fi revolves around the Space Marines, which got its start with the creation of Halo. Now, a lot of books and a lot of video gams rip that off.

 

The genre just seems to be kind of dying in the originality. While theres always a new star wars or Dune book, they just add on to a story, and usually do nothing revolutionary for the genre. We'll wait and see if anything can come out that really reinvents the genre.

 

 

 

STORY:

 

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The Evil Of Draynor

 

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A new chapter every week only on the Authors Corner!

 

 

 

Prologue:

 

I was a child when my father died. A member of the newly formed Varrock guard, he took his post quite seriously. He would stay up long nights making sure that the evil the King had suppressed behind the gulch, now known as the wilderness,did not break free of the powerful magic encasing it. Evil has many definitions around the land, but if you ask a citizen of Varrock what evil is they would reply:

 

"Are you stupid?"(Or some other remark)"The Wild!"

 

I have lived most of my life in Varrock. When my dad died, protecting the King of Varrock from a renegade group of shades, my Mom hung herself. I remember the day afterwards clearly, even though I was young. Five years old to be precise. I woke up and searched the streets for my mom and dad. There was a commotion around the gallows. I wiggled my way through the crowd, only to see my mother, head in a funny position, her feet hanging inches from the pavement. The rope completely encompassed her neck so tightly, that someone had to get a very short knife to get the rope off.

 

After he cut it, her body fell to the pavement. I ran to the body, crying. I grabbed her head and looked at her face. Her eyes stared at me, and I could have sworn I heard a voice in my head, that sounded like my mothers, saying sorry.

 

My fathers neck was ripped open and part of his spinal cord extended out from the wound. Blood pooled beneath the body. I also looked into his eyes, but all I could see was white . No signs of emotion, no voice in my head, nothing.

 

They were both buried next to each other in the castle garden. I visited them almost everyday until I was nine and the King found a mercenary who would train me for a hefty sum. The king paid it and I was soon used to swinging a sword and started fighting demons with the mercenary when I was thirteen. He knew I had a gift.

 

After my training, at age fifteen, the mercenary and myself joined forces to complete missions for people who needed help. It was a great job, I earned some cash and honed my sword fighting skills a bit more. Soon the mercenary told me I could join the Mercs, an underground group that did anything they were told as long as the money was right.

 

I stayed a year and got bored of the same missions of assassinations, destroying small villages of rogues, and escorting important people through dangerous places.

 

I moved back to Varrock and worked with the king, helping him get some escaped fugitives killed or guarding the dukes when the annual Summer celebration came around. I loved my job, mostly because I got to help people of a political stature, and I was doing what my dad and mom would have wanted me to do.

 

Protect Varrock

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1:

 

The shades all stood before a large village. It was called Draynor, and there was a castle being built in the lush forest to the North of the village, a perfect place to find some flesh to eat.

 

Shades were cannibalistic creatures, who unlike vampires, feasted on flesh. They could survive for weeks without flesh but during those weeks, they would slowly lose power until finally they lost so much that they couldn't even bear the burden of wearing a cloak, and die from its weight. Sounds stupid but its true. Shades could be vicious and deadly creatures if they ate. But if not,well you could always ask the hero Krackov, he got to see one die from the burden of its cloak. He wrote a book on it, named "How I made a Shade die from the weight of its cloak".

 

It was not a bestseller.

 

Most libraries burnt it.

 

It was declared a religion by a couple stupid kids.

 

The library burned them.

 

The shades continued looking at the cheery little village. Look at that old man with the odd glasses. He seems familiar...

 

Someone yelled over from a nearby path.

 

"Where the hell is the jail? I thought they were building one right over here!" The man was a short, balding, fat, and probably drunk person.

 

A young girl of about fourteen, probably his daughter, walked next to him, her long blond hair flowing out behind her. "They said some ancient people made a sewer of some kind or the other beneath where they planned to put it, and the building of the jail has been postponed until Lord Draynor decides if he wants it built somewhere else, or just wants to make due with one of the houses no one lives in."

 

"I heard it was going to be huge."

 

"Apparently not, their paying too much for the construction of that castle so it will be a little one story building with two cells."

 

"Then why the hell make one?"

 

"They need it so if an enemy of the village comes they can throw him in there and interrogate him. There is a jail on the other side of the port to the west and we will use that for people the village does not have huge problems with."

 

The man looked toward the shades and squinted.

 

"You see anything in the trees hun?"

 

"No dad...lay off the beer daddy. Its affecting your brain."

 

"Yeah I guess." He continued to squint in the shades direction as he walked back toward the village.

 

The shades made sure no one was in sight. Then they glided toward the construction site of the manor.

 

About ten men were working. Some put stones in place, some were digging, some were sitting around like typical construction workers. But there was one man who caught the attention of the shades, a man dressed in a flowing cape and wearing a nice dark suit. His black hair was slicked back. He seemed to be telling the workers what to do.

 

"You," he yelled, pointing at a man sitting and watching the other workers work,"Get off your lazy [wagon] and start putting these blocks in place. If not then you will regret it!"

 

"Yes Lord Draynor!" The man got up and ran toward the other workers.

 

The shades looked at that man in the suit, Lord Draynor, and tried to figure out what was so odd about him. An aura that no human could produce, seemed to hang around him. When the shades looked at the workers, they could see a faint trace of that same aura around them.

 

Draynor turned towards the shades and stared at them. He had to be some kind of magician or otherworldly entity. His stare was not something that would make a shade turn away for it thought it might go blind if he continued to look. Maybe a human would do that, but not a shade. The lead shade kept the mans gaze. His aura seemed to suddenly start to radiate out towards the other workers, as if alerting them.

 

"So shades," Draynor broke the silence,"I see you have come to eat our flesh."

 

The shades continued to watch his aura, trying to figure out what it meant, what kind it really was.

 

The aura wisped around the workers and they turned around to stare at the band of shades.

 

"Now then Shades, shall we dance or shall we all be on our way? You would not like to die here in the middle of the woods, would you?" Draynor turned his back on them and spread his arms before him. "As you can see I am going to build an empire, I have gone through the ranks of the government and made enough money to build a village and a manor, and little do the people of that village know what will happen to them once they settle in! I will build an army!"

 

And then, it hit the shades, bright as day. Those workers were second class vampires, bitten by a first class vampire, Draynor probably, and converted, having to do the bidding of the first class. The first class were pure blood vampires. They were born vampires, and will live their whole life as a vampire. They were very powerful beings,but if you had the right materials, they were easy to kill.

 

"So, will you leave, or will we have to shred your only remaining valuable, your soul?"

 

The shades stood there and decided.

 

On the other side of the forest, the old drunken man listened in. He had followed the shades, not caring what his daughter said. He heard the whole thing and ran to tell the village when a bolt of electricity hit him in the back. Lord Draynor hovered towards him and looked down at his limp body. The old man could not move. He tried to scream but could not. The vampire fell to the ground and the last thing the man could feel before he passed out were the monsters smooth hands on his head and the teeth clamping onto his neck.

 

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As I continued to climb the ranks of the Varrock guards, an attack on the city made me lose my stature. When I was doing so well, and making the big money, I allowed a bunch of children to make the city a living hell. They made a base in the city, and there was apparently one adult there. They were grabbing men from the back streets of Varrock and killing them. Some people thought they were cannibals, some thought they were sent from Zamorak.

 

I found out about them the first murder. I ran through Varrock searching for them. I found a large house, and decided to enter and see what was inside. Nobody resided in the house...but then, I found a trap door hidden under a rug.

 

I went down, not knowing what would happen.

 

The scene I saw would be imprinted in my brain for the rest of my life, just like my mother and father's dead bodies.

 

Men, naked and bleeding, were strapped to chairs. Children, carrying knives, ran around. One of the men held his hand out to me. That hand was chopped off by one of the children. That child met my gaze, and I saw nothing but hatred in his eyes. He knew not to run for me. He knew I would strike him down. My hand was on my swords hilt as I progressed slowly through the room.

 

The dirt floor was moist. The bodies of the dead hung from a chandelier, hands tied so that the body dangled down.

 

The children stared. I knew they were crazy. I would not turn my back on any of them. I was not going to die.

 

At the other end of the room, I found a door. I opened it and the shock of my adulthood came.

 

There was my master from when I was a child. There he was in bed with a crying woman.There he was raping a woman.

 

He looked at me and walked naked, toward his clothes. I closed the door and let him dress. I was going to kill him like any proper swordsman.

 

"Why are you doing this to these children?"

 

"It is not my fault, I am a mercenary, and it was my job to stay with these children and allow them to drink the blood of humans. In return I got money, and any women they found would be in bed with me."

 

I drew my sword and plunged it into his belly.

 

"You bastard...I don't care if it was a mission...you don't screw with women like that... who the hell are those children?"

 

As blood stained his teeth and gushed out of his wound, around my still plunged sword, he said, "It was the council..."

 

More blood, this time dripping from his mouth.

 

"What council?"

 

"Vampires."

 

His mouth foamed, and I drew my sword from his stomach. He fell before me.

 

The woman on the bed drew the blanket around herself and ran from the room.

 

Before I could follow her up the ladder, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my leg. I looked and saw a small kid holding onto a knife, planted in my skin.

 

I kicked backward and the hilt of the knife hit the child, smashing some of his teeth to shards.

 

Suddenly, a bombardment of children, all plunging knives into my legs. I tried to pull myself up the ladder. A sharp pain kept me from focusing. A knife was planted in my thigh. I tore it out and threw it at a child climbing the ladder.

 

I barely escaped with my life.

 

The King made me a lower ranked guard after I was out of the hospital facility in the castle. He told me I should have blown them up with an explosive potion, or just killed them with my sword. Apparently, they had got away and were now operating in Falador, killing white knights.

 

I would get my revenge...

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2:

 

Garth broke the silence in the small pub. All the men stared as he pulled his cloak off and showed his armor. He was an enforcer. They were a group of people who made sure the law was kept everywhere they went. That sucked that this enforcer decided to come today of all days.

 

"All of you put the ale down and your hands up!" He drew his sword and waved it menacingly in front of him.

 

A drunk man, the strongest man in the pub, wobbled toward the enforcer.

 

"What'cha gonna do if we don'?" The man asked and raised a fist.

 

The enforcer stared at the man menacingly and sheathed his sword.

 

"Well, would you mind sitting down while I solve this problem?"

 

The big man swung at the enforcer. The air in front of the enforcer shimmered and suddenly, he was behind the big guy.

 

"Should not have tried." The enforcer punched the big guy. He flew through the wall and into a farming patch.

 

"Now then," the enforcer said cheerily,"please stop yelling, the neighbors are trying to read and cannot with you yelling like you are. So please keep quite or you may end up like the big man out there...maybe he'll sprout some sense after he wakes up in that farming patch! Get it?"

 

Most were too drunk to get it while others tried to figure out why someone would make such a stupid joke as that.

 

"Cheerio." The man said and left.

 

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Kandra watched the enforcer from a wall on the other side of the pub. She was going to kill that idiot. For what he did to her.

 

Kandra was eighteen when she commited a murder. She killed an old man who witnessed her stealing something.

 

And then a year later she killed another person.

 

And it continued for years. And then he came along and seduced her. Enticed her. Acted like they were lovers. The day they were supposed to get married he arrested her.

 

He was a nasty man. Seduce a girl and be her lover for months, and then at the wedding, arrest her in front of her friends and family? It was embarrassing.

 

She continued to watch him. She thought about killing him right there, but that was too risky. Too many witnesses would see it. She would follow him and find a secluded little spot to kill him at.

 

Her thoughts were cut short when some unseen force shoved her over the wall. She fell to her feet. She did not know much but she knew enough to keep her alive.

 

There he was, laughing.

 

"Hello my sweet girl, how have you been doing since last we met?"

 

"You..."

 

"Me? Well I have been having a jolly good time with the enforcers. Just last week I..."

 

"Shut up you chauvinistic bastard!"

 

"Wow...a feisty little one. How am I chauvinistic?"

 

"You seduced me so you could trap me when I least expected. I don't think you plan weddings with men and arrest them at the wedding do you?"

 

"No I don't, but it was a good plan, wasn't it? It worked."

 

"I will kill you...you made my family hate me. My friends walked away from me without a word. Two years in prison and no one sent me a letter...and why? Because you had to do it in front of my family!"

 

"You think you can kill me? I could easily defeat you."

 

"Try me."

 

"I have...it was good."

 

"You sick little..."

 

And Garth took that moment to conjure a spell and direct it a her. It smashed into her stomach and sent her flying into the wall. She passed out.

 

"I am sorry, but it was the only way." Garth walked away and did not look back.

 

...............................................

 

Kandra awoke to see a face.

 

"I know you!" She began to get to her feet.

 

"You should. I am Lord Draynor. And I have a proposition for you..."

 

 

 

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DEBATE QUESTION:

 

Has Sci Fi been dying as of late?

 

Answer the question down below...also, discuss any other section of this weeks iteration!

 

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NEXT WEEK:

 

Volume 1

 

Issue 5

[Hawks]

Has Sci Fi been dying as of late?

 

 

 

Yes. No great sci-fi books have come out recently, although the fantasy genre is getting a well-deserved boost... I notice that a lot of the sci-fi I find worth reading is 'old' books; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (The Resturant at the End of the Universe, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, etc.), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (apparently Blade Runner is based off this), and Ender's Game (and the books that follow). War of the Worlds is okay, I find the original version drags on and on... I got through the first 'book' and had to stop it was so boring. So I read the Illustrated Classics version (abridged with pictures FTW). And the rest of the sci-fi is Star Wars propaganda, which I feel has its place in literature but doesn't really go under 'original sci-fi'. It's great reading if you like Star Wars though. The Darth Bane books (I think it's a triliogy) are particularly good.

[Harakiri]

I agree...Darth bane are good...

 

Read dune...awesome books, but the hardest books I've ever read...he gets crazy technical...

 

I love Hitchhikers

 

I watched Blade Runner, that was a good movie, never read the book though...

 

War of the Worlds was awesome I thought...

[Nom]

Fantasy seems to have pushed sci-fi out of the picture . . . though I'll be honest, I'd rather not see sci-fi get the same treatment by hack writers as fantasy has in its popularity surge.

 

 

 

Meh, I have like 30 Star Wars books, New Jedi Order and on. I'm a Star Wars geek though so I would. They're more for the fact that it's Star Wars than anything else.