Duos was on shore leave and ready for some action. The deep space engines on the cargo hauler he worked on had developed a problem and the journey had taken longer than usual. He knew exactly where to go, had money to spend and a whole week to enjoy it.
This quite short story was triggered by me seeing a sign on a door. It was only two words, but it immediately dropped my mind into the gutter, and I came up with this story. Telling you what the sign was will spoil the story, but I’m sure you can work it out once you’ve read it. If not, get in touch and I’ll tell you.
When it was my turn to be the Dungeon Master, I began writing a scenario and I got to thinking about this problem. A powerful mage could bring down the city walls and decimate an army, but then had to go and have a rest to learn more spells.
Here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the origins of Throb and his band of trusty companions. “Throb!” is an adult novel, a comedy, set in a fantasy world. Writing it, I decided to go for more mature content and made it full-on adult.
This story involves brave women risking their lives to provide evidence of wrongdoing to the outside world. That simple premise was all I had to start with, and the rest just followed along. The ending came as a genuine surprise, although it made sense for the rest of the story, so I suppose it could have been subconscious.
The idea for this story came after I had re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was thinking about a certain scene, you’ll probably know which one when you read the story and my mind, as it often does, went into the gutter, and this story was born.
Where the idea for this story came from, I don’t know. I was sitting in front of my computer with a blank document open trying to create some short story ideas when this one arrived. It’s a near-future SF story about a young man who is something of an artist. It’s not to be taken seriously, but it does predict the future.
The common link here, and some would say the weakest, is the human being at the centre of it all. At this point my mind, as it often does, dropped into the gutter and I began thinking about all that genetic baggage we humans have to drag around with us.
What is a moral dilemma? While in self-drive mode and faced with a collision, the car might have to decide who or what to run into. For instance, if a child ran into the road, does the car swerve to protect the child, or stay on the road to protect the driver? This is just a philosophical debate, of course, because the car will be programmed to protect the customer.
I was about halfway through another story, when I noticed my neighbour’s cat that likes to sleep in one corner of my shed roof. You might think these two events are unrelated, but to a writer, there’s no such thing. So, story in progress, cat on roof, a glazed look and a slight smell of burning and k-ching! Another story. I hope you like it.
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