Welcome to the Horne

 

A short story I wrote after a very strange experience at a hotel in 2021.  Some of the events in this story actually happened, though obviously not the more supernatural bits.  I'm going for a Lovecraftian feel here, more the "dreamlike" Lovecraft than the "looming horror" Lovecraft, in this piece.  Without further ado:

Welcome to the Horne

by R. N. Kohn

I find myself in a crisis of perception. From a young age, I made myself a serious student of the natural world, and my belief that everything could be explained through careful observation and rigorous application of the scientific method led me to reject not only all mysticism, but also many of the harmless flights of fancy that my friends in youth deceived themselves with--much to my own dismay, at times. Yet now, after years of work in the natural sciences and a decent record of publication, I discover that I have experienced something I find impossible to describe through rational means. The vivid memories would be relatively simple to dismiss by themselves, as a particularly memorable dream perhaps, but the scars carved into my hands turn that vividness into an irresistible urge to believe that those memories are real, although I cannot find a suitable explanation for them as they stand in my mind.

I Guess I'm Back!

 My last post here was back in 2014, and I guess I'll just give a little background.  Around then, I was finishing up my Ph. D. in physics, or at least trying to, and things were bleak.  So I had spent some time writing to help deal with the bleakness.

By the end of 2014, it became clear that yes, I was actually going to graduate, and so I threw myself into writing my dissertation and didn't really have time to do fiction works anymore.  I finished my Ph. D. in the spring of 2015 and got a job in the fall as a real, no-kidding professional scientist.

This brings us to today.  If you look at my Blogger name (or whatever it's called), "Liberty's Advocate," you might guess I'm a freedom-loving guy.  So working as a professional scientist was fun, but it was also working (essentially) for the government (technically I was a contractor), and I didn't want to do that forever.

Then 2020 happened and it became clear that the government would do horrible things to us, seemingly for kicks and giggles.  I spent 2020 and 2021 becoming even more certain that I needed to get away from serving the government.  By the end of 2021, it looked like they were going to demand I give up my medical privacy to keep my job, and I declared my intentions to leave before that became mandatory.

It turned out that it didn't become mandatory.  The drop-dead date got pushed back a couple of times, then disappeared.  But I was already moving along this path.

So, as of the start of October 2022, they found a replacement for me and, after helping to train him on the experiment I was working on, I'm out and I'm going to be working on writing up a bunch of projects I've been building up and sitting on while I had a full-time job.  So anyone who might happen to read this blog can expect to see new pieces start appearing.

Sorry for the lengthy re-introduction, but it looks like I'm back in the fiction-writing game!  I'll be doing some non-fiction too, but I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do with it.

Two new pieces finished

I've been extremely busy with work and school, and so I forgot to update things for a while, but I've been writing here and there.  I just finished up two new pieces:  "Checking the Wrong Box," a short story, and "The Meriwether Contact," another novella.

"Checking the Wrong Box" is my first attempt at a real short story.  It comes out around 2600 words, and was surprisingly challenging.  Writing really short fiction and making it interesting is more difficult than I had thought it would be.  I had to come up with an idea that could be executed in that short format, and then trying to economize on words while still describing things and having a decent plot execution with characters who aren't completely flat... quite a strain.

"The Meriwether Contact" is another short novella, coming out around 15000 words.  This one's about a completely different group of people stumbling upon a strange derelict ship and going in to investigate.

I'm going to try sending these two out to a magazine or something... see what happens.  No high hopes, but it'd be interesting to get some feedback from a disinterested party.

Next on my agenda is a piece in the third person with an antagonist.  So far I don't have a lot of experience writing antagonists, so this seemed like a reasonable thing to try next.

I'll come up with some samples and post those when I get a chance.

Hard Enough?

So, if you've read my first short story, I have a question for you:  do you think it's hard enough to qualify as hard sci-fi?  I'm curious about what people think.  Drop me a comment or an email if you have an opinion.

The Hyacinth Rescue is up!

Well, I finished my first story, "The Hyacinth Rescue."  It's currently available on Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/324908

I'm using their innovative "reader decides price" feature. You can get it for free, or you can pay whatever you like!

Here's my idea: go ahead and pick up a free copy. Don't mind the hand-drawn cover, it's all I could afford when I wrote it.

Then, once you've read it, if you think it's worth something, pick up another copy at whatever price you want and send that one to a friend!

If you'd like, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!

Project Derelict First Sample

So, a brief post on the subject of what I'm writing.

I've had a vision for a long time of writing somewhat-believable science fiction, specifically about a distant future in which space travel becomes largely mundane, yet still remains dangerous.  Small and large groups of people travel routinely over many light years, jumping from planet to planet, some inhabited, some newly inhabited, and some uninhabited.

But I'm planning on focusing on the few that don't make it.  Rather, those who find themselves in that danger, and those who risk their lives to rescue them.  But, of course, the Salvagers, as they're called, come from many different backgrounds--everything from government agents to de facto pirates.

I'm currently working on a short story (it looks like it's going to end up somewhere in the vicinity of 25 pages of 8.5x11 paper, as I see in my word processor) which I will eventually post on Smashwords.

Here's a sample from my first draft:

I was a bit surprised when, around four in the afternoon, a sharp two knocks rang out on the front door of the office. Not that I jumped or anything, but I did stop flipping through files and, after a moment's thought, rolled my eyes. Unexpected visitors usually meant scams or particularly rough jobs. Maybe if I wait a minute, they'll go away.

No luck. Three more knocks, about the same as the first two. So I put down the files and went to answer the door.

Great. A kid. He couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen. Blond-haired and trim, but with a more refined look than you usually see on kids his age. Hair parted off on the right, and wearing a shirt and slacks that seemed to look like what “business casual” looks like to people who have no business using the word “casual.” He had an oval face, and a small nose, and looked up at me as I opened the door. Light green eyes. If he was a scammer, he was an elaborate one.

I decided to try to discourage him a bit.

“Yeah?” I tried to make it sound as curt as possible. I think it wasn't what he was expecting, because he seemed to flinch as I said it.

“My name is Colton Trauvent. You are Mr. Misevelin?”

I paused for a moment and admitted it. “Yeah. Aric Misevelin, of Misevelin Salvage.”

“May I come in? I have a job for you.”

Well, damn. I guess I wasn't going to scare him off. And I had a vague feeling as though I had heard his name before. “Sure. Come in and have a seat.”

He followed me over to my desk, an old oak relic that I picked up for a song at a garage sale. I stepped behind and sat as he dusted off the red leather number I keep for clients. Not that it needed dusting, but it looked like some kind of habit to me.

“You said your name is Colton Trauvent? What's this job?”

He had a very textbook-proper way of sitting, slightly forward with his fists resting just behind his knees. But it didn't seem natural, more like how someone trying to look polite overcompensates. Not a good sign.

“My father's ship... we... I...” he stopped, gulping visibly. “We lost contact with them, suddenly, a few hours ago. We've been unable to reach them, and I want you to go find them before something happens.”

“You were in constant communication?”

“No, but they were cut off in the middle of a message, and it sounded like something happened, right at the end. I'm not going to waste any time.”

Probably a quarter of the really desperate-sounding people that visit me leave unhappy. Not that I don't care, but I've seen enough scams and hopeless missions to know them. So it wasn't looking good for young Colton, who had already made me suspicious enough that I was going to need some pretty good proof that he was who he said and had a real job for me.

I decided to break it to him. “Look. I get a lot of people coming to me, wanting swift and decisive action, and they're usually disappointed. I'm not like a lot of salvagers, and I'm not going to run out to the middle of nowhere on a desperate plea from a stranger.”

“I know you're not. You're probably the most experienced private salvager in this system.”

Great. A wheedler.

 I'll post again when I have it done.  Thanks for reading.

What is this site?

This blog is a place for me to post links to, previews of, and thoughts about fictional stuff I'm writing.  That's basically it.  Of course, it's kind of empty now, but I'll add stuff as I get it done.  I will refrain from making a large number of posts about random things, so feel free to put this on a feed or whatever--you'll only get updates when there's something to say.  I'd like to say I'll clutter your inbox with good stories, but my writing time is extremely limited at this point.  Anyway, thanks for visiting!