W_L

A short light-hearted modern fantasy story about a singer and his bodyguard. This is a fun offbeat story with things that are common and fantastical. Fans of Urban fantasy will see familiar elements.

Fun and engaging, all the various kins and the talk of enchantment with a contemporary background is nice modern fantasy.

Has anyone seen the netflix miniseries "Someone Has to Die"? It's set in the 1950s Fascist Spain under Franco-Regime with a gay relationships and desires hidden among the wealthy elites.

I know it's a lot to work through, but it's necessary for the narrative after the events in London. Don't forget the northern rebellion is still happening at the same time, so the issues from Continental Europe hasn't gone away. Isolation is not an option and the reason for the Russian intervention won't be known for a while. Eli and the Royal Court knew that they had to act fast. Historically, Anglo-Japanese alliance was a fascinating concept that very few people talk about. During the mid-20th century, Japanese nationalists didn't want to acknowledge that the UK played a pivotal role in its rise as a regional power, while the UK didn't want to acknowledge its part in fostering a militarist nation. In addition to fighting Russia, it was also used to counter France and above all else, the United States. We may think UK and US has a "special relationship" nowadays due to Churchill-Roosevelt WWII anecdotes, but the facts were during most of its history the British Empire was prepared to go to war with US again, especially due to competing aims in the Pacific. Japan also was forced into a trade treaty by the US navy, when Commodore Perry's Black Fleet entered Tokyo, so they had existential reasons to ally with British Empire. I was setting up this separate narrative piece for a while now, when I introduced Takechiyo. As for Hohenzollern of Prussia, it's a complex double-edged sword for students of German history. Austria and Prussia have been natural rivals and open enemies for centuries, especially during this period in history. Prussia was also an enemy of the Eastern European alliances of Poland, Lithuania, and predecessor states of Russia. They also played a role in the Catholic-Protestant wars of religion, breaking with the Catholic Church and European Hegemony of that era. We know from hindsight that Prussia is the forefather of Germany, which comes with it a lot of baggage. Britain relationship with Prussia is equally mixed between nominal friendship and rivalry due to competing ideals. I am laying down a lot of backdrop for the final arc of this novel

Jamie and I were escorted by Gard to the bunker where Takechiyo and Will were relocated, along with most of my royal court, after the attack on Whitehall Palace. It was close to midnight and Jamie had fallen asleep in my arms during the steady descent of the hot air balloon. When we entered the secure location, Nicolas Bacon and William Cecil greeted me along with Takechiyo and Will. Will’s lunge to hug me woke up Jamie. Both boys embraced, having not seen each other since breakfast. Will c

You just have to create a story with a character that aims for freedom of action and thought. The Medieval era of Europe might have been socially conservative, but it's economical and ideological background was very collectivist, akin to commune systems of the 20th century. Creating an opposing idea against both the historic facts of Catholic collectivism and Protestant elitist crony capitalism (the nobles who sided with reformation weren't doing it for free, why do you think English Crown is the largest landowners in the world), Libertarian thought is the obvious 3rd choice with a modern outlook at the results of both historical forces. That's why I tagged it the story as Libertarian Sci-Fi. Most people assume Libertarian thought runs in lockstep with conservatives, but it's different. Capitalism is not the end goal of Libertarianism: individual freedom and individual obligations are.

True, surprise no one else has done Sci-Fi Utopia and we're the only ones to tackle Libertarian Sci-Fi.

Dick had bouts of paranoia later in his career from extreme drug use. Ubik is extremely hard to read with a meandering plot; though, it's considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of the 20th century. I can understand your issue with reading his work. His work has influenced a lot of sci-fi writers into modern times with several film adaptations, plus you can draw a direct line between his paranoid conspiracy stories and TV series like the X-Files.

I prefer his sci-fi more rather than his fiction. I do agree Tet. He went overboard with Hogg. Not my cup of tea, either. Maybe it got worse as it went, I did not finish it. Gratuitous rape without a real plot and too much sadism. I think Delaney was angry at the world when he wrote this, representing the entirety of American males across all racial and social backgrounds as rapists, sadists, and pedophiles. As for the other title, The Mad Man is not so bad and has merit to be read, it's partially based on the relationship between him and his partner, who was a homeless gay man. There's also a good historical perspective on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, both pre-HIV and post era. It was normal among gay men back in the day to have hard lives. As for the fetish elements, we know it's out there, most of us don't play in that world (Scat is a hard limit for me), but it doesn't hurt anyone and there's consent. Unlike Hogg, I thought modern gay adult audiences could finish this book.

Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Herbert, and Dick are usually named among the greats of Science Fiction with a lot of their work made into popular media, but expansive science fiction fans have a wider view on this genre of literature. Samuel R. Delaney, a gay African American science fiction author and winner of the 1967 Nebula Award, hasn't seen similar treatment, but he deserved just as much respect as a science fiction writer. His novel, Babel-17, which focuses on the theory of language and perception (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), is one of the most imaginative concepts that have yet to play a major role in mainstream science fiction, but the idea has led to other writers developing their modern concepts. Give his stories a try, he's one of the great forgotten sci-fi writers of the 20th century. He was even cited as one of the inspirations for "Benny Russell", a fictional avatar of Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek Deep Space Nine's episode "Far Beyond the Stars", pretty cool nod when I learned about it years after the episode. I have read a lot of mainstream sci-fi and dabbled in non-mainstream stuff.

Not sure if he was gay, but he did write about the gay experience in the 1950s with Crooked Man, so possibly in the closet if he was. Of course, he might just be an ally. He did have a wife and son, but during that era and even into our own, it's not uncommon for gay and bisexual men to pass as straight, while have liaisons with their preferred sexual partners on the side for social conformity.

Fun Fact: Charles Beaumont, the famed writer for several Twilight Zone episodes, started getting published in Playboy starting in 1954 and test this was one of his stories, being gay in the 1950s was no picnic. My personal favorite among his Twilight Zone stories is "Valley of the Shadow", he essentially created the transporter, replicator, and force field technologies that we see in future iterations of Star Trek, along with the concept of an advanced civilization hiding in plain sight to avoid the dangers of human technological perversion (aka. "Black Panther" in small town America). It's modern sci-fi at its core.

Could be Albus with a time tuner, we know that kid loves making messes with the timeline.

From prior chapters, you know where Jamie is headed at the end, I'm glad you like the character. Though, he's only a 3-year-old, being an Omega in this literary reality grants a deeper level of prescience and penetrative insights. However, Jamie is still a child and can be distracted by illogical concepts, such as disjointed paraphrase structure in this case (It's a mild critique on the late Queen Elizabeth II, since it's hard to draw relationships between abstract concepts). The historical king James was well-known as an intelligent and perceptive leader, who could lead two nations, balance requirements for religious reforms, and still maintain a relationship of respect with his statutory wife or love with his boyfriends. Jamie isn't king James, just as Eli isn't Queen Elizabeth, but some aspects of history are still there.

@Cole MatthewsRandy has good taste. We should compare notes on isekai

In our original lives as Eric and Jack, Robert and I never studied military strategy as kids; though, Jack might have done so later in his life after my death based on how well-planned his alter-ego’s actions were. Like many other youths in our era, our knowledge of tactical warfare was ingrained through various popular media like manga graphic novels, and games, which we treated as common entertainment. The copious game-like plots such as occupying strong points for protagonists, cutting off re

Not a fan of Denis Villeneuve either, I didn't like Part 2 of Dune. His revisions in part 2 will make the rest of the adaptation difficult for the next movies, major divergences are impossible to avoid. I do want to see Leto II and his God Emperor serpentine glory, but it's the transhuman element that is cool as a sci-fi fan, not just human drama. Hollywood wants to entertain people with spectacle, the source material wants to leave people with wonder and new thoughts for exploration.

Glad you guys caught on

I am enjoying this off-beat urban fantasy Queer series right now called The Daily Grind, it's about a group of friends who find an extra-dimensional dungeon in their office building. The monsters look like staplers, ferns, copiers, old-fashioned desktop computers, and snake-like wires It's a great escape for office workers to imagine things in our daily lives that we have a love-hate relationship with try to kill us, very creative and I enjoy the social commentary aspect. The main character is pansexual and in a loving poly relationship with his boyfriend and girlfriend, but the romance is low-key in the story . Also, it's the first time I've seen a good positive use case for the "Utopian Fallacy", kind of a counter to the realist use. Essentially, the author figured out a way to fight unhappy realism through fun fantasy. For those who want to know what I mean, the utopian fallacy is

Glad you enjoyed Chris

There's a tactical move involved here, sometimes you have to do something in order to gain a more advantageous position. At this point, the Russian fleet is impossible to spot and there's only one attack sub in position to take them out. Eli is not simply trying to win a single battle, which can be done via allowing the Russians to retreat and regroup, the goal is "total annhilation" of all forces. No trace of tactical information can be allowed to escape.

In short order, Marc gave me a condensed report of the fight at Whitehall along with the movements of enemy troops from other mecha knights in London. I found the fight with the Russian troops to be the most fascinating. Henry had discovered the invisible troops operating near the palace due to their innate physical limitation, despite their near-perfect optical refraction. Additionally, the body suits that they used had the secondary ability to prevent kinetic and explosive damage from the mech

Thanks for reading these, I wanted to make the short stories supplements to my main story, like an expanded universe

Yes, but it's different based on the style of swordplay too. Western sword styles relied on blunt damage rather than cutting power, so the focus on thrust and parry for damage means users must be big and strong. Eastern sword styles relied on cutting power rather than blunt damage, so the focus is on swings and slicing motions against joints. Armor influenced these styles, too.

Thanks