Back of the Envelope

Sluggy Freelance — Monica and Aylee start to get along, the same way Sasha and Zoe did--ragging on Riff. And Sasha and Gwynn... it seems a popular way for girls to build friendships. Then Torg and Riff show up, but they can't seem to get the upperhand: Monica's clever and unshakable. At least until Monica sees flying Aylee wearing her underwear. That freaks her out. Then it's Stick Figures in Spaace for a week of low quality fun.

Day by Day — After some time away, Day by Day is back. Sam and Skye are picking up their mother at the airport. Sam's gotten too big to drive, and Skye's driving leads much to be desired. Meanwhile, Jan and Damon are arriving home by private jet. It looks like they arrive at the same time.

Scary Go Round — Esther and the Boy break into the haunted grounds. In doing so, they attract the attention of the gypsy ghosts Esther's family is responsible for disturbing. Uh-oh. Now they need to get a little help from Ryan to deal with their ghost problem while also sorting out their relationship issues.

Dominic Deegan — Nimmel and Luna try to knock some sense into Milov and Jayden, respectively. Dominic and Milov have a run-in with demon Siegfried. It looks like they're done for, but Milov manages to drive him off with his good memories of friendship and love.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Hey, we're updating five times a week now. Roger's moving out, and Dave delivers Mike's stuff to his family, giving him an opportunity to talk with Blue and apologize. Just as he arrives, Blue's in a compromising position with Jay. Dave misses that, although he does run into the other toughs, and nearly zaps them before Blue calms him down. Blue then takes care of the toughs her own way.

Schlock Mercenary — And the Doc's still having bad dreams. After a quick consultation with TAG, she tries to sleep and has another bad dream. That's it. After donning her armor and loading for bear, she brings Schlock along. This time she's ready to deal anything: except the nanites burning their way out of the force field and TAG taking her weapons away.

I'll be hosting the next Storyblogging Carnival, the eighty-first, here at Back of the Envelope. This will be the last of the biweekly Storyblogging Carnivals... after this we'll move to a monthly schedule. If you use your blog to share your fiction, then the Storyblogging Carnival is your opportunity. Here we host any and all forms of storytelling in blog format. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. This next carnival will be going up November 5th.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, November 3rd. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

On January 1st, 2006, I said that my goal that year was to be published. One of the things you have to realize is that the pace of the publishing industry is slow... so I didn't have anything in print last year. However, I do have something in print now.

Lyn Perry has published a short story anthology on Lulu, with 24 speculative fiction stories with a spiritual theme. This, of course, is part of the Residential Aliens project, a speculative fiction e-zine which is humming along nicely. Lulu is, of course, a self publishing press, but as Dave Gudeman says:

It's in a self-published book, but I didn't publish it myself; Lyn Perry at Residential Aliens did. So technically, Lyn published me meaning that I've been published rather than I published myself. The difference is critical.

And yes, Dave has his own story in the book, the brilliant "Transcendence." Also included is Curtis Schweitzer's "Colossus." All three of these stories have appeared in the Storyblogging Carnival. So if you'd like to own an anthology with a lot of stories with spiritual significance, be sure to buy a copy. You can go straight to Lyn's Storefront.

Welcome to the eightieth Storyblogging Carnival. There are four stories this time. This is rather low, especially considering that I delayed a week just to get this many. I think what this means is that the Storyblogging will be going on a monthly, rather than a bi-weekly schedule. From now on, the carnival will go up on the first Monday of each month. Of course, that means the next one, the eighty-first, will be up in two weeks, but the one after that won't go up until December. We'll see how well that works.

---

Greetings from Bonodminton!
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 150 word brief story rated PG.

At last, intelligence is found on another world! But there's bad news too.

---

The History of the Domini: Part V (The Whole Story)
by Donald S. Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope
The next 317 of a 2,098 word continuing story rated PG.

The war with the Malwer concludes.

---

The Tragic Story of Larry and Wanda Pogo
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 400 word brief story rated PG.

Another tale from the absurd series "Toulouse Le Grandfig and the Land of the Future", in which we learn of a couple overcoming adversity, only to find tragedy.

---

I, Werewolf
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 2,259 word short story rated PG.

The title says it all.

---

This concludes the seventy-seventh Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

The Rest of the Story: The rest of The History of the Domini can be found here.

This is the fourth part of Randall Aurelius's unpublished draft of The History of the Domini.

---

The History of the Domini
by Randall Aurelius

Part V: The Imprisonment

By this time, the forces arrayed against one another were, if not exactly even, more closely matched than ever before. While the Malwer were more powerful in magic, the Shades and the Amaranthine wizards were, between them, more numerous. And while the Orcs and goblins outnumbered the Amaranthine and Human armies, the leadership of the First Legion made them a more effective fighting force than their numbers suggested. Thus, the balance between the two sides teetered precariously for a number of years, and eventually, the Humans and their Amaranthine allies gained the upper hand. The Orcs were scattered, and the Malwer forced to retreat. They gathered in their capital city, and the Human and Amaranthine forces gathered around it. They knew the powerful magic which the Malwer yielded, and likewise knew that an attempt to take the city would cost countless lives. So instead, they decided to leave the Malwer where they were. For the second and final time in our history, the Shades and the Amaranthine combined their magics, and they wove a barrier to completely enclose the Malwer city. By the time the Malwer realized what we were doing and struck back, they were too late. The prison was complete, and the Malwer were trapped inside their city.

Not all the Malwer were caught in this trap. Some were outside the city at the time, some managed to flee before the trap could close. The Shades and the Amaranthine spent years tracking down those who had escaped. While that was being done, the armies which had been gathered against the Malwer dispersed. Humans began to build their own towns and cities. And when the last of the Malwer had been captured, the Shades themselves began to go their separate ways, while the Amaranthine retreated to live in isolation from the Humans.

But while the Malwer were gone, peace was short lived.

Sluggy Freelance — Aylee and Torg join Riff at his ex-girlfriend's house, and go about disguising Aylee as a human, which requires a lot of make-up. And it turns out that Aylee has wings, and appears, from the outside, to be a fully functional human female. So much so that Riff asks her out, even if he still thinks she's a planet-destroying alien he'll have to destroy eventually. Of course, things get really fun when Monica arrives home and Riff has to distract her while Torg prepares a nose for Aylee. When both Torg and Riff try a quick escape, they find that Monica's one step ahead of them. That girl is good.

Day by Day — Cox and Forkum get some love, and Jan get hits by an IED. It's nothing too serious, but she's seriously bummed out about it. After that, Chris is gone until November while he deals with some family issues.

Scary Go Round — Mike survives by virtue of being a freak of nature, and Lorcan avoids the death penalty by virtue of his father still being alive. While Amy and Shelley are dealing with joblessness, Esther and the Boy are facing relationship problems. So Esther decides a visit to the old city hall is in order, on account of it having been built on an old gypsy burial ground and thus goth-worthy.

Dominic Deegan — Milov decides to face Siegfried and has to be rescued by Dominic. Now Dominic's exhausted, Jayden's guilt-ridden, Milov's depressed, and the Spellwolves are angry, and it's up to Nimmel and Luna to save the day.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave, while cleaning house, finds a portrait of Blue and some letters, figures Roger's in love with Blue, and goes to punch him--only to discover that werecoyotes punch back really hard. Later consideration shows that Roger didn't draw the pictures, and they may not be love letters at all. Looks like Dave messed this one up bad.

Schlock Mercenary — The Doc Ed is having bad dreams concerning Xinchub's body. When her fiance's chaste cuddling doesn't help, she goes to Kevyn for some technical assurance. He guarantees that the nanites can't escape, just before they do.

Since I only received one entry for the next Storyblogging Carnival, I decided to delay it a week. In fact, since it's been pretty slow for a while, I think we'll be moving to a monthly schedule soon. Meanwhile, if you have an entry you'd like to make, please send it my way (dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu) with the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

I'll be hosting the next Storyblogging Carnival, the eightieth, here at Back of the Envelope. If you use your blog to share your fiction, then the Storyblogging Carnival is your opportunity. Here we host any and all forms of storytelling in blog format. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. This next carnival will be going up October 15th.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, October 13th. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg and Aylee return, and Aylee retakes a humanish-shape. Riff's confused, so he blows up another park ('cause, hey, he's Riff--he has to blow up something). Rammer sees it all, but is killed by Kusari before he can take advantage of his information, or care it. Turns out Schlock sent Kusari, with instructions to stop Hong--and she did, with knives. Schlock's now on a path to take over the world. That's right. Schlock. Uh-oh, I'm scared. Schlock may be a coward, but he's brilliant, and he knows way too much about the gang.

Day by Day — So Sam's been hiding the fact that she's younger than Zed by quite a bit. I wonder what she'll tell him when he gets home--he's on his way now. In the meanwhile, Damon's arrived to keep Jan company.

Scary Go Round — Shelley subdues Lorcan, but his bee attacks her. Mike dives in the way, taking the attack himself and somehow surviving. Unfortunately, Shelley's boss isn't taken with the story, and fires her. Amy and Ryan are out of a job too, as the bureaucrats take over Tackleford's city hall.

Dominic Deegan — So Jayden slept with Siegfried. How's that for a surprise revelation? Milov goes mad with rage and nearly kills Jayden, then settles for tossing everyone out of his house and announcing his betrayal to the world, which results in Nimmel being attacked. Hoo-boy, I guess nobody's happy about this. Jayden tells her story to Luna. It appears that Siegfried was indeed changing for the better, but he ended up off course.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Roger promises to take care of the skeleton under Mike's bed, while Margaret puts the guys through more training. It's driving them crazy, but it must be improving their health. Or it would be, if it weren't killing them. Roger's continuing to train with Joe, which must be very close to the worst idea ever, while Margaret convinces Dave to talk to Marsha. He promises to do it, but lets slip that he knows her parents were murdered, requiring a hasty exit. I do wonder how he knows that, if Margaret never told him.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn gets really drunk to avoid remembering the Xinchub clone's naked body. Meanwhile, everyone's looking forward to helping to recreate his death. The Doc has a monopoly on it, however, and now that they have a body, the mercenaries can make a clean switch, with the government's permission. So they're getting paid four times for this job so far. But they still have to get through the funeral with a straight face.

The seventy-ninth Storyblogging Carnival is up at the Skwib. Three stories this time. Hopefully, we'll be able to drum up a few more in the future.