The Dragonslayer

-Winter-

The winter had been hard that year. So very hard…

The harvest had been sparse, and the town of Harmlos had fallen on hard times. Unable to feed themselves, the townspeople went in droves into the employ of the dragon Gier, who lived in the mountains beyond the town, and owned a great wealth from the mines within his domain. The work was hard, but it put food on the table. The dragon was a patron of the town and looked to its care, trading with them for its needs while helping defend the town against the raids of the beast-men of the East.

With the winter so harsh, and so much of the town in service to the rich dragon, some grew discontent with the current order of things. They were jealous of the dragon, and so it was their doom…

“Have we suffered enough!” The old man gestured with his staff, his hand clutching it like that of a vulture to the tree. “To long have we tolerated the unholy wyrm at our gates! Enough is enough! The beast feeds from this town as a parasite, and like all foul leeches, it must be cut at the neck to stop the flow of blood-from us, to him!”

As the crowd centered around the furious and stooped priest cheered, a voice in the distance and cold black night shouted out in dissent above the cacophony.

“What idiocy is this!” A fat man shouted above the rabble. “You fool spitting your venomous hate against such a noble breed as great Gier, what ails you, beyond idiocy?” The fat man shoved his way through the inflamed crowd. They seethed around him as he made his way, fearless, towards the plat-form from which the man with the vulture hands spoke.

“So easy for you to speak good of the leech, Komik. You have eaten well this winter.”

“What does my good-will have to do with your bad one?” Komik said, patting his round belly and laughing.

“My success does not foil nor enhance your self made folly. Its not my fault people would rather be warm in my inn than out here to hear the cold, both in the wind and in your breath.”

“Your success is only at the whim of the dragon!” The vulture-clawed man shouted, stabbing with his staff as one would with a lance. “The dragon steals from us and manipulates us! You are his pet, a fat mouse to please and even fatter cat!”

“How dare you, you crone in a man’s body! I should have-” Komik rose to mount the stage, but a quick motion by the tall and heretofore silent man stopped him short.

“Enough of this!” Intoned the Paladin Siegfried, axe-hand of the man whose claws are like that of the vulture. “We have all heard the words of Father Narr! What say you people?”

The people answered as the roar of bloodlust raged through the mass before the three men, droning out the feeble protests of Komik.

“The people have spoken.” Father Narr intoned grimly, clutching his staff in either weakness or ecstasy “So the voice of many have spoken! Death for Gier! Life for Harmlos!”

“Death for Gier! Life for Harmlos!” The crowd roared back.

Father Narr turned toward Siegfried, staring down at him from his ramshackle wooden altar.

“You know what must be done.” He said, his voice heavy with the weight of duty.

“And it shall be.” Siegfried replied, the mantle of duty settling onto his shoulders now, without a sound. He drew his axe then, and turned to make his way through the crowd and to the Dragon’s mountain.

“This is madness.” Komik said, moving into the path of the paladin laden with duty. “You know not what you do.”

Siegfried did not speak, and instead shoved the fat man into the icy mud of the stone street and marched on, his face stone and his doom set.

~*~*~*~

“Truly, you are like the stars when I look upon you, Gracia.” the great dragon Gier spoke to the maiden as she stood before him. He then turned to the man who painted her beautiful form. “And, truly, you Geschick are the only man I know who can bring her spirit to life upon the portrait.”

“We thank you lord.” Gracia said, her back proud and straight in the warm golden light of the dragon’s den. “It is your generosity that is truly great.”

“Indeed.” Said Geschick as he bent forward and lovingly stroked his brush across the canvas. “It is you kindness that should be praised.”

“Kindness, yes, but more so respect.” The Dragon said, rearing up from his great glistening hoard to look upon both of his friends as he spoke. “You are both of a great worth to me. Your talents I pay for, and your friendship I return. All value to be repaid in kind.”

Both the artist and the woman of beauty smiled and nodded, knowing the dragon spoke the truth.

“Such a sentiment, wyrm, and you should not be surprised it has come to this.” A grim voice intoned from the edges of the chamber.

“Who goes there?” The dragon challenged the phantom voice, rearing up as his great golden eyes went wide with sudden anger and fear. “Show yourself, coward.”

“I am no coward,” Siegfried said as he stepped from the cold darkness and into the light. “I am justice.” The grim paladin turned his face from the dragon to the man and woman who were with the great Gier in his lair.

“Harlot!” He spat at Gracia whose beauty is like the stars. “You have whored yourself to the dragon! And you artist, painting foulness for the beast! Both of your sins will be punished in turn!”

“How dare you!” Gier roared, raising to his full height over the grim paladin. “You come into my home and threaten my friends! You shall pay dearly for this outrage.”

“It is you who shall pay, beast!” Siegfried shouted in return, brandishing his axe. “This home of yours is stolen, and your friends and yourself are beasts to be killed! In the name of the people I judge you!”

“Fool.” The dragon said, moving from atop his hoard and in between the paladin of doom and his two friends. “A fool, yes, but a dangerous fool. It shall be for the best that both you and Narr die. Monsters like you will only keep killing until you die!” The great Gier then turned to his most valued friends “Run deep into the cave! Do not come out until I call for you!”

It was at that moment that Siegfried struck. Rushing forward the paladin of black iron charged the noble crimson cold dragon. As the beast turned to consul its friends, the doom laden paladin struck with his axe deep into the shoulder of the great wyrm. Gier let loose a shriek of rage and spun on the paladin, swiping the warrior away with his mighty claws. With another shriek, the great dragon let loose a torrent of golden flame upon the paladin. Siegfried though, was quick and brought his shield forward, blocking the killing blast.

Back and forth the golden-red wyrm and the black iron knight fought across the chamber. Back and forth claw and axe and flame traded blow for blow, never relenting, never tiring.

After what seemed hours of battle, the dragon Gier was backed upon his great pure gold hoard, striking with tail, claw, and flame at the persistent paladin of fate.

“Foolish man!” Gier roared in frustration. “Why will you not fall!?”

“I am the will of the people!” Siegfried roared in return, raising his axe to strike.

“Your will is the will of death!” And with that, the dragon inhaled to make another strike with his glorious breath of flame, but Siegfried was quicker still. As the dragon reared, the iron paladin struck across the noble wyrm’s throat, which split open in a glut of black blood and flame.

With a gurgling moan of surprise, the great dragon Gier fell upon his hoard, wounded and dying. This was not to satisfy the paladin of doom though. With another might effort, Siegfried raised his axe and struck again, savagely against the neck.

The dragon Gier warbled in pain and sorrow as the iron knight hacked at his neck. The dragon attempted to move, to get away, but Siegfried struck again. Gier, in ultimate horror and sadness, turned his head to look upon the half-finished beauty of Gracia and talent of Geschick, to see one last thing of beauty before he died. Then Siegfried struck a third and final time, and the great noble dragon of gold and crimson was no more.

Siegfried stood back from his bloody work and laughed. The room had grown cold and dark, and Siegfried laughed. Without another word, he reached into the pile of treasure beneath the ruined corpse and left the cave to move into the coming dawn.

~*~*~*~

The masses of Harmlos had gathered there beneath the dragon’s mountain cave, having come in the footsteps of their black champion. Father Narr waited above them, back bent with weakness and humble nature as Siegfried left the dead cave and came forward into the grey light of dawn.

“Death for Gier” Siegfried intoned as he held his hand forward. “Life for Harmlos.”

“Death for Gier” Father Narr said in return as his vulture like hands reached forward and took the treasure from his servant’s hand. He then turned towards the mass below him.

“Life for Harmlos!” He shouted, thrusting one crooked talon into the air. The once warm and shining gold had now become cold and black with the blood of the great dragon as Father Narr waved it triumphantly in the air.

“Life for Harmlos!” The vulture-priest screeched again

“Life for Harmlos!” The people shouted up, hands raised in supplication to the sky.

“Life for Harmlos.” Siegfried said quietly to himself.

“Life for Harmlos!” All shouted as one.

-Spring-

It had been months since the death of Gier the great noble wyrm. The jolly Komik, beautiful Gracia, and talented Geschick had all been hung as sinners and wyrm sympathizers. So had many others. All under the grim judgement of Siegfried the iron paladin and his taloned master, Father Narr. For some time the treasures of the dragon’s hoard lasted, and all men ate as they could and lived rich. As the people lived in easy upon the stolen black gold, Father Narr came and preached to them, speaking of God, Brotherhood and Duty. The people listened with easy ears and lazy minds, and they heard of God, Brotherhood, and Duty, and they did as Father Narr told them to. They prayed to his God, joined his Brotherhood, and did the duties that he told them, and for a time, it was not any worse than it was before.

Then the spring came, and with the spring came visitors. These visitors came with goods to trade for the gold and minerals dragged from the dragon’s mines. When they came, Father Narr appeared before them and told them of the slaying of the dragon, and of God, and Brotherhood, and Duty. Some men listened to Father Narr, and fell under his spell and stayed in the town with him and his Brotherhood. Others listened, some laughed, and left, and did not return. Father Narr cursed them as sinful and greedy, and told his followers to not speak with them ever again. They did not have to work hard to fulfill this commandment.
Late into spring, after many of the merchants had learned to stay from the town, a different visitor came to the town of Harmlos. From the Grey Pass came a Beast-man from the East…

The great hulking Beast-man came down the the dark and empty Grey Pass to the town of Harmlos, his mangy black body wrapped in a white woolen cloak. The word of his approach reached the town before he did, and all of the people, lead by Father Narr and Siegfried. The people met the great hulking Beast-man by the town’s edge, and greeted him warmly.

“Welcome o’ Great Man of the East!” Said Father Narr, spreading his talon-like hands wide. “Let it be known that all enmity betwixt us in the past has been forgiven, let us feast like the brothers we are!”
With this, the hulking Beast-Man laughed his hyena laugh and grinned his great hyena grin.

“Yes,” He said, laughing, “Brothers, I like that.”

“Come then.” Said Father Narr. “Let us feast!” and so the vulture priest lead his Brotherhood and his guest back to the town. Siegfried followed closely next to the hulking Hyena man and his beast-grin.

“What is it like there?” He asked, quiet in his black iron armor.

“It is not so different than here.” The Hyena man said, smiling as his golden eyes lit up as if by some joke only he knew. “At least, not for long!”

And then he let loose another hyena laugh.

~*~*~*~

So the great men of the town, talking priests and labor captains, took their places around the table once reserved for leaders and heros in the temple that had once been a hall of men. At the head sat Father Narr, Siegfried at his right hand, cutting his meal with a golden dagger raided from the dragon’s treasure. On the other end sat the black and shaggy Beast-man and his grinning and laughing hyena face. Meat, either bought with black-stained gold or cut under the lash of the labor captains, was passed around for all things at the table to eat. A rump of lamb was passed to the Beast-man at the far end, and the gift of food was fallen upon as a lion would a weak deer.

So they ate, all as loud as the next. Once they had glutted themselves upon meat they did so again upon wine, liquid black as blood, and then they sat in stupor, each like a well-fed dog. Each equal and the same as his brother next to him. So was the dream of Father Narr and his brotherhood. Then, the Hulking Beast-man spoke, with his glowing laughing eyes and his mangy black smile dancing in the candlelight.

“So it is true what has been said among my brother’s in the East. The great wyrm Gier has died!”

“Yes. What has been spoken is true.” Father Narr said, rising with a drink sodden smile. “Great Gier is dead!”

“No, not great.” Siegfried said suddenly, his face ever grim. “He shall not be remembered as great. Greatness is good and greatness is evil and should not be remembered. All things who stand above others are not great. Only those who stand equal are Great. So it is that Gier should not be Great, or Noble, but simply the Worm. The Worm Gier has died at last, and I… No, not ‘I,’ this body from which the paltry soul that I am speaks did so at the behest of the people! Long live the people!”

“Long live the people!” All the priests and labor-captains intoned. The Beast-man sat in silence with his laughing eyes and dancing grin.

“So it is true…” He said, quietly. He then rose up from his seat.

“My friends,” The Hyena-man began, “I am glad for your success in dragon-slaying. Long has Gier foiled the plans of my people, oppressed us, kept us back. I speak only truth now before you former men of Gier’s Harmlos. There is much in common between us now. I will say that my brethren will also be given great joy by the death of Great… no, you are right my dragon-killing friend, of the worm Gier. I would wish to stay for many nights but at the moment I must depart to tell my tribe of the good news.” The Beast-man then hefted his bags and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Said Father Narr, stretching one talon outward in gesture. “I would ask to speak to you of an alliance of our newfound and enlightened peoples.”

The Hyena-man turned and smiled, his eyes glowing bright yellow.

“Worry not o’ great Man of Spirits.” He said, his mangy mouth spread in a horrid grin. “I assure you that soon enough, your people and mine will join in a most beneficial fashion!”

Then the hulking Beast-man let loose a great booming laugh as if he had just told a great joke, and then turned and left into the spring night, marching with great haste towards the East.

-Summer-

So then the day wore on high the great stink of a thousand corpses clung to the wet heat of the season as the foul stench of battle and sun washed across the entire valley of Harmlos. On this heavy and reeking wind were born the screams of the dead and dying, and the wailing of those who did the slaughter. The Beast-men had come through the Grey Pass on the hottest day of the year at dawn, and as the scorching heat of the sun touched the land, so to did the scourge of the Beast-men. Sweeping from the mountains like a rotten black flame they poured from the once-Grey pass, spilling across the valley. They were like a plague who left no mercy in it’s wake.

The men and women of Harmlos had rallied under the threat of destruction and the bolstering words of Father Narr. The labor captains whipped them to task as Siegfried tried his best to teach the men to fight again, but many had become dumb and lazy in the last few months. Only the whips of the labor-captains or the fear of the Beast-men got them to move at all. Yet somehow they survived against the horde of the thousands of Beast-men. The war had raged for two months, and they persisted with great sorrow and great loss. Each day a bloody glut of attrition, down the the last day a savage struggle to live just long enough to see the dawn one more time…

So there on the field before the Town of Harmlos the two hoards struggled. The sounds of blade against stone against flesh ringing through the valley of death. In the center of the maelstrom stood Siegfried, great iron axe in hand and striking down all beasts and beast-men who came before him. He was a rock upon which the black waves came, broke, and fell back, and for hours he stood, tirelessly swinging and breaking charge after charge.

His great axe soon began to weigh upon him. His armor slowed each great swing . Men and women rushed to stand beside him, but they were broken just as he broke the waves. Only he remained constant, and only he remained standing.

One such woman stood beside him at a moment, jabbing with a former farm tool into the fur-sodden chests of the rushing Beast-men. Then she screamed, for a new Beast-man, hulking above the others and swathed in a white wool cloak, cleaved her open with his own great stone axe. Siegfried turned and shouted in rage.

“You! You liar and traitor!” He spat in rage. “You came into our house and took food from us, and this is how you return our kindness?!”

“Who said I lied?” Said the great hulking Hyena-man. “Father Narr? Father Fool? Did he not want our people to join? I am merely giving him his wish. This place is as he wants it, after all.” The great Beast-man laughed.

“Your tongue drips with lies!” Siegfried said, leveling his axe and shield.

“Brother, if you had but a mind you would know how wrong you are.” Said the hulking Beast-man, leveling his own.

The two then charged each other, stone axe striking against iron shield, whilst iron axe struck against hide shield. The clash shot sparks like lightning and made a crash like thunder. The two shoved back from each other, and the charged each other again, striking as a raging storm does upon the ground. Again they charged each other, and a third time, each strike a storm of savagery and fury.

“Why will you not submit to my iron?!” Siegfried huffed as the broke again, his arms weary with endless strikes and blows.

“You and your iron have become weak my brother. Without proper hands and proper thoughts to guide them you and your village have grown rusted.” He laughed weakly, revealing his own exhaustion in the process. He then stood straighter and Siegfried readied for another charge, but then the laughing Hyena-man sprung forward with a wrenching cough and spat a thick liquid from his gagging throat. Before Siegfried could move the thick ooze struck his face and he let loose a scream of surprise and pain as the liquid began to burn him without flame.

Laughing, the hulking Beast-man turned and let loose a cry, and in return a massive boar charged from the chaos towards its master. With a great feat of martial prowess, the Hyena-man grasped the great boar’s fur and swung himself onto it’s back. Mounted, the Hyena-man looked down with his golden flashing eyes and torrid grin at the helpless Siegfried.

“I am Böse, king of the Beast-men!” He declared, his eyes laughing even if his voice did not. “I never lie and am the most honest beast upon this field, so I tell you now, rusted and iron knight, you may have won this war, but the battle shall rage on soon enough. You gave up the only thing you had which could hold us back when you made your choice long ago. I shall leave you now-to ripen! For once you grow heavy with the weight of your choice and doom, you shall be much easier to pluck. Until then brothers!”  With that, the king of the Beast lifted his great stone axe into the air and gave a mighty cry in his own tongue and all of his subjects relented their savage attacks. He then turned his mount and rode back across the plain, his army at his side and laughing all the way.

Some men rose up a chant in the distance of “Life for the Brotherhood!,” but most voices were silent.

Siegfried only moaned as he writhed and the poison ate through his flesh.

-Winter-

The winter had been hard. The crops had failed, but there were no men reap them anyway. The cattle had fallen to plague and pox, but there were no men to slaughter them and no women to milk them. There were only members of the Brotherhood left now, no men, no women, and they lived in perfect equality-they all starved.

Many had died in the war with Böse and his Beast-men. Many more still had run in the chaos afterward. Father Narr had damned those who ran to eternal damnation. The labor-captains had lashed those who stayed and did not work. Soon no one left, and everyone worked, and yet the world seemed to grow bleaker each day. There were no more homes, no more families, no more warm inns filled with joy, no more women of beauty or men of talent. Father Narr and his priests preached that the world was better than it had been before the death of The Worm, yet none could remember or judge it so. All people came to live in the temple, and each day the labor captains woke them and worked them, and each night the fell into sleep, enwrapped in terror by the wailing of the priests.

It was a house of the dead.

Upon the second story of this cold tomb lived Siegfried. He was still given special treatment, even though he had asked Father Narr for a lot with the rest of the Brotherhood. Father Narr had disagreed stating that the moral Siegfried gave to the people was duty enough to make up for his lack of labor. Being a symbol was a duty in and of itself, Father Narr had explained, gesticulating with those vulture hands. Siegfried  did not understand, but he knew that Father Narr was far wiser and far more in touch with the will of God than he, so he and the rest of the town listened when Father Narr spoke.

“Even when he is wrong.” The tried and worn Siegfried muttered as he slumped in his chair. His body shook suddenly when he realized what he had said, and he forced himself to forget the thought as hard as he could and as quickly as he could. He grunted when he was done with the effort, and slid even deeper into the chair, his pallid limbs hanging over the sides.

The worn Siegfried hung from his chair, staring at nothing. He did not twitch, move, or think. It was only luck that he still breathed. His eyes drifted for a moment, and then he jumped with a shout as he saw Böse’s mangy face staring at him from the shadows.

It took him but a second more to calm down again. It was only his own face staring at him from a shadowed mirror. A trick of his mind, and not an easy one to make, but still, for a second…

Siegfried approached the mirror to look at himself again. A normal man would have flenched from the sight, but Siegfried was without vanity or soul. He approached the grisly mask Böse’s poison had left his face without emotion. Siegfried studied it quietly.

“What do you want?” He said to the mirror.

“What do you want?” The face in the mirror said back.

“Nothing.” Siegfried said truthfully. Father Narr had made his soul holy beyond such things as want.
The face in the mirror laughed. It sounded like Böse.

“Why do you laugh?” Siegfried said, staring at the mirror in terror as he took a step back, but the mirror did not reply again.

Siegfried turned and looked at the world around him. It was grey, and cold, and silent. Like a grave-stone, or a tomb. How had it come to this, he suddenly wondered? Why now, after the triumph of the Brotherhood, was life like this?

“The ones who ran.” He said suddenly, whirling on accusers and critics who were not there. “The ones who fled their duty with their selfish greed!”

The room remained silent. None opposed his answer.

“It was Böse!” He shouted louder and suddenly spun at the mirror. “Böse and his hoard did this to us!” No one challenged him and the room remained quiet as death. Siegfried stood, eyes darting around the room, his body tense, waiting for an attack of some kind to come at him from the too-still shadows.

None came. The room was without life.

“Life for the Brotherhood…” He mutter, shaking with unnamable fear. “Death for the Beasts…” Then he stopped shaking with a sudden pause. Life for whom? Death for who? It had been different once, long ago…
Then it came back to him, quickly now. The night of his battle with Great and Noble Gier. The years of warmth and happiness and safety before that horrible night. The slow death of months that had fallen upon the town afterwards.

“No, no!” He said, sinking to his knees before the mirror and crying, “Make it stop!” But it would not. Death for Gier, Life for Harmlos. That had been his cry that night. He could not un-see what he saw now. Death for Life, a fantasy. Life was always for life, he saw now, and all that could beget Death was more Death, until all the killers had died, one way or another.

He saw then, using his mind for the first time in a year, his choice, his fate, and his doom.

He then looked up into the mirror. Gier stared down at him. He stared into those terror-stricken eyes and that axe-torn throat. Then, slowly and horribly, he watched as Gier changed. The once noble and great dragon became a horrid and black caricature of itself. Siegfried realized that this was the Worm, the lie he had told himself to avoid the guilt of the murder of noble Gier. He then realized with ever mounting horror that he Worm was also himself.

“All value to be repaid in kind.” Siegfried and the Worm said as one, truly understanding it for the first time in his life. He turned away from his reflection in the mirror. He saw it lying there. The golden dagger he had stolen from his victim.

Siegfried stood and grasped hold of the dagger. He then lifted it above his head, staring into the silver-gold downturned point.

“All value to be repaid in kind.” He said one last time, then, laughing, drove the dagger into his right eye.

~*~*~*~

Father Narr threw open the door. He had heard the screams. He had run from his sermon to the second floor while his followers followed silent and confused. He had but a second to see his champion lying with his own hands wrapped around the murder weapon before they came upon him and saw the image as well. He franticly pushed them back with his grasping vulture hands and slammed the door shut behind him, but it was too late. They had seen what had happened…

“What are you staring at?!” Father Narr suddenly shouted into the terrified and whispering crowd. “It was the sorcery of the Beasts, no doubt! Now leave, quickly! Lest I call the labor captains to show you wretched sinners piety!” At mention of the feared captains, the crowd quickly dispersed in terror, back to the sermon hall. Father Narr did not follow. He needed time to plot and plan. Quietly he slipped downstairs and out of the back of the temple into the snow. He needed to be alone while he plotted.

Moving from the temple and into the empty skeleton of what had been a town whose name had already been forgotten, Father Narr stalked into the dark evening, muttering in fear and rage, thinking in small circles, no longer asking why or what, but only how. As he moved a storm of snow rose up without warning. He ignored it, clutching to his staff, the very same staff he had clutched on the night of The Worm’s death as he did now, and pulling himself along with that lone strand of wood as clutched to it in the night.

He walked and muttered and what was left of his mind spun, and he got nowhere. Then, before he could walk much father, he became lost in the snow and storm. He wailed to his god, and clawed at the air, but to no avail. He was helpless.

Then, without warning, he crashed into the snow itself.

With a wail, Father Narr fell to the ground, and with a sudden shudder of terror, he watched as the snow turned towards him. Woolen white snow which split itself to reveal a mangy black hulking body and flashing laughing yellow eyes.

“You!” Father Narr shrieked helpless into the wailing wind.

“Yes.” Böse said, laughing. “Me.”

“You killed him!” Father Narr wailed.

“I have killed many, but I tell you that the death here is only partially on my hands.” The great hulking Beast-men knelt down before the terrified Father Narr. “Would you like me too tell you who is really to blame?”

Father Narr sat in silence as tears of terror froze upon his face.

“You.” Böse said, pointing one black and mangy claw in the face of Father Narr. “You and your iron vulture claw of a knight, but not just you either. All of you. Every last one of you who cheered for the death of the Great and Noble Gier. For you see dear brother, Father Fool, on that night you all made a choice. There is but one thing which would have insured your victory of I and my kind, and that Father Narr-” Böse suddenly leaned forward and brought his curved and vicious claw to rest upon the temple of Father Narr “-is your mind.”

“I-I don’t understand.” Father Narr said, backing away.

“Of course not.” Böse said, laughing at the vulture-man’s terror. “You lie so often you even believe yourself now. I have no need to lie. I am honest. I will tell you Father Fool that the only thing that separates the humans from beasts like you and I is the Mind. Your doom was sealed at the very moment Gier’s was. Once you and your ilk had given the mind up, the land became one of brutes and beasts, and I tell you Father Fool, I am the best of both!” At that, Böse gave a great laugh, and, for once, Father Narr got all of the jokes.

“No!” He screamed as reality came rushing towards him. “No!” Father Narr leapt up and turned too flee, but Böse was far faster. With a savage and bestial roar, the hulking Hyena-man leapt forward and with a single mighty swing of his stone great axe, cleaved Father Narr in two.

Böse stood over the cloven corpse of the dead vulture-priest, and then turned back to the haze of snow and storm.

“Come!” He shouted to his pack. “Quickly before the trail is covered! We shall eat well tonight before we return home!” With that and a great laugh, Böse turned his flashing glowing eyes west towards a city of helpless walking corpses, and then charged, leading his beasts to feast and slaughter.

-Spring-

“How is it?” The great dragon Leben called out to the man who rode upon his back as he swooped low over the green and empty valley.

“Perfect!” The man with the flowing golden hair called down to his friend. “With the profits from the abandoned mine flowing in, the town should spring up in no time!”

“Perfect!” The great dragon shouted back, sweeping in low over the valley again, looking for a place to land.

“Over there!” Said the woman with he pale skin and black silken hair. “That hill will be a perfect to land.”

“Indeed” said the man with his flowing golden hair, shouting into the wind as the dragon descended one last time toward the earth. “Your eyes, as always, are amazing, my dear sweet Freude.”

“I know my lovely Pracht.” She said in return, smiling. “I thank you for your compliments.”

“I only speak the truth.” Pracht said, smiling. The dragon laughed at the two lovers as he landed gracefully on the soft spring grass. The two humans dismounted from their great friend’s back and looked out across the empty valley which glowed in the spring daylight, all the colors, greens and blue and browns and grays, alive with the warmth and life of the season. It was beautiful.

“So this will be the place of our new venture, my great friend.” Pracht said, his bright blue eyes sweeping across the fertile land. “Yes, the mine will provide great wealth for us and all who would work with us, and this land here only needs strong hands and strong minds to produce such a gross of crops as to put all the farmers of the world to shame.”

“Did not some great evil take place here in years past?” Freude said, her great deep eyes going wide at the memory of the story.

“It is not to worry.” The noble dragon Leben spoke. “The sins of the past hold no purchase on the future, which I am sure shall be bright.”

“It would not be possible my friend were it not for the gold which you have given us.” Pracht said, turning to his great and noble friend.

“Think nothing of it.” Said Leben, his great mouth breaking into a warm smile. “I know of you and your skills. I expect that both of us will be much better for this venture. All value to be repaid in kind.”

“All value to be repaid in kind.” said Pracht, a born leader of men as he gazed out into the radiant future.
“All value to be repaid in kind.” said Freude, a woman of great talent and beauty as she grasped onto the arm of the one she loved.
“All value to be repaid in kind.” said the dragon Leben one last time, his great wings stretching over those whom he valued as life returned, pure and free as it should be, to the valley once more.

~Fin~

Book Review; 1984 by George Orwell

The ending of this book sucks. Sucks hard.

You do not understand how horrible the ending of this book is. Their is no happy ending. Negative Utopia is the term used to describe Orwell’s work. How fitting. To put it simply. The bad guys win. Forever. No turning back, no second chances. All that is good in the world is burned to nothing, ground to dust and obliterated, only be resurrected, zombie like, when it is necessary, to be used as a slave and then obliterated again. Thought, beauty, freedom, all cast into an infinite hell of living death forever in bondage for the sake of bondage. My gods, it is… horrifying.

For the uninitiated, 1984  is the magnum opus of social-democrat and social-critic Eric Arthur Blair, know to the body politic as George Orwell. In it, the world has been taken over and dominated by three separate, yet indistinguishable uber-governments. Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia. They are constantly at war with each other. The story follows Winston Smith, a mild-mannered thought criminal who works for the Ministry of Truth as a man who lies. The whole purpose of the Ministry of Truth is to lie and fabricate to the whole point that the past is malleable and under total domination of the Party, but is such a way that it is impossible to find out, let alone know, if the past was ever different. Winston fears and hates the Party a tries to live his life in avoidance of the omnipotent Thought Police who would kill him for daring to think against the party. He eventually stumbles across Julia, a thought-criminal as well who attempts to buck the Party’s obsession with the dehumanization of sexuality by secretly becoming sexually promiscuous as far as can be done under the quasi-omnipotent Party. For a time, the two run together and are happy. They attempt to seek out the Brotherhood, a group of counterrevolutionaries who hope to topple the party. The seek help from an Inner Party member who they believe is part of the Brotherhood. Winston begins reading a book given to him by the man, supposedly written by the very man who runs the brotherhood.

They are betrayed all at once. The man who gave them shelter… was a member of the thought police. The man who they went to to join the Brotherhood… was an interrogator for the Ministry of Love (who concerns itself with only fear and hate). The place where they took shelter… was a trap built against them. In the end, the two of them are taken into the Ministry of Love, and… broken. Stripped of everything that makes them themselves, to have their souls clawed from them by the talons of the immortal and god-like Party. In the end, the two of them are released back into society. They meet and reveal to each other that they betrayed one another, in the deepest most secret parts of their hearts they were forced to betray one another or face horrors they could no comprehend. They are, in essence, destroyed in a way so utterly that it is frightening. Evil triumphs. Forever goodness and justice are destroyed, destroyed, destroyed, and destroyed. The victory of evil is so complete that the good accepts the total and blackest deprivation of their souls, with a smile and a thanks for salvation.

I am, in a word, terrified.

Perhaps, aesthetically, 1984 represents the necessary corollary to the Objectivist concept of romanticism, which is that art is to represent life as it should be. 1984 represents life as it, never, ever, ever, should be. To know good you must, must, see evil. 1984 is, ultimately, the epitome of the very phrase ‘anti-life.’ There is some philosophical confusion in the work, perhaps because of Orwell’s mixed philosophy. It is hard to tell where he stands when he tries to reconcile freedom with equality (which is inherently anti-freedom), or when he tries to separate his concept of socialism from the monster it invariably becomes unless restrained.

Philosophically Winston and Julia could be considered as a sort of mind-body dichotomy representation of the struggle against the Party. Winston is not overly concerned with sexuality, but the intellectual implications of his actions. Julia does not give a fig for the meaning of doublespeak or the nature of the past, just the gratification of the sexual pleasure and bodily rebellion against the chastity of the Party. The two join and for a time are happy, and then are separated and crushed.

The separation of Winston from Julia, of mind from body, is symbolically the ultimate goal of the Party. As revealed in a terrifying speech by a man who comes to embody the Party, the Party now ultimately seeks ultimate power for power’s sake. To do this, they must destroy reality, for if reality is not under their domain, they can lie. Memories, the past, the present, reality, sanity, truth, fact, all of these can will be undone at the command of the Party. Should Big Brother will it, the very edges of reality can and will be pealed back and twisted into whatever shapes are useful at the moment. Should the part will it, men can float like “bubbles,” and not only would this event be remembered, but it would be factually true. The ultimate power of the Party is that it seeks to have its cake and eat it too. It denies reality only until it becomes necessary to use it, then it embraces reality only so  long as it is needed, then it shall consciously change perception and then forget that the change ever happened, and yet know that it can and will happen. This is doublethink, and it is the ultimate goal of the Party and its supreme control of reality.

This is one of the scariest books I have ever read. The methods of the Party are implausible, there is no doubt about it. Humanity cannot be crushed so utterly forever. It is fiction after all. 1984′s grace is not in a factual imagination, but in slowly and steadily stripping away the veneer of conventional evil to show, without question, the terrible thing which lurks beneath. We are given a Stalin analogue to laugh at, only to learn, slowly and terribly, that it is not some man whom we face, but a force of incomparable evil. H.P. Lovecraft is often touted as the master of cosmic horror. Lovecraft is a hack. As 1984 came to a close, I looked into the void beneath evil, and had only the recourse of recoiling in horror as I realized that the void was looking back.

And it was smiling.

Orwell might not have had by an Objectivist’s standard a full grasp of the good, but he knew evil when he saw it. True, irrevocable evil. Read this book. It is worth it.

Final Score; 4.5 out of 5

Journal of a Forsaken Warlock

I was recently given a ten day free trial for World of Warcraft. I decided to play a Forsaken Warlock for the sake of amusement. After playing for two days I died for the first time, and the general oddness of the Wow Game Over system inspired me to write this little ditty based, rather loosely, on my adventures. Enjoy.

(Material based off of World of Warcraft video game copyright Blizzard. This is written for fun and parody, not profit is being made)

~*~*~*~

Journal of a Forsaken Warlock Part 1;

July 15th;

I am excited. Today the local apothecary in service to the Lady asked me to assist him in a project. He claims that he can engineer a plague that will remove both humans and the Scourge from our lands. Finally, the Lady will have her triumph and we shall be free to live… err… die… err… be!

The apothecary has asked me to get him Murloc scales. He believes it shall be a key component in this plague. I have no idea how the scales of fish men will add to the engineering of a protein based pseudo-life-form which sustains itself by taking over and consuming the cells of other life forms, but what do I know? He is the apothecary after all!

I am currently sitting in the wilderness as I write this. My imp (who I have decided to name Chucky) has stolen the town innkeeper’s underwear. As such we are not allowed in the inn at present. Hopefully this is only a temporary situation.

July 16th(?);

I do not know where I am.

I came upon the coast and the Murloc colony late in the evening. I managed to corner one at the cliffs and kill it for its scales. All for the glory of the Lady. I am not sure what exactly happened next, but my last lucid memory was of a green Murloc straddling my chest while twisting a crooked coral knife into my right eye. I believe a second one was using a quarter-staff too grind my testes into my diaphragm. I am not sure wether it was the second Murloc, or a third, that began to electrocute me. I blacked out. When I woke up, I was here.
This place is a strange world of gray. I woke to find myself in what appears to be the Brill cemetery. This place is strange. I can  walk through tombstones, and yet not walls, fences, or trees. There is a strange woman here with me. She says she can bring me back to life right now (am I really dead?), but she would have to break my armor to do so. I think she has some sort of fetish. She also told me that if I can find my body that I can do it myself. I decided that that would be the best course of action. I plan to set out as soon as I… I guess as soon as I finish writing.

(Chucky is here with me. For some reason he still has the inn keeper’s underwear.)

July 17th;

I am lost. I tried going back to the spot where I think I died, but couldn’t find it. I think the Murlocs may have taken my body. Perhaps to an island. I found that I can now walk on water. I think I will attempt to walk off the coast to see if I can find it. If I don’t go to far, I shouldn’t get lost. Chucky seems to have grown irritable. It seems this place lacks any small animals which he can torment. He’ll just have to get over it until I manage to find my body.

July 19th;

For two days it seems I have walked across the ocean beyond the coast. When I found nothing I went out farther and farther. Now I’ve lost sight of the coast. I think I know which way it is. Chucky has found he can torment the phantom sharks that swim below us. Its good that he remains entertained. Perhaps the Murlocs didn’t move my body, or if they did, it was somewhere other than an island hideout. When I find the coast I think I’ll go over it again more thoroughly.

July ?;

Time has lost all meaning in this place. For days on end I have walked without sight of land. All there is to see is the endless expanse of the sea! I think that may be poetic. I do not know. I stopped for a rest some minutes back and Chucky attempted to strangle me with the inn keeper’s lingerie. This is the twelfth time he has tried. I do not think he can succeed, but I worry. He has grown bored with tormenting the spirits of dolphins, sharks, whales, fish, crabs, sea dragons, and other assorted aquatic behemoths. I worry that our relationship may become strained if he does not gain some way to entertain himself soon, or if I do not see land before long. I know if I keep walking in one direction I will either come across some land or the maelstrom. From there I will know which way to go.

But how much longer must I walk?

July?;

Chucky ran away this morning. I tried to lay down for a rest, but I was awakened when he attempted to slit my throat with my own knife. When I didn’t die, he ran shrieking over the waves and into infinity. I am worried now. I am alone. I am lost. I have no hope. Will I be doomed by the gods to wander this gray hell forever? What have I done in life or unlife to deserve this torment? I feel as if I should scream or cry, but I know it will do no good. So now I walk. Endlessly and forever. I walk.

Gods help me.

July?;

Good news! Chucky has returned to me! After going off a tormenting a ship in the real(?) world into crashing into a reef and drowning, he was in a much better mood. He even apologized for trying to kill me so often.
What is even better is that as we walked along I spotted what looked like land on the horizon!
I have never been happier or more fortunate in my life.

July?;

Oh gods… I do not know what we have done… We came upon the island, the island with the strange buildings… I swear we didn’t mean to wake it up! It is so large… we tried to run… tried to run so fast… I think it got Chucky… I can still hear him scream even now… Oh gods, now I know you have sent me to hell, but for what reason I will never know! …I can hear it coming now… Oh gods the very fabric of reality itself quakes as that horrible thing moves… I am crying now… what have I done… what have I-

????;

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!!!!! All hail lord Yog-Sothoth!!! Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! MweHehEhehAHahAhahaHehAhaHaha!!!!!

?;

I appear to have awakened in the graveyard at Brill again. Chucky is here with me. I cannot remember what happened after we reached the island. There is one lone message, and for about the next forty pages is what appears to be a mix gibberish and vaguely familiar magical symbols and pictographs. I do not know what they mean, but when I look at them I feel a small shudder of fear deep in my heart. I am about to set out to find my body again. The strange glowing fetish woman is still here. I still do not trust her. I have decided to attempt to find my body again. I will not leave shore for any reason.

?;

Found body. Was exactly where I had left it. Will attempt resurrection now.

July 15th(?);

Am now once again at Brill Graveyard. Resurrected to find three Murlocs sexually violating my dead body. Murlocs proceeded to do the same to living body. I think I may attempt to now bargain with the glowing fetish woman. Chucky is happy. Hopefully I will soon be able to finish collecting… those… scales…
I do hope the Lady appreciates my hard work.

Poetry; My Special Friend

Here is an old poem of mine. I wrote it as a biology assigment. Mostly a fun little ditty that illustrates my fascination with virology;

~*~*~*~

I have a special friend
Who travels through the air
He rides on planes
Going here, there, and everywhere

People start sneezing
Wherever he has went
He doesn’t get frequent flyer miles
Nor does he pay a cent

He wants to see the world
From Hartford to Timbuktu
He’ll never stop
Not until he’s through

Always on the planes
He just keeps flying
But he may soon have to stop
Because people have begun dying

All around where my special friend has went
People crash and bleed and die
They all scratch their heads
No one seeing why

They say he is an alien
Come from afar
Born in Africa or the Philippines
Or maybe my backyard

“God has come!”
Some will shout
“Come to take his children home!”
While those sinful die all about

Doctors say “A cure will come!”
To keep the panic down
But none quick enough
As long as my special friend is around

Now the buses have stopped
The phones no longer ringing
The T.V. has died
And that idiot on the radio has stopped singing

Now it is only we
Humanity has gone
Just us two alone
On the rise of this lonely dawn

There is something I must say
But hold on, wait, Achoo!
Oh dear, looks like my special friend
has come to see us to.

“My Special Friend”

By:
Nyronus~

Book Review; Genesis of Shannara: The Elves of Cintra by Terry Brooks

For those of you who have yet to be introduced to the epic fantasy land of Shannara… you really shouldn’t have read this book. In fact, unless you were weaned on the epic tales of Allanon and the Ohmsfords, you shouldn’t have even considered purchasing this book at all.

I myself have been a fan of Terry Brooks for quiet some time. I have read all nineteen of his Shannara books (counting the Word and the Void, as we kind of have to now). I will probably read the twentieth book when it comes out, and watch the movie in 2010. I have, on the up and up, enjoyed Mr. Brook’s contribution to the world of words.

As a brief review of the World of Shannara (The Four Lands), In about two hundred years, humans, at the bidding of malevolent beings known as Demons, destroy… everything. In a holocaust of energy and fire, civilization comes to an end in an event known as the Great Wars. Thousands of years later, humans have recovered and are now sharing the world with their mutated cousins who have transformed into beings resembling fairy-tale creatures of old. Elves, who have always been since the time of Faerie, magic, and the creation of the world, have also come into the open. The five races (Man, Elf, Troll, Dwarf, and Gnome) struggle for control. Eventually, the Druids, a multi-racial counsel, are founded to mediate the disputes and try to rediscover the science of Man, and, by accident, the magic of Faerie. Most of the series details the struggle of the Druids and the descendants of the Elven house of Shannara as they try to keep the Four Lands stable and fight the corrupting evils of that arise from Magic (except when its used by Druids… most of the time).

The Elves of Cintra is part of the new Genesis of Shannara series, this one linking Terry Brooks’s Word and Void series with Shannara proper. The Word and the Void is a trilogy of contemporary dark fantasy that centers on the struggles of Nest Freemark, a human magic user and olympic runner who, along with John Ross, a Knight of the Word, struggle against the malevolent agents of the Void, a force of chaos and destruction set in anathema to the Word, the cosmic force of creation and order. The Void seeks to unseat order by using its agents, former humans who have been granted powers and sometimes new bodies, becoming Demons, to sow fear and distrust in society in hopes of speeding its imminent entropic collapse. To illustrate-there was probably a Demon in one of those planes on 9/11. The Word has its agents, Knights of the Word, try and stop the Demons. While in the Word and the Void trilogy, Nest and John manage to defeat their Demon antagonists, with no small cost I might add, it all ends up adding up to near null. In the end, the Demons win.

Shannara Genesis takes place a hundred and fifty years after the Word and the Void ends. By this point, all semblance of civilization has come crashing down. People either brave the irradiated and corrupted wastes and ruins of the world, or shut themselves up in armed compounds, and simply twiddle their thumbs until the Demons and once-men find them. The Demons, long since having toppled order, now seek to stamp out life itself. In the first book, we learn that they are apparently working on some grand conflagration which will, ultimately, wipe the Earth of life, thus achieving the ultimate triumph of the Void over the Word.

The first book introduces you to the cast. Two Knights of the Word, each working on separate projects engineered to save what is left of order and life from the final fire and the literal end of life itself. One journeys to find the Elves and help them, while another look for Nest Freemark’s virgin born half-Faerie son who is destined to save Human-(And Elven, and Dwarven, and Troll…en?, and Gnomish)-kind from annihilation. His name is Jesus… I mean Hawk. His name is Hawk. Hawk was once Gypsy Morph, a creature of wild magic who is destined to do something great. At the end of the last Word and Void book, he joins with Nest to become her son. He is put, as is learned, in stasis after Nest gives birth to him for a time when it becomes apparent that there is no recourse but to use his power, or die at the hands of the Demons.

The second book, The Elves of Cintra, begins to go deeper into plot. Angel Perez, a female Knight, goes to the Elves (of Cintra) to try and help them recover the lost artifacts of the Elf-stones and the Loden. (Longtime Brooks fans should be more than familiar with these items) The Loden is an elfstone meant to be used to protect the Ellcrys. The Ellcrys is a magical and sentient tree which was constructed to hold back evil Faerie creatures known as Demons, it is of note though that Word and Void’s Demons are of a different breed, but possibly similar origin to the Demons of the Forbidding which is the evil twin world where the Demons, the Faerie Demons… Yeah, you really should read the other books.

To come back on topic, the Elves will soon suffer the same fate as humanity (with probably more dire consequences if the Ellcrys is destroyed). Angel helps several young Elves from the last book try to find the Elfstones and Loden while avoiding Elven persecutors under the influence of a changeling demon and a second wolf-like demon who has been hunting Angel.

On the other side of the post-apocalyptic United States, another Knight, Logan Tom, ferries Hawk’s tribe of children and companions away from Seattle (which is now overrun with once-men hunting for Hawk), and attempts to find Hawk. Hawk himself is under the care of a powerful Faerie being named the King of the Silver River (another Brooks necessity). Hawk learns more of his powers and is sent out into the world to fulfill his Destiny which is pretty well summed up in Exodus, only with more nukes and Trolls. Meanwhile, Findo Gask, one of the coolest villains from the Word of the Void, prepares to hunt down and kill Hawk once and for all as a final vengeance against Nest, the only human to ever beat him.

The Elves of Cintra, it should be noted, is something of a transitory novel. While Armageddon’s Children introduced us, Cintra simply sets all of the pieces into play for The Gypsy Morph to come this fall. As such… it suffers. There is some resolution, but all of it incomplete. Most of it sets up for the final bout. Most of the characters, with some notable exceptions, have gaseous personalities. Their lack solid convictions or defining characteristic, it is the worst for the Elven protagonists. It is also true of Hawk’s tribe, the Ghosts. Despite having read the preceding book only three months ago, it wasn’t until the end of Cintra that I could sort out who each one was by name, with, once again, some exceptions. I was also disappointed with Findo Gask. In Angel Fire East Findo was a charismatic, dark, manipulative, and utterly evil character without becoming cliched or sympathetic. His first appearance sent chills down my spine. The new Findo… is lacking. His personality has also become gaseous. This Findo is a sodden old man who has grown tired and is only driven by his hatred of Nest Freemark. He’s not driven enough though for the hatred to become meaningful. Findo has lost his focus. Unfortunately, most of the book focuses on the least interesting characters.

On thing Cintra has done that better than its predecessor is that it manages to synthesize the Word and Void’s dark contemporary fantasy with the high fantasy of Shannara more coherently. In Armageddon’s Children you had to suffer disorienting ad palatable shifts in quality and style when the setting shifted from Ghosts to Elves and back again. In this one, the problem is that while there is no disparaging shifts, the problem was done by subsuming the more edgy and superiorly written Word and Void material to the less stylistically focused and softer Shannara material. In Armageddon’s Children I longed to get past Elf sequences just so I could get back to the more gripping and satisfying Ghost sequences. In Cintra, they all feel the same, and, unfortunately, this is not a good thing. The prose does not create a strong sense of immersion and lacks focus and drive.

This book manages not to feel like classic Brooks-rehash as far as plot goes (I enjoyed the rehashes better though). Some of the characters are good, and the action scenes are rendered competently. I suppose, ultimately, that my disappointment with this book is not that it was bad, but that it was mediocre, at least when your Terry Brooks. I’ve come to expect and certain level of competence (along with sappy esoteric romance scenes and recycled plot elements) from Mr. Brooks. Elves of the Cintra does not fail to deliver, per se, but I have seen Mr. Brooks do better. Much better. I still plan to buy The Gypsy Morph in the fall, and will probably buy the next book Mr. Brooks writes after that, but not if he keeps producing stuff like this. Its not what I read him for.

If your a long time Brooks fan… I would get this piece only because Armageddon’s Children was enjoyable and for the sake of completion. If you have yet to read Brook’s for yourself… go read the other nineteen first. Trust me.

Final Rating; 2 out of 5

I am an Atheist

While blog hopping recently, I stumbled across the Bad Idea Blog. On that blog was a link to a certain special post. Consider this a public and personal challenge and response to Charles Colson’s laughable post, and any and all people who make the same idiot arguments;

I call B.S. my fair and pug faced little friend. It is not us who have to introduce proof, you, as a man who must convince others of a positive, must have proof. Anecdotes aside, you cannot prove a negative. A negative is simply the negation of a positive. Demanding that an atheist prove a non-entity is a rhetorical red herring. Not to mention you make the logical fallacy of assuming that no negative evidence equates to a positive conclusion (that all conclusions have equal logical footing). I cannot disprove a thing until you provide proof. You assume your God exists and then evade reality by demanding that we allow equal footing for your petty bare-assertion as with our logically induced concepts!

The best that can be done is to demonstrate how your God is either a) in contradiction with the laws or reality. or b) self-contradictory. Both of these I can do upon request, but even then I am still negating common positive arguments for God. Of course, you Christians drop the ball and simply claim that he exists “outside” of existence. This is the rhetorical equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “NAH-NAH-NAH-NAH CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”

To be fair, I will accept that it is logically valid for you claim that your God exists based on non-non-proof… as soon as you “disprove” that I myself am not God!

The Parable of the Bus

It was at 2:37 on an autumn afternoon when God got into a fight with a city bus.  One day a messiah walked off of the sidewalk and onto the busy city street. “I am the word of god!” he shouts loudly into the air. “And there are no buses!” It was at that point that a city bus turned the corner onto the messiah’s street. “Buses are figments of your imagination!” The messiah pounds his fist against his chest, triumphant. “Only trains exist!!!” It was at this point that the bus switched into the messiah’s lane. “Truly we should ride trains and only trains because it is only trains that are rea-” It was at the point that the bus engaged God in a contest of strength. To be short, the bus won.

Book Review; Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles B.B. Murder Cases by Nisio Isin

For those of you who are not familiar with Japanese animation, or for those who are, yet have been trapped in the wilderness for several years, the series Death Note is an critically acclaimed anime/manga that tells of the mental struggle between L, the world’s foremost detective, and Yagami Light, a high school genius who happens to stumble across a supernatural notebook that allows him to kill anyone by simply writing their name. Light decides to use the book as a tool to rid the world of suffering and ascend as a new God of Justice. Using the note, he lays waste to the prison population, killing hundreds of people in a few days. All of them die of seemingly causeless heart attacks. L, a faceless and nameless super detective takes up the case and swears to capture Kira (a bastardization of the Anglo “Killer”). L shows his face for the first time and swears to bring Kira down. Light kills him on the spot. The real L then appears and reveals that it was all an elaborate trap and then deduces (although I think he may have really be inducing, I don’t know) the provence of Japan where Kira lives with stunning accuracy. This begins what may be the best 19 hour head game you will have the pleasure of watching (strange part in the middle non-withstanding).

Unfortunately, what I plan to talk about has almost NOTHING to do with all of that.

Now, what started as a supernatural detective story in a popular japanese boy’s comic magazine has blossomed into an international multi-media empire spanning 12 manga books, a 34 episode anime, two horrible live action movies, a whole series of action figures, and a book. I shan’t concern myself with anything at this moment but the book. The rest shall come at a later date. The story of how I got the book is interesting in itself. My best friend’s ex-girlfriend bought it, read it, gave it to my best friend who read it, went out, bought a copy, gave his ex-girlfriend’s copy to another friend who then in turn read it and somewhere along the line someone’s copy ended up in my possession. So I read it. In a single day. 

It was very short.

Now, as a matter of judgement good fiction prose should be gripping prose. A book that draws you face first into its world. It is the sign of a true artist of the word when the line between book and reality wavers and the reader becomes just as much of a living, breathing part of the world of the story as the characters who struggle to make their way in a world as real as our own. That is the sign of a good writer of fiction! Now, not all stories are required to be so totally immersive to be good. Some stories, such as Animal Farm, can get away with floating at the top of one’s mind where one can pick and play with it (as such an allegorical tale should be). Some stories, such as Paradise Lost, can be incredibly well written, but not gripping.

The a primary problem with Another Note is that it draws you in, but then kind of leaves you hanging somewhere to the left. You don’t really integrate with that reality. Your kind of left, floating, simply reading words off of a page. There was very little internal visualization. Scenes, when imagined, did not flow, and the characters all seemed to move without any real reason or transition. I blame this on the stale writing.

The story itself centers not on any real bit of the Death Note plot at all, but on a case L and a secondary character from early in the series undertook years before. Namely the L.A. B.B. murder cases. The secondary character was sharp lion of a woman named Naomi Misora, an F.B.I. agent who nearly had Kira pinned early in the series. She makes a mistake and Light kills her in what may be the most jaw dropping rage-inducing scene in anime history. Nothing makes you hate Light more than what he does to Naomi.

The character we get in the book is a timid cypher who has no driving philosophy or convictions and who doubts herself and has been suspended from the F.B.I. because she couldn’t shoot a thirteen-year old murdering drug smuggler. Yes. thirteen-year old murdering drug smuggler. She has no real reason to not have shot the kid beyond a poorly defined fear and the sense that fate is grinding her into nothing. Which seems to be a huge part of the plot. She has no real control over her surroundings, she’s constantly being manipulated by either L. or B.B.. Which is sad, because she is the most active character of the three.

The story centers around several strange serial murder cases. L, through Naomi, has to solve them and defeat the murder B.B., who in reality is a protege of the man who found L. B.B., or simple B, was trained in hopes of replacing L should L ever die. B wants to surpass L by creating a series of crimes that are unsolvable. B can also see when people will die, and this fact has driven him a little crazy. There is actually a reason for this. When a person obtains a Death Note they can make a bargain with the Note’s owner, a shinigami (death god), to trade half their life for a pair of eyes that can tell the name of the person and when they will die. Now, why B has shinigami eyes… its never explained. The narrator (another of L’s backups) does not even try. In the end, this information had little to do with the plot or characters at all. In fact, the entire story would have made a vast amount more sense had this detail been axed.

Now the story goes on while Naomi and a private detective named Rue Ryuzaki go from scene to scene finding clues and working out hidden messages left by the killer. They manage to figure out some very bizarre logic jumps and figure out when and where the fourth and final murder will take place. The sad thing is that a decently intelligent reader can figure out half the conclusions ahead of time, which does not add to the fun of the book. The other half the time, you can’t because the logic is almost completely divorced from reality. Some of the strange logic games B.B. sets up for his puzzles makes quantum mechanics look sensible.

Now, the final deductive logical mind warp of a conclusion is completely unexpected, but not surprising. It is unexpected in the manner of “Wait, where did all of this information come from?” The data that precedes the conclusion is not covered in any meaningful way in any previous page. Its there, if one were to look it over the book with as hard an eye as the detectives, but for those of us who just read the book, the conclusion seems to magically step into the narrative, fully formed, made up of horribly obscure facts and logically warped turns of phrase. 

In the end Naomi single handedly solves the case and stops B from constructing an unsolvable crime. She returns to the F.B.I. with much glamour and praise and somewhere in the intervening years she grows a personality.

In the end, the narration was sub-par. The characters weren’t just flat, they where one dimensional, and most lacked in anything resembling a personality beyond an assorted handful of psychological quirks. The plot, was very unfulfilling and filled with logic almost divorced from reality. Now, while this is not a horrible book in any manner, its overwhelming mediocrity makes every unfulfilled promise and flaw seem so much worse. It was probably not helped that the book was very hyped by all of my friends. In the end, if your were ever curious as to what it would look like if B.F. Skinner wrote a prequel to an critically acclaimed anime/manga series, now is your chance.

Final Rating; 1.5 out of 5

Book Review; Animal Farm by George Orwell

One thing I found out that was utterly fascinating when reading this book; George Orwell was a socialist. A socialist! The man who will be forever remembered as the one who took the blade of satire against the dragon of Stalinism and told the parable that has become the catch-call of anti-statists everywhere, a socialist! Fascinating, but I guess that only goes to show that you can find an honest man anywhere.

I purchased the two Orwell classics, 1984, and Animal Farm as part of a graduation gift from a friend. Having never read either, I felt I was in for a treat. I began reading Animal Farm first, due to its shortness, and read it while on a trip. The book itself is short and very good serving as a parable of the evil that was Joseph Stalin. According to the preface written by Russell Baker, Animal Farm was written out of the time when Orwell had gone to Spain to fight for the democratic government there. He had fallen in with a group of Trotskyists and fought with them (Stalin was, ironically, supporting the democratic government). Most of his friends and comrades were carted off, imprisoned, murdered, or simply vanished, all at the hands of Stalin’s political cronies in the name of the infamous purges, revealing the true nature of Stalin’s “Soviet Experiment.” In response, Orwell wrote the scathing fair-tale of Animal Farm in which we learn that some animals are more equal than others.

The story is a rather simple one. The animals, fed up with being oppressed by the humans (read; The bourgeoisie), and on the spur of the moment, seize a moment of weakness and toss off their human oppressors. The first year is almost utopian. The animals learn to harvest and make food, and do so better than humans, and are fed well and are happy. As time goes on, the pigs, who are the smartest, begin to organize the animals for better work. The two main pigs are Napoleon (Stalin) and Snowball (Trotsky)  constantly bicker and fight. Napoleon is a terrible speaker, but is good at drumming up support in-between democratic meetings. Snowball is an excellent speaker and something of a war hero after driving off an human invasion in an attempt to re-take the farm. The two squabble over everything. Eventually, Snowball proposes a Windmill that will provide the farm with electricity and greatly improve the standard of living. When it becomes apparent that Snowball will have his way, faster than you can say “Cheka” Napoleon summons a hoard of brainwashed beasts of dogs who attack Snowball and drive him from the farm.

Things do not get better.

Napoleon has Squealer, the pig’s master propagandist, begin a campaign to paint Snowball as a traitor and a supporter of humanity. The guard of massive dogs helps drive the point home. Napoleon steal’s Snowball’s windmill plans and begins to build. Napoleon also begin dealing with humans. Things on the farm go downhill. The humans attack, and manage to destroy the Windmill before being driven off. Napoleon also begins to torture and execute everyone who ever opposed him. He trots the animals out to watch as his guard dogs savage anyone and everyone who admits to having sympathized with Snowball. The farm runs red with blood. The animals must work and sacrifice and are left tired and beaten. Boxer, a tireless horse of immense strength, suffers a crippling injury while trying to rebuild the windmill, just before he reaches the age of retirement. Napoleon sells him for glue.

Eventually all the founding principles of Animal farm are corrupted and warped to serve Napoleon’s whims. By the end of the book, the farm is in just as bad a shape as it was under the humans, but all of the animals are too dumb to remember or realize. In the final chilling scene, Napoleon eats a dinner with the humans and proceeds to dismiss all of the ideas of the revolution. An altercation breaks out between the pigs and the human’s, and the animals realize, with some horror, that it is impossible to tell the difference between the two.

The tale of Animal Farm is a fascinating one. We watch as the idealistic revolt is warped by the power hungry pigs and is destroyed from within. We watch as the pigs become the evil they swore to overcome. Its ironic, isn’t it? A thing of note is that Orwell seems to have a great deal of respect, if not hero worship, for Trotsky. Snowball is shown to be brave, committed, intelligent, caring, charismatic, and passionate in juxtaposition to the thick, brutal, and un-personable Napoleon. While it appears that Orwell was not a Trotskyist, he was influence by them and his favoritism to him versus Stalin shows.

While Orwell claimed that Communism is not true Socialism, which he supported, two things too note here is how the pigs became almost as humans, and the exact progression of the quality of life on the farm.

It is truly telling that the pigs, in the end, turned into humans. They became their own symbol of evil. Wether Orwell was conscious of it or not, this illustrates the ultimate hypocrisy of all forms of socialism. They show the evils of people in power, and their only solution is to shift power itself. They do not realize that such a concentration of power is the problem in and of itself! The evils of corrupt and power hungry businessmen are just as applicable to any communist dictator. As illustrated in Animal Farm, the pigs became as humans. So too do the idealistic socialists, when given the chance, become just as bad as the aristocrats and wage-slavers they fought against. The fallacy of socialism is to blame the system for the bad results. They attack capitalism without understand just what capitalism is and how or why it can go wrong. When reading quotes from Marx, his ideas of an entrepreneur come off sounding far more like a feudal baron than Bill Gates. Since they do not understand the bad premises they fight against, so they are forced to make ignorant and overreaching attacks and then fall to the same bad ideas as before. Socialism isn’t new, its a re-hash of the same bad ideas that gave us the wonders of the Dark Ages.

Secondly, there is an interesting pattern in the progression of life on the farm. Life is miserable under the farmer, but, after the oppressive force of the humans is gone, life suddenly improves. The animals, when left to their own devices, learn how to do things better and quicker than the human’s. Life is, well, good. Yet, life starts to go downhill with the more power the pigs gain. There is a direct correlation between the strength of the pigs and of the misery of the animals. Wether Orwell meant it or not, this illustrates another valid point. Given freedom, the animals do better on their own. This in itself seems an argument FOR Objectivist-style capitalism, not against it. Given a small but effective democratic government, devoted to only the protection of the farm, the animals prosper. Yet, when that government overflows into their lives, they are crushed and ground under foot. When left free, to produce, the animals prosper, when controlled, they struggle and squalor and get nowhere. The problem with any type of statism is that it takes the maxim “four legs good, two legs BETTER” to heart, without realizing that instead of making everyone crawl on four legs, it should be trying its hardest to let everyone stand up on two. Its not fair to blame the situation of the U.S.S.R. solely on Stalin (which is not to say that he is any less of a cancer upon the history of human kind) or any other single dictator. They are symptomatic of the bad idea that some animals, or people, are more equal than others.

In the end, Animal Farm is one of the best written triads against the Soviet Union ever written. It is intelligent, simple, clever, and effective. While it in itself is not a master-piece of story-telling or engrossing plot, I do recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in European history, Communism, or the history of ideas. A good book in the end.

Final Rating; 3.5 out of 5.

What if FDR Were a Robot?: Why I am Not Looking Forward to November

Now that I have your attention.

My family and I were sitting down around a good meal. My little brother has been on a bit of a History kick this evening, and we started talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mostly in response to a four hour documentary the history channel ran last night. We got to talking about political parties through history, and my little brother asked which party FDR belonged to.

My father replied that he was a Democrat.

But, that if he were alive today, he would be a Republican.

This struck me as funny.

Roosevelt? New Deal Roosevelt? Roosevelt, the F of the WTF American Fascist Trinity, Roosevelt? (The other two being cousin Teddy and “my only regret is that it is all so terribly true” Wilson) …A Republican?

For a second, I thought my father was insulting his own party. Then I realized, with no small amount of horror, was that his observation was all so terribly true. I left the table with this on my mind, and then I suddenly realized two things. A) If Roosevelt was alive today, it wouldn’t matter which party he paid lip service to, and B) If Roosevelt were alive today, he would win the ’08 election, hard.

So lets think about this for a second. Lets pretend some mad scientist resurrects FDR as a robot, and Robo-FDR (RFDR) runs for president. He would win. Why? Well, he would be the only charismatic pro-war pro-healthcare pro-Jesus candidate on the scene. The Republicans would get their war, the Democrats their socialized medicine, and everyone else gets someone that they don’t have to de facto hate.

Well, except for us pro-choice capitalists, libertarians, classical liberals, Objectivists and general lovers of the Constitution. We get left out in the cold, but we’re used to it by now.

Right now, while I don’t dwell on it often, the prospect of the next election has filled me with dread. I rather wish I could have gone and voted in the last one. At least then I could have had the savage pleasure of voting against old man Bush. Screw the idiot Kerry. Getting Bush out would be more than worth it. Now I have no one to vote for, and EVERYTHING to vote against. Where is an anti-war anti-healthcare man supposed to stand? Each platform is just another trap for whittling away my liberty. Where is the platform for pro-liberty?! Where is freedom?! I am forced to decide between having either to suffer the phantom of a draft, or the scourge of socialized medicine. At best, McCain will go and maybe actually start killing some bad guys, but I have my doubts. At best, Obama will set up a dysfunctional tax burden of a system and nothing more, but I have doubts.

Or maybe both are just blustering and strutting across the stage. God, I can only hope.

At times I lean towards McCain. Then I remember “Oh, wait, yeah, worthless war in Iraq, and Don’t forget about Jesus!” Then I tilt in favor of Obama, but then I recall “Oh, yeah, capitalism is a good thing.” So it comes down to the rotten choice between paying for a war with my wallet, or one with my body and my rights. Stopping the rise of the Mighty Right is a good thing, but lets not forget the poor warped and already beaten medical industry.

The country is rolling downhill. It seems right whenever everything starts to go good in this country, it all has to go to the runs. The political system has become a defunct piece of warbling garbage. Two parties of bull and bollox? And now we get all the fun flavors of what we hate being rolled into one as each party becomes more and more like the other. Whom do I vote against? I have no real idea. Who do I vote for?

Why not just get it over-with;

At least HE makes sense.