The Eternal Feud

Another over-complicated dream sequence for you guys to read. I edited this one down more than the others so far.

 


 

I entered a room engulfed in white tile. Dark gray streams of concrete stood still, solidified within the field, ripples and all. Four pictures adorned the entirety of four walls. One profiled a fjord in its depth and security. Another depicted a temperate rainforest abundant in tall trees. Yet another of a glacial lake framed with mountains caught my eye. The blue water of it entered the spider-webbed fissures and crevasses inherent to a glacier. The remaining wall presented a steep mountain top, the sheer cliffs allowing a tenuous foothold for the resident snows.

 

In the center of the space, a reflective, metal, human-esque sculpture floated up. I went to it. Upon a touch, it transformed into a gray padded body suit. The intricate stitching had a zipper that moved down the side of the neck, ran over the shoulder, across the torso, and down one leg. Both sides were identical.

 

I slipped the suit on, zipped up the sleeves. It fit perfectly.

 

My hand now became a contorted reflection through to the floor below. The entire room felt alien with a somber metallic sheen, and the pictures morphed to perfect mirrors. I tried to look at myself, just to see the opposite wall. Moving closer and closer changed nothing. I reached out and saw a ripple in the reflection. The truth of my invisibility dawned on me.

 

I knew exactly what to do, merely walk out of the room. The insane ability — yet untapped — rushed the environs into a blurred frenzy. The scenery went beyond any mortal feats of perception, somehow forcing a long forgotten sense to reinitiate. I intuited going out the door, turning right, walking up a flight of stairs, and stopping on the edge of the roof. We flew into a high jump off the roof, keeping our body narrow and straight, pleasing a new urge. The invisibility failing at downward speed necessitated swift accomplishment. I prepared to land kneeling, compressing as broaching ground impact. Rolling over face up, pounding the ground, threw me into standing. My quick reaction to every minutia occurred without thought. Circling a group of soldiers — all marked as friendly. Following the line in the sand, so to speak marking the path, avoiding any and all incognizant, running at an incredible speed into a two-story fence harboring spikes! Instinctively jumping right up, rolling tucked over the fence, I stood ready for anything.

 

Noticing a group in the distance, I sprinted there. My arrival went unnoticed by everyone there, marked as targets. That received a message to touch each target, depositing a piece of invisibility behind. The pearlescent mirrors shone in the near ubiquitous gray. A countdown sounded… one… two … three…the targets crumpled into neat mounds all around.

 

At the epicenter of the carnage, there swirled a black cloud dropped out of the heavens. Shortly, stabbing me by throwing a sword. Engaging the new target, my suit became a prickly defense and attack arsenal of spines. I entered the ominous black gas quagmire to perpetrate my continuing attack. My defense articles tossed away a hastily thrown enemy sword, the first of an unrelenting black bolt barrage and other metal armament, with glimpses of a humanoid dripping in black ooze. One bolt penetrated my defenses. A surge of adrenaline jumped me away a 100 yards, the black mysterious weapons system stayed immobile at enemy camp. I withdrew my attack/defense scheme, my most powerful option requiring a high degree of precision jump onto the target. The jump was ready. Jumping as high as possible, everything grew small. The suit changed shape, directing me over the target. The invisibility flensed off to near my feet, the gray underlayment remained for my protection. I plunged into the high reaches of the dark cloud, then impacted with the force of a small earthquake. The cloud dispersed with the disintegration of the enemy.

 

Secured behind the invisibility barrier, a high pitch whine signaled intruder alert. A cold embrace ran up along with an associated numbing climbing through me. A black film tarnished the lustrous finish. I yelled for help. No one was there to hear my cries. Everything that was mine, my body, my thoughts, my feelings, ceased to exist. I gasped my last breath.

 

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The Others and Why I Can’t Stop Reading

I came upon a series a few years ago. It’s a series called The Others, written by Anne Bishop. For a long time, I’ve been thinking what about the series makes me coming back, except having purchased the entire series up to now. A lot of things can keep me coming back, but everything from before doesn’t work with this series. The characters aren’t particularly interesting. The world in the book isn’t that different from real life. Nothing is really there from a first glance.

 

written in red.jpg
Written in Red, Book #1

Hopefully, this blog post will help me figure out what’s the appeal of The Others. Written in Red was the first book I’ve read that starts with an introduction that says the history of a fictional world. It basically says alongside humans there was another comparable top predator. Bishop refers to these other people as the Others, Earth Natives, or terra indigene. Well, the Earth Natives control the natural resources and humans make stuff. Everything humans have is basically rented or purchased from the terra indigene. One area in Europe is rightfully under human control without owing the Others anything.

 

 

I’ll dissect that idea here. The terra indigene are creatures that take on the form of other top predators they encounter. Most of them have a human and animal form. Some can become smoke. Others shift into the elements. And others can turn into anything at will. This relates to skinwalkers in our world, people of myth that can supposedly take the shape of animals. I equate the Others to Native Americans who have way more power due to their ability to be stronger and just as smart. What happens if the invaders or early explorers found people much more dangerous than themselves? Something very similar to the world of the Others happens.

 

This dynamic sometimes gets interesting. The clash between the Others and humans is always there in the background, but it isn’t that big in my mind. That dynamic has appeared a few times in other stories. Basically, every vampire and werewolf story is like that. I don’t really like that monster genre. Where the protagonist is a vampire or werewolf.

 

In the first book, Written in Red the moment that got me in was the nature of the cassandra sangue or blood prophet. Some girls and women have the ability to tell prophecies after they’re cut. That was new to this genre. After cutting, they speak and experience euphoria or hold it in to remember the vision and feel the pain of the cut. That euphoria bugged me for a little bit. I decided that was plain fiction. One such person, Meg is the protagonist of this story.

 

The combination of those two storylines effectively drives the story forward. Each book delves into a different aspect of those concepts. A series exploring the same facets of something in each book quickly grows repetitive. I haven’t read any adult series, but that makes sense based on the other series I’ve read.

 

Written in Red was about Meg escaping the compound and finding work with the Others. People like Meg, cassandra sangue were allowed to be held against their will by benevolent caretakers to help them survive their addiction to cutting and the euphoria. Those rules didn’t prohibit cutting the girls to make a profit by selling prophecies/cuts. Basically, the rich wanted that to continue, so they had their lobbyists pressure the government. Meg escaped one of those facilities. Most cassandra sangue weren’t exposed to the outside world so living outside was difficult.

 

Bishop adds new jargon throughout her books. I found that interesting as a writer. How should I introduce new words through fiction? The learning curve required probably wouldn’t work with how I write, but seeing it for real was something. The first one was A walk on the wild side, basically an intimate liaison between a human and a human form terra indigene.

 

The storyline was a group of mercenaries went after Meg at the courtyard of the Others. Meg’s visions alerted them to the attack. Premonitions are an effective way to drive stories forward. Each book has them in different lights. In Written in Red, Meg spoke aloud her visions and other people interpreted the few words she spoke. In the second book, Murder of Crows, Meg dreamed her visions first. After cutting, she held in the vision and did everything she needed to do to save the most people. The third book was frustrating. Vision in Silver didn’t show the full prophecies. The bits and pieces we got were impossible to decipher until it actually came true. Right now, I’m reading book four, Marked in Flesh. Meg uses cards to reveal prophecy and other cassandra sangue bolster her abilities.

 

murder of crows
Murder of Crows, Book #2

Murder of Crows is about two drugs, feel good and gone over wolf. Both are the same drug. The Others get feel good, a downer. Humans get gone over wolf, an upper for aggression and courage. Those drugs egged humans on to kill a group of Others that were shifted to Crows, hence the title. A group of people attack the Others’ courtyard like in book #1. Bishop made the similarity between the euphoria cassandra sangue felt and sexual pleasure. The villain drew me in. She was beyond convinced that the Others behaved like humans. A sexy body didn’t affect the others in any way. They didn’t find thin people appetizing, except in rare occasions. Her behavior was strange to them, and that cracked me up. I know I’m strange, hence the moniker radical.

 

 

vision in sliver
Vision in Silver, Book #3

Vision in Silver was about finding a way for cassandra sangue to in live the outside world. The other plot was about the rising friction between the humans and others. Somehow jewels financing the human uprising got into the hands of the Others, and people wanted it back. The Others are more deadly than people can imagine.

 

 

marked-in-flesh
Marked in Flesh, Book #3

Marked in Flesh is the first real attack on the Others. The events leading up to and after the event are chronicled. You can guess what happens when a weaker force underestimates and attacks a stronger and more vicious force. Again, prophecy pushes the story forward.

 

 

A few things about the series bug me. The shifter story element seems all too familiar in this genre of urban fantasy. Sometime I should probably read the most successful series in this genre, The Twilight Saga. Haven’t had the pleasure yet, but eventually. The cutting experience is very different from reality in some ways and similar in others. Euphoria doesn’t result, and cutting isn’t as it seems in the book. Cutting is a response to some internal frequently psychological occurrence. A lot of unnecessary details are abundant. I doubt we need to read the characters changing between boots and indoor shoes every time they enter a building. The plethora of characters bugs me. It seems like in every book, a handful of characters just appear. If each character was new, dynamic, and transformative that would be something. The characters, except a few, seem like filler or a different name to use. Those flat characters aren’t even described frequently, externally or internally. Each book assumes you remember quite a lot about the characters, but the books come out months apart. I know a few books down the line, I’ll pull the ejection seat.

 

Anne Bishop does a few good things. There are a ton of subplots. Something is always going on. The descriptions of the buzzing, tingling, and prickling skin are effective as a divining rod to find the focus of a prophecy. Different characters are used as the point of view for different sections of the book, from chapters to a few lines. Meg’s battle with addiction is interesting, because it doesn’t exist exactly like that in real life. The basis is probably chemical addiction like smoking. I wish that so many Native Americans weren’t wiped out during the settlement of the world. The native people weren’t doing anything wrong, and we needlessly eliminated them in mass numbers. Maybe the world of the Others is how things could’ve been. The aspect of writing simply and getting complex ideas across interests me. Also, the way Bishop manages to put a sinister light on the most basic interactions.

 

The Others is a great series to read. Graham Kar.

 

GK

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