Category: Books

Pollen in Future Visions: Volume 3

    Patrick

My story, Pollen, has been published in the new anthology, Future Visions: Volume 3.

A dying ecology. An agricultural system on the brink of collapse. Science has a solution: robotic bees. Tiny flying drones capable of crop pollination. A lot is riding on this first test. But for Abby and her fellow roboticists, the results may be more than they bargained for.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Drabbledark: An Anthology of Dark Drabbles Kickstarter

    Patrick

Do you like short fiction? Do you like horror? Do you like supporting authors for their work? If the answer to one or more of the above is an enthusiastic “Yes!” then I’ve got the book for you.

It’s called Drabbledark: An Anthology of Dark Drabbles. It’s short flash fiction of the horror variety, edited by Eric Fomley. Inside is a story of mine called “I Do”.

If you are interested, you should check out the Kickstarter campaign. Back the campaign to get the book cheap and help increase the amount of pay that the authors gets for their work.

I’m looking forward to seeing the final copy!

Best Horror of 2016 – Honorable Mention

    Patrick

I’m pleased to announce that my short story “The Howard Family Tradition” was chosen as an honorable mention for Best Horror of the Year Volume 9 by editor Ellen Datlow.

For a full list of who else was chosen you can check out her site.

The story is not in the book linked above, but it is listed in there somewhere. If you are interested in reading it you can still get it where it was originally published in WeirdBook #32.

George R.R. Martin is not Kind to Hands: Hand and Arm Injuries in Game of Thrones

    Patrick

In Game of Thrones and the rest of the Song of Ice and Fire series we know that he is not kind to those that hold the title of King’s Hand, for sure. But I’m talking about actual hand injuries and arm injuries. Have you ever noticed how many injuries to those extremities are inflicted upon characters?

For some reason, I have. And for some further unknown reason, I have decided to make a list. And here they are, in no particular order: SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

  • Jon Snow burns his hand on a lantern when fighting a white walker.
  • Caitlin Stark cuts her hands on a knife while defending herself from Bran’s assassin.
  • Theon Greyjoy has his finger flayed by a Bolton.
  • Sandor “the Dog” Clegene gets his arm burnt white fighting Beric Dondarrian.
  • Great John Umber gets his fingers bit off by Grey Wind.
  • Davos had parts of his fingers cut off by Stannis.
  • Jaime Lannister gets his hand cut off by Vargo Hoat.
  • Qhorin Halfhand, you guessed it, has half a hand due to a Wildling axe.
  • Victarion Greyjoy injures his hand in a duel. Then has a weird mage set it on fire to heal it.
  • Ghost finds a lone hand in the woods, leading the Night’s Watch to a two corpses.
  • Arya gets her hands scratched up pretty good while trying to catch cats.
  • Urrigon Greyjoy lost half a handplaying The Finger Dance, the axe game of the Iron Islands. (Countless hands and fingers have been lost by people playing that game…)
  • Lady Hornwood chews off her own fingers because her dear husband, Ramsey Bolton, locked her in a tower with no food.
  • Marillion the singer  confesses to killing Lysa Arryn, and as punishment gets a few fingers cut off.
  • Narbo, a theif in Braavos, gets stabbed in the hand a prostitute, losing the use of three of his fingers. Poor guy can’t pickpocket anymore!
  • Tanselle had her finger broken by Prince Aerion in The Hedge Knight.
  • Way back when, some guy named Silver Denys tried to tame the wild dragon Sheepstealer, and got his arm bit off in the process.
  • Lancel Lannister obtains an arm injury in the Battle of Blackwater Bay. It turns him religious.
  • Nymeria bites Little Shit Joffrey’s arm, hopefully inflicting great pain.

 

There are probably many more! Maybe some day I’ll create a comprehensive list. It will be the most useless Game of Thrones list ever. If you would like to contribute any I missed, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Also, I found an appropriate Q+A from Mr. Martin in this interview:

I have a question that’s been bothering me for six books now – what’s with hands? How come characters keep getting hand injuries?

GRRM: Well, actually hand injuries were very common in the Middle Ages. When you fight with swords and axes and do a lot of hand labour, you get a lot of hand injuries. In fact, even leaving out the swords and axes you get a lot of hand injuries. my father was a longshoreman, a stevedore, and I know they would always get hand injuries. They would wear protective gloves, but they would still get injuries. There are other touches of realism; my characters who fight in repeated battles in these books tend to get scars. They lose noses and ears and become disfigured, and that’s a consequence of those battles. That’s where the icon of the Scarred Warrior comes from. Every time you go into a fight you risk emerging a little less pretty than when you went in.