8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks

8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #9

Today’s snippet is from my Lady Dru WIP. Our intrepid heroine, her companion, Karl, and Mr Hall’s Man Friday have boarded the airship and are waiting for takeoff. They meet the two ancient history professors who are accompanying them. Here is today’s snippet:

Karl and I joined the professors at their table. Franzen had his pipe in hand, unlit.

“Rather uncivilized not being able to smoke,” Franzen said.

“Better that then risking us all burning to death,” Doctor Rodman replied.

“Even with the German advancements in sealants and hydrogen purity, better safe than sorry,” I said.

“I suppose,” Franzen admitted.

“What do you make of the discovery?” Karl asked.

“Of course, we’ve only seen photographs and read a description,” Doctor Rodman said, “but we’re hopeful it is the genuine article.”

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #8

Today’s snippet comes from an early chapter in my forthcoming novel The Golden Fleece Affair. Here we see a little different side of Lady Dru. Having learned how to shoot a submachine gun when in the Soviet Union on her previous adventure, told in The Moscow Affair, she has occasion early on in her new adventure to use one again.

She, her partner, Karl, and Jake Branson, Mr Hall’s Man Friday, are being pursued by a mysterious black Hudson Hornet. Now, on a narrow and winding road, sandwiched between a semi and the Hornet, the big black mystery car tries to run them off the road. But Dru is ready. She cocks the submachine and sticks it out the window. Then the fun begins:

The Hudson hit us and kept accelerating. The jolt caused me to hit my head and see stars for a moment. Branson was struggling to keep us on the road. I saw a man lean out the passenger side of the Hornet. He had a gun. I pulled the trigger on the submachine gun.

The windscreen on the black sedan shattered and the wind blew the glass back into the car. The behemoth drifted over to the side of the road, up onto the angled cut through the earth, hit a boulder, flipped end over end, came back down onto the road, rolled over onto its roof, and burst into flames.

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #7

Today’s snippet is from The Moscow Affair, my published Lady Dru novel, and gives a little picture of Karl, who is Dru’s soulmate. Because he’s married, he is usually very reserved when in public with Dru; something she complains about, but is resigned to.

They are at Cardington waiting to board the airship Deutschland for Moscow and decide to eat lunch before boarding. At the restaurant, Dru orders stout and a Ploughman’s Lunch, while Karl orders ale and Bangers and Mash.

“What,” I said, “no elaborate French dish with Bordeaux?”

“Ja,” he replied, “Ich bin eine Hessisches heute.”

I gave him a smile. “And all the other times you eat, you’re from Paris?”

“Oui.”

He reached across the table and ran a finger over the back of my hand.

“I wish we were staying longer,” I said. “I’d love to hear the swing band and dance.”

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #6

In today’s snippet, we find Lady Dru, Dunyasha, and Kit Somers (our intrepid Graham auto salesman turned secret agent) having been captured by the evil Count Neratoff and SS-Sturmbannführer Leiprecht. They are being held captive in a room deep underground beneath an old, abandoned church. Together, with Kit’s two knives hidden in his boot soles, they have cobbled together a desperate array of “weapons” to help them escape: a bucket, serving as a chamber pot, a couple handfuls of dirt scrapped from the dirt floor, and the length of electric cord for the light bulb. Now they need to figure out what to do. Kit has just said, “Our only chance will be when they open that door.” Here is the snippet:

“Yes,” Dunyasha agreed and added, “It would be be nice to know how many are out there.”

“When you roll the dice,” I said, “you have to play the numbers you get.”

“This isn’t backgammon, Dru,” Dunyasha replied.

“Close enough,” was my response.

We talked it over and concocted a plan. Probably half baked at best. But half baked was better than not baked at all. So we sat and waited; waited with our half baked plan of escape.

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #5

In today’s snippet, Dru, her friend Dunyasha, and Branson (a member of the expedition) are making their way out of the wooded hills at night to Kutaisi, Georgia. They are armed in the event of trouble and, of course, trouble comes. Our party of three encounter men walking up the road from the opposite direction. The men have lanterns to light their way. Dru and her team take to the shallow ditch along side the road for cover. It’s touch and go if Dru and her companions will be discovered. Here’s the snippet:

… I saw the lanterns were very close and then I sneezed.

In a heart beat, four gun barrels were pointed at me. In the language I know best, English, I said, “I guess you boys found me.”

They said something in Georgian. I started to get up, when Dunyasha yelled, “Down!” The rapid fire “chu-chu-chu” of the suppressed Sten gun spoke. When the firing stopped, I waited for a moment before i looked up and saw Dunyasha looking at the bodies. Her figure was illumined by the light of the fallen lanterns.

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #4

What is science fiction, or even science fantasy, without a robot? In today’s snippet we meet “Ernest”. At this point in the novel (hot off my pencil as of last night), “Ernest” has just been uncrated. No one in Lady Dru’s party knew “he” even existed. Except the rather suspicious Mafeking Smith, who brought the machine along. A historical note here. Ernest Schiebold did indeed work on a particle beam weapon for the Germans in WW II and the company Richert and Seifert produced the parts. Weaving fact in with fiction, I think, helps to make the fiction more believable.

So here goes:

…before us was an odd looking machine. Mounted on caterpillar treads was a brushed steel cylinder, with a domed top. Attached to the sides were two mechanical arms. From the top came a rod and attached to the rod was a device that looked something like and electric torch. The entire machine was about seven feet tall. The width, from tread to tread, was also seven feet; the cylinder itself, five feet.

Pointing to the machine, Mafeking said, “Meet Ernest. He is a Class III Robotic Wonder Weapon Self-Propelled. Developed by Richert and Seifert, Ernest employs the latest in particle beam weaponry: the Schiebold Röntgenkanone IV-D.”

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #3

Thanks to the advice given previously by my friends on Dieselpunks.org, I’ve revised the first 8 sentences of my new Lady Dru novel. I’ve dumped the “info dump” in favor of showing Dru’s impish side. Let me know if this is an improvement, or if I need to go back to the drawing board. Here is the snippet:

I pushed the throttle and watched the speedo needle cross the one hundred miles per hour mark and pulled back on the stick. The nose of my Puss Moth rose and continued rising. Up, up, up we flew until we were upside down. I pushed the stick forward and down we came; pulled back and leveled off, completing the loop.

Karl started awake and I put my little baby into a displacement roll (something like a corkscrew); once, twice, thrice. Karl started screaming, “We’re going to crash!”

I brought the plane back to level just as Karl grabbed an airsick bag and threw up. I was laughing so hard, tears ran from my eyes.

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #2

Today’s snippet is from The Moscow Affair (published in November). In the novel the character Dunyasha is a Russian baroness, who has lived in America since a child to escape the Bolshevik Revolution. Now she is back in Russia trying to overthrow the Communists in the wake of Stalin’s death. Even though married to the Baron Bobrinsky, she and the Baron have a very open marriage and in fact don’t see much of each other. Dunyasha has fallen in love with Dru, but Dru doesn’t feel the same for Dunyasha. At this point in the novel, a young Czarist fighter, whom Dunyasha cares deeply about, died in a battle. He was a poet and the poem below is his last, which he had written for her but didn’t get the chance to give her:

Amongst the trees of this muddy spring
I sit foxhole deep and zeal fades away.
Again the rain so gently falls today
And to this gun, a babe to the breast, I cling.
We wait, listening for the word he brings
Which tells if we shall go or we shall stay.
And yet, it matters not. We just obey,
Day in, Day out, the orders of our King.
Foxhole deep in mud I sit thinking thoughts
Of her and all the choices wrong I made
Which put me here and left her, longing, there.
The things we do for love of king, I swear
We should think over again the things we were taught
And give our love to no one but a maid.

Tears were in my eyes by the time she finished the poem.

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8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks

Last Sunday, I participated for the first time in the 8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks.org. The exercise was fantastic. I met great people and got tremendous feedback. Check it out if you are into dieselpunk and maybe looking for a little feedback on your writing. Or just check it out for fun. 8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks.org.

Characters have a way of appearing in a story. Especially, I think when one is a pantser. In my published novel, The Moscow Affair, such a character strolled onto the stage and stayed there. She is Avdotya, the Baroness Bobrinsky, known to everyone as Dunyasha. She and Lady Dru become best of friends.

Here is a snippet from my forthcoming Lady Dru novel. Dru has just said she is so very glad Dunyasha decided to join the expedition.

“I almost didn’t,” Dunyasha replied, “but this one –”, she hooked a thumb in Klara’s direction, “was most persuasive. Besides, I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”

“So you decided to join us just to play mother hen,” I said.

“Someone has to. You get yourself into the damnedest predicaments. Doesn’t she, Karl?”

Karl smiled and said, “That she does. Sir Galahad would have to put in overtime.”

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