Illegal Aliens XVII

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland awoke after bringing an attractive young woman home, alone. Something of a surprise, and in some ways a shock. His mobile chirruped into life and the works manager – where he’d been called to examine a mysterious block of Roman concrete – told him the “bloody German bomb, it went.” A knock on the door interrupts their conversation just after Mr Shah explains that one of his workers couldn’t even stand the firecrackers on Guy Fawkes.

One of a somewhat menacing pair of visitors finished last week with “that is irrelevant.” Maybe for them.  The visitors found a mysterious note in what looks vaguely like Arabic, in a somewhat illegal search. Roland, in a mixture of embarrassment and pride read it (or at least its summary) last week. Another element from Roland’s past gets introduced this week.


A cat scratching at the outside door interrupted them;  the woman rose, “I’ll get it,” and let an animal in; a sleek, dark black animal, with glossy clean fur shot in and jumped into Roland’s lap; she, for it wasn’t a tom, purred; after inspecting the room as if she owned it, she turned and hissed at his two visitors.

“Did you own a cat … it’s not in your files, and I don’t see any cat dishes.”

“I guess I do now,” Roland stroked the cat, which had resumed purring and nuzzling him; he asked his uninvited guests “Are you done with me?”

The woman said, “Not yet;” then her mobile chittered away, playing ‘Rule Britannia’ as a ringtone.

“Not exactly subtle,” Roland said.

The man replied, “We’re not undercover.”

Roland and the man both listened to half of the conversation.

“So it really is Demotic.”

“A love note … that’s what he said too; read it to us.”

“No … it’s to Roland Stevens, he’s a lecturer at the local,” She handed the phone to Roland, “I’d sent a copy to our specialist, at Oxford. Professor Welchmann.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

Illegal aliens is up for order on Amazon. I tried using kindle creator on it to control dividers and formatting, and worked from a pdf file. The results are not as good as I’d hoped, but Amazon – in its wisdom won’t let me change it now that the kindle create program actually works from word files. It has, as usual, laid an egg.

You can get a copy of the first four chapters on instafreebie.

You can find my, well our, works here.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is available for preorder. You can get the first part here.

Illegal Aliens XVI

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland awoke after bringing an attractive young woman home, alone. Something of a surprise, and in some ways a shock. His mobile chirruped into life and the works manager – where he’d been called to examine a mysterious block of Roman concrete – told him the “bloody German bomb, it went.” A knock on the door interrupts their conversation just after Mr Shah explains that one of his workers couldn’t even stand the firecrackers on Guy Fawkes.

One of a somewhat menacing pair of visitors finished last week with “that is irrelevant.” Maybe for them.  The visitors found a mysterious note in what looks vaguely like Arabic last week, in a somewhat illegal search.


 

“It’s a note from my … I don’t know; she was here last night … it’s just I’ve never had a note left for me in Demotic before.”

She asked, “Can you translate it?”

“Am I a specialist in Roman Britain?”

The woman glared at him, “Yes; we know that already; the Romans didn’t use Demotic.”

“I’ve studied it in the last couple of years – to keep my mind off … Janet.”

The man demanded, “What does it say?”

Roland blushed, “It’s sort of personal.”

“Translate it, or we’ll take you in and hold you while someone else does it.”

“Oh … well … here goes,” He cleared his throat and started, “Dearest love, thank you for last night, it was wonderful. It was so good that I’ll have to sleep it off; by all the Gods, even if it risks his revenge, even Zeus wasn’t that good, nor Jason.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

Illegal aliens is up for preorder on Amazon.
You can get a copy of the first four chapters on instafreebie.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Since Roland is a specialist in Roman Britain, and it is memorial day, a bit about Roman Armour.

Reenactors in Lorica Segmentata

The Romans didn’t actually use the breastplate and Mohawk-like Greek helmet so beloved in epic movies. The lorica segmentata (segmented armour) was much more practical. It was lighter, easier to make, easier to repair (if you survived) and easier to adjust to a new soldier. The plates are basically flat steel that is bent and strapped together. The overlapping segments provide decent protection, especially with your scutum (shield) and in a disciplined cohort. These reenactors are carrying pila (pilums) which are lances designed to break off once they hit. (Later on they used a shorter lawn-dart like construction – a plumbata –  an individual could carry 5-6 of them.)  Not shown are the gladius (sword) or the pugio (dagger). This reenactor wears chain mail (lorica hamata), which was worn mostly by auxiliaries.

The featured image shows a reconstruction of a Draco – dragon standard – similar to what the legions in Britain would have used. That and a Welsh flag which bears a striking remembrance of it.

Illegal Aliens XV

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland awoke after bringing an attractive young woman home, alone. Something of a surprise, and in some ways a shock. His mobile chirruped into life and the works manager – where he’d been called to examine a mysterious block of Roman concrete – told him the “bloody German bomb, it went.” A knock on the door interrupts their conversation just after Mr Shah explains that one of his workers couldn’t even stand the firecrackers on Guy Fawkes.

One of a somewhat menacing pair of visitors finished last week with “that is irrelevant.” Maybe for them.


The man pulled a warrant card from inside his jacket and showed it to him, “It’s better if you don’t know the details.” The card identified the bearer as an agent from MI6 and little else.

“For me or for you?”

“Very funny, Dr Stevens; may we come in?” Neither of them seemed to have much of a sense of humour.

“I suppose; not like I have much of a choice, is there; I need to shower; do you mind waiting?”

“Not at all.”

The man followed Roland upstairs and waited outside the bathroom while he showered. The woman used the time to search the downstairs rooms; she found a letter, written in an obscure script, one that looked suspiciously like Arabic or maybe Farsi, on the kitchen table; after sending a picture of it to the office, she pulled a chair from the breakfast table and sat. Satisfied with her efforts, she’d await the outcome.


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

Illegal aliens is up for preorder on Amazon.
You can get a copy of the first four chapters on instafreebie.

Bastet had an important role in Egyptian mythology. One of the several gods of evil, Apep, would attack the Sun God Ra in the evening. He or it would attempt to eat the sun and place the Earth in eternal darkness. (Though as a snake he’d freeze first, but then logic was never a strong part of mythology.) Bastet would routinely defeat Apep and slice his head from his body with a flint knife. Thus the sun would be available for the new day.

The featured image shows the asteroid Ida and her satellite Dactyl. 99942 Apophis or Apep (a synonym) was supposed to crash into Earth in 2029 or 2036, but NASA has shown that it won’t. This image is often labeled as Apep, but it isn’t.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens XIII

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Last week Roland awoke, alone. Something of a surprise, and in some ways a shock. His mobile chirruped into life and the works manager – where he’d been called to examine a mysterious block of Roman concrete – told him the “bloody German bomb, it went.”


Mr Shah clicked his tongue, “Captain Carter examined the area before the blast – there wasn’t any bomb.”
“He must have missed it; that was Roman concrete, and you know as well as I do that the Romans didn’t even have gunpowder, let alone high explosives; what does he say about it?”
“Nothing; can’t; he caught it.”
“Oh … I’m sorry.”
“Well. Just a heads up mate; expect you’ll get a call;  they’re thorough bastards.”
“Who?”
“MI6  … there’s a chance it wasn’t a German bomb.”
“Shit.”
“All I can say is it’s a good thing I’m Indian, Hindu. They’ve already interviewed Na’el … gave it to him; put him through the ringer, poor lad; not that there’s anything he’d have to do with a bomb; can’t even stand the firecrackers on Guy Fawkes.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

One of the things I’m proud about this selection is that it brings to life the poly-cultural nature of the south of England. They, like the land of the free and home of the brave, have tensions between rural and homogenous urban regions (mostly Wales, the West and the Midlands) and the diverse urban areas (concentrated around London).  However, there is a reason curry is the national dish. The diversity brings a vibrancy to the country that is undeniable. The header image, which I stole from ITV, shows one of the bands in the Notting Hill carnival – Mardi Gras on Thames (except it’s not on Shrove Tuesday).

I had hoped to announce that pre-order was finally available, but Amazon is giving me “an unexpected error occurred try again later” error. Oh well.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens XII

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland, an archaeology instructor at Reading University (academic ranks in the UK are different than in the US, he’d be an assistant professor in the land of the free), is on his way to London. He’s on call when something unusual turns up in the works on the new underground. After an interesting conversation on the train, he arrives to find the odd item – a block of Roman Concrete which is covered in inscriptions.

Roland’s dinner continues, with an unusual choice of meal. He has just asked his visitor if she’s hungry. She has just sniffed him and told him he’s the one. Shades of the Matrix?  Continuing on  things are about to heat up.  They did, but was it real?


Sunlight streaming through his window finally wakened Roland. He rolled over in bed, reaching for her, hoping last night had not been a dream; he had a panicked moment, “She’s not here!” Then he heard a tuneless humming from downstairs.

The humming stopped; evaporating like the dew in the sunlight of the morning.

Roland leaped out of bed and took the stairs at a bound; there was no one down there, not in the kitchen, nor the front rooms, nor even the loo; the loo he, and … it was too much.

His mobile shot into life, “Bloody hell!”

He answered it, “What the hell now?”

It was Mr Shah, “Did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

Mr Shah’s voice, tinny on the mobile continued, “When we lifted that damned block of yours … the bomb, the bloody German bomb, it went.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

My coauthor informs me that he has a paper deadline this weekend, NAFIPS, whatever that is. Something about Fuzzy Restricted Boltzmann Machines. Whatever they are. (actually I know and they’re sort of cool in a nerdy sort of way.)

Was this hot strange woman a dream?

Maybe, maybe not.

To be honest it wouldn’t be much of a story if she were.

There’s another minor Egyptian God you should know about. Aker.

Aker was the guardian of the borders, sort of a shy, quiet, standoffish sort of God. But someone you wanted on your side.  He was usually described by a lion (often a spotted Barbary Lion). He and Bastet tended to clean up the mess that the other gods left behind, including killing the snake god Apep.

 

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens XI

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland, an archaeology instructor at Reading University (academic ranks in the UK are different than in the US, he’d be an assistant professor in the land of the free), is on his way to London. He’s on call when something unusual turns up in the works on the new underground. After an interesting conversation on the train, he arrives to find the odd item – a block of Roman Concrete which is covered in inscriptions.

Roland’s dinner continues, with an unusual choice of meal. He has just asked his visitor if she’s hungry. She has just sniffed him and told him he’s the one. Shades of the Matrix?  Continuing on  things are about to heat up. This week, they (finally) do.


They continued until all the meat, both the small amount in the curry and the two almost raw beef burgers were finished; Roland offered her a chip, “It’s not meat, but man does not live by meat alone.”

“There’s wine … and fish as well,” still, she tried it and pronounced it palatable.

In the process of eating, she slipped her feet from her shoes and ‘played footsie’ – tickling his legs with her feet. Eventually, when the meal was finished, she slipped onto the bench next to him and cuddled up. She chewed, gently, on his ear while encouraging him to place an arm around her shoulders, to pull her tightly against him. She was guiding his other hand to explore parts previously unknown when Paul, the bartender shouted, “Here you two – get a room.”

It sort of broke the mood, but only for the time being, Roland asked, “Do you have a place to stay?”

“I do.”

“You do?”

“With you,” She smiled at him, “Unless?”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

This is about as hot as we write.

Bastet (Spelled Bast in hieroglyphs – the et is added to make it distinct when we barbarians pronounce the final ‘t’) is an interesting Goddess. Symbolized by the cat, she specialized in family, dance, and joy. Once you get outside of the major Egyptian gods, the family trees get … complicated. Mostly because the various versions of the legends contradict each other. She’s sometimes the consort of Anubis and sometimes his mother. Her husband is sometimes Ra, sometimes Ptah, and sometimes Ra is her father. As I said, it gets complicated and the authorities disagree with each other.  Women would often have a charm of her and attach a kitten to the charm for every child they either had or wanted.

Devotees of the Goddess would bring votive offerings – mummified cats. However, it is interesting that many of these mummies are actually not real cats, but straw and papyrus bundles. Somehow, I think Bastet would approve of the substitution.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens X

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland, an archaeology instructor at Reading University (academic ranks in the UK are different than in the US, he’d be an assistant professor in the land of the free), is on his way to London. He’s on call when something unusual turns up in the works on the new underground. After an interesting conversation on the train, he arrives to find the odd item – a block of Roman Concrete which is covered in inscriptions.

Roland’s dinner continues, with an unusual choice of meal. He has just asked his visitor if she’s hungry. She has just sniffed him and told him he’s the one. Shades of the Matrix?  Continuing from last week  things are about to heat up.


The bartender put the bottle on the counter, “Roland, lad, Here’s the plonk.” Roland started to stand but the woman reached over and touched him; he shivered at the touch, as though a spark passed between them.

The bartender laughed, “I’ll bring it over; time you met another girl.”

In the background, his cook called out, “two burgers, one curry.”

After the food arrived, the woman looked at her plate, “This isn’t meat.”

“Take the bread off.”

She still stared in confusion, and then tentatively picked up the patty.

“That’s not how you eat it,” Roland reached over with his knife and fork, cut a piece, and offered it to her; she put her mouth over the piece and pulled it off; she swallowed, “Meat, it is meat.” Smiling at him, she picked up her fork, and her knife, and after some initial awkwardness, cut a piece of her burger, “For you.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

I found an Americanism that had crept in, Barkeep. I mean Bartender, actually Landlord or Publican.

This image from MotherBedford.com shows American utensils from the time of the Revolution. You can’t scoop food with those forks.

While I’m on the subject of Americanisms, Yanks tend to hold their utensils upside down. Eating forks with 3 or 4 tines, as opposed to cooking tools, became established in Britain during the 18th century. Typically they were flat and used to stab/hold things. Curved forks were developed in Germany towards the end of the 18th century, but by then the stab/balance on the back of the fork pattern of British and European usage was established. It wasn’t until after the American revolution that the curved spoon-like forks we use today became popular. Hence Yanks tend to use forks like spoons.  The most practical way to use the forks in the image above is to use them to hold down a piece of food while cutting it, and then to switch to a spoon to bring the morsel and sauce/dripping to your mouth. Mind you now we’ve moved on to those awful sporks.

The featured image shows the Royal Berkshire regiment playing in 2006 outside the Oracle in Reading. They were recruiting, and for the fun of it playing an arrangement of the Black Adder theme.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens 9

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland, an archaeology instructor at Reading University (academic ranks in the UK are different than in the US, he’d be an assistant professor in the land of the free), is on his way to London. He’s on call when something unusual turns up in the works on the new underground. After an interesting conversation on the train, he arrives to find the odd item – a block of Roman Concrete which is covered in inscriptions.

Roland’s dinner continues, with an unusual choice of meal. He has just asked his visitor if she’s hungry. She has just sniffed him and told him he’s the one. Shades of the Matrix?


“The one?”

“Yes,” She moved across the table from him, “This ‘beef burger’ of yours; it is meat?”

“Mostly.”

“Good,” She licked her lips. However, she also reached over and took his hand, “You’re nicer than I thought – than I remember.”

Roland found himself getting lost in her dark, her deep dark eyes, “Good … Are you a student at Reading?”

“No.”

“Oh, I thought you might be a foreign student, speaking that Italian dialect.”

“No … I am a student; is not this the language?”

“Sorry, no; you’re speaking an old Italian dialect, almost Latin.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

I’ve been experimenting with Amazon’s newish kindle creation tool (The down load link is here) It’s a bit kludgey, which may be my poor overstressed laptop, but has several neat features. The one I’m really pleased with is the ability to control the font in the text. If you generate a pdf it will keep the fonts!  So you can use various unusual characters for things like drop capitals and section breaks without losing them. I haven’t experimented with pictures – though one of our manuscripts will have a couple of maps, but expect they’ll work well. It doesn’t do a good job at generating tables of contents, so the old standby of bookmark/internal hyperlink is still a good idea (this works in pdf).  It’s also not clear when and where you associate the cover with the book, but presumably they’ll make that clear when we’re ready to pull the trigger.

The other program to experiment with is their textbook creator tool, but that’s more complicated.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens 8

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland, an archaeology instructor at Reading University (academic ranks in the UK are different than in the US, he’d be an assistant professor in the land of the free), is on his way to London. He’s on call when something unusual turns up in the works on the new underground. After an interesting conversation on the train, he arrives to find the odd item – a block of Roman Concrete which is covered in inscriptions.

Roland’s dinner continues, with an unusual choice of meal. He has just asked his visitor if she’s hungry.


She laughed, a laugh that pierced to his core, then said, “Yes, very hungry;” she kept staring at him; he wasn’t sure he liked it; she smiled, at him; he decided he did like it.

“Let me order you something, I’m having the curry; it’s usually good.”

“Meat.”

“Meat it is,” Roland looked at today’s menu – on the chalkboard, “Paul? A beef burger for the lady and a bottle of that Romanian plonk, two glasses.”

“Rare or well done?”

Roland looked at the woman, “How do you want it cooked?”

She grinned and licked her lips, “Raw.”

Roland said to the bartender, “Make it two burgers for her, rare as can be and go easy on the chips,” after that, he patted the seat next to him, “Do you want to sit here?”

She continued to stare at him, which made him nervous, then glided to the chair next to him; not the one he’d offered; she sniffed him, “Yes, you’re the one.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

One of our books is in Patty’s promos. Don’t let that dissuade you from taking a look at the many fine authors who have made their work available at a hefty discount.

 

You can find my, well our, works here.

Illegal Aliens 7

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation. This is the start of a new work, Illegal Aliens. It is something of a cross between a horror story, a science fiction tale, and a romance.

Roland, an archaeology instructor at Reading University (academic ranks in the UK are different than in the US, he’d be an assistant professor in the land of the free), is on his way to London. He’s on call when something unusual turns up in the works on the new underground. After an interesting conversation on the train, he arrives to find the odd item – a block of Roman Concrete which is covered in inscriptions.

After he’s caught a cab back home, or close enough (his local), he orders dinner and an unusual woman walks in.


The bartender asked him, “Working hard?”

“This is fun, just the kind of puzzle I like,” He turned back to his paper.

Placere vinum; Falerian; si quis est in vobis.

He looked up, hardly expecting to hear archaic Northern Italian in this pub; there was a woman, a pale woman with long black hair, a strikingly attractive young pale woman with long black hair, and she was having difficulty making herself understood; he said to himself, “Must be a foreign student, just arrived.” and returned to his work.

The bartender called to him, “Hey, Roland, you speak this language?”

“Yes.”

“What’s she want?”

“She said she’d like wine, Falerian if you have any.”

“Falerian? Never heard of it; we’ve got red, and … we’ve got white.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons (even in Latin).

First, my sincere apologies for being so late to reply and failing to echo back likes/twitter. I more or less fell ill and by the time I recovered – well guess what it’s time for another.

One of the dilemmas I had for introducing Diana (that’s her name, but you didn’t hear it from me), was the choice of a language. Greek was the lingua franca of the ancient world, but I wanted to use a language where I didn’t need another font. Hence Latin, which if not the language of the francs, was also common.

2000px-Bastet.svgThe Greeks and Romans tended to slot gods from other polytheistic religions into their own. Hence Wodin or Odin would become the German Jupiter or German Zeus.  Bastet because the Egyptian Diana, and she was a daughter of Ra. She’s holding a was in her right hand in this picture.

If you want to go farther into the language I can recommend this book.

51G60RX585L._SX313_BO1,204,203,200_ I’ve used it with moderate success to understand fairly simple inscriptions.
By the way, did anyone catch the reference to “Hot Fuzz?”

 

You can find my, well our, works here.