This blog is a series of fantasy novels in serial form. If you’d like to start at the beginning and work your way through, this post provides a handy list of all the chapters in sequence. The first volume, Man Raised by Spiders, tells the story of Inglorion’s younger cousin Valentine, who was taken captive during […]
Now that Valentine’s legal troubles are drawing to a close, and his notoriety has faded from immediate public memory, his cousin Sieia resumes her efforts to find him a suitable wife. Because Valentine is young by elvish standards — a mere 78 — at first she focused her efforts on exposing him to a variety […]
Life in Liamelia continues during Inglorion’s absence. Valentine’s case moves forward, as it was bound to do. Aside from his own deposition and Inglorion’s, a handful of other witnesses have been called: The Gypsy he injured, of course, but also slaves and drivers who observed his behavior before and afterwards, and all the dreary but necessary […]
Sometime after noon today, I realized I’d run out of dry cat food. Lyndon had been pointing this out in increasingly shrill Siamese tones, but I’d ignored him, murmuring, “I know, Buddy,” and thinking, I must have an extra bag of salty crunchy stashed somewhere. When I went to the trouble to look, I realized, […]
Though Virginia could raise many excellent objections to the proposed trip, she refrains. When Inglorion finds her in her sitting room and airily informs her that he plans to relieve a stubborn inflammation of the lungs with a week-long, high-altitude camping trip, she knits her brow, considers, and gives a quick nod. “You’ll be glad […]
A gloomy, unlit parlor would seem to be a bad place for an invalid to recruit his strength. Our hero, Inglorion Atropos Androktasiai, Marquis Theates, is a bad patient. He sits in the window seat, which he would normally avoid, being Drow, and sensitive to sunlight. It’s winter, and mizzling, so the weather matches his […]
Though Tereus often breaks off to sample a new vice or carry out an elaborate practical joke, he and Claudius quickly become inseparable. They take long, rambling hikes through the mountains that ring the village, and talk with adolescent enthusiasm about philosophy and literature. They fall asleep holding hands and gazing into each others’ eyes. Tereus lures […]
A few days ago, a family member delivered a little speech about how the mainstream media — in this case, The New York Times and Washington Post — are full of lies and fabrications, and are centrally controlled by some mysterious force. Hearing this from someone I love and respect nearly broke my heart. Reader, […]
I’ve talked a lot of smack about Vice President Joe Biden in these pages, mostly because of his mishandling of Anita Hill’s allegations against then-nominee, and later Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Specifically I’ve said that he shielded a man who was clearly unfit for the Supreme Court, and humiliated a Black woman who came […]
In the profoundly epistolary age in which our story takes place, it was usual for parents to send their boys to school with letters that mingled advice, admonishment and logistics. Over dinner that first night, some of the older boys read their parents’ letters aloud to ribald laughter. This one’s mother hopes he’ll guard against […]
Claudius is bent over a tiny desk studying Latin verb declensions. The semester at the elite Continental university won’t start for another week, but he already fears he’s behind. The door to the tiny double room opens. Claudius looks up, irritated to hear the shouting and banging in the crowded hallway. The boy standing in […]
