Amalgam Universe

A 2280-post collection

Challenge #00769 - B038: Ballistic Rock

“We will, we will, Rock you!” As sung by the United Trebouchet Operators Choir. You figure out the circumstance. Have fun.

The trebuchets, massive siege weapons of wood and rope, fired silently. It was their payloads, landing against the stunt castle walls, that were part of the performance.

Two solid rocks, and a missile made of gravel and dried clay. They landed with a WHUMP-WHUMP, TSSSSHH. A relentless beat that required the scurrying co-ordination of hundreds.

“Buddy you’re a young man, hard man, shouting in the streets, gonna be a BIG MAN SOMEDAY. Got blood on your face, big disgrace, wavin’ your banner all over the place.”

Everyone manning the trebuchets sung in chorus, “WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU!”

WHUMP-WHUMP, TSSSSHH. WHUMP-WHUMP, TSSSSHH.

“WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU!”

The Ambassador for Shoggott, a class five deathworld, stared at the performance in shock and awe. She leaned over to the strategically-seated Ambassador Shayde. “Your people make music with weapons?”

“Oh aye. You should see the next act. It’s a Zeusophone.”

Nyansi looked at the demonically-shaped human. She seemed to be enjoying the show. “What is a Zeusophone?”

“They play music wi’ lightning. It’s a wee ripper.”

Nyansi was rather glad that they had sued for peace with these crazed, balding apes. They were beyond all realms of understanding.

Unseen, the frailer members of the Galactic Alliance exchanged touches of reassurance and congratulations. Their cunning plan had worked.

[Muse food remaining: 20. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Dear Followers...

internutter:

I’m heading steadily towards the two-thirds mark of my current novel-in-progress: Kung Fu Zombies. That’s around 80K for those of you who are keeping track.

And it’s around this time that I generally start the gas stage of my next book.

Unfortunately for me, that entry is listed thus:

7.  More Amalgam (Adapting? Rael?)

So I’m holding a semi-informal poll. What would you like to see as the next Amalgam book? For your options we have:

  1. Shayde’
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Dear Followers...

I’m heading steadily towards the two-thirds mark of my current novel-in-progress: Kung Fu Zombies. That’s around 80K for those of you who are keeping track.

And it’s around this time that I generally start the gas stage of my next book.

Unfortunately for me, that entry is listed thus:

7.  More Amalgam (Adapting? Rael?)

So I’m holding a semi-informal poll. What would you like to see as the next Amalgam book? For your options

Read more »

Challenge #00768 - B037: Pure Badness

You venerate purity for its own sake, a most pointless exercise. Pure Iron is brittle, corrodes and shatters easily. Pure copper or tin do not have the strength of bronze. Alloys are Stronger

There was a civilisation on Tsarkis. If one could call it that. In the Galactic Alliance’s opinion, it barely passed the bar.

For a start, there was a very rigid caste system. Enforced by the military caste and massive walls that divided district from district. Few, if

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Challenge #00765 - B034:

A human opens a Beauty Salon for Reptilian Customers, it occurs to me that its Male reptiles who often try to attract mates.

[AN: Thanks to Tumblr’s habit of dropping links when I copy/paste, I have a new “streamlined” and “easier” procedure in which I have the HTML of my tagline info in a separate file and, after I’m done doing the story, I swap to HTML and copy/paste that sucker in.

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Challenge #00764 - B033: Emergency Procedures

“When in trouble, when in doubt. Run in circles, scream and shout!” Have fun with this!

These were the most bizarre aliens she had ever seen. Their emergency klaxon was a twinkly little tune suitable for Play School or Sesame Street[1] replete with singing. The jolly lady’s voice instructed the entire crew on how to panic in the same tone of friendly warning that other PSA’s would tell children where and how to cross the

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Return to the Greater Dereg That Got It Right

Exactly what it says on the tin.

(#00763 - B032)

[AN: This would be directly related to Challenge #323 in One Leap Year of Instants, available for whatever you want at Smashwords]

How to run a world without taxes, Kell wrote. First: Eliminate the government. Elected officials only care for their results in the next election, leading to years of nothing done, followed by flurries of activity nearing the election season.

Public services are therefore run by non-profit organisations with client care

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Numedid Meets the Birds of Earth, Part 3

Numedid meet the Penguins, finding them to be practicing Marxists with the capacity to utterly conquer the known galaxy, but have held off because they “want to see how the whole human thing turns out first”.

(#00762 - B031)

[AN: Not gonna lie, my first thought was with the Penguins of the Madagascar movies… resisting said temptation with my entire might.]

Humans called them Emperor penguins. They had a much more complicated name for themselves that T'reka the Wanderer could never

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Challenge #00760 - B029: Hug-a-Bunch

“And here we have- please put the new ambassador down.”
“But (s)he’s so cute and cuddle able!”

Ha’ri still didn’t understand how she became an ambassador to her people. She was just one of the many, many asteroid-chasers trying to make enough money to pay for more than her ship and its fuel. Especially damages.

Then a ship belonging to the strange, balding apes had come out of nowhere and she made the mistake

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T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants...

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face

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Challenge #00756 - B025: That is Not a Solution

On the one hand, that is a legitimate problem.
On the other, I’m not sure I could come up with a worse solution to that problem, even if you gave me a research grant and several years.

South-Southwest Greater Deregulation.

The problem element milled around, five yards away from the electrified wiring. Just a few inches short of the raised wire that denoted the area where the guards in the tower would shoot.

They all stared at Monica in desperate hope.

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Challenge #00755 - B024: It's Just Politics

“It’s like a madhouse, designed by a succession of madmen, each with a deep hatred of their predecessors brand of madness. And it’s on fire.”

[AN: Never in my life have I been prompted to reply with a screenshot of Google asking “Did you mean ‘the Australian Government’?” But no. I am a writer. I make stories.]

Tradition is a very peculiar thing. Things begin with reason and rationality and end in farcical imitation, hundreds or thousands of

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Challenge #00754 - B023: What is Dog?

After other species have somewhat adjusted to the whole “vicious predator” == “family pet” thing, they run into this:



That is a predator larger than an adult human, whose head is roughly that man’s torso’s size.

He is a descendant of one of the scariest predators in the world casually flopped on the couch and he loves belly rubs and ear scritches and is just a big fluffy goofball that loves mauling tennis balls - well, maybe volleyballs are more appropriate,

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Challenge #00752 - B021: Tea Solves Everything

Apparently there was an old prank tv show that faked an alien landing on an English lady’s front lawn. Her immediate reaction was to offer them tea.

Your prompt is the same scenario except it’s a real ship and a couple of extraterrestrials who had to make an emergency landing instead of a prank.

Somewhere east of Cricklewood…

There was no fire. Just a sad hissing of water vapour and the gentle ‘pink pink’ noise of cooling

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Challenge #00751 - B020: When is a Troll Not a Troll?

*LOUD ANGRY-* Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so used to people getting it wrong it’s a reflex by now.

There are certain phrases that are bound to get a reaction from any fandom. Things like, “Star Trek… that’s the one with Doctor Spock, right?” or confusing Star Trek with Star Wars. Proclaiming the love for an almost universally-hated character is a good one. And for those who follow All My Daughters, the phrase, “Why

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