The Custodian

Since I've been asked several tmes, the above image was designed and rendered entirely in KPT Bryce on a Macintosh II and a PowerMac 8500 by yors utrly. Minor Photoshop tweaks.

Around, sometimes. Not so much. But not so gone, neither.

http://www.last.fm/user/The_Custodian <-- what's on
what's waiting

Books
What I read. Opinions offered on request, or occasionally noded (see 'reviews' further down).

The Queue:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce * Deploying Rails Applications by Ezra Zygmuntowicz et. al. * Line War (Polity/Ian Cormac) by Neal Asher (awaiting delivery) * Shadow of the Scorpion (Polity/Ian Cormac) by Neal Asher (awaiting delivery) * The Sons of Heaven (The Company) by Kage Baker (awaiting delivery) * The Heart of Valor (Confederation) by Tanya Huff (awaiting delivery)

Recently Completed:
Stealing Light by Gary Gibson * Kop by Warren Hammond * Dying of the Light by George R.R. Martin * Looking Glass by James R. Strickland * The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez * Red Thunder by John Varley * Six Frigates by Ian Toll * Effendi by J.C. Grimwood * Interesting Times (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett * Judge by Karen Traviss * Small Favor (The Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher * Making Money (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett * Going Postal (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett * Echelon by Josh Conviser * Macbeth by William Shakespeare * Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons by Joseph Cirincione * The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald * The Mauritius Command (The Aubrey/Maturin Novels) by Patrick O'Brian * Matter by Iain M. Banks * Command Decision (Vatta's War) by Elizabeth Moon * The Merchant's War (Merchant Princes) by Charles Stross * Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber * The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook * Kitty And The Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn * Killswitch (Cassandra Kresnov) by Joel Shepherd

There are some amazing writers here, and naturally, there is some incredible writing. Here is some of it.

The future like a corpse in snow

Why there is no moloch13

REMFS

Things nobody tells you about the South Pole

The Astronaut Gets Lucky

Ed Stories

Happy Birthday from Planet Motherfucker

We Can Meet Her For You Wholesale: A Dreaming Girl's Singularity

Grace and Fury walk with you, call each by name when the other has failed

Psalms of the Convenience Store Clerk: Pump Three on the Fritz Again

Hurricane Creek

Two Stories of the Pistol

I am a robot.

2003.10.27: (I post a joke node titled Velcro Mittens in response to a discussion in the catbox about...well, you can guess.) Then:

2003.10.27 at 05:29 jessicapierce says re Velcro mittens: OKYOU TOTALLY GOT ME
2003.10.27 at 05:31 jessicapierce says re Velcro mittens: wtf is a cvelcro mittne
2003.10.27 at 05:32 jessicapierce says re Velcro mittens: uh. p.s. drunlk
(I explain)
2003.10.27 at 05:38 jessicapierce says holy crap that swodenrful, you could also use a velcro belt, just back her up to your belly & youer all set
2003.10.27 at 06:13 jessicapierce says dood thats so dirty i have to go to sleep now

Below the line: here for pride not presentation, works of mine. Read; but look elsewhere for education on the workings of the writer's craft, for here will you find only bits of textual wood, tossed aside for lack of heft and due in time to burn.

::Multi-node and related stories::

You may be here because you clicked a link in a fiction node that said 'More.' If so, this is your section. I have a few multipart pieces I'm working on, and rather than update bunches of nav templates at the bottom of each node, I'm going to have them point to here.

The Network Revenant
I must unfortunately remove the pieces of this story from E2 for the time being. There is a slight, teensy but non-zero chance of an attempt at marketing the whole thing coming to fruition, and it being available on E2 would cause problems for that. If this falls through, I will repost it.
p.s. drafts available for perusal on request.

State Override

• As always, the rifles have the last word
• Too few astronauts and too much sky
• Discuss your treason underneath the vault of heaven
• Die hard, die kicking, old habit of mine
• A life less encumbered and the birth of icons

The I Dunno What These Are New York Magician Series (as named by GhettoAardvark)

• Weak and desperate from decades of commuting the djinn would barter all for coffee and a friendly ear
• Old Country migratory observation with familial duty
• Lost and Found in Gunflight Metaphor
• Someone to Pull the Trigger
• Yet The Sun Still Rose
• I want to reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back
• A thousand winding stairs lead down before us
• Making islands to have new seashores
• Game mechanic
• There was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
• No Cure for Emptiness on East 14th
• The Draughtsman's Contract
• Gas pressure disequilibrium among the urban rejecta
• Huddled shoulders and bent backs, like so many shadows
• the slow creeping menace of masked justice along Manhattan depths
• Evolution unfolding in Queens, New York
• So there is death in my voice; what of it?
• every statue in town came to life, but they'd been watching long enough to know better than to ever move
• There was a man who lived a life of fire
• Death may be the only goal you ever achieve

The Angel Cycle
The Angel Cycle violates an astonishing number of Turkey City Lexicon commandments. I could weasel and say that this was because it was begun when I was very young and the need for consistent tone has done this, but I'd rather be honest and admit it's pure self-indulgence.

• Angel Making
• Angel Passing
• Angel's Tide
• Guardian of the Angel
  1. mass transit
  2. It's cold at the intersection, and all you feel is the wind
  3. Storytelling in the dark beneath the burning patrol of Angels
  4. Guardian of the Angel
  5. ...
• The Angel's Voice
  1. The Angel's Voice
  2. sic Transit gloria
  3. A Subterranean Leap of Vector Faith and The Glare of Electromagnetic Dreams
  4. You who would hear the sounds in air, touch the distant Silver
  5. Look inside girl, let the sound take you away
• Bullet Train

Working Title: Namedropping

1. Watchman's Stone
2. Transcendence through Anonymity
3. Interstitial Elevator
4. Singing Supraluminal
5. Press Space Two Continuum
6. Ceci n'est pas un homme, ce chasseur.
7. Downsiding the silvered plane
8. Retro burn for Molly Brown
9. Colocation Felicity
10. As the clocks were striking the hour
11. At midnight, all the secret agents
12. Time filled with encounters that leave no mark on us
13. Seeking solace in a city's corpse
14. Dreams Walking in Broad Daylight
15. All will be devoured within the jaws of terrible time
16. Tempus fugit non volit
17. I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still
18. A sailless ship drifts adown the stream freighted with hope and fear
19. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
20. A Fate turned sharply, Key in Lock
21. A Litany of mechanistic worship and prayers for safe return

flicker/mode

• flicker-download/01
• flicker-download/02
• flicker-download/03
• flicker-download/04
• flicker-download/05
• flicker-download/06
• flicker-download/07
• flicker-download/08
• ... (sigh)

I am pleased to claim the dubious honor (according to kthejoker) of the highest rep w/u in the database that does not have a C!. The joys of factual noding! -4/16/06

//fiction//

beyond the veil of nothingness there exists a sea of poets, judges all
heady nights, radar ghosts and dead cosmonauts (SciFiQuest)
we have designed a circuit that takes risks (SciFiQuest)
Our eyes reflect the light of dead suns - how can you resist a nodeshell title like that?
Blackbody sails tacking into the flux
Your Eyes Will Taste of the Flowers - another nodeshell, another shuddery dream.
The screams grow in green ice (Fearquest)
We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death (Fearquest)
Jet Fighter
Meek and obedient you follow the leader down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel
Universal Destructor (SciFiQuest)
Site Survey (SciFiQuest)
Feeling Gravity's Pull (SciFiQuest)
Double Exposure (SciFiQuest)
Cain Enable (SciFiQuest)
Sun and Sea (SciFiQuest)
The Comsat Angels (SciFiQuest)
I blow minds for a living (SciFiQuest)
On the blink (SciFiQuest)
Seek and you shall find (SciFiQuest)
Transistor Mnemonic (SciFiQuest)
Thermodynamic Miracle (SciFiQuest)
One more robot learns to be something more than a machine. (SciFiQuest)
Supernova-lit
Dropwatch
Four o'Clock on the Backtalk Grid
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
interstate
No Ice
Tagteam (Fearquest)
darkwave
jitter
Consulting removals
Walking Man (and again)
Tinker's Damn
Autostrada
Sleepless
No Cow is Innocent
Alpha in her blood

//reviews//

Media:
Iron Man
Matter
The Dragon Never Sleeps
Stranger than Fiction
Night Watch
The Bourne Ultimatum
Casino Royale
The Prestige
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
X-Men: The Last Stand
Kontroll
Intacto
Northfork
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Jennifer Government
Carlucci
Dirty Vegas
Starship Troopers
Terran Trade Authority
The Sum of All Fears
Big Trouble in Little China
Gunslinger Girl
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Interstella 5555
Alphaville

Consumables:
Woodford Reserve
Hoyo de Monterrey Dark Sumatra
El Rico Habano
Don Tomas Special Edition #300
Lagavulin
Serendipity

Usables:
BMW 540i
Aeron
Kyocera 7135
Toyota MR2
Triumph TR6
Squeezebox

//factuals//

dum-dum bullet
needle gun
TAEM
Atkinson Cycle engine
Global Positioning System
Mars Global Surveyor
Dwell time
Lanchester Systems and the Lanchester Laws of Combat
Tanks: A Brief History and Hunting Guide
Boeing 747
Wankel rotary engine
The Komsomolets accident

//analysis//

The Back Of The Envelope: An Example of Informal Military Analysis
The U.S. Military Campaign in Afghanistan
TWA Flight 800
Is Taiwan a part of China?
Probability of Kill (Pk)
Damage Expectancy
CEP

//moments//

The Ineluctable Modality of the Visible
And her legs went on forever, like staring up at infinity