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The Fate of Fortune 03: Final Wish

Posted March 8, 2023 By John C Wright

The Fate of Fortune is now posted.

Part 03 of 03.

Sometimes writers are simple in our motives. The unfortunate scholar here is named “Fortune” for a simple reason: he is Faust which is Latin for “fortunate.” Fortunatus of the Ever-full Purse from the Grey Fairy book of Andrew Lang has a name of similar meaning, though he comes to no bad end.

I wrote this story when I was an atheist, but, looking back, it seems to me to be nonetheless theologically sound.

As when the White Witch offers to make Edmund a king of Narnia — without telling him that, as a Son of Adam, he is already rightfully a king of Narnia — or the Green Witch offers the same to Prince Rilian, or when the Devil offers Christ the kingdoms of a world he already owns, or to be fed of bread when he is already himself the bread of life, it amuses me how the creature grants, and grants easily, the fateful, final wish, asking only a single drop of blood in return.

Devils in literature have been portrayed a pagan heroes or statesmen, as in Milton’s PARADISE LOST, or a petty and vicious bureaucrats, as in CS Lewis’ THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS. As best I can tell from real reports from real exorcists, the portrayal is more accurate of the Devil in Dante’s INFERNO, where is a creature of pure misery, weeping and gnawing on the damned, trapped in ice at the core of the world, awaiting judgement — in this tale, the creatures of hell are likened to prisoners behind bars, hoping to lure the innocent into reach.

AND WITH THIS
I reach the last page of my unpublished stories. Whether and how I shall continue to post a Wednesday sample of my wares is get to be decided.
But I certainly enjoy posting yarns I have written. I may continue, merely with snippets of some previous work, such as excerpts from MOTH AND COBWEB.

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The Fate of Fortune 02: First Wishes

Posted March 1, 2023 By John C Wright

The Fate of Fortune is now posted.

Part 02 of 03.

It is customary in Deal with the Devil stories that the wishes asked of the devil actually be granted. That is part of the allure.

By odd coincidence, I read the following tale to my children as part of Sunday reading just this week, from the Legenda Aurea of Jacob de Voragine. This is from the tale of the Life of Saint Basil. I repeat the tale here as a Lenten gift for my readers, since it is a story of repentance.

I make a comment below, after the conclusion of the tale.

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The Fate of Fortune 01: Futile Wishes

Posted February 22, 2023 By John C Wright

The Fate of Fortune is now posted.

Part 01 of 03.

The motif of a pact with the Devil is an ancient one, dating back to the tale of Saint Theophilus the Penitent. This yarn was penned when I was a first year in law school, in my atheist days.

I attempt no novel variation on the theme: Even an unbeliever sees such tales can end only one way.

The tale portrays the motive and method of Mephistopheles as blatant and blunt. Since the victim here is an intellectual, he does not see he is being sold what he already owns.

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Postapocalyptic Fiction 02: A Birth of Fire

Posted February 16, 2023 By John C Wright

Postapocalyptic Fiction is now posted.

Part 02 of 02.

This tale dates from very early in my career, and perhaps displays some of the expected awkwardness of youth: nonetheless, I am still amused by the irony of the atomic apocalypse depicted here.

With this, I have only one story left in my hopper of unpublished fiction. What is to be done to fill this space in weeks to come remains to be seen.

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Postapocalyptic Fiction 01: A Dying of the Light

Posted February 8, 2023 By John C Wright

Postapocalyptic Fiction is now posted.

Part 01 of 02.

A short story from my earlier libertarian phase. Enjoy.

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Indistinguishable from Magic, 2 Rash and Final Action

Posted October 12, 2022 By John C Wright

Indistinguishable from Magic is now posted.

Two of Two.

This story is odd because it is a case where the humble author disagrees with his own muse, at least in regards to the title and theme. The story attempts to capture some of the eerie wonder of a magician’s lab in a museum of extraterrestrial artifacts.

The reader must judge whether the tale succeeds or fails, and such a judgment is final.

But I myself do not think technology is indistinguishable from magic, no matter how advanced it is. The two are based on different principles, have a different nature, and a different point when used in storytelling.

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Indistinguishable from Magic, 1 Midnight at the Museum

Posted October 5, 2022 By John C Wright

Indistinguishable from Magic is now posted.

One of Two.

This is a previously unpublished short story of mine, offered here as a lagniappe to my beloved patrons. The title and theme is based on an famous, albeit comically incorrect, quip from Arthur C. Clarke that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Certainly the feeling of awe and wonder fairytale magic, can often be provoked whenever technology discovers arts thought impossible: as when the Wright Brothers taught man to fly, or Marconi to send messages winging unseen through the air, or when advanced medicine teaches physicians to cure cases previously incurable, or when Americans put a footprint on the Moon.

One way to distinguish technology, no matter how advanced, from magic, is to study it as if it were technology, and not merely to bow the knee and call it magic. Magic is from realms unknowable; whereas technology, even if unknown, is knowable.

Aha! But, even so, can your humble storyteller tell a story where the unquiet artifacts of ancient and unknown superhuman civilizations provoke the awe and wonder of fairyland, and mortals are wise to tread cautiously within their perilous shadow? That remains to be seen.

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Best of All Possible Worlds: Departure

Posted May 18, 2022 By John C Wright

Best of All Possible Worlds is now posted.

Avoiding events parallel to these in our own timeline may be possible.

Part two of two parts.

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Best of All Possible Worlds: Arrival

Posted May 11, 2022 By John C Wright

Best of All Possible Worlds is now posted.

This grim and brief cautionary tale comes from a timeline parallel to ours, one which grows uncomfortably closer.

Part one of two parts.

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Wine-thirst of Comus: Of the Ending of this Tale

Posted May 4, 2022 By John C Wright

Wine-thirst of Comus is now posted.

Comus, despite being granted all the kingdoms of the earth in all their glory, is reduced to begging.

At this point, all visions fail, and rude sunlight banishes dream. How all things will end is known to heaven, not to poets.

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Wine-thirst of Comus: Of The Prince of the Hosts of Darkness

Posted April 27, 2022 By John C Wright

Wine-thirst of Comus is now posted.

Comus awakens into the modern day, and meets the prince who rules it, and is given a great commission. Woe to man.

The strange events known to mortal men are more easily explained by this glimpse beyond the veil, for who has been given regency over the modern generation is explained, and the why and wherefore of it.

But there is a hint of a further veil beyond this veil, to reveal profounder mysteries: an epilogue in will soon conclude this strange, short tale.

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Wine-thirst of Comus: Of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone

Posted April 20, 2022 By John C Wright

Wine-thirst of Comus is now posted.

All is not well for the gay-hearted scion of the wine-god, as the Three Sisters, drenched in blood, arrive with cries of vengeance upon their doom-decreeing lips.

Comus is slain and sepulchred, but, as is often the case in tales of this kind, this does not bring matters to a conclusion.

A new god from the East arises, a humble god hanged on a cursed tree like a slave. The old gods fail like autumn leaves, as the winter of the world approaches.

But the old gods are not done with Comus yet.

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Wine-thirst of Comus: Of Phobetor and Phantasmos

Posted April 13, 2022 By John C Wright

Wine-thirst of Comus is now posted.

Fatherhood having proven problematical to the son of the Wine-God, Comus is next engaged, first by one, then by the second, of the sons of the Dream-God Morpheus.

Events do not unfold with the ease lighthearted Comus foresees, and the seducer becomes the seduced.

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Wine-thirst of Comus: Of Comus and Pasiphaë

Posted April 6, 2022 By John C Wright

Wine-thirst of Comus is now posted. This is the first of four parts.

We begin with a short prologue, in which the poet fails to explain how he comes to see and hear of these hidden things beyond the veil, unattempted erenow in prose or rhyme, and coming of no known lore of old, nor of Homer, nor of Hesiod:

Next, we learn in brief of the origin and heedless life of a godling, the son of the wine-god and the sea-witch, of his gay revels with a consecrated virgin of Diana’s band, on whom he begets a child.

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Vagrants of Time, Chapter 2: Talking to Myself

Posted March 30, 2022 By John C Wright

Vagrants of Time, Chapter 2: Talking to Myself is now posted.

What to do when your least favorite versions of yourself follows you.

*** *** ***

Usually, vagrants of time are unintegrated, having arranged no fate nor anchoring causality in the year entered; and they are homeless, often eliminating their original years, sometimes through self-cancelling interference. An unusual number self-cancels by murdering his own grandfather, for reasons not clear to investigators.

For this reason, no organized policing of such remote vagaries of anachronism are necessary. They afford themselves as certain degree of rough and ready self-enforcement, and sons and fathers are wont to do.

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