ian-atkinson's blog, page 1

Last login: 18 hours agoIan-atkinson: Ian is a 48 year old guy from Catterick, England, UK.; Likes 7,009 pages, 270 videos, 1,154 photos • 303 fans • Received 110 reviews; Member since Jan 02, 2006

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May 19, 4:25am: Sticky post.

All photos, Artwork and writing are my own work unless otherwise stated.

A sneak preview of my new fantasy novel - Fiona; the Sword and the Mirror.

Fiona is a thirteen year old girl interested in fairy folklore. She also likes to paint and draw pictures of fairy folk, but never considers such things have any basis in fact until a number of strange encounters lead to her younger brother being abducted. Fiona and her family are soon drawn into a vendetta against the world, out of an old legend.

At this point in the story, the characters, Perrin (a non-human character) and Stuart (an eight year old boy), have been riding in the minds of a mouse and an owl. This may or may not make things clearer.

`Hold it, manling!' he heard Perrin's voice say. `Don't let it bolt again! I'm feeling for a way through the planes - so be ready, manling! I'll send you first, then I'll wait for the mouse to get away from the owl before following. Wait for me before you do anything. Tir Na Nog is very dangerous.'

The world suddenly seemed to become funnel shaped. Stuart felt himself being stretched longer and longer. He felt the mouse's body fall away from him like a fur skin. The whole of reality seemed to be pulled into an impossibly narrow spiral, tighter and tighter. `I'll be crushed to nothing!' he screamed. He felt like he was being squashed through a pipe narrower than the finest hair. Just when he thought he'd be ripped apart, the world untwisted and he found himself back in the stone circle.

Stuart looked around. There was no sign of Perrin. He looked up at the sky. He'd never seen a sky like this before. Not only was it full of the brightest stars he'd ever seen, but there was also another object in the sky. Not a sun or a moon; but a flat spiral of shining clouds getting brighter towards the centre. Two piercing bright jets of glowing white fire erupted from the pulsing flickering centre. One from the top and the other from the underside. It reminded him of one of those toy spinning disk things with a string through it. `This is definitely not Langton Wood!' Stuart thought to himself.

He looked down at himself and was suddenly acutely aware that he wasn't wearing anything. Suddenly, feeling very exposed, he scuttled over to shelter under one of the stones.

`Wait before I do anything, he says? - what would I do without any clothes?' he thought bitterly. He became aware of a sort of wailing noise on the very edge of hearing. It grew louder. The world started to warp and twist into a funnel again. Perrin, back in his `little old man' shape was suddenly spat from the funnel and fell face down in the centre of the circle. He got up and brushed sand off his feathery coat with his hand.

`A most disagreeable mode of transport!' he grumbled to Stuart. 'You'll be happy to know that your mouse got well away before I released the owl, manling.'

`Isn't there anything for me to wear here?' said Stuart urgently.

Perrin peered at him with his bird-like eyes. `Manling! You can decide whether you're wearing anything or not here. Appearance is largely what you feel comfortable with. Just imagine yourself in what you normally wear.'

Stuart recalled the tee-shirt, jeans, and the worn out running shoes he was wearing earlier that day - and imagined himself wearing them. In the same instant he was clothed in them.

`Cool!' said Stuart.

`Temperature is immaterial to us here, manling! Come along!'

stvalentines profile - StumbleUpon: May 19, 4:24am 202 reviews stumblers
http://stvalentine.stumbleupon.com/; Great collection of images and artwork. Well worth a look.

May 10, 2:55pm: First Contact.

A short story by I D Atkinson.

Byron Willard felt extremely nervous as he rode in the presidential hover car. The year was 3050 and medical advances meant that people could live for hundreds of years. President Willard was over two hundred and fifty years old, but physically he was about forty five. His chauffeur looked back from the pilot seat at the front of the plas-glass bubble and said, 'there's an incoming message for you Mr. President.'

'Patch it through will you, Radcliff.'

'Yes, sir.'

The onboard micro speakers crackled into life. 'The extra terrestrials will be entering the Earth's atmosphere in 30 minutes - they'll be landing in the main plaza of Capital City,' announced the voice of Vice President Jameson.

'OK, Michael, I'm already on my way.'

Byron settled back in his seat. The tiny servo motors embedded in the upholstery made faint whirring noises as they adjusted the seat for maximum comfort. He'd never wanted to be president; it was just the way things had turned out. He started out as an accounts clerk; that was over two hundred years ago now. He'd had a great time when he was just a clerk. Mars and the moons of the Jupiter were being colonised. Everyone was into the new Immersion Games. You were jacked into the World Web computer by Direct Synapse Stimulation. An intravenous nutrient system was developed so that people could spend weeks at a time in their favourite game. It got to the stage where some people would spend every second of their spare time playing them; role-playing games mainly. But, eventually, real life encroached on fantasy, and the games; as with all fads, fell out of fashion.

Then the big news broke. The 'blip' was picked up. It was picked up by ultra sensitive astronomical equipment at the Mars orbital observatory. It had to be a space craft of some type. Scientists had watched it approach for two hundred years, but the blip was now on the outskirts of the solar system and had sent a message. The extraterrestrials were small grey bipeds with almond shaped eyes. The one that greeted us over digi-vid had raised its tiny arm and said, 'We come in peace!' Byron had been quite disappointed at their appearance. They were like some sort of cliché of how an alien should look; he'd expected something a little more exotic.

Byon Willard; President of the World for one hundred years, closed his eyes tried to sleep in his comfortable seat for the rest of the 20 minute journey across the huge sprawl of Capital City. He'd been feeling especially tired lately, even though he was in perfect health.

The sound of cheering brought him back wakefulness. He looked out the plas-glass bubble and noticed that; as well as the officials and dignitaries, a huge crowd of people had gathered in the plaza.

* * *

May 10, 2:54pm: The Eulid Captain; Draal, sat on the roomy, dimly lit bridge of the research vessel. He was still weary from his long cryogenic sleep. He eyed the star on the large panoramic view screen; then swivelled his chair around so he could face his science officer, Lieutenant Atrel. The two short antennae on either side of Atrel's face started to move forming geometric shapes. Captain Draal watched them closely. Both captain and science officer looked quite insect-like but their DNA sequences matched no Earth life. Both beings were bipeds and vaguely human shaped. They were covered in a jointed iridescent exoskeleton and what little clothing they wore consisted of various belts and straps holding items of electronic equipment.

Draal glanced back at the screen then turned back to Atrel. He started waving his own antennae. If the movement of those appendages could be translated into English, they would have meant something like, 'So you think this is the wrong star system, Lieutenant?'

'Well there are a few rocky planets close to the star, but; from our atmospheric readings, they're unpromising. The radio signals did emanate from this direction, but that does not give the distance. We may have to travel several more light years before finding their source,' Atrel signalled back.

'Throughout our entire history of space flight we have searched for sentient life and found none. I thought we really had something when those radio broadcasts were picked up. It looks like we're going to be disappointed yet again,' responded Draal.

'Life or no; I think we should at least give some of those worlds a look over. We've been in cryo for a long time and some exercise would free up my carapace and joints - besides, I'm interested.'

'Me too,' answered the captain. 'Bring the first officer and a security team out of cryo.'

* * *

President Byron waved to the crowd from his seat in the car as it hovered twenty feet above the plaza.

A huge vu-screen slid upwards out of a slot at the far end of the square. A 3D image of a news caster appeared on the screen. He announced that the extra terrestrial ship was entering the atmosphere. Byron stifled a yawn as orbital cameras tracked a large glowing object moving towards the east coast of America leaving a bright incandescent trail behind it. The bright object dimmed as it descended into thicker layers of atmosphere. The screen went dark and returned to its slot. The speakers positioned around the outside of the square emitted a short two tone blast of sound to get the crowds attention; then the voice of a technician announced, `the extra terrestrial craft approaches - watch the skies.'

Byron signalled the pilot to land the car.

* * *

May 10, 2:52pm: Captain Draal, Lieutenant Atrel and First Officer Rudic, climbed down the ladder from the triangular reconnaissance ship and looked around at the ruined buildings. A recon team had gone ahead to check out the buildings, but there was unlikely to be any danger. There were lots of small creatures around so at least they would have a variety of none sentient life to catalogue.

'I think we're too late,' said Draal. We've looked at the settlements on the other planets and the ones on the moons orbiting the gas giants. The sentient beings here are extinct.'

'It's pretty strange the way they all died though,' mused Rudic. `There is no sign of any war or catastrophe. All their vehicles are parked in an orderly way; their owners just never returned to them. There is some evidence that some of the very young scavenged on the streets for a while, but just about every one of the remains we found were in these pods connected up to their technology,'

Atrel looked around, moving his antennae thoughtfully; then turned to the captain. `Unlike the other worlds and cities we saw; this place still has some residual power left in the technology. If we can find a way of downloading information from it, we may get a better idea of what happened.' The security team emerged from one of buildings.

The Eulid Sergeant approached his captain and touched his antennae respectfully. 'There's one of the pods in the dwelling and it appears to be still functioning, Captain.'

* * *

May 10, 2:51pm: The presidential hover car landed in the plaza. Byron stepped out of the car and the red carpet was rolled out to the centre of the square. He greeted and shook hands with Vice President Jameson. The Vice President talked his usual bland platitudes even as the great bulk of the extra terrestrial ship cast its circular shadow on the clouds above them. There was a cheer from the crowd.

Byron looked quizzically at Jameson. Once upon a time the man was an interesting conversationalist, but nowadays; even with the wonderful historic events that were unfolding, nobody had anything interesting to say. Byron wondered if he was the only man left with any sort of imagination.

Another cheer went up from the crowd. The huge alien ship had descended through the cloud deck. It was exactly what he expected. A huge disk similar to what he'd seen in countless old sci-fi movies. It descended gently down to the plaza square and extended several articulated legs from hatches around the lower hub. The bulk of the ship put the whole plaza in shadow as the legs touched down on the square and it came to rest.

President Byron walked down the red carpet with his hand extended. A blue beam of light shone from the hub of the ship to the ground and a small grey alien appeared dressed in some sort of robe. 'Greetings from the people of Ea..............

Byron's vision suddenly went black. He couldn't see. It was hard to breathe too. He was stifled. He tried to move. It was so painful to move his arms and they were so weak. He managed to reach up and touch a surface just in front of his face in the dark. Was he dead? Buried alive? Suddenly there was blinding light as the surface split in half and moved aside. His eyes took several minutes to focus. His arms and hands were old emaciated and wrinkled. He was lying in his old gaming pod in the house he used to have hundreds of years ago. The place was crumbling with age.

A figure looked into the pod at him. It looked like a nightmare to Byron. It had the face of a bug. His old dry throat complained painfully as he drew breath in shock at the sight of the creature.

The thing took an electronic device from a strap on its shoulder and started waving its feeler things at it. A mechanical sounding voice started to crackle from the device. 'Byron Willard. I am Captain Draal of the Eulid. We have downloaded a great deal of information about your species from your failing technology; including the rules of your odd "vibrating gas wave" method of communicating. We have travelled a long way in search of you - and we very nearly missed you.'

YouTube - Peanut Butter, The Atheists Nightmare!: Jan 21, 1:37am 46 reviews atheist
http://video.stumbleupon.com/?p=8gapirg590; I really had to comment on this. It's such an appalling distortion of the truth. Evolution does does not state that life can suddenly and spontaneously spring into existence. This is propaganda. It's not even about religion really; it's about power and money.