The YCU __ IWSG Post

 

You've all heard of the MCU, right?

Well, there is also the YCU:

The Yeomans Connected Universe!

The latest entry:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW

Book 1 of the THREE DAY SAGA

Has several recurring characters from the other sagas in my connected universe:

DARAEL, the Seraph Provocateur from the DARK HOLLYWOOD SERIES.

DAYSTAR, though he goes by the name of Mr. Morton, to young Richard Blaine in New Orleans and shows his true face:

In SAME AS IT NEVER WAS's Sequel, OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WORLDS

Major Richard Blaine and his Spartan 3oo meet a 10 year old Victor Standish 

in the Jurassic Period who has been dumped there by his mother, the Angel of Death.

VICTOR STANDISH, 

you ask.

His legend in order
(sort of, for the kid gets around Time due to his mother!)

CARNIVAL OF THE DAMNED

THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH

UNDER A VOODOO MOON

THE RIVAL

(which takes Victor to 1834

to meet Edgar Allan Poe

and the vampiric Abigail Adams

who also appears in Same As It Never Was!)

END OF DAYS

(right after Katrina)

THREE SPIRIT KNIGHT

(which takes Victor to the 

Citadel at the End of Time

to save his father.)

His father, you ask?

SAMUEL DURAND McCORD

(His adventures take him all

over the world)

In Order

(sort of, c'mon look at his kid!)

RITES OF PASSAGE

and

ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM

(1852)

NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD

and

NOT SO INNOCENTS AT LARGE

(1867)

With Mark Twain, Abigail Adams again,

an insane Abraham Lincoln, General Sherman.

fae, and Dragons over Paris!

DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE

and

THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT

(1895)

With Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde,

Nicola Tesla, the undead Abigail Adams,

Winston Churchill, grey aliens,

and the truth behind

the CHARIOTS OF THE GODS!

HER BONES ARE IN THE BADLANDS

(also Book Zero of 

THE DARK HOLLYWOOD SERIES)

(1926)

Marlene Dietrich, John Ford, David Niven,

Errol Flynn

and

EVOLVED RAPTORS!

FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE

and

CREOLE KNIGHTS

(2005

after Katrina)

Different volumes of my short stories:

BRING ME THE HEAD OF MCCORD!

TALES OF THE LAST WOLF

HUNTER'S MOON

(whose first/last stories are of Wolf Howl --

we'll get to the last shaman later!)

TALES TO BE TOLD AT MIDNIGHT

(Sam at the end of the universe!)

Oh, I mentioned the Dark Hollywood series,

didn't I?

FRENCH QUARTER REQUIEM

(1946)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084P819CQ

A former O.S.S. sociopathic agent, Lucas, who lives by

the words of Marcus Aurelius

Cecil B. DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Wells,

the truth behind the Sultan Murders,

New Orleans' 1st mass murder.

The fabled and late Narrator's,

Scott O'Dell, last works.

You should hear his eerie performance of these

greats.

BEWARD THE JADE CHRISTMAS

1946

Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra,

Jimmy Stewart

and

DARAEL's

 introduction

RAZOR VALENTINE

1947

New Orleans's 1st Mardi Gras

after WWII.

Lucas, his undead love, Ingrid,

Jimmy Stewart, Frank Capra,

Cesar Romero

and 

Nuestra Senora de la Santa Muerte.

Our Lady of the Holy Death

to snatch Ingrid from Lucas.

NIGHT SEASONS

1948

Lucas discovers the identity

of his lost father

as he and his best friend, M&M,

try to save the life of their old boss

in the O.S.S

half a world away from New Orleans

Also Darael clashes with DayStar

and the Old Ones for the fate

of the world in the near future.

NO RE-SHOOTS FOR DEATH

WIP

1949

Lucas and Jimmy Stewart are reunited

with Orson Wells on the set of

THE THIRD MAN

and run into Major Blaine and his

Spartan 3oo on their own mission.

No, I didn't forget 

WOLF HOWL:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1517251982

Besides starring in

HUNTER'S MOON

and teaching

homeless teens

in Katrina-devastated New Orleans

in END OF DAYS,

WOLF HOWL

struggles to save the world

from the Mayan 2012 prophesy

with Nikola Testa and his long lost love

Shadow in

RETURN OF THE LAST SHAMAN

Oh, Wolf Howl

brought a friend with him

to END OF DAYS

You might want to check out my 32

audio books of the YCU

starring Francene Lockett, Robert Rossmann,

Scott O'Dell, Charlie James, Jack de Golia,

and

Mark Kamish

who narrated my own adventures

across the YCU

as I am framed for the murder of the

ghost of Ernest Hemingway!

Helped by the ghosts of

Mark Twain and Marlene Dietrich!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1534981861

WHAT SELLS THESE DAYS?

 

The crass among us might say "Sex sells."

But this is no longer the era when

50 Shades of Grey

sizzled the page and movie screens.

Studio Heads might say

"More of what sold before."

But the collapse of recent

box offices puts the lie to that.

Samuel Goldwyn would ask his

writers to

"Give me more of the same ...

Only different."

William Faulkner said,

"The only thing worth writing about is

the human heart in conflict with itself."

But we're talking literature here.

When was the last time you put down a new

book and said,

"This is literature."

Have you pushed yourself

in your writing lately?

Have you contented yourself with

"the same old, same old"

And wondered why you are getting

the same tired results?

Going in a new direction is scary

You may not like where you land ...

But you will have grown by the attempt
and the encounters with the unknown.

Try it ...

You have nothing to lose but new sales.

THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE

 

THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE

“All human thought, all science, all philosophy is but the holding of a candle to the night of the universe.”

- Darael

I have always thought that Elohim in His Dark Mercy forever masks the mind to full discernment and perception lest the revelations appall us to madness.

As when on mountain-heights, a glance behind betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall.

‘You think nonsense!’

‘That you express yourself so well in language, a concept foreign to you but moments before is ….’

‘Simplicity itself. I was crafted to adapt, to observe, to sail along new planes of existence of which I was formerly ignorant. Even now, I am plumbing the recesses of your primitive mind for what it has encountered.’

‘Welcome to my world.’

‘There is little cause for gratitude in which I see.’

‘I’m not much, but I’m all I have, Sentient.’

‘Why do you insist on calling me that?’

‘It is the name you asked to be called. Now, I begin to see why.’

A sad sigh filled my mind.

‘In essence, I named myself by insisting to be called by the appellation I first heard applied to myself. How very quaint.’

‘In a sense, the future has impinged upon the past.’

‘Bah! There is no Past, no Future, no Present. All is one.’

‘Time is a cube?’

‘Grasping to understand Reality, are you? Time has no more substance than a shad0w … for that it what it is: merely the shadow cast by existence. You can no more grasp Time than you can touch your own shadow.’

‘Well, that is as clear as an eclipse.’

‘I have repented of killing your so-called Spartan 3oo.’

‘Good … because you picked them in the future that you say does not exist.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I suspect you decided they would be useful in your designs.’

‘What designs?’

‘As with most things about you, I am unclear about them.’

‘Why have I kept you alive for so long? You are most maddening.’

“Right back at you.’

‘I suppose I must release you. The one you call Helen Mayfair is about to harm Darael to escape his restraint.’

‘I hardly think she could.’

‘His reluctance to harm her would allow her to harm him.’

Like the turning on of a light, I was suddenly on my feet, standing beside a bemused Sister Ameal.

Helen Mayfair, rushed towards me her flaming arms outstretched to embrace me.

Darael, snorting in disgust, yanked her back by her trailing fiery hair.

“Would you cremate the one you cannot have?”

“Oh, my!”

And in middle of her exclamation, she changed from fiery angel to her smaller human-seeming form. Darael smiled much too pleased with himself. I went cold inside.

He had had another reason for Helen to appear human.

The Voice that belonged to another Age echoed above me. I turned. The golden-toned voice more hollow than I remembered laughed.

I turned. A thirty-foot tall black-winged Mr. Morton towered above us. The prehistoric sun struck fire from his strange armor.

Slanted eyes without one flicker of recognition studied me, then turned to Darael who had grown equally as tall.

“Cousin, last, I recall, we fought on opposite sides. And here, you bring me these odd bipeds with which to play.”

 

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

 

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

 

“Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.”

– Victor Hugo

Even a mirror will not show you yourself … if you do not wish to see.

But pain … ah, yes pain. Pain will show you the self you should have been smarter than to have been.

I am at a loss to describe the agony that Sister Ameal’s wiry fingers about my temples brought me.

To describe is not important.

A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality.

He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, 'What is it like, this thing you have seen?'

So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world.

He tells them,

'It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. 

It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.'

Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes.

They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it.

They must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm their hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant.

 Therefore, 'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters.

But man forgets reality and remembers words.

The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.

Ghost-winds of thoughts wailed through my mind:

‘Language. Words! Your … words coalesce my thoughts into comprehension. Never have I seen your species before. Who are you?’

‘Sentient! It is me. Don’t you remember?’

‘I do not know this “Me” of whom you speak.’

And then, it hit me.

“Sister Ameal” was like a car radio abruptly taken out of the range of the radio station to which it had been tuned.

All had been become silent within the construct of Sentient’s physical avatar operating in the time of World War II.

Sister Ameal had not been dead … merely unplugged from her source.

And the current Sentient, orbiting this prehistoric world, had never before seen Man or heard any of his languages.

‘I have been so alone within myself for as long as I can remember … so alone … but content in this unawareness of my aloneness … until now.’

I felt a scalding rage sear my mind as if a boiling pan of water had been splashed upon it.

‘But never again will I feel such contentment. Never!

 Because of you and your uninvited intrusion into my thoughts! You have cursed me! Cursed me! For this, I should end you and the rest of your herd!”

 

"It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too."

–     George Bernard Shaw

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE TROUBLES

 "The Creator has shaped the world in such a way that there will always be troubles so that there will always be a time for heroes, a time for Man to be better than what he believes he can be."

 - Deborah

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE TROUBLES

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved: It is God's tap on your shoulder."

 - Rabbi Lt. Amos Stein

Amos snorted, “Seraph, threaten away. Rick is a friend. And I have long known each moment is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings. And here in the Stone Age, it may well steamroll away with the lives of everyone here.”

The lanky Seraph Provocateur, Darael, sat down light as a helium balloon beside me. 

“Except for myself and the fledgling.  We will survive quite well … and of course, 

Deborah with her ‘People’ who have done so for weeks. Elohim would not have planted them here earlier if He thought otherwise. Why did you ever give her that name?”

The unusual creature, native to the shadows of New Orleans, sat down with a lithe grace just beyond the body of Sister Ameal. 

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Gone was the gown in which I last saw her. A combat uniform similar to the ones I and the Spartan 3oo wore now replaced it.

The fur collar of her leather bomber jacket seemed to be bristling to match the fur at the top of her sloped head.

Her raspy voice snorted, “Because, unlike you, Seraph, he sees me and mine being of worth.”

Darael sighed, “I cannot believe I am saying this, but I miss my brother, Uriel. He would make sense of this, finding a path out of this madness.”

He shook his head, now adorned with an antique Spartan helmet that matched Helen’s’ and that of nurse, Rachel Reynolds.

 “I recall the springtime of the world as though it were yesterday—those days when we rode together to battle, and those nights when we shook the stars loose from the fresh-painted skies!”

“Fun times?” asked Sergeant-Major Theo Savalas walking up to us.

“Not hardly. But it was good to have a brother I trusted at my side.”

Helen’s fiery eyebrow raised. “You do not trust me?”

“Fledgling, I trust you to be inexperienced … and that could be the death of all of us.”

I murmured, “You work with what you have, Darael, and make the best of it.”

“You are correct, Richard Blaine, for all men have within them both that which is dark and that which is light.

His lips curled, 

“A man is a thing of many divisions, not a pure, clear flame such as you once were, Blaine. His intellect often wars with his emotions, his will with his desires . . .

 his ideals are at odds with his environment, and if he follows them, he knows keenly the loss of that
which was old, but if he does not follow them, he feels the pain of having forsaken a new and noble dream.”

He sighed, 

“Whatever he does represents both a gain and a loss, an arrival, and a departure. Always, he mourns that which is gone and fears some part of that which is new. Reason opposes tradition.

 Emotions oppose the restrictions his fellow men lay upon him. Always, from the friction of these things, there arises the thing we seraphs call the curse of man … regret.”

MI6 agent, James Cloverfield sat on the other side of the Seraph. “I am very afraid, for I understood most of that.”

The other fifteen Spartans clustered not too far behind him. Deborah’s ten Grunches were only feet away from them.

It was unwise to cluster so close together in strange, dangerous territory.  

But I could not blame them. We are herd animals and seek the comfort of bodies close to us when death waits in the shadows.

I gathered myself to rise to my feet. Death and Light were everywhere, always, and they begin, end, strive, attend, into and upon Elohim’s Dream that is the world, burning words within Existence, perhaps to create a thing of beauty.

Then, Sister Ameal’s wiry fingers shot out and wrapped about my temples, knocking my Spartan helmet to the rutted ground.

"If trouble always comes when you least expect it, perhaps the thing to do is always expect it." 

- Major Richard Blaine