Skip to main content

The Starship Aprilis: A Situation in Sickbay

Unfortunately, as I and the Qastas were engaged in deep conversation (and what a lovely conversation it was to have the chance to dip your toes in an immense ocean of knowledge and wisdom), the Poseidonite began choking, of all things, a fish bone.

I had invited them for dinner at the lounge on the aft deck. It had a magnificent view and an amazing array of ocean culinary delights which as I suspected, delighted the Poseidonite and allowed me the time to talk with the Qastas.

The Qastas immediately took charge of the situation. He rammed his finger across the poor Poseidonite’s neck, and massaged it. In an instant, he turned to me and said, “He’s choking and I cannot do anything about it. We’ll have to rush him to the sickbay.”

I nodded. A crowd was already gathering around us, curious to see the commotion. I pushed some of the people aside and told them to make way, as the Qastas carried the Poseidonite on to his back.

We ran as fast as we could to the nearest sickbay. When we got there, a familiar face greeted us.

It was Dr. Irina. I smiled at her. She hardly noticed. She was more concerned about the poor choking Poseidonite.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW: Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami.

UPDATE: My Wind/Pinball review can be found here . ISBN: n/a Publisher: n/a Paperback: 160 pages In Murakami fan circles, simply owning a copy of Pinball, 1973 is a mark of hardcore-ness. Like Hear the Wind Sing before it, Haruki Murakami does not allow English translations of Pinball, 1973 to be published outside of Japan. Back in the 80s, Alfred Birnbaum translated it into English and Kodansha published it as a novel for Japanese students who wanted to improve their English. While the English edition of Hear the Wind Sing continues to be reprinted and sold in Japan (and available for a moderate sum via eBay, see my review ), Kodansha stopped its reprint runs of the English edition of Pinball, 1973 and has now become a collector's item, fetching vast amounts of money on auction sites and reseller stores. Last time I checked, the cheapest copy went for USD$2500. Of course, Murakami addicts or the curious can always download a less than legal PDF of the book, painst...

I'm going to Clarion West!

So yeah! I'm going to Clarion West this year! If you didn't know, Clarion West is a really awesome science fiction and fantasy writing workshop that runs for six weeks in summer every year at Seattle and is usually taught by a faculty of award-winning authors and editors. Many students who attend this workshop also go on to have illustrious writing careers of their own too. I've been meaning to attend this workshop (or its sister workshop, Clarion UCSD, which is the original Clarion workshop but runs in San Diego around the same time) for years now but never had the courage to apply. Many reasons as to why: didn't think I'd have money for the most part, didn't think I was good enough, didn't think I could leave work long enough, didn't think I could leave family behind, etc. But something sparked inside of me late last year. I felt I should at least give it a go this time round. So I did. They requested a sample of my best work and an applicatio...

Hitting 1000.

Last night Sharon quoted Raman of having said to writers when they bring him their manuscripts for publishing, "How many books have you read? Have you read a thousand books? If not, get out and go read a thousand books, then come back with your manuscript." His point being, you've got to have read a lot if you want to be a writer. And I thought to myself, a thousand books isn't so bad. I've probably read more. Er...Wrong. After some quick calculations, we determined that if a person read a book per week, it would take around 20 years to reach a thousand. I'm a slow reader. I'm only 25. There's no way I've read 1000 books my whole life! When I got home I counted the books in my house. I estimate I own around 300 books, probably another 300 left at my parents's house. That's only around 600 books that I own... and a lot less that I've read! So with that number in mind, I have resolved to start keeping track of my book reading. I need to...