Ok, ok ... so I wont win a prize for the homepage with the most bells and whistles. For the MTV generations this pink page sings with one note ... a TV without a remote control warming in the palm. An obscenity. Absurdity. And herein lies the magic of fusion. Compelling is the hard reality of images; fascinating is the world born of words. Herein lies their beauty. This is magic. It is creation. It is love.
From fantasy, through horror, to speculative fiction, I know that with each tale (there are now more than fifteen) I joyously flog an ancient truth. Certainly, the themes are varied. Without question, the images I favour are colourful, outrageous and passionate. My myths are demons and would-be gods, lust and love, the struggle between one man and the somnambulating history of humanity ... these are my own delightful lies, entertaining wags of the tongue, preposterous creations and real observations.
These are my words.
They are mine to share.
First chapters can be viewed here, while subsequent chapters can be received in Word 6/7 doc format via an email request. Contact me at my email address for extra chapters (please, only one work at a time) or with any comments you might have. None of these works has been published up to now, but I am certainly open to reaching a wider audience.
What more needs to be said? Happy reading! Happy Being!
William Wright
SHORT STORIES:
At first Brad bore his family's curse like a gentleman. However, after the murder of his grandfather and escaping to Europe to whore in an exclusive brothel, the role of a gentleman proves difficult to maintain. With the startling appearance of the malevolent forces behind the curse, the young native youth learns the hard way that no matter the horror, the danger and the insufferable pain, a man must deal with his own problems. He is the last member of his family to wear the legacy of evil. He will bear the curse. He will have revenge.
In Cat and Mouse, a novel of 70,300 words, Brad suffers unlike most young men. A slave bound to twisted sex rituals, deaths, murder, an agent for a demon goddess … without a doubt, Brad is screwed! Though the weight of a family tradition of human sacrifice threatens to break him, he chooses to resist. What is it that drives him to fight back against impossible odds? What is it that angers the cat-headed goddess, Caythraal, and puts a smile on her opponents? If the cat fails to trap its prey, there is always another day … unless the mouse can kill the cat first.
"Fuck you, you idle, vain, middle-class, day-tripping bastards!"
Tom, weatherman and citizen of a new world order, is difficult even at the best of times. But stick a demon's eye in the middle of his forehead, launch him into astral space with a group of off-world misfits and his temper turns red. Put the introverted, genetically unclean, drug-smoking youth into a situation that demands responsibility and his temper throbs. Give the sexy kid from the Delta Republics of an eclipsed, latter-day Europe the power to see the very fabric of life, to twirl it around his fingers and snuff it, and his temper becomes lethal.
Of course, Tom isn't the only one struggling to make sense of life's turn of events. Vivian, obese suicide-cum- sex vixen in red, just wants to go home. But to what? A dead hamster and two-hundred kilos of fat, nausea and depression? Prox, the young mage with a gluttonous appetite for power, has chosen to play a dangerous game with his former master, a game reminiscent of incest's twisted wisdom. And all the while the mage's bestial familiar, Daisy, plays the fool, concealing the nature of the game in which this group is trapped. Confusing, deadly and fantastic, the pet isn't always up to playing by the rules, however.
Chaos? Stir in rival Lords of Chaos, a maniac wizard bent on possessing Tom's astral eye and a demonic refugee who calls this same eye his own and the odd group of four finds their plates full to overflowing. Puzzle-Eye, a fantasy novel of 70,000 words, takes this group from their separate homes, across two universes and back again, but not without first teaching them some serious lessons in trans-dimensional politics and diplomacy.
"And of humanity persecuted by humanity in the name of a God who is Unconditional Love?"
In the novel, Sunstroke, S has been living with his burden for a long time; he is a God-fearing homosexual, a devil in clerical robes. Official church policy tells him he can be what he wants to be, only he may not have sex with another male. Scripture is a weapon wielded by the long arm of man's law. Driven to the brink of madness, he is pulled back by a simple truth: God loves all men and contrary to dogma, never judges a man's choice. Yes, it is men who fear and hate and kill. Yes, Christ died for their sins, and would again, and again. However, of faith, S's friend, Q, thinks otherwise. Of hope, man's law works otherwise. Of love, the political machine of man's church decrees otherwise.
Televised before a global audience in our common future, the court of the New Law seeks to entertain, just as it seeks to cleanse and uplift the morals of the nation's communities. 'Moral imperialism sleeping with Hollywood' describes best how judges and lawyers and television producers and a righteous audience seek fame and glory before the cameras. However, S now sits in the witness box. In the role of Character Witness, this young man must speak on behalf of his 'lascivious' friend. It is not often that a man has a crisis of faith before the eyes of the world. And in the hothouse of legal frustration and soaring television ratings, the New Law and a sacrificed friend, a flower blooms.
Sunstroke is a novel of 34,000 words.
Center of the known world and cradle to three faiths, the people of Domos let the pursuit of earthly pleasures consume them, comfortable behind soaring walls. Their passion for copious drink, ruthless imperialism, unbridled sex and opulent offerings to indifferent gods casts a compassionless shadow over a life of ease inside the ancient city. And of the world outside the massive fortifications? This question is irrelevant. No one willingly leaves Domos ... for are they not gods in a city of gods, ruling a world that knows no end?
John wants to leave. With a little nudge, the youth suddenly seizes the opportunity to escape compromised hopes and tarnished dreams. He sees the path to fulfillment out there, beyond the walls, out in a wilderness free from the society that suckled him like an adopted parent, a stray bitch; Demos knows no love. Now he loathes, or rather, now he pities parent Domos for his easy lack of compassion. However, like all pilgrims seeking truth, he will return from the wilds. Like all men smitten by another's eye, a bright smile and a warm heart, the prospect of love even in that city of pigs will lure him home. And John will return, bearing a message for those who wronged him ... for he has a key, the key that can bring this eternal empire of gods to its knees … at the risk of damning his soul.
Freedom's Key, is a fantasy novel of 75,000 words.
Behind the fanfare and accolade, behind the dedications and worship, behind even the trinkets, fake relics and neatly penned accounts of his life sold to pilgrims, there is a man. Named a Saint of the Faith for performing miracles, everyone is content to bask in the glowing light of his model selflessness, retelling again and again the grand deeds of a valiant knight and praying for his strength, his courage and his goodness.
Everyone, that is, except the saint himself.
For Saint Tamaloss still lives. And when he walks into a shrine dedicated to his name, declaring his loss of faith and the impotence of the god whom he has grudgingly served for most of his life, one young priest is there to hear Tamaloss' shocking confession – a confession not meant for the ears of his god, but rather the ears of a fellow man whose clerical robes bind him to his vow of secrecy.
A Man of Faith is a fantasy novel of 80,000 words.
On the quay wall, we talked long into the night about AIDS and the search for Prince Charming, the leather circuit and the rising number of sex changes, hateful parents, lost friends, gay bashing, addictions and solitude in old age; there was still a war raging in the last quiet moments before the new millennium, I thought, promising myself that if my own battle should be won, I would record the events of the last few years ... just as the ghost bid me to do.
The fusion of reality, dreams and memory have always intrigued me. The questions, ‘Just what should one believe?’ versus ‘What does one want to believe?’ present two sides of the same coin called modern man. Set in modern Amsterdam, Iceberg, a speculative fiction novel of 40,000 words, is the testament of one so-called modern man. Thomas basks in the warm bliss of romance with a handsome young man, until while making love he finds a knife pressed to his throat; an angel now threatens to take his life. Escaping this deadly embrace, Thomas falls into a still deeper chasm of angst. Driven to hide from the terror and confusion of that night, he is subsequently haunted by a spirit who criticizes his every thought and deed. After more murders, the urban hermit realizes there is nowhere to hide. Finally, he decides to confront the killer, an assassin whose beauty and radiance sparkles like the sun, and whose tortured, loveless heart bleeds unstaunched with an ancient shame. Crime and sin, retribution and judgment, a mutual past stretching back to antiquity reaches out to both players, binding them through their lust and love, their dreams and a shared reality.
Would you surrender up your soul if you found out it wasn’t yours to begin with? And what if the previous owner wanted it back?
In Soul Search, a fantasy novel of 61,000 words, these same questions slowly tear Alex apart as the nature of his curse is revealed: he is indeed, in possession of another man’s soul. This young man is charged life, filled with lust and the promise of love and eagerly anticipating all the prospects that life offers mankind. Yet, he has his reservations. Something has been growing in him since childhood, a doubt, a nagging suspicion, which manifests itself in part along the canals of modern Amsterdam, as well as, on another world, where Alex finds temporary sanctuary from his growing pain and confusion.
It is here on a world called Uls, along its ancient sea coast and out on the drifting sands of its vast deserts, that a demon Goddess plots and schemes for greater control of new worlds, including Earth. To her greatest minion on Uls, a general referred to as the Quintarch, she has presented the gift of immortality. Gift? Centuries have past, continents have added to the wealth of his crown and her power, but love is denied the great conqueror. The Quintarch knows he is retained as a lap dog to his Mistress Demon, but to escape her, he needs his soul back. By a twist of fate, or through a Goddess’ malicious trick, both men discover that there is but one soul ... and sharing is out of the question.
If you thought you had the key to the mysteries that had been haunting your life, would you caudal him and nurture him ... or would you hunt him down as a threat, as a nuisance, as a vulgar joke? Straddling a race of marauders and a race of truth-seekers, a young warrior, tormented by his half-bred ancestry, faces a similar question.
Wor of Uls, a fantasy novel of 128,000 words, relates the personal tale of the protagonist, Wor, who is cast from his village in the mountains and left to face a life for which there are no precedents. He carries only a history of grief and pain with him to the banks of a great river, when destiny finally washes ashore. Bound by oaths of honour and love, Wor becomes involved in the schemes of the Demon Prince Choss and others caught in the games of the corrupt world of Elsevier. Baited like a bear, the warrior finds himself tossed into the wake of a lowly prophet, a bumbling human whom others see as the prophesied savior of Elsevier. Even at the last opportunity to confront his irritable and attractive nemesis, Wor struggles to resolve his inner turmoil, between promises he swore and his own desire … deeds he performed in the name of others and the men he has loved with an inhuman passion.
Have you ever been immersed in a foreign culture, pushed and held under with what seems like two hands, until in panicked desperation you begin flailing for a way out?
Threshold of Reason, a fantasy novel of 130 000 words, is a tale of travel and cultural immersion at its extreme and in all its complexities. The story tells of one man's personal involvement in the affairs of other worlds, their religions and politics, their laws, customs and peoples. While forcing himself to accept the impossible as reality, the principle character begrudgingly becomes entangled in a centuries old struggle which includes a Demon Prince, a Prince of Chaos and an imprisoned goddess. Yet, the meaning of "home" remains an obsession, even when the unwilling adventurer realizes that he just might not want to go home.
This homepage was last updated: 03 October, 2001
Copyright © William Wright 2001
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